How to Exit Mormonism in One Piece

From a guy who almost didn’t

Salt Lake City, Utah

Worth. Mormons are pretty familiar with the concept. Being “temple worthy” is the measuring stick for a truly good Mormon. Not being temple worthy means not being part of an eternal family unit. So, to walk away from Mormonism is to walk away from a divinely-sealed network of eternal relationships. The consequences of leaving can be devastating—there is no slipping out the back door unnoticed. One person leaving causes pain for lots of people. Staying is only pain for the doubter.

So… is leaving really worth it?

It was for me. But I am lucky enough to have a moderate, levelheaded family whose priorities lie in loving and supporting family members unconditionally. Many people aren’t as lucky.

Sure, there was discomfort in adjusting to a new dynamic. My parents made good-intentioned efforts to address my spiritual issues, and I had to reject those efforts. It was hard. But I’ve written down some things to remember, whether you’ve got lots of friends and family supporting you, or whether your parents have disowned you.

Remember:

You are not alone

It’s a scary scenario for an LDS person with doubts: social isolation, family disappointment or anger—all as a result of something you’ve arrived at sincerely, with a contrite heart. The rejection can hurt. A lot. To the point of emotional trauma. So it is vital to have some form of a support system. Be ready for that support system to not necessarily be your family. There are hundreds of thousands of us out here. Even if you don’t live in an area of high ex-Mormon population, the internet provides endless avenues of communication for people like you. Talk to unbelievers about your doubts. Search online for local meetups. Express your fears. Ask for advice. Discover new perspectives on old nagging issues.

And think of this: a Mormon de-conversion story is a fantastic conversation starter. It led me to meeting some of the best friends I have now, and it gave me a special way to bond with others. Other ex-Mormons, ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, ex-Catholics, Jews for Jesus, ex-atheists, converted Muslims, and the like. You will be surprised at how many people around you have gone through their own parallel experiences. Just allow yourself to be vulnerable and open your life to new people.

Leaving the bubble of Mormon life can feel directionless and incomplete. But the world of people around you is enormous, and they’re all connected through human experience. You will find out, if you haven’t already, that you’re not alone. That dreadful loneliness can be strong enough to cause you to stay in a miserable state of mind, just because change seems scarier. In these instances…

Embrace the unfamiliar

I grew up on a street where only two of the twenty houses were occupied by non-Mormons. Wednesdays were youth nights and Boy Scouts. Saturdays, Church dances. Daily seminary class in high school. Weekly Family Home Evening. Singles ward. Callings. Priesthood. Relief Society. There are so many social entanglements that are changed forever when someone decides to leave. Some of the knots loosen so they can still comfortably co-exist, some of them strengthen. And some of them ease their way completely out and away from each other, while others snap violently apart.

Now in my 30s, I was LDS for over three quarters of my life. I’m a direct descendent of Lorenzo Dow Young, brother of Brigham, and my large family is all still currently active in the church. I am the middle of five brothers; each of us an Eagle Scout by age 18, served a full-term mission by age 21, and got married in the temple before age 23. When it came to entanglements, I had a lifetime of them.

I was on the “straight and narrow” until the young woman I chose to marry started to discover that her path was anything but straight.

She and I talked about it, about how getting divorced would pop the big bubble we’d built around our picturesque young suburban lives. We both felt trapped—not by one another, but by the social structures on which we built our relationship. Admitting to our mistake felt wrong at first because it threatened to disrupt the balance of our lives. But we did it, as terrifying as it felt. And going through that with her gave me the courage to explore other possible mistakes I may have built my life around. Things I had never let myself dwell on. Thoughts I used to believe were sinful to think.

Know why you’re leaving

People who leave the Mormonism sometimes find it necessary to “come out” publicly as a nonbeliever — on social media or otherwise. I did it on Facebook. Fair warning: if you choose this method, you’re going to receive some blowback. Whether it’s being cornered in a grocery store, interrogated at family dinner, or a passive aggressive message on Facebook—the questions and lectures will come. To cope with this, I always tried to remember what must be happening in them to garner such a reaction.

The idea of the church being false is terrifying to church members, so some may try to use you to validate their own choice as the correct one. What those people want to see from you is turmoil, regret, emptiness. If your life is falling to pieces, it’s all they need to be able to tell themselves, “Okay, I’m still safe.”

Studying up on evidences to try and definitively disprove the church can be reassuring, but also consuming. Mormonism always encouraged you to strengthen your faith by researching the empirical evidences that supported your beliefs, but they also warned not to base your faith on such evidences alone. Leaving Mormonism was the same. It was easy to get bogged down in the empirical stuff and lose focus on why I was leaving.

There are well-researched and objective works like “No Man Knows My History,” the expansive 1945 biography of Joseph Smith written by non-Mormon historian Fawn Brodie. Its objectivity will startle anyone who grew up LDS learning that any literature critical of the church was manipulative and inspired by Satan. However, Brodie writes with empathy and fairness to the point that the history told neither hurts nor helps Joseph Smith’s image. He was a human, these were his circumstances, and this is what happened.

But for all I care, don’t read another word about church history. In the scheme of things it shouldn’t matter whether Brigham Young did or didn’t preach at some point about Adam being God. There is a universe out there to explore. A universe that doesn’t have to have been created by the man in the paintings on the scratchy carpet walls of the chapel. The universe doesn’t give a shit if you shave regularly or wear shorts or say “shit.” It certainly won’t be offended if you poke your nose into learning a little bit about it.

Don’t be a[n unnecessary] dick

Once you’ve experienced true deconversion, a lot of feelings can pop up. It’s tempting to post confrontational things on social media when something happens in the news like the Kate Kelley and John Dehlin excommunications in 2014. Just know that a mind can only be changed when it’s open to changing. If it were, our whole world might be set already. We’d all be on board with taking better care of Earth’s climate, and we’d have figured out how to give food and water to every living person. Wouldn’t it be great.

Accept the fact that you can’t change someone’s mind about their worldview with a bumper sticker statement (or even a novel), and don’t try. Remember your past self. Would the way you communicate now have ever affected your past self if they’d been listening? Simply be patient and ready with information for those who are willing to talk honestly and openly about it.

Use your past experiences to inform your new ones

Some of the values you were raised with were likely centered around family and charity for others. My parents raised me to practice moderation in all things, to never be too quick to judge, and to accept people as they are. While my fall from Mormonism eliminated a lot of my previous theological beliefs, many of those humanistic ones remained. The lessons learned from real experiences with my family and friends, not the ones memorized in an arbitrary D&C verse, were the ones that stuck.

With that said, go try all the things! Throw caution to the wind and live a little. The trick to trying things is to try the right things, and who knows what that even means. But the great part is, you get to figure it out for yourself, and this time with only the restrictions you place upon yourself. Up to this point a vast portion of your choices were pre-decided by a list of Do’s and Do Not’s written by a 19th Century American polygamist. The possibilities are as endless as you want them to be.

Search your heart for the positive things you took from your experience in Mormonism, even if you feel they are few, they are in there. And they are worth a lot.

Living well is the best revenge

Fine! If, when it all comes down to it, you still harbor ill will towards the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and you feel the need to get some semblance of revenge, do it the best way possible. Improve your own life. Don’t feel sorry or be hard on yourself. It’s easy to believe what your subconscious wants to tell you about how wrong you might be and how much trouble you might be in with God for your apostasy. That programming will inevitably surface at times. You’ll probably want to crawl into your shell, shut your emotions down, and continue making up excuses for missing church instead of declaring out loud, “I want out.”

Be open! Communicate how they taught you in COM100. Go voluntarily to see a therapist. Therapy has value for anyone who has experienced or is experiencing any painful threshold crossings in life.

Be happy. Be free. Don’t be what anyone tells you to be, except when they tell you to be happy and free. Those are two things I waited a long time to feel.

Think your thoughts. Feel your feels. It’s more worth it than you know.

In the name of Jesus Christ, am—

Whoa sorry, reflex.