This blog is not intended to convince people to leave the LDS Church, but help those who have come to such a decision transition toward a productive life. Many are the challenges of those who dare confront such issues and it is my hope to help in some small way.

And here is my thought for today: watch 8: The Mormon Proposition and realize that the Mormon church engages in secret combinations to realize its objectives: Coalitions formed with other churches to hide Mormon visibility; marching orders for its members to donate time and money to accomplish political agendas; front organizations to organize the entire movement, with clearly communicated strategies intended to hide official LDS involvement; blatant lies about financial contributions which were later retracted. Incredible.

Why does the church wish to intervene so heavily in preventing gay rights to marriage? My theory is that the church is trying to protect its temples, but that is for another day. For now, just watching this movies helps us let go of any lingering doubts about the divinely inspired or even innocent, harmless status of LDS leadership. Their methods are sinister and their attitudes as arrogant as any tyrannical government.

It is good to be free.

Accept the circumstance. It is inevitable that if you want to exit a way of life that all of your friends and family are living, there is no way to do it without some anxiety. If you wonder whether or not the church is true, you will not be able to escape being afraid of the perceived consequences from on high. You are normal and this is fine. Feet on the ground – don’t worry that there is something wrong with you.

Know that you will hurt people. When I learned as a Mormon that my inactive ex-wife had given our daughter a cup of coffee, I was deeply hurt. Little could I imagine at the time that one day my devout mother would be visiting my live-in girlfriend and me at our house. My current wife and I decided to live together for a year before we got married – it was part of our plan to make sure we were compatible. It worked, but my Mormon family members were shocked and devastated. And it wasn’t easy for me to take.

There is no way around this, other than to keep pretending you are a believer and living a lie, enduring the private hell that we can only imagine millions of Mormons put up with day in and day out. It is miserable and no way to spend the short time we have. The thought of returning to that way of being causes me to feel suffocated almost immediately.

Don’t avoid honesty with those who deserve it. I felt I owed my mother and my sister an honest explanation of where I was in life, so I garnered the courage to have an honest conversation with them. I will never regret doing this, even though they were both hurt. Now, I don’t feel I need to hide anything from them, even though I don’t flaunt my more worldly ways in front of them.

What to say when being honest? I don’t know what you need to say. I’d recommend pondering that one. You probably don’t want to tell them any specifics on the truthfulness of the church. They may not be interested in how Joseph Smith was a fraud. But they will want to know why YOU are leaving.

My explanation to my mother was very clear. I don’t believe it. I have studied it. I have researched it. I have pondered and meditated and it is not for me. I do not think the church is true. That’s just me and I respect everyone’s right to believe what they will. I wanted to make sure my family knew that I didn’t leave because I was having a hard time or that someone offended me. Pretending – living the lie – causes more stress and anxiety than dealing with the painful truth. If I had a testimony, it would surely withstand all that. I don’t have a testimony of the restored gospel that survived my adult reasoning or my passion for living in the way I am most comfortable and happy.

Will you be shunned? I don’t know. Most people with the courage to be honest end up like me. It is awkward being around my family and this saddens me because it may never change. But it’s real. I am living an honest life and at least I know what I am dealing with. I don’t feel crazy, confused, resentful or just plain broken any longer.

The most important consideration are the general principles upon which to make decisions. Here are some to think about.

• Your relationship to your child is more important than whether or not they are Mormon.

• Your authority, credibility and trust as a parent are more important than whether or not your children are Mormon.

• A sense of meaning, structure, consistency and stability are critical in a child’s life.

• Knowing the truth as you see it and living without pretense is very important in a child’s life.

• Growing up without false indoctrination is the ideal way to grow up.

Astute readers who agree with the above may be noticing that this is an inherently tricky issue. The answers are not always clear because you have already moved a long way down a certain path. Letting the undesirables go simultaneously risks the desirables. It may be impossible to come up with a satisfactory arrangement, but we need to do our best nonetheless.

If you and the other parent are leaving the LDS church, the question is whether or not the kids should continue being involved in the church. Pay attention to your child’s wants and social needs. They shouldn’t have to lose their friends over this. Support them in attending church if they want to and do not complain about it or criticize the church. If your children aren’t that interested in church and have plenty of friends outside of it, then you are home free. Leave and be grateful.

If you are leaving, but not the other parent, it is more complicated. In my opinion, if the child is willing and the other parent insists on taking him or her to church, then your child continues to go to church. If the child is unwilling, then you need to enter serious negotiations with the other parent that are beyond the scope of this article.

What NOT to do.

If your child has largely been raised as a devout Mormon and you have since discovered the truth about Mormonism, do NOT unload it on your kid. It’s too much. You may be excited, but it is not necessary to share with your children how the church is false, a scam, that Joseph Smith was a womanizing charlatan, etc…

Doing this may very well undermine your credibility as a parent, confuse and anger your children and generally throw life into chaos. From your kid’s point of view, you are communicating, “Everything I’ve taught you in life is wrong.” Why should they believe you from this point on? Relax. They have their entire lives ahead of them to discover the truth.

Do not make war with the other parent over Mormonism. Do not make war with your child over Mormonism.

• • Rejection by your parents, siblings and
  extended family
• • Loss of your closest friends and entire social circle
• • Fear of spending eternity in hell or outer darkness
• • Self doubt – even doubting your sanity at times
• • Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
• • Belief that your life is pointless
• • Fear of financial ruin
• • Fear of a personal tragedy or some other
  form of curse
• • Difficulty with disillusioned children
• • Severe marital stress or divorce
• • Existential crisis and/or depression

The mere possibility of these outcomes may force you to persist in the religion because you don’t want to put yourself at risk. This is a most miserable circumstance, as you feel obligated to pretend to believe – to go through the motions with a forced smile  – most often resenting the religion, peers and yourself. You feel trapped because all of your choices appear untenable.

One who leaves behind a false paradigm also
faces unprecedented opportunity. 
You are free to:

• • Discover who you are
• • Find your personal power
• • Create your life as you see fit
• • Stop pretending or “playing a role”
• • Spend your spare time doing things you enjoy
• • Lose your religious guilt and discover your values
• • Understand how precious your life is
• • Learn who your real friends are
• • Spend your time as you see fit
• • Discover what you find truly meaningful

No need to convince.  Your loved ones and friends may try to “reclaim” you.  You may feel a need to contend with them.  You may insist that they understand you or should accompany you.  This surely leads to misery.  There is no need to convince them and you don’t need to invite them to convince you of anything. Find non-confrontational ways to explain yourself when it is appropriate to do so.

Create a new support system. This takes time. Slowly begin to make new friends who understand your plight and discover whom among your current friends are true to you and your cause.

Feeling alone is part of it.  You’re making a decision that fundamentally diverges from those in your social circle. Learning to tolerate being alone and living without the approval of peers will be helpful.

Discover your values. This may take some time and professional guidance.  It will be worth your effort to discover what is truly important to you at this point in your life – and feel it deeply.  Your core values can serve as your guide in finding inner peace and making important decisions independently.

Set goals.  Determine what you really want and begin to make it happen.

Find your replacement.  Study consciousness, meditation, agnosticism or atheism, philosophy or psychology, mysticism, or other schools of thought.  Find a way to invest your mind and heart into a belief system in which you can be genuinely satisfied.

Find someone to talk with.  You may need someone to listen and offer objective and supportive feedback.

You do not give yourself the option of leaving the marriage out of fear of punishment for breaking eternal covenants and for the social disapproval that is sure to follow. Yet, none of your efforts to improve the relationship have yielded satisfactory results. You may have been trying year months, years, or decades.

The end result is that you feel forever trapped in a relationship. You look forward to spending an eternity with someone you don’t like. Or, believing that God won’t condone a less than perfect love, you look forward to an eternity of a lesser degree of glory without an eternal companion.

For 16 years my ex-wife and I negotiated the pitfalls of our classic MMS. Both of us felt strictly obligated to live out our lives and possibly all eternity in a marriage to someone with whom we were simply incompatible and frankly did not like all that much. Living this way wreaked havoc on our health. We were depressed, stressed out and didn’t take very good care of ourselves. We lived with a chronic tension that never seemed to go away. MMS exacts a high price on our physical and psychological health.

Overcoming MMS, for me, required that I not be the one who asked for the divorce. Luckily, my ex-wife finally came around to it. It was only after I discovered Mormonism to be fraudulent at its core that I saw my MMS for what it was.

This is why leaving a religion such as Mormonism is so upsetting for everyone affected by this change. Beyond the issues of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, leaving the LDS church is a dramatic move away from all that is familiar. It is the scariest of propositions that leaves the one in transition to confront life’s fundamental existential questions, and the uncertainty of not necessarily knowing the answers. Moreover, it takes a while to discover the answers for yourself, answers that may not offer the same degree of comfort as those found in the Mormon belief structure.

Here are two fundamental questions that ex-Mormons face:

Where do I find meaning in life?
How do I find certainty?

It is safe to say that when these two questions are answered, that the transition to a new and productive life is complete. Until that day, life is much more difficult. There is no way around these questions if you once took the Mormon answers for granted – or at least the way around them is fraught with peril. Avoiding these issues leads one to a life of distraction where personal growth is left by the wayside. Many have hurt themselves and their families by reacting poorly and immaturely to the loss of the familiarity and certainty provided by Mormonism.

Facing the real issues, on the other hand, is no picnic, but this is the only way to get through the transition and on to a happier, well-adjusted life outside the confines of the religion. Here are a few points to consider if these challenges apply to you.

Be patient. Becoming fully comfortable with your life as an ex-Mormon will take a while. It took me two years to move beyond the funk of existential angst and begin to feel my feet on solid ground once again. This takes some experimentation with new ideas and ways of being – don’t expect yourself to have all the answers you need right away. This unrealistic expectation only compounds the problem. Give yourself a break – only a tiny percentage of people make such an extreme transition in their lives. You are accomplishing the nearly impossible! It doesn’t happen overnight.

Live the questions. Rather than fixate on having answers, focus on having the questions. The above questions are among the healthiest and most important in any human life. Give yourself permission to have them. Allow the answers to come when they are ready – slowly, little by little. The longer you are able to hold the questions, the better quality of answers you are likely to achieve in time.

Compartmentalize. Don’t allow your existential angst to take over your life. If you don’t draw the line with yourself, you may find it hard to care about anything. Losing your purpose in life is hard enough. Don’t exacerbate the problem by losing your job as well. You’ll need to learn to manage the dark cloud over your head such that the rest of your life doesn’t fall apart. If necessary, set aside time to indulge in the uncertainty, bewilderment and anger – and learn to put it away when you need to.

Count your blessings. The words of the familiar LDS hymn apply here. You are lucky. It is important to remind yourself of this and appreciate what you have, even the challenges you currently face. You’ll be stronger for them and one day you’ll look back on your current circumstance and be grateful that you stuck it out, weathered the storm and discovered who you really are.

If you have left Mormonism, now you know what you no longer believe. You’ve won half the battle. Congratulate yourself, as most people don’t make it this far. The rest of the story will fill in nicely when you figure out what to believe instead of Mormon doctrine.

For the recovering ex-Mormon, this can be a tough question that takes time to explore. It should take time, as the issue is of utmost existential importance. We shouldn’t take our beliefs lightly, as they are our primary guides through life, determining so many of our basic perspectives on people, right and wrong, hierarchies of importance, goal setting and the subsequent outcomes and so on. This is serious. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be having such a hard time with it.

What do you believe about God, family, individuality, politics, sexuality, alcohol and drugs? What about marriage, divorce or cohabitation? Is the death penalty wrong? What about abortion? Post Mormon life raises all of these and other issues anew. It can be overwhelming to say the least.

It is important to entertain all of these ideas, as this is an important aspect of integrating into society at large. To know where you stand on cultural issues is to know who you are and where you fit in.

Research on the nature of human beliefs also supports getting clear on new, positive beliefs. The brain doesn’t process “non-belief” well. Studies on the imprint experience, the process of forming beliefs of attachment, suggest that a replacement attachment figure must be present for orphaned animals to bond with a surrogate mother. Students of psychology may remember photos of several ducklings following psychologist Konrad Lorenz around. In the absence of their mother, they attached to him and followed him wherever he went. This was breakthrough research into the nature of attachment and belief.

Animals will indeed form new attachments provided they have a positive object with which to bond. The mere absence of their mother is not enough. They have to focus on something new and positive. We can take a valuable lesson from this phenomenon.

When you’re in between belief systems, your brain doesn’t quite know how to respond to make sense out of the world around you. This is called existential angst. It is as if we enter a void where nothing means anything. We don’t know how to move forward and we can’t go back. We’re stuck. Without a clear lens of belief to look through, the world becomes fuzzy.

As soon as we identify a new, positive belief to adopt, we potentially free ourselves from angst.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. As a member of the church I was taught that apostates are damned souls who live condemned lives. No longer receiving spiritual support from on high, they are left to their own insufficient reasoning or worse, to the devil’s devices, and suffer out their days, even yearning for an early death.

I remember a conversation with a Mormon friend who was gravely concerned for my well-being. I was in the process of having my membership records expunged at the time. Although I expressed to him how well things were breaking for me since leaving the LDS church, he warned that perhaps the Lord was waiting for me to remove my membership before “letting the bottom fall out of my life.” His concern was genuine, yet unfounded. The bottom hasn’t fallen out. To the contrary, it has been raised to new levels of success and happiness every year since leaving.

Mormons tend to believe that the Lord will punish them for leaving His church. Their families will be lost. Their finances will be ruined. Their health may be compromised. Most of all, they will be doomed to live a meaningless, directionless life without guidance from above. This is a lie. It simply doesn’t happen this way.  Ex-Mormons stand the same chances in life that everyone, including Mormons, have.

If you are considering leaving the Mormon church, or have recently left and fear consequences from above, you may find the following points helpful.

Don’t be ashamed of your fear. Admit it and investigate it. Find real people who have left the church and ask them how their life is going. Did the bottom fall out? Chances are that you will find people who are largely happy they left and are doing fine.

Discover your individual beliefs and values. This takes time, but a deep and abiding and genuine sense of certainty comes from within when we know our individual values. It is easier for fear to take root in our psyche when we aren’t sure of who we are and what we believe.

Discover what you want from your life. Knowing this, the same rules apply to you as to anyone. If you know what you want, work really hard and allow room for opportunity and even some luck, you are likely to get it. There are no guarantees, with the exception of being guaranteed NOT to get it if you don’t apply yourself.

Will the bottom fall out of your life? Maybe. But this has more to do with you than with anyone else.

To make matters worse, your parents are begging you to repent and reconsider – they are praying constantly that you’ll regain your senses and leave the clutches of the adversary. When you encounter members of the church in the grocery store, they look at you as if you are so sadly deceived, like a puppy about to be put to death. Others blatantly call you to repentance. Meanwhile, the bills still need to be paid, your boss doesn’t care about any of the above – of course the Mormons are a scam, everyone knows that! Your kids are confused an acting out….you can barely keep yourself together much less a guide and direct the next generation. There you are – a newly found ex-Mormon!

Sound fun? It’s not.

The good news is that life gets better. Now that you know the truth, healing can begin. Here are seven common challenges that face ex-Mormons and healing perspectives for each that can lead in a positive direction.

1. Losing friends. Friendship is created and maintained by way of commonalities. Once the commonality shifts – the friendship is necessarily in jeopardy. The people who once were your friends, with surprisingly few exceptions, now want nothing to do with you. Worse yet, they see you as evil and fear you.

Healing perspective: You’ll need new friends, simply. It’s tempting to believe that your Mormon friends weren’t “real” friends because they can’t accept you in your new, non-Mormon state. This isn’t a helpful perspective. The Mormons with whom you enjoyed friendships were indeed your true friends within the context of Mormonism. That is normal. You left Mormonism and changed the context and the friendship along with it. There is actually no way the friendship could remain the same. Most of your Mormon friendships will not survive the change in context and this is a loss to grieve. Then, finding friends in your new life context is healthy and appropriate.

2. Existential angst. The rug upon which rest your beliefs about existence and the meaning of life has been yanked out from under you. There is no way not to reel around like an off balance clown until you find the solid ground that will be your new belief system. This doesn’t come easily, especially when you haven’t thought about it much over the years, since the answers were already provided.

Healing perspective: This one simply takes time and effort. In essence, you’ll need to explore and experiment for quite some time before you feel your feet settling once again on the solid ground of a new belief system. The good news is that you can come to enjoy the adventure of trying new things, going to different churches, hanging out with atheists and learning to tolerate all manner of diversity in people, places and activities. Give yourself permission to “not know” for a while and give in to the process of discovering a new you.

3. Outrage at the injustice of the church. This can go on and on! How can such a mass deception be tolerated? How did I allow myself to be so taken advantage of? Someone should sue the Mormon Church for extortion! How do the perpetrators of such lies live with themselves….on and on, this irresistible moral outrage wreaks havoc on your peace of mind.

Healing perspective: the idea of forgiving Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the line of Mormon authorities that have perpetrated such atrocious deception may seem out of reach. Don’t require yourself to do so. This will come in time, naturally, as you recover. For now, be mad. Express your rage. You closer to honoring yourself in your anger than you would be by pretending to forgive and harboring resentment.

Establish limits around your rage, however. Find people who will listen and only express it to them. Don’t allow yourself to indulge in negative emotions, if you can help it, all day long. Learn to express your feelings with maturity as this will lead to insights and behavior that are productive.

4. Fear of the curse. Mormons are taught to believe that those who reject the church’s beliefs will suffer in this life and eternally. Breaking covenants is serious business and ex-Mormons can’t help but feel anxiety over this.

Healing perspective. The solution is to begin breaking commandments. Only by doing this will you learn that the only consequences for doing so are brought on naturally by the specific actions taken. Drink coffee and you’ll get a little lift. Drink too much and you’ll feel jangled. Drink it too hot and you will burn your tongue. That’s it.

Drink beer. It may make you drunk. You may wake up the next morning hung over. You may find yourself having the time of your life, or overly sloppy, or too angry. That’s it.

Have sex with a stranger (if appropriate). You may find it thrilling and fun, then feel empty and unfulfilled the next morning. If you don’t practice safe sex, you may create a child or catch a disease. If you’re of a certain moral temper, you may not feel good about yourself for sleeping around. Or, you may find this practice suits your for a while.

In any case, you get to learn that natural consequences follow our choices, even when breaking Mormon commandments. These are not separate from the rest of natural life. Soon, you will realize with certainty that there is no punishment for your actions beyond the realm of reason and natural consequences – outcomes of our choices ultimately can be explained and make sense from a mere human perspective.

Be careful. Have fun experimenting.

5. Despair – feeling that life has been wasted. “My whole life has been a sham,” one ex-Mormon said. When you discover that you have organized your life around a series of systematic lies, what often follows is a feeling of illegitimacy – kind of like learning your father in not actually your father. The despair that follows is palpable.

Healing perspective: You lived your life based on a religion that is a sham. YOU are not a sham. If you continue to support and promote Mormonism after learning it is false, then you are in the same boat as any charlatan or snake oil salesman. However, you are taking the road less traveled by leaving this church and you should be proud of yourself. Practicing such integrity in the face of so much coercion is a rare act of courage. Despair is inevitable, but hold your ground and soon it will be replaced by personal pride and self-respect for your bold accomplishment.

6. Family dynamics. Mormons can scarcely tolerate family members leaving the church. They cannot bear the thought of their kin living in a lower kingdom of even in the palm of Satan for eternity. Moreover, they feel obligated to recover the lost soul or risk their own eternal salvation. So, prepare for pressure!

Healing perspective. Draw the line. Offer to discuss what you have learned about Mormonism. This is your opportunity to respectfully individuate from your family and stand on your own two feet. The rewards for doing this are innumerable. Don’t hide your new perspectives and don’t force them on anyone. Another important aspect of adulthood is within your grasp.

7. Practical life – while all this is going on, daily life rages on, the demands never stop, they can become overwhelming.

Healing perspective. Set aside time to address your recovery issues. Immerse yourself in them at certain times. As far as the rest of your life goes, don’t indulge in self-pity over your quandary. Life is difficult. Far greater tragedies have occurred to people than discovering their religion is false. Although overwhelming, your lot in life is not uncommon. Stay strong. Make a living. Keep up your yard. Deal with it. This is maturity and it is yours to choose.

The grand opportunity that awaits you after leaving Mormonism is that you get the chance to discover who you are and let the world know. So many never even notice this profound circumstance, let alone take advantage of it. Take the reins and get that wagon underway! You are in for the ride of your life.