I’ve never posted my exit story because it’s nothing special.  It’s like so many others, it’s a dime a dozen.  But I think maybe it’s kind of cathartic to put it out there, and maybe someone else is in the situation I’ve been in, and maybe it could help just one person.

I hadn’t been to church for a year and a half to two years, because I’d been dealing with major depression and 1) I was too tired to get out of bed when I didn’t absolutely have to, and 2) the social anxiety part of it made it too difficult to go sit in a ward where I didn’t know anyone and had been banned to the nursery to baby sit while all of their parents went and enjoyed the meetings.

I had always had two major issues with the church.  The first was polygamy, and the second was the fact that they had to make every single little decision for you, that you weren’t allowed to make any for yourself, even on the things that didn’t matter at all (like having a second ear piercing).  So I thought that if I could research a little and find the logical explanations for these issues, it would help me feel better and maybe get me back to church where I could gain more inspiration and strength. 

Of course, then you know the rest of the story.  When I found polygamy, I found out about the forcing of teenage girls into polygamy.  When I found out about that, I found out about polyandry.  When I found polyandry, I found out about the lies.  When I found out about the lies, I found more lies.  When I found more lies, I found out about adultery.  When I found out about adultery, I found out about blood atonement, Adam/God, the cultic brainwashing, the racism, the covering up of atrocities (castration anyone?), and it just kept going from there.  By the time I was done, I was so distressed and freaking out that I felt my whole world come crashing down on me.  And it just made the depression worse.  I wanted to talk to someone about it, so I asked my mom if she’d ever had serious doubts about the church.  The answer was no, and that if I did, I must be reading all the anti-mormon/false information on the internet – to stop it, and get back to praying and reading my scriptures.  I started realizing that there were no real answers to the big questions.  The answers were always, “There are just some things we don’t understand but will someday”.  And maybe I could buy that if it were just a few things, but not EVERYTHING.  The other one that got me so angry was that I was always told that if I wasn’t getting answers to prayers, or the blessings I sought, it must be because I wasn’t doing something right.  It put so much pressure on me growing up, that I always had to be perfect, yet I knew I never would be.  That my imperfections would bar me from reaching the celestial kingdom.  I didn’t understand why I would be given the severe depression I had when it made me unable to have faith.  I felt God created me to fail, and I didn’t understand that.  Everything compounded until I was so depleted of strength that I attempted to end it all.  Only it didn’t work, and just made things worse, as it weakened my relationships with my friends and family. 

So here I am.  Depressed, overwhelmed, with no strength and just having had my whole world pulled out from under me.  All because I was always made to feel that no matter how hard I try, I will never be good enough.  Never.  For anything.  If I can’t even be good enough for God, who is supposed to love all his children, then I can’t be good enough for anyone or anything else, either.  I cry with a completely broken heart to God for some kind of relief from the suffering I carry with me, which is met with nothing but silence.  No comfort, no relief.  Silence.  And the next day I cry with a completely broken heart to God for some kind of relief or comfort and silence.  Always the silence.  Day after day, after week, after month, after year after decade.  And what answer am I given by my TBM friends and family?  It’s because I’m not doing the things I need to.  Not going to church, paying tithing, praying (huh?), reading my scriptures.  So once again, it’s my own fault that God ignores me. 

And you may think that this would make me an atheist or agnostic, but it doesn’t.  I believe he’s there.  I just don’t know who he is.  I don’t know what kind of God he is.  There is so much fire and brimstone and violent threats in the Bible, yet he’s supposed to be this kind, caring, compassionate, merciful all knowing and all loving God.  That creates some cog dis in and of itself.  I don’t know what to think.  Or to do.  Or believe.  I’m so lost right now, all I can do is cry and barely make it through the day.  And I am not sure how long I can do it. 

So what has the church done for me?  It’s ruined my life.  It’s made me a35 year old who has no idea who I am as a person, because I always believed what I was told to believe, said what I was told to say, been what I was told to be.  It’s made me hate myself, hate every single imperfection, because those are the reasons that God has no interest in my life or the heartache I am enduring. Because it must be that I’m not good enough to be worthy of his mercy or compassion. It’s driven me to the point of suicide – the fact that I’d rather be dead than have to live with the constant pain and knowledge that I will never be good enough anymore.  It’s made me hate myself and all those that keep reinforcing that idea in my head – it’s because you’re not good enough.  It’s stolen the joy from my life when it’s supposed to BRING the joy to your life.  Ha.