I never thought it would happen to ME and now I can't imagine ever going back. I gave up on Mormonism. I always struggled with achieving even a nominal amount of happiness. Life seems overwhelming at times. I had the "answers" of the "Gospel" as it was construed of by Joseph Smith and the LDS church. I was supposed to be happier than others, yet I felt an enormous amount of guilt if I swore, lost my temper, missed church or did anything contrary to the strict code that I was indoctrinated into. The critical voices of my mind found birth in my upbringing and amplification in the unrelenting code of the religion of my youth. I had no major sin, and could have gone to the temple, but I always felt "unworthy".
    I began to notice that Utah suffered from one of the highest incidences of depression per capita. I also noticed that the people of Utah were usually small tribe minded Republicans. (politcally I am moderate and don't like labels, but I am more of libertarian/liberal stance on freedoms and civil rights, while I am fiscally conservative). I began to question if these were anomalies or if this was in fact a world view shaped by the Mormon system. The question began running through my mind, "Is this cultural or is this view because of the Church itself?"
    About this time Prop 8 came about, and the LDS church mobilized. I have no problem with any Church standing up for its definition of morality (even though I don't agree), but this seemed weak, desperate and  to implicitly/subtly reinforce the membership to vote Republican, which seemed asinine after 7 years of Bush. It seemed like the church would have more important matters than to meddle politically, especially regarding marriage. Mormons have had issues with that since the beginning. Even so, I felt inclined to defend the Church.
    On Reddit there was lots of anger against the church and links mocking the church or to "anti" material were common. I happen to click on a link that was not church related, but it was the Masonic ceremony. I knew that the Mormon temple ceremony had "similarities" but it was immediately apparent that it was "borrowed" not influenced. My mental shelf of questions held, but creaked just a bit.
    Then one day I clicked on a link regarding polygamy. With shock and horror, I realized that Joseph Smith was not practicing the polygamy, but spiritual wifery. We're talking David Koresh stuff here. How could God use a man like this as an instrument in his hands? How could he hold us accountable for using common sense to dismiss his claims, when his integrity is so questionable? The temple ceremony which delivers the ultimate promise of eternal families was "revealed" after these shenanigans of Joseph Smith. In desperation, I began to search for some kind of answer to how this could be. The truth had to be out there, there HAD to be a rational explanation. As I desperately searched for answers I only found more disturbing historical facts, I began to spiral. I would read, pray, read pray and it just got worse.
    I learned that Brigham Young was a ruthless leader, and there was more reason to doubt him as a "prophet" than Joseph Smith. I learned that there was NO evidence of the historicity of the Book of Mormon, in fact irrefutable science was undermining the claim that it was "another testament of Christ". DNA is good enough to lock criminals away, but not good enough to give MAJOR doubts about the truthfulness of Mormonism?
    I learned that there was no discernable way to tell when a LDS President or Apostle spoke as God or as a man. It became obvious that there was no prophetic succession or even guidance or inspiration. It was all just a f@#&#xin;g sham. The shelf was breaking, from the new library's worth of questions I put there in a short period of time.
    I used Occam's razor, and said all this suddenly makes sense,  it simply IS NOT TRUE. No more mental gymnastics, rationalizations, thought stopping techniques or cognitive dissonance. No more doubt, lots of questions/questioning, but no more doubt.
    Now, I am trying to unravel the tangled web of lies, guilt, culture, fear and mind-set that the LDS church created for me through its campaign of "faith promoting rumours" and its seemingly innocuous dogma and outright deceit. I held myself to a higher standard of honesty than the TSCC held itself to. In my opinion the church itself could not pass it's own temple recommend interview. It is NOT honest with its fellow man.
    This is difficult, frustrating and at times overwhelming process.
    I have read many accounts such as mine here and on RfM, and realize that in this difficult endeavor, I need not face it alone. I have no idea how many others like me there are, but today there is one more who cannot put the genie of LDS history back in the bottle.