I was BIC in Mesa, AZ and grew up on a farm in Gilbert. Our family was always extremely active and although my parents have admitted to a period of doubt, they never shared those doubts with us kids and they now say that time only served to strengthen their testimonies. My parents moved to Alaska when I was 14, but the majority of my large extended mostly tbm family still live in the Phoenix/Mesa area.
My questioning as a teen started when I found out about polygamy and my maternal grandparents left the church. Of course, they were “weird” and “had so many problems when they left the church”. That’s funny, whenever I actually got to visit them, they seemed really cool. Sigh.
At 18, I stopped going to church as soon as I left home. I was too angry to study and deal with the church, so I never knew more than just feeling belittled as a woman. I stayed away for 10 years, during which time I met and married my husband. He was raised Catholic and has a great disdain for any organized religion or claims of Divine knowledge.
When I was 28, I was convinced that I had left the church because I must not have tried hard enough and it was all my fault, so I returned.
I spent 9 long years trying to convince myself that my doubts were a creation of my own or of some supremely evil dude named Satan. I worked my way up in the Mormon hierarchy and went to the temple. That was weird, but I did feel some peace there, so I ignored the doubts.
My dh struggled to survive the whole ordeal; my dad blessing the babies, baptizing the oldest, me being gone for meetings and spending a lot of energy on the church.
My children and I prayed for every meal, studied scriptures together, sang primary songs at home, and attended nearly every session of General Conference at the meeting house.
I can’t believe my marriage survived! There were rough patches, of course.
In 2005, emails started circulating in the Mormon circle encouraging us to ban Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck. Well, of course I read it as soon as it came out. There couldn’t have been better advertising than that smear campaign. There were a few unbelievable stories in the book that made me doubt the author’s sincerity, but some seeds were planted by many of the accounts.
In spring of 2007, I was at the library at saw a book on the shelf that caught my eye, called The Caged Virgin by Aayan Hirsi Ali. I started reading and had to check it out. At home, I read voraciously through my tears as I realized that although my life was a lot less violent and I had many more freedoms, the religious indoctrination and religious experience of my Mormon upbringing had way too many parallels with Aayan’s Muslim upbringing. The walls of my faith started to crumble, I started researching things on the internet, and within a couple of months I was signing in to Post-Mormon. I was serving as the first councilor in Relief Society and was pretty much running the whole organization in May, as the president, 2nd councilor, and secretary all were having babies at the same time. I saw first-hand how callings were extended, how Relief Society and bishopric meetings were organized gossip fests. Being on the inside felt like running a corporation, and I realized that all organized religion was set up and organized with the same mind control techniques. Different flavors and names, same system, same outcome. August was the most difficult as all of these things came to a head and we were selling our home. It ended up being the perfect time to leave, but alas, we were going to live in one of my tbm parent’s apartments for 6 months before we moved from the state. I could’ve just been honest about my struggles, but memories of my horrific experience as a teenager and my intolerant parents prevailed and I knew they would talk to my kids and say damaging things. Instead, I was open with my children, but we said nothing to my parents while living there. It was a hard 6 months, but the peace was kept, and in spring of 2008 when we left the state, the freedom from religion and Mormonism was all the sweeter. Those 6 months of physical activity were a good time to watch the whole process with an outsider’s eyes and my boys, although only 7 and 11 at the time and having been fully indoctrinated virtually all of their lives, saw through the lies they were being fed and also couldn’t wait to stop attending. The forced activity when they were allowed to openly question at home only served to show them how ridiculous the church is. They begged to stay home with dad a lot and I let them. My children continually inspire me with their observations. It was difficult, but I feel that we all learned a lot that we might have missed out on if we had just left the moment we had doubts. I had done that before and it didn’t serve me well.
We finally left in March 2008.
Over the summer of 2008, family members have slowly found out that we are not attending and have expressed their dismay. I’ve had discussions with 2 tbm brothers and my parents, and they’ve mostly been accepting, except for one brother, who is in disbelief. He just “knows” that I “know” the truth deep inside. Oh well. At least I am free from that kind of mind control and I’m very happy indeed.