Departing Moism - Stage 7 - Decision/Non-Decision Time

[Born Free]

Stage 7 of the departing model is Decision/Non-Decision Time - involves feeling the full impact of your situation, that you are at a major junction point in your journey. The signpost says simply IN - < this way – OUT - that way >. You may feel that you cannot sit 'on the fence' any longer, that your mental, and emotional wellbeing is at stake.

After much delay in posting the questions/prompts about this stage, here they are.

This stage may include concerns about the implications that leaving might carry for nuclear and extended families.

DIALECTIC: We wonder what to do with the old and the new. We may still be troubled with the affective sense that the opposition is “evil”. New paradigms for things like truth, sin, evil, adversarial issues, and God and Satan begin to emerge.

Please Copy & Paste (highlight, [Control]/”C”) the following questions, open a Post Reply, then [Control] “V” to paste them, then insert your response against each question.

Some cult-exit specialists argue that there are three (3) ways out of even an intermediate level cult like Mormonism. They are:


Walked out – left of your own will.
Pushed out – left with the ‘assistance’ of a Church disciplinary hearing.
Counselled out – left after engagement of some mental health professional.


Even though in the MetaMap these options appear in two (2) places (the therapeutic exit is overlayed over Stage 6) these are all seen as part of the exit decision stage. Which one, or combination of these was your experience and do those three (3) notions adequately cover your experience?

The alternative (to deciding to exit) is to baulk at this hurdle (Non-decision time), and recommit oneself to the religion.

Did you reach this tipping point one or several times before finally choosing one of the above?

Whether you walked or were counselled out, you still had the decision of whether to have your name removed from Church records and membership.

Which way did you go: insist your name be removed, or believe that the matter was inconsequential?

If you decided to resign your membership, what was your experience of that pathway and what logic/feeling informed that decision?

If you decided to ignore and forget about your membership, what was your experience of that pathway and what logic/feeling informed that decision?

If you came to your decision to leave via your participation in some form of counselling/therapeutic process, what was your journey?

Have you any other remarks about your experience through this stage that have not been covered above? Please spell those out.

We are looking to compare responses to this question to see what patterns (similarities/differences) emerge, so please cut and paste each of the questions, followed by your response/s, so that everyone’s responses remain in the same sequence.

Please note: as Stages 8 & 9 have changed over recent time, new Stages 8 & 9 questions will be forthcoming to flesh out that information.

[helemon]

Even though in the MetaMap these options appear in two (2) places (the therapeutic exit is overlayed over Stage 6) these are all seen as part of the exit decision stage. Which one, or combination of these was your experience and do those three (3) notions adequately cover your experience?
Walked out of own free will. Had conversations with Bishop and SP but none of these led to disciplinary actions.

Did you reach this tipping point one or several times before finally choosing one of the above?
Slow transition over several years of greater distancing from the religion as more information was discovered.

Whether you walked or were counselled out, you still had the decision of whether to have your name removed from Church records and membership.

Which way did you go: insist your name be removed, or believe that the matter was inconsequential?

Decided to have name removed as a matter of principle.

If you decided to resign your membership, what was your experience of that pathway and what logic/feeling informed that decision?

Felt it was dishonest not to and didn't want religion to still count me. It was a way to send a message, if only a small one.

[Born Free]

The alternative (to deciding to exit) is to baulk at this hurdle (Non-decision time), and recommit oneself to the religion. Did you reach this tipping point one or several times before finally choosing one of the above?

Yes, I feel I approached this point several times, but with insufficient information and clarity that that was where I was, and stuck.

Whether you walked or were counselled out, you still had the decision of whether to have your name removed from Church records and membership.

Which way did you go: insist your name be removed, or believe that the matter was inconsequential?

My partner and I chose to 'submit' to a Court of Luuuuurve for (to use an old Army charge sheet verbiage) Conduct Unbecoming Good Little Mormons- (we both had had affairs). We both were at a mental point of 'bring it on'. We had separated for a period just before this, and had really sorted mountain loads of issues that we had stumbled over for years. We had developed new clarity, and were really clear that we were not about making anyone else happy. We were really committed to our own integrity.

We responded frankly to the Court questions, and my wife insisted she would not go before her court, unless she could be present for mine, as I was allowed to be for hers. (there is another layer of male superiority that many people will be unaware of! Part of the process to keep men feeling and looking superior to women. So in the standard Mo version of that process, I could see her humbled before the Court, but not the other way around. I was 100% in support of her decision. If they had not conceded on that point, we would likely have both walked there and then.)

I believe, as stated in one or several other threads posted over time, that the affairs were symptomatic of the stress we suffered in crazy mental space that resulted from the collective impact of Church and Family-of-Origin garbage. We both felt blocked in resolving what we saw as an impasse, and I suspect resolved the problem quite effectively at the unconscious level. (I should stress that this was in the days prior to the Internet, which I think would have enabled us to see clearer options, than we felt presented at the time. We also live in Australia, so alternative takes on Mormonism were somewhat harder to come by than in the US)

So I would see myself as some curious blend between pushed/counselled/walked.

If you decided to resign your membership, what was your experience of that pathway and what logic/feeling informed that decision?

NA for me and my wife, but very quickly after we went, all our children asked to have their names removed. I think we would have done similar if we had been driving the process at the conscious level. I abhor the idea that MoInc is strutting around claiming millions of inactives as really of their flock when the reality is they don't give a $hit about the religion.

If you decided to ignore and forget about your membership, what was your experience of that pathway and what logic/feeling informed that decision? NA

If you came to your decision to leave via your participation in some form of counselling/therapeutic process, what was your journey?

Whilst I cannot state that was my journey, there are elements of this. I read more and more widely in the face of the stress I felt whilst a member. More and more I came across material that suggested that Mormonism created and promotes unhealthy mental processes - for example was toxic to self-esteem.

I now suspect that I suffered low grade depression for extended periods as a result of this indecision and feeling stuck with no way out.

Have you any other remarks about your experience through this stage that have not been covered above? Please spell those out.

I think I approached this point several times, but felt trapped in the highly developed Mormon-Mind-Trap - fear, guilt, isolation, lack of access to alternative paradigms; all elements I have since discovered are common to cults at various levels of intensity.

Daryl