I was raised Mormon. This is no simple thing to endure. Church EVERY Sunday and Wednesday, until you go to high school, and then it's also every morning for an hour before school (seminary) as well as weekend activities and youth "camps" and dances, which I referred to as Mormon breeding ground because it felt so disgusting being forced to be there. You never get a break. It was grueling and I fought the whole way because I was outraged by some of the beliefs.
I was the youngest of 5 and my parents were not sympathetic to or even open to discussion of my intense hatred of every aspect of "The Church". My father was and still is a narcissistic controlling jerk who used the structure of this religion to his special advantage so he could call upon it as justification for whatever he felt like making us do or not do. I was depressed all of my life from the age of a small child and religion compounded all of my worries and I felt horrible about myself and guilty about RIDICULOUS things and was always thinking about it. I felt that it was unjust to be confined in the ways we all were, and being a quiet child, I just simmered in this isolated world where no one in my environment questioned anything and treated me like a product. I say this because my parents seriously expected that no matter what my complaints were, if they had me do X Y and Z day in and day out, I would pop out at the end a pure and beautiful Mormon woman, so I was ultimately ignored as a person. I felt at all times like I was so far off from what the world wanted of me, and this was hard to deal with as a child. They even had me seeing a Mormon psychiatrist at 13. They kept taking me to different ones, each offering pharmeceuticals which I refused until I was suicidal some years later. I was so isolated and bombarded with a hideously flawed ideology for years.
I was especially outraged at an early age by the distinction between males and females, which I would say was the first sign I showed of not believing what was being fed to me. The males believe they get special powers of the priesthood and are told things women cannot know, as well as many other lifestyle differences such as the boyscouts programs vs the women's Relief Society where you are taught how to serve men and families, basically. It was a feminist's or intellectual's nightmare. and I mean it when I say nightmare. All reason and questions rolling off of the clean-looking blank-eyed sickly sweet members. it was like being in the Twilight Zone. only it doesn't end in thirty minutes. I felt the whole world must be that way. I was effectively trapped and the world I knew was intentionally molded by other people. I could only know it felt wrong and was at the least frustrating.
At 16, I was very worried about the afterlife and sin. I knew I didn't believe the mormon religion, and made appointments to see some other religious leaders in town, without letting my parents know because they'd never even let me set foot in another church or learn about any other religion. I had a friend drive me to meet them. That day I was shaken to the core to learn that for instance not everyone believed that God and Jesus and holy spirit are different beings, that we existed before being sent into out bodies, etc. It took me about a year to think through all of the questions this debasing led to. All of my assumptions about life and the universe fell apart that day, and I'll never forget the feeling. It was urgent fear and confusion and anger at all the people who had lied to me and kept me from common knowlege. That isn't likely to happen to a person more than once in their life.
The very day I turned 17 I moved out (that's when it's legal in Texas) and lived in my car more than a year. The freedom from a life of religion felt so wonderful and I didn't speak to my family for a long time. I still can't forgive them for making the first 17 years of my life so .... bad. If anyone has experienced the same thing, I'd like to hear about it. Of course I know other Mormons who "fell away" but they usually go back or have an alternate superstition they take up. I would be equally interested in hearing about people who were raised in any religion against their will or just to their detriment. I consider it abuse.
I am not an atheist just because I hate Mormons and I want to get as far away from them as I can, though that is true. I wanted badly to find another religion that was real. Of course, I couldn't. Seeing the example of how my father used religion to control us in his maniacal way made me all too aware of the danger of others who are just as hungry to do the same and also those who have done so in the past. I have identified as a humanist, but atheist applies too. I am an atheist because I'd like to see people being good to each other and not making our lives any more difficult than they have to be, and religion has gotten in the way and stopped us from being rational about how to accomplish that, all while parading around in a self-congratulatory way claiming it is the only way to get there. The worst is that they are meanwhile claiming people's minds and lives which is unforgivable since that is all we have.
I was the youngest of 5 and my parents were not sympathetic to or even open to discussion of my intense hatred of every aspect of "The Church". My father was and still is a narcissistic controlling jerk who used the structure of this religion to his special advantage so he could call upon it as justification for whatever he felt like making us do or not do. I was depressed all of my life from the age of a small child and religion compounded all of my worries and I felt horrible about myself and guilty about RIDICULOUS things and was always thinking about it. I felt that it was unjust to be confined in the ways we all were, and being a quiet child, I just simmered in this isolated world where no one in my environment questioned anything and treated me like a product. I say this because my parents seriously expected that no matter what my complaints were, if they had me do X Y and Z day in and day out, I would pop out at the end a pure and beautiful Mormon woman, so I was ultimately ignored as a person. I felt at all times like I was so far off from what the world wanted of me, and this was hard to deal with as a child. They even had me seeing a Mormon psychiatrist at 13. They kept taking me to different ones, each offering pharmeceuticals which I refused until I was suicidal some years later. I was so isolated and bombarded with a hideously flawed ideology for years.
I was especially outraged at an early age by the distinction between males and females, which I would say was the first sign I showed of not believing what was being fed to me. The males believe they get special powers of the priesthood and are told things women cannot know, as well as many other lifestyle differences such as the boyscouts programs vs the women's Relief Society where you are taught how to serve men and families, basically. It was a feminist's or intellectual's nightmare. and I mean it when I say nightmare. All reason and questions rolling off of the clean-looking blank-eyed sickly sweet members. it was like being in the Twilight Zone. only it doesn't end in thirty minutes. I felt the whole world must be that way. I was effectively trapped and the world I knew was intentionally molded by other people. I could only know it felt wrong and was at the least frustrating.
At 16, I was very worried about the afterlife and sin. I knew I didn't believe the mormon religion, and made appointments to see some other religious leaders in town, without letting my parents know because they'd never even let me set foot in another church or learn about any other religion. I had a friend drive me to meet them. That day I was shaken to the core to learn that for instance not everyone believed that God and Jesus and holy spirit are different beings, that we existed before being sent into out bodies, etc. It took me about a year to think through all of the questions this debasing led to. All of my assumptions about life and the universe fell apart that day, and I'll never forget the feeling. It was urgent fear and confusion and anger at all the people who had lied to me and kept me from common knowlege. That isn't likely to happen to a person more than once in their life.
The very day I turned 17 I moved out (that's when it's legal in Texas) and lived in my car more than a year. The freedom from a life of religion felt so wonderful and I didn't speak to my family for a long time. I still can't forgive them for making the first 17 years of my life so .... bad. If anyone has experienced the same thing, I'd like to hear about it. Of course I know other Mormons who "fell away" but they usually go back or have an alternate superstition they take up. I would be equally interested in hearing about people who were raised in any religion against their will or just to their detriment. I consider it abuse.
I am not an atheist just because I hate Mormons and I want to get as far away from them as I can, though that is true. I wanted badly to find another religion that was real. Of course, I couldn't. Seeing the example of how my father used religion to control us in his maniacal way made me all too aware of the danger of others who are just as hungry to do the same and also those who have done so in the past. I have identified as a humanist, but atheist applies too. I am an atheist because I'd like to see people being good to each other and not making our lives any more difficult than they have to be, and religion has gotten in the way and stopped us from being rational about how to accomplish that, all while parading around in a self-congratulatory way claiming it is the only way to get there. The worst is that they are meanwhile claiming people's minds and lives which is unforgivable since that is all we have.
