I was born into the LDS Church, the fourth of five children. I had a happy, comfortable childhood and my immediate and extended family was filled with loving, exemplary people. I never questioned the truth of the belief system I inherited. Instead, I enjoyed learning as much as I could and working to make everything fit. Applying the gospel to life’s deep questions was like a game – a clever riddle.
I was a good student but looked forward to college as an opportunity to find my eternal companion and to prepare to be a mother in Zion. I went to BYU and overall had a great experience. I sought to purify my life; I tried to obey all laws with exactness. When I graduated, still single, I wasn’t sure what to do but felt that god was testing me to see if I would submit my will to his. Eventually I decided he wanted me to serve a mission, and so I did.
It was on my mission that I began to have questions. I loved meeting people and sharing with them what I considered to be a message of love and hope. But I was troubled by so many aspects of mission life, including:
· Training in techniques that seemed like sales tactics (Did the ‘good news’ have to be sold?)
· The contrast between the emotional maturity and stability of those interested in our message versus those who were not interested (Were the faithful of other religions and the secular, loving families really less deserving of exaltation?)
· Missionaries who were verbally abusive, mentally ill, or struggling with eating disorders (If the gospel couldn’t “solve” such problems for members, how could it resolve the challenges of others?)
· General sadness among the missionaries, particularly the sisters (If we were living after the manner of happiness, why did it seem like we were always trying to cheer ourselves up?)
· The contrast between super-obedient missionaries who seemed self-righteous, numbers-oriented and sometimes sexist versus less-obedient missionaries who actually seemed to love and connect with the people and respect sister missionaries (I thought the obedient were the ones able to learn how to love unconditionally, not the other way around?)
It didn’t make sense. I had been taught that “by their fruits ye shall know them,” but I became less and less convinced that our side had a corner on the good fruits.
By the time I completed my mission, something had changed inside me. Life seemed so bittersweet. Looking back, I now realize that I was suffering from depression. But at the time, I just couldn’t reconcile my unhappiness with the knowledge that I was doing my best to love and serve god, so I remained in denial. Over the next several years, I continued to involve myself in church service. I tried to ignore the growing divide between my personal values and what was taught in church. But all the while, I became increasingly emotionally disconnected.
When I was 27, I was so miserable I could no longer deny it. I didn’t like who I was becoming, and to make matters worse I couldn’t seem to connect with single LDS men. I felt alone, and the idea that God would prefer so many of his children (both hetero- and homosexual) to endure lives of loneliness and celibacy made less and less sense to me. I felt powerless about my future. I looked around me at so many of my friends – beautiful, intelligent, accomplished women – and wondered why we hadn’t been better prepared for options other than motherhood. And most of all, I didn’t understand how I could feel so close to god in my heart and yet feel so emotionally manipulated at church. I couldn’t believe that the church was wrong, but something was definitely wrong with me. I decided to stop going until I could clear my head, resolve my issues, and become emotionally healthy.
The best decision I have ever made was to acknowledge my depression and seek help. During the summer of 2009, after several months of inactivity, I decided my misery might just be more than the result of pride and selfishness. I finally started seeing a therapist, with amazing results. Within two months’ time, I felt happier than I had EVER felt before. I began to recognize and address years of cognitive dissonance. I began to know and like myself. I began to respect and appreciate my personal values for what they were – MINE – rather than measure them (and myself) against the latest teachings of the LDS church for appropriateness. I began to feel empowered to decide for myself what kind of future I wanted and to seek after it. My relationships with friends and family improved.
I was shocked to realize that all the fruits I had desired from gospel living I was finally reaping – not from applying the teachings of the gospel to my life, as I had been doing for nearly three decades, but from psychotherapy! For the first time in my life, I thought it might actually be possible to have a fulfilling, moral life outside of Mormonism. The thought was at first disconcerting but ultimately exhilarating and liberating. Learning more about church history merely confirmed what I already guessed to be true: that the LDS church was a mixed bag of good and bad, and just as man-made as all the rest. Long story short, I did the unthinkable: I became an atheist.
Over a year later, I am happy to say that life just keeps getting better! I am one of the lucky ones, because my family and many of my friends have continued to love and support me even though they may not understand or approve my choices. Of course, leaving Mormonism has not been easy. It has required sacrifice, anguish, and has left me with a new set of anxieties to experience. But in exchange, I have made significant progress at overcoming the effects of a belief system based on self-deprecation and guilt. I feel like I have a second chance at life.
Today I rejoice because I like who I am, I am in love, I’m pursuing the career of my choice, and I’m thrilled by life. I’m truly happy! My name is Sarah; I am a happy, fulfilled, moral atheist, and I’m an Ex Mormon.
To visit Sarah’s blog about leaving the Mormon Church, click here.
Sarah suggests the following resources as helpful links during her exit from Mormonsim:
Significant information about the Mormon church:
http://postmormon.org/
http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/
“No Man Knows My History” by Fawn M. Brodie
Journal of Discourses
Two fiction books with religious overtones:
“Oscar and Lucinda” by Peter Carey
“Life of Pi” by Yann Martel
Dear Sarah,
I understand, somewhat, how easy it may be to discount all religion because “the one true church” was found to be a deceptive treadmill. Many former LDS follow your path, at least initially. But I’m praying that you will not turn your back on the genuine God, letting that one false religion steal your eternity.
Think about this — if Mormonism was wrong about so many other things, do you think they might be wrong about their condemnation of God’s word, the Bible? The very least you can do is to reintroduce yourself to the only true God by reading a bit of His love letter to you. He promised to preserve it (“…my words will never pass away.” Matthew 24:25) and his truth will make you free, not bind you to slavery as in Mormonism.
Please, at least read the book of Romans and Galatians, which will give you a totally different picture of God’s liberating plan for your salvation than you ever got from the LDS organization.
If you have questions, or need resources, I’d like to help (no obligation on your part). By the way, I’m a Christian, married to a Mormon for 29 years. I have spent the past 27 years helping educate people about false religions by comparing them to the word of God, the Bible, for which there is ample evidence (not just good feelings about it) to give us the confidence that it is true.
Blessings,
Tom Jones
727-667-4112
Hi Tom, thank you for your thoughtful comment! I was actually raised to love the Bible and have read it in its entirety and studied it at length. Certainly I find in the Bible much food for thought and many beautiful and inspiring ideas, some of which continue to affect my worldview today.
While my own experience, observation, and understanding of human psychology have led me to reject belief in god, I recognize that many people come to the opposite conclusion through their experience, observation and study. The message I hope to share is that there are many different ways to find meaning and live happy lives after leaving mormonism.
Sarah, you are an amazing girl. You have done what is imaginable for people like James who
would like to criticize you for being able to think freely. You have broken away from a cult like group and fortunately you did in modern times when they won’t chase you down for your wise decision. This was unheard of not that many years ago.
It is the 21st century and it takes people like you to prove to people like James and other
zealots that they are no longer tolerated in a modern society. I know you will fare well in today’s freethinking, rational world.
“But I’m praying that you will not turn your back on the genuine God, letting that one false religion steal your eternity. ” And will you pray Tom to find out who the genuine God is? No you won’t will you? You will consider that your white, god is THE genuine god; the one you have been raised to believe in. Don’t you even wonder if the Hindu or Buddhist gods might be the genuine ones?
Sarah said she is happy and contented; could you accept that? I do.
PS – And why do you post comments under two different names? (Jean Bodie / Jennifer). Seeing that you use the same picture for both of those name, I assume that they both represent yourself, am I right?
Sarah – Once again, you are attacking other’s beliefs. Tom was only sharing his testimony in God and his knowledge of how God will help Sarah find additional happiness. It is her decision to follow Tom’s advise or to chose not to. Sarah thanked him for his advice and appreciated his comment. Tom was only trying to help Sarah during a time of spiritual searching and understanding.
There is obviously truth in ALL religions, Hinduism and Buddhism included as you stated. But I just do not know what you are seeing when you read others comments. It is as if you are purposely and intently looking for something to twist and argue about. Did tome ever say anything derrogatory to other religions? No. That was a conclusion that you jumped to for no apparent reason. He merely shared his belief in a monotheistic God with Sarah. Even though he may not believe in the polytheism of other religions (such as Hinduism and Buddhism), he never said anything derrogatory towards them either.
And when did Tom say anything even remotely related to having a “white god” like you claim he did? From where did you even pull out that idea? That comment had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with anything that has been posted. It seems to be something you just invented for the sake of starting a totally unrelated argument.
Please, Jennifer, restrain from being so contentious. Is that very Christ-like? Please respect the comments and thoughts of others as we try to respect yours.
Dear Sarah:
I’m a non-LDS Christian (Protestant/Baptist). Thank you for your testimony. I write to share with you and others a most recent development in my own.
In October 2010 I traveled to SLC to attend the annual ex-Mormon Conference for the first time. I went with a desire to meet the people I have grown to love from afar and for whom I have carried a great burden in my heart for the past 25 years. Over the course of the following 36 hours I met and got to know 15 attendees who willingly and openly shared with me their deeply personal, costly, and tragic stories of having left the LDS Church.
From the better understanding I gained from that experience, to Tom, James and others who would want to advise you may I suggest this: step back a little, trust God alot, and pray. Pray for Sarah and others like her as I do almost daily now for my new family of ex-Mormon friends. While they may for now have little if any interest in your God or mine, most will readily accept, welcome and appreciate a sincere and heartfelt offer of prayer. So pray for them.
Those who would desire to advise or to minister to Sarah and others like her first owe it to them to try to better understand their reality. Those considering leaving or who have left the LDS church recently are, as I witnessed at the conference during the Friday evening open mic session, often totally devastated by the experience. Others who may have left many years ago still feel daily a lingering pain and an almost ever-present sense of remorse over having given decades of their lives to a church they later came to believe to be false. Time they cannot get back.
Most see themselves as having paid a very very high price and as having suffered incalculable loss in order to acquire their freedom from the church. Loss of belief in and relationship with a God in whom they had placed their trust and served with devotion. Severe damage to or complete loss of relationships with spouses, children, other family, and friends.
Having first measured the cost, often over a period of years, they eventually became willing to endure these losses as the high price required to honor the truth they discovered and to move to secure their freedom.
What many of them want for the time being is to simply be able to enjoy this freedom. To discover for the first time who it is that they really are. To begin to live authentic lives based on that realization. To do so, at least for the time being, on their own terms for the first time in their lives. Others who have not had to do what they have done should pause and give thanks, and pray that they might themselves be spared from ever having to do so difficult a thing.
For now, I believe the best thing we can do to support Sarah and others like her is to offer her and them our time and love. With that in mind may I finally suggest to anyone posting here or reading this post that you go to SLC yourself and attend the conference next year. I plan to return and look forward to re-uniting with many of my 15 new ex-Mormon friends. It would be a pleasure to introduce them to you. If you ask, they will likely offer to tell you their stories, as they did me.
Come humbly and come to listen, not to speak. Come witness and appreciate the immense courage they each have in order to do what they are thinking of doing, or what they have already had to do. Before you come to teach or preach to them, come to meet and learn from them. And come to cry with them, as I did. I hope you will then return home having a new found love for them as well, just as I did.
Ron,
I am highly impressed with the intelligence and thoughtfulness of your comments. I personally appreciate your words.
Sara,
Wow… Thanks for sharing. I don’t even know you, but I almost feel a type of spiritual kinship with you. At this time I’m still an active member of the church, but your story rings true for many of us; Mormons and ex-Mormons. Know that there are many that understand exactly where you’re coming from. May you continue to find the happiness that you seek and so richly deserve.
Sarah,
First of all, Ramen. You have an amazing story. I admire you for telling it. I am an atheist with a very similar story. Let the trolls’ comment roll off like water off a duck’s back. You obviously know the fulfillment of a rational life.
Best wishes and Happy Holidays.
There is a huge difference between religion and spirituality. This concept that one need an organized religion to practice spirituality or learn morality is such a controlling thought. Each person is in control of their beliefs whether they include a “god: or not. My beliefs include mother earth and grandfather sky as well as the fact that everything has a vibration.
I find it disturbing that anyone would tout their god as the true or only god.
Sarah,
Thank you for sharing your story! Except for attending a mission, my story is really similar to yours. If I had found this website earlier I might have posted it already, and maybe I still will!
When I got old enough to start thinking about everything as an individual (not part of a socio-cultural or familial group) I too had many conflicts and questions. I stopped attending church within a year or two of this awakening, mostly because I did not feel I fit in and I didn’t want to continue supporting the church and its actions. It took years more of reading, conversations and soul-searching to come to the realization I didn’t believe anything about the Mormon church, couldn’t embrace every aspect of any organized religion.
When you think about it, anyone can say they “know” anything. But no one can definitively assert the unknown. Religions can certainly be comforting to some, answer many questions or give structure for others. Maybe one of the many religions humans have created is true or better than the others, who knows? The answer is: no one.
As we move beyond the fear, we come to a place where we can embrace living with the unknown. We don’t know. But life is short, and precious, and we are doing ourselves a disservice to spend it trying to guess whether what we’re doing is going to have a big payoff in another dimension.
I don’t think of myself as an atheist; rather, a theist of life, a follower of love and believer in the god and the wonder of ourselves and our spirits. And whatever brings harmony to you is simply perfect.
My best to you!
Lara
Sarah,
You are impressive!
I appreciate your honesty and clarity of thought. Good on you!
Yes, once you realize that religious thinking is only a popular, comforting system of self-delusion, the world makes a TON more sense and a genuinely healthy, moral life can begin.
Thank you for sharing your story. I experienced the same things you did as far as feeling depressed while I’ve been in the church and being so obedient and then being confused by the phrase “by their fruits ye shall know them”. I knew so many “disobedient” people who had such great lives, even in my own family. Once I started to let go of the idea that the church was the only ticket to true happiness I started to feel happier and to take more pride in my own life. I started to become who I wanted to be instead of becoming what the church wanted me to be. I’m still working on getting out completely and am hoping to leave the church with my husband one day.
There are ups and downs and I look forward to the day that I too can consider myself a fully happy and fully ex-mormon.
Sarah, it’s me, Maria, the German Ex-Mo. I love your blog “Leaving the Garden”, it resounds with so many of my thoughts. Especially the last lines of your entry about your exit interview – that’s something I’ve discovered too: The Church isn’t perfect as a whole, but there are many good people (and teachings) in it. So it’s just the opposite of what is written in D&C 1, isn’t it ironic? Henning and I still cherish the relationships with our Mormon friends and family and, like you, we can see the good in them for what it is, without tracing it back to an institution.
Another thing I agree with you on: It’s hard to let go of the Mormon past, b/c as you said it wasn’t just a hobby or some major at school, it was my life. Even though I want to put my mind on other things (like my baby to be born w/in a week) I can’t completely let go. It will take years, and with Mormon family around, even longer.
Keep on the excellent work.
Sarah,
Could it be possible that you have been deceived? In truth, there is no such thing as an atheist. We are all born with an innate sure knowledge that God is real, no matter who we are or where in the world we may live. That knowledge never leaves us. The failures of those around us are their failures, not our Father in Heaven’s.
I think it is sad you have been manipulated by the exmormon group for their dark purposes. Many people leave the Savior’s church and many return to it at a later date in their lives. You may well be one of them.
When you feel His love, your heart will sing and He will lead you back to Him. It may, or may not, involve the Church, but because of the quality person you are you will find Him again.
Your friend in Texas,
Burke
Sarah,
Thanks for sharing your story. I have been a moral atheist since 2008. I was quite surprised to find out how many church teachings can be classified as cognitive distortions that put people at risk for depression. I wish you the best!
Lauren
Hi Sara,
I’ve been inactive for 19 years. I have recently found out that I can resign/remove my name from the LDS church records. In my heart I want this so badly, but I have had a fragile relationship with my zealot, Mormon mother for years and I don’t know how to prepare to tell her this. Any advice????
Jennifer
Hi Sarah. I just wanted to write to say I LOVED your video and your story. I’m an atheist and a huge advocate of reason and science. I hope your story inspires many people as I know it will. I’m from Boston and I’m also an avid triathlete! When I heard that in your video it just made me like you even more. Good luck with your studies and if you ever have any races in the Northeast give me a shout!
Tony
EventHorizon.Tv
contact@eventhorizon.tv
Sarah, I watched your video because a friend posted it on facebook. I left the Mormon Church over 30 years ago because of the Mark Hoffman forgeries that tricked the so called Prophet. It became clear that he wasn’t lead by god. After a few years, it became clear that all religions were man made. The concept of being spiritual soon looked like how much superstition I was willing to fall for. So, today after much study and thought, I am an atheist! My life is a miracle, but not because of some mysterious skydaddy!
After reading some of these replys, I wanted to let you know I think you are truly brave to come out under all the pressures to follow. Taking your own road is very rewarding,as you seem to be finding out.
Marsha
Sarah,
Thanks for your brave and honest story. Replace my name with yours and our stories are very similar.
My name is Doug, and and I’m a happy, moral, atheist, and an ex-mormon.
Sarah:
While I was not a Mormon, I found your story to be helpful in my own transition. While I am not an ex-Mormon, I try to be moral as an atheist.
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