I'm a convert -- joined when I was 21 because a fairly miserable childhood in a dysfunctional family left me seeking for Little House on the Prairie in real life, and I thought Mormonism was it. I thought that for over 30 years (another thing about me is I'm a very slow learner). I am a compulsive reader, and over the course of those 30 years I read Rough Stone Rolling, Mormon Enigma, David O. Mackay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, Kathleen Flake's book on Reed Smoot . . . I mean, I read and read and read, and didn't even know I had a shelf until the day it collapsed. I think the last book (last straw) was American Crucifixion by Alex Beam, and I remember where I was standing and what I was doing when the thought came into my head that Joseph Smith and everything I'd built my life around for the last 30 years was complete and utter b****s***. Those were the literal words in my head, and I hadn't used them since I was a teenager but there it was. I felt a little weak in the knees and had to sit down . . . but after my head cleared the overwhelming feeling was of relief.
I went on a mission, graduated from BYU, married in the temple and had 4 kids. I served in all the women's auxilliary presidencies, and in spite of everything always felt that I came up short. I struggled, as an introvert, a convert and someone whose interests didn't naturally lie where all the other women's seemed to, to fit in. I'd squished myself into a box so small that I could hardly move any more, and when I realized that I didn't have to constrain myself in all these painful ways any more, well -- my heart grew three sizes that day.
However. I told DH almost right off the bat that I no longer believed, and while his initial reaction was that it was okay because he didn't marry me for my beliefs, that changed over time. He didn't want me to tell our 4 kids, who were teenagers, about my disaffection. He didn't want them to know what I was thinking or reading or experiencing. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't honor his wishes -- not that he should necessarily have had the last say, but I did it behind his back, and tragedy ensued. I was very close to our second son and in the habit of talking freely with him about almost everything, and I told him my conclusions about the church. I shared my journey with him, and we got in the habit of going out for lattes together. The thing was, he was emotionally a very fragile kid with deeper problems than I ever realized, and about six months later he died by suicide. I don't know how much church stuff played into it, but obviously a part, and our family has been picking its way through the wreckage ever since.
I’m a little over two years into the faith transition now, and I have no idea where we will all end up. I had some profound spiritual experiences before Mormonism came into my life, and I’d like to somehow reclaim those. My children are still supremely important to me, and I hope for a better, healthier future for them. I am on a quest to watch all the movies and TV shows that I denied myself in the interest of “purity” all those years. I’m 55 years old and I don’t know what the h*** I’m doing. I do know I’m glad NOM has been resurrected; I’ve missed you all like crazy.
