I'm Not a Mormon

[document]

Yesterday I had a fascinating conversation about alcohol with an LDS friend of mine. Our conversation wasn't adversarial (it never is), but was a respectful conversation that started with prohibition and ended with cultural attitudes towards alcohol consumption.

At one point, he said that when he sees a person with a beer he associates it with idiocy and licentiousness. He then asked me what I think when I see someone with a beer in their hand. My immediate thoughts were warm. The only times that I drink beer is with the other men at church when we meet up once a month to hang out.

This spawned an interesting thought in me: I asked him what he thought of with a person with a glass of wine. He responded that wine was someone trying to look self-important. To me my thoughts were warm again, wine has become a symbol of church fellowship and a celebration of trust and friendship.

The conversation ran through my head all night long. His attitudes were very similar to mine when I was an LDS believer. When I saw a beer, I either thought of either a stupid, ugly, fat, hairy, alcoholic man wearing a wife-beater sitting in a lazy boy or I thought of a drunk girl being slutty. When I saw wine, I saw a pretentious, depressed housewife trying to appear rich. Had I really changed that much?

I went through a slew of situations in my head:

* I pictured a man drinking a cup of coffee and I thought of breakfast and English Muffins
* I pictured a young woman wearing a tank top and thought "nice weather"
* I pictured my son hiding a Playboy under his mattress and thought, "typical"
* I went though a dozen other situations and most of them had fundamentally changed.

I had changed. Even after I left the church, these things would still cause a twinge in me as I saw them. Those are now gone.

The first thing to change in my journey was my beliefs. The second thing to change was my culture.

In recent months I have had more misunderstandings with my mother. Nothing bad, just things where I had to stop and remind myself that the Mormon culture is different (not necessarily better or worse) than my own. For example, we walked through the store and my mother made a comment about a young woman wearing a tank top. My mind went to the fact that she was wearing a tank top in December without a coat while hers went to the fact that her shoulders and cleavage were showing. I had to stop and remember that it is something taboo in her culture. We didn't fight about it, but I couldn't figure it out until she pointed out the tank top.

I guess today was a realization that I'm no longer Mormon. It's gone from my life. My family is Mormon, my youth was Mormon, I am not.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm not sad, just surprised, I guess.

[moksha]

Wonder if you compared ultra-Mormon responses to a variety of picture stimuli involving the scenarios you imagined while being hooked to a multiphasic testing machine and compared it to normal human responses, what would the differences look like? Would the ultra-Mormons show exaggerated spikes on the judgement continuum scale?

[ulmite]

The Belief-O-Matic tells me I'm a liberal quaker!

[Korihor]

The Belief-O-Matic tells me I'm a liberal quaker!

I'm a secular humanist

[20/20hind]

Ive had your same thoughts and self awareness. Im not mormon anymore..life is good.

[document]

Moksha,

I had to double check your post a few times. I'm part of the PC Master Race (inside joke, PC gamers continually mock those of consoles as our PCs are better machines with better graphics), and so I see a lot of posts in our sub-Reddit of medium, high, ultra. I'm just making sure I was in the right forum.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

The Belief-O-Matic tells me I'm a liberal quaker!

I'm a secular humanist

I'm a unitarian universalist at this point.

[LaMachina]

As always, document, I find your take interesting and informative and I've also found it interesting to compare and contrast your progression with my own.

I was absolutely a true believer growing up yet I never had these intense judgments against those who did not live the WofW. Don't worry, I had plenty of judgment in me and some of it was directed towards the "worldly" but I think most of it was directed towards other Mormons. Certainly part of my position was due to my mother being a convert and her parents (my grandparents) being heavy smokers and drinkers. They also happened to be lovely people and they provided me with a baseline early on that good, decent people could smoke like chimneys and have a beer after lunch.

For me I think I slowly (like really slowly- 20-30 years or so) realized that my culture did not fit me and THEN my beliefs were challenged and changed. It's all mixed up and complicated of course but some experiences that stick out in my memories:

As mentioned, Mormons being extremely judgmental of non-WofW followers when I had lovely non-mormon grandparents. Early onset cog dis.

Going off-roading with a buddy when we were supposed to be going to a fireside. We got stuck in the mud and could not get ourselves out. My buddy suggested we pray which I thought was hilarious until I realized he was dead serious. Even at 16 I had a real hard time believing God would get two meatheads out of a minor inconvenience when so much crap went down in the world.

Listening to a return sister missionary give a talk on following prophets and multiple earrings. I was a teenager at the time and remember driving home from church talking to my mom at how infuriating and meaningless I found the talk.

As a father of a 3 year old boy who had discovered his penis we had some pretty entertaining and interesting conversations as a family about boundaries and appropriate behaviour. One night we had a group of mormon friends over and it became a topic of conversation. A number of them became concerned that our 3 year old was masturbating. They were so vocal in their concerns that my wife began to be concerned as well. I had to do some major damage control to alleviate my wife's fears and tell these people as kindly as possible that they were being idiots.

Through these and other experiences I always felt that I was "Mormon" but I didn't quite fit in with these other people who were also "Mormon" but seemed to be a little loony too. Eventually I had so many of these experiences that I think it became apparent my mormonism was an outlier. I've certainly distanced myself further from mormonism's thinking in the last few years but it was the culture that killed my testimony or at least beat it up real bad.

I still feel like I'm Mormon, despite not believing one lick of it, but I feel like mormonism left me. And honestly, that does make me a little sad.

[document]

Certainly part of my position was due to my mother being a convert and her parents (my grandparents) being heavy smokers and drinkers.

My mother was a convert as well and her parents were heavy smokers and drinkers. As my parents were not I was extra judgmental on them. I actually carry a lot of guilt for the judgments I passed on them over the years.

[LaMachina]

Certainly part of my position was due to my mother being a convert and her parents (my grandparents) being heavy smokers and drinkers.

My mother was a convert as well and her parents were heavy smokers and drinkers. As my parents were not I was extra judgmental on them. I actually carry a lot of guilt for the judgments I passed on them over the years.

I always find it fascinating how people can have similar experiences and even end up in the same place eventually but get there in a variety of ways! But I'm right there with you about feeling guilt over my former mormon mindset and judgment...I just expressed slightly differently.

It's also interesting how my wife and I differ. I still feel mormon in so many ways but if we're in a group of mormons for something she'll notice to a degree that makes her uncomfortable that she does not think like them at all anymore.

[sirensong]

My Utah in-laws are in town visiting for the next 2 weeks. I took my mother-in-law and sister-in-law with me to the grocery store the night after they got here to pick up a few things. One of the first things that they said as we walked past the wine/liquor section - "Well, we're definitely not in Utah anymore!". I pushed down the urge to ask them if there was anything they wanted from that aisle while we were here and that I've got a bottle of White Zinfandel chilling in the fridge at home and a couple of small 'samplers' of a Chardonnay and Merlot also tucked away in the fridge and some spiced rum to make a Cuban that we keep in our bedroom closet (16 yr old in the house who would be more than happy to sample if we didn't keep it away). I don't know if my husband has shared with them the level of my disaffection for the church. I told him that I wasn't going to hide my wine, nor put away my Keurig while they're here. They know that we haven't been in a while - I go because I don't believe anymore - he stopped going because I did, though he seems very hurt to know that I don't believe anymore.

In a way it is different for me because, though I'd been mormon for a long time, I grew up in very decidedly non-mormon Kentucky. I had my TBM thoughts, but I knew and saw all around me that most people didn't live or THINK like that and that was fine. I feel a very judg-y vibe though, when my in-laws say things like that... to note however, no one has mentioned the Keurig or the wine to ME yet. Hubby hasn't said anything to me if they've said anything to him, though even if they have I think he knows better than to share with me while they're here...

[Silver Girl]

I like the way you measured your progress. Love it, actually!

Two years ago, I was afraid to buy coffee anywhere that ward members shopped. Today, I regularly buy it in the same store everyone else uses.

Two years ago, I was afraid to discuss my church status. Today, if I am at a gathering & feel it is relevant, I mention, "Oh, by the way, I resigned from the church..." (so far, nobody has stalked out of the room).

Two years ago, I was never seen in tank tops or sleeveless dresses (probably not a bad thing). Today, I wear whatever I want and the only feeling I have about it is the sense of liberation.

Three years ago, I never dreamed I'd be where I am at this point. Had never read the essays or heard of the CES letter. Today, I am one of the people who donated to Jeremy Runnells.

[GoodBoy]

Congratulations Document! I remember the first time I snuck down to the break room at work with a tea bag to try tea for the first time. My hands were shaking. I laugh at myself now.