Hi, I'm a Free Thinker!
Mormon fatigue. I was a Mormon.
About me
I joined the mormon church when I was sixteen years old. By the time I had reached that age I had already lived more than most young men.
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
I was raised in a deeply rooted Roman Cathlolic family. I think Catholiscism goes back on my fathers side of the family to the inception of the church. In addition my family was the picture of disfunction. I was a sensative boy and the formative years of my life were immersed in the chaotic and unsettling sixties. My older brothers and sisters lived the sixties like it is seen in textbooks today. Unfortunately for me, the above combination created a life in which I experienced a great deal of fear and a sense of loss of control. I remember having thoughts as a young man that I found deeply troubling. Thoughts of life and death and what, if anything, followed this life. Who is god and does he really exisit. I realize now that Catholicism simply did not answer these questions for me.
At this critical juncture in my life I had developed some psychological problems that were overwhelming to me. They were rooted in irrational fears and I simply could not get past them. (Today I would be simply diagnosed as OCD. But this was 1976 and we knew little about the condition.) This was a terrible time for me. I cannot describe how frightened I was. And let me simply say this now. I should have been out having fun. Participating in the dalliances and flights of fancy of youth. Instead I was a serious and troubled young man. Into this maelstrom came mormons in the form of friends and a very pretty buxom young lady. She did in fact end up being our homecoming queen. She was beyond beautiful and to me she was a goddess. Since I have never married, to this day I sometimes wonder if she is the only woman I have truly loved.
I began attending the mormon church at their invitation and it immediately settled me. It gave me a safe place to live amid the chaos. It was an escape from my seriously problematic nuclear family, which by the way today I limit contact with because although they are good people, to me they can be toxic in some ways. The mormon church became my spiritual home. I had very spiritual experiences and did experience that burning in the bosom. I was completely convinced that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the mormon church was true and Gods kingdom on the earth. I accepted an invitation to be baptized without ever having the missionary discussions and my parents consented. I prepared to go on my mission.
After high school I had no other plans than to serve a mission. I went to work in the construction business as laborer and began saving money for my mission. I had my call at age eighteen and was in the mission field about two weeks after my ninteenth birthday. New York Rochester mission right smack dab in the middle of Cumorah. How utterly exhilarating to be serving in places that I had read about in the Doctrine and Covenants. I was literally walking where Joseph had walked. Preaching where he had preached, and seeing the things he saw. We had testimonies in the Sacred Grove. I spent a great deal of time living at the Hill Cumorah as a worker on the Pageant put on there every summer so I got to be around the historical sites and be completely immersed in the history.
I busted it in the mission field and had success. My numbers were far beyond what most missionaries produce. And then something a little strange began to erupt around the last six months of my mission. I began to be very tired. Exhausted really. It was not the normal trunkiness of most missionaries but a deeper feeling of disaffection and personal estrangement. I did not know it then but this was the beggining of my apostacy that took twenty eight more years to come to fruition. But one of the feelings I was having was a resignation that mormonism was not the only true religion. I had met too many good people in the mission field that just simply had no inclination to mormonism whatever. I was starting to feel what I have come to call "mormon fatigue". Rooted in the demands of the faith, but abutting against a wall of deeper feelings of what it means to be true to ones self. I knew deep inside that these happy folks who did not come to mormonism were just as happy and fulfilled as me but I could not admit it to myself. In addition. No matter how hard I tried I could not shake my sexuality and I regularly masturbated as a missionary. This created in me a deep seated feeling of guilt and loss of self esteem. I felt like a complete failure and I slipped into depression.
Next thing you know I am home and the feeling of being released was beyond exhilaration . It felt so good to be out from under the yoke of missionary perfectionism and expectations. I could not admit it at the time but I was so glad it was over and that I had come home honorably after serving a good mission. I had done it and now I was sure I would be rewarded. I went to work and by god I found myself back on a construction site as a laborer. Just where I was when I left. I was different though. Different in ways that I could not even admit to myself. Truth is I was coming into my own and feeling some feelings that I continue to have today. I am a Sybarite. A man of the world. I love the pleasures of life. I would not consider myself a hedonist and frankly am very tame by some standards today but I love what life has to offer and drink it in now without shame. But as a twenty one year old return mormon missionary these feelings, I was instructed, were to be considered anathema. But they were there and were not going away. Again the church forces me against the wall of my innermost values and what it calls truth.
I did all the stuff that return missionaries do including enrolling in college, and dating ,and going to dances, and you know the routine. My friends began pairing off with women of their choice and the regular run of temple marriages took place. But I did not, for some lucky reason, find myself trodding the path. I was living the rules and participating but there was something not right. I was beggining to not fit in and just about that time I went inactive. I guess truth be told I just could not live it anymore. I wanted to play and so I did.
After about four years of partying hard I found myself quite rung out and to make a long story a little shorter I went back to church. Frankly I needed to get my life back together. I went thorugh a church court and got back in the harness and off I went with my shoulder to the wheel. I again dated, and danced, and did all the stuff I did before and yet as my mormon aquaintances began pairing off again into their second marriages, I stayed single. This went on for about fifteen years. I was getting callings that required a great deal of time and held a lot of responsibility. I was moving up the hierarchy and making all the necessary inside contacts. I was being groomed for the slots no one really wants but that is where I was going. Then I moved to another city and something strange happened.
Once I got seated in my new enviroment I began only attending Sacrament meeting. I avoided my normal ward and went to various single wards. I realize now I did it intentionally to avoid the callings that I knew were sure to come. Small ones at first and then up the ladder to the ones that take twenty to thirty hours a week. About this time I was realizing that mormon fatigue had settled in again. Truthfully Iwas sick of mormonism. I was tired of the contracted view of most members. The surety that they were " on the right track" while at the same time immersed in such a small religious space. Although I did not know it apostacy was right around the corner. A corner I turned one late evening when for absolutely no conscious reason I did a google on mormonism. I had never even thought to do one before. No one had suggeted it. It was like the idea to do it came out of nowhere. I landed at Recovery From Mormonism and the dam burst.
I read about the Book of Abraham and was floored. Stunned really. Then I ordered Palmers book An Insiders View of Mormon Origins and it was over. I have been back to a mormon church once since then and that was for a missionary farewell.
I live a genuine life now. I am not married because I dont want to be. I love being single. I read voraciously. I have a succesful business that keeps me busy and engaged. I have great loving friends and feel that I am one of the most blessed people on this earth. I AM LIVING MY DEEP SEATED VALUES NOW. Not the values of some organization. Now I know where the mormon fatigue came from. I had outgrown mormonism as a twenty one year old missionary and it took me twenty eight more years to realize it.
Now I want to say something in conclusion. If I had googled mormonism and found through my reading that mormonism held up under scrutiny I would have turned off my computer and gone to bed. I would have woke up the next morning and headed off to church. I would be there today. I was willing to do what I was asked if I thought the church was the Kingdom of God. But when I realized it was built by men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and perpetuated by men today who dissemble to protect the faith , staying was not an option. It was time to move forward. And so on we go to greater heights.