Hello, you can call me Misora.
I was once a Mormon. Thank the universe I am not anymore.
About me
I usually tell people first and foremost that I am an artist, but I am also a furry and a writer, as well as a musician, cosplayer, gamer, jewelry maker, etc. I have quite possibly too many hobbies. Oh, and I have ADHD. The universe has pumped me full of whimsy and depression.
I'll focus on the furry part here for now since it does play into my story to some degree.
The only fursona I currently have is Misora, my winged axolotl that I use as an online avatar. I designed her character while I was still mormon, and was also calling myself a furry at the time (around friends mostly). So if you were wondering, yes, mormons can sometimes be furries.
Interesting note, there is also a christian furry community, although both mormon and christian furries have to eventually adopt a more liberal mindset as the overall furry community is very welcoming to—and a safe space for—neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ individuals.
After all, if you hate all those pretty rainbow colors, it can be hard to be a furry. You will be blinded by the vibrant neon variety.
Most typical mormons can't handle furries at all, nor can they handle even the idea of gay people... But thankfully I got exposed to lots of things by friends, cousins, and the internet as a teenager, and furries were one among many of the things I learned about. Being a furry looked very fun and colorful and interesting—plus I loved animals, plushies, and cosplay. The community just fit me as a person.
Eventually, I decided to finally make my first fursona. I chose an axolotl with wings since I really felt like it fit me. I'm weird, I like to swim, and I've always wanted to have wings and fly. For her name, I wanted something that was a combination of water and the sky. Thus, Misora.
Misora is a combination of the Japanese words for sea (海, usually read as umi), and sky (空, usually read as sora), with the kanji 海空 pronounced just as "Misora" instead of "Umisora".
Sorry, did I mention I was also trying to learn Japanese...? Eh heh...
Anyway, I was very happy with my new fursona, and Misora ended up my way, as a mormon, of "safely" exploring the forbidden sides of myself. For example, Misora is constantly crying rainbow tears (that, coincidentally, are the same colors as the pansexual pride flag), symbolic of the constant depression I was battling at the time and my apathy towards the sadness—I chose to turn my rainfall of tears into a rainbow, so to speak.
Her wings are a symbol of my desire to be free, and her rainbow colored tail fins and gills are a symbol of wanting more joy and color in my life.
Quick note, not all fursonas are necessarily symbolic. Some are just fun! Misora was both.
Lastly, Misora represents confidence in my own sexuality. Mormons are very uh... How can I say this... Okay imagine a married virgin. Sounds ridiculous? Well, they are in fact that squeamish most of the time. If you get lucky, you have basic sex education. If not, well, you get a good luck on your wedding night and probably will have a terrible sex life later (especially if you're a woman).
Anyway, I won't get into all that here (I'll do that in the why I left section), but I was one of the few women who was not afraid to learn about myself and about sex. I was and still am very sex positive and body positive.
I found out later that I was bisexual (I could say pan or bi, but I usually just say bi because I like both flags and bi is more easily understood), and realized Misora represented that part for me too.
Unfortunately for me, being bi is a no-no as a mormon, so I didn't come out of that closet until I got married and my husband and I left that cult for good...
On the Mormon Spectrum
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
It all began when my sad ass was born into church membership, much like the sad asses of my bastard parents...
Don't tell them I said that. If they knew I cussed they'd die. My drinking coffee already almost sent them into cardiac arrest... Heh.
Throughout my childhood and teenagerhood, I would almost say I was a typical Molly Mormon, so to speak. Almost. I was against LGBTQ+ stuff, I didn't cuss, followed the word of wisdom, respected my (asshole) parents, and always carried my physical copy of the scriptures to church and seminary.
I raised my hand plenty of times in Sunday school to ask questions or excitedly share my "spiritual insights". I willingly bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and babysat for moms in the relief society.
In short, I was a good little child. Everyone said I'd be a great mom someday. Everyone called me cute and sweet and kind. Some called me a goody-goody.
I believe I had them all fooled. As far as I could tell, my entire personality in everyone's eyes at church was the very image of a pretty little pioneer woman, or something of that nature. It actually disgusted me. I was far more complex than that.
I was made the young women's youth president as a teen, then later in the young adult ward, a relief society counselor. Of course, I didn't wear nearly enough makeup or floral pattern dresses or delicate jewelry—nor talk in that obnoxious, airy, soft, submissive, feminine mormon girl voice—which was required to become a relief society president, but apparently I was acceptable as a counselor.
The relief society president position was reserved for only the most effeminate, submissive, anti-feminist, polite, pretty, self-sacrificing women. You know, the ones who had no life of their own and no personality beyond "serving others".
If you were a relief society president ot your mom was one or your friend was one, please know I'm not dissing the women, I'm dissing the system. I am dissing the sexist religion that has abused and continues to abuse women, and also men and everyone else.
Seriously though, I am glad I did not allow anyone to make me a doormat. Whew.
Still, sadly, I was a Molly Mormon in the eyes of everyone I knew. When I reached adulthood, I followed the approved mormon life path—I went to BYU Idaho, got married in the temple, yadda yadda.
However, I wasn't the well-behaved, pretty little lamb they had believed me to be, polite and compliant in every way.
Why?
I didn't always go to church every Sunday due to my mental health and bad days at home dealing with my toxic family, and I chose not to serve a mission.
Women aren't required to serve church missions, but there is definitely social pressure. And because of how "well behaved" I seemed to be, everyone told me CONSTANTLY how I "would make such a good missionary!" and how "bright of a light!" I was. What they were really saying is that I was so brainwashed that I would make a good brainwasher.
Well, turns out, I wasn't that brainwashed, because I simply wasn't interested in serving a mission for the church at all. Not when I could get married. That was the important thing for women in mormonism—getting married and having lots of babies. It was definitely trained into the kids and teenagers.
You are basically groomed as a mormon. They call the 11-year-olds "youths" now, which is to say, young WOMEN and young MEN. Um, no. 11-year-olds are not men OR women. They are CHILDREN. To call a child an adult, so that they will want to get married younger, is disgusting and predatory.
However, all that said, I'm glad I married my husband when I did. It was good timing for me, and we are happy.
Socially in the church I never did get much approval for skipping the mission part though. The women who served missions got lots of praise and the men who had also been missionaries usually liked them more, because then they could talk about their brainwashing experiences together.
Another naughty thing about me was that I was curious. Curious about marriage, and things I could only experience within said marriage. I was curious about trying coffee because my dad said he loved the smell. I was curious about the family members who had left the mormon church and why they'd left. I was curious about why I seemed to like gals as well as guys, even if I would never admit it. And as I mentioned in my "About Me" section, I had taken an interest in the furry community despite having been "warned" by friend that they were absolutely depraved and evil (they're not), since I liked anthropomorphic animals.
Unfortunately I was still a brainwashed idiot at the time—a victim, if you will—so all of the natural, logical, human questions that would have saved me from this awful cult sooner were shoved away into the dark drawers of my mind.
I told myself I didn't have questions, that I was fine and my testimony was strong. And I believed it!
I was delusional that none of the church's history would ever bother me, that none of the racism, sexism, and rampant abuse would ever matter, that I wouldn't eventually find the CES letter, and that it wasn't obvious as fuck to the entire rest of the world that I was in a cult!
Thank goodness I had the complacency that the church warns will "endanger your testimony" and put you in the hands of Satan.
Wow, just complacency, just a little bit of a reasonable break from obsessing over church stuff, not even doing anything wrong, and I'm in the hands of Satan?!
Well fuck it, Satan can have me then! Especially if it means I don't have to hate myself anymore and take mountains of disrespect from other people when I stand up for myself, and I can take a fucking break from religion!
You might be asking, if you've made it to here after all this rambling, what broke my shelf? Why did I leave? Was it the sexism? Was it being bi? Was it all the curiosity you had? Was it being a furry? What was it?
Well first, I was bullied as a kid. At church. The place I had been told was safe because it was where good people went to learn about Jesus, because believing in Jesus makes you a good person. Thus, I knew the church's and all of christianity's hypocrisy from a young age.
I don't know why I didn't leave sooner. The things done to me were enough for anyone to leave their religion, let alone question it.
I wasn't just bullied either—I was harassed by boys and later men throughout all the years of my membership. My shitty parents never once intervened. The best I got from anyone in the church was a halfhearted "I'm sorry you went through that," and the worst? "Well, I hope you forgive them."
Turns out being righteous and good means saying yes to abuse of all kinds, even sexual harassment, and pretending it magically doesn't actually bother you to deal with it.
What broke my shelf?
Being abused by the system. Being told it's my fault if I get raped. Being told I am an object and have to cover myself so the men who can't control themselves won't soil their priesthood and lose their chastity to the slutty temptress I will become if I reveal so much as a thigh or a shoulder.
Being gaslit by my parents into thinking my attraction to women is only the platonic kind and that I am only attracted to men so I'll marry a man and churn out a billion babies like a baby factory.
I'm bisexual. Thanks to my husband, I now know and love this about myself. And get this—our marriage is fine, because being bisexual isn't a sin and it doesn't destroy your marriage to be a bisexual!
Now if I'd been a lesbian? That would have been horrible for my husband to find out AFTER marriage! Or what about aroace? My cousin is aroace, and wouldn't you know it—the mormon sex cult isn't okay with you never getting married and having babies. Everyone in my family is all hush hush about my cousin's "tragedy".
Really...? Okay, first it's a sin to want sex before marriage, and now it's a sin to not want it at all???
What???
The mormon sex cult wants you to have sex but with none of the fun. You can have babies. Sex is for making babies. That's all. That's what they tell you. Have babies so we can brainwash them and then take their money like we did with you, and turn them into slaves that clean our buildings for free and make more babies for us and also do free global advertising for us. Like we did with YOU. Hahaha. Pyramid scheme!
What broke my shelf?
I read the CES letters with my husband after we questioned Joseph Smith's polygamous practices. What the guy who wrote them said made absolute fucking sense.
We'd just gotten married in the temple and felt no special "spirit" there—instead the man who was performing our ceremony trailed off in the middle of the vows and went on about me having babies. Ew, old man. Gross.
"You will labor together—you know, when I think of labor, I think of labor and childbirth."
G R O S S .
Another old man in the temple looked me up and down and told my husband to "have fun" which gave me the most vile feeling. Have... Fun?! From a 70 or 80-something-year-old man!? What am I, a doll? A toy?
So I thought about our experiences in the temple and my experiences as a child as we read the CES letters and I finally realized: Do I really want to raise any of our hypothetical kids in a church founded by a man who abused women and teenage girls sexually, wrote a bible fanfic, and conned a bunch of people into giving him money to do other horrible things? A church who allows bullies and pedos to thrive and do whatever they please, while the victims are silenced and even vilified? A church that steals its members money and lies about how they use said money, and refuses to reveal how much of it they have hoarded? A church that promotes homophobia, racism, and sexism?
No.
My hypothetical children will not be part of this cult. They will not suffer the depression and self-hatred I did, and they will have parents who love them unconditionally and do not demand that they hide their true selves for fear of being harmed or ridiculed by their own family.
If my kid tries to tell me that they're gay or bi or trans or anything else, I'll be there to listen. If my kid tells me that someone is stalking them or harming them, I won't call them paranoid like my mother did to me.
Mormonism is a fake, sparkly little lie. Honestly, they should support abortion, since they believe that children who die before the age of 8 are automatically put into the highest degree of heaven. So a few good people should sacrifice their own salvation and just murder all the children so they can end humanity as quickly as possible and we can all end up in the highest degree of heaven without sinning.
They already baptize people into the church who are already dead, without the person's or even their family's consent. Consent isn't really a thing in the mormon church, you know, you just follow the prophet. Except when you don't. Because sometimes to stay relevant the church decides the previous prophets were wrong for some reason and now some things are different because the current prophet said so.
A million people have had the same concerns I have now. So nothing I say is new.
But that, all that, is why I left. All of that accumulated and broke my shelf. I left because I found out the truth. I left because I wanted the freedom to love my aroace cousin instead of simply pitying them from afar, and I wanted to be able to love my other cousin, who is a lesbian. I wanted to be able to be friends with a trans person and people who drink coffee. I didn't want to be told what to do with my body and my life. I didn't want to be shamed for enjoying sex with my husband.
I was also so, so, SO tired of dealing with my mormon parents, who used every mormon excuse to control me and my life and my relationships. I had many experiences like the following example below:
Parents: We prayed about this together, and we think you should/should not do this thing/be with this person.
Me: What if I already prayed and got a different answer?
Parents: Well we're authorized as your parents to receive revelation from God for you because you're our child.
Me: Yeah well I DIDN'T ASK for your input, and I'm old enough to make my own decisions.
Parents: We just want you to be happy and we love you./You're wrong because we're the parents and we can never be wrong, ever. We are smarter than you. Respecting your parents means you always take their advice even if it is obviously unwanted and/or bad advice.
Me: UghhhhhhhhHHhHHHhHH SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
(Disclaimer:)
I'm sorry to any parents reading this last part that have counterpoints. Please know this was an example of my parents gaslighting me and using religion to undermine my ability to confidently make decisions, and I will not be taking any of your counterpoints.
It doesn't matter how much you love your children. Force feeding someone your "advice" is never helpful, as it will not be received well and may even do more harm than good. It is especially disrespectful to your adult children—who have in fact gathered their own knowledge and experience separate and different from yours—when you treat them as if they are stupid if they don't want your advice. They are not toddlers running with scissors anymore. Also remember: there are plenty of stupid people out there that are age 60 and above. Age does not make you wise. So swallow your generational pride, stop being ageist, and learn to give appropriate advice when it is sought after.
In short, you do not know my parents. They have been sending me "advice" emails constantly for the past year, and are a constant reminder of how obnoxious mormonism is.
Sigh.
Anyway, that's why I left. That's the story. Thanks for reading and I am sorry I am so verbose. I tend to get wordy and I am hoping I can come back and knock the word count of this down a bit and smooth parts out so it's an easier read.
Questions about Mormons My Answers to Questions about Mormonism
#Link to this answer of 'How long was your struggle?' by Misora How long was your struggle? See more answers about 'How long was your struggle?'
I'd like to say not very long, because it took about a week of research for me to leave, but I think it was longer than that. I believe I checked out as early as my childhood, when I was getting bullied and all the Sunday school and primary teachers hated me.
Seriously, the teachers hated me. They separated me from the one friend I had in class because we were whispering, and then my friend ended up whispering with another girl in another class and the teachers didn't do anything about it! That other girl who was not my friend was popular and had plenty of friends. I now had none. My friend stayed my friend, but every birthday party and halloween church trunk-or-treat after that I was abandoned by my friend so she could be with the other girl. I just gave up after a few years.
Honestly, I hesitate to even call it a struggle because it felt so right, like it was something I already knew. I already knew it was all BS, it was just all I had before I went to college. Then I got married, and my husband and I realized we didn't need the BS anymore. It's not hard to deconstruct a religion you grew up lonely and hated in for absolutely no reason other than having ADHD and existing.
None of the promises the church had made had even remotely come true for me. I didn't get the "happiness" I was told I would get when I did what I was supposed to, I never felt like "serving" others just for the sake of serving, and I didn't fit in with anyone. Forgiveness didn't heal trauma and God sure was absent in my life when I needed him. The hypocrisy was everywhere and so much of the culture was messed up. I absolutely hated Utah with a passion.
Leaving the church for me was thankfully pretty easy. It was my parents that made it difficult.
#Link to this answer of 'Did you ever question your sexuality or gender in the church? How you identify now?' by Misora Did you ever question your sexuality or gender in the church? How you identify now? See more answers about 'Did you ever question your sexuality or gender in the church? How you identify now?'
I admit I picked this question to answer because the way the mormons deal with any other sexuality besides heterosexuality is both amusing and sad.
I also wanted to share my stories in regards to being not straight and growing up mormon.
Okay, so I'm bisexual, we've established that.
Yes, I questioned my sexuality. I questioned it over and over!
The first time I became aware of it has become a core memory, and it happened at church, so it is relevant to the topic of mormonism and my experience with the church.
I was about 12 or 13, so I had started puberty and was beginning to get those whirlwind teenager crushes. We had a Sunday school lesson on homosexuality, and if I remember right, I did not know anything about homosexuality before that lesson. It was a brand-new concept to me.
The lesson was as basic as "So there are boys that like boys and girls that like girls, but God says that's a sin because he made boys to like girls and girls to like boys so they can get married and make babies. If a boy marries a boy, they can't make babies, and that'd bad."
I was so shocked by that, it's funny. When I got home I was like, "All I ever did when I played pretend with my toys was imagine the girls with the boys and the boys with the girls but there are OTHER combinations that sinners came up with?!"
Back in the classroom though, before I got home, I discovered something else. Right as I had grasped this basic concept of there being more than one kind of sexuality that people experience, the door opened. In walked a new girl that I had never seen. Her name was Mary. The first thing I thought of when I saw her was: "Wow, she's so pretty."
And she was. Immaculate makeup for a 13-year-old, hair the color of milk chocolate at about bob length, a soft voice, and deep, dark eyes like a deer's. I think her eyes were dark brown. They might have been blue.
But wait! Did I LIKE her? Already? Was I... A sinner? A... A lesbian?
I had no concept at that time that people could actually also like both men and women and all genders, so I thought you were either a lesbian or a "normal" person. I had only ever liked boys before. Thus, I panicked, and my confusion began.
I shoved whatever those feelings were as deep into the unknown darkness of my brain as I could, and as a blush rose to my cheeks I somehow invited Mary to sit next to me. She did. She was a shy, introverted person, like I was. She just didn't have the ADHD to make her seem louder, like I did.
To my memory I was awkward the whole time, but I asked Mary her name and found out later she knew karate. I have always loved ninjas and I thought and still think marshal arts are fucking awesome.
So yes, I developed a secret crush on Mary.
I found out later that my inviting her to sit in class meant a lot to her and when we were at girl's camp (youth church camp for only teenage girl) in the summer, she stood up during testimonies around the campfire the last night before the end of camp, and said that I had made her feel so welcome at church and that she'd really needed a friend. She even cried over it.
I remember feeling confused that she saw me as a friend since I'd only talked to her here and there because I'd actually avoided her as much as I could without making it obvious. I didn't want to not be her friend or anything, I was just crazy smitten by her and I didn't want to blush in her presence.
Maybe Mary liked me back, who knows. I didn't think I was very pretty since I had glasses and didn't know much about doing my hair or makeup. I had only brothers and I usually hung with the boys as a teen. But I still to this day have wondered why on earth she talked about me in front of everyone at camp, in front of me, and we never talked after that.
Anyway, I was terrified about telling my parents I also liked girls as well as boys so at first I didn't tell them. Then I asked hypothetically what they would do IF I liked girls. Their answer gave me enough bravery to then tentatively suggest that *maybe* I liked girls to my mom. It was more of a question, really. Like, "Do I like girls? Here's some evidence to suggest that maybe I do," and my mom was like, "Ohhhh, you don't like girls, that's just platonically finding them aesthetically pleasing."
No, I in fact did get nervous in a different way around some of my female friends that was not in fact platonic attraction. It was romantic attraction.
Sadly for years I let my mom gaslight me because I did not want to be a bisexual mormon. I wanted to believe I didn't like women that way. I brought up my worries for years and still my mom insisted on dismissing it.
I finally came to grips with my reality after I got married to my wonderful husband. I shared my embarrassing "secret" with hin, and he considered it with me for a while before saying, "I think you might actually be bi." I of course checked to make sure that he wasn't bothered by that if that were the case, reassuring him that it did not mean that I didn't love him or would find him any less attractive, and he reassured me that he actually found it cute that I was also attracted to women.
I felt very validated and relieved, since I had thought about it for so long and had so many other experiences that I felt like I couldn't hide it anymore. Coming out was a good feeling. My hope is that many more people can feel that way about their own sexualities in the future.
#Link to this answer of 'Are you happy?' by Misora Are you happy? See more answers about 'Are you happy?'
Yes, very. Both my husband and I are very happy. We are learning more amazing things about ourselves and the world every day, and it feels amazing.
The church will say that you won't be happy unless you're a mormon, a member of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," and guess what? They're wrong.
So tell those bitches to eat shit and go live your best, most happiest life!
#Link to this answer of 'Any suggestions about how to deal with my still-Mormon family?' by Misora Any suggestions about how to deal with my still-Mormon family? See more answers about 'Any suggestions about how to deal with my still-Mormon family?'
I chose this question to answer because I am currently living it right now and am not entirely sure what to do. Thankfully my husband's family is more mixed, with his father being a non-member and two of his older siblings being ex-members. We were thankfully not the first ones in his family to leave.
So far, what has helped is to remain true to myself without being combative. Respectfully disagreeing, basically. My MIL says something racist? Playfully point it out or keep my mouth shut and vent to my husband later have been my go-to responses. I don't like mormons managing me and my beliefs and values, so I shouldn't really try manage them either I guess.
Even though a lot if not most mormons will have zero self-awareness and will try to manage my beliefs but demand that I never even slightly challenge or "disrespect" theirs. Urgh.
I think how you will deal with your family will be dependent on your family situation. It might not be safe to tell them you left or are even doubting, depending on the family.
It's also going to depend on what you're like as a person. Some people are nonconfrontational and don't want to rock the boat or stir the pot with any of their relationships.
In my situation, I am a very passionate person, and while my husband's family is fine, my family is not. They are a wreck. I am not the first person to leave the church on my side either, but my side of the family does not have a good track record with it comes to dealing with family that decides to take a different road in life.
Most of my family members that have left the church have been socially rejected and excluded from the family, and are treated as lesser and like delinquents. So much for mormonism's Families are Forever brand.
I do not live with my parents anymore so if they have a problem with me, tough. I am going to give them plenty of crap because they deserve it. They are absolute jerks and have behaved very obnoxiously to me and everyone else in my family for a long time.
Currently, I sort of harass my easily-offended, passive aggressive parents with my newfound love of coffee, and they hate it... Uh, quite a bit.
It's my way of giving the middle finger to them, without going far enough to the point that they'll send a confrontational email.
God I hate those emails so much.
My dad did send me a weird email at one point that was his response to my pointing out that the church used to include soda as a no-no drink along with tea and coffee because it had caffeine, but then the church changed it so soda was okay for some reason (it was so they could invest in the Pepsi company I believe).
He hadn't had anything to say in the moment, because I was right. Why didn't the church just say coffee was okay? They haven't been able to use science to prove that coffee is any worse than soda, and soda, I also pointed out, is much more unhealthy anyway.
The best thing he could do was send me a short email that said something along the lines of "Hey here's this interesting article about church history and the pioneers." Dad, I didn't care about the pioneers when I was mormon, why would I care now?
Anyway. Ultimately, my personal issues aside, trust yourself. Do what you need to do. Don't let other mormon family members convince you to allow others to abuse you with the lie that you are a mean and bad person if you stand up for yourself and guard your peace and safety. Guard your peace and safety!
If you have a family that legitimately loves you and they are simply victims of the brainwashing of mormonism, I'd say set boundaries, and, when necessary, limit contact.
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