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.

rainbowaxolotl

I was casually questioning things in the church for about 5 years, while still fully believing the church was true and maintaining a strong testimony. But the serious questioning lasted for the next 5 years after that. In the final year, my shelf broke and I knew I was done. So all together, my questioning lasted about a decade.

ladylunafication

I was a raging feminist who complained about YM/YW activity inconsistencies and attitudes from the beginning.
When I went to University I complained about sexism again, and realized how useless I felt as a woman in the church.
When I went on a mission, I saw the church as cruel in the way they treated their missionaries and viewed their investigators as numbers.
When I got married, I realized God was sexist.
It took me YEARS to accept that Mormon God was sexist. Eventually I just convinced myself that that was the church, and it would catch up someday.
It took me a couple years of reading history, and knowing the dark truths about Joseph Smith to realize I didn't believe in him, and that being a part of the Mormon community wasn't worth sacrificing my integrity for.
It took YEARS.
And then it took about one minute.

murphy

Off and on for ten years or more. I put lots on my shelf over the years.

spencer-warner

29 years

proudxmo

About 5 and a half years. Started when I was 11, shelf broke in September 2021 when I was 16

bakiraka01

The time between the debute of the PoX and me submitting my resignation was just shy of 4 years.

autumn-phelps

My first faith crisis happened in 2000. I stopped fully believing around 2010, and disclosed my intent to leave church in 2020. I removed my name from church records in 2022.

bethlundgreen

I knew wanted to leave after one year in, but it took me three years to submit my resignation.

serene

Nearly twelve years from the time I read my first "anti-Mormon" website to the time I decided I was done with the church.

alien236

6 months. I snapped hard. It hurt and I am still going through periods of anger and frustration 1.5 years later. I am still tapped into Mormon news, podcasts, etc but I am considering cutting it all out for my sanity/progress.

downingj

I stared to question things a couple years prior to my faith crisis, but I shoved them down and suppressed them. I feel like everything I had suppressed surfaced at once, and I was out immediately. Transitioning out was fairly quick for me.

becca-walton

I struggled most of my childhood, starting when I was learning about baptism. Over the years, my shelf got heavier and heavier until it finally broke. I struggled so much and I dealt with so much fear and anxiety. The struggle is worth it once you're out.

Anonymous

The initial struggle with nine months, from April 2015 to the end of December 2015. But even now, I struggle with many aspects of Mormonism, these years later. I still stay abreast of the current policies and teachings, I'm following many post Mormonism podcasts, I am active in a number of different exmormon groups and forums, and I am in a mixed-faith marriage. So the struggle really isn't over, as much as it has just subsided.

atoponce

The struggle has lasted years and is ongoing, though lately, things are feeling much less of a struggle. I feel like the bulk of it is behind me: there were a couple years of trying to help my wife through her faith crisis, a couple years of joining in with my own faith crisis, a couple more years of deconstruction, consciously leaving the church and reconstructing my own beliefs. Each step along the way has been a struggle in its own right, but each of them feel like growth at this point.
I had many questions and things on my shelf for as long as I could remember. I was able to put them off and avoid thinking about them for quite a long time. I did have to address them when my wife was struggling with her own faith transition, I dug in to help "fix" things for her and my own faith unraveled as I dug.
There were a couple years of real struggle. I was the executive secretary at the time and was reprimanded by my bishop for some thoughts I shared about Sam Young on facebook. The next spring, I received an accidentally forwarded email thread between the bishop and the relief society president lambasting my wife and I for our lack of faith and poor life choices (I'd recently asked to be released due to plans to travel full-time as a digital nomad family). We still travelled as planned but felt much less guilt about leaving the ward leaders. While we travelled we attended as much as made sense, but my faith crisis was fever pitch by then. While travelling my shelf broke. We told our families that we decided to "take a break" from the church.
There is still some struggle today, but it's centered around family relationships and my own work to define my "purpose". I feel my church membership stunted my adult development of finding my own meaning in life.