Sally believed in real love and integrity, but no longer saw those values at church. What she found was a Corporate Mormon Jesus that was not living the Golden Rule or living the rules it subjects its own members to. She resigned because “although it’s easier to walk away, I don’t want my name associated …
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Adam saw the church as providing a guilt-driven narrative aimed only at keeping him in control. This isn’t a healthy environment, let alone a church, and now he’s enjoying his freedom and a life of exploration, while at the same time admitting there is still a struggle. He’s found that communities that understand his journey …
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Do you have exmormon trauma? Try writing your story. Write about your faith deconstruction or crisis. wasmormon.org gives you a place to do this important and healing writing. Consider contributing your story to the site so others can read it and find community and validation as well! Suppressing the trauma is bad for us and …
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As a convert in his late teens, Bill Reel learned early that church history was messy, but loved it. He began a podcast (which has now grown to host over a dozen individual podcasts) to discuss and explore this messy mormon history. Over the years through examining the church, he discovered that the Mormon church …
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Rebekah didn’t have to look further than the prejudice against women to know that the Mormon church was not where she belonged. Even though it took a few years, she doesn’t look back. I enjoy music and running. I am a hiker and explorer. I was a mormon. I grew up in the church. I …
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Heidi was a faithful member who enjoyed studying church history. Recently, the “new” church history became disturbing and sounded more like a cult. Through her spouse leaving the church she struggled with the fear-based messages of church leaders and digging in to understand when they are speaking as prophets vs as men, realizing that they …
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Laycie had a rude wake-up call when she was put into a situation to choose between her church and her child. Thankfully, she listened to her love and realized that she was in a cult. So happy to know that she got out and supported her child! ❤️ I’m here. I’m queer. I love the …
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Rebecca was always a devoted mother and homeschooled her children. Ward leaders frowned upon homeschooling and judged her for it. As she found herself and studied mysticism more, she saw that it was not compatible with the church. I was an overly devoted mormon throughout my life. I was a homeschooling mother to four children …
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Jayme sought evidence for the testable truth claims of the church. He looked at the Book of Mormon and found it lacking when using history and science as his guide. I was a mormon. The testable truth claims that need to be true for the Book of Mormon to be true are not true. A …
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Jen supported her family through trials and desperately wanted to be together forever with her mother who passed when she was a teenager. But between experiencing sexism in the church, her son coming out as gay, and her daughter struggling with the corporate sales tone of her mission it didn’t add up. She struggled with …
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Jessie was troubled by her shelf items: issues with church history, sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Mormon church. It became too much to reconcile, and she’s lucky to have left the church as a whole family. Born and raised in Germany and live now in Texas. I was a mormon. We left the church …
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Jeff believed it all and served until he reached a tipping point where he found belief itself to be damaging. He stopped believing in anything and struggled through a mixed-faith marriage until he discovered “so much nastiness cluttering up nearly every aspect of the church” and sharing these issues with his wife, she joined him …
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Fred lived as dedicated to the church as anyone could. He watched respected people leave the church and he was curious about why they left. So, he followed up with some research and collected issues onto his shelf, but he was able to reconcile them over time with his faith and would not deny the …
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Spencer was all in. He has a mind for science, skepticism and critical thinking though. He applied these principles to his beliefs and they did not withstand the test. He doesn’t see evidence for supernatural beliefs and therefore left the church. I enjoy skiing, technology, and skepticism. I grew up Mormon, married in the temple, …
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Jean was impressed with the ‘true religion’ as taught by the missionaries and joined the church with her young family. After serving faithfully for a long time and even serving a senior mission to South Africa, she collected a few issues onto her shelf. She questioned why she and the other missionaries weren’t better protected …
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Garrett stumbled into the rabbit hole of doctrine inconsistencies while doing his best to teach the youth of the church. He studied deeply and what he was finding troubled him enough to stop. He felt the prompting to continue to “seek truth. [He] felt assured that if the church was true, if the restoration was …
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Bart was a long-time and deeply familiar member of the church. His family was in the church for 6 generations and he served in nearly all the callings in his 40 years of service. Finally, his shelf collapsed when he tried to make sense of the church’s truth claims. The truth claims don’t add up. …
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Lindsy grew up doing all the right things according to the church. She did EFY, BYU, married young and had children. She had normal doubts and things to place on her shelf, but eventually the shelf broke for her and her husband with the CES letter. It gave a new narrative that Joseph Smith just …
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Kelly has a story of conversion and deconstruction and deconversion. She went from being a “Golden Convert”, to feeling racist discrimination for the first time in her life in the Mormon church doctrines. She dug in to learn all the hidden issues in church history and despite her best efforts, could no longer believe the …
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Being raised in the Mormon church and even serving a foreign language mission and teaching Sunday school gospel principles class kept Erika busy in the church. But when she learned disturbing issues in church history she felt God leading her out of the church. She has issues with the treatment of LGBTQ members by the …
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FreeAtLast shares the resignation letter sent to his bishop after struggling with being gay and Mormon. He couldn’t be gay, Mormon and happy. After trying, here couldn’t not be gay but he could be not Mormon and still find happiness. Born and raised in the lds church in the Midwest. Very faithful family. Served a …
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Tyler thinks logically and teaches his children critical thinking. He studied the church’s truth claims and found them lacking. He felt betrayed and hurt that he was never given a fair chance to make a decision with complete and honest information. We feel lied to because the church has not been transparent about its own …
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Aaron faithfully dug in deep to explain away the anti-mormon lies he was exposed to. The more he studied, the more problems he found until he realized the anti-mormons were the ones being honest and sharing the true history with evidence, not the church to which he’d dedicated his whole life to. This sent him …
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Rodney collected issues onto his shelf while serving in his calling. Eventually, when looking into the origins of the Book of Mormon he found some answers which helped him answer everything on his shelf. The issues were all red flags he’d come across that he couldn’t figure out, but once you see the reality, the …
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Richard had doubts, but still felt the obligation to serve a mission. Once he was there he realized the doubts needed attention and he needed to reevaluate his testimony so he returned early from his mission. He discovered the doubts had merit and they were only the tip of the iceberg! All the puzzle pieces …
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Being born into the church many have had the thought that they wouldn’t be members had they not been born into it. Brik is among them, but parenting brought her to study the church’s truth claims. She wanted to know deeply before raising her children in the church too. She found that the truth claims …
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Kristie did all the right things and was an exemplary mormon mother teaching her children the gospel. As is common she worried about the mormon belief in eternal polygamy but still didn’t stray even after she heard more about honest church history about Joseph Smith’s affair with Fanny Alger which evolved into plural marriage and …
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From full devotion and good mormon stock, Valerie had items on her shelf from an early age. As time went on, the concerns on her shelf accumulated until she couldn’t ignore them all. Her shelf broke through the years of research trying to make it all work. You can’t ignore things once you know them, …
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Through research, Jeremy finds multiple instances of the church changing doctrine over time as well as some of these changes being led by the law rather than by revelation and prophetic leadership. The story of the first vision certainly evolved into what it is today, it wasn’t even a footnote of church history until 20 …
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Ken served faithfully in the mormon church for 30 years. He concluded that many so-called facts about church history, church doctrine and church operation were not true. Thus the church was not true. He lambasts the church and its leaders while also calling for an uprising of the disillusioned and the disaffected. He calls for …
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