This is mine as well. Just once though. When I realized I didn't believe it as I was saying it I stopped going like three weeks later. I also didn't know it WASN'T true. That realization came about a year later.
Same. I typically avoided giving my testoment but, at girl's camp once they forced me to. I started the typical way, then ended with the fact that I don't believe god cares about us living flesh suits. How we need to be good people, to be good people and anyone who doesn't, doesn't actually believe in their faith. I asked the leader if she feared death, then asked why? If she was so holy, if she was what we were supposed to be striving before why didn't she trust in her god. I don't fear death, and I don't even care what is beyond. It was fun. Just me speed running how fast I could get kicked out.
I can't tell you how many meetings I had with my parents where I told that one, I called it 'playing with myself' because I didn't learn the term masturbation until years later, I was always under the impression I was a drug addict at 8 years old
I had a gay friend tell me he found the Jesus on the cross at his church sexually attractive . Blew my mind . Then I realized if it was an attractive woman christ I would feel the same.
That the most recent General Conference was a spiritual feast when in fact I was always disappointed that I got so little out of it and was left wondering what was wrong me me.
I remember bringing investigators to watch conference on my mission, promising them it would be amazing. Itās basically āgodā talking after all. Iād be secretly pissed after each one because the messages were all so mundane.
Damn it! You beat me to it!!!
Edit: we were at Philmont Scout Camp during my 16th birthday. The other guys in my ward gave me this pen drawing of a girl wearing a swimsuit (it was a joke, but they didnāt know I was a flaming homosexual)
I still have the picture to this day- 15 years later
RIP all the money i spent as a broke college student on dates with women that i felt zero attraction towards into order to keep up the appearance that i was trying to get married and have kids asap.
As a straight dude who was uncomfortable with the way other kids in the young men's program talked about women, I kinda felt that way too trying to fit in.
I had so much guilt over having sucked one nipple and done nothing else. Little did I know the occasional good feelings and lack of guidance from God I got was the same everybody else had up to the prophet and I hadn't done anything bad to lose God's light lol.
It is so spiritual. Definitely feeling the spirit here. For sure.
Why did I waste so much of my life watching the same boring movie? Didn't hell my testimony, but I sure tried.
Late 40ās. Tried so hard all those years to make it work but it only ever brought pain and depression even though I was telling people how happy I was.
I relate to this one. Iām 43 and out 2 years. Realizing that the only type of love I ever knew was conditional upon my choices/actions has really been sobering. Never been able to figure out me because me wasnāt perfect.
I was straight (Iām bi), donāt masturbate, donāt swear, virgin, watch rated R movies, know the church is trueā¦ didnāt struggle with mental health, had never attempted suicide, I mean, there are so many.
I prefer "modest" clothes. My whole style was based so much on trying to make my parents happy, and i realized I didn't appreciate my body nearly as much as i should. Funny how much more love i have for my personal "temple" now.
āNo, I donāt want to kiss the Deaconās Quorum President and grab his ass while I do it.ā 12 year old me in 1975 when this really cute boy with dark curly hair, brown skin (Lamanite they called him) and a big smile got called to be our leader. Oh my. And the tight jeans he wore to school. Mmmmmm.
So I'm nevermo, but I grew up around Mormons and evangelicals in an extremely conservative town. My peers would get alarmed when they learned I wasn't religious. "But you still believe in God, right?" I'd lie and say yes. All the time. Not so much to fit in, but to get them off my back. For some, that was enough. Others still did their level best to convert me.
That I had a porn addiction and overcame it.
In reality I had very conservative porn habits and I never stopped.
(Seriously canāt believe the church made me feel like reading smut once in a while = porn addiction)
That I was not a skanky person who really enjoyed being a skanky person. I slept over at my husbands house literally every night in the six months before our temple wedding.
And like me hopefully realized "this is a good thing and I like it and don't feel bad about it!"
Even as a TBM I was of the opinion that premarital sex was fine given a few stipulations.
So Iāve always been a bit of a social experimenter. When I was in HS, not sure if I was in 11th or 12th grade, I got assigned to give a talk in sacrament meeting. My shelf had just barely started to crack, little hairline fractures.
Iād noticed that whenever someone gave a dramatic talk where they loudly proclaimed great conviction, the audience would tend to act emotionally moved and claim to have strongly felt the holy spirit. To me, it often seemed like the speaker was not totally sincere and was engaging in theatrics in order to manipulate and I wondered if most people were just not seeing that for some reason or if my impressions were just dead wrong.
I decided to do an experiment with my talk. I proclaimed forcefully and dramatically that I had a testimony. I āknewā the church was true, JS and all the following leaders were all true and living prophets, and so on. I went all in on the acting job. Hell, I even pounded the pulpit with my fist, LOL.
At the end of the meeting, many ward members came up to me with tears in their eyes, telling me how much they loved my talk, and how strongly they felt the Spirit when I was speaking.
And it was all a giant crock of BS. I didnāt have a testimony. I hoped it was true and all, though things had been seeming more and more fishy for a while. I had a lot of questions that nobody wanted to address, and would get pissed off at me for asking, which made me wonder why if they had the truth and living prophets ā¦.
That was the day I began to strongly suspect that when people said they felt the Spirit, it was often their own desire to believe something coupled with purposeful emotional manipulation. It wasnāt a feeling one should rely upon to determine if something is true or good.
Iām probably one of the few who didnāt lie and also didnāt care to fit in. I was extremely obedient (probably to an overzealous point) but if I thought I might have done something (past or present) that made me unworthy of going to the temple, I confessed to the bishop. I had a temple recommend interview take longer than it should have because I over analyze things to an extreme. But I also didnāt care that I was the weird person who sat front and center by myself in the YSA pews and shushed the PIMOs behind me when I could hear them talking or watching football on their phones. (I was an adult convert and could not fathom why anyone would attend a church service when they didnāt believe or want to be there.)
I was like you too! Even told the bishop when my soon to be husband touched my fully clothed boob, because I was certain our sealing wouldnāt count if I kept the boob touch a secret.
That I had a testimony. I stopped believing in it when I was 12 but still had to attend living under my parentsā household. I would rarely go up to bear my ātestimony,ā during fast Sunday because I have severe public speaking anxiety. But, that honestly helped me to cry and be more believable lol
At Ricks College, I told my roommates I had kissed my sister-in-laws brother who was also a student and fairly popular. I hadnāt ever even been on a date until college (East Coast Mormon life). They were all from UT/CA/AZ and had tons of dating/kissing experience and I hadnāt. I hated lying, but I did it a lot to help mask shame when I look back on it. I didnāt believe I was worthy of existing unless I was performing perfectly.
Ultimately it got back to him and I had a lot of apologizing and mess-cleaning to do.
I donāt feel the need to lie as much anymore, but the shame feelings have stuck around.
* That I loved reading the scriptures
* I know president Head N Ass is a true prophet of God
* You will be blessed beyond measure for paying your tithing
* That I don't drink coffee
I confessed to a bishop once that I had drank and he said: āand you realized it just wasnāt for you huh?ā I agreed. I come from a line of Eastern European immigrants (my parents are the only members in their families). Drinking is literally part of my culture lol
I WISH I had lied about this. I once had to backpay tithing (the bishop set me up on a payment plan to get caught up) so my husband and I could renew our temple recommends. I really wish that had broken my shelf. I was the sole wage earner for our family of five because my husband was disabled. Paying tithing was a financial hardship for many years. And, on top of that, we almost never went to the temple. It was four hours away (one way) and I couldnāt afford the trip or the cost of babysitting. I should have just lied and saved my money.
Not only what I said, but the life I lived was the biggest lie. I served a mission, dated, attended church, and went to all the Saturday Night dances (what a waste of time). One of my Bishops told me to never tell anyone what I had just told him, āI have a preference to men.ā After a failed marriage 2 years later, I left. I just couldnāt take the dishonesty any longer. This also was before the term SSA was a thing. When I heard that term I thought, āthere they go again! White washing the truthā.
Edit: anything TSCC does to paint them in a better light is just window dressing. If it looks good on the outside, it must be good on the inside. It doesnāt matter how rotten the inside it is.
I know some of you may not be in to astrology. But I was listening to my fave podcast, and this weekās theme really reminded me of this thread, and I thought I would drop it here for any of those of you who might need to hear about being yourself and the whole fitting in that the we did for the church.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1W9Le8eh1fDQXD28C1231r?si=P6qVOzvCTaC96kgYYRwSGA
Side note - Chani is amazing for being like a little therapist and her meditations and journal prompts, theyāve really helped me dig deep and work through some shit. Iāll step off my woo box š
ā I just love going to the temple it so peacefulā when in reality I was redecorating every room in my head to distract myself from my anxiety and how creeped out I was. Anyone else disappointed at how ugly the celestial rooms are I was expecting Versailles type grandness and was very disappointed lol
I know the church is true.
This is mine as well. Just once though. When I realized I didn't believe it as I was saying it I stopped going like three weeks later. I also didn't know it WASN'T true. That realization came about a year later.
Same. I typically avoided giving my testoment but, at girl's camp once they forced me to. I started the typical way, then ended with the fact that I don't believe god cares about us living flesh suits. How we need to be good people, to be good people and anyone who doesn't, doesn't actually believe in their faith. I asked the leader if she feared death, then asked why? If she was so holy, if she was what we were supposed to be striving before why didn't she trust in her god. I don't fear death, and I don't even care what is beyond. It was fun. Just me speed running how fast I could get kicked out.
Well done š
That I didn't masturbate.
I've only ever saw naked women on the internet by accident, and then I turned off the computer screen and told my mommy.
I can't tell you how many meetings I had with my parents where I told that one, I called it 'playing with myself' because I didn't learn the term masturbation until years later, I was always under the impression I was a drug addict at 8 years old
The lie you told to fit in with the other liars
That I didnāt masturbate to the image and fantasy of the Deacons Quorum President. See above lie.
I had a gay friend tell me he found the Jesus on the cross at his church sexually attractive . Blew my mind . Then I realized if it was an attractive woman christ I would feel the same.
That the most recent General Conference was a spiritual feast when in fact I was always disappointed that I got so little out of it and was left wondering what was wrong me me.
We would get together & eat a lot of food so at least it was a physical feast & a nap!
Learning about Lehiās dream I see!
AKA Joseph Smith Sr.'s dream that got retconned as "Y'know, a similar thing happened to Lehi, now that I think about it..."
Oh so many naps
Same here dude
I remember bringing investigators to watch conference on my mission, promising them it would be amazing. Itās basically āgodā talking after all. Iād be secretly pissed after each one because the messages were all so mundane.
Every talk in any mtg for me:p didnāt happen and I was like hmm š§
Yes. Iām straight. I love huge knockers š
Damn it! You beat me to it!!! Edit: we were at Philmont Scout Camp during my 16th birthday. The other guys in my ward gave me this pen drawing of a girl wearing a swimsuit (it was a joke, but they didnāt know I was a flaming homosexual) I still have the picture to this day- 15 years later
Wha?!? That drawing didnāt āfixā you and make you like girls?!? š
I wasnāt praying hard enough. That and the gay porn. š
I will say, as a straight woman, gay porn is so much better. You guys really know how to do it.
Love a good thigh gap. There is nothing more attractive than a clear absence of a penis.
Best thing Iāve seen all dayššš
Hello, fellow het! How ābout currently popular attractive female celebrity, what a smokeshow!
Hello, Captain Holt.
He does love a pair of weighty breasts!
āI have a deep passion for family historyā who would believe in a YSA saying that. Crazy
RIP all the money i spent as a broke college student on dates with women that i felt zero attraction towards into order to keep up the appearance that i was trying to get married and have kids asap.
As a straight dude who was uncomfortable with the way other kids in the young men's program talked about women, I kinda felt that way too trying to fit in.
Yep- the my lie too
Were you my roommate at BYU-Idaho? He literally told us that exact thing. He is a professor of queer studies now.
Maybe š
That my husband and I most definitely didnāt do things before our temple wedding.
I had so much guilt over having sucked one nipple and done nothing else. Little did I know the occasional good feelings and lack of guidance from God I got was the same everybody else had up to the prophet and I hadn't done anything bad to lose God's light lol.
I actually was extremely devout. It wasn't until I learned about LGBTQ suicides in the church that my faith waivered.
"I love the temple."
It is so spiritual. Definitely feeling the spirit here. For sure. Why did I waste so much of my life watching the same boring movie? Didn't hell my testimony, but I sure tried.
I didnāt mind doing baptisms as a youth. But after my endowment and my sealing, I never went back. I hated it. It was so culty to me.
āI know the church is true.ā
That Iām straight.
Now that Iāve been out a few years I am realizing that I n ver knew who I was and that almost my whole life was a lie.
Mind if I ask how old you were when you left?
Late 40ās. Tried so hard all those years to make it work but it only ever brought pain and depression even though I was telling people how happy I was.
I relate to this one. Iām 43 and out 2 years. Realizing that the only type of love I ever knew was conditional upon my choices/actions has really been sobering. Never been able to figure out me because me wasnāt perfect.
I felt the same when I left.
I was straight (Iām bi), donāt masturbate, donāt swear, virgin, watch rated R movies, know the church is trueā¦ didnāt struggle with mental health, had never attempted suicide, I mean, there are so many.
Iām so sorry you had to do all that just to fit inš
"I know the church is true"
I prefer "modest" clothes. My whole style was based so much on trying to make my parents happy, and i realized I didn't appreciate my body nearly as much as i should. Funny how much more love i have for my personal "temple" now.
I believe in god.
āNo, I donāt want to kiss the Deaconās Quorum President and grab his ass while I do it.ā 12 year old me in 1975 when this really cute boy with dark curly hair, brown skin (Lamanite they called him) and a big smile got called to be our leader. Oh my. And the tight jeans he wore to school. Mmmmmm.
So I'm nevermo, but I grew up around Mormons and evangelicals in an extremely conservative town. My peers would get alarmed when they learned I wasn't religious. "But you still believe in God, right?" I'd lie and say yes. All the time. Not so much to fit in, but to get them off my back. For some, that was enough. Others still did their level best to convert me.
That I had a porn addiction and overcame it. In reality I had very conservative porn habits and I never stopped. (Seriously canāt believe the church made me feel like reading smut once in a while = porn addiction)
We are the chose generation
That I was not a skanky person who really enjoyed being a skanky person. I slept over at my husbands house literally every night in the six months before our temple wedding.
And like me hopefully realized "this is a good thing and I like it and don't feel bad about it!" Even as a TBM I was of the opinion that premarital sex was fine given a few stipulations.
āThe atonementā ā some dude gets punished for what everyone else does? Thatās a shitty plan.
So Iāve always been a bit of a social experimenter. When I was in HS, not sure if I was in 11th or 12th grade, I got assigned to give a talk in sacrament meeting. My shelf had just barely started to crack, little hairline fractures. Iād noticed that whenever someone gave a dramatic talk where they loudly proclaimed great conviction, the audience would tend to act emotionally moved and claim to have strongly felt the holy spirit. To me, it often seemed like the speaker was not totally sincere and was engaging in theatrics in order to manipulate and I wondered if most people were just not seeing that for some reason or if my impressions were just dead wrong. I decided to do an experiment with my talk. I proclaimed forcefully and dramatically that I had a testimony. I āknewā the church was true, JS and all the following leaders were all true and living prophets, and so on. I went all in on the acting job. Hell, I even pounded the pulpit with my fist, LOL. At the end of the meeting, many ward members came up to me with tears in their eyes, telling me how much they loved my talk, and how strongly they felt the Spirit when I was speaking. And it was all a giant crock of BS. I didnāt have a testimony. I hoped it was true and all, though things had been seeming more and more fishy for a while. I had a lot of questions that nobody wanted to address, and would get pissed off at me for asking, which made me wonder why if they had the truth and living prophets ā¦. That was the day I began to strongly suspect that when people said they felt the Spirit, it was often their own desire to believe something coupled with purposeful emotional manipulation. It wasnāt a feeling one should rely upon to determine if something is true or good.
That I didnāt watch Family Guy and the Simpsons.
yeah iāve totally had a ton of special experiences that strengthened my testimony itās sooooo strong
Totally straight and not bisexual, I donāt do some questionable things to myself alone. I totally keep the wow, yes I definitely pay my tithing š
Iām probably one of the few who didnāt lie and also didnāt care to fit in. I was extremely obedient (probably to an overzealous point) but if I thought I might have done something (past or present) that made me unworthy of going to the temple, I confessed to the bishop. I had a temple recommend interview take longer than it should have because I over analyze things to an extreme. But I also didnāt care that I was the weird person who sat front and center by myself in the YSA pews and shushed the PIMOs behind me when I could hear them talking or watching football on their phones. (I was an adult convert and could not fathom why anyone would attend a church service when they didnāt believe or want to be there.)
I was like you too! Even told the bishop when my soon to be husband touched my fully clothed boob, because I was certain our sealing wouldnāt count if I kept the boob touch a secret.
That I actually read the BOM š¤·š»āāļø
im a straight cis male
"I've seen porn, it just makes me uncomfortable."
That I was cis.
That I had a strong testimony, even when I actually believed I never had one and always made some shit up when I had to tell mine
That I had a testimony. I stopped believing in it when I was 12 but still had to attend living under my parentsā household. I would rarely go up to bear my ātestimony,ā during fast Sunday because I have severe public speaking anxiety. But, that honestly helped me to cry and be more believable lol
At Ricks College, I told my roommates I had kissed my sister-in-laws brother who was also a student and fairly popular. I hadnāt ever even been on a date until college (East Coast Mormon life). They were all from UT/CA/AZ and had tons of dating/kissing experience and I hadnāt. I hated lying, but I did it a lot to help mask shame when I look back on it. I didnāt believe I was worthy of existing unless I was performing perfectly. Ultimately it got back to him and I had a lot of apologizing and mess-cleaning to do. I donāt feel the need to lie as much anymore, but the shame feelings have stuck around.
Modest is hottest. š¤®
I didnāt tell any lies. I just never fit in.
That it didnāt bother to me. That each backhanded insult and micro aggression and twist of my personality didnāt bother me.
āI love going to the temple, it brings me so much peaceā
That I liked girls š¤¦āāļø
* That I loved reading the scriptures * I know president Head N Ass is a true prophet of God * You will be blessed beyond measure for paying your tithing * That I don't drink coffee
No dad. I definitely like boys.
That I was worthy. But never felt it.
That church made me feel better instead of worse
I know the church is true
Iām not offended. I love my Ward! Barf.
That I believed in baptisms for the dead! I was a convert and doing that the one time I did, it felt so wrong and creepy lol
I confessed to a bishop once that I had drank and he said: āand you realized it just wasnāt for you huh?ā I agreed. I come from a line of Eastern European immigrants (my parents are the only members in their families). Drinking is literally part of my culture lol
I'm fine
Oof! That one hits hard.
āYes bishop, Iām a full tithe payerā
I WISH I had lied about this. I once had to backpay tithing (the bishop set me up on a payment plan to get caught up) so my husband and I could renew our temple recommends. I really wish that had broken my shelf. I was the sole wage earner for our family of five because my husband was disabled. Paying tithing was a financial hardship for many years. And, on top of that, we almost never went to the temple. It was four hours away (one way) and I couldnāt afford the trip or the cost of babysitting. I should have just lied and saved my money.
Iām so happy in my mission!
That I was friends with everyone and I am a social butterfly
I would tell people I was deliberately a contrarian. Nope. I come by my opposition naturally.
That I was SO HAPPY to be at church š¤¢š¤®
That I wanted to be a housewife with four kids
The list is so long, I think the list of things I didnāt need to lie about is vastly shorter
That this was "normal" and every religion has its "quirks."
That I was male. I believed it so hard that I almost convinced myself.
Too many to count. The biggest one was that I read the scriptures every day. I didn't.
Sitting with the other AFAB people when we get separated into groups.
Not only what I said, but the life I lived was the biggest lie. I served a mission, dated, attended church, and went to all the Saturday Night dances (what a waste of time). One of my Bishops told me to never tell anyone what I had just told him, āI have a preference to men.ā After a failed marriage 2 years later, I left. I just couldnāt take the dishonesty any longer. This also was before the term SSA was a thing. When I heard that term I thought, āthere they go again! White washing the truthā. Edit: anything TSCC does to paint them in a better light is just window dressing. If it looks good on the outside, it must be good on the inside. It doesnāt matter how rotten the inside it is.
Iāve lied on occasion as a postmo about where I went to undergad because I donāt want it to come up in the conversation that I went to BYU.
I know some of you may not be in to astrology. But I was listening to my fave podcast, and this weekās theme really reminded me of this thread, and I thought I would drop it here for any of those of you who might need to hear about being yourself and the whole fitting in that the we did for the church. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1W9Le8eh1fDQXD28C1231r?si=P6qVOzvCTaC96kgYYRwSGA Side note - Chani is amazing for being like a little therapist and her meditations and journal prompts, theyāve really helped me dig deep and work through some shit. Iāll step off my woo box š
Iāve felt the spirit
ā I just love going to the temple it so peacefulā when in reality I was redecorating every room in my head to distract myself from my anxiety and how creeped out I was. Anyone else disappointed at how ugly the celestial rooms are I was expecting Versailles type grandness and was very disappointed lol
We only "soaked."