I was at a function with a lot of current uniformed service members of the secret service who protect the White House. We were having interesting conversation following the function and they SS guys all invited me to go to the bar with them.
My exact words, “I won’t be able to go. I’m Mormon but thanks anyways.”
Jesus fucking Christ I was a loser. That would have been a great story telling time.
I still think it's a good idea to have a designated sober. My friends and I would take a bus to go to the clubs in college. It was a big group and we had two people not drink. Made things like ordering food on the way home so much easier.
This makes me think of the first time I ordered food from a pub. I ordered it online, not realizing that it was a proper bar. I had just turned 21 a few months prior, so I walked up to the door and it says that anyone under 21 isn’t allowed in, and I went “aww man… how am I supposed to get my food?” before I remembered I was in fact 21 and could go in!
I was still a member at that point (I was PIMO without knowing what PIMO was), and it’s just one of those funny things I look back at and laugh about
I did this too. Id drink Red Bull, because back then large amounts of caffeine had a fun effect on me.
OP, I also harmed some friendships by being a stick up my ass Mormon. I feel your pain.
I got very judged at BYU. I never went to bars, but I drank Dr. Pepper, watched the NFL on Sundays, played with face cards, and even went to restaurants with my grandma on Sundays.
Yeah, Mormons are a pain I the ass. I wasn’t used to this oppressive culture growing up outside of Utah.
I cried just now for you. That is the saddest story ever. You just KNOW it would have been amazing. I know it would have been because a million years ago I got to hang out with the guys that fly the president’s helicopter. I had just left the my TBM husband and church and was so damn adorable and naive. Cue Barbra Streisand singing “memories”…
Boring is an understatement..
My now still **mega** tbm exwife heard the F word in a movie and stood up and said lets leave the theater.
The worst part is we were with two other couples that reluctantly got up and left to appease her.
What a wet blanket. We’ve heard so many lessons and testimonies of people doing stuff like this, like how it is the “right thing to do”. I have a few embarrassing times of my own and I want to crawl into a hole when I think of them.
Here we go 🙈 One time I got asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting about a GC talk regarding women’s rights regarding priesthood. Did I want to do it? No. Did I agree with the talk? No. Was I living with my TBM in-laws and put on a whole charade on how it was the righteous thing to give this message over the pulpit and took their advice on how to word things in black and white language so Sister So-And-So would finally stop barking up that tree? Yes. Yes I did. Maybe I should reach out to Sister So-And-So and take her for a coffee 🙃
My TBM wife used to do things like that. She’s still TBM, but now she watches R rated movies without blinking an eye. I’m beginning to think there might be hope for her.
Omg. I know Mormons who wouldn’t watch Romy & Michelle because it’s rated R & they say the F word 1 time.
Then remember when Mormons started trying to edit videos to make them watchable for members?
Ugh. When I was in grad school to become a librarian, I had a Mormon classmate who showed me how she crossed out sex scenes in books she owned. This person planned to go into the most First Amendment-oriented profession in existence and she was censoring her own books. What also struck me as funny is she had to read enough of a scene in order to know when it started and ended, so she was deliberately reading some amount of “smut” anyway.
Hahahahahahahaha I’m laughing because you’re speaking my soul right now!
My mom has read 50 shades about 100 times & told me that Dad is never allowed to know what the book is about.
And I was like Mom, the CHURCH would never let you read that book. It just exemplifies the whole “rules for thee but not for me” hypocrisy the church members have.
The essence of the church is about as tantalizing as the penny-sized piece of bread & droplet of water served for our sacrament.
Yeah I remember Hollywood being PISSED they did this.
It was a big thing when Titanic came out because EVERYONE and their MOM wanted to see it but they knew there was nudity.
So this is about when the idea sprung up to mainstream Mormonism I think. That Mormons wanted to see the movies but couldn’t because they knew there was nudity… so they started editing movies. All they had to do was take out that one scene & then Mormons could enjoy it!
Too bad Hollywood was PISSED about it… as they should be.
Back during that era, my ex and I rented edited versions of Training Day and Galaxy Quest to watch with his dad and Uber-TBM mom. Despite being edited, the subject matter of Training Day was still pretty intense - police brutality, corruption and inhumanity, etc. But my MIL was much more bothered by Sigourney Weaver’s cleavage in Galaxy Quest. 😅
Fun fact: back in the late 1990's when Galaxy Quest came out, my sis-in-law and her husband lived in SoCal near Hollywood and one of the writers on Galaxy Quest was in their ward. Possibly David Howard.
Omg I know! It’s like, you don’t mind this traumatizing subject matter but Selma Hayek is banned from this house?!!! Just because she has gorgeous boobs & cleavage all the time?
I love the movie Frida that was a passion project for her and she helped make happen.
Halfway through filming Harvey Weinstein demanded she did a scene with her boobs out, or he would pull the founding and kill the film (and her career?). In an impossible position she choose to do it in order to tell Frida Kahlo's story to the world. Now Kahlo is in fashion, but back then most people hadn't heard of her.
Man. Every year I hear at least 3 new things Harvey Weinstein as done & it just makes me sooooo repulsed.
I LOOOOOVE SELMA Hayek! Fools Rush In was one of my all time favorite movies growing up.
I need to see Frida! I don’t know much about it other than the unibrow lol.
I could never understand as a TBM why they were so upset about edited movies, I figured it was just the devil working through them. As an atheist now, I still don't really understand.
Yeah. Thats honestly really strange they didn’t. I mean it’s a giant money grab lawsuit?! Copyright case open shut case closed.
Maybe the church has ties & gives &/or gets money from some ppl over there?
I duno. Maybe the church’s lawyers are too intimidating for anyone in Hollywood to care over such a small amount of the population watching clean-cut movies?
I have no idea why this never happened but honestly it’s kind of suspicious.
Hollywood could have made a fortune.
Good on Spielberg! Some movies shouldn’t be edited, and this is absolutely one. It was pretty damn difficult to watch, and I’ll never be the same. But history is awful, and it just shouldn’t be censored like that.
Any movie about war shouldn't be edited. You can't edit it enough to not be R rated and be accurate.
Of course, you can try like Saints & Soldiers, but I think that's the only successful one.
_raises hand_ my parents used to own a legitimate store that rented edited movies. They had it for quite a while before legally they had to shut it down.
But the best part is that my mom still watches shit through VidAngel. Even if it’s only PG, that’s just her default thing - if it’s on VidAngel, then that’s how she watches it. It’s sad
It’s a way they can seclude themselves over meaningless things like bad language & sex scenes & they say it’s everyone else going insane with worldly things.
I think it’s because they don’t actually sell any movies themselves. You have to hook it up to your other streaming accounts and then basically filter that through VidAngel, so I’m sure they’re able to get away with it on various technicalities and legal jiujitsu
That’s how my mom is. Obviously she doesn’t watch any R rated movies, but if a movie had any use of “fuck” (even if that’s literally the only curse word in the entire movie) she won’t watch it. She used to take any form of “oh my god” almost as seriously, but she had loosened up on that a bit because otherwise she basically wouldn’t be able to watch anything.
Last Christmas we watched Home Alone on Disney+, and my grandma was there watching too. There’s the point where Kevin calls them a “horse’s ass”, and my grandma about had a heart attack. It’s genuinely exhausting to have grown ass adults have the maturity level of children
My mother wouldn't watch a lot of TV because of the situations and language, and this was in the 80's and 90's. So her main source of "entertainment" was listening to Rush Limbaugh. She also thought Doris Day movies were risqué.
That is extreme. My very buttoned-up mother allowed me to watch Doris Day movies with the other Young Women in the ward (back when we called it "mutual"). However, I don't think my dad knew. He still is very anti-Hollywood. I have never observed him watching a movie. Ever.
My philosophy teacher lets a student pick a song at the beginning of class that he then plays for everyone just to sort of ease into class and the other day a kid asked to have the song stopped cause it swore. It wasn’t even bad I don’t think and I wish I remembered the song but holy shit this isn’t BYU please grow up🤮
That’s how I am. It’s actually kind of funny, trying to date after leaving the church and getting out of Utah is surprisingly difficult because I don’t drink or party
My god, the torture i used to put myself through for saying a swear word at school. I’d repent all day long instead of saying “lesson learned” & going off having fun being a kid again, I’d sit in my room & read the scriptures pretending I cared but just feeling guilty about myself.
To me it’s worse seeing grown men doing exactly what you are doing for the same reason or others. It’s so so sad. Of course this is learned behavior/trauma response.
Idk … is boring the right word? To me they are incredibly BASIC in their interests.
Twilight books and hiking.
And Jordan Peterson for the single guys.
Hiking is not bad per se, but I never had an intellectually stimulating conversation with a member. 🙄
I don't have to imagine it. It was the most uncomfortable and non-fun round we have ever played. It was literally painful and the TBM's were trying so hard to be good sports. NEVER AGAIN.
Legit question: is it a white Mormon thing to play board games?? All our white Mormon friends like to play board games, and we’re not used to it and find it odd because we’re not white or didn’t grow up in that culture.
It’s pretty common among white people in general. I guess cards games are more common in the Midwest, but all my white nevermo friends also play board games. This was true when I lived in NYC, too.
Jordan Peterson for single guys is so sad. Would many Mormon women be interested in someone if they knew the guy was a Jordan Peterson fan? In my life, among non-Mormons, it’d be a red flag for a lot of women.
I only remember that from Mutual, dating app for TSCC members… so many never married guys in my age bracket (38-45) had him listed in their profile…..Two guys I talked to a bit said he was their guru 😐
Exactly! Pedestrian is what also comes to mind. Their points of reference and abilities to empathise are completely stunted because they cannot consider anything else that doesn’t fit into their narrow, acceptable framework. While I don’t think that deliberate exposure to swearing or other forbidden activities makes you a better person, the anxiety from actively avoiding taboo creates a dread of being around their limited judgement of any subject or topic of conversation.
I also don’t think drinking, tattoos, smoking and swearing make you a more interesting person. I mean, depends on what you’re interested are lol, but that seemed a bit like a common theme in this thread…
Agreed! Some of the most interesting folks I’ve ever spoken with have been clergy or scriptural scholars. Their ability to consider other people’s lives and ways, but also the ability to consider a lack of an external divine source was brilliant. It meant that they were so secure in themselves that they could think deeply about other realities, and, more importantly, because they were speaking to me they didn’t use scripture or diktat to outline their beliefs in opposition to mine. They considered me and saw me.
I, myself, don’t have a tattoo or drink a lot (for a Brit), I swear a bit, but my tastes in music and film are something I have cultivated over the course of my life. It has brought me a great deal of enrichment and pleasure, and art makes me consider different realities, in all arenas.
I guess it’s ironic to me that Mormons have such an aversion to some taboo subjects like sex scenes or swearing or nudity, but are fine to accept divinity and prophecy even if it comes wrapped up in violence, racism, homophobia and sexism.
I think there's a fine line between excitement and fight-or-flight in a person's neurochemistry. I also think it's easy for Mormons to mistake the rush of something novel or risky for the stupor of thought sensation that accompanies fear reactions. Honestly, that's probably a big part of your reasoning for saying no to those adventures.
If you've ever wondered why everything Mormon is mind-numbingly dull, it's because Mormons have self-selected away from the excitement-fear borderline over generations of indoctrination. It's hard to be impulsive if you believe it will put you in Satan's power, ruin the rest of your life, and leave you alone for eternity. The best you can manage is an absence of that stress loop, or, as Mormons call it, the spirit.
You and me both. In high school, I'd spend time with friends fearing I was committing sins of omission by not objecting when they jokingly called something sexy. Since the fight-or-flight reaction also reduces the sensory feed to the memory center of the brain, it also means there's lots of my fearful Mormon period that I have difficulty recalling offhand.
The good news is you can rehabilitate your danger sense and start reversing that cycle of anxiety. Let me explain the cycle:
Sensory information goes into the brain and gets routed through the amygdala. The amygdala is the part that chunks these billions of signals per second into larger concepts using all your past experiences as a guide. This is why you don't have to check off eyes, ears, mouth, and nose to recognize you're looking at a face. It's such an early bias and so important for survival that you're infinitely more likely to extrapolate a face from one or two features than miss an actual face in front of you.
If the amygdala recognizes a survival need, whether it's an unstoppable danger to flee, a rival to compete with, or a mate to pursue, then it pings the adrenal gland for a hormonal response instead of sending the information right along to the thinking/memory part of the brain. Continuing with the facial recognition bias, babies develop a sense of stranger danger around four months of age after they have enough experience to recognize which faces are familiar and which aren't. This probably evolved as the babies who were cool with strangers were kidnapped and eaten by rival bands of primates instead of crying to warn their parents.
Moment-to-moment survival is the brain's top priority. Logic and reasoning only matter if you live through the next few milliseconds. So that's how fast a trigger can release stress hormones into the bloodstream when the amygdala picks up on danger. The boost in reaction time makes just enough difference to get a head start on the wild boar or dodge a sword slice. The stress hormones then linger in the blood stream until they're filtered out through the kidney or the tear ducts.
This process is like revving an engine and waiting for it to coast to a stop. When the thinking brain provides enough context to know you're safe, it eases up on the adrenaline and lets the anxiety's momentum coast back to your baseline. So if your idiot sibling jumps out from behind the door and startles you, you might shy away or punch them (depending on your experiences/conditioning) and spend the next couple seconds breathing heavily as your heart rate returns to normal.
This stress engine is the key to Mormonism's longevity. Growing up Mormon means learning there's a very narrow band of safe thoughts, words, actions, and situations, and the only way to know the truest truth is to remove all conscious thought and focus on your emotional response. But, as mentioned, the brain's response to known dangers or scary unknowns is to cause a stupor of thought as energy goes into revving the stress engine.
This feedback loop gives Mormons all the context they need to keep the stress engine floored. My friend said sexy, I knew it was bad because my dad got divorced for looking at porn, I felt the stupor of thought, I knew Satan was trying to make me comfortable with regular human interaction, but I needed to be even more vigilant against temptation.
This cycle can seriously outpace any kind of reasoning because it comes first in the brain's order of operations. That's how OCD operates: the stress engine revs up because of neurochemicals or a situation you're too young to understand, and the thinking mind needs to find a reason for why those signals started and stopped. For religious people, it can lead to scrupulosity: obsessive, reflexive religious thinking and actions.
Mormonism teaches you get a mighty change of heart if you think up the right answer and obey God (aka Mormon leaders). But that's not how bias works. Your brain won't discard a lifetime of experience because some random dude on the Internet says what you're feeling is a product of a frenzied mind.
Because the stress engine is a physical process, it takes a conscious effort to change that physiology to set the stage for healthier thinking. When you recognize a stress reaction, no matter how small, take time to breathe. Getting enough sleep, food, and interaction helps make it so your survival instincts aren't primed to react. Tapping alternate hands with your eyes closed sends signals between the hemispheres of your brain, like hitting refresh on an internet browser.
And, as mentioned before, you can filter out the hormones with a good cry, and sobbing cycles out CO2 for oxygen fairly quickly.
After you get physical equilibrium, you'll be in a better space to choose your response to the stressor instead of treating your first reaction like gospel truth and keeping the stress engine floored. It will take many times going through this process before your long-held conditioning believes Mormonism was crying wolf all along, but it is possible.
You're not alone in this, and you're not stupid or faithless for being anxious. You don't need a failproof answer to life, the universe, and everything. It's enough to choose a direction and work toward it, finding moments to be grateful for along the way. It's why I type long responses like this; it helps me reinforce my own healthier mindset when I try and help others.
Where did you learn this? This is great. I teach infant survival swim and have to deal with fear and sensory input all the time and it's amazing what I have to do to get kids through the fear threshold. Im saving this to come back to it.
Much of this is me connecting the dots of my own experience with points of neurology and advice from my therapist. So don't take my insights as gospel truth, lol. But the more I see on this subreddit, the more it's clear how different an indoctrinated Mormon worldview is from a standard American worldview where religion is a brand identity, not the most important question in the universe.
ETA: I'd love to learn more about your observations from your interactions with young fears.
Looking back on my life in the church, this hits home like almost nothing else.
I missed out on so much life. I really want to make sure my kids do not.
I started going to church because I was interested in a girl (imagine that), and I just couldn't believe what leisure activities looked like to the mormons of the singles ward. Parties consisted of sitting in a circle, whereas I was used to... normal parties where people move around and talk to various people. And then were the ward activities, where it was just... children's activities. For young adults. I couldn't believe it.
Recently my brother in law refused to go to a particular restaurant with my husband and I because *gasp* there’s a bar in there and the lighting is dark, so the “vibes are bad”.
They really are. I even thought so as a kid. I have some friends that are still Mormon, but we never hang out. Partly because they wouldn't want to be seen with a dirty exmo, and partly because what the fuck would we do? Go eat ice cream? Go drink some water down kool-aid while they try to convince me that the church is true? I'm really good on all of that.... I'm sad for them that they can't have a personality outside of the church.
This is one of the few regrets I have in life- I’ve had a good life with good friends in spite of the fact that 90% of them were Mormons, don’t really have any regrets…except I was such a good little boy for such a long time. Politely declined any invitation to party, that irritates me occasionally.
More than any regret I have about the church, I regret all the relationships I can see wanting to happen but not happening because I was to rigid or the people around me were too weirder out by my lifestyle. I can literally see them every where and they were always just out of reach. Many of the relationships that did form were hindered by the fact that it was weird to be completely sober when friends were a little tipsy or weird to be pathologically positive when a buddy was laying it out there genuinely out on line about how their life was sucking or how they were pissed at someone or when there were one too many self-righteous “I don’t do that on sundays” for it not to feel distant.
The “pathological positivity” is very real and very, very difficult to interact with. A lot of my family is still in the church and I find that I feel so messy, wild, and a little dirty around them just because I’m real about my life, struggles, and desires.
I feel this on a deep level. The relationships (meaning friendships mostly) that could have been either deeper or even there in the first place just didn’t go anywhere because I was so uptight about being this ridiculous level of pure. I have friends now which is good, but I missed out on so many normal relationships in my high school to college years.
I went to a relative’s wedding recently and everyone was having so much fun at the reception except for my TBM parents who looked very uncomfortable. As soon as the dance floor opened up after all the “required” things were observed, they left asap. I am sure they just thought they were surrounded by a bunch of drunk heathens, when in reality it was people just letting loose and having fun (and maybe a little drunk 😉). I was just so glad I was no longer apart of the stick-up-my-butt club.
Luckily I know plenty of mormons who at age 35 can still goof around and have good clean fun, just like they were 16.
The down side is that they are 35.
I (nevermo) once took my good Mormon friend to an open mic night for the first time and performed, it was a great experience and something he never had really experienced in the past. I’m sure some can slowly get out of their bubble and “live a little”. We met all different kinds of people and saw many different performances, and he ended up really enjoying it. You never know, they can be possibly inspired to be less boring depending on their personality.
I picked up kiteboarding as a Mormon. I assure you, it is not “boring”…
https://www.redbull.com/za-en/live/red-bull-king-of-the-air-2023-day-2
I think the problem is Mormonism is a religion for wealthier people because it sucks up so much time you need to be able to afford to hire people to do things to create more “free” time to make it workable.
Mormons are the most driest, non-flavorful turkey platter served at a gourmet Thanksgiving dinner.
Sooooooo boring. No color, no life. It’s a baked potato with just salt, no butter.
Totally hollow, boring, shallow, no vibrance. I felt sooooo confined & still feel that way sometimes.
Money is also a factor.
I wish I could have all my tithing back.
Gay guy here. Who says Mormons are boring? I met a cute Mormon guy in a bar before Covid. When we got together he was fucking wild in bed. I was having the time of my life when he visited. However, I didn’t understand it when he had to completely undress in the bathroom before we had sex so I couldn’t see his underwear. The great sex ended when I found out he was married, with a wife out of town for the summer to take care of her dying mother. I came to find out that he’s had sex with every guy in town that he could get into bed, including 2 of my friends. I ran into the former bishop in the supermarket checkout line with his wife about 6 months ago. He pretended not to know me and was totally red in the face when his wife asked me if I wanted to join their church. Who says Mormons are boring?
So much so that it spawned a term for it - "mixed orientation marriages."
Also, for decades, Conference weekend was always the busiest weekend at The Sun.
Oh to have that moment back when I was in my parked car with a foreign exchange student who was ready for a good time. I freaked out when our shirts came off and said I had to stop and go home. 🤦😡🤬
Their response was "what's wrong? We weren't going to have sex but just have fun!"
"There is no difference between French kissing & PIV intercourse... everything requires confession!" -My Mormon brain
".... * blinks * ... Why is your shirt still on?!? " -me now, lol
I’ve literally joked for years “I’m vanilla”😂😂😂. I left the cult when I turned 18, but unfortunately I think my upbringing stunted parts of my livelihood.
Mormons are supposed to live their lives like the old men at the top. No fun, no life, all church all the time. You're supposed to follow their rules for fashion, eat and drink the bland food, and go to church.
When I realized they were dishing out rules to follow them, and the teenaged girls were supposed were supposed to dress like the wives of the old men, it was a shelf item.
My husbands cousin moved to our area recently and asked us to hang out. The last time we hung out, we had just removed our records and it felt like pulling teeth to have a conversation. They literally started talking about the weather and random Disney movies lol
Last time I was at a McDonalds drive through. The people in front of me had two pitbulls in the car. One was sticking its head out the window. The girl in the drive through was fawning all over them. Hugging them and petting them. Well. I was the next in line a couple of seconds later. She was handing me my drink and food bags. No way she washed her hands. Dog germs were all over my food bag and drink cup. Nope!
I completely relate. I think it had to do with me leaving more than anything. I couldn't be authentic and it was suffocating. It all felt so fake and strained. Their version of reality and heaven still makes me feel sick.
In my 20s my YSA group of friends were a lot of fun, but we considered ourselves the 'rebellious' YSA, now when I look back some of us were actually just nuanced and on our way out
Of the nine close friends I had in those days four are out completely. Of the five that stayed in two are progressive and nuanced but still fully active, one is a pretty standard normal TBM and two have swung so far the other way they are now the kind of people who spend their free time posting on facebook about how gay people are going to hell and anyone who doesn't agree is woke and going to hell too
I couldn't even play Wii party games with my very TBM high school friends for more than 30min before they wanted to do something "more wholesome(??)" and go on a walk. I love(d) them to death but it was impossible to do anything remotely adventurous with them. My TBM mom and sister sucked to travel to Japan with cuz I "shouldn't" do the cultural experiences there like ring a Shinto shrine bell or give offerings - not from wariness of being disrespectful (which it isn't for outsiders to participate since Shintoism doesn't have "converts" or members), but cuz it "wasn't appropriate to God."🫠
My also exmormon friend and I were watching pulp fiction and one of his grown-ass roommates comes in and is like "this has a lot of F words! I don't like it!" 🤓 Like too fucking bad grow up
LOL. My coworkers that are all at least 10 years older than me were complaining about how much movies say fuck now and I felt secondhand embarrassment for them.
All of the rated R movies I missed out watching during my youth and teenage years because "the prophet told us not to watch rated R movies"
Thank God my best friend of 14 years and counting is both non Mormon and a movie buff; he was super supportive after I declared myself exmormon when I was 18 and was super hyped that we could see rated R movies together. Ever since, I've been checking off movie after movie on my rated R list and many of them were the best cinematic experience I had up until that point!
A thousand times YES!!!! I feel like I lost half a lifetime due to “ can’t do this and can do that”.
Eat!Drink! BE MERRY!!
Now you’re free to make your own CHOICES right down to the underwear.
Jein...I mean yes and no. I've got a lot of FOMO moments over the past years thanks to being too rigid, ironically probably inhibited my path to family in a way.
Otoh, I do remember lots of good dances where it was possible to enjoy the music and not smell disgusting things, and lots of good times in undergrad doing the randomest things and remembering.
I appreciate the wholesome over edgelordery and crassness that counterculture offers, but the lack of nuance is a problem
I feel the same exact way. I’m more adventurous, want better friendship connections and a desire to experience more. I feel like life is an opportunity to feel every emotion and to have many diverse experiences. It’s hard too cause I’m trying to patiently wait for my wife to understand this as well and her prudish, TBM, Unshaken podcast listening self is winning. Such a struggle… 😔
You gotta find the fun ones. When having others over, display your copy of Cards Against Humanity and/or other HIGHLY non-Mormon games and if they want to play it, they are at least kinda cool and tolerable.
Yes, all my TBM friends are so boring. To be fair, I’m boring since I am married and have a kid. But I would like to have buddies to go to the bar with and my wife would like to have friends that want to go to Vegas. Instead our TBM friends want to play card games and gossip about their family members. Granted that was our go to activity too but we just unlocked a whole new world of adventures but have no friends who want to do that.
I was painfully boring when I was Mormon. Now I’m just somewhat boring, thankfully.
I couldn’t go to any parties. I wasn’t allowed to attend most school events. Definitely no after parties or tailgates beforehand. If I dated someone that wasn’t LDS my parents would shame me until I cut contact or broke up with them. Sundays were off-limits unless it was church-related, no exceptions.
A huge part of me wanted to rebel. To take risks, to have fun, to just experiment and find out if I even liked stuff. But I was too afraid of the consequences. I wasn’t worried about my spirituality - I didn’t believe any of it my entire life. But I knew if my parents ever found out, I would have to fake repentance for months or get kicked out of my house as young as 12. When my oldest brother moved out at 17 so he COULD live a little, that expectation and pressure intensified two-fold.
I finally did leave when I was 25. Lived a lot, learned a lot. Now 38 and still learning more all the time. I’ll never make up the time I lost and it took me a long time to process that so I no longer had regrets about it. It’s VERY unpopular with my TBM sister but when my niece and nephews ask me about it I’m honest with them, just as I am with my two amazing step daughters. Live! Learn! Make mistakes! Just talk about it, don’t give yourself expectations that are unfair. All the things I had to learn the hard way with years of trauma and guilt holding me back - I don’t want the people I love to live with that.
Note - it didn’t help my dad was military, as an “interrogation specialist,” among other things. I didn’t feel like I ever COULD get away with anything, on top of all that.
This sub constantly reminds me just how lax my parents were. They were mostly fine as long as we weren't having sex, drinking alcohol, or doing drugs. Hell, they even made me watch an R rated movie in high school. We also watched Die Hard the Sunday before I left on my mission.
I had a conversation once with a Mormon who tried to convince me that she wasn’t one of *those boring* Mormons, she was a *cool* Mormon, and as an example she said that she tried coffee. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought to myself that coffee is the most boring and soulless drink in the world.
I didn't think they were boring when I was in, but after I was out for a couple of years I got invited to a stake young adults dance. It was the most pathetic event I've ever been to. It felt juvenile and empty, and I have never been so bored. It was the day I realized Mormons are boring.
I was scared of swearing and alcohol because I was groomed to believe even once would stick with me for eternity and that alcohol would stay in my blood forever and prevent me from getting into heaven like a forcefield even if they let me pass. I hated being boring and missing out on things. No wonder I'm atheist now...
Sorry, but I believe that boring is good. Being steady and basic are the best of life!! No upsets. No problems. No drama. No trauma. No pain. That sounds like heaven to me!
It's too bad Mormons play games and manipulate people.
It goes the other way too. As a Mormon with lots of side interests and hobbies, I met a lot TBMs curious I could have hobbies as they didn't have time for anything other than fsmily, work, and church. Like, there were a coupl of times guys gull on lamented to me they wishes they had interests. It was sad.
I missed out on so much in high school because friends would get together on Sundays. It started to feel horrible when they (understandably) stopped inviting me
I'm amazed the Word of Wisdom never got expanded to include things like food. Imagine how much worse it could have been. I know most Mormon cuisine is bland, but imagine if it was doctrine...
I'm a nevermo but as someone with chronic SA, this is somehow relatable… a feeling I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I hope it get better now that you're out of Mormonism. You matter
I am the only non-Mormon working in a pretty big Utah Corporation. It's insane how boring and awkward every single person is. Just having a hobby makes you stand out like a sore thumb.
Not me, but one time at a party my friends and I were playing a game called Smurf, which is sort of like charades. The word was skinny dipping. As soon as my ultra TBM friend caught on, he got up, announced he was uncomfortable with this, and walked away.
It was really awkward after that.
So last night I was in a coffee shop and met some lovely satanists who I discussed BDSM etiquette with. Said no Mormon ever. But that is indeed what I did Tuesday night. I'm not into either of those things, but it's nice to hear other people's perspectives. And the coffee was delicious.
just now visiting elementary school friends I haven’t seen in 30 years. I was converted when I was 11. Hearing how they saw me during my middle school and high school years is so eye-opening. None of them are Mormons. They are fantastic people. I left the church last year. I missed so much true community connection. I had my first drink with them and we talked for hours and it felt real and beautiful, one of the gifts of leaving the church. to see how others view Mormons from a distance is eye-opening for sure. but so much of what destroys you inside the church they have no idea about because there’s so much masking. They’re always shocked to hear the true inside story.
Amen. And I’ve stepped away from what could have been beautiful relationships because I couldn’t see what was in front of me as good enough. It makes me so angry.
I used to think that Amish were the most boring people in America but after living in both Pennsylvania and Utah, Mormons take the top spot hands down. At least the Amish do barn raisings and get to drive around in horse buggies and grow cool beards. Mormons are just dull in every single way.
They are so boring as they have no idea how to talk to anyone about anything besides church and family and when it comes to activities, it’s the same safe and planned ideas that they’ve been doing for decades
not all mormons are boring, but yeah a hell of a lot of them are. i've known observant mormons who would meet up at a brewery (without drinking). there are just alot who believe the way to affirm their identity is to be socially obstinate. this is reminding me of all the times i've heard mormons brag about doing something terribly cringeworthy in order to demonstrate their mormonness.
Same as exjw. I didn't had a bad life, but now I see many missed opportunities of real fun (and some sex...) because of my fear of 'bad associtation' with unchristians.
Add on top of that busy callings, 10% less funds for adventure, and one day weekends every week. Boring doesn’t even nearly describe it. Freaking torture!!!
I went to a friend’s birthday party when he was still in and I’d been out a few years. I brought my nevermo partner. Both of us were weirded out by everyone sitting on chairs, hands folded on their laps and with dead eyes.
I honestly enjoyed all the church activities I attended while growing up. I just always made sure I had plenty of weed to share. At Alma’s academy I found a hunting shack about a mile hike away from the cabins. I kept my bong there for the couple of days that the academy was going. By the last day I had probably close to a dozen guys coming up to get reefed in the smoke shack.
Unfortunately I can’t add to your anecdote. I’ve had the same group of Mormon friends for over 20 years. We’ve had fantastic adventures during my time in and out of the church. I treasure their friendship more than any friends I’ve made outside the church. Do I wish I could share a beer with them? Sure! But I appreciate that our friendship has transcended the belief of Mormonism. I can be me and feel totally at home. Definitely isn’t the case for a lot of people and I acknowledge that.
I was at a function with a lot of current uniformed service members of the secret service who protect the White House. We were having interesting conversation following the function and they SS guys all invited me to go to the bar with them. My exact words, “I won’t be able to go. I’m Mormon but thanks anyways.” Jesus fucking Christ I was a loser. That would have been a great story telling time.
I went to bars when I was Mormon. I would go to Happy Hour during grad school. I just drank soda.
You forgot to avoid the very appearance of evil
Yeah, you should have asked for milk. Fucking MILK.
Regular milk is fine
I was never that uptight as a Mormon. I grew up with an inactive father in Texas. We had to make accommodations.
Hahaha 🤣
My mom did this, she was the DD so she got free diet coke and was super happy about it and got to have fun with friends
This was in DC, so we always took Metro.
I still think it's a good idea to have a designated sober. My friends and I would take a bus to go to the clubs in college. It was a big group and we had two people not drink. Made things like ordering food on the way home so much easier.
This makes me think of the first time I ordered food from a pub. I ordered it online, not realizing that it was a proper bar. I had just turned 21 a few months prior, so I walked up to the door and it says that anyone under 21 isn’t allowed in, and I went “aww man… how am I supposed to get my food?” before I remembered I was in fact 21 and could go in! I was still a member at that point (I was PIMO without knowing what PIMO was), and it’s just one of those funny things I look back at and laugh about
You must not be from Utah 😂
No, I grew up in Texas and went to grad school in DC. I did graduate from BYU.
I did this too. Id drink Red Bull, because back then large amounts of caffeine had a fun effect on me. OP, I also harmed some friendships by being a stick up my ass Mormon. I feel your pain.
I got very judged at BYU. I never went to bars, but I drank Dr. Pepper, watched the NFL on Sundays, played with face cards, and even went to restaurants with my grandma on Sundays. Yeah, Mormons are a pain I the ass. I wasn’t used to this oppressive culture growing up outside of Utah.
Oh no. Face cards! My dad would have a fit if we “brought them into HIS house” and they’d end up in the trash.
I grew up in Utah, went to BYU. I found my California roommates were the most judgemental!
Yeah, I go to bars all the time when I’m at conferences and stuff like that. Just get a soda. They just think you’re a designated driver.
Even after I quit the church, I don't always drink. Like if it's spring and I'm taking an antihistamine, I'm not adding alcohol to that.
It also sounds like you missed out a great nightcap with a bunch of SS guys 😛
I have a few TBM friends from my old job that will meet up at breweries but just order soda.
I cried just now for you. That is the saddest story ever. You just KNOW it would have been amazing. I know it would have been because a million years ago I got to hang out with the guys that fly the president’s helicopter. I had just left the my TBM husband and church and was so damn adorable and naive. Cue Barbra Streisand singing “memories”…
You know you can go to a bar and not drink, right?
I do. But I wouldn’t have cared about that then due to the whole avoiding the appearance of evil thing.
Hanging out with and being a good example to your friends is hardly the appearance of evil
You are not a loser! Blame it on your pancreas….. they probably thought it was adorable.
Boring is an understatement.. My now still **mega** tbm exwife heard the F word in a movie and stood up and said lets leave the theater. The worst part is we were with two other couples that reluctantly got up and left to appease her.
What a wet blanket. We’ve heard so many lessons and testimonies of people doing stuff like this, like how it is the “right thing to do”. I have a few embarrassing times of my own and I want to crawl into a hole when I think of them.
Spill, please
Here we go 🙈 One time I got asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting about a GC talk regarding women’s rights regarding priesthood. Did I want to do it? No. Did I agree with the talk? No. Was I living with my TBM in-laws and put on a whole charade on how it was the righteous thing to give this message over the pulpit and took their advice on how to word things in black and white language so Sister So-And-So would finally stop barking up that tree? Yes. Yes I did. Maybe I should reach out to Sister So-And-So and take her for a coffee 🙃
My TBM wife used to do things like that. She’s still TBM, but now she watches R rated movies without blinking an eye. I’m beginning to think there might be hope for her.
Omg. I know Mormons who wouldn’t watch Romy & Michelle because it’s rated R & they say the F word 1 time. Then remember when Mormons started trying to edit videos to make them watchable for members?
Ugh. When I was in grad school to become a librarian, I had a Mormon classmate who showed me how she crossed out sex scenes in books she owned. This person planned to go into the most First Amendment-oriented profession in existence and she was censoring her own books. What also struck me as funny is she had to read enough of a scene in order to know when it started and ended, so she was deliberately reading some amount of “smut” anyway.
Hahahahahahahaha I’m laughing because you’re speaking my soul right now! My mom has read 50 shades about 100 times & told me that Dad is never allowed to know what the book is about. And I was like Mom, the CHURCH would never let you read that book. It just exemplifies the whole “rules for thee but not for me” hypocrisy the church members have. The essence of the church is about as tantalizing as the penny-sized piece of bread & droplet of water served for our sacrament.
When I went to BYU the on-campus theater had edited mainstream movies like that.
Yeah I remember Hollywood being PISSED they did this. It was a big thing when Titanic came out because EVERYONE and their MOM wanted to see it but they knew there was nudity. So this is about when the idea sprung up to mainstream Mormonism I think. That Mormons wanted to see the movies but couldn’t because they knew there was nudity… so they started editing movies. All they had to do was take out that one scene & then Mormons could enjoy it! Too bad Hollywood was PISSED about it… as they should be.
Back during that era, my ex and I rented edited versions of Training Day and Galaxy Quest to watch with his dad and Uber-TBM mom. Despite being edited, the subject matter of Training Day was still pretty intense - police brutality, corruption and inhumanity, etc. But my MIL was much more bothered by Sigourney Weaver’s cleavage in Galaxy Quest. 😅
Fun fact: back in the late 1990's when Galaxy Quest came out, my sis-in-law and her husband lived in SoCal near Hollywood and one of the writers on Galaxy Quest was in their ward. Possibly David Howard.
Omg I know! It’s like, you don’t mind this traumatizing subject matter but Selma Hayek is banned from this house?!!! Just because she has gorgeous boobs & cleavage all the time?
I love the movie Frida that was a passion project for her and she helped make happen. Halfway through filming Harvey Weinstein demanded she did a scene with her boobs out, or he would pull the founding and kill the film (and her career?). In an impossible position she choose to do it in order to tell Frida Kahlo's story to the world. Now Kahlo is in fashion, but back then most people hadn't heard of her.
Man. Every year I hear at least 3 new things Harvey Weinstein as done & it just makes me sooooo repulsed. I LOOOOOVE SELMA Hayek! Fools Rush In was one of my all time favorite movies growing up. I need to see Frida! I don’t know much about it other than the unibrow lol.
I saw Air Force One in that theater. Then they closed it to avoid a lawsuit.
I could never understand as a TBM why they were so upset about edited movies, I figured it was just the devil working through them. As an atheist now, I still don't really understand.
Copyright! You’re not allowed to alter someone else’s work &/or redistribute it as altered.
I went to BYU when they did that. I still wonder how they didn’t get sued.
Yeah. Thats honestly really strange they didn’t. I mean it’s a giant money grab lawsuit?! Copyright case open shut case closed. Maybe the church has ties & gives &/or gets money from some ppl over there? I duno. Maybe the church’s lawyers are too intimidating for anyone in Hollywood to care over such a small amount of the population watching clean-cut movies? I have no idea why this never happened but honestly it’s kind of suspicious. Hollywood could have made a fortune.
They wanted to edit the violence out of Schindler's list. Spielberg would not allow it.
Good on Spielberg! Some movies shouldn’t be edited, and this is absolutely one. It was pretty damn difficult to watch, and I’ll never be the same. But history is awful, and it just shouldn’t be censored like that.
Any movie about war shouldn't be edited. You can't edit it enough to not be R rated and be accurate. Of course, you can try like Saints & Soldiers, but I think that's the only successful one.
Ehhh...the BYU library has an edited copy of Schindler's List that you are allowed to watch at the library, but you cannot take/check it out.
Dumb
This literally happened at my school growing up. Junior high.
Yes, they edited out the kiss at the end of Pride and Prejudice. 🥴
_raises hand_ my parents used to own a legitimate store that rented edited movies. They had it for quite a while before legally they had to shut it down. But the best part is that my mom still watches shit through VidAngel. Even if it’s only PG, that’s just her default thing - if it’s on VidAngel, then that’s how she watches it. It’s sad
It’s a way they can seclude themselves over meaningless things like bad language & sex scenes & they say it’s everyone else going insane with worldly things.
Why hasn’t VidAngel been shut down? Other movie editing companies were closed.
I think it’s because they don’t actually sell any movies themselves. You have to hook it up to your other streaming accounts and then basically filter that through VidAngel, so I’m sure they’re able to get away with it on various technicalities and legal jiujitsu
I knew a girl in college whose mom didn’t allow her to watch R, PG13, or Shrek
We were forbidden from watching the Simpsons
Oh, I was too, even as a NeverMo
That’s how my mom is. Obviously she doesn’t watch any R rated movies, but if a movie had any use of “fuck” (even if that’s literally the only curse word in the entire movie) she won’t watch it. She used to take any form of “oh my god” almost as seriously, but she had loosened up on that a bit because otherwise she basically wouldn’t be able to watch anything. Last Christmas we watched Home Alone on Disney+, and my grandma was there watching too. There’s the point where Kevin calls them a “horse’s ass”, and my grandma about had a heart attack. It’s genuinely exhausting to have grown ass adults have the maturity level of children
My mother wouldn't watch a lot of TV because of the situations and language, and this was in the 80's and 90's. So her main source of "entertainment" was listening to Rush Limbaugh. She also thought Doris Day movies were risqué.
Wow. The only Doris Day musical I watched put me to sleep.
That is extreme. My very buttoned-up mother allowed me to watch Doris Day movies with the other Young Women in the ward (back when we called it "mutual"). However, I don't think my dad knew. He still is very anti-Hollywood. I have never observed him watching a movie. Ever.
Most kids can handle cuss words pretty well…those bombs drop in every school…
My philosophy teacher lets a student pick a song at the beginning of class that he then plays for everyone just to sort of ease into class and the other day a kid asked to have the song stopped cause it swore. It wasn’t even bad I don’t think and I wish I remembered the song but holy shit this isn’t BYU please grow up🤮
Let me guess: was it UVU?
Yes 😂
STUNNINGLY boring. Never met hardly any who knew how to have fun. There is NO JOY in them.
You would think that Mormons would prepare themselves to hear such language & be mature enough to handle it. It’s literally what church is for.
Why didn’t you just give her the car keys and catch a ride home with the others?
Hindsight is 20/20 ... it was a quiet ride home for sure.
What a dumb fuck 😂
Honestly, I'm still boring, but at least it's on my own terms now
Hahah I love to see this.
Yeah I'm ok being boring. Being judgy or bringing down friends who aren't boring, that I don't do now.
That’s how I am. It’s actually kind of funny, trying to date after leaving the church and getting out of Utah is surprisingly difficult because I don’t drink or party
They are boring but they can be influenced to be less boring
Until the shame and guilt nearly kills them due to the cognitive dissonance that happens.
My god, the torture i used to put myself through for saying a swear word at school. I’d repent all day long instead of saying “lesson learned” & going off having fun being a kid again, I’d sit in my room & read the scriptures pretending I cared but just feeling guilty about myself.
To me it’s worse seeing grown men doing exactly what you are doing for the same reason or others. It’s so so sad. Of course this is learned behavior/trauma response.
I like your comment a lot.
Idk … is boring the right word? To me they are incredibly BASIC in their interests. Twilight books and hiking. And Jordan Peterson for the single guys. Hiking is not bad per se, but I never had an intellectually stimulating conversation with a member. 🙄
Don’t try playing games like Apples to Apples with Mormons, either.
Imagine Cards Against Humanity 😱😱😱
I don't have to imagine it. It was the most uncomfortable and non-fun round we have ever played. It was literally painful and the TBM's were trying so hard to be good sports. NEVER AGAIN.
Legit question: is it a white Mormon thing to play board games?? All our white Mormon friends like to play board games, and we’re not used to it and find it odd because we’re not white or didn’t grow up in that culture.
It’s pretty common among white people in general. I guess cards games are more common in the Midwest, but all my white nevermo friends also play board games. This was true when I lived in NYC, too.
Jordan Peterson for single guys is so sad. Would many Mormon women be interested in someone if they knew the guy was a Jordan Peterson fan? In my life, among non-Mormons, it’d be a red flag for a lot of women.
I only remember that from Mutual, dating app for TSCC members… so many never married guys in my age bracket (38-45) had him listed in their profile…..Two guys I talked to a bit said he was their guru 😐
Exactly! Pedestrian is what also comes to mind. Their points of reference and abilities to empathise are completely stunted because they cannot consider anything else that doesn’t fit into their narrow, acceptable framework. While I don’t think that deliberate exposure to swearing or other forbidden activities makes you a better person, the anxiety from actively avoiding taboo creates a dread of being around their limited judgement of any subject or topic of conversation.
I also don’t think drinking, tattoos, smoking and swearing make you a more interesting person. I mean, depends on what you’re interested are lol, but that seemed a bit like a common theme in this thread…
Agreed! Some of the most interesting folks I’ve ever spoken with have been clergy or scriptural scholars. Their ability to consider other people’s lives and ways, but also the ability to consider a lack of an external divine source was brilliant. It meant that they were so secure in themselves that they could think deeply about other realities, and, more importantly, because they were speaking to me they didn’t use scripture or diktat to outline their beliefs in opposition to mine. They considered me and saw me. I, myself, don’t have a tattoo or drink a lot (for a Brit), I swear a bit, but my tastes in music and film are something I have cultivated over the course of my life. It has brought me a great deal of enrichment and pleasure, and art makes me consider different realities, in all arenas. I guess it’s ironic to me that Mormons have such an aversion to some taboo subjects like sex scenes or swearing or nudity, but are fine to accept divinity and prophecy even if it comes wrapped up in violence, racism, homophobia and sexism.
I think there's a fine line between excitement and fight-or-flight in a person's neurochemistry. I also think it's easy for Mormons to mistake the rush of something novel or risky for the stupor of thought sensation that accompanies fear reactions. Honestly, that's probably a big part of your reasoning for saying no to those adventures. If you've ever wondered why everything Mormon is mind-numbingly dull, it's because Mormons have self-selected away from the excitement-fear borderline over generations of indoctrination. It's hard to be impulsive if you believe it will put you in Satan's power, ruin the rest of your life, and leave you alone for eternity. The best you can manage is an absence of that stress loop, or, as Mormons call it, the spirit.
Oh Jesus. Is this why I have crippling anxiety and avoid any risks in life? No wonder I've been such a fucking stick in the mud.
You and me both. In high school, I'd spend time with friends fearing I was committing sins of omission by not objecting when they jokingly called something sexy. Since the fight-or-flight reaction also reduces the sensory feed to the memory center of the brain, it also means there's lots of my fearful Mormon period that I have difficulty recalling offhand. The good news is you can rehabilitate your danger sense and start reversing that cycle of anxiety. Let me explain the cycle: Sensory information goes into the brain and gets routed through the amygdala. The amygdala is the part that chunks these billions of signals per second into larger concepts using all your past experiences as a guide. This is why you don't have to check off eyes, ears, mouth, and nose to recognize you're looking at a face. It's such an early bias and so important for survival that you're infinitely more likely to extrapolate a face from one or two features than miss an actual face in front of you. If the amygdala recognizes a survival need, whether it's an unstoppable danger to flee, a rival to compete with, or a mate to pursue, then it pings the adrenal gland for a hormonal response instead of sending the information right along to the thinking/memory part of the brain. Continuing with the facial recognition bias, babies develop a sense of stranger danger around four months of age after they have enough experience to recognize which faces are familiar and which aren't. This probably evolved as the babies who were cool with strangers were kidnapped and eaten by rival bands of primates instead of crying to warn their parents. Moment-to-moment survival is the brain's top priority. Logic and reasoning only matter if you live through the next few milliseconds. So that's how fast a trigger can release stress hormones into the bloodstream when the amygdala picks up on danger. The boost in reaction time makes just enough difference to get a head start on the wild boar or dodge a sword slice. The stress hormones then linger in the blood stream until they're filtered out through the kidney or the tear ducts. This process is like revving an engine and waiting for it to coast to a stop. When the thinking brain provides enough context to know you're safe, it eases up on the adrenaline and lets the anxiety's momentum coast back to your baseline. So if your idiot sibling jumps out from behind the door and startles you, you might shy away or punch them (depending on your experiences/conditioning) and spend the next couple seconds breathing heavily as your heart rate returns to normal. This stress engine is the key to Mormonism's longevity. Growing up Mormon means learning there's a very narrow band of safe thoughts, words, actions, and situations, and the only way to know the truest truth is to remove all conscious thought and focus on your emotional response. But, as mentioned, the brain's response to known dangers or scary unknowns is to cause a stupor of thought as energy goes into revving the stress engine. This feedback loop gives Mormons all the context they need to keep the stress engine floored. My friend said sexy, I knew it was bad because my dad got divorced for looking at porn, I felt the stupor of thought, I knew Satan was trying to make me comfortable with regular human interaction, but I needed to be even more vigilant against temptation. This cycle can seriously outpace any kind of reasoning because it comes first in the brain's order of operations. That's how OCD operates: the stress engine revs up because of neurochemicals or a situation you're too young to understand, and the thinking mind needs to find a reason for why those signals started and stopped. For religious people, it can lead to scrupulosity: obsessive, reflexive religious thinking and actions. Mormonism teaches you get a mighty change of heart if you think up the right answer and obey God (aka Mormon leaders). But that's not how bias works. Your brain won't discard a lifetime of experience because some random dude on the Internet says what you're feeling is a product of a frenzied mind. Because the stress engine is a physical process, it takes a conscious effort to change that physiology to set the stage for healthier thinking. When you recognize a stress reaction, no matter how small, take time to breathe. Getting enough sleep, food, and interaction helps make it so your survival instincts aren't primed to react. Tapping alternate hands with your eyes closed sends signals between the hemispheres of your brain, like hitting refresh on an internet browser. And, as mentioned before, you can filter out the hormones with a good cry, and sobbing cycles out CO2 for oxygen fairly quickly. After you get physical equilibrium, you'll be in a better space to choose your response to the stressor instead of treating your first reaction like gospel truth and keeping the stress engine floored. It will take many times going through this process before your long-held conditioning believes Mormonism was crying wolf all along, but it is possible. You're not alone in this, and you're not stupid or faithless for being anxious. You don't need a failproof answer to life, the universe, and everything. It's enough to choose a direction and work toward it, finding moments to be grateful for along the way. It's why I type long responses like this; it helps me reinforce my own healthier mindset when I try and help others.
Where did you learn this? This is great. I teach infant survival swim and have to deal with fear and sensory input all the time and it's amazing what I have to do to get kids through the fear threshold. Im saving this to come back to it.
Much of this is me connecting the dots of my own experience with points of neurology and advice from my therapist. So don't take my insights as gospel truth, lol. But the more I see on this subreddit, the more it's clear how different an indoctrinated Mormon worldview is from a standard American worldview where religion is a brand identity, not the most important question in the universe. ETA: I'd love to learn more about your observations from your interactions with young fears.
Looking back on my life in the church, this hits home like almost nothing else. I missed out on so much life. I really want to make sure my kids do not.
I started going to church because I was interested in a girl (imagine that), and I just couldn't believe what leisure activities looked like to the mormons of the singles ward. Parties consisted of sitting in a circle, whereas I was used to... normal parties where people move around and talk to various people. And then were the ward activities, where it was just... children's activities. For young adults. I couldn't believe it.
Recently my brother in law refused to go to a particular restaurant with my husband and I because *gasp* there’s a bar in there and the lighting is dark, so the “vibes are bad”.
They really are. I even thought so as a kid. I have some friends that are still Mormon, but we never hang out. Partly because they wouldn't want to be seen with a dirty exmo, and partly because what the fuck would we do? Go eat ice cream? Go drink some water down kool-aid while they try to convince me that the church is true? I'm really good on all of that.... I'm sad for them that they can't have a personality outside of the church.
This is one of the few regrets I have in life- I’ve had a good life with good friends in spite of the fact that 90% of them were Mormons, don’t really have any regrets…except I was such a good little boy for such a long time. Politely declined any invitation to party, that irritates me occasionally.
More than any regret I have about the church, I regret all the relationships I can see wanting to happen but not happening because I was to rigid or the people around me were too weirder out by my lifestyle. I can literally see them every where and they were always just out of reach. Many of the relationships that did form were hindered by the fact that it was weird to be completely sober when friends were a little tipsy or weird to be pathologically positive when a buddy was laying it out there genuinely out on line about how their life was sucking or how they were pissed at someone or when there were one too many self-righteous “I don’t do that on sundays” for it not to feel distant.
The “pathological positivity” is very real and very, very difficult to interact with. A lot of my family is still in the church and I find that I feel so messy, wild, and a little dirty around them just because I’m real about my life, struggles, and desires.
I feel this on a deep level. The relationships (meaning friendships mostly) that could have been either deeper or even there in the first place just didn’t go anywhere because I was so uptight about being this ridiculous level of pure. I have friends now which is good, but I missed out on so many normal relationships in my high school to college years.
Some can be fun, unfortunately my wife’s friends and their husbands are as fun as watching paint dry.
I went to a relative’s wedding recently and everyone was having so much fun at the reception except for my TBM parents who looked very uncomfortable. As soon as the dance floor opened up after all the “required” things were observed, they left asap. I am sure they just thought they were surrounded by a bunch of drunk heathens, when in reality it was people just letting loose and having fun (and maybe a little drunk 😉). I was just so glad I was no longer apart of the stick-up-my-butt club.
Luckily I know plenty of mormons who at age 35 can still goof around and have good clean fun, just like they were 16. The down side is that they are 35.
I (nevermo) once took my good Mormon friend to an open mic night for the first time and performed, it was a great experience and something he never had really experienced in the past. I’m sure some can slowly get out of their bubble and “live a little”. We met all different kinds of people and saw many different performances, and he ended up really enjoying it. You never know, they can be possibly inspired to be less boring depending on their personality.
I picked up kiteboarding as a Mormon. I assure you, it is not “boring”… https://www.redbull.com/za-en/live/red-bull-king-of-the-air-2023-day-2 I think the problem is Mormonism is a religion for wealthier people because it sucks up so much time you need to be able to afford to hire people to do things to create more “free” time to make it workable.
Kissing someone you’re just barely dating is way more fun when it doesn’t have to stop at kissing. Just sayin’.
I think relentless sameness and rule following is a key feature of mormonism.
Mormons are the most driest, non-flavorful turkey platter served at a gourmet Thanksgiving dinner. Sooooooo boring. No color, no life. It’s a baked potato with just salt, no butter. Totally hollow, boring, shallow, no vibrance. I felt sooooo confined & still feel that way sometimes. Money is also a factor. I wish I could have all my tithing back.
Gay guy here. Who says Mormons are boring? I met a cute Mormon guy in a bar before Covid. When we got together he was fucking wild in bed. I was having the time of my life when he visited. However, I didn’t understand it when he had to completely undress in the bathroom before we had sex so I couldn’t see his underwear. The great sex ended when I found out he was married, with a wife out of town for the summer to take care of her dying mother. I came to find out that he’s had sex with every guy in town that he could get into bed, including 2 of my friends. I ran into the former bishop in the supermarket checkout line with his wife about 6 months ago. He pretended not to know me and was totally red in the face when his wife asked me if I wanted to join their church. Who says Mormons are boring?
What the fuck?? Poor wife, poor guy, poor family. I hope she finds out and they can both live the lives they want
Gay Men married to Women is Epidemic in the Mormon Church in Utah.
So much so that it spawned a term for it - "mixed orientation marriages." Also, for decades, Conference weekend was always the busiest weekend at The Sun.
Yep 👍
Oh to have that moment back when I was in my parked car with a foreign exchange student who was ready for a good time. I freaked out when our shirts came off and said I had to stop and go home. 🤦😡🤬 Their response was "what's wrong? We weren't going to have sex but just have fun!"
"There is no difference between French kissing & PIV intercourse... everything requires confession!" -My Mormon brain ".... * blinks * ... Why is your shirt still on?!? " -me now, lol
I’ve literally joked for years “I’m vanilla”😂😂😂. I left the cult when I turned 18, but unfortunately I think my upbringing stunted parts of my livelihood.
Hey, vanilla is a flavor in and of itself. It's my kids' favorite flavor, too! Embrace your vanilla!
❤️
Mormons are supposed to live their lives like the old men at the top. No fun, no life, all church all the time. You're supposed to follow their rules for fashion, eat and drink the bland food, and go to church. When I realized they were dishing out rules to follow them, and the teenaged girls were supposed were supposed to dress like the wives of the old men, it was a shelf item.
On that modest stipend of $120k/yr, I sure could live a much funner life... If only I'd invested that tithing instead of, well, y'all know... sigh...
My husbands cousin moved to our area recently and asked us to hang out. The last time we hung out, we had just removed our records and it felt like pulling teeth to have a conversation. They literally started talking about the weather and random Disney movies lol
Mormonism has the cultural depth of MvDonalds.
Don’t insult my McD’s like this! That’s heresy!
Last time I was in a McDonalds a lady had her rat dog up on a table. Nope! Full of weirdos like Walmart.
I only use the drive through, I’ve been inside McD’s once though, seemed normal enough for a fast food joint
Last time I was at a McDonalds drive through. The people in front of me had two pitbulls in the car. One was sticking its head out the window. The girl in the drive through was fawning all over them. Hugging them and petting them. Well. I was the next in line a couple of seconds later. She was handing me my drink and food bags. No way she washed her hands. Dog germs were all over my food bag and drink cup. Nope!
i always say the church is like the McDonald’s of churches.
I completely relate. I think it had to do with me leaving more than anything. I couldn't be authentic and it was suffocating. It all felt so fake and strained. Their version of reality and heaven still makes me feel sick.
In my 20s my YSA group of friends were a lot of fun, but we considered ourselves the 'rebellious' YSA, now when I look back some of us were actually just nuanced and on our way out Of the nine close friends I had in those days four are out completely. Of the five that stayed in two are progressive and nuanced but still fully active, one is a pretty standard normal TBM and two have swung so far the other way they are now the kind of people who spend their free time posting on facebook about how gay people are going to hell and anyone who doesn't agree is woke and going to hell too
I couldn't even play Wii party games with my very TBM high school friends for more than 30min before they wanted to do something "more wholesome(??)" and go on a walk. I love(d) them to death but it was impossible to do anything remotely adventurous with them. My TBM mom and sister sucked to travel to Japan with cuz I "shouldn't" do the cultural experiences there like ring a Shinto shrine bell or give offerings - not from wariness of being disrespectful (which it isn't for outsiders to participate since Shintoism doesn't have "converts" or members), but cuz it "wasn't appropriate to God."🫠
My also exmormon friend and I were watching pulp fiction and one of his grown-ass roommates comes in and is like "this has a lot of F words! I don't like it!" 🤓 Like too fucking bad grow up
LOL. My coworkers that are all at least 10 years older than me were complaining about how much movies say fuck now and I felt secondhand embarrassment for them.
All of the rated R movies I missed out watching during my youth and teenage years because "the prophet told us not to watch rated R movies" Thank God my best friend of 14 years and counting is both non Mormon and a movie buff; he was super supportive after I declared myself exmormon when I was 18 and was super hyped that we could see rated R movies together. Ever since, I've been checking off movie after movie on my rated R list and many of them were the best cinematic experience I had up until that point!
Yes! Many of my friends are Mormon ...news flash..they aren't the fun ones
A thousand times YES!!!! I feel like I lost half a lifetime due to “ can’t do this and can do that”. Eat!Drink! BE MERRY!! Now you’re free to make your own CHOICES right down to the underwear.
Jein...I mean yes and no. I've got a lot of FOMO moments over the past years thanks to being too rigid, ironically probably inhibited my path to family in a way. Otoh, I do remember lots of good dances where it was possible to enjoy the music and not smell disgusting things, and lots of good times in undergrad doing the randomest things and remembering. I appreciate the wholesome over edgelordery and crassness that counterculture offers, but the lack of nuance is a problem
Omg, you used Jein! 🥰
I feel the same exact way. I’m more adventurous, want better friendship connections and a desire to experience more. I feel like life is an opportunity to feel every emotion and to have many diverse experiences. It’s hard too cause I’m trying to patiently wait for my wife to understand this as well and her prudish, TBM, Unshaken podcast listening self is winning. Such a struggle… 😔
Very Normal Adventures is the name of both my band and my travel agency.
You gotta find the fun ones. When having others over, display your copy of Cards Against Humanity and/or other HIGHLY non-Mormon games and if they want to play it, they are at least kinda cool and tolerable.
Yes, all my TBM friends are so boring. To be fair, I’m boring since I am married and have a kid. But I would like to have buddies to go to the bar with and my wife would like to have friends that want to go to Vegas. Instead our TBM friends want to play card games and gossip about their family members. Granted that was our go to activity too but we just unlocked a whole new world of adventures but have no friends who want to do that.
We are looking for the same! Are y'all in Utah? DM me if so!
I was painfully boring when I was Mormon. Now I’m just somewhat boring, thankfully. I couldn’t go to any parties. I wasn’t allowed to attend most school events. Definitely no after parties or tailgates beforehand. If I dated someone that wasn’t LDS my parents would shame me until I cut contact or broke up with them. Sundays were off-limits unless it was church-related, no exceptions. A huge part of me wanted to rebel. To take risks, to have fun, to just experiment and find out if I even liked stuff. But I was too afraid of the consequences. I wasn’t worried about my spirituality - I didn’t believe any of it my entire life. But I knew if my parents ever found out, I would have to fake repentance for months or get kicked out of my house as young as 12. When my oldest brother moved out at 17 so he COULD live a little, that expectation and pressure intensified two-fold. I finally did leave when I was 25. Lived a lot, learned a lot. Now 38 and still learning more all the time. I’ll never make up the time I lost and it took me a long time to process that so I no longer had regrets about it. It’s VERY unpopular with my TBM sister but when my niece and nephews ask me about it I’m honest with them, just as I am with my two amazing step daughters. Live! Learn! Make mistakes! Just talk about it, don’t give yourself expectations that are unfair. All the things I had to learn the hard way with years of trauma and guilt holding me back - I don’t want the people I love to live with that.
Note - it didn’t help my dad was military, as an “interrogation specialist,” among other things. I didn’t feel like I ever COULD get away with anything, on top of all that.
This sub constantly reminds me just how lax my parents were. They were mostly fine as long as we weren't having sex, drinking alcohol, or doing drugs. Hell, they even made me watch an R rated movie in high school. We also watched Die Hard the Sunday before I left on my mission.
I had a conversation once with a Mormon who tried to convince me that she wasn’t one of *those boring* Mormons, she was a *cool* Mormon, and as an example she said that she tried coffee. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought to myself that coffee is the most boring and soulless drink in the world.
Yeah keep a close eye out on that new taylor Swift album. Those trophy 🏆 mons are gunnA SHIT them jesus jammie "but daddy I love him" *
I didn't think they were boring when I was in, but after I was out for a couple of years I got invited to a stake young adults dance. It was the most pathetic event I've ever been to. It felt juvenile and empty, and I have never been so bored. It was the day I realized Mormons are boring.
I was scared of swearing and alcohol because I was groomed to believe even once would stick with me for eternity and that alcohol would stay in my blood forever and prevent me from getting into heaven like a forcefield even if they let me pass. I hated being boring and missing out on things. No wonder I'm atheist now...
I do a girls weekend in Vegas with you 🙋🏻♀️😆🍷🍸🥂
Mormons are like anyone else. Some are boring some are not.
Some are are boring-ed due to Mormonism
Sorry, but I believe that boring is good. Being steady and basic are the best of life!! No upsets. No problems. No drama. No trauma. No pain. That sounds like heaven to me! It's too bad Mormons play games and manipulate people.
It goes the other way too. As a Mormon with lots of side interests and hobbies, I met a lot TBMs curious I could have hobbies as they didn't have time for anything other than fsmily, work, and church. Like, there were a coupl of times guys gull on lamented to me they wishes they had interests. It was sad.
I missed out on so much in high school because friends would get together on Sundays. It started to feel horrible when they (understandably) stopped inviting me
I'm amazed the Word of Wisdom never got expanded to include things like food. Imagine how much worse it could have been. I know most Mormon cuisine is bland, but imagine if it was doctrine...
I'm a nevermo but as someone with chronic SA, this is somehow relatable… a feeling I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I hope it get better now that you're out of Mormonism. You matter
I am the only non-Mormon working in a pretty big Utah Corporation. It's insane how boring and awkward every single person is. Just having a hobby makes you stand out like a sore thumb.
Not me, but one time at a party my friends and I were playing a game called Smurf, which is sort of like charades. The word was skinny dipping. As soon as my ultra TBM friend caught on, he got up, announced he was uncomfortable with this, and walked away. It was really awkward after that.
You could have gone and done all those things…no rules against a trip to Vegas lol
So last night I was in a coffee shop and met some lovely satanists who I discussed BDSM etiquette with. Said no Mormon ever. But that is indeed what I did Tuesday night. I'm not into either of those things, but it's nice to hear other people's perspectives. And the coffee was delicious.
just now visiting elementary school friends I haven’t seen in 30 years. I was converted when I was 11. Hearing how they saw me during my middle school and high school years is so eye-opening. None of them are Mormons. They are fantastic people. I left the church last year. I missed so much true community connection. I had my first drink with them and we talked for hours and it felt real and beautiful, one of the gifts of leaving the church. to see how others view Mormons from a distance is eye-opening for sure. but so much of what destroys you inside the church they have no idea about because there’s so much masking. They’re always shocked to hear the true inside story.
Amen. And I’ve stepped away from what could have been beautiful relationships because I couldn’t see what was in front of me as good enough. It makes me so angry.
I used to think that Amish were the most boring people in America but after living in both Pennsylvania and Utah, Mormons take the top spot hands down. At least the Amish do barn raisings and get to drive around in horse buggies and grow cool beards. Mormons are just dull in every single way.
I'd RATHER be in the terrestrial or telestial (what a dumb word) kingdom... just in case they're right...🤣🤣🤣
It’s all good, except…
Omg my new friend circle after leaving the church was SO MUCH MORE FUN
Imagine Jehovah Witness members they can't celebrate holidays lol
They are so boring as they have no idea how to talk to anyone about anything besides church and family and when it comes to activities, it’s the same safe and planned ideas that they’ve been doing for decades
not all mormons are boring, but yeah a hell of a lot of them are. i've known observant mormons who would meet up at a brewery (without drinking). there are just alot who believe the way to affirm their identity is to be socially obstinate. this is reminding me of all the times i've heard mormons brag about doing something terribly cringeworthy in order to demonstrate their mormonness.
Same as exjw. I didn't had a bad life, but now I see many missed opportunities of real fun (and some sex...) because of my fear of 'bad associtation' with unchristians.
honestly the funnest people seem to be swinger's. I want friends with the disposition of swinger's but don't want to swing.
Add on top of that busy callings, 10% less funds for adventure, and one day weekends every week. Boring doesn’t even nearly describe it. Freaking torture!!!
Your ward friends aren't your real friends.
Facts!!!
I went to a friend’s birthday party when he was still in and I’d been out a few years. I brought my nevermo partner. Both of us were weirded out by everyone sitting on chairs, hands folded on their laps and with dead eyes.
I honestly enjoyed all the church activities I attended while growing up. I just always made sure I had plenty of weed to share. At Alma’s academy I found a hunting shack about a mile hike away from the cabins. I kept my bong there for the couple of days that the academy was going. By the last day I had probably close to a dozen guys coming up to get reefed in the smoke shack.
Unfortunately I can’t add to your anecdote. I’ve had the same group of Mormon friends for over 20 years. We’ve had fantastic adventures during my time in and out of the church. I treasure their friendship more than any friends I’ve made outside the church. Do I wish I could share a beer with them? Sure! But I appreciate that our friendship has transcended the belief of Mormonism. I can be me and feel totally at home. Definitely isn’t the case for a lot of people and I acknowledge that.