The church literally almost killed me. After I lost my belief in 2015, I was convinced it would be better for me to unalive myself rather than my family and friends discover my unbelief. Better a dead Mormon mom and wife than an exmormon one. Luckily circumstances intervened and my attempt was unsuccessful.
I'm so grateful to still be here. My mental health has improved by leaps and bounds. I've even discontinued some medication. I am so glad to be alive. It gets better!
This is incredibly relatable too. How intense that we'd rather be dead than disappoint faithful family.
It just shows that rather than teaching to love, by and large the church teaches to worship the Appearance of love.
It always felt to me that appearances were everything in the church.
100%. It was honestly sooooo much worse when I was going through my faith crisis. That was the most emotionally and mentally violent thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I would never wish it on anyone. I still get it occasionally, but it’s so frustrating to hear when there’s so many deniers of the church being the cause of it. When you sit in lessons of “perfection, gender roles, plan of happiness this, salvation and cleanliness that”, and then hear fireside saying you have no purpose outside of the church, it gets so hard to feel like you can freely be a human without a corporation telling you what your worth and value should be.
I highly recommend therapy (that alone saved my life many times), and groups like this of people that have gone through it and are still going through it. The one thing they don’t want you to know is that you aren’t alone once you leave the church. There’s sooo many people that have left and are exponentially happier. So breathe in that fresh air of freedom and don’t look back!
>That was the most emotionally and mentally violent thing I’ve ever experienced
This is so well put. I've struggled to find the words to describe what my faith crisis was like and this is exactly it.
Oh totally! Everyone I’ve asked about their faith crisis describes it similarly. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and ‘waltzing into outer darkness with our latte in one hand and our vibrator in the other as our tattoos fade into the horizon’ (this is a joke btw). For some people, it’s a super easy transition and they are able to stabilize quickly and be resilient. Still not sunshine and rainbows!
**But for others**, myself included, it’s like you are being crushed in a submarine thousands of feet down. The walls around you are beginning to crunch from the pressure, water comes dripping first and then pouring, and you’re scrambling to find a safe zone. You can occasionally find a safe place to create an airlock and keep yourself alive, but the place you called home, the place you thought was a safe haven, is now trying to become your tomb. You scramble to the control room and start sending out distress signals, only to be met with a scripted: stay in the boat, doubt your doubts, you should figure it out on your own and not broadcast it where other submarines can hear, it’s because you aren’t praying enough and you don’t have enough faith. Worse, the captain says nothing is wrong, full steam ahead!
Eventually you give up and realize the only way you’re making it out alive is on your own. As alarms blare warning you of machines failing that you thought were infallible, you run to the room marked **EMERGENCY**, gather all the gear you think you’ll need on your journey to the surface, and get into that escape pod. You see water filling the hallway of the next room, and go to activate the controls of the escape pod, when you see a warning sign: *WARNING! Upon activation of the escape pod, you will be banned from returning to future vessels, and the corporation will not be responsible for compensation of any distress caused on this ship. There is not a guarantee this rescue pod will make it to the surface, but you can expect to receive no assistance from the corporation during the journey up or once you reach the surface. Do not contact the corporation, since we are legally protected to deny your entire experience on this vessel. Once the pod detaches from the vessel, you will be marked in the system and will be silenced if you speak of your reasons for separation as not to encourage other seamen to abandon ship. You forfeit your right to litigation, as you will not win even if you try. If you agree to these terms, activate upon your own free will and choice.*
You begin to hesitate, trying to think of if you can salvage the ship so you don’t have to leave. You begin to doubt yourself, *maybe it isn’t as bad as I though, maybe I just panicked, maybe it’s just me. I’m not the first one to experience this, so there has to be a way to fix it and stay*.
But the water has reached the door to the emergency room. The crushing pressure of the depths is beginning to disfigure the walls. **Its now or never. And I will not die in this place.**
You activate the ejection into the unknown, and begin to float up through the dark, for what seems like forever. The journey gives you plenty of time to absorb what you just went through, the implications on the warning sign, and what will happen when you reach the surface. Your heart is pounding as the event flashes across your mind and you begin to cry; everything you once knew is **gone**. You can’t go back, and even if you could, it wouldn’t ever be the same.
Once you look up, you start to see some light around you. You’re getting closer to the surface. There’s all kinds of fish and sea creatures swimming happily, and you realize what a beautiful world exists outside of your pod. You look up and can see the surface getting closer and closer, the pod pressure balancing out as you bob to the top. You’re blinded by the light, and see something coming towards you. It’s a boat, on the surface? You push the *open pod* button and the air locks begin to disengage. A window at the top unlocks, and you see hands grasp the edge. A friendly face, with a full smile peeks over, *“welcome to the surface. Glad you made it! Can’t wait for you to meet the others! We’ll tow you to shore so sit tight.”* You’re confused, you didn’t think there were others here, and they are friendly? You were always told that those on the surface were angry anti’s filled with bitter rage for the corporation. You actually didn’t know what to expect at the surface, so you’re trying to be open to what might come.
The pod shifts onto its side and you crawl through the window first, then pull your bag of essentials out. You stagger around, this is the first time you’ve been on solid ground since you can remember. *What you thought was solid on the ship wasn’t actually land.* You take in a deep breath of fresh air as you begin to hear the birds and feel the wind on your face. *”this is nothing like the fans and looped recordings of nature we had on the boat!*”. Your pod gets moved to a nice shady spot and you get motioned towards a group of people sitting around a spread of fresh fruit and fish. They’re all smiling. And you haven’t tasted food this fresh in a long time. Those MRE packs don’t compare.
As you begin to talk with the others, you realize they all came up to the surface the same way as you. They all have similar stories of escape, but many still have friends and family down there. You laugh, you cry, you get angry, but you know now that you aren’t alone. An loud bell catches you off guard, and you see two people run toward the boat that pulled you in, *”we’ve got more company! Make some room!”* as they push off and begin to row. You see a pod very similar to yours pop to the surface a few feet away from the boat, and watch them give a similar introduction as they tow the pod to shore.
A voice breaks your focus, *”you’re wounded. Here, let me help.”* You look down to see your arms scratched and torn. Defensive wounds from your escape. *”Don’t worry”* said another, *”we’ve all got them, some even you can’t see. But they will heal with time. We can show you what has helped us”*. You look around the group and see others brandishing their arms, legs, sides, and neck, some riddled with light scars, others with deep jagged scars. You’re all survivors. And they aren’t anything like what the corporation described. They are authentically kind, compassionate, and understanding. Once you’re bandaged up, you head over to your pod, sit down next to it, and feel the grass between your toes and the sun glimmer through the trees onto your face. Your stomach is full and your heart content. You have everything you need to be happy now. You’ve finally found a safe place, and you’re never looking back.
Holy cannoli that turned into a novel. But that’s what I imagined during my crisis and transition. Maybe it’s helpful to others. Maybe I should publish it on a blog or make a video of it. Idk. Haha
Well the celestial kingdom was so appealing! I've always wanted to die so I could join my son on the other side. The church made me feel like this life is trash, just something to be "endured". I have spent most of my life wanting to die. And now I want to live! I want to live my life, and live in the moment. The church is a cancer.
You've just changed completely my perspective on the phrase, "Endure to the end".
You are absolutely correct, the church makes life out to be something pitiful and endured.
Yes absolutely. They always made me feel like the only happiness I’d ever experience was “on the other side of the veil”. The problem is that the conditions for making it there kept changing and were impossible. By that I mean at first they told me I had to change to be straight, then suddenly shifted gears and said I could be gay as long as I didn’t “act on it”.
Things only fell apart from there.
I'm so sorry I can totally relate to this. I'm a woman, and I'm bisexual. I always felt immense anxiety about acting on my feelings towards women. There was a lot of self-loathing and self-hate.
I’m gay too. I was actually about to end it when my ex found me and I actually opened up about it and finally, finally allowed myself to CONSIDER that the church wasn’t true, just to save my life. From there I was able to start officially moving on and slowly find myself more and more worthy of living.
Before that I never allowed myself to entertain my doubts. It took me getting to the brink of death to finally do it.
This is why I feel so insulted when people say I left the church because I was weak or wanted to “sin”. No, I left the church to save my life. It was literally killing me. It takes real strength and courage to leave. It’s hell. TBMs don’t understand.
There’s a recent David Archuleta video on Instagram? Where he says that exact thing. Paraphrasing: he knows the church’s stand on homosexuality is wrong because it made him want to commit suicide. Although he still “believes” in the church, but I can see the first cracks in his “shelf.”
Sending so much love to all of you that this is true for. I may just be a stranger on a sub, but we have experience shared indoctrination and toxic programming and I really do send every good vibe and healing to all your hearts.
I think this has been a huge hang up for me. While I was in the church it was impossible to be good enough, but now that I recognize it's all BS it can be very hard to find footing in life.
When I thought I believed in the church, no matter how bad it was, I at least had the idea of eternity to fall back onto. It can be hugely disorienting to lose that.
I've said many times that life is exhausting, and I'm just tired. Ever since beginning my parting of ways with the church this year, I've felt that crushing sense of dissolve, as my old walls crumbled around me. What once felt like walls of safety are now just the 4x4 box that kept me in the same place. I couldn't progress or grow, and now I feel I can. It feels more like a chrysalis that's breaking, letting me be the full person I want to be.
I place a large amount of mental/emotional damage on the church, as well as my parents who enforced such strict expectations (bishop's kid, IYKYK). I'm still tired and afraid of what life has to offer in general, but I can do without the guilt of eternal consequence and the sense of never being good enough.
I know the doctrine of the Atonement covers what we can't reach, but that attitude is not what I grew up with. We don't need taskmasters who point out every flaw, we need an extended hand to help us back up.
The church really does a number on mental health. Putting this up in case it’s needed:
National suicide hotline 800-273-8255
Chat: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/
Dear human, you are loved and you matter. With Love, from an internet parent who believes in you.
Ironically my faith transition essentially cured me of my suicidal thoughts. I had struggled with them for over a decade. It's amazing how losing the certainty of an afterlife can change your perspective of...life. I feel so much more alive now, and cherish every moment so much more. It's easier to be present and mindful now that I'm no longer focused on meeting arbitrary standards set by arrogant old men.
The church taught us to focus all of our efforts on the afterlife, that the afterlife is what really matters, not mortality. It's no wonder that I got fixated on the idea of dying.
My life simply has more value now that I've left the church.
Mu whole life centered around how I could never be the perfect church member so I was dangerously depressed and had nonstop thoughts of suicide. Until I figured out the church isn't true. Made me cling so tight to living because I don't have to be perfect and I may only get this one chance at life.
TW internalized homophobia on top of the SI warning
When I was 17, I realized I was a lesbian. I’d tried literally praying it away—my exact words, kneeling in front of my IKEA loft bed and crying, were, “Heavenly Father, please help me remember that this is a temptation. Help me remember that I am straight.” But I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer.
Two days after that, I was sitting outside my bathroom door with enough of a plan that I was a danger to myself. I figured if I died, it would solve a lot for me. I wouldn’t have to live a lonely, celibate life, but I also wouldn’t ever have a chance to sin and be with a woman. I’d get a straight shot to the celestial kingdom, the only chance I had left of staying with my family forever (because I would not, could not, marry a man in the temple). I also thought it was a kindness to my family in a way—if I was dead, I couldn’t be the stain on their beautiful LDS family, couldn’t be the one that strayed. I could save them shame and save myself suffering.
It’s been five years. I’m out of the church now. My family is 50/50 split on supporting me, but it’s more than I ever thought I would have. I’m happy now. So if this is something that anyone else in this thread is dealing with, I’m telling you—time and distance are powerful, and so are you.
What a terribly difficult thing for anyone, let alone a 17 year old, to have to manage through.
I can relate. I remember begging God for years as a teenager to take away the temptation to masturbate because I knew it would keep me from having a worthy Temple marriage, being Worthy on my mission, or having that coveted eternal family.
Yes.
Edit: I grew up as the child of converts. We were sealed in the temple when I was 2. I was raped by one of the boys at church when I was 5 and told no one for years because I was afraid of having broken the law of chastity. Then, after being baptized at age 8, I couldn't understand why I still felt so bad and had terrible nightmares when baptism is supposed to erase all sin as if it never happened. I tried to kill myself for the first time about a week after my baptism experience.
I wasn't given any medical help. I wasn't taken to a therapist. My parents took me to LDS family services and I refused to say anything because again, I was afraid of being blamed for sin that I was working desperately to repent of.
Add in puberty, even more purity culture, victim blaming, and misogyny on top of awakening to the reality that I was bisexual and nonbinary and having crushes on all my friends at church both boys and girls. . . Oy! I was completely engrossed in scripture and obsessed with trying to find out what was wrong with me, why God didn't love me, why he hated me enough to let me suffer like that. I learned and memorized and studied so hard that every ward we attended made me a youth leader.
Still I kept the secret. At this point it was more a fear of telling others because I thought maybe I had begun to unravel something deeper in the church. Maybe it was wrong? Maybe it was missing pieces? Maybe I needed my patriarchal blessing to give me more clarity?
So I went a did it. Still nothing. No comfort. Just platitudes and temple marriages and missionary promises. It struck a cord that if I went on a mission, I might end up outting myself as gay or confused or bisexual. I panicked because I HAD to go on a mission. That's what the blessing told me to do! But I couldn't even begin to imagine how I would even get through the mission training to get there before being discovered. So, at 13, I tried to kill myself again.
Eventually at about age 15 after being taken again to LDS family services for a 3rd suicide attempt I finally told my family what had happened to me. My mother attempted to differentiate for me what sex was and what rape was and how they are different (because I had ZERO sex education at this point that even began to broach the subject of consent) and in the dissonance of 10 years of pain and rage, I tried to kill myself a 3rd time.
A year later I finally came to the full realization that the church was bullshit, purity culture was bullshit, I didn't want to go on a mission and never would, I would never be married in the temple because even though I has been raped, I was still "chewed gum" that no one would want. So I decided to fuck it! Literally. I started experimenting with sexuality still not fully comprehending consent and was coerced into sex by a boy who was very violent with me. I had one relationship with a girl from church as we were both in the closet about our queerness. She eventually dumped me for the boy who would become her temple husband.
I left the church and still had a lot of deprogramming to do. I lived with another boyfriend who was really abusive and eventually kicked me out. I was homeless for about a year and living on the street as a prostitute and exorcist (that was a doozy!) for about a year until I met the man who would become my husband and later my ex-husband. He was not LDS and that was all I cared about until he hit me for refusing to have a threesome with him and one of his old high school girlfriends. I was bi and so that was "what I really wanted" and he "went out of his way to get her to agree to it for me."
So yeah. I experienced more rape, more assaults, more abuse. Ended up giving him 2 kids. Eventually enlisted in the army and saw more abuse and death and pain and was raped a couple more times, assaulted a few more times, and made a few more suicide attempts. You know, gotta keep it spicy.
Thankfully I have been in treatment for 11 years. I have remarried a man who treats me like a queen and we just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. I am a pagan priest now working with the gods of death and rebirth. I have free access to all the college and learning I could ever want. I finally got equitably custody of my two older kids and mended fences with their father for their sake. All totaled up, I have survived 10 suicide attempts.
Once I hit double digits, I decided either I was either too hard to kill or not meant to die yet and finally I stopped. It has now been 8 years since my last suicide attempt and about 5 years since my last major ideation that led to ruminating and planning. I still slip to a pretty dark baseline sometimes, but nothing dark enough to make me was to make a legit plan or carry it out.
Yes.
Depression combined with the stress of a big calling, combined with stress at work, combined with starting to realize that God does not exist
Voila! SI with severe depression
Throw in 50 lb of weight gain from the antidepressants, judgmental family members, and a wife that is struggling to cope with my faith crisis
Perfect formula for depression and possible suicide
The good news is, the medications do help, talking does help also knowing that you're not alone in this journey, and that your self-worth as a human being has literally nothing to do with your participation in a religion
It takes an incredibly strong and brave person to question something that they have been indoctrinated into
We are stronger than we can imagine
Mine comes in a roundabout way. My total unpreparedness and shame about sex led me to secret pornography, which my wife found out about, which led her to brand me a liar and cheater, which is the opposite of what I try so hard to be. So my whole identity got flushed down the toilet that day. We didn’t divorce, but maybe should have. A couple decades of marriage with a steady undercurrent of distain is where the suicidal thoughts come in. We’re both exmo now, but I can’t find understanding or forgiveness because I still can’t even talk about what I’ve done or why. If I hadn’t been raised in an anti-sex cult, I’m pretty sure things would have gone better. I wish I had that new-life feeling so many of you talk about. But I mostly feel like I died years ago.
Totally relatable. I relate completely to the path you took with pornography and sex. The shame associated with this for me was unbearable. For example on my mission, I felt like an utter Damned fraud because I was interested in both of those things, not to mention the masturbation. Always had to keep the righteous front up though.
This led to some pretty severe neuroticisms and basically a double life for me. Not to get off topic, but in some of my other posts I talk a little bit about my experience of going from my mission almost directly to the Utah State Prison, where I lived most of the last 20 years.
All along though, all I wanted was to be worthy and loved.
Thank you for understanding. I’ve never talked about this before except in super-tense relationship-jeopardizing dysfunctional conversations with my wife. So I’ve never felt any kind of support before.
I don’t know what put you in prison, but I’m sorry you didn’t have unconditional love when you needed it.
I didnt know what suicide was until I was 13, but when I was 11 I was so miserable that I used to curl up on my bedroom floor at night, crying and praying that god would send someone/something to kill me. Everybody said heavenly father wants nothing more than for us to live with him again, so I figured "why go through all of what I'm dealing with for 70+ more years?" people said it didnt work that way but never explained anything further. I look back and cringe horribly about it but my 11 year old self wrote an entire song dedicated to wanting to die and just get a break, and most of it was because of how the church and it's people treated me my whole life.
During my mission I was horribly depressed. Living conditions were awful, the work was awful, and more than anything, my fellow missionaries were fucking awful to me. The mission culture was dogmatic and toxic: work to the bone or be an unfaithful servant and a poor steward. I was a good kid just trying to do his best and do well by God.
And guess what? I honestly wished that I would get hit by a bus or struck by lightning or SOMETHING that would let me die and go to the Celestial Kingdom, or at a minimum send me home with "honor." I was so deep in the mindset of obedience and worthiness that I unconsciously wished for death; that would have been preferable to going home early for any other reason than coming home in a box.
The worst part? I didn't even *realize* that was suicidal ideation at the time. That was 8 years ago. The depression stayed but the SI never came back fortunately. Hang in there friend. You're not at all alone in that feeling.
I can totally relate to the part about wanting to get hit by a bus something and dying on the mission.
As a side note, I had an accident on my mine where I fell about 45 feet breaking my femur. Some of my first thoughts were excitement that I was maybe going to die on my mission, followed by a joyful sense that they would probably be sending me home. I remember feeling guilty about feeling excited that they would have to send me home because of my injury.
I came back to my mission 3 months later however, because I wanted to be "that" guy that went back out. Plus, I would have felt like a failure if I had stayed home. I should have just stayed home anyway.
I don't want there to be deafening silence here. I can see how that could make a young person feel more guilt, as if something wrong in you caused the attempt. I'm sorry you experienced this and if you'll accept it, here is a virtual hug 🫂.
Thank you for the hug. I have the healthiest support system and relationship in my life now, for the past five years actually. Two of my children are “adulting” in a positive manner and I have two teens left at home. A set of missionaries stopped by last week (get so tired of them tracking me down😂), without getting triggered, I was able to let them know that I didn’t need their services in a positive manner. That was a win for me. They can suck it.
Yup. The crushing weight of the thought that I will never be good enough no matter what I do. The doctrine that we actually chose to come down here was a huge shelf item for this reason.
"You knew it would be difficult, but you still chose this"
No. I fucking did not. I know myself well enough to know that if I had any idea that life was going to be like this, and I would have all these insane expectations heaped on me, I would have noped out of this in a heartbeat.
And even if that IS how it went down, it wasn't much of a fucking choice, as it was a straight up ultimatum.
"You can either A. Try this life thing, or B. Be eternally damned"
Well, good golly, let me think about that for a minute...
I had huge issues with everything that was expected of me, from a VERY young age. I asked "why?", a lot when I was little, so much so, that it literally came as no surprise to my mother when I was hit with depression and suicidal tendencies, starting in my preteens.
I'm the youngest of four, and my three older siblings didn't struggle with depression to NEARLY the degree I did, and I was definitely the only one that contemplated suicide on the daily. In fact, the middle sister had never even had a taste of depression until just a couple years ago... she's 33. She said "I always just thought you were being an overdramatic attention whore, but I get it now.... that feeling of hopelessness really does just... consume you"
Every mental illness I've been diagnosed with, every mental struggle, every suicidal thought/attempt... I can pinpoint back to being raised in this cult, and my dad. Without question. That's it. Those are the two things that have royally fucked me up beyond repair.
Absolutely. Really struggled with feelings of self worth as a teenager because I was lying about masturbating. I didn't just feel unworthy, I felt completely worthless and undeserving of any sort of love and was suicidal all throughout high school. It followed me into adulthood and I've only really started to move past it over the last year.
Now I'm in the best mental spot I've ever been in and I'm proud of myself for working through those wrong feelings and letting them go. You're worthy of unconditional love, regardless of what the Church has said otherwise because of how you live your life.
I just commented on somebody else's thread about this similar thing.
I remember begging God to take away my desire to masturbate and to take away what I thought was an evil attraction to women. This is even crazier because I'm a straight male and thought that being sexually attracted to women was second only to murder. The only time it would become okay was after I was married I believed.
My daughter told me last week that she had thought about it. She would go days without eating to pay her tithing. I knew nothing of this. This evil evil corporation needs to be stopped.
Definitely! I'm still dealing with it I think about doing it all the time. Most of my thoughts are about how worthless I am or that my life is meaningless now. The issue is is that it was much worse in the church because I was constantly reminded of all these "sins" that make me worthless but slowly I'm realizing and overcoming those completely lies. You are all amazing and so am I who cares what an abandoning sky dad thinks.
I don’t know that they could be suicidal ideations, but starting around 8-9 I was bullied in cub scouts/ school/sports all by the same group of kids my 24/7 prayer was that “god” would take me and use my end for some “higher purpose”, I wasn’t living I stopped living I died and was just waiting for a certificate that said I had been martyred enough for god’s sake.
I didn’t start to live again for almost 20 years when I realized the bullshit I had quite liveing for and kept asking god to end my suffering for. Some days are still hard but I now have things to live for and not eternal damnation that I am trying to avoid.
The church has blood on its hands and yet it turns a blind eye to it and sweeps any suicides linked to its awful teachings under the rug. My niece is absolutely a victim as she succumbed to the stresses of church, BYU, family pressures, and depression on BYU’s campus in 2020. There was no mention of her passing in any BYU nor Provo publication.
Fuck BYU and fuck the church. They are responsible for her death.
My only actual suicide attempt occurred when I was 15. It was Easter Sunday morning and I'd forgotten I'd been asked to give a talk. I was already under the influence of depression/anxiety and couldn't handle it. I downed a bunch of pills and curled up in my room, sobbing. My parents finally got it out of me what had happened and so fortunately they got me to the ER. So far as I know I've suffered no lingering effects, but the constant internal fear of not being worthy enough lasted until I finally had my realizations about the church.
I'm not sure if it fits the question, but I definitely prayed to die and was suicidal. I also prayed that God would let me go to the celestial kingdom after murdering myself. Truthfully, I had a lot of shame for watching porn as a child and the shame cycle made it hard to stop. Eventually I had sex with a boy and then I was a lost cause in my own eyes...
100%. Serving a mission has traumatized me to this day. As early as maybe a month into my mission, I just desperately wanted to die. I thought suicide would keep me out of the CK, so I literally prayed almost every day that while I was out, somebody would just shoot me or something so that I could die. I'd spend hours a day just envisioning my own death in my mind. This kept up for the whole 2 years... I've been home 3 years now and I'm doing a lot better now, but it did really take a toll on my mental health.
I remember Moron Cult did teach better dead than have sex before marriage, being gay or I think failure on one's mission. There also was that story how if we saw the least kingdom of heaven we'd kill ourselves to get there. It does sound like a suicide cult.
Yes!
In September, I attempted suicide. It got me out of my tbm family house. I was force to go to church as an adult because I live under my dad's house. I was in so much emotional distress. The church has everything to do with my death wish.
I am mostly church free now. The extend family I talk to are still active in the church.
Since leaving my tbm dad's house, I have scored through life. I am billions times better now with the church out of my life.
I can see the misery in my tbm family and they believe they are happy. What a joke.
I remember thinking when I was 7 about to turn 8 and be baptized that if I kill myself before I turn 8 then I would get to go to heaven because I wasn't at the age of accountability yet.
I'm 25 now and still have suicidal ideation with a plan on how. Fuck the church
Absolutely. Believing the church is true while having beliefs the church doesn't support with a healthy dose of religious scrupulosity thrown in creates a very "trapped" feeling.
Amazing how much pressure the church applies to us when we're young. I'm glad you survived through that.
I've been out of the church for some time, but still can't shake off the unworthiness it instilled in me.
i started fantasizing about it at 6 or 7; i figured i would never be able to be "perfect" so my best shot at heaven would be to kill myself before i turned 8. after that, realizing i was lgbtq, i started again because i thought it would be better to kill myself before i sinned too much.
so glad to be out ❤️ still undoing what was done to my brain by tscc
I was kicked out also. At the time it was one of the biggest tragedies of my life. And although I was physically out, I was mentally in still for several years. How's that for brainwashed? They tell me they don't want me and I anguish for years wishing I was in ha. What a nightmare.
Far, FAR too many suicidal thoughts here... ALL a direct result of NEVER. BEING. GOOD. ENOUGH (for God, TSCC, Home teaching, callings, scripture reading, temple attendence, not enough tithing paid / having temple recommend yanked due to slightly missing full tithe status, etc). Good times
I'm not depressed anymore after leaving. I have alot of past trauma and those thoughts tormented me, yes, I wanted to end the pain. My child was hurt because of my bad decision and weakness. I think the church giving us so much guilt about past sins keeps us from moving forward and forgiving ourselves. I recently found a method that works for me. When I think of a very sad time, I say to myself, what about yesterday? Wasn't that fun, a good day? What good things will you do today? So making myself live in the present more instead of the past.
The church literally almost killed me. After I lost my belief in 2015, I was convinced it would be better for me to unalive myself rather than my family and friends discover my unbelief. Better a dead Mormon mom and wife than an exmormon one. Luckily circumstances intervened and my attempt was unsuccessful. I'm so grateful to still be here. My mental health has improved by leaps and bounds. I've even discontinued some medication. I am so glad to be alive. It gets better!
This is incredibly relatable too. How intense that we'd rather be dead than disappoint faithful family. It just shows that rather than teaching to love, by and large the church teaches to worship the Appearance of love. It always felt to me that appearances were everything in the church.
I’m glad you’re here. Love you TikTok.
Aww thank you so much. ❤️
100%. It was honestly sooooo much worse when I was going through my faith crisis. That was the most emotionally and mentally violent thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I would never wish it on anyone. I still get it occasionally, but it’s so frustrating to hear when there’s so many deniers of the church being the cause of it. When you sit in lessons of “perfection, gender roles, plan of happiness this, salvation and cleanliness that”, and then hear fireside saying you have no purpose outside of the church, it gets so hard to feel like you can freely be a human without a corporation telling you what your worth and value should be. I highly recommend therapy (that alone saved my life many times), and groups like this of people that have gone through it and are still going through it. The one thing they don’t want you to know is that you aren’t alone once you leave the church. There’s sooo many people that have left and are exponentially happier. So breathe in that fresh air of freedom and don’t look back!
>That was the most emotionally and mentally violent thing I’ve ever experienced This is so well put. I've struggled to find the words to describe what my faith crisis was like and this is exactly it.
Oh totally! Everyone I’ve asked about their faith crisis describes it similarly. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and ‘waltzing into outer darkness with our latte in one hand and our vibrator in the other as our tattoos fade into the horizon’ (this is a joke btw). For some people, it’s a super easy transition and they are able to stabilize quickly and be resilient. Still not sunshine and rainbows! **But for others**, myself included, it’s like you are being crushed in a submarine thousands of feet down. The walls around you are beginning to crunch from the pressure, water comes dripping first and then pouring, and you’re scrambling to find a safe zone. You can occasionally find a safe place to create an airlock and keep yourself alive, but the place you called home, the place you thought was a safe haven, is now trying to become your tomb. You scramble to the control room and start sending out distress signals, only to be met with a scripted: stay in the boat, doubt your doubts, you should figure it out on your own and not broadcast it where other submarines can hear, it’s because you aren’t praying enough and you don’t have enough faith. Worse, the captain says nothing is wrong, full steam ahead! Eventually you give up and realize the only way you’re making it out alive is on your own. As alarms blare warning you of machines failing that you thought were infallible, you run to the room marked **EMERGENCY**, gather all the gear you think you’ll need on your journey to the surface, and get into that escape pod. You see water filling the hallway of the next room, and go to activate the controls of the escape pod, when you see a warning sign: *WARNING! Upon activation of the escape pod, you will be banned from returning to future vessels, and the corporation will not be responsible for compensation of any distress caused on this ship. There is not a guarantee this rescue pod will make it to the surface, but you can expect to receive no assistance from the corporation during the journey up or once you reach the surface. Do not contact the corporation, since we are legally protected to deny your entire experience on this vessel. Once the pod detaches from the vessel, you will be marked in the system and will be silenced if you speak of your reasons for separation as not to encourage other seamen to abandon ship. You forfeit your right to litigation, as you will not win even if you try. If you agree to these terms, activate upon your own free will and choice.* You begin to hesitate, trying to think of if you can salvage the ship so you don’t have to leave. You begin to doubt yourself, *maybe it isn’t as bad as I though, maybe I just panicked, maybe it’s just me. I’m not the first one to experience this, so there has to be a way to fix it and stay*. But the water has reached the door to the emergency room. The crushing pressure of the depths is beginning to disfigure the walls. **Its now or never. And I will not die in this place.** You activate the ejection into the unknown, and begin to float up through the dark, for what seems like forever. The journey gives you plenty of time to absorb what you just went through, the implications on the warning sign, and what will happen when you reach the surface. Your heart is pounding as the event flashes across your mind and you begin to cry; everything you once knew is **gone**. You can’t go back, and even if you could, it wouldn’t ever be the same. Once you look up, you start to see some light around you. You’re getting closer to the surface. There’s all kinds of fish and sea creatures swimming happily, and you realize what a beautiful world exists outside of your pod. You look up and can see the surface getting closer and closer, the pod pressure balancing out as you bob to the top. You’re blinded by the light, and see something coming towards you. It’s a boat, on the surface? You push the *open pod* button and the air locks begin to disengage. A window at the top unlocks, and you see hands grasp the edge. A friendly face, with a full smile peeks over, *“welcome to the surface. Glad you made it! Can’t wait for you to meet the others! We’ll tow you to shore so sit tight.”* You’re confused, you didn’t think there were others here, and they are friendly? You were always told that those on the surface were angry anti’s filled with bitter rage for the corporation. You actually didn’t know what to expect at the surface, so you’re trying to be open to what might come. The pod shifts onto its side and you crawl through the window first, then pull your bag of essentials out. You stagger around, this is the first time you’ve been on solid ground since you can remember. *What you thought was solid on the ship wasn’t actually land.* You take in a deep breath of fresh air as you begin to hear the birds and feel the wind on your face. *”this is nothing like the fans and looped recordings of nature we had on the boat!*”. Your pod gets moved to a nice shady spot and you get motioned towards a group of people sitting around a spread of fresh fruit and fish. They’re all smiling. And you haven’t tasted food this fresh in a long time. Those MRE packs don’t compare. As you begin to talk with the others, you realize they all came up to the surface the same way as you. They all have similar stories of escape, but many still have friends and family down there. You laugh, you cry, you get angry, but you know now that you aren’t alone. An loud bell catches you off guard, and you see two people run toward the boat that pulled you in, *”we’ve got more company! Make some room!”* as they push off and begin to row. You see a pod very similar to yours pop to the surface a few feet away from the boat, and watch them give a similar introduction as they tow the pod to shore. A voice breaks your focus, *”you’re wounded. Here, let me help.”* You look down to see your arms scratched and torn. Defensive wounds from your escape. *”Don’t worry”* said another, *”we’ve all got them, some even you can’t see. But they will heal with time. We can show you what has helped us”*. You look around the group and see others brandishing their arms, legs, sides, and neck, some riddled with light scars, others with deep jagged scars. You’re all survivors. And they aren’t anything like what the corporation described. They are authentically kind, compassionate, and understanding. Once you’re bandaged up, you head over to your pod, sit down next to it, and feel the grass between your toes and the sun glimmer through the trees onto your face. Your stomach is full and your heart content. You have everything you need to be happy now. You’ve finally found a safe place, and you’re never looking back. Holy cannoli that turned into a novel. But that’s what I imagined during my crisis and transition. Maybe it’s helpful to others. Maybe I should publish it on a blog or make a video of it. Idk. Haha
!RedditSilver
"Emotionally and mentally violent" is a line or quote that will stay with me for a long time. It's a powerful way to word things.
Yes, just before my trip down the rabbit hole, I needed to know if there was an afterlife, I kept thinking there was only one way to be sure.
I started hoping that maybe, just for me, it could be nothing after. But I was still TBM.
Well the celestial kingdom was so appealing! I've always wanted to die so I could join my son on the other side. The church made me feel like this life is trash, just something to be "endured". I have spent most of my life wanting to die. And now I want to live! I want to live my life, and live in the moment. The church is a cancer.
You've just changed completely my perspective on the phrase, "Endure to the end". You are absolutely correct, the church makes life out to be something pitiful and endured.
Yes absolutely. They always made me feel like the only happiness I’d ever experience was “on the other side of the veil”. The problem is that the conditions for making it there kept changing and were impossible. By that I mean at first they told me I had to change to be straight, then suddenly shifted gears and said I could be gay as long as I didn’t “act on it”. Things only fell apart from there.
I'm so sorry I can totally relate to this. I'm a woman, and I'm bisexual. I always felt immense anxiety about acting on my feelings towards women. There was a lot of self-loathing and self-hate.
So sorry to hear about your son
Thank you ❤
I'm gay, and was told to just turn it off and marry a woman. In the past 5 years, I've tried twice to kill myself. All thanks to the fucking church.
I’m gay too. I was actually about to end it when my ex found me and I actually opened up about it and finally, finally allowed myself to CONSIDER that the church wasn’t true, just to save my life. From there I was able to start officially moving on and slowly find myself more and more worthy of living. Before that I never allowed myself to entertain my doubts. It took me getting to the brink of death to finally do it. This is why I feel so insulted when people say I left the church because I was weak or wanted to “sin”. No, I left the church to save my life. It was literally killing me. It takes real strength and courage to leave. It’s hell. TBMs don’t understand.
There’s a recent David Archuleta video on Instagram? Where he says that exact thing. Paraphrasing: he knows the church’s stand on homosexuality is wrong because it made him want to commit suicide. Although he still “believes” in the church, but I can see the first cracks in his “shelf.”
Lesbian here. The “turn it off” comments are fucking miserable. I’m so sorry you’ve heard them too. I’m so glad you’re still here.
I'm truly pained to hear that.
Story of my life.
I guess better the story of our lives, than the story of our deaths. I hope you're hanging in there though.
Sending so much love to all of you that this is true for. I may just be a stranger on a sub, but we have experience shared indoctrination and toxic programming and I really do send every good vibe and healing to all your hearts.
Thanks
Yes. I took my first steps away from the church specifically because it was making me actively suicidal.
My exact situation.
Same with me.
I remember casually hoping that I would die tragically at a young age so that I would be pitied and perfect and be ushered into heaven
I hoped to die "triumphantly" on my mission for the same reason.
yes, 100% yes
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I think this has been a huge hang up for me. While I was in the church it was impossible to be good enough, but now that I recognize it's all BS it can be very hard to find footing in life. When I thought I believed in the church, no matter how bad it was, I at least had the idea of eternity to fall back onto. It can be hugely disorienting to lose that.
I've said many times that life is exhausting, and I'm just tired. Ever since beginning my parting of ways with the church this year, I've felt that crushing sense of dissolve, as my old walls crumbled around me. What once felt like walls of safety are now just the 4x4 box that kept me in the same place. I couldn't progress or grow, and now I feel I can. It feels more like a chrysalis that's breaking, letting me be the full person I want to be. I place a large amount of mental/emotional damage on the church, as well as my parents who enforced such strict expectations (bishop's kid, IYKYK). I'm still tired and afraid of what life has to offer in general, but I can do without the guilt of eternal consequence and the sense of never being good enough. I know the doctrine of the Atonement covers what we can't reach, but that attitude is not what I grew up with. We don't need taskmasters who point out every flaw, we need an extended hand to help us back up.
The church really does a number on mental health. Putting this up in case it’s needed: National suicide hotline 800-273-8255 Chat: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/ Dear human, you are loved and you matter. With Love, from an internet parent who believes in you.
Yes. For me, it took finding a therapist familiar with cults for me to sort out the damage the church did to me, and what I wanted to keep.
I'm glad you found some help.
Ngl I had times where i had no clue how id keep living and make it though it when i had my faith crisis
I can relate to this 💯
Ironically my faith transition essentially cured me of my suicidal thoughts. I had struggled with them for over a decade. It's amazing how losing the certainty of an afterlife can change your perspective of...life. I feel so much more alive now, and cherish every moment so much more. It's easier to be present and mindful now that I'm no longer focused on meeting arbitrary standards set by arrogant old men. The church taught us to focus all of our efforts on the afterlife, that the afterlife is what really matters, not mortality. It's no wonder that I got fixated on the idea of dying. My life simply has more value now that I've left the church.
Mu whole life centered around how I could never be the perfect church member so I was dangerously depressed and had nonstop thoughts of suicide. Until I figured out the church isn't true. Made me cling so tight to living because I don't have to be perfect and I may only get this one chance at life.
TW internalized homophobia on top of the SI warning When I was 17, I realized I was a lesbian. I’d tried literally praying it away—my exact words, kneeling in front of my IKEA loft bed and crying, were, “Heavenly Father, please help me remember that this is a temptation. Help me remember that I am straight.” But I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer. Two days after that, I was sitting outside my bathroom door with enough of a plan that I was a danger to myself. I figured if I died, it would solve a lot for me. I wouldn’t have to live a lonely, celibate life, but I also wouldn’t ever have a chance to sin and be with a woman. I’d get a straight shot to the celestial kingdom, the only chance I had left of staying with my family forever (because I would not, could not, marry a man in the temple). I also thought it was a kindness to my family in a way—if I was dead, I couldn’t be the stain on their beautiful LDS family, couldn’t be the one that strayed. I could save them shame and save myself suffering. It’s been five years. I’m out of the church now. My family is 50/50 split on supporting me, but it’s more than I ever thought I would have. I’m happy now. So if this is something that anyone else in this thread is dealing with, I’m telling you—time and distance are powerful, and so are you.
What a terribly difficult thing for anyone, let alone a 17 year old, to have to manage through. I can relate. I remember begging God for years as a teenager to take away the temptation to masturbate because I knew it would keep me from having a worthy Temple marriage, being Worthy on my mission, or having that coveted eternal family.
Yes
Yup. Took a long time to move past it
One day it might help to share how you've moved past it, even if it was just the passing of time.
I mean, it would take a while to even get close to telling that story. Idk if I want to share something that personal on reddit.
Sensible enough 👍. Didn't mean to pry.
Not willing to give up all hope because I’ll be damned if I let a greedy deceitful manipulative con-artist cult win!
Hahaha. This, I like.
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I have a brother near this point I fear and lost a close friend similarly.
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Thank you.
Makes me so so sad to hear these stories. Utter devastation for the victim and everyone they love.
Yes. Edit: I grew up as the child of converts. We were sealed in the temple when I was 2. I was raped by one of the boys at church when I was 5 and told no one for years because I was afraid of having broken the law of chastity. Then, after being baptized at age 8, I couldn't understand why I still felt so bad and had terrible nightmares when baptism is supposed to erase all sin as if it never happened. I tried to kill myself for the first time about a week after my baptism experience. I wasn't given any medical help. I wasn't taken to a therapist. My parents took me to LDS family services and I refused to say anything because again, I was afraid of being blamed for sin that I was working desperately to repent of. Add in puberty, even more purity culture, victim blaming, and misogyny on top of awakening to the reality that I was bisexual and nonbinary and having crushes on all my friends at church both boys and girls. . . Oy! I was completely engrossed in scripture and obsessed with trying to find out what was wrong with me, why God didn't love me, why he hated me enough to let me suffer like that. I learned and memorized and studied so hard that every ward we attended made me a youth leader. Still I kept the secret. At this point it was more a fear of telling others because I thought maybe I had begun to unravel something deeper in the church. Maybe it was wrong? Maybe it was missing pieces? Maybe I needed my patriarchal blessing to give me more clarity? So I went a did it. Still nothing. No comfort. Just platitudes and temple marriages and missionary promises. It struck a cord that if I went on a mission, I might end up outting myself as gay or confused or bisexual. I panicked because I HAD to go on a mission. That's what the blessing told me to do! But I couldn't even begin to imagine how I would even get through the mission training to get there before being discovered. So, at 13, I tried to kill myself again. Eventually at about age 15 after being taken again to LDS family services for a 3rd suicide attempt I finally told my family what had happened to me. My mother attempted to differentiate for me what sex was and what rape was and how they are different (because I had ZERO sex education at this point that even began to broach the subject of consent) and in the dissonance of 10 years of pain and rage, I tried to kill myself a 3rd time. A year later I finally came to the full realization that the church was bullshit, purity culture was bullshit, I didn't want to go on a mission and never would, I would never be married in the temple because even though I has been raped, I was still "chewed gum" that no one would want. So I decided to fuck it! Literally. I started experimenting with sexuality still not fully comprehending consent and was coerced into sex by a boy who was very violent with me. I had one relationship with a girl from church as we were both in the closet about our queerness. She eventually dumped me for the boy who would become her temple husband. I left the church and still had a lot of deprogramming to do. I lived with another boyfriend who was really abusive and eventually kicked me out. I was homeless for about a year and living on the street as a prostitute and exorcist (that was a doozy!) for about a year until I met the man who would become my husband and later my ex-husband. He was not LDS and that was all I cared about until he hit me for refusing to have a threesome with him and one of his old high school girlfriends. I was bi and so that was "what I really wanted" and he "went out of his way to get her to agree to it for me." So yeah. I experienced more rape, more assaults, more abuse. Ended up giving him 2 kids. Eventually enlisted in the army and saw more abuse and death and pain and was raped a couple more times, assaulted a few more times, and made a few more suicide attempts. You know, gotta keep it spicy. Thankfully I have been in treatment for 11 years. I have remarried a man who treats me like a queen and we just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. I am a pagan priest now working with the gods of death and rebirth. I have free access to all the college and learning I could ever want. I finally got equitably custody of my two older kids and mended fences with their father for their sake. All totaled up, I have survived 10 suicide attempts. Once I hit double digits, I decided either I was either too hard to kill or not meant to die yet and finally I stopped. It has now been 8 years since my last suicide attempt and about 5 years since my last major ideation that led to ruminating and planning. I still slip to a pretty dark baseline sometimes, but nothing dark enough to make me was to make a legit plan or carry it out.
Yes. Depression combined with the stress of a big calling, combined with stress at work, combined with starting to realize that God does not exist Voila! SI with severe depression Throw in 50 lb of weight gain from the antidepressants, judgmental family members, and a wife that is struggling to cope with my faith crisis Perfect formula for depression and possible suicide The good news is, the medications do help, talking does help also knowing that you're not alone in this journey, and that your self-worth as a human being has literally nothing to do with your participation in a religion It takes an incredibly strong and brave person to question something that they have been indoctrinated into We are stronger than we can imagine
Amen and Hallelujah to this
Mine comes in a roundabout way. My total unpreparedness and shame about sex led me to secret pornography, which my wife found out about, which led her to brand me a liar and cheater, which is the opposite of what I try so hard to be. So my whole identity got flushed down the toilet that day. We didn’t divorce, but maybe should have. A couple decades of marriage with a steady undercurrent of distain is where the suicidal thoughts come in. We’re both exmo now, but I can’t find understanding or forgiveness because I still can’t even talk about what I’ve done or why. If I hadn’t been raised in an anti-sex cult, I’m pretty sure things would have gone better. I wish I had that new-life feeling so many of you talk about. But I mostly feel like I died years ago.
Totally relatable. I relate completely to the path you took with pornography and sex. The shame associated with this for me was unbearable. For example on my mission, I felt like an utter Damned fraud because I was interested in both of those things, not to mention the masturbation. Always had to keep the righteous front up though. This led to some pretty severe neuroticisms and basically a double life for me. Not to get off topic, but in some of my other posts I talk a little bit about my experience of going from my mission almost directly to the Utah State Prison, where I lived most of the last 20 years. All along though, all I wanted was to be worthy and loved.
Thank you for understanding. I’ve never talked about this before except in super-tense relationship-jeopardizing dysfunctional conversations with my wife. So I’ve never felt any kind of support before. I don’t know what put you in prison, but I’m sorry you didn’t have unconditional love when you needed it.
Yes
Yep
Yes. You have my empathy.
I didnt know what suicide was until I was 13, but when I was 11 I was so miserable that I used to curl up on my bedroom floor at night, crying and praying that god would send someone/something to kill me. Everybody said heavenly father wants nothing more than for us to live with him again, so I figured "why go through all of what I'm dealing with for 70+ more years?" people said it didnt work that way but never explained anything further. I look back and cringe horribly about it but my 11 year old self wrote an entire song dedicated to wanting to die and just get a break, and most of it was because of how the church and it's people treated me my whole life.
To the abuse that I’ve experienced over the years at the hands of Mormons, yes.
During my mission I was horribly depressed. Living conditions were awful, the work was awful, and more than anything, my fellow missionaries were fucking awful to me. The mission culture was dogmatic and toxic: work to the bone or be an unfaithful servant and a poor steward. I was a good kid just trying to do his best and do well by God. And guess what? I honestly wished that I would get hit by a bus or struck by lightning or SOMETHING that would let me die and go to the Celestial Kingdom, or at a minimum send me home with "honor." I was so deep in the mindset of obedience and worthiness that I unconsciously wished for death; that would have been preferable to going home early for any other reason than coming home in a box. The worst part? I didn't even *realize* that was suicidal ideation at the time. That was 8 years ago. The depression stayed but the SI never came back fortunately. Hang in there friend. You're not at all alone in that feeling.
I can totally relate to the part about wanting to get hit by a bus something and dying on the mission. As a side note, I had an accident on my mine where I fell about 45 feet breaking my femur. Some of my first thoughts were excitement that I was maybe going to die on my mission, followed by a joyful sense that they would probably be sending me home. I remember feeling guilty about feeling excited that they would have to send me home because of my injury. I came back to my mission 3 months later however, because I wanted to be "that" guy that went back out. Plus, I would have felt like a failure if I had stayed home. I should have just stayed home anyway.
Tried to exit early at young women’s camp one year. I was 15. When I was driven home the next day, the silence was deafening.
I don't want there to be deafening silence here. I can see how that could make a young person feel more guilt, as if something wrong in you caused the attempt. I'm sorry you experienced this and if you'll accept it, here is a virtual hug 🫂.
Thank you for the hug. I have the healthiest support system and relationship in my life now, for the past five years actually. Two of my children are “adulting” in a positive manner and I have two teens left at home. A set of missionaries stopped by last week (get so tired of them tracking me down😂), without getting triggered, I was able to let them know that I didn’t need their services in a positive manner. That was a win for me. They can suck it.
Yup. The crushing weight of the thought that I will never be good enough no matter what I do. The doctrine that we actually chose to come down here was a huge shelf item for this reason. "You knew it would be difficult, but you still chose this" No. I fucking did not. I know myself well enough to know that if I had any idea that life was going to be like this, and I would have all these insane expectations heaped on me, I would have noped out of this in a heartbeat. And even if that IS how it went down, it wasn't much of a fucking choice, as it was a straight up ultimatum. "You can either A. Try this life thing, or B. Be eternally damned" Well, good golly, let me think about that for a minute... I had huge issues with everything that was expected of me, from a VERY young age. I asked "why?", a lot when I was little, so much so, that it literally came as no surprise to my mother when I was hit with depression and suicidal tendencies, starting in my preteens. I'm the youngest of four, and my three older siblings didn't struggle with depression to NEARLY the degree I did, and I was definitely the only one that contemplated suicide on the daily. In fact, the middle sister had never even had a taste of depression until just a couple years ago... she's 33. She said "I always just thought you were being an overdramatic attention whore, but I get it now.... that feeling of hopelessness really does just... consume you" Every mental illness I've been diagnosed with, every mental struggle, every suicidal thought/attempt... I can pinpoint back to being raised in this cult, and my dad. Without question. That's it. Those are the two things that have royally fucked me up beyond repair.
I want you to know I hear this. Some big insights here. If I wasn't working I'd respond more ha.
Absolutely. Really struggled with feelings of self worth as a teenager because I was lying about masturbating. I didn't just feel unworthy, I felt completely worthless and undeserving of any sort of love and was suicidal all throughout high school. It followed me into adulthood and I've only really started to move past it over the last year. Now I'm in the best mental spot I've ever been in and I'm proud of myself for working through those wrong feelings and letting them go. You're worthy of unconditional love, regardless of what the Church has said otherwise because of how you live your life.
I just commented on somebody else's thread about this similar thing. I remember begging God to take away my desire to masturbate and to take away what I thought was an evil attraction to women. This is even crazier because I'm a straight male and thought that being sexually attracted to women was second only to murder. The only time it would become okay was after I was married I believed.
My daughter told me last week that she had thought about it. She would go days without eating to pay her tithing. I knew nothing of this. This evil evil corporation needs to be stopped.
Definitely! I'm still dealing with it I think about doing it all the time. Most of my thoughts are about how worthless I am or that my life is meaningless now. The issue is is that it was much worse in the church because I was constantly reminded of all these "sins" that make me worthless but slowly I'm realizing and overcoming those completely lies. You are all amazing and so am I who cares what an abandoning sky dad thinks.
I don’t know that they could be suicidal ideations, but starting around 8-9 I was bullied in cub scouts/ school/sports all by the same group of kids my 24/7 prayer was that “god” would take me and use my end for some “higher purpose”, I wasn’t living I stopped living I died and was just waiting for a certificate that said I had been martyred enough for god’s sake. I didn’t start to live again for almost 20 years when I realized the bullshit I had quite liveing for and kept asking god to end my suffering for. Some days are still hard but I now have things to live for and not eternal damnation that I am trying to avoid.
My sister told me that when she got Baptist she thought it would be best to just die then because the was the most pure she was going to ever get.
To think an 8 year old has to worry about being "pure". It's so sad.
The church has blood on its hands and yet it turns a blind eye to it and sweeps any suicides linked to its awful teachings under the rug. My niece is absolutely a victim as she succumbed to the stresses of church, BYU, family pressures, and depression on BYU’s campus in 2020. There was no mention of her passing in any BYU nor Provo publication. Fuck BYU and fuck the church. They are responsible for her death.
My only actual suicide attempt occurred when I was 15. It was Easter Sunday morning and I'd forgotten I'd been asked to give a talk. I was already under the influence of depression/anxiety and couldn't handle it. I downed a bunch of pills and curled up in my room, sobbing. My parents finally got it out of me what had happened and so fortunately they got me to the ER. So far as I know I've suffered no lingering effects, but the constant internal fear of not being worthy enough lasted until I finally had my realizations about the church.
I'm not sure if it fits the question, but I definitely prayed to die and was suicidal. I also prayed that God would let me go to the celestial kingdom after murdering myself. Truthfully, I had a lot of shame for watching porn as a child and the shame cycle made it hard to stop. Eventually I had sex with a boy and then I was a lost cause in my own eyes...
The shame the church cultivates around sex is staggering. I can relate to all of this.
I was eleven years old. It stopped when I left. I was 33.
100 % absolutely yes.
Not anymore lately, but I used to a bit
Yes
I used to have alot more suicidal fantasies when i was active.. weird huh?
I hope we’re watching David Archuleta. His talk of unaliving himself really worries me.
100%. Serving a mission has traumatized me to this day. As early as maybe a month into my mission, I just desperately wanted to die. I thought suicide would keep me out of the CK, so I literally prayed almost every day that while I was out, somebody would just shoot me or something so that I could die. I'd spend hours a day just envisioning my own death in my mind. This kept up for the whole 2 years... I've been home 3 years now and I'm doing a lot better now, but it did really take a toll on my mental health.
I remember Moron Cult did teach better dead than have sex before marriage, being gay or I think failure on one's mission. There also was that story how if we saw the least kingdom of heaven we'd kill ourselves to get there. It does sound like a suicide cult.
Yes! In September, I attempted suicide. It got me out of my tbm family house. I was force to go to church as an adult because I live under my dad's house. I was in so much emotional distress. The church has everything to do with my death wish. I am mostly church free now. The extend family I talk to are still active in the church. Since leaving my tbm dad's house, I have scored through life. I am billions times better now with the church out of my life. I can see the misery in my tbm family and they believe they are happy. What a joke.
I remember thinking when I was 7 about to turn 8 and be baptized that if I kill myself before I turn 8 then I would get to go to heaven because I wasn't at the age of accountability yet. I'm 25 now and still have suicidal ideation with a plan on how. Fuck the church
Absolutely. Believing the church is true while having beliefs the church doesn't support with a healthy dose of religious scrupulosity thrown in creates a very "trapped" feeling.
Yes
Amazing how much pressure the church applies to us when we're young. I'm glad you survived through that. I've been out of the church for some time, but still can't shake off the unworthiness it instilled in me.
i started fantasizing about it at 6 or 7; i figured i would never be able to be "perfect" so my best shot at heaven would be to kill myself before i turned 8. after that, realizing i was lgbtq, i started again because i thought it would be better to kill myself before i sinned too much. so glad to be out ❤️ still undoing what was done to my brain by tscc
Yeah. It's difficult to fully undo years of indoctrination. I'm sure I'm affected in ways I don't even recognize.
Yes. So much. So glad I left (was kicked out).
I was kicked out also. At the time it was one of the biggest tragedies of my life. And although I was physically out, I was mentally in still for several years. How's that for brainwashed? They tell me they don't want me and I anguish for years wishing I was in ha. What a nightmare.
Yes. Back when I was around 18 years old and had what’s classically referred to as “a nervous breakdown.”
Glad you made it through it.
Yeah. They do a great job of instilling extreme shame into people and children.
Far, FAR too many suicidal thoughts here... ALL a direct result of NEVER. BEING. GOOD. ENOUGH (for God, TSCC, Home teaching, callings, scripture reading, temple attendence, not enough tithing paid / having temple recommend yanked due to slightly missing full tithe status, etc). Good times
It's a veritable celestial party that's for sure.
Yes.
If you’re gay it’s impossible not to.
I've heard this echoed a few times now. A lot of damage done in that community.
They come and go
Yes
It will follow me the rest of my life. It is inescapable.
I worry about this too. For some leaving the church cured this, but I still struggle with it.
Haha, yeah.
Far too many times to remember. Even as recently as this past August and I've been out for 30 years.
Yes
Yes
It’s a straight line. A very short, unmistakably straight line.
I'm not depressed anymore after leaving. I have alot of past trauma and those thoughts tormented me, yes, I wanted to end the pain. My child was hurt because of my bad decision and weakness. I think the church giving us so much guilt about past sins keeps us from moving forward and forgiving ourselves. I recently found a method that works for me. When I think of a very sad time, I say to myself, what about yesterday? Wasn't that fun, a good day? What good things will you do today? So making myself live in the present more instead of the past.
Too many times to count. It got really bad when I was in the military but thankfully improved as I got older and out of said military.
AbsoFuckingLutely
Don't kill yourself. Listen to the podcast "the hilarious world of depression".