I'm really grateful about this one thing
My mind is kind of funny in that it often doesn't realize what's going on or why something is being said/done until long after it's over. Like after a conversation, only then do I get why they wanted to talk to me (not during) or what they really meant, and the nuances of it. (This can be really bad lol, especially if I make commitments.)
BUT this has an AMAZING side-effect. I never really absorbed LDS doctrine and rhetoric. You know when you were a kid and learnt about ancient legends and mythology? The Church was kind of like that. Like sure, I believed it, because I was told to. But in a very shallow way, where I never internalized it and put it in with actual history. It was it's own separate category.
I remember that as a Deacon, one of the first things that shook me was my teacher saying you cannot progress between kingdoms and you can't visit family in higher kingdoms (and possibly the reverse as well, although there is no official doctrine on these topics, contrary to what I was taught, though McConkie and Kimball taught this as fact).
I was heartbroken, I assumed I was going to the Celestial Kingdom, and knew those who wouldn't probably did some bad things, but so what? No matter what you do, you should always deserve and receive a fullness of love, and you should be given all the chances in the world to improve and progress! The perfectly loving God that was taught to me, I believed, would work with each person and help them eventually make their way to the Celestial Kingdom, no matter their past, even if long and painful. That's just the way it should be, and my mind was set on that. You can't be punished infinitely for finite sins. I kind of questioned my teacher gently, but he pushed back hard and kind of scared me.
I thought, "wow, this doesn't seem right and seems so rigid."
Next was another time very shortly after this lesson at Church. They were talking about how we NEED to get a testimony of the gospel, and putting so much pressure on us and this felt scary and controlling too.
I thought, "why are they pushing me so hard to believe something that is true?"
Nobody ever does that. Scientists don't force you to believe vaccinations work, or the Earth is round, or anything. It's just taught it's true and you can believe that. I was taught that and kind of internalized it, but didn't think too hard (although, you can think harder, and undergo reliable research and discover with certainty that these are provable facts, but I can trust general science so I never did, but I digress.)
So why are they pushing something that I never took seriously and learnt at face value to really actually be "absolutely 100% true, I know with all the fiber of my being that Joseph Smith was a true, living prophet of God and restored the one and only true Church with a fullness of the Gospel and priesthood, I believe it so much and you MUST too"?
A testimony also just felt so forced and pushed and rigid.
I never got a "testimony", I never felt the Spirit doing any "Church" things, and the way everyone else did and I didn't (and I was happy and fulfilled and felt what they refer to as the Spirit prominently in my life) resulted in so much internal pressure and guilt.
So, several years later...
Still not understanding or really deeply internalizing any Church teachings.
I stumbled upon this subreddit somehow (I think I was just curious to see what an ex-member community was like, because groups like these are taught to be evil or misled, etc).
And read all about Church history and issues.
And I did so in a neutral way, just reading and analysing biases, distinguishing fact from opinion.
And by a couple hours that night, I was like "yeah, this isn't true."
Like really neutral, like I found out an appointment was postponed a few days.
None of the years and years of teaching and convincing and manipulation (even if well-intentioned) worked. Because I never took it too seriously. I just assumed it was true, found out more details, and adjusted my conclusion and realized it was a bit of a scam.
I knew how much this would hurt everybody around me, but I was pleased to have learnt something important to me. So I kept it a secret.
Several times, parents and teachers have taught that your feelings will never lie to you. And I realise, the negative feelings and indifference I felt towards the Church my whole life -- and the contrast I found in my own world -- was always telling me something. LDS parents and teachers teach this because they think our feelings are so heavily guided by Church standards (or the Spirit, as they would say) to always point us towards "the Gospel". But not me.
Unfortunately, realizing the Church wasn't true, and knowing how much it would hurt everyone around me if I told them that caused me to think MUCH more seriously about it. It wasn't just a casual truth. It was a blatant lie being forced down my throat, even if the people doing so genuinely loved me and believed. I saw so much of the manipulation all of a sudden, and felt a wave of trauma.
I'd listen carefully to the Church about pride, sins, apostasy, etc, and relating it to me, trying to be fair to the religion I now realised they were saying I was betraying, and realising that they were explicitly talking about people like me, who have walked away from the Church (even if only mentally), and how they will slowly be consumed by evil and hate, and how they feel pride and confidence in their decisions, and how they're not humble and dangerous. And how the Devil works hardest on those who used to believe.
Although I didn't believe any of this, I still wanted to be fair to the Church and see their side of it (hahahaha, not a way to cause extended trauma at allllllllll) and try and be as fair and balanced as I could be.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion:
Nah, frick that, I was happy before when I never fully believed the Church as a kid, they teach that our feelings never lie and to trust them and what they are telling us, and I'm looking at those two indisputable facts and making an inference.
Only once I actually thought about the Church is when I saw and felt how harmful and false it was. Maybe it was a dissociative defense mechanism that I learnt at a very early age to protect myself from overwhelm and guilt.
But I'm so glad I was pretty much mentally out by the time those tactics and harm got to me. I'm so glad I could simply look at the facts and find in a single evening that it's straight up false and historically had horrible people we were taught to praise. I'm so glad my mind just doesn't process things or makes full sense of them until things settle down and I am spaced away from it.
Because that means I've always been free to exist as me my whole life, and that I could also later be fully free and aware of many harms that exist in the world.
And knowing and living that, I can help and love those around me more fully.
Anyways, I'm just so so grateful and happy, I'm literally crying right now lol, have a wonderful day, all. Especially to all the mothers out there (happy late Mothers' Day!!) 😊
Edit: I forgot one of my favourite parts -- in my patriarchal blessing I have officially been told by the Church that I have the gift of discernment and the ability to distinguish right from wrong... just making very efficient use of that "gift" 😜