Living a lie

So anyways, my questions are, do you ever feel like you’re living a lie?

Yes, most of the time. I mean, I do have a testimony of the fundamental doctrines encompassed by the Plan of Salvation as Mormonism teaches, but I struggle with so many issues (policies, etc. and the general membership’s apparent views that the General Authorities can’t make mistakes). I teach Relief Society, and people always tell me what a good teacher I am. Unfortunately, much of the time, I am afraid to teach what I really believe. It’s hard to find a balance between lifting and helping other people and still being true to yourself. What I try to do is live my life with integrity. I may not be able to be completely open with people in how I feel, but I do try not to be outright dishonest with them. It requires a degree of tongue-biting.

To anyone who feels uncomfortable living a lie, I have just one piece of advice: don’t live a lie. Our lives are a wonderful gift. There may or may not be a life after this one (I believe, no, but I respect those who believe there is). Why in the world would we want to spend the short time that we are alive living in self-imposed hiding? I now tell whoever I want to tell, and it has changed my life for the better. I don’t tell everyone, because it’s not everyone’s business. But all of my family and key friends know. If I ever find myself in a situation where I don’t believe I can be true to myself, that’s when I start telling.

For anyone who believes they are protecting the feelings of someone else, simply ask yourself this. If the roles were reversed, would you want or expect the other person to live a phony life in the shadows in order to protect your feelings?

As for the little sister, I suggest that you focus on what you do believe and celebrate what she believes without the need to explain yourself. That desire to justify ourselves is so strong in us that we frequently get into uncomfortable situations. I tell people I’m not a believer but that I have complete respect for their faith, and I never get into conversations that could be viewed as trying to ‘enlighten’ anyone else. It’s their faith; it’s none of my business.

Lastly, let me say that I did live a lie for a lot of years and it was disastrous. It forced me into ever-deepening depression. When I finally came clean, it was like a light coming back on. So, when I say “don’t live a lie”, I speak with the experience of both sides of it.

I have more to say, but I have limited time at the moment. Here’s a poem I like:

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask!

-Paul Laurence Dunbar

This is a difficult question to answer. In the years before I talked with DW about my FC I felt I was living a lie. Even then I would have hesitated in answering the question in the affirmative. My journey was much like Bednar’s talk “The Spirit of Revelation” where he describes the transition from night to morning as an “almost imperceptible increase in light.” I’m not trying to say that one path was wrong and one right but if you had asked me at any point in time if I were living a lie I’d probably lean yes… but there was a newfound uncertainty in my direction, that type of uncertainty was new to me and took some time to get used to.

Lastly, let me say that I did live a lie for a lot of years and it was disastrous. It forced me into ever-deepening depression. When I finally came clean, it was like a light coming back on. So, when I say “don’t live a lie”, I speak with the experience of both sides of it.

I’m starting to feel the same way but I did want to add another phase or two that was present in my transition.

1) Those initial moments where I felt I was living a lie but those feelings were tempered with uncertainty, what if I’m wrong about my new thoughts?

2) Feeling like I was living a lie but growing in confidence with some of my conclusions.

I’d flutter between #1 and #2 for years.

3) I had an identity crisis. It’s hard to say “I’m living a lie” when I didn’t even know who I was anymore. This likely happened as a result of being just as uncertain about where I was going as I was about where I had been. As an orthodox member of the church I let the doctrines tell me who I was, suddenly I was in the position of being responsible for coming up with the answer to the question “who am I?” and it took a long time to work through and a long time to gain enough confidence in myself to become my own authority on me.

4) I might call this the “I think I know who I am but still care what others think about me” phase. This phase stinks and can feel like living a lie. This is where I worried about my social status. This is where I also worried about the social status of people in my family.

5) The before Abraham was, I Am phase? Maybe the Popeye phase: I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.

It’s hard for me to definitively say I was living a lie at any given point. Is doing the best you can with what life has thrown at you living a lie?

Even though I am buying into very little of the LDS experience, I am NOT living a lie….I think whether you are living a lie is a matter of degree.

1) Intensity

If I was serving as a gospel teacher, priesthood leader, and regularly sharing TBM ideas I did not agree with — that would be inauthentic. But if you reduce the intensity of your participation in the LDS church, then you are not living a lie. You are being authentic. I am a non-TR holding, callingless, non-teaching Mormon. And that is what I AM at church, and good with that now.

If you align the intensity of your LDS experience with your true beliefs, then you are being authentic. If you don’t believe, or don’t agree with many things, then don’t accept callings that require you to be inauthentic about them. At the same time, participate in a level that you are comfortable with. THAT is authentic. But tempered by other factors below —

2) Personal Outcomes

I believe that 100% authenticity is rarely ever possible in life. Are you nakedly honest with that boss you can’t stand? Do you tell your spouse, honestly, they’ve lost their youthful beauty or handsomeness? Do you bite your tongue when certain issues come up, knowing that if you told the truth, you’d offend the whole room at work? Probably not.

Why? Because the outcomes you are achieving in your life also represent a form of authenticity — an expression of who you are. You are employed, successful in your career, and financially self-reliant. Biting your tongue at work preserves those outcomes.

So, from an StayLDS perspective, keeping my contrarion ideas to myself (locally) provides a stable religious environment for my family, keeps my marriage stable, and keeps me free to interact with the church in the future on whatever terms I choose — even holding a TR again someday if I want. Naked honesty has not cut off these outcomes. Those outcomes are expressions of what I am — a hopefully good father and good husband (at least better than if I was bashing the church locally all the time) with freedom to live his life as he chooses in church, in the future.

Now, if your spouse will divorce you if you don’t renew your TR, then there will be more tension than if s/he is OK with you not having one. Then there is a need for creativity…I believe there is a way out if discussed and approached with wisdom.

3) Church Outcomes

I am contrarion at heart when it comes to certain church matters — such as callings and releases, leader-member relationships, etcetera, and the time and resource demands leaders make on the membership — without consideration for a whole host of variables I think they should be considering about the effect on the general membership.

And my behavior reflects that. I refuse callings if I don’t want them in my life. I don’t make sacrifices I feel are unreasonable.

4) Other outcomes

At the same time, I hope my character is progressing — I serve others a lot in extra-church contexts. I am generally self-actualizing without any help from the church whatsoever, except perhaps their influence on my children as they navigate the dangerous youth and young adult years. Because the church is only 5% of my life right now, these “other outcomes’ get my authenticity quotient up to a level where I don’t feel emotionally strapped by my LDS experience. It’s only when I have a skirmish with it (inviting you to take a position, pressure to get a TR, etcetera) that it gets distressing, but the moment passes after you deal with it. The LDS experience becomes 3-6 hours of your 168 hour week. Less than 5% of your life experience…

But there is a price for all this. I am not fully accepted in the LDS community now. I hear they say negative things about me behind closed doors in leadership meetings. I probably won’t have leadership positions of any import in the future in my current Stake. But I don’t care either. You have to accept the consequences of being authentic to be at peace.

You can’t have it both ways.

OON,

Thanks for this advice and I think it is good.

When I do come out to family and a few close friends, I don’t want it to be an argument. I am still working on it(and will be for months as I am TOOO busy right now).

What I plan on saying is:

I find it all confusing and the more I tried to dig deeper the worst it got until I stopped and tried to ask God if this was what he wanted me to do and I didn’t get an answer.” I will follow that up with I am grateful for my upbringing and what I have been taught. I have no desire to convince anybody else to follow me. I am just saying it does not make sense to me and I am at peace with God on disengaging a bit. I will fully support others that feel Mormonism brings them closer to God and in fact I encourage them to follow what they feel God is telling them to do.

I feel that with that statement I won’t start arguments. If someone wants to share their testimony of the church, I will respond with, “That is great, I encourage you in your efforts. Let me know if I can be of help.”

OON – do you think this goes along with your advice?

3) I had an identity crisis. It’s hard to say “I’m living a lie” when I didn’t even know who I was anymore. This likely happened as a result of being just as uncertain about where I was going as I was about where I had been. As an orthodox member of the church I let the doctrines tell me who I was, suddenly I was in the position of being responsible for coming up with the answer to the question “who am I?” and it took a long time to work through and a long time to gain enough confidence in myself to become my own authority on me.

I think this is where I’m at right now and I’m really struggling to know who I really am. Being a multi-generational Mormon growing up in the Mormon Corridor, the Church has always been a big part of my life purpose and my identity. From the time I was little, I sang songs like “I am a Child of God” and “I Hope They Call Me On a Mission.” My life and my identity have revolved around the Church for almost 50 years. What do you do when that foundation literally crumbles beneath your feet?

This is rough! I feel so alone. As much as I’m trying to shed the negatives about my LDS identity, I just can’t shake it. I guess I’m struggling with how to be “in the Church, but not of the Church.” :crazy: TBM-Mormonism is still so much a part of my life, my family, and the culture I live in.

I would love to take a sabbatical to try to figure out who I am (independent of the Church), but I fear the consequences. I doubt that my marriage could survive it.