At a bit of a boiling point with the church

Dear kotm,

First and foremost, you are normal.

I have two quotes that come to mind.

“The church works really well until it doesn’t.”

This was said in the context of someone that was raised LDS and the framework was very helpful to provide boundaries during those formative years but it became overly restrictive and even harmful later in life.

“There are two groups that do well in church, the saints and the liars.”

This second quote touches on the fact that there seems to be a large emphasis on those sins that we can see (or smell). All members have sins, we just seem to have developed a culture where they must be hidden. Thus liars outperform!

I get your desire to be part of your tribe and find companionship within the life you know. It can be a tough row to hoe, but it’s not impossible. Where you live there are likely others your age who have had similar experiences and/or who are more open thinkers. Perhaps trying to find them might be helpful as well (and there likely are some in your ward).

I have found some success in diversifying my social circles. Essentially, I would recommend looking into any clubs or associations that you could join. As you start to develop these other social circles, the LDS circle will begin to take up less space. I believe that this process of diversification will make you more resilient because you will be less vulnerable to negative feedback from a single group.

That’s a good point Roy. When I was KOTM’s age and was all in with the church, My whole life was the church. Yes, I had a job and I had neighbors (IOW, I knew people outside the church), but the church provided for all of my social needs. I went to church on Sunday, I did my calling, I went to church activities (regular ward and stake YSA), etc. Since I was all in and part of the tribe, even though I am by nature a bit of a loner, I had no other social needs. Skip a few years down the line and faith transition, the tribe was no longer providing everything, partly by their choice and partly by mine. If I wanted to socialize I had to broaden my horizons.

In that light, if it is socialization you seek and church is a problem, participating in community groups and activities outside church are necessary. Just for the record here, while I am a loner at heart and probably would mostly do OK as a hermit, I do understand loneliness, and loneliness was a part of my own faith crisis/transition. I would reckon that for people who are inclined to be more social than I am it would be worse than it was for me and that is a real concern.

Have you tried counseling? I highly recommend it. You might have to try more than one, but, often, the first one is a good fit.

You are not in competition with anyone else. You are free to run your own race or even decide that you aren’t into running and would prefer something else entirely.

I have tried this so many times. And every single time I simply just do not mold well with a group. I even try my hardest to be kind and respectful of everyone else. And it just turns into everyone hating me even more for it. I have concluded that I will simply be lonely for the remaining of my lifetime. It sucks, but I think I need to accept this. Heck I am almost 30 and still single.

I recommend trying again. Most of us need social interaction. It can be a challenge to find a group that you gel with but I think that the effort is worth it. Also, most of the people that I meet through these channels do not become close friends that might ever get invited over to my home. They are friends/acquaintances for a particular activity and that is fine.

I would also recommend continuing to date. Dating can be horrible and I do not claim to be good at it at all. However, I do know that not dating and not meeting new people socially is a more surefire path to loneliness. “You miss 100% of the shots that you do not take.”

While I think there are benefits to online communities, in person communities are still needed. I agree that heated online discussions can be unhelpful for your wellbeing.

I have no problem with my YSA ward. However a lot of the difficulty of making friends is based on not getting hurt, and worried I won’t fit in. I don’t have much in common with Mormons considering I have sort of lived off the cultural grid of the church for nearly a decade. And it wasn’t until two summers ago where I decided to start making an attempt at attending more regularly.

I know that there will always be pressure to fit in (both internal and external pressure). To the degree that you can get on your own clock and follow your own compass, I believe you will be happier and more content. You won’t fit in and you will work hard to keep it that way to prevent your independence from being swallowed up by the group.

I have found it helpful to participate in multiple groups in order to diversify my social connections. In this way I have less anxiety about trying to fit into any particular group because that group only represents a portion of my total friendship/social base.

I have thought about this sometimes. The time I thought about this the most was just after I had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t a Christian – and I was teaching Relief Society (mostly via Zoom) and running Achievement Days for the 8-12 year old girls in my branch – and I suck at lying or traditional social skills. Here are some themes that helped me the most.

CAVEAT: 1/2 my family are introverts that border on happy hermits, I can go either way, and my other daughter needs at least 6 hours of peopling a day (she would prefer 20 out of 24 hours a day of being social – but we insist on 8-10 hours of sleep, a few hours of basic life stuff too). Any social stuff I was doing was either going to require my husband to sit on our kids properly while I was out, or required me to take them with me and deal with the consequences of variable levels of social skills to complicate the situation.

COMPONENTS:

A) Planning to Control the Situation – I could plan ahead, while the people who I talked to were reacting in real time. I would plan out possible conversation points, meaningful questions I could ask people about themselves and their lives. I planned out and thought through probable conversation points with my branch president. I planned charitable exit statements from awkward, unnecessary conversations. Any conversations about my faith transition were on my terms. No matter how you looked at it, my faith transition in its full glory would “ambush” the traditional believers and threaten their faith on some level. I was shifting from being one of the majority to a minority in thinking any time I joined that community in real time.

Perspective– I refused to give people the opportunity to shame me/show contempt towards me in conversation with me [Roy’s “Hopeful Penitent” scripts were a helpful example btw – I can hope that there is a force greater than all of us that isn’t interested in hurting us and is hopefully interested in blessing and teaching us.]. This was reassuring to me (I think in words), and helped me to be compassionate towards those that my faith transition was ambushing. I also refused to shame myself or show contempt towards myself for my faith transition – it was what it was, and it was my experience to wring meaning from. I could talk through stuff with people on some levels, but at the end of the day – I could only hold myself accountable for how I reacted to the reactions of others and whether the choices I made were in line with being charitable towards others and in line with my personal values. I often mentally compared myself to “Adam” from the story of Adam and Eve. Adam didn’t expect what the world was like, but after the metaphorical dust settled, Adam got to work building a life and waiting for God to show up. Adam built an alter – opened a divine channel with God and gave God the chance to show up… before getting to work tending fields and raising children – his life’s work (literally). On many levels, I did the best I could to “build” and “maintain the alter” (the divine connection to God) in ways that worked for me – and then I got on with my life’s work. I am looking for “the further light and knowledge” that I assume/trust God has out there for me – and “tilling the fields” and working on values that God and I theoretically share like “Hope” and “Charity”.

C) Connection & Common Ground – I can (and do) find connection and common ground with branch members in my area. “Charity” was a topic that I talked a lot about and tried to practice in an inclusive way. “Charity” was something useful for those that I worked with too – being a gospel principle for them and a core personal value for me gave us moments of connection and common ground. Again, I tried to be connective in each interaction to the degree that I had resources available to do so.

D) Diversification & Education – During this time period, I wound up completing my degree for Business Administration – Healthcare management, and learned a ton (mostly hands on) about various topics in fields of Individual Advocacy/Case Management, Human Development (mostly cognitive. psychology, child development and neurodiversity), Autoimmune disorders/dis-regulation (sugar really does a number on the system over time) [NOTE: If you want to feel miserable, don’t move around enough, overconsume sugar and starches, deflect instead of holding yourself accountable and changing your choices – that’ll do it within 2 months to 5 years], History (my husband finished his BA in History this year), with a splattering of information on Genetics and Epigenetics (the study of environmental “triggers” that seem to turn specific genes off and on), and Trauma. Everything that I learned I could see how it fit in with church teachings (usually not in the standard gospel teachings way).

E) Counseling – I was in counseling for other aspects of my life. But my faith transition impacted my marriage and how I co-raise our children – having someone to listen and provide general assistance in perspective and scripts for “being nice to myself and others” was useful.

I have even talked to LDS therapists and in their own rose colored bias told me the problem is with me.

This is a MAJOR beef I have with the church. When things don’t go well, they always blame the member. There is no sense of accountability or a willingness to acknowledge that sometimes leaders and members make mistakes that alienate the average person. There is little or no effort to make amends.

I feel for you.

It’s too common. I mentioned a bit earlier I tried sharing my grievences with the church on sites like reddit in the latterday saints sub reddit. I figured people within my age range would be understanding. But instead I was chased away. I was even chased away from an lds gamer group on discord as well for liking games they didn’t approve of. Even though they discussed games that were M rated too. All it has done is really drive a wedge between myself and the church, and makes me dislike fellow members greatly. It’s just reinforce the stereotype that mormons can be massive hypocrites.

The irony is I really enjoy my YSA ward. Mostly since it’s not in a high concentrated lds area and people seem to be a bit more tolerant. My only issue is I’m terrified of coming out of my shell and overcomming my shyness.

I have had quite a bit of experiences younger as a youth where I’d try to socialize only ending with me being more embarrassed and made fun of. And often times, the entire not serving a mission angle really worries me as I feel it would hamper my ability to date. I also struggle with pornography unfortnely. And often times I feel I am not like everyone else just since the church seems to expect too much of it’s members.

Yes I know I have a major chip on my shoulder. And it would be better served if I got rid of it. But I just can’t for some reason. I’ve always felt I got the short end of the stick with life and it just hasn’t been fair to me.