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early 50’s I had blips along the way but when I hit 50 I went overboard. Mostly because I had easy access to information that lead me to conclude it is all made up. I am not transitioning or anything. I just take a day at a time a see where it leads. I figure men have been chasing God for a long time with little substantive success. It seems unlikely I am so special as to get the inside scoop on what God wants short term. I no longer ask.
Mine started at 19, when I received my endowment and went on a mission. I struggled for a few years, but was able to put most of my concerns “on the shelf” when I got married until my mid-40s, when my FC kicked in to high gear again. I’m in the depths of it right now, just hoping I can find my way through it. 54 I refer to it now as a Faith Awakening.
I like that phrase – “faith awakening.” In my case it’s a good description, although I didn’t realize what was happening in the beginning when it was an emotional crisis. I thought I participated in this thread already, but I guess I didn’t. ^^’ Mine started mid-twenties and was triggered by preparing to go on a mission — which I’m still planning on doing after much thought and consideration. I’ll let y’all know how it goes. 
I had small blips, put questions on a “shelf” because I honestly didn’t care through out life, but none hit me strong until late 30s… Mostly what caused it was talking to a couple of people in a relatively short period of time who I thought “knew” what they believed and they came to me because they thought I “knew”, kind of ironic now that I think about it.
In my early 20s, when a bishop trying his best though making a mistake while wielding the mantle of his office smashed the glass bubble I had built up with a giant sledgehammer. The feelings of guilt, shame, and confusion richoched inside of me until my late 20s when realized that the broken glass was destroying my spiritual feet. I can’t blame the church entirely – (although it’s a whale of a lot of fun to try
Had a brief questioning blip at 16 or 17 and then mid 30s for the full transition. My wife was the same. Most of the people I know (in “real life”) who have gone through this have been 30s or 40s. A few in their 20s. 45 for me, my current age. It has always been a challenge for me to be a member barring a 4 year period of mission and marriage. My crisis started from exhaustion in trying to force myself to be orthodox when I’m not, for the past year at the request of the Bishop for my most recent calling as a counselor (a challenging job when you work rotating shifts and rotating days off). Its not enough to do the right thing or believe the right thing (according to the church) but it has to be for the right reason and and from my own motivation. It was hard to come to terms with but I did a lot because it was expected of me as a good member and not because I wanted to. I was reluctant inside on many accounts and kept participating to that extent to seek approval from others. Its not the right reason to do the right thing. Throw in a batch of Historical Essays and my landslide concerns on church history and its my perfect storm.
Strangely, over the past year, I feel that I have grown closer to the Savior as I have grown further from the Church.
LookingHard wrote:
I find it interesting how many FC’s go from at least close to TBM all the way to no God within a second. I actually stopped right after the church being true, but still no issue of if there was a God. I am not sure if that is because I live out in the mission field and have meet some people that are not LDS (in fact much better than the “average” LDS member) that I absolutely want to go where they are going after this life is over.I am not trying to say anything less of those that also questioned if there was a God or not. I am more wondering why I didn’t and others did. I guess that is a question I will have to put on the shelf. Hey – where did my shelf go? Oh, that is right, it broke and I have not gotten around to fixing it.
My actual “crisis” was maybe 30 minutes?
I went from realizing that I was very likely perceiving EVERYTHING incorrectly/incompletely due to my biological brain wiring – so that meanteverything I thought I knew about anything I considered permanent(communication, God, the church, myself, the nature of existence, motherhood/parenting, etc) was now likely unreliable and flawed because my perception was inherently unreliable and flawed. When I realized I was going to be rebuilding everything from the ground up, I thought “going to church is now going to be intolerable – but I am not ready to give it up right now because of my husband and my family – he is going to be SO MAD if I reject everything without trying to fix it/figure it out, I wonder if I can find some tips on how to deal with all this?” 20 keystrokes later, I found staylds.com and the rest is history…
:crazy: Since then, I have learned a few things.
- I may perceive everything incompletely and have some ineffective or incorrect viewpoints – but now I know that so I can try to compensate.. and guess what- so does everyone else – and they take it less seriously than I do…
- That I am still the same crazy person I have always been – I just managed to hit a developmental milestone in a unique way – which if you know me is fairly typical Amy J.
- That part of a faith/identity transition is learning what and who is important you, and what you are going to do (if anything) about it.
- That your faith narrative is a re-evaluating/re-defining of your relationship with God and His relationship with you.
I admit to being 28 years old… with experience. Surveys usually categorize me as between 30 and 45 though for some reason.
NOTE: Lived in California for 20+ years of my life and had a healthy skeptism (ok borderline disdain) for the Utah corridor once I was out of the MTC. I think there are good people in Utah as well as good people everywhere else, and based on who I am and the people I met who were the happiest in Utah, it sounded like it wouldn’t be a good fit for me.
The “Is God Real?” crisis happened for me when I was 19. The doubts lasted for about 8 months and the crisis itself was catalyzed by online debates with a hardline atheist, mostly via PMs. I put a loton my shelf during that time, even including LGBT issues. My “Is the church true?” crisis hit me about 5 months ago, shortly before my 25th birthday. In some ways it was sudden when it hit me that my mental/spiritual model was unreliable and I couldn’t just believe what I grew up to believe without first examining it. Or maybe it was trying to reconcile my heterodoxy. My brain was totally hyperactive while I was trying to sleep.
To be fair, there was a lot of redpilling leading up to it from the bingo sheet to modesty and nudism. I began to redpill nudity/modesty from hearing something from an artist in the game dev lab at BYU that bikinis on the figure-drawing models were actually more sexual than just using nudes. I’ve been trying lately to expunge the faulty ideas of modesty from my mind, like how shoulders, thighs, and midriffs are not inherently sexual. Though I’m probably being more obsessive about it now.
😆 Oh, the lengths I go to to justify my opinions.
I was 23 when it kind of started “crumbling” for me and 28 when it really fell apart. Mine was mid 50s but I believe it is where you live also because someone who lives outside the mormon corridor seems to occur much later in life like myself because I did not join the church until I was 21.
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