I recently had my name "officially" removed from Mormon records. It was surprisingly easy given that the moment I decided to leave ten years ago was probably the very hardest decision I've made in my life.
I wasn't Mormon growing up just because my family was, or they forced me, or it was expected or any of that...yes, I grew up in Utah, and almost every friend and person I knew was Mormon, but my dad wasn't, so I always had a good balance and knew the other side of things. Of course life was easier being Mormon in Logan Utah in the late 80's and early 90's, but for me in some ways it was a sacrifice. The day I married Dave in the temple while my parents sat outside was nearly unbearable...but I did it, because I believed. I sacrificed a lot for the Church, but this is why I left... in a nutshell:
I was 29 years old with two kids when we moved to Georgia after being born and raised in Utah my entire life. For the first time I was surrounded by people who weren't Mormon, didn't care if you were Mormon, and really didn't know what Mormon even was. Every day after playgroups, library story time, park outings, etc. with other moms around, I would silently think, "How in the world are they such good moms when they aren't Mormon????" and then one day, I realized how extremely crazy it was that I actually had been asking myself that. I was brainwashed. I really didn't think you could possibly be a great mom, raise great kids, be a great wife, without being Mormon. Then I realized my thinking was totally weird, naive, and esoteric. And I wondered what else was. So I started reading. I started searching, and I started praying.
And then one night I was reading a darling little Christmas Story book to my baby girls. It had a bean bag Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus and I had picked it up and one of the many Christian bookstores found in Atlanta. As I was reading it, I realized that I had been taught about a different Jesus than Christians. It was so clear that night as I read about immaculate conception and the main Christian view on Jesus, God, and the Trinity in general. And then I just knew. I knew that everything I had been taught was wrong. It had nothing to do about people, experiences, or anything, it was doctrine; and it was false.
So, I tucked my girls in and went downstairs and burst into tears to Dave. I felt like my world came crashing down. Everything I believed, everything I was, everything I had given up, and everything that I had guided my future by was false. When I pulled myself together, Dave looked at me and said, "Chaun, I know."
Unbeknownst to me, Dave had been spending his evenings researching and reading too. He read about Joseph Smith and how many wives he really did have, including other men's wives and 14 year olds. He read about the Egyptian Papyri funeral texts and how Joe Smith canonized it as scripture as the "Pearl of Great Price." There was so much more than this, but the truth was out there, and we were ready to listen and to finally, finally figure it out for ourselves.
So this is why I left, or at least the beginning. I still had to take off my garments, tell my family, learn how to be a wife and mother and human being without the Church, but I was free of it and the lies, cover-ups, and weirdness of it all.
So let's talk about weird, and all the things that I did and put up with because I just KNEW I was supposed to:
- Age 8, getting baptized by my home teacher, and really having no idea what I was agreeing to at such a young age.
- Age 10, asking my Sunday School Teacher what would happen to me whey I die since my family hasn't gone through the temple and having her answer that they would find me a new family in heaven.
- Age 8-18, Having nearly every family in Logan, Utah who knew us judge my dad (and some of them refusing to let us play with their kids) for wearing short shorts, hair too long with a bandana holding it back, huffing buds, and mowing the lawn every Sunday right next-door to the church that the rest of his family was going to and he supported.
- Age 16, having some 'friends' break into my house while we were gone for Thanksgiving and drinking and partying in my house and then having the parents blame my dad for having alcohol in there or they wouldn't have done it.
- High School, Often sitting by myself in Sacrament Meeting or joining Lisa's family who tried hard to include but it wasn't the same as sitting with your own family.
- Watching women not be able to hold most high callings, preside over meetings (including Girls Camp), not bless sacrament, or bless their own children, to name a few.
- Dixie College, paying my way through college with no help, no loans, nothing, waiting tables at Golden Corral and working my tail off, but coming home after every shift and taking the bills out of my apron and faithfully putting 10% in a little chest and then paying it to the church as tithing EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.
- University of Utah, Sitting in a room alone with 4-5 grown men asking me about my sexual transgressions. In detail. Including whether or not I gave or received oral sex and if I enjoyed it and how much (just to name one of the many things that went down in that interview). I look back now and I am horrified, and I would probably kill someone who did that to one of my daughters, but I just knew if I didn't confess I wouldn't get that damn recommend.
- Going to the temple and getting partially naked with a "shield" over some of me while an elderly lady touched parts of my body, blessing and saying prayers, including saying something about blessing my loins and then a threat if I divulged anything told (or something like that but I was traumatized and don't remember exactly what they say during that endowment session back then).
- Getting married without my parents or any of my 3 siblings with me because they weren't worthy.
- Getting a new name in the temple and then find out that Dave needs to know my name so I can get through the veil or whatever but his name is TOP SECRET and he could not divulge it to me under any circumstances.
So this is just the stuff that I followed blindly. I'll never forget Dave's mom, who is very Mormon, pulling me aside before the temple and taking me in her room and showing me the leafy apron and weird-ass hats and stuff, and she just said, "I just want you to see this so you aren't totally shocked when you go in the temple. People don't just wear white dresses, and it can be a little scary and overwhelming even though it's your special day." She wasn't supposed to show any of that "sacred" AKA "secret" stuff, but she did, and I love her for it. But I followed it all because I thought I was doing what was right.
Fast forward to what I know today...I have no ill thoughts toward my upbringing or people who are Mormon. I just really don't understand how any educated person who reads, prays, and truly searches can ever stay in the Mormon Church, but then I remember the Mormon Culture in Utah, especially for moms with young kids, and it's easier to just stay, and pretend. And I thank God every day that I got out of Utah because I'm really afraid I wouldn't have left. I would have pretended. I would still be Relief Society President or one of the other YW callings I had, but deep down knowing that it's really all bull shit, and Joe Smith was actually one crazy dude. I'm so curious what the current prophet today thought when he went into that "holiest of holy rooms" or whatever it's called, and nothing happened. Because as much as I bore my testimony that "I KNOW this church is true" back in the day, I can promise you with all I have and know, that it's not. It teaches some decent family values, goal setting, work ethic, and I'm choosing to take the good but leave the crazy behind. And I would NEVER, EVER, EVERY raise a daughter in such a male dominated church. So when the recent ward directory was published here in Indian Land, SC, I had a friend call to tell me that Dave, and my girls (who have NEVER been baptized) are in there. But I'm not. So thank God for quitmormon.org, and although Dave hasn't officially left, we are working hard to get our girls names out of there (if for anything other than the fact that the ARE NOT Mormon, never have been, and I would never make that decision for them or allow the to do so before they truly understand), but I'm actually relieved from the burden of this church and the falseness of it all.
