#excult

[bromantically]

quitmormon.com (a pro-bono legal team that helps people resign from the church) is fundraising to get a full-time paid lawyer and provide free mental health services to people leaving mormonism (especially LGBTQ+ people and our allies)

link to send support:

[filius-perditionis]

its really fucked up that mormons send out young men (barely even adults) to be as annoying as possible so that they get yelled at to solidify the churches doctrine of "you cant trust anyone outside of the church. if you leave you will never be happy" and call it a mission

[exmovibes]

I spend a lot of time on here ranting about how angry i am at the church and how much growing up mormon fucked me up. And I want to switch it up a bit.

Things I'm grateful for since leaving the church

The right to my body. I look forward to every new piercing and tattoo I get. I'm almost 1 year on T. Every day, my body is looking more and more like home

The right to my own money. it's so nice to own all the money I earn. I'm not stressed about covering bills or the guilt I would get when I wasn't able to pay tithing. It's honestly so freeing

The right to my sexual desires. It's taken me a while, but masturbation and watching porn no longer fills me with guilt. I'm able to enjoy sexual things and the way they make me feel, without feeling awful about myself. Once I made that switch in my mind, that anything sexual is natural and not inherently wrong, my life has been so much better

The right to my own time. I posted about this a few weeks ago, and let me tell you. Having an additional 5+ hours of time a week to just do whatever, you can do so much. I reorganized my whole room last week while my family was at church. I've been learning sign language while waiting for my brother to be done with mutual. I've picked up book binding and writing during the times my family was at the temple.

The right to consumption. While I absolutely do not advocate for the use of drugs or alcohol, I'm able to enjoy a night out with my friends. I can share a blunt and take shots (of the alcohol variety) without the fear of god looming over me. I can drink coffee and tea without even batting an eye anymore.

I promise you. It does get easier to live life. It's taken me a lot of work, but I'm no longer fully mentally tied to the church. I've still got a lot to work on, but I'm starting to understand the appeal of just living. Taking every day and making the most of it.

For those of you who are pimo, hang in there. I was pimo for 5 years so I get it. It's really fucking hard, but eventually your life will be yours to do with as you please.

Love yall, (p.s. in 9 days I'll be a year inactive!!)

[bakugoawayy]

The more I read fantasy novels, the more I see the Bible as a subpar fantasy novel with shoddy pacing and a very ill defined magic system.

[fearlessapostate]

The fact that mormons call the people who excommunicate you the 'court of love' is the most Orwellian shit ever jfc

[exmojoe]

the deconstruction process is very much so not easy and you should be proud of yourself no matter where you are in that journey

[itsraining-somewhereelse]

They said the people who left simply didn’t have enough faith,

Lost sheep, sure to be influenced by satan, sure to have sorrow struck deep in their bones, sure to return

I was told that if I stayed in the lines, (clearly painted in red over the messy world) that I would be saved. That if I had enough faith, paid their tithe, went to church, I would be fine. Repeated their words, covered my sinful body, hid away my bad thoughts, I would be accepted. Prayed harder, doubted my doubts, begged forgiveness, I would be loved.

They said the people who left were:

Wrong. 

Bad. 

Evil.

I did nothing wrong. 

I need you to understand, to repeat it, to look at me and know the truth in your bones.

I did nothing wrong. 

I did nothing wrong. 

I did nothing wrong.

I had enough faith, I stayed in the lines, I cried in prayer deep at night, I did nothing wrong. I covered my sinful body, I hid away my bad thoughts, I did nothing wrong. I was a lost sheep only by virtue of being cast out of the flock, banished from their heaven. I did nothing wrong. 

Witness it.

My pain, my hurt, my sorrow.

Witness me. 

They punished and reviled me. 

Witness me. 

They blamed me for my agony.

Witness me. 

They burned me for my imperfections. 

Witness me.

Yet they could not remove me from myself. 

I did nothing wrong.

Witness me.

WITNESS ME.

[magical-grrrl-mavis]

Shout out to my therapist who listened to me vent/infodump on the church for an hour and then just said "I'm gonna have to process how angry this all makes me tonight" like, sis I'm so sorry I didn't mean to give you second-hand religious trauma.

[morgannotlefay]

“Heaven hath no fury like a bitch of Hell forced to conform”

I was writing poetry for a scholarship and oops my hand slipped...

[icannotgetoverbirds]

image id: a screenshot of a cropped email. in a gray box, text reads: "This is a status update. You do not need to do anything else at this time." Below it is the following message: "Dear [INFORMATION REDACTED]

We have reviewed your resignation and approved it to be sent to the church's law firm, Kirton McConkie. We will email you again when your resignationis sent to Kirton McConkie.

We sincerely thank you for the opportunity to serve you." End image ID.

Soooooooooooo I just got this email back from QuitMormon! Now it's only a matter of time until my records get removed!

[nomowyrm]

It’s all about hope and fear.

I didn’t leave the church because I was Smart and Logicked my way out. That’s not how you get in and it’s not how you escape either.

I left because I was lucky enough that I turned 20 and didn’t have a calling, hadn’t gone on a mission, didn’t have any friends in the church, and I had a number of friends outside the church, who were nice to me despite my sometimes annoying faith. I left because I knew my parents would still love and accept me even if I did, and for that I am also exceptionally lucky.

I was no longer emotionally involved in the church, no longer attached by friendship or responsibility, and I had clear examples that happiness was possible outside of the church, by people who had never even heard of Mormonism.

I left because my fear of staying outweighed my fear of leaving.

I’m not one to talk about fear a lot as a motivator, and I don’t mean for this to be a depressing look at humanity as “driven solely by fear”. I could rephrase, and say that my *hope* of leaving outweighed my fear of leaving.

But I’m choosing fear because it feels appropriate for the issue. I didn’t want to think about life outside of the church because of fear. I didn’t want to consider an afterlife that wasn’t the Mormon Standard because of fear. Everything on my shelf was put there and suppressed because of fear.

Fear of disappointing those close to me. Fear of eternal damnation if I strayed from the path. Fear of being hurt, or hurting others. Fear that if I thought too long about the flaws in the church and myself, I would become a sinner, an outcast, an apostate. Fear that the life I’ve lived for years and years—my entire life!—is actually a lie.

Fear that if I left I would never be happy again.

Because that’s what we’re taught! That those outside the church aren’t really happy, they’re just sort of… ‘happy’. And that every step away from the path was risking my eternal salvation forever.

Our brains want to protect us! When we see something counter to our beliefs, it tells us to stop, turn back, avoid at all costs. We get that feeling in our stomachs, the ‘lack of the spirit’, and all the thoughts are shut down because we sense danger.

And really, there’s only two ways out of that.

The most painful, but unfortunately very common for many exmormons, the fear of staying has to grow and grow until it’s larger than the fear of staying. Abuse, shunning, addiction, being overworked and used. Eventually, we have to make the choice of staying in a situation that we know might kill us, or make the jump into the unknown and hope there’s something out there to catch us. Like jumping from a burning building, unable to see through the smoke and yet knowing that anything is better than staying near the blaze.

The other option is less painful, but the church actively works to make it impossible. Instead of increasing the fear of staying, you have to reduce the fear of leaving.

Making friends outside the church, meeting people who are happy without the gospel, finding those with nuanced ideas on your principles. Creating a community, a landing pad to aim for when you jump for safety.

The church doesn’t want this, of course. But I want that for my loved ones still stuck in that great and spacious burning building, so I’m going to do my best to build them a soft place to fall.

[leavingthepcg]

Lifton's Eight Criteria helps to identify high control groups, or cults. The eight criteria include:

Milieu Control Perhaps the most important aspect of what makes a "high-demand group" is information and communication control. Members are often isolated from "outsiders", including outside sources not approved by leaders within the group, and family or friends that are not part of the group. Members are often made to "cut off" family and friends that are considered hostile toward the group.

Mystical Manipulation High-demand groups, particularly religious ones, will often use or manipulate events in order to further their message and bolster their doctrine. Examples of this are making prophecies or predictions that get repeatedly altered or forgotten about, or pointing to past predictions as being confirmed by a current event.

Demand for Purity Humans are flawed, and high demand groups exploit this fact by demanding perfection of their members. Sometimes, groups will even acknowledge that perfection is unachievable, but that individuals are perpetually at fault for being the only reason they cannot achieve it. This enhances feelings of guilt and shame, leading the member to feel as if the only way to improve themselves is to seek help from the group.

Confession High control groups exploit their members emotionally by having them "confess" supposed wrongdoings to another member or members. This makes the member vulnerable and constantly alert to their own and others' "sins". It is the promotion of hyper-policing of self and peers.

Sacred Science The group's ideology is held as the ultimate, capital-T "Truth"; it is the one standard by which all aspects of life must be measured. This often leads to science-denial, conspiracy-minded thinking, and isolating oneself based on the belief that others are unenlightened.

Loaded Language Members of cults will often reveal that they are a member of an in-group in the use of language. The group creates unique vocabulary, or changes/enhances the use of a term in order to create a doctrine of thought. This tactic helps to reform the member's thought process by embedding concepts into their minds that can be easily repeated and recognized through the repeated use of a simple phrase or word.

Doctrine Over Person Group belief is held as the ultimate "truth", trumping personal experience, beliefs, values, or reasoning. If the member feels or believes that something about the group is "off" or "untrue", they are taught to dismiss those thoughts and to internalize guilt about having "doubts".

Dispensing of Existence This describes the portion of thought control that creates an "us vs. them" attitude in the member. The member may be convinced that those outside the group are "sinful", "damned", "unenlightened", "ignorant", etc.

[filius-perditionis]

i think being told i would never ever be truly happy if i didn't do exactly what the church said fucked me up as a kid

[exmovibes]

SUP NERDS GUESS WHOS A FULL FLEDGED EXMO NOW LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO

[bakugoawayy]

I remember back in my old Christian Tumblr™️ days, I really liked this one quote by Buddha as I felt it related so well to my life. I innocently decided to reblog it, thinking nothing of it since it was only one post out of HUNDREDS of super Christ centric content. Not too long after, I get a little ✨binggg✨in my dm's from a fellow Christian telling me that I wasn't a true believer because I reblogged that one post, and that I was going to hell if I didn't repent. I think about her a lot. I wish she could see me now and be proud of my descent into madness.

[fearlessapostate]

it's father's day here, so I just wanna say a public fuck you to the bishop I had as a kid who took the opportunity he had to stop my abuse to instead tell my mom that my dad should beat me harder because 'that's how you teach kids respect'.

And then made me stand up in the father's day sacrament meeting primary thing where you sing daddy's homecoming and I tried not to cry bc I wished I had a father like that and be one of the kids who went to the front to say a quote. He put my dad in the front so I'd have to say it to his face too, and the bishop was sitting there with this 'I win' look on his face and to this day I lowkey wish I could punch it off <3

anyone else experience this kind of shit growing up too? (absolutely feel free to vent on this post)