There’s something different about the light streaming through my window—it’s softer, more ethereal, lighting my room in a comforting glow. I feel calm, no longer crippled by anxiety or fatigued by depression; my thoughts are no longer chaotic and blurred, but solid and vivid, rendering me completely at peace. As I sit on my bed, gazing toward the half-open window, I breathe out the words I’ve been too terrified to say for years: I’m not a Mormon anymore.
Let me make myself perfectly clear: I am in no way trying to attack the Mormon Church. I understand that there are many people who believe in the religion and find within it truth and happiness. My only motivation for writing this is to share my experience in the most authentic way that I can with the hope that anyone experiencing similar feelings, whether they be Mormon or otherwise, will feel less alone.
I was raised in a fairly atypical Mormon family. I spent my childhood in a small, yet fairly diverse town (for Utah, that is). My father was a stay-at-home dad, and because of this, he received a lot of backlash from the Mormon community. I, being a little girl, didn’t know this at the time. In fact, it wasn’t until I moved to Davis County, Utah in the fourth grade that I realized that my family wasn’t considered “normal” to other Mormons.
Back then, church was just accepted as a fact of life. Just like the sunsets every evening, church happens for three hours every Sunday. Though, especially when we had the early morning session, we’d stumble in for the hour-and-ten-minute long sacrament meeting, maybe catching half of Sunday school beforehand. We didn’t do family scripture study or prayer, and our “Family Home Evenings” were trips to Baskin Robbins. I knew other Mormons, but I was closer with people from other religious backgrounds, so I didn’t perceive any sort of deviation from the Mormon norm.
I didn’t assume that there was only one correct church. I simply learned Mormon beliefs and if I met someone who didn’t think the same thing, I asked them why and then moved on. There was no right or wrong religion, only different ones, though I quite liked being a Mormon and singing, “Once There Was a Snowman” (Snowman, snowman… Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, TALL!!) in primary every week.
When third grade had just ended, as well as my sister’s first year of all-day school, my parents decided that it was the perfect time for my dad to go back to work, so we would need to move to be closer to his job, and to my grandmother, who would watch us after school. I remember being really sad that my dad was going back to work because I quite liked having him home every day, but moving sounded like an adventure, so I got on board with the idea pretty quickly.
We moved to Davis County, a place made up almost entirely of Mormons, and I immediately noticed a change in attitude when I wore my spaghetti strapped sundress to church and was lectured by fellow “wardies” (Mormon churches are divided into stakes, which then contain smaller groups called wards, though I never liked that term because it sounded like we were patients at a mental hospital) about “modesty,” a phrase I had never heard before, and how it was disrespectful to God to show certain parts of your body, including your shoulders. This moment was when church went from a place to sing on Sundays to an institution that had actual rules and beliefs that you were supposed to understand, accept, and follow. However, the more I learned, the more confused and conflicted I became.
As time went on, I would staunchly defend my personal beliefs, arguing with friends in junior high that I was just as “nurtured” as they were even though my mom went to work, and that I, too, wanted to work even if I had kids. In return, I was told that I would never get married because no good man would want to be with a woman who would be so selfish as to not want to stay at home with her kids. I defended gay rights, saying that everyone should be treated with kindness, and in return was called “disgusting” and “as bad as a lesbian.”
I was always taught to be kind, but here were these kids who were raised in the same religion I was being rude, closed-minded, and frankly, un-Mormon. These kids said they believed one thing, and acted completely opposite. I told myself that they just didn’t “get it,” and I felt sorry for them that they genuinely believed the nonsense they were spouting. However, the backlash I got for my contrary beliefs scared me, so I did my best to fit in, acting as “Mormon” as I could.
I started going to seminary in 9th grade, despite outwardly telling my bishop, “there’s no way I will go to church every day.” I had argued with my mom for a while about taking the class, but eventually the sad look on her face won me over, and I agreed to enroll. I had a teacher, Brother C., who was unlike most church teachers I’d ever met. He was funny, uplifting, and entertaining, and he spent most of the class time telling stories and having us go around the room and say something nice about each person there. Being an awkward 14 year-old girl with fairly low self-esteem, this really helped me, and I felt like I could finally connect with these kids that I’d always felt so different from.
However, according to the president of the junior high seminary, he wasn’t teaching enough “reverent, doctrine-related lessons”, so Brother C. was replaced by Brother H., a man who was opposite in every way. This man was a self-identified “homophobe,” who knew every shady piece of church history and defended it with every breath, saying that polygamy is sacred in nature, sex before marriage is the second worst sin to murder, blacks couldn’t have the priesthood until 1979 because God believed the world wasn’t ready, and that one-day animal sacrifice would be reenacted by the “Sons of Levi.” Nothing could ever be wrong within the church because “God could never lead the prophets astray.”
I would go home upset about everything he’d said, telling my mom that if what he said were true, I would never go to church again. My mom would then ask why it mattered to me because God wouldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do, so why would I care if other people believed that? I was reminded that she and my dad were told they were wrong for their arrangement, but they did it anyway and still went to church. That made sense enough to me, and I began taking in the pieces of church teachings that I liked, and ignoring what I didn’t.
I continued to sleep through most church meetings, but I regularly attended seminary, which is a pattern that continued throughout high school. To those in my ward, I was a total heathen and was placed on “prayer lists” in their youth council meetings and given constant, patronizing attention. At school, however, I was seen as a “Molly Mormon,” and students would guard their behavior around me, afraid that I’d tell on them if they weren’t on their best behavior. Looking back, this was probably because I “looked Mormon,” as I was so quiet and had the face of a china doll, but I digress.
I had two, very contradictory facades to keep up. On one hand, I was a troubled youth, and on the other, I was an enlightened saint. Despite trying to ignore what troubled me about my faith, I could never distract myself for long, so I was constantly falling in and out of belief. It was exhausting to constantly try to reconcile my beliefs with those of the Mormon Church, as well as try to manage two distinct personas for my peers.
In church and seminary, I’d constantly hear that the only way to be truly happy and reach your full potential was to be a Mormon, yet I now knew plenty of non-Mormons who seemed just as happy, if not happier, than I was. Why couldn’t they be with their families forever? And if everyone gets the opportunity to join the church in the next life, why did I have to join now and deal with rules, callings, and obnoxiously self-righteous members? Why couldn’t I have been born non-Mormon so I got a “free life” to live under my own conscience and without having to force myself to believe things that I didn’t believe?
I was told that in the case of Mormons who leave the church, it would have been better they’d never known it at all because their punishment will be heavy for “denying the truth.” This thought tortured me every time I had doubts. I’d be told that if I didn’t feel the spirit or receive an answer telling me the church was true, it was because I wasn’t praying hard enough or I wasn’t worthy to receive that kind of revelation. Girls in my young women’s group would step out of class saying, “Don’t you love that warm, comforting feeling the spirit brings?” and I would just smile and look away.
Years passed this way until I was off to college, where I had no intention of continuing with the church. However, seeing my mom so invested in the fun I’d have at a single’s ward and all the returned missionaries I’d meet, I decided to go and try to make some friends. Here, I was invisible. If I was absent on Sunday, it was just assumed that I’d gone home for the weekend. I went to the first day of an institute class and walked straight out when the teacher instructed, “if the person you’re dating questions the Proclamation on the Family and supports the gay agenda, you should question their worth and reevaluate your relationship.”
At this point, I was kind of a Mormon, kind of not. My roommates assumed I was devout, so I acted that way around them, but differently around those who really knew me. I was still living the double life I’d become so accustomed to. A new roommate moved in who was at the time one of the most extreme Mormons I’d ever met. She was engaged within 20 days of her relationship with the boyfriend she met upon arrival, and constantly invited me into her room for “scripture study.”
My freshman year in general being stressful, the religious guilt I felt was suffocating. I kept thinking about how I would be damned to “outer darkness” in the next life for rejecting the church, but I also thought about how sad I’d be for “wasting” my days on Earth as a Mormon. I decided to really give the church a try, reading my scriptures morning and night, attending weekly church, taking notes on General Conference, and attaining a temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead. My sister came to visit with a very church-oriented friend, so we all decided to go to the temple with my brand new recommend. I’d only been once when I was 12, so it was brand new to me, but I’d studied and prayed and I felt ready and willing.
Going inside, I felt sickly nervous. I saw others my age and younger dressed in baggy white jumpsuits, waiting on pews, praying and reading scriptures before they were called to preform the baptisms. I went back and changed into one myself and mimicked the actions of those around me, but something didn’t feel right. When I went back to be baptized in the water for the souls of the dead, I was extremely uncomfortable, and I felt as if what we were doing was sacrilegious and disrespectful, however, everyone around me was smiling. I asked myself over and over, “Why can’t I just believe it? Am I not good enough?” When it was over and we left the temple, my sister smiled at me and said, “Don’t you feel so clean now?” I just stayed silent, as I’d never felt more impure in my life.
That was the day I decided that without a doubt, the Mormon Church was not for me. I looked at forums for others who’d left, but they were all filled with angry ramblings and mocking words. I knew immediately that I didn’t want to be associated with the term, “anti-Mormon.” I stopped going to church, but I kept it a secret. I was transferring to a different university in the fall, so I just had to wait until the summer and I would tell my parents and start fresh. I distanced myself from my roommates and those who associated me with Mormonism so that no one would find out before I wanted them to. Though I was more secluded in this sense, I didn’t feel alone. I felt at peace, hopeful, for once in my life.
The first day of summer, I sat on the bed in my parent’s house, looking out the half-open window, and I said the words aloud: “I’m not a Mormon anymore.” The feeling that rushed over me was warm, comforting, and protective—it was what I’d been missing spiritually my entire life. When I told my family, they were unsurprised and supportive, loving me exactly the same as they had before.
Immediately, my religious anxieties began to vanish. Whenever a new “scandal” would surface about church policy toward the LGBT+ community or a questionable piece of history would be mentioned, I no longer had to accept it or make it right. I could believe and feel authentically—no reservations and no reconciliation of conflicting ideals.
Though I’m not particularly religious now, I have found myself feeling more spiritually, taking wisdom from people such as the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis, Jesus Christ, Anais Kin, Mahatma Gandhi, and Siddhartha Gautama, or Buddha. I see the world more beautifully, and find myself living more in the moment, rather than for whatever happens after death. Essentially, I believe in love. I believe that what’s most important is to be kind to one another and create a world where everyone can live peacefully and without fear. I believe that every person is different, but united in basic human pursuits, which is why there are so many different religions, but so many values within those religions that remain the same.
My sister, my friends, and my family—they love the Mormon Church and it works for them; they love attending the meetings and going to the temple and reading the scriptures. But if I had stayed, I would have remained the girl who felt inadequate for being bored by the lessons, for not feeling “the spirit” everyone else felt, and for being an adamant supporter of things that went against LDS values. I would have been living my life unhappy for the promise of happiness after death, and in doing so would have missed out on so many amazing people and things I’ve come to know.
I am the same Madison, and my life did not cease to have meaning because I left the Mormon Church. I don’t touch a bible and burst into flames. I do not rant against religion on Facebook. I am not angry, prejudicial, or entitled. I am still Madison, finally basking in the soft, comforting light that comes from the spirituality of life itself. Whenever I’m asked about my religion, I reply in the words of the Dalai Lama, “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.”