Why are exmormons bitter?
I preface this post by saying that I don’t expect this blog post to convince all, or even very many faithful members of the Church as to the actual reasons why exmormons are bitter. Most of them have their minds made up about the motivations of apostates and deviants like myself. They are not the target audience for this post.
Actually, to be completely honest, this blog post it is primarily for me. It is an exercise in the vulnerability denied me in my faithful days. It is a step in the process of integration, of understanding and owning parts of my experience I did not allow myself to feel or see due to the pressures I was under when I was faithful. It is, in other words, an account of why I feel intensely bitter about the Church, and since no person is an island, why others who have left might similarly feel. You may not agree with my conclusions about the Church, but that these are my experiences are not up for debate. Also not up for debate is the validity of my bitterness. In telling this story, however, I hope to come to understand why I feel this way-- and in sharing it, perhaps that you may understand why I do, too.
So.
Why are exmormons bitter?
I’ve seen this question mused upon occasionally in faithful circles. Commonly, the explanation cited (without actually engaging with the perspectives of people who leave) is that they were offended. Implied in this explanation is that leaving is the result of a defect in the person who leaves-- and why should it be any other way, when the Church is true? In that paradigm, there is nothing that the Church itself, nor its leaders, can do wrongly-- and even if there is, we must not be offended at it, because people are imperfect even if the Church itself is.
The problem with these explanations, in addition to the lack of perspective cited above, is that they are a reflection of the very reasons many people leave-- and why they are so bitter after doing so. The Church is God’s, and therefore cannot be wrong-- therefore the people who leave are at fault, always and without question.
Of course, this is an absolute falsehood. The Church is an organization of humans run by humans, and this is so even within a faithful context-- Church leaders themselves do not claim revelation in every decision that they make. The church, therefore, is not special-- it manifests similar patterns and problems that exist across human organizations. But because of the culture and expectations that come with the Church’s teachings about itself, when the Church itself is the source of the pain and insult that might lead someone to leave, as it inevitably will be given its own characteristics, that reality is explained away, minimized or ignored. It is God’s church, after all.
Sociologists refer to religions like the LDS church as “high-control” or “high-demand” religions. These religions are demarcated by the following characteristics:
1) Strict behavioral requirements.
This is seen in the Church through examples like the law of Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, Sabbath observance, and tithing.
2) High commitment of time and energy.
This is seen in the Church through examples like weekly church attendance, midweek meetings (ie institute), family home evening, regular personal and family scripture study, callings, and ministering responsibilities.
3) Clear boundaries and in-group out-group mentality.
This is seen in how the Church refers to itself as “the one true church,” being “in the world but not of the world,” and temple access reserved for members in good standing.
4) Authoritarian leadership and hierarchical structure.
This is seen in the Church’s priesthood structure, with the Prophet being the prophet, seer and revelator whose words should rarely if ever be questioned, doctrinal and policy shifts coming from the top-down and considered divinely inspired, and members encouraged to follow the Prophet unquestioningly.
5) A comprehensive worldview.
This is seen in the Church’s detailed plan of salvation, authoritatively answering questions of where we came from, why we’re here, and where we are going. Included in this umbrella are teachings about eternal marriage, eternal progression, potential godhood, Christ’s coming and reign, and multiple heavens.
6) Strong sanctions for deviance.
This is seen in practices of membership restrictions and withdrawal, community sanctions for doubting or leaving, and shunning former members frequently experience within their families.
7) Group cohesion through sacrifice.
This is seen in the Church’s exacting expectations demanded of its members, embodied in the temple covenant declaring that temple-worthy members must be willing to “sacrifice all with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God.” These sacrifices build a sense of loyalty, while temple recommend interviews reinforce loyalty and obedience and a sense of being “set apart” from the world.
8) Discouragement of critical thinking or outside influence.
This is seen in the Church’s discouragement of engaging with critical scholarship or antagonistic sources, an emphasis on spiritual confirmation (ie the feeling of the Holy Ghost) over intellectual doubt, and the Church-developed frameworks of learning enforced at its educational institutions (Universities, seminaries/institutes).
9) Social and emotional control.
This is seen in intense cultural pressure to appear happy, faithful and successful (Mormon perfectionism), doubt framed as a test of faith rather than a natural and necessary feeling ensuing from the process of constructing belief, and the discouragement of vulnerability in public Church settings.
That the Church is a high-control religion is beyond question. People, however, may have a range of reactions to these features. Let me tell you about mine.
My first experience with what I believed to be the Holy Ghost was as a 12 years old, sitting in sacrament meeting with my family. I had the sudden thought that the Church was true, accompanied by a rush of feelings, mostly dread. My very first reaction to this confirmation was “oh no.” I was bewildered by this, and I knew that such a reaction to something that was supposed to be joyous and wonderful was “wrong,” so I did what would only be natural in that context: I shoved it down. I think that I realized (mostly unconsciously) that the commitment I now felt was my due to the Church spelled trouble for me.
This initial experience illustrates much of why that was. Remember, the Church (as faithful thinking goes) is the Lord’s church. If I don’t like it, the problem is with me. And in a Church that demands everything, there is plenty of room to feel dislike.
I was fortunate to have a very good group of mostly Mormon friends and a great ward as a teenager. I didn’t realize at the time that such an arrangement was not going to last, nor likely was it even normal. Even then, I had moments of real cognitive dissonance. I remember close to the end of a school year singing with my choir in class, surrounded by people I loved as my own soul, thinking of the contrast between that and my usual experiences in Church and having the realization “This (the connection in choir) is my religion.” Of course, that thought prompted huge anxiety-- how could I think something so deviant from my commitment to the Lord’s church? So I shoved it down, like I had begun to do to many other deviant thoughts to that point. The Lord’s church is not to be questioned-- it is true, after all, and since it is true, its enormous expectations were the measuring stick by which I judged the acceptability of even the tiniest thoughts and feelings. And, more importantly, big feelings. Huge feelings.
Sexuality.
I could drive away doubt, anger, hate, fear, depression, anxiety, and all other unacceptable feelings through spiritual practice. My sexuality however, REFUSED to comply. I did what I could to ignore it, but it began to constantly demand my attention, as it often does for teenage boys. I developed all sorts of mechanisms by which I sought to repress it-- envisioning the boys I was attracted to being devoured and mutilated by monsters was a big one. But despite all my efforts and my counseling at LDS Family Services, they would not go away. So I escalated the conflict.
I went to war.
Why would I not go to war? The Church was true, all of it-- and because it was true, access to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom and exaltation with my family depended on me being faithful to the very iota of its expectations. I very aptly and correctly identified my sexuality as an extreme threat to my ability to fulfil those expectations.
But! The Church very clearly had taught me that the Lord would not fail those who had faith and trust in Him. That He would offer sustenance and deliverance through the Atonement to those who sought to do the right thing, and sought Him with all their heart. I trusted that promise, and with that trust, went on a mission.
My mission was a miserable experience. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so miserable all the time. It couldn’t be the Church-- the Church was true. So it must be me. I blamed myself, and with that blame constantly sought to find ways to improve my obedience. I struggled immensely with many aspects of mission standards-- going to bed and waking up on time, the hours of study in the mornings, hours upon hours of tracting and contacting, it drove me crazy. But again, the Church was true, its expectations were not in question-- so it must be me. If I wasn’t measuring up, it was my fault.
Six months before my mission I had a slew of experiences so traumatic they shattered my mind. A baptism fell through the day it was supposed to occur-- many of the ward blamed me for it. And I believed them. It was, as so many other experiences I had within the Church, my fault. I can barely relate these experiences without reliving the horror of the situation. I began having regular panic attacks, three to four a week. I would unexpectedly break down crying. I experienced suicidal ideation for the first time, experiencing impulses to drive the car into a telephone pole-- frankly the only thing that stopped me was the fact I would hurt my companion in the process. I didn’t tell anybody about that, but despite how good I had become at camouflaging my experience, I simply couldn’t suppress these feelings-- my companion and other elders in the district had no idea what to do with me, breaking down crying in the kitchen of our apartment. Nor did mission leadership, who simply told me “welcome to discipleship.” I had no idea how I would live with such horrifying feelings the rest of my life, but I resigned myself to it-- the Church was true, after all, and Jesus would help me.
Coming home from my mission was worse. Due to family circumstances there was no support-- my parents barely seemed to notice I was home, and all the love and support I got from my friends prior to the mission had disappeared as they had scattered to the four winds. I was alone. All these feelings now swirling through every moment of existence-- anger, sadness, despair, hopelessness, hate, depression, resentment-- they were not feelings I was supposed to be feeling, natural though I recognize them to be given the situation. But I had begun to lose my ability to contain them. And my sexuality, somewhat quiescent on my mission, returned full force. I was losing the war, but the Church was true, so I resigned myself to keep on fighting, trusting that Jesus would help me stay faithful.
Not only was I fighting to contain an incessant sexual drive and extreme emotional distress, but now cognitive dissonance began to open up, driven by the gaps I was beginning to see between what I thought the Church was, versus my lived experience with it. During a breathtaking panic attack in my room at BYU-Idaho, I recognized that I was all alone at one of the very centers of a Church whose members had covenanted with God to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those standing in need of comfort. Here I was, mourning intensely and standing in great need of comfort, and it wasn’t even remotely happening. But the Church was true, and Jesus would help me stay faithful, so I continued the war.
During this time the only thing that seemed to keep me sane was connection with Spirit. I believed, under the influence of Church conditioning, that my connection with Spirit was conditional upon my faithfulness to the Church and its teachings. I got little whispers here, little glimmers there, little seeds of hope and feelings of love that gave me the strength to keep going in life despite the enormous obstacles I was facing.
I interpreted this as Jesus’s aid through the Atonement, but even then it...wasn’t acting the way I expected it to act. I had begun to seek out intimacy with men, mostly just to keep myself from going insane from the loneliness and heartache. I needed to be held, to be wanted, to be loved physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was sick of being at war. Naturally, this began to lead to sexual encounters. I didn’t want these, but under the extreme pressures I was under, I had limited options. As I fled the house of a man whose touch I had sought out, I pleaded in my car for forgiveness for committing the sin next to murder...and felt great peace. Peace? Immediately after committing a sin of that magnitude? That was not how Jesus was supposed to act, in my world.
I confessed this indiscretion and, naturally, I was disfellowshipped. I was prevented from doing even the things that brought me strength-- praying in public, performing music in sacrament meeting, bearing testimony, taking the sacrament. I was cut completely off. During this period of disfellowshippment lasting several months, I received a single call from someone in the Church asking how I was doing. One call. No ministering. No interviews. No expressions of concern at all about my welfare. “Simon Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.” By this time, I was well accustomed to being alone on my spiritual journey, no matter how utterly wrong that felt. But no matter what, the Church is true-- there’s no quarter for doubt or deviance from its teachings. Besides, Jesus would help me stay faithful.
I returned to full fellowship, but I remember how strange and dysphoric that felt-- like I was attempting to haul a full load of hay in a wagon with a broken axle. I pleaded and prayed and wrestled, but my thoughts and feelings continued to pull away from the Church despite all my efforts to maintain faith. I felt like I was trying to climb the Grand Teton in a thunderstorm alone, lashed by rain and holding on by the skin of my fingernails. Or else, I felt like I had been tasked to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat. Because the Church was true, and Jesus would help, I soldiered on despite the apparent impossibility of the task ahead of me.
The despair continued to grow, and my sexuality more incessant than ever despite all my pleadings and attempts to be faithful. Several times a week I would plummet into suicidal depression. I had, at this point, exhausted all options, and I was growing increasingly desperate. I had faithfully prayed, studied scriptures, joined organizations, gone to weekends, received therapy, read books, explored other faith practices, meditated, received blessings, expressed gratitude, written in journals, taken medications, claimed radical responsibility. I had attempted to develop self-love, to trust Jesus, to relax into the Atonement. I had done literally everything I could’ve reasonably done to find a way, and more. After all, as the Church taught, by faith we are saved after all we could do. And I was doing all I could do, and Jesus would help me stay faithful. Right?
I began noticing that I wasn’t hitting the milestones most of my peers seemed to be hitting. I nearly washed out of school-- it took ten years to get my bachelor’s degree. I was still living with my parents at age 28, working for barely above minimum wage for less than 30 hours a week. It was all I seemed to be able to handle.
The din of the war I was waging for the fate of my soul deafened me to the call of other opportunities and responsibilities. People were passing career milestones, establishing marriages and families. I was at war. People were graduating with bachelor’s, then postgraduate degrees. I was at war. They were writing books and pursuing hobbies. I was at war. People were rising in ranks, pursuing dreams, achieving aspirations. I was at war.
Finally, and perhaps inevitably, disaster struck. I once again began seeking refuge in the arms of other men. Carefully, as I didn’t want to break temple covenants. But given all this, perhaps it was only a matter of time before my strength to resist gave out. And it did. It was a watershed moment. I realized as I fled from the bed where I made that fatal decision that I no longer had the strength to stay celibate.
It still took me several years after this point, but the time came that I finally left the Church altogether. When that decision came, Spirit spoke firmly to my mind and heart: “Bryce, your anxiety is lying to you. Of course I won’t abandon you. How could I? You are my beloved child.” This Spirit was not Jesus. Jesus had made it expressly clear through the teachings of the Church that the consequence of leaving and breaking sacred covenants was the withdrawal of His Spirit. Jesus had made it clear that it was His will that I stay in the Church, and that He would help me stay. Here Spirit was beside me. Here Spirit was, speaking solace and belonging, and expressing love regardless of what I did in relation to the Church, but offering no aid to stay. "You are (His) hands" Uchtdorf once expressed to the Church. The Church's hands had wrought devastation in my life. I left the Church whose hands had wounded me, and my faith in Jesus went with it.
What do I have to show for all those years of faithfulness? A scarred mind. A broken heart. A wounded spirit. I had lost the entirety of my twenties and early thirties to the war I waged against my sexuality, and the mental illness that war caused. I am years, even decades behind the development of my peers. And that loss was because of the Church, not in spite of it. I will never get those years back. I will never get that expended energy back. I will never get those opportunities back. And, I will never get my faith in Jesus back, the thing I once held dear above all.
So why are exmormons bitter? I can only speak for myself. But I am bitter because of what I lost. I am bitter because of all the misery I experienced pursuing faithfulness to "God’s Church." I am bitter because of everything the church’s extreme expectations and high levels of control cost me.
Ultimately, exmormons experience bitterness, not because they are deviants or apostates, but because they are human.
And if you had experienced what I had, and lost what I had, you would experience bitterness too.
Remember your own humanity before you unthinkingly pass judgment on exmormons. Despite the gulf of doctrines and covenants that divides us, we are more alike than different.
Actually, to be completely honest, this blog post it is primarily for me. It is an exercise in the vulnerability denied me in my faithful days. It is a step in the process of integration, of understanding and owning parts of my experience I did not allow myself to feel or see due to the pressures I was under when I was faithful. It is, in other words, an account of why I feel intensely bitter about the Church, and since no person is an island, why others who have left might similarly feel. You may not agree with my conclusions about the Church, but that these are my experiences are not up for debate. Also not up for debate is the validity of my bitterness. In telling this story, however, I hope to come to understand why I feel this way-- and in sharing it, perhaps that you may understand why I do, too.
So.
Why are exmormons bitter?
I’ve seen this question mused upon occasionally in faithful circles. Commonly, the explanation cited (without actually engaging with the perspectives of people who leave) is that they were offended. Implied in this explanation is that leaving is the result of a defect in the person who leaves-- and why should it be any other way, when the Church is true? In that paradigm, there is nothing that the Church itself, nor its leaders, can do wrongly-- and even if there is, we must not be offended at it, because people are imperfect even if the Church itself is.
The problem with these explanations, in addition to the lack of perspective cited above, is that they are a reflection of the very reasons many people leave-- and why they are so bitter after doing so. The Church is God’s, and therefore cannot be wrong-- therefore the people who leave are at fault, always and without question.
Of course, this is an absolute falsehood. The Church is an organization of humans run by humans, and this is so even within a faithful context-- Church leaders themselves do not claim revelation in every decision that they make. The church, therefore, is not special-- it manifests similar patterns and problems that exist across human organizations. But because of the culture and expectations that come with the Church’s teachings about itself, when the Church itself is the source of the pain and insult that might lead someone to leave, as it inevitably will be given its own characteristics, that reality is explained away, minimized or ignored. It is God’s church, after all.
Sociologists refer to religions like the LDS church as “high-control” or “high-demand” religions. These religions are demarcated by the following characteristics:
1) Strict behavioral requirements.
This is seen in the Church through examples like the law of Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, Sabbath observance, and tithing.
2) High commitment of time and energy.
This is seen in the Church through examples like weekly church attendance, midweek meetings (ie institute), family home evening, regular personal and family scripture study, callings, and ministering responsibilities.
3) Clear boundaries and in-group out-group mentality.
This is seen in how the Church refers to itself as “the one true church,” being “in the world but not of the world,” and temple access reserved for members in good standing.
4) Authoritarian leadership and hierarchical structure.
This is seen in the Church’s priesthood structure, with the Prophet being the prophet, seer and revelator whose words should rarely if ever be questioned, doctrinal and policy shifts coming from the top-down and considered divinely inspired, and members encouraged to follow the Prophet unquestioningly.
5) A comprehensive worldview.
This is seen in the Church’s detailed plan of salvation, authoritatively answering questions of where we came from, why we’re here, and where we are going. Included in this umbrella are teachings about eternal marriage, eternal progression, potential godhood, Christ’s coming and reign, and multiple heavens.
6) Strong sanctions for deviance.
This is seen in practices of membership restrictions and withdrawal, community sanctions for doubting or leaving, and shunning former members frequently experience within their families.
7) Group cohesion through sacrifice.
This is seen in the Church’s exacting expectations demanded of its members, embodied in the temple covenant declaring that temple-worthy members must be willing to “sacrifice all with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God.” These sacrifices build a sense of loyalty, while temple recommend interviews reinforce loyalty and obedience and a sense of being “set apart” from the world.
8) Discouragement of critical thinking or outside influence.
This is seen in the Church’s discouragement of engaging with critical scholarship or antagonistic sources, an emphasis on spiritual confirmation (ie the feeling of the Holy Ghost) over intellectual doubt, and the Church-developed frameworks of learning enforced at its educational institutions (Universities, seminaries/institutes).
9) Social and emotional control.
This is seen in intense cultural pressure to appear happy, faithful and successful (Mormon perfectionism), doubt framed as a test of faith rather than a natural and necessary feeling ensuing from the process of constructing belief, and the discouragement of vulnerability in public Church settings.
That the Church is a high-control religion is beyond question. People, however, may have a range of reactions to these features. Let me tell you about mine.
My first experience with what I believed to be the Holy Ghost was as a 12 years old, sitting in sacrament meeting with my family. I had the sudden thought that the Church was true, accompanied by a rush of feelings, mostly dread. My very first reaction to this confirmation was “oh no.” I was bewildered by this, and I knew that such a reaction to something that was supposed to be joyous and wonderful was “wrong,” so I did what would only be natural in that context: I shoved it down. I think that I realized (mostly unconsciously) that the commitment I now felt was my due to the Church spelled trouble for me.
This initial experience illustrates much of why that was. Remember, the Church (as faithful thinking goes) is the Lord’s church. If I don’t like it, the problem is with me. And in a Church that demands everything, there is plenty of room to feel dislike.
I was fortunate to have a very good group of mostly Mormon friends and a great ward as a teenager. I didn’t realize at the time that such an arrangement was not going to last, nor likely was it even normal. Even then, I had moments of real cognitive dissonance. I remember close to the end of a school year singing with my choir in class, surrounded by people I loved as my own soul, thinking of the contrast between that and my usual experiences in Church and having the realization “This (the connection in choir) is my religion.” Of course, that thought prompted huge anxiety-- how could I think something so deviant from my commitment to the Lord’s church? So I shoved it down, like I had begun to do to many other deviant thoughts to that point. The Lord’s church is not to be questioned-- it is true, after all, and since it is true, its enormous expectations were the measuring stick by which I judged the acceptability of even the tiniest thoughts and feelings. And, more importantly, big feelings. Huge feelings.
Sexuality.
I could drive away doubt, anger, hate, fear, depression, anxiety, and all other unacceptable feelings through spiritual practice. My sexuality however, REFUSED to comply. I did what I could to ignore it, but it began to constantly demand my attention, as it often does for teenage boys. I developed all sorts of mechanisms by which I sought to repress it-- envisioning the boys I was attracted to being devoured and mutilated by monsters was a big one. But despite all my efforts and my counseling at LDS Family Services, they would not go away. So I escalated the conflict.
I went to war.
Why would I not go to war? The Church was true, all of it-- and because it was true, access to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom and exaltation with my family depended on me being faithful to the very iota of its expectations. I very aptly and correctly identified my sexuality as an extreme threat to my ability to fulfil those expectations.
But! The Church very clearly had taught me that the Lord would not fail those who had faith and trust in Him. That He would offer sustenance and deliverance through the Atonement to those who sought to do the right thing, and sought Him with all their heart. I trusted that promise, and with that trust, went on a mission.
My mission was a miserable experience. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so miserable all the time. It couldn’t be the Church-- the Church was true. So it must be me. I blamed myself, and with that blame constantly sought to find ways to improve my obedience. I struggled immensely with many aspects of mission standards-- going to bed and waking up on time, the hours of study in the mornings, hours upon hours of tracting and contacting, it drove me crazy. But again, the Church was true, its expectations were not in question-- so it must be me. If I wasn’t measuring up, it was my fault.
Six months before my mission I had a slew of experiences so traumatic they shattered my mind. A baptism fell through the day it was supposed to occur-- many of the ward blamed me for it. And I believed them. It was, as so many other experiences I had within the Church, my fault. I can barely relate these experiences without reliving the horror of the situation. I began having regular panic attacks, three to four a week. I would unexpectedly break down crying. I experienced suicidal ideation for the first time, experiencing impulses to drive the car into a telephone pole-- frankly the only thing that stopped me was the fact I would hurt my companion in the process. I didn’t tell anybody about that, but despite how good I had become at camouflaging my experience, I simply couldn’t suppress these feelings-- my companion and other elders in the district had no idea what to do with me, breaking down crying in the kitchen of our apartment. Nor did mission leadership, who simply told me “welcome to discipleship.” I had no idea how I would live with such horrifying feelings the rest of my life, but I resigned myself to it-- the Church was true, after all, and Jesus would help me.
Not only was I fighting to contain an incessant sexual drive and extreme emotional distress, but now cognitive dissonance began to open up, driven by the gaps I was beginning to see between what I thought the Church was, versus my lived experience with it. During a breathtaking panic attack in my room at BYU-Idaho, I recognized that I was all alone at one of the very centers of a Church whose members had covenanted with God to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those standing in need of comfort. Here I was, mourning intensely and standing in great need of comfort, and it wasn’t even remotely happening. But the Church was true, and Jesus would help me stay faithful, so I continued the war.
During this time the only thing that seemed to keep me sane was connection with Spirit. I believed, under the influence of Church conditioning, that my connection with Spirit was conditional upon my faithfulness to the Church and its teachings. I got little whispers here, little glimmers there, little seeds of hope and feelings of love that gave me the strength to keep going in life despite the enormous obstacles I was facing.
I interpreted this as Jesus’s aid through the Atonement, but even then it...wasn’t acting the way I expected it to act. I had begun to seek out intimacy with men, mostly just to keep myself from going insane from the loneliness and heartache. I needed to be held, to be wanted, to be loved physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was sick of being at war. Naturally, this began to lead to sexual encounters. I didn’t want these, but under the extreme pressures I was under, I had limited options. As I fled the house of a man whose touch I had sought out, I pleaded in my car for forgiveness for committing the sin next to murder...and felt great peace. Peace? Immediately after committing a sin of that magnitude? That was not how Jesus was supposed to act, in my world.
I confessed this indiscretion and, naturally, I was disfellowshipped. I was prevented from doing even the things that brought me strength-- praying in public, performing music in sacrament meeting, bearing testimony, taking the sacrament. I was cut completely off. During this period of disfellowshippment lasting several months, I received a single call from someone in the Church asking how I was doing. One call. No ministering. No interviews. No expressions of concern at all about my welfare. “Simon Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.” By this time, I was well accustomed to being alone on my spiritual journey, no matter how utterly wrong that felt. But no matter what, the Church is true-- there’s no quarter for doubt or deviance from its teachings. Besides, Jesus would help me stay faithful.
I returned to full fellowship, but I remember how strange and dysphoric that felt-- like I was attempting to haul a full load of hay in a wagon with a broken axle. I pleaded and prayed and wrestled, but my thoughts and feelings continued to pull away from the Church despite all my efforts to maintain faith. I felt like I was trying to climb the Grand Teton in a thunderstorm alone, lashed by rain and holding on by the skin of my fingernails. Or else, I felt like I had been tasked to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat. Because the Church was true, and Jesus would help, I soldiered on despite the apparent impossibility of the task ahead of me.
The despair continued to grow, and my sexuality more incessant than ever despite all my pleadings and attempts to be faithful. Several times a week I would plummet into suicidal depression. I had, at this point, exhausted all options, and I was growing increasingly desperate. I had faithfully prayed, studied scriptures, joined organizations, gone to weekends, received therapy, read books, explored other faith practices, meditated, received blessings, expressed gratitude, written in journals, taken medications, claimed radical responsibility. I had attempted to develop self-love, to trust Jesus, to relax into the Atonement. I had done literally everything I could’ve reasonably done to find a way, and more. After all, as the Church taught, by faith we are saved after all we could do. And I was doing all I could do, and Jesus would help me stay faithful. Right?
I began noticing that I wasn’t hitting the milestones most of my peers seemed to be hitting. I nearly washed out of school-- it took ten years to get my bachelor’s degree. I was still living with my parents at age 28, working for barely above minimum wage for less than 30 hours a week. It was all I seemed to be able to handle.
The din of the war I was waging for the fate of my soul deafened me to the call of other opportunities and responsibilities. People were passing career milestones, establishing marriages and families. I was at war. People were graduating with bachelor’s, then postgraduate degrees. I was at war. They were writing books and pursuing hobbies. I was at war. People were rising in ranks, pursuing dreams, achieving aspirations. I was at war.
Finally, and perhaps inevitably, disaster struck. I once again began seeking refuge in the arms of other men. Carefully, as I didn’t want to break temple covenants. But given all this, perhaps it was only a matter of time before my strength to resist gave out. And it did. It was a watershed moment. I realized as I fled from the bed where I made that fatal decision that I no longer had the strength to stay celibate.
It still took me several years after this point, but the time came that I finally left the Church altogether. When that decision came, Spirit spoke firmly to my mind and heart: “Bryce, your anxiety is lying to you. Of course I won’t abandon you. How could I? You are my beloved child.” This Spirit was not Jesus. Jesus had made it expressly clear through the teachings of the Church that the consequence of leaving and breaking sacred covenants was the withdrawal of His Spirit. Jesus had made it clear that it was His will that I stay in the Church, and that He would help me stay. Here Spirit was beside me. Here Spirit was, speaking solace and belonging, and expressing love regardless of what I did in relation to the Church, but offering no aid to stay. "You are (His) hands" Uchtdorf once expressed to the Church. The Church's hands had wrought devastation in my life. I left the Church whose hands had wounded me, and my faith in Jesus went with it.
What do I have to show for all those years of faithfulness? A scarred mind. A broken heart. A wounded spirit. I had lost the entirety of my twenties and early thirties to the war I waged against my sexuality, and the mental illness that war caused. I am years, even decades behind the development of my peers. And that loss was because of the Church, not in spite of it. I will never get those years back. I will never get that expended energy back. I will never get those opportunities back. And, I will never get my faith in Jesus back, the thing I once held dear above all.
So why are exmormons bitter? I can only speak for myself. But I am bitter because of what I lost. I am bitter because of all the misery I experienced pursuing faithfulness to "God’s Church." I am bitter because of everything the church’s extreme expectations and high levels of control cost me.
Ultimately, exmormons experience bitterness, not because they are deviants or apostates, but because they are human.
And if you had experienced what I had, and lost what I had, you would experience bitterness too.
Remember your own humanity before you unthinkingly pass judgment on exmormons. Despite the gulf of doctrines and covenants that divides us, we are more alike than different.
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