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Why is “recovery
from Mormonism” is such a difficult, lengthy process
for many people? In the early days of my leaving the church
I had a simplified view of recovery – stop attending
all Mormon church functions, find some non-Mormon friends,
figure out some fun activities to do on Sunday, and generally
just start living like a typical non-Mormon.
But
I see now that this is an over-simplification. Over a period
of months, I have been attempting to get in touch with the
real nature of “recovery from Mormonism”. This
has led me to a new theory of recovery, which I describe
below.
Life
is a process of growing and maturing from an intellectual
and emotional perspective. We go through many stages of
growth. Pre-teen children must find their place in the family
and with their friends and schoolmates. They struggle to
learn about the world and learn how to interact socially
with their peers. Through the teenage years, the process
of socialization is paramount. People struggle to find their
own identity, to become comfortable with their own sexuality,
and they work on making the transition from childhood to
adulthood. Education and learning are emphasized, as teenagers
try to determine what career or job area they will take
up. The world with all its political and social problems,
becomes an area of interest and concern for teenagers.
As people
reach adulthood (say age twenty-one) many are still struggling
with and working on issues that became known to them in
the mid- to late-teen years. The decade of one’s twenties
is normally a period of major growth. Very few people are
stable, mature adults at age twenty-one. People usually
make major decisions such as marriage, family, and career
during their twenties. Such decisions are fraught with problems
and anxiety, and life often does not go smoothly. So people
have to learn to handle problems and disappointment, and
they must develop and refine their coping skills.
The
growth and maturing of people continues through their thirties
and forties, and even afterward. Hopefully a person is reasonably
stable and squared-away in life by age thirty, but not necessarily.
They should have learned to think and analyze, and should
have good coping and survival skills. Problems of raising
a family and job-related issues often come to the forefront
during the thirties and early forties. As people grow, issues
of marriage and relationships frequently arise. People who
fell in love as teen-agers and married in their early twenties
often discover that the fires of love have cooled and they
need to find real world reasons to be happy and content
with their spouse. Differences in viewpoints on politics,
religion, and lifestyle must be faced and resolved.
Now,
let me relate all this to Mormonism. The Mormon Church tries
very hard to be the end-all answer to all its members. It
is much more than just a set of religious beliefs. It tells
you both what to believe and how best to live your life.
It is a social organization, to which members turn for all
their social needs. Mormons meet and date members of the
opposite sex, and usually marry within the church. The young
men often go on a mission, which usually serves to solidify
their beliefs and participation in the church. Women are
groomed to become mothers and rise the next generation of
Mormons. The church preaches a lifestyle which is outwardly
simple – live a righteous life, trust in God, be humble
and prayerful, follow the teachings of the church, and then
your life will be on track. If problems arise, it is just
the Lord “testing you”, and He will help you
to get through the problems.
In all
of this the Mormon Church is a self-contained approach to
life. The members obtain all their religious opinions from
the church and they have all their social needs fulfilled
there. Independent thinking is discouraged, as the church
emphasizes obedience and unquestioning faith. This creates
a life for members that is, in many ways, effectively cut
off from the rest of the world. It is a form of social and
intellectual inbreeding. There is no need to look further
than the general authorities and the stake and ward leaders
for truth, wisdom, and enlightenment.
The
problem that Mormonism creates for its members is that it
greatly interferes with the normal, healthy maturation and
growth process that I described earlier. By providing a
complete life for its members, by answering all of life’s
questions, the Mormon Church stunts the intellectual and
emotional growth of its members. By spoon feeding them all
the answers, the church keeps the members in a dependent,
child-like state. Instead of becoming healthy, independent
adult thinkers, Mormons learn to look to the brethren for
all the answers.
Most
Mormons manage to find a reasonably stable life for themselves
within the confines of the church, although it is not without
its challenges. Many (probably a majority) of believing
Mormons experience mental health problems because the answers
provided by the church are frequently inadequate to deal
with real world problems and challenges. The philosophy
of “grin and bear it because the Lord is testing you”
does not always work.
But
when an adult Mormon decides, for a variety of reasons,
that the Mormon Church is not “true” and is
not the great answer to life that is claims to be, then
that person faces a major challenge. In leaving the Mormon
Church, the person needs to learn to think, analyze, and
deal with the world and its challenges. No longer are all
the answers handed to the person on a silver platter. That
person needs to go through the growth and maturation process
that was stunted for so long by Mormonism. Not all people
are the same – some find the transition to ex-Mormon
relatively easy, while others have a very difficult time.
So here
we have the essence of the challenge of recovery from Mormonism
– to learn to become a confident, self-reliant, independent
thinking person who has the knowledge and self-assurance
to trust in his/her own judgment. No longer is there an
outside source (the Mormon Church) which provides all the
answers. The person must learn to see oneself as he/she
really is, to learn to see the world as it really is, and
learn to successfully deal with and thrive in that real
world.
The
person who is leaving Mormonism must make up for all the
years that were lost while being spoon-fed the answers to
life by Mormonism. That is why recovery from Mormonism is
often such a difficult, protracted process.
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