The LDS church isn't bad because of its weird beliefs.

When I ask nevermos who are not in this space why they think the Mormon church is not a good thing, they usually say that it's because they have weird teachings, they're not teaching the true Bible, they're secretive, etc. Wrong. Every religion has weird beliefs. Every religion has weird rituals.

After educating myself about religious trauma, I believe the core of what makes the church bad is this:

When your authentic self has a question or a doubt or dislikes a teaching, you are taught that that is the devil. That's the voice of Satan. That's evil. You are told this over and over from a young age, repeatedly throughout your entire life. Whenever you have a thought you're not "supposed" to have, or a question that makes you or others uncomfortable, or your inner voice is disagreeing with a teaching and is yelling and trying to get you to listen, that's Satan. It's like the song "Turn It Off" from the BOM musical.

What does this do to your mind? It turns your authentic self into the enemy. You become your own gaslighter. You try to shove down every thought and feeling you're not supposed to have. It splits your mind into two parts: the "evil" authentic self, and the unquestioning self the church wants you to have.

Eventually, after doing this for years, you lose the ability to hear your inner voice. You lose the ability to know what you really think and feel, and to acknowledge and speak from that voice. This is how the church fucks your brain.

When you leave, you have to reconstruct yourself from scratch, and it's terrifying because your brain thinks that if you follow your authentic self, you may end up in Hell or something similar. You have believed the whole time you were in the church that your authentic self was dangerous. In fact, you probably truly believed there was something seriously wrong with you since no one else spoke up when they had questions--they were too afraid to.

This is the trauma we are dealing with. This is why when evangelicals or other groups try to convert exmormons, most of us are not interested. We see the same pattern in them and it's triggering. We see the denial of the authentic self that we are being asked to repeat, and we don't want to go back to that. I don't care what the Bible says--if it feels wrong deep in my gut, I'm listening to my gut. I'm never going back to burying my inner voice EVER AGAIN.

There is hope and healing. Trauma therapy has helped me a lot but I'm still on this journey. I wish you all well and hope you take some time to feel safe in your authenticity.