exiting emotions: betrayal
When I realized the church isn’t The One True Church, I felt betrayed.
Them?
I didn’t feel like my parents lied to me, because I felt like they’d been lied to too. And their parents, and their parents, on back to Joseph Smith, who was lying to himself.
The church promised that if I did and believed A, B, and C, I’d get to heaven. I’d get salvation and eternity and worlds without number, to be my very own goddess. They took my money, my time, my effort, my tears, my heart, my wedding, my childhood, my youth, my college years, my twenty-something years. They took all that and returned nothing. I was betrayed.
And not just me. How about any member who went on a mission? They’d convinced them to try to blindly betray others. And all the members of the church from 1830 on. All of those people, persecuted and driven from their homes. All those people crossed the plains on foot, many of them dying. All those families broken up because one was so sure of the Truth. All of those women manipulated into marrying men as plural wives. All those women manipulated into thinking the only thing they wanted in life was to pop out babies. The ones manipulated into thinking they aren’t as important as their husbands. People messed up, lives ruined, and most of them don’t even realize it. They’ve given it up for a fake eternity, for a lost salvation, a false hope. I felt betrayed.
6 comments:
I second that, and um, yeah, I went to Alberta, Canada on my mission.
I didn't serve a mission myself, though I had always wanted to since I was young (but then the right guy came along!). I can't even begin to comprehend how much harder that would make this process. But my heart goes out to all of those that did.
I still feel betrayed. I think that's one feeling that will never go away. How do you fix betrayal? I'm pretty sure that it's the betrayal that makes full recovery so hard. Those feelings just don't ever go away fully.
This is a great question. I guess it's like the others said on your next post...finding a way to be yourself without apology is a way to squash and negate the feelings of betrayal (I hope).
I know I'm jumping into the conversation very late, but...
I served a mission, but for me, it has made leaving easier. For me, it was the end of my idealism. I began to see how the Church really works and it wasn't what I had imagined.
I also felt betrayed, but I had to let that feeling go. Like you point out, there's no one to stick final blame on, so holding on to the feeling of betrayal would only hurt myself without leading to any fruitful action. I'm still passionate about the problems that I perceive in the Church, but I don't worry about blame.
Besides, if I'm honest about it, there's plenty of blame to lay at my own feet. I was also complicit in the lie.
Jonathan- It is interesting how differently people go through things.
I have gotten past feelings of betrayal, too, thank goodness. They were very big in the early days after leaving, though. It's true that there's really no one to blame, and even blaming oneself could just hurt.
Yes, we were complicit in the lie too, but not anymore. And that is a big deal.
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