by Valerie
As I’ve been writing and processing my feelings about being raised Mormon and choosing to step away from the faith I once believed with all my heart, I’ve been trying very hard to not hurt the people I love who still believe. I doubt I’m doing a very good job of that. So here is my message to you who love me and don’t understand.
There isn’t any possible way for me to articulate what has happened in my mind and heart over the course of the last three years. There were a million little things that turned into several really big things that turned into a few gigantic, incomprehensibly large things. It was an entire paradigm shift. Some of the posts I have written address a tiny portion of how and why this shift occurred. But to condense it all into one post that someone can read and go, “Oh, okay. I get it now. I understand why she chose to step away,”… that is absolutely impossible.
One reason for the impossibility is that unless you’ve gone through it, you won’t ever *really* understand. Kind of like you can’t ever know what giving birth is like unless you’ve done it. And you can’t ever know what losing a pregnancy feels like unless you’ve done it. And you can’t ever know what being queer in a heteronormative world feels like. And you can’t ever know what it’s like to be divorced, or perpetually single, or autistic, or a widow, or any number of things unless you’ve experienced it. Best we can do is empathize. And that’s all I ask of you, my favorite people, who are struggling to understand my experience.
I hope you also trust that I am not writing any of this out of a malicious desire to bring anyone out of the church. Writing is how I’ve always processed my feelings. Some of you may remember my Instagram account dedicated primarily to scripture study. There’s something about writing things out that helps me process and sort through some complicated thoughts. In fact, I have 15 study journals packed full of writing about complicated thoughts. So writing is completely natural and absolutely true to my character. The only real change is that my perspective is wildly different. But this continues to be a helpful medium for me to work things out, and it will likely always be a big part of my life.
But for those of you that are believing members of the church, I genuinely hope you won’t read the things I write. It’s not intended for you. It’s for me mostly. And if it resonates or helps someone else not feel so alone, it’s for them. The last three years have been the most painful and difficult of my life. I would never want to shove anyone into this struggle. But I do want people who are IN this struggle to know they aren’t alone. There are so many of us. And most of us are good people. Being in or out of the church is not what makes us good or bad.
So to you, my believing Mormon friends and family, know that I love you. But please, don’t read my posts.
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