Thrashbrowns Loses his Religion Revisited: This Endless War

 Hi. It's been a while, eh?

Last year, I decided it was time to do a deep dive-style breakdown of the events and experiences that led me to leave the LDS Church. It was a multi-part, months-long exploration that helped me get so much shit out in front of me so I could see and make sense of it. It was a difficult, painful process but when it was over, I felt like I had finally put a lot of shit to rest.

But I knew damn well that this wasn't over. Not. Even. Close.

So I figured that I leave the door open to occasionally revisit TBLHR when I felt a need to. Which is why we're here today.

I was watching a video on YouTube where an ex-Mormon lady was talking about things she resented the Church for. Part of her video covered how she resented the church for robbing her of her identity beyond being a wife and mother. She talked of she's still struggling with it even long it's been a good long time since she left. 

That made a light in my head go off cuz I know there are still A TON of issues from when I was going to church that I still battle, many times on a daily basis. So, I guess I'm here to get a few of these issues off my chest. We'll take them one at a time, starting with...

A Sense of Worthlessness

One of the biggest wars I've been fighting, one that I've been fighting ever since I can remember, is the war of self-worth. I've struggled to find things within myself that are worth liking for so long, it seems like it's been a fucking career. It's a struggle that persists even now that I bailed from LDS life, though it's a lot easier to find stuff to like within myself now that I'm out.

In the LDS Church, the matter of worthiness looms like a storm cloud over your entire life. If you're not worthy according to the standards of the church, you can't enter the temple. You aren't qualified for all kinds of blessings that will greatly enrich and improve your life. You will lose the companionship of the Holy Spirit. If you die in your unworthiness, you cannot receive a fullness of glory or be with your loved ones throughout the eternities. To a kid with a heart condition who could drop dead at any moment, like me, that was some scary shit.

And it's so easy to erode your own worthiness. It happens if you listen to the wrong music or watch the wrong kinds of movies. It happens if you swear or have impure thoughts or if you get angry. It turns out that in the LDS Church, worthiness is one fucking fickle bitch. As a kid who loved metal and bloody action movies and especially swearing, I always felt like I was unworthy for what seemed like petty, stupid, bullshit reasons. Eventually, I came to believe that what music I listen to or movies I watch is between myself and God and if jamming some metal or watching Die Hard is the worst thing I'm doing, I'm not doing too bad. 

But programming is programming. After decades of buying into the idea that I had to be living a certain way to be worthy of the oxygen I breathe, I became mired in the idea that if I didn't try to change, I was doomed. I tried on two different occasions to de-metal myself by boxing up my music and giving it to friends so I wouldn't get into it. I also sold all my R-rated movies. I knew that this stuff was between myself and God but if God really didn't want me to listen to metal or any of that other shit, I had to try. 

Giving up movies wasn't that hard because I could still watch Star Wars but giving up the music was so goddamn painful. My music had always been there for me, with no judgment, whenever I needed it in a way God never was. I tried to throw myself into the Gospel but I was miserable. Living my life without metal just felt wrong and I was more anxious and depressed than I'd been since my mission. Being without my music just felt wrong.

So I buckled and back into listening to metal. I felt like shit for buckling, like I lacked a spine, like I would always fold under the slightest pressure from temptation. There were other sources for feelings of unworthiness. The fact that the church puts so much emphasis on getting married and having kids made it hard to feel good about myself cuz I couldn't find my way into a relationship, no matter how hard I tried. The relationships I did get into were mostly miserable and I felt like it was always my fault. I was either unworthy of being with someone awesome or that God didn't think I deserved to have a healthful relationship. 

That ground me down. Made me feel like I am complete trash. After all, how can I be a worthy, functioning human when I can't even fucking fulfill the most basic of biological needs and commandments of God? What good am I if I can't multiply and help replenish that Earth?

There's a shadow of that flawed reasoning that continues to haunt me. Even after a decade-plus away from the LDS Church, I still feel like I am unworthy of a decent life. I still feel like I don't deserve love and financial success or even just being able to look into a mirror without going Man, you are fuck-ugly. This endless war, the flames of which were no doubt fanned by my experience as a Mormon, has held me in place for so long and I need to move. I need to make progress. I need to stop worrying about what anyone else thinks, God included, and start walking the path toward the best, most powerful version of myself.  Not even walking. I can crawl towards my goals. It's slower but crawling gets the job done, too.