#apostake

Hi cult survivors,

You are amazing and valid

It’s hard for wlw who grew up in homophobic religions to form connections and not feel bad or weird about their sexuality. It’s especially hard for people who grew up in such a controlled environment where they tried to control how you dressed, who you dated, when you started dating, how often you dated, when you could date one on one, etc to make genuine romantic connections and sometimes people just turn out ace or aro (nothing wrong with that, I love my aro/ace buddies so much <3 ) because of how controlling the environment was. Controlling your teenagers dating life so much to where they can’t even look at someone of another gender or hang out with them (thanks Mormons) does NOT stop them from dating bad people, having s*x, doing anything of that nature. If you try to control them to that point, or your religion does, then it’s going to make things worse. I grew up in the church where if I even had friends of the opposite gender I couldn’t hang out with them alone. This has just made it super hard for me to form actual connections romantic and platonic.

Cult jokes are common in our society, especially within “dark humor”. People think of the really famous, obvious closed off cults. But people don’t realize that cults are more common and around than they think. People don’t join cults, they join movements, groups, etc. especially when they are low or down and need something in their lives. They are manipulated into joining and staying. Its oftentimes really hard to leave. It is possible to get out and rebuild your life!! It’s sometimes dangerous and hard to leave, but once they do leave things usually get better with a lot of effort and time.

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Toxic religion totally exists. Sometimes, if we are happy within our own religion we are quick to defend all religion, but we must acknowledge the existence of toxic religion. It’s very important to help people who are survivors of religious abuse and toxic religion and cult survivors. It’s so hard for them to leave and a lot of people don’t understand. It takes guts to leave and from there healing still has to be done. It is possible to leave and be happy outside of your toxic religion.

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When leaving the church, oftentimes our parents or family will still be in the church and have very different opinions than us. It’s okay for us to have different opinions. It’s okay for your kids to have different opinions (as long as the opinions aren’t hurting anybody). It’s a good thing to branch out and question what you’re taught, decide for yourself if you believe in it.

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Healing from the church is possible. Leaving and recovery are so hard, but it’s worth it. Holding onto a toxic thing for a long time can be discouraging and more damaging than letting go. Letting go hurts in the beginning, but as time goes by you learn to heal by coping, reaching out, and recovering.

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Once you get out of the church, especially if it was toxic or abusive to you, it’s the most freeing feeling. You can make your own choices without fear. You can do what you want, believe what you want, be your own person. You are free to choose what to do in life without the threat of eternal damnation in front of you. And for some people, it’s as basic as their sexuality that got them condemned by the church forever. Loving someone you truly love, or transitioning finally is an amazing feeling.

Don’t get me wrong, leaving the church (or any toxic situation) won’t solve all your problems right away. You need to heal and recover and have time to blossom and find your way. Spending your whole life or a little chunk of it believing in something (especially if your whole family is in it) then suddenly having a faith crisis and leaving can be draining. There will be bas days when you’re scared and wanna run back. You made this decision for a reason and you will feel so much better once you start to heal and process and find your way. It’s hard, believe me, there are times I just wanted to be able to not feel shame and guilt but you will find your way slowly. Whether it’s through therapy, a life makeover, new clothes, a different dating life, new beliefs, you will find your path.

It’s okay to not believe what your parents believe.

It’s okay to still believe part of what they belive, but reject the rest.

It’s okay to form your own opinions outside of your toxic parents/church’s.

It’s okay to leave a toxic religion.

It’s freeing to leave a toxic religion.

Everything gets a little brighter once you have that freedom.

You can breathe and make your own choices without fear.

And that is the most amazing feeling.

The church’s view on chastity and sex can be harmful. Not everyone is going to want to wait until marriage. It is so so important to educate young people on safety and everything under that umbrella. Ignorance doesn’t mean abstinence. Waiting is perfectly okay too, but everyone still should be educated.

Just because a religion says you can’t be something doesn’t mean you can’t. Love who you wanna love, fuck who you wanna fuck, do what makes you happy.

Finding a new religion after leaving another one can be scary. But boy, is it nice to be able to pick your own. My entire family is Mormon, everyone born into Mormonism for as far back as you can see. Being able to pick my own religious beliefs is freeing. It’s empowering to be able to believe what I want to believe and not have to pretend.

Hello, lovely people!

Just a reminder that it feels so good to be free of the Mormon church. The atmosphere of it is toxic to me personally, and I’m much happier without it. I am able to do things I’ve always wanted to do, I don’t dread Sunday’s anymore, life is a little clearer. A lot of my stress is gone, no more pressure to live up to the ridiculous expectations. If you aren’t to this point yet, you will be able to be. It will feel so good once you are able to be free. Once you get away, you can run and never look back. Leave all of the bullshir toxicity behind. It does get better. You can heal. Healing is rough, but necessary. You will make it.

I’m not anti-religion, I’m anti- religion that forces you to conform and hides parts of yourself. I’m anti-toxic religion.

You are worth so much more than the church says you are. Constant lessons and bullshit telling you that you can’t be LGBT, or you have to hide it, or it’s a “bad” part of you are bullshit. You were made you for a reason. Whether you believe in God, nothing, another religion, different dieites, you were made the way you are for a reason. You shine in your own way, and you can’t ever let anyone take that from you. Religions that tells you that you have to hide parts of yourself are toxic. You should never have to suppress who you are for someone else, even for a church. You are an amazing being who is so valid. You have to live your life in a way that makes you happy.

Mormon parents love to say their kid chose to get baptized at 8, and how they’re so proud of that choice, and everything about how this is what they chose. This is crazy to me because as if at 8 years old I told my mom or bishop I didn’t wanna be baptized then they would’ve let me make THAT choice and not convince me I’m going to Mormon Hell forever if I don’t get baptized. Also the child is 8 and will believe whatever their parents tell them to.

Hi, if you’re being forced to go to church today or being forced to pretend to believe in something you don’t, it gets better. You get out, you’re able to heal, explore your own beliefs.

Treat people kindly because you are a good person. Shake the idea that there is “moral” and “immoral” food.

It’s come to my attention that Lds.org recently changed revised the section of their site concerning the “Gospel topics” essays. They require additional clicks, which might not seem like a big deal unless you want to keep your IP from being tracked (most content is hidden behind a “Read More” button–interacting with the site by clicking on this, searching, etc is a way to gather info on who/where it’s being seen and can compare it to buying habits and other demographics in their database)

If you’d like to read them in their original form (they are now being treated as “overviews” for topics, and other sources are being pushed more) all the links are on https://mormonessays.com/ and you can just add  &old=true to the end of the url of whatever essay you want to read. It removes the “read more” button so you won’t be tracked, and is just the good old original essay. As far as I know, not much of the content has changed, but they’ve just made them harder to track down (and de-emphasized them quite a bit)