On Leaving My Faith

This month marks 8 years of leaving my faith of origin. My apostasy is 8 years old: that’s baptizing age in the Mormon church.

This religion was my entire life for 3+ decades. I did everything that was asked of me:

• baptism

• purity

• marrying in the temple

• tithing 10% of my income

• covering my shoulders

Until one day it started to feel like a dress that was too tight.

But it fit before, so I tried to contort myself to make it work.

Church leaders told me this is the only safe place. So when church began to feel unsafe, I gaslit myself.

These are men of God, after all. It must be an issue with me.

It got to the point where I would cry every Sunday and spend massive amounts of energy undoing the harm that had been done each week.

I was having panic attacks and PTSD symptoms before I finally realized my body was crying out to be heard: Don’t make me go to church anymore.

At the end of 2015 I slipped out the front door of a Seattle chapel with the intention of taking a year to reassess.

The genesis of this decision had been five years in the making.

One thing was clear: I couldn’t bear to hear god called “he” anymore.

Outside of the clutter of other voices, I could hear my own heart. I felt settled and spacious. There was room to breathe, for my own beliefs to take wing. I could seek the goddess without fear of excommunication.

I thought I would find the goddess through the church.

But she wasn’t there. She was everywhere else instead.

[Photo by Jenna Duffy in Nosara, Costa Rica]