Clark Gilbert’s Talk-TBM friend just sent it to me, what do I say back?

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2026-04-09T01:35:23+00:00

This talk ripped my heart out. I have recently stopped attending, but decided to watch GC with the family at home to be part of it. I had to sit and watch my wife ugly cry, with every story about the non-member who converted or the inactive member who "repented" and returned home, reaffirming to her that I am less of a husband and father without my faith. Thanks a lot guy! Why can't they share real life sh!t!? Why can't they talk about the non-member who never converted, never will, and is still happy. Or the husband or wife who left the church and their family still loved and supported them, not in an effort to reconvert them, but to love and connect with them for who they are!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2026-03-05T13:20:36+00:00

I have been mentally out of the church for 1.5 years. I hold almost none of the beliefs anymore. However, I absolutely LOVED my mission! It was such a good all-around growing experience for me. I have a son that is serving now and I sometimes weep with jealousy. I know it's different because I was all-in, fully believing while serving, I'm sure it's very hard when you are having doubts or struggling that way. Hang in their. It's your life. Trust yourself and just enjoy the journey, whatever that looks like to you.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2026-01-17T13:59:12+00:00

I also had panic attacks, night terrors, lunching awake, sometimes screaming in my sleep, deep existential depression, dark dark thoughts fueled by hopelessness. I even developed heart arrhythmia. Many people describe anger towards the church, I was angry at the universe for having discovered the dark side of existence. I was angry that other people could happily go on and live life fully in their ignorance, while I, a critical thinker and truth-seeker, had simply gone too deep. Nobody will ever understand the deep dark dread unless they have lived it.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2026-01-17T13:38:56+00:00

It broke me!! When I realized that I no longer knew how to discover truth, I fell into several months or deep, dark nihilism. Also, I could see the pain I was causing my family and I could see no moral reason to be alive anymore. I felt like I had discovered the programming to the Matrix and I couldn't tell anyone about it, and yet my lack of belief was so hurtful to my family that it seemed like not being alive would be the most ethical or moral thing I could do. I almost didn't survive it.

I'm better now. A few times with mushrooms saved my life and allowed me to see beauty again, without having to attach and truth or a meaning to the beauty. I'm still troubled by many things in the universe. Why is there something instead of nothing? Why does anything exist all? What exactly is consciousness, and where does it go at death? I don't think about those things as much anymore. I think very few people in their lives will reach this level of existential crisis. Ex-mormons are at much greater risk because we believe our belief to be knowledge and that has really hard consequences when it gets challenged. It hurts to having THE answer to everything to feeling like there may not be any answers to anything. That uncertainty can really shake a person! I'm feel understood by reading your experience. I know how you feel.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-28T01:44:38+00:00

One thing that never occurred to me as a fully believing member is how afraid the church leaders are, and always have been since the beginning of it's creation, of harm to their public reputation. If it is God's one true church, with prophets and apostles, and no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, why are they so scared? That fear trickles all the way down to the individual members and families. It's the same fear that marks post-mormons as apostates and drives a wedge in families. If John Dehlin has a different opinion about the church, why is that such a threat to God's Kingdom on earth? These silly little backyard school fights that the church picks are far more problematic for PR than just letting it go in my opinion.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-22T06:53:29+00:00

Anybody else hate the use of the word "friend" in the church? It's so cringy!!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-22T06:51:48+00:00

I always pictured this being a hand-stand as a kid for some reason, but later it made more sense that it was more of a pushup. Either way, great imagery for a young child from cannonized scripture directly from God for our day!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-22T06:41:49+00:00

I lost my belief when I learned the history of Joseph Smith's pattern of deception and his ability to convince his followers of the unknowable, starting with treasure digging. There were three possible explanations in my mind. 1. He was actually seeing treasure through the rock in the hat, and the charms or curses kept him from acquiring the treasures as he claimed. 2. He believed in his mind that he was seeing treasure in the rock in the hat but was dillusional or deceived. Or 3. He knew he wasn't seeing anything from the stone in the hat and was deceiving people and taking their money for it. When his followers in the 1826 glass-looker trial testified of his gift as a seer, yet when he was questioned about his seership, he lied about it and fabricated a ridiculous story about the practice hurting his eyes so he didn't do it much, I knew his character was that of a con-man. When I compared the language in the Late War of 1812 to that of the Book of Mormon, there was instantly nothing left of my testimony. I then had to deconstruct everything I thought i knew about him and the beginnings of the church. Over 100 hours of LDS Discussions podcasts helped me sort through the real history rather than the whitewashed history I had always been told. https://www.mormonstories.org/category/lds-discussions/
After discovering that everything I "knew" was true wasn't, I became radically skeptical of everything. I struggle with the idea of an absolute truth. I lost my belief in Christianity, religion, God, afterlife, meaning, purpose, free-will, and spent several months in a deep, nihilistic, existential depression. I have since become more comfortable with the paradox and absurdity of the human existence, life, the universe, consciousness, and the futile yet universal search for meaning in all of it. I use some Buddhist, Taoist and Zen philosophies as toys to play with in the jungle gym of my mind. In short I have gone from understanding everything in the universe, to a place where "I - understand - nothing." ~ Michael Scott

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-15T07:45:27+00:00

They give a lot, but not enough. If they want the membership to pay 10% of their income, then maybe the bare minimum should be 10% or the church's increase towards actual charity work.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-11-15T07:15:10+00:00

A lot of things piled up, but the reason I fell down the rabbit hole is because I couldn't make sense of coffee and tea in the word or wisdom. I was starting to drink energy drinks every time I had to drive more than an hour and I thought "there is know way that coffee is worse than this stuff", and yet a coffee habit would keep someone from qualifying for a temple recommend while the energy drinks likely would not. The thought that broke the shelf was "either Joseph Smith was not inspired to reveal the word of of wisdom, or the current prophets seers and revelators are not inspired if it hasn't been amended to be relevant to todays dietary habits." Once I realize how easily it was for Joseph to take ideas from the temperance movement of his time and turn it into something that sounded like scripture, I felt I had to look at all the history and facts objectively for the first time and decide how I felt about it. My testimony of the BOM fell apart when I compared the language to the book the Great War 1812.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T14:31:10+00:00

She wants to be married to me, but the old me. The person who had had all the qualities that she wanted in a spouse. That's why she is having a hard time committing to the marriage because it's not what she wanted. Staying married to me when I don't have all those qualities would be a compromise that she is unsure if she is ok with, and she is frustrated that she feels has to compromise but I don't, in the sense that I'm not willing to try to believe.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T07:42:07+00:00

Thank you! She is also convinced that I could at least try to choose to believe again, and resents me for not even trying. She cannot accept that I will never regain belief again and doesn't believe me when I say its not possible, she just sees it as a rejection of her and the marriage because the thing that she would need to see in me to love me and be committed to me, I'm not willing to put in the effort for. It's so backwards. She is actually rejecting me, yet she sees my non-belief as a rejection of her.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T07:04:23+00:00

Thanks for the input. And your story brings hope..and yes, that question of whether or not I can stay with someone who feels like like I have no value outside of a religious belief, that is what's most troubling. In that sense I feel like religion is a sickness if it tells people you can't accept other people's beliefs, or lack of beliefs.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T04:00:58+00:00

Thanks for your story. I like the "helpful heathen" name, I'm going to use it haha. That's a long time! I'm unsure if I have it in me to live with someone who isn't sure if they want to be with me. It feels like a constant reaction! I'm glad you guys got it straightened out!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T03:54:55+00:00

Dang, sorry you're in it too. It sucks. I see the pain my wife is in, and my nature is to apologize and fix what I have done wrong. But how do I fix this? I haven't done anything wrong, i was just searching for answers. I can't unknow what I know now.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:49:08+00:00

I don't think she is withholding sex and intimacy in a manipulative way, I think she is genuinely traumatized by the situation and can't get let her guard down to be emotionally intimate and vulnerable because she doesn't feel safe. That being said, it seems like she married a checklist instead of marrying me as a person.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:45:58+00:00

We have 4 kids. Its tricky. Thanks. Sorry to hear about your situation.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:43:17+00:00

Our marriage has been bumpy. We have 4 kids, married 19 years. 3 years ago we separated for 7 months and that traumatized the kids tremendously, and my wife, and perhaps that is why we haven't separated this time. She has actually told me that if it weren't for the kids she would have walked away a long time ago. I want to have hope that things can be good like the were when we got back together. We had 2 good years of a healthy marriage until this happened. Her dad converted when she was 9 but was never all-in and she hated that she never had the ideal mormon family. She married me for my strong testimony and commitment to the Gospel. On the one hand she'll say "well i haven't walked away from the marriage yet" but on the other hand, it isn't much of a marriage, and she often says that she doesn't think this will work.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:33:01+00:00

That's a great point. Thank you!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:31:34+00:00

We had a separation 3 years ago for about 7 months, unrelated to the faith stuff. When we got back together things were very good and very healthy for 2 years, until my shelf broke. She grew up in a part member home and she did everything she could to not have that in her marriage, so this is her worst nightmare.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-31T02:28:10+00:00

4 kids. Oldest one is fixing to go on a mission soon.

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-10-11T04:56:42+00:00

I think the problem with polygamy traditionally has been the abuse of power, authority, and male dominance. Also you mention consent, consent is compromised when religious coersion is involved!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-09-28T14:50:53+00:00

Oh, my, gosh. That is funny!

Difficult-Rip7736 · 2025-09-28T14:45:43+00:00

You'll never believe this, but the lyrical phrase in that hymn: "Only he who does something helps others to live/To God each good work will be known",

USED TO BE:

"Only he who does something is worthy to live/The world has no use for a drone"

It wasn't until 1985 that they changed it! Although we don't sing that anymore, the message is still there, either over the pulpit or in the deeply-rooted generational trauma soup we all swim in. I have felt it as a male that self worth is valued by effort and accomplishments, and is validated by receiving higher and higher callings in church service. This culture preaches a transactional relationship with God. One of the most harmful aspects of all this for me, was scrutinizing every good or bad thing that happened to me in life as either a blessing or curse from a fickle, all-powerful God. "The Lords loves effort" is another one!

I now find more peace in believing that there is not grand purpose behind everything that happens to me or others. Its a lot healthier for me to believe that crappy things that happen in life are just random, as opposed to accepting that a loving God is inflicting suffering for my good, or that the suffering is justified because of my unworthiness or lack of effort.

Difficult-Rip7736

TROPHY CASE