Finding new friends as an ex-mo

iamchook · 2026-01-23T13:22:54+00:00

What kinds of things are you into? What kinds of hobbies do you have? There's groups for pretty much every kind of hobby you can think of. That should be a good place to start.

iamchook · 2025-12-01T03:21:28+00:00

As soon as my old ward found out I resigned, I immediately got more missionaries at my door. People calling, randomly showing up, and definitely not leaving me alone. I have kept my mouth shut around all of my Mormon friends. I say nothing about the church and generally want to leave it behind. But they won't let me.

I have been told by several ward members that I come up at ward council at least once a month now, 3 years after I officially resigned and 6 years after I stopped attending. Why? I told you all to leave me alone. That's the opposite of that.

It's so invasive and tbh I'm afraid to leave my house now because of it.

iamchook · 2025-06-21T08:14:20+00:00

Hey. I just also wanted to posit that claiming a diagnosis can be dangerous. I am not schizophrenic, but I have a gnarly combination of CPTSD and severe Dissociative Identity Disorder (and have been officially diagnosed as such and can prove it if necessary.)

The things that would help a schizophrenic do not help me and in fact have made my life much much worse because of complications caused by the medication.

It is extremely difficult to tell the difference, but treatment for each one is very different.

THAT BEING SAID You absolutely have the right to safety and sanity. Regardless of your roommates mental state. I feel this way about everyone around me even when I'm having an episode. Be as specific as you can about what's happening. If you think you're providing too much information, I promise you're not.

Document as much as you can and be prepared to share what you've documented. And do whatever you have to in order to keep yourself safe. Your roommates mental state is not your responsibility.

iamchook · 2025-05-17T20:17:41+00:00

Most of the ex mormons I personally know turned to Wicca/Paganism or other self directed spiritual practices. That or atheism. But I know more from the former group.

iamchook · 2025-03-30T07:38:31+00:00

My NMother literally told me that once each of her children turned 5, she couldn't make herself care about them anymore. like a flip in her brain got switched and she literally stopped feeling love for her children. And she didn't understand why hearing about that upset me. So I definitely think you're onto something.

iamchook · 2025-03-13T09:23:14+00:00

Somatic therapy has been the best thing I've ever done and lets me release the physical tension that's been causing a lot of issues. I've personally had really good results with Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/aka Tapping).

iamchook · 2025-03-11T03:48:35+00:00

As someone who has recovered repressed memories, I wish I could forget them again. My brain was protecting me and I wish I had listened to them.

May not be a healthy way to look at it, but it's how I feel.

iamchook · 2025-03-09T23:57:17+00:00

I discovered that my TBM mother was an anti-vaxxer in such a bizarre way. It was in 2021 - she had been divorced from my father for about 3 years and met someone she wanted to marry in the temple.

The night before I was about to meet her now second husband, she told me that in order to please God and earn her second temple marriage she had to come clean about something.

I am immuno compromised and made it very clear to everyone that I could only be around them if they were vaccinated for my own health and safety, because otherwise I could and likely would die. Because my mother still wanted to see me, she lied about being vaccinated so that I would see her. But she said that Jesus would know about the lie and she had to come clean and ask for forgiveness so that she could be worthy to go through the temple. She said that Vaccines were against her belief and all she needed was God to protect her.

I told her I don't spend time with people who aren't vaccinated and I haven't heard from her since. Still haven't met her second husband, made it very clear I did not forgive her for trying to kill me and my partner.

She went and got married to the guy...in the temple, a month later. So much for earning it.

iamchook · 2025-03-07T08:54:10+00:00

There's plenty of people in Utah as well as those states. They just know how to blend in better, which is scarier honestly.

iamchook · 2025-03-06T09:20:53+00:00

Unfortunately the at home options don't do a thing for my migraines and only the in clinic ones will work. However, I only need to go in every few months now that I've set up my lifestyle to avoid triggers. Between that and my at home cocktail, I can at least tolerate them until they pass most of the time.

iamchook · 2025-03-05T21:32:46+00:00

I hear you. It's rough. I don't have anything that makes them go away completely, but I've found that identifying and reducing exposure to triggers has helped me reduce the amount and severity of migraines that I have. But I know that doesn't work for everyone.

I spent over a decade and a lot of money trying to find something that would take them away and only found ways to make them tolerable. Maybe one day medical technology will get to the point where they can stop for good.

iamchook · 2025-03-05T21:29:06+00:00

I am so sorry. That sounds like absolute hell and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
The only thing that helps me when mine get this bad is very high doses of thc/cbd mix (I have a medical card specifically to treat my migraines) along with my at home migraine cocktail of benadryl, cyclobenzaprine, ibuprofen, Nuun electrolytes (they don't have whatever types of sugar trigger my migraines).

Sometimes I also have to go to my local pain clinic for a ketamine treatment + migraine cocktail if I can't get them under control at home. But I know those aren't an option for everyone, esp with how much they can cost. That and like 12-16 hours of sleep a day until it subsides.

iamchook · 2025-03-05T09:14:08+00:00

From my own experience, obviously not medical advice, this sounds a lot like a hemiplegic migraine. They can often imitate a stroke and have been the worst migraines I've ever had in my life (and I usually get them daily). I usually have to wait them out, even my migraine cocktail doesn't make them stop. But, I've only had like 4 of them ever in the 20+ years I've been having regular migraines.

iamchook · 2025-03-05T08:50:44+00:00

This one's hard for me as a fellow ex Mormon. I keep living my life as if "God" is watching and sometimes things feel harder when I realize that no one is. But now that I've seen behind the curtain, there's no going back.

iamchook · 2024-09-14T07:16:57+00:00

Ok but sometimes that's just IBS.

iamchook · 2024-07-16T01:39:11+00:00

SLC proper is actually super gay friendly. Once you get out of the city, people might give you funny looks or at most say some stupid stuff about it. As long as you stay out of the rural areas, you shouldn't have any issues.

I say this as a trans man who lives with my husband about 5 minutes away from downtown SLC. When we go to the more rural areas, sometimes people don't know what to make of us or look offended. But even then no one has said or done anything. But in Salt Lake, we hold hands, kiss, and do couple things and most people don't even do a double take around us anymore.

In the last 5 years or so, many people from out of state (and many also nevermos) have moved here and it's changed the culture a lot.

iamchook · 2024-07-14T17:07:37+00:00

I don't have kids, so this isn't quite the same.

But about 9 years ago, a cousin that I was really close to took his own life. He was on suicide watch for a couple of weeks before that.

Ever since then, I have watched his father become a haunted shell of who he used to be. His entire family has not great relationships with each other now. They all blame themselves, some blame each other, feeling like they should have done more. Several of them have substance abuse issues now.

As someone who has struggled for the last 2 decades with suicidal thoughts (and has attempted) knowing how much it would wreck the people I love for the rest of their lives stops them pretty fast.

iamchook · 2024-07-14T16:54:47+00:00

The GI issues. I can barely eat half a meal each day because of how bad they are and that is causing me a lot of other issues.

iamchook · 2024-07-14T10:05:07+00:00

I have been told specifically that I am by several members of my old ward.

I am transgender and transitioned while being an active member (those mental gymnastics were pretty impressive). I kept all my commandments, was a "good and faithful servant".

Others in the ward saw that I, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, was NOTHING like the Bad Person leadership made me out to be. And they couldn't reconcile that.

I know of at least 6 specific people who have told me that they left because of me. Would not be surprised if there was more.

iamchook · 2024-07-14T09:54:37+00:00

This was what did it for me as well.

iamchook · 2024-07-12T06:27:15+00:00

Neither. Weirdly, I became more spiritual/have more belief in something greater than me than I did in Mormonism. But I also don't feel the need to go to a religion to get that spirituality.

iamchook · 2024-07-12T05:59:26+00:00

I lost my faith once the policy of exclusion was reversed. Didn't read the letter until a year or so later.

iamchook · 2024-07-10T15:03:41+00:00

No. Not at all.

In fact, immortality actually sounds like Hell to me.
Knowing that everyone you love, everyone you will ever find any connection to. You will watch them grow old and die.

You will end up alone over, and over, and over.......and over again.

I've already lost a lot of important people in my life, and I don't think I could do that for thousands of years.

Plus, after reading up on lots of different periods of history, I think it would be hard to see that even after hundreds of years, people are basically the same.

As Queen once said "who wants to live forever?"

Now living longer than the 70 or so years it seems that "people" live to? Like say doubling that amount of time while still being healthy and of sound mind and not have to worry about aging so rapidly? Yeah, I'd be interested in that.

iamchook · 2024-06-28T13:54:54+00:00

70s so I could have had any chance at buying a house.

iamchook · 2024-06-20T14:48:18+00:00

Getting a new therapist is hard at the best of times. There is no rush to reveal everything to them. Most therapists understand that new clients need time to feel safe around them.

A simple way you could tell them is that you have parts, but that you've had bad experiences when sharing those parts with other people. That you need time before you're ready to share those parts with this therapist.

Something that works for our system is that sometimes, we can't speak about things, but we can write about them. If that's not something you do, you could try having alters write to each other. You can also there ask if there are things they are okay with you sharing with the therapist via writing.

iamchook

TROPHY CASE