Sorry if this ends up a bit long. I am having a crisis of faith. I have been a member of the LDS church for 31 years. Basically since I was 3yrs old. My mother was very fanatical in the religion and also extremely abusive as well. She would use the church as her means and excuse to control us or punish us. She would go to the LDS temple (not the church that you go to each Sunday) and then come home and tell us that christ told her to punish us this way or that way. TV was restricted, music was restricted, friends completely controled. I knew no other life.

For very personal reasons, and on the advice of my therapist and psychologist, I have removed my mother from my life. And with in a few months I started to wonder what I truely believe in. There are many things about my religion that I have a hard time agreeing with. The politics in the religion itself is hard for me to watch. I ended up stopping going to church. My friends started to notice how much more relaxed and secure I was becoming. They I got ride of the many books and so on that list all the rules we have. Agian people were noticing a positive change in me.

My dilema is that the people I go to church with will not accept that I need to step back and figure out what I truely feel about my reliegion and what is honestly just brainwashing from my mother over the years. I understand this can happen in any religion, not just the LDS church. So it is not really about the religion itself but the fact that I am being condemed as a person because I do not know what I believe. No one from my church wants to talk to me. And when they see me on the street they have to lecture me about how I know better and how this will affect me badly in the end and how disappointed they are. The few that come to my house once a month (it is their calling) don't do it to see how I am but just to preach to me and I am frankly getting tired of it.

It is really disheartening that I have been in this religion so long and yet not one person accepts me as I am whether I come back or not. My religion does not make up who I am completely. It is only one part of me.

Sorry for the rant. Every time one of the lecture me I instantly feel so guilty that I have to remind myself why I am taking a break. And I try to explain it to them but they just talk over me about how I am doing the wrong thing.

I honestly thought one of the main teachings of religion was love an acceptance. Now I am not so sure.