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The original was posted on /r/exmormon by /u/Certain-Buy-8945 on 2024-07-02 18:29:39+00:00.

Short answer is no. And that was really shameful, painful and confusing to me growing up in TBM family.

I believed God created the world, etc. and talked to the prophets, did nice things for other people, etc. But for some reason God didn’t want a relationship with me.

The best analogy I have come up with is the following:

Let’s say we’re all living together in a neighborhood. People keep talking about this cool neighbor Steve. They show me things Steve has given them. They laugh and cry with Steve–apparently he’s funny and a good listener. Sometimes they play with Steve. I go over there and Steve just acts like a statue. Doesn’t acknowledge me or say anything. That seems weird, so I remember people saying you have to do X and Y (can’t think of good parallel for prayer/scripture study). So I try doing X & Y. Still nothing happens. I try doing more of X & Y and doing it better. Then I try Z (temple attendance, service, etc.). NOTHING. Normally little kids would have given up a long time ago and found some other neighbor to hang out with. But my entire community is built around Steve. There is nowhere else to go. I can’t blame Steve and I don’t hear anyone else in my community describing my experience (cuz they all got out a long time ago), so I learn to blame myself and feel a lot of shame. Cool beans.

Can anyone else relate?

For more context, I’m 34F (went to BYU, served mission, got married in temple) who eventually stopped reading/praying but kept going to church, hoping one day things would get better for me. Then the pandemic hit and that was my only tie to church so I disappeared. But I’m still really hurt by the whole “Steve” thing. I’ve listened to plenty of podcasts and know for other reasons I don’t want to go back, but I don’t feel like I got closure.

Also, my mom had cancer when I was 3 so I probably have abandonment issues from her going to cancer treatments. That’s my best guess as to why I was sensitive to being ignored by Steve. My mom recovered, but had serious depression during my growing up years. Both relationships ended up feeing a false belief that I had to earn love.

LOTS of therapy later and I am starting to finally get to know myself and develop preferences, express opinions, etc. Plenty more to heal, though. Fortunately I married a fantastic man–we’re both out of the church and doing well together.

UPDATE re: my therapist. I recently moved away from Utah and am trying to process stuff with my non-Mormon therapist. My last visit with her was attempting to describe God as an abusive/narcissistic ex-boyfriend who was super chill with everyone else. So her question was totally valid and led me to the “Steve” analogy which actually fits my experience better. No offense to the real Steves out there…

Thanks for all the comments! I’m sorry to hear there are so many others that share my experience but also glad for the validation.