I’ve Turned It Off: Numbness After Mormonism

I got a feeling that you could be feeling
A whole lot better than you feel today
You say you got a problem, well that’s no problem
It’s super easy not to feel that way
When you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head
Don’t feel those feelings hold them in instead

Turn it off, like a light switch
Just go click
It’s a cool little Mormon trick
We do it all the time

Lyrics from “Turn It Off”, a song in The Book of Mormon Musical

For many ex-Mormons who have seen or listened to the soundtrack of The Book of Mormon Musical, the song “Turn It Off” is the most emotionally impactful. After living a life where unwanted emotions had to be suppressed to bring the Spirit back and align oneself again with the will of our Heavenly Father, the lyrics of this song cut deep. The lampoon treatment that this song gives to Mormon psychological existence are meant to poke fun, but as masters of satire, Trey Parker and Matt Stone knew what they were doing.

As an adult, I still retreat from emotions and fool myself into believing that it is a strength. Many ex-Mormons who do this, especially men like myself, like to apply a philosophical veneer to their lack of emotional intelligence by calling it “stoicism.” I believe that many ex-Mormons, men and women, and especially the ones that truly believed and obeyed Church leaders at great sacrifice, ignore their emotional selves as a coping mechanism to process a past life of trauma.

The trauma of our Mormon past is usually not a result of an isolated event. It is a cumulative, chronic, injury. It is often initiated by an acute trauma, such as a shaming experience with a bishop, but once the injury has taken place, it can continue to get inflamed by repetitive small events. Like the back patient addicted to opioids, we powered through the cognitive dissonance and buried our feelings in righteousness.

You see, feelings are dangerous to the bottom line of the corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Heeding our negative feelings leads us to question their source, and the Church’s existence depends on us being convinced that disobedience is the cause. As good Mormons, we live with our heads buried in the sand, posting pictures of smiling children on Instagram to prove that we are happy. Facing the honest truth is too difficult. After all, the Spirit has warned us that the fear and confusion that we feel when we question the prophet is evidence that leaving the Church is a path to misery.

Somehow, against all odds, some of us find a way to face the fear. We leave the Church. It has consequences that shake up our entire lives. Some family members disown us “for our own good.” Others keep their connections with us, but look down upon us with pity, since our sadness proves that we have chosen unwisely. We sometimes ignore our sadness, wanting to indignantly prove to the world that we are “happier now,” which is often a lie. When it isn’t a lie, it is the result of great effort, sometimes involving therapy.

Fifteen years into this post-Mormon journey, I can say with integrity that I am “happier now.” But there have been times in my past that I have lied about it. I wasn’t always this way. And even today, I still cope with my struggles by “turning it off.” It is something that I learned to do as a Mormon, and those patterns stay with us.

I know (now) that ex-Mormons are all individuals. Some have had a vastly different experience than I did. The ones that did not take the Church seriously in the first place do not typically relate to the things that I write, and I understand this. I also understand that my own childhood and family dynamics have played an outsized role in the injury that results in my tendency to cope by employing emotional numbness. But I am absolutely convinced that the matrix of Mormonism in which my childhood was lived exacerbated the dimming of life’s luster.

Consider the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. We are all taught to believe that dark feelings originate from the Spirit telling us that something is “not right”. This is typified in scripture by the story of Oliver Cowdery attempting to receive revelation from the Lord (see D&C 9).

Elder Richard G. Scott interpreted this story in the following manner:

Answers to the mind and heart are messages from the Holy Ghost to our spirits. For me, response to the mind is very specific, like dictated words, while response to the heart is generalized, like a feeling to pray more.

Then the Lord clarifies, “But if [what you propose] be not right, you … shall have a stupor of thought.” That, for me, is an unsettling, discomforting feeling.

Elder Richard G. Scott, “Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer,” April 2007 General Conference

As Mormons, we are unambiguously taught to believe that “unsettling, discomforting” feelings are messages from God telling us that we are on the wrong path. So we carry that with us for time and all eternity, even after becoming apostates. Unless we find a way to break it.

As ex-Mormons, we must break the addiction and learn to feel again. Apathy is a drug.