A new interview with Tal

[_wenglund]

Hi Tal,

Since your interview with me and my interview with you broke down on philisophical differences, I thought it still worth a try to "interview" you on an entirely different matter: specifically, the significant amount of emotional distress you experienced through the loss of your faith.

Could you please briefly describe the circumstances immediately preceeding your significant emotional reactions, and name each of the associated emotions (anger, fear, hurt, sadness?), and rate each emotion on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning very mild and 10 meaning severe?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Mercury]

Hi Tal,

Since your interview with me and my interview with you broke down on philisophical differences, I thought it still worth a try to "interview" you on an entirely different matter: specifically, the significant amount of emotional distress you experienced through the loss of your faith.

Could you please briefly describe the circumstances immediately preceeding your significant emotional reactions, and name each of the associated emotions (anger, fear, hurt, sadness?), and rate each emotion on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning very mild and 10 meaning severe?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

It broke down because your mental abilities broke down, not becaues of phiolosophical differences.

[_Tal Bachman]

Well Vegas...I've been trying to be as diplomatic as possible lol.

Wade, the times I've felt anger that the church is a fraud have been very few, though I've done my share of sarcastic parodies of it. Mostly I've reproached myself for not "getting it" earlier.

My overall feeling at finding out I was wrong about everything most important to me was sorrow. And if ten is the worst sorrow I'd ever felt, I felt sorrow at a level ten. I also felt fear, since I'd never even realized that something had happened to my head, and other than Mormonism making sense for the first time (there are no "mysteries" or "shelf items" once you posit that Joseph Smith, evidently like every other human who's ever founded a "one true religion", wasn't a reliable source of information about his experiences), I didn't really know what to make of anything. I see it in you, actually - without Mormonism, absolutely nothing would make sense; and it's really true - not because nothing makes sense without Mormonism, but because for us as believers nothing does, so dependent psychologically and emotionally have we become on the ideology. So, to awaken from what in many respects seems almost something of a waking trance, is shocking and saddening and in a way, frightening.

I felt extremely nauseous for weeks, and also cried a lot (late 2003). It wasn't until I met with my SP, who much to my shock confided that he also knew that Joseph Smith hadn't told the truth about his experiences, that I started to feel relief; and the funny thing is that I'd entered his office the most distraught, bewildered, "heavy laden" man I'd ever known of, and emerged with the most overwhelming feeling of peace and joy. And since that moment it hasn't left me. To my great surprise, that peace has been far greater than any peace I ever felt as member, notwithstanding I was absolutely convinced as a member, as I'm sure you are, that I was the happiest I could ever be. Turns out, I was wrong about that, too.

[_Gazelam]

Your Stake President told you the church isn't true? WHAT THE HELL??????

[_Runtu]

Your Stake President told you the church isn't true? WHAT THE HELL??????

I've pretty much been told the same thing countless times: My problem, apparently, is that I took the church seriously. I believed its claims to be true. But now my friends, family members, and some church leaders tell me that I shouldn't have believed in it literally. Think of it as a club that helps you raise your kids; it doesn't really matter that its claims don't hold up. Why do you care anyway?

[_Gazelam]

Reading that makes me sick to my stomach. Literally, its in knots right now.

I don't even have a responce.

[_Runtu]

Reading that makes me sick to my stomach. Literally, its in knots right now.

I don't even have a responce.

That's kind of how I responded to it at the time. Looking at it from my perspective, it just suggests to me that there are varying degrees of belief in the church, at just about every level. People do the best they can, and that's OK with me. I just couldn't do the pretending, myself.

[_truth dancer]

Sorry to interupt but I had a similar experience in that after I came to terms with my disbelief and struggle, I discovered quite a few leaders who did not believe in the truth claims of the church. I discovered leaders, quite high up who didn't believe the Book of Mormon was a true history, people who did not believe Joseph Smith told the truth, people who thought the church was a nice organization to help families but not in the least "the one and only true church."

~dancer~

OK... back to the interview! :-)

[_wenglund]

Hi Tal,

Thanks for sharing that with us.

I took the liberty of consolidating what you said in a far more concise and potentially more useful format:

Situation: Unspecified (something to do with concluding the Church is a fraud and your not "getting it" sooner.)
Type Emotion: Anger
Rate Emotion: Unspecified
Freq/Duration: On few occasions

Situation: Unspecified (something to do with you concluding you were wrong about everything.)
Type Emotion: Sorrow
Rate Emotion: 10
Freq/Duration: Unspecified

Situation: Unspecified (something to do with something happening to your head and you not knowing what to do with anything.)
Type Emotion: fear, sadness, shock
Rate Emotion: Unspecified
Freq/Duration: Unspecified

Situation: Unspecified
Type Emotion: nausea (anxiety/panic?)
Rate Emotion: Unspecified
Freq/Duration: for weeks

Situation: Talk with Stake President in which he confided that he "knew that Joseph Smith hadn't told the truth about his experiences."
Type Emotion: Peace and Happiness
Rate Emotion: Unspecified (though considered "overwhelming")
Freq/Duration: Since 2003

Is this correct?

If so, would you be so kind as to fill in the areas that are unspecified? In terms of situations, I am looking for a specific event, something along the lines of: you were talking about such-and-such with so-and-so, or you were reading such-and-such, or you were privately contemplating such-and such. And, where there are multiple emotions listed in the "Type" category, please rate each separately and specify the frequency or duration respectively. For example:

Type emotion: Peace and Happiness
Rate emotion: 7, 6
Freq/Duration: 1 hr., 3 days.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Mercury]

Reading that makes me sick to my stomach. Literally, its in knots right now.

I don't even have a responce.

Now take that feeling and act upon it instead of just swallowing it and forgetting about the feeling. Remember to act on your feelings!!!!