Feel nervous asking this.. —waverlyplc

I have thought a lot about writing this specific post but always felt nervous saying it here. Like somehow I am weak.

So a tiny back history first..
My Dh and I stopped going to church (for the 2nd time) 5 yrs ago. We walked out and it was no big deal. 3 months ago we moved back to Utah and I began to think more and more about my choice. Not regretting it in any way but thinking about coming to terms with the validity of it all. Even when I left it 5 yrs ago I still told people I believed it was true but could not live in a church that was racist, homophobic and sexist. When I moved here to Utah I felt very lonely and to be quite honest a bit of a freak (the nose piercing and the ensuing stares probably didn't help).

I began to read and read and read. One night til 3 in the morning. Everything sort of came crashing down then. It wasn't true. I cried and cried. It felt so weird to me to go through this 5 yrs after leaving.
My point, and I do have one, is why do I still have these moments were I freeze and think "but what if." Immediately the rational brain kicks in and says hello???
I just hate that I can't control this. I guess it is weird to to look around and see all the TBM and wonder why I could grasp this knowledge and they don't. There are some amazingly intelligent TBMs out there. I am definitely not smarter than many of them. But yet here I sit with the knowledge.

Am I the only one that has these instances when all the mormon brainwashing takes over and my chest constricts and I have a moment of panic?

I think you just have to remember that religions evolved to their current state because they work so well on humans. We're chimps with vocabularies after all. Whatever evolution our minds have gone through to evaluate the relative truth and validity of abstract concepts has probably been recent and incomplete, whereas the desire to belong and be embraced by our social group is a deep-seated need for most people. But none of that is to suggest that religions are benign or ought to be acceded to, particularly not 's.