IndigoAK

I'm looking for both. Like I mentioned previously, I'm at the end of my rope on the subject of masturbation. Church doctrine and teaching espouse elimination of the behavior, but I've spent two years trying to eliminate it and the result has been continuous stress and agitation, to the point where that stress is beginning to affect my ability to cope with real mental health issues - I'm diagnosed schizoaffective and PTSD, and the time spent in therapy trying to figure out the Church and masturbation far outweighs the time my therapist and I discuss whether or not I've had any PTSD episodes or hallucinations, etc. My therapist continually encourages me to practice moderation rather than elimination and for the longest time, I've hesitated in following her advice because of the Church's teachings, but I am extremely close to deciding that she might actually be right, that moderation is the healthier of the two choices simply because it's the solution that doesn't end in hospitalization. Nobody I know personally in the Church has provided any solutions or guidance that's worked - support groups, talking, prayer, scripture study, etc. And then there are the people in the Church who give the simple answer, "Well then just stop doing it." as if that's a solution. To say that I'm frustrated is an understatement. In making my original post, I guess I sort of hoped that somebody somewhere had some off the wall, completely insane solution I haven't thought of and that might actually work. A last attempt before I settle for being a heathen because I don't know what else to do. Prayer is incredibly difficult for me. I feel like if I'm supposed to ask for help and ask for forgiveness and apologize for my sins, my prayers every night are going to be the same thing over and over and over again. And at that point, I start asking myself, "Why would Heavenly Father care? Surely, there are more important prayers to listen to." I mean, I pray, I ask for forgiveness and then I make the same exact mistake the next day. Surely, at some point prayers become empty when you constantly make them and then never learn? As for reading, I read every now and then. When I first joined, I read more than I do now and I find myself much more active in reading when it's the Doctrine and Covenants rather than the Book of Mormon proper (I think it's because I feel the D&C offers more practical guidance, versus abstract guidance, and as I've mentioned many times in this thread, I am all in favor of the practical). Haha, I would never bring this up in a Sunday school class. What I meant by that is keeping it from friends or from the Branch presidency or from the Stake presidency, which I what I thought they meant by keeping my mouth shut. To me, keeping it from those people would feel like being dishonest and lying to everybody at Church.

It's mostly just how I work. I'm the kind of person that needs to have the answer to everything or at the very least has a strong want to know the answer to everything. I spent hours and hours as a kid reading the encyclopedia in my free time, from cover to cover. While other kids were doing Little League and gymnastics, I was spending time with the Britannica. As an adult, I spend hours reading Wikipedia, clinical trial white papers, I subscribe to over a dozen scientific journals. I've mused to friends that if I were to go to college, I would get a major and then go back for another, simply acquiring major after major simply because I can. There's just this part of me that needs to have it all "click." For the pieces of the puzzle about where science and religion all fit into the grand scheme of things to fall into place. Like I said though, I'm better at placing this on the back burner than I am at placing the issue of sexual activity on the back burner. Probably because the issue of sexual activity is having a more immediate effect on my mental health.

The short version of the answer to whether or not I have a testimony of these things is yes. You're right, there is no gay gene. I subscribe to the theory that human beings are born without a preference. That we are, by default, bisexual and that how we grow up does indeed have a huge influence on who we're attracted to. I'm personally bisexual. I was raised to believe that there is nothing wrong with being attracted to and falling in love whomever my heart leads me to. I've been with both men and women. This is actually something that the vast majority of the people I've known in the Church have no issue with. Their stance has always been, "There is nothing wrong with being bisexual, as long as you don't act on your feelings for men." Personally, that's something I can accept. As for the last bit of your post, I find it interesting you brought that up. My closest friend is a die-hard athiest, she's known for being incredibly hostile to anybody who's religious. Except for me. In the early days of my time with the Church, she was actually the most helpful in acclimating. She spent a crazy amount of time reading about the Church so that she would be able to talk to me about all kinds of things. She said to me once that she firmly believed I was drawn to the Church because I destined to change it. I'll admit it sounds crazy when I actually type it out and maybe it is, but I just found it interesting that would say that and then you would bring up the same topic in your forum post. I personally don't think this is the case. Changing the Church would require speaking in public and I can barely handle being in a room with two other people, much less a hundred or a thousand.

If by basics you mean that I believe in God, I believe Joseph Smith bore a true testimony and I believe that President Monson is a true prophet of God, then yes.

My big thing with staying quiet is that I feel like I'm being dishonest in some way. Like I'm lying to everybody at church.

I understand what you're trying to say, but this ultimately something I'm incapable of. I will never be able to completely do away with everything I've come to believe over the course of my life and replace it with what the Gospel and the Church tells me is how things are. The most I will ever be able to achieve is the compromise I'm currently going for. Maybe that makes me a terrible Saint, but in that case I'll settle for being a terrible Saint if it keeps me from driving myself insane.

This helps a lot, actually. It helps that there are those who agree that masturbation is normal and can even be helpful in curtailing other feelings and emotions that may come up while practicing no sex before marriage. I suppose the issue then becomes not being able to be open about that. I don't feel this is something I would be able to share with my Branch presidency or even most other members of the Church without being seen as somebody who is blatantly disregarding doctrine and therefore somebody who isn't taking the Church and his spirituality seriously. I will never leave the Church entirely. I made this decision a long time ago. If I truly come across something that completely destroys my belief, I decided that I would go inactive instead. I wouldn't want to permanently alienate myself from it. Despite the things I've described, I recognize that the Church is an immense part of my life. I have friends in the Church, I'm great friends with all three members of my Branch presidency outside of church activities themselves (that should give you an idea of just much I've talked to all three of them about these issues, that we became good friends) and oddly, I enjoy simply being our Branch's building. I don't even need to be doing anything Church-related in the building, I find peace simply being inside of it. I would never give these things up. Their positive impact on my life has been far too great. Finally, selek, your post does help a lot. I think the gist of what you're trying to say, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the scientific stance and the spiritual stance are wholly compatible, as long as I remember that Heavenly Father is, well, Heavenly Father and that at the end of the day, He knows what he's doing. I think another thing I got from your post (and this probably isn't what you were trying to say) is that while figuring these things out is important, I should do it piece by piece instead of spending so much time and energy trying to have a huge realization at a single moment.

First, I suppose some basic information is in order. I converted to the Church when I was 25 years-old. Prior to joining I was agnostic and had grown up in an environment that encouraged progressive beliefs. My worry is that after two years as a member I am still struggling with reconciling even some of the most fundamental aspects of the Gospel with my pre-existing beliefs. I am vehemently opposed to the Church's and the Gospel's teachings on gender identity and attraction; the short version is the I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that what a person feels they are is what they are and that we are free to love whomever our hearts lead us to, regardless of whether that person is male, female, blue, purple or has spots down their sides. For me, this is the lesser of the beliefs I need to reconcile - and what I mean by that is that I don't think I ever will and I've accepted that, though I still from time to time find myself self conscious about having this belief and how people within the Church will react to me because I hold it. The second thing I struggle with is pre-existing notions about the nature of the universe. I am a very scientific person and an avid supporter of the advancement of scientific technology, the point where I would consider myself a transhumanist. When presented with theories such as the Big Bang, I am inclined to agree with it because when I consider everything else I know about the universe, it makes sense to me. When I sit down and think about the possibility of the universe just blinking into existence, I simply can't accept it. I try to, but it's almost as if I am physically incapable of doing so. In this regard, I have spent a vast amount of time over the last two years trying to figure out where these beliefs fit in with the Gospel. At the current moment, I'm partially content with believing that the Gospel's teachings and scientific theory about the creation of the universe can more than coincide - at a very basic level, I think I believe that Heavenly Father instigated the Big Bang, to give an example of where I'm at. Perhaps the largest belief I am struggling to reconcile with the Gospel's teachings is my belief about sexuality. As I mentioned above, I converted when I was 25. By that point, I had been in several serious relationships, been engaged and was sexually active (though not promiscuous - before converting, I firmly believed in only being sexually active when in a committed relationship). The Gospel teaches that sex is only to be done while married, never before and that masturbation of any kind is simply wrong. Having believed and lived the complete opposite for 25 years prior to converting, reconciling this belief has been the most difficult by far, mostly with regard to masturbation. I have tried everything under the sun that I can think of to come to terms with this - cold turkey, I have lost count of the number of talks I've had with my Branch presidency, I've talked with my Stake President, it's a constant topic between me and my therapist (who is not a Church member and honestly, finds it incredulous that I've spent so much time and effort attempting to simply stop masturbating completely), I've tried attending the Church's addiction recovery group (which I stopped going to because - and I'll be honest - it made me very uncomfortable), I have tried seeking advice with a couple of local converts (those talks didn't amount to much, as their advice was to get married, which honestly, feels cheaty). Recently, I've begun to believe that I may never ever be able to fully cut this out of my life. My therapist is strongly encouraging me to attempt to moderate rather than to eliminate the behavior because she's afraid the large amounts of stress caused by trying to force myself to do something my body and mind clearly don't want to are having an adverse affect on how well I'm coping with other issues. In a surprising twist, my Branch presidency is actually sort of agreeing with my therapist, though possibly because they know that I will always defer to her advice before I defer to theirs. A fourth thing that I think might be of concern is my personal take on the Church's teachings about each of us having our own personal relationship with Heavenly Father. As my deference to my therapist before my Branch presidency probably suggests, I tend to lean toward immediately practical solutions to problems, especially mental, emotional, and physical problems, and I believe that those things will always need to be sorted first before work can be done on any spiritual problems. A side effect of this is that I've developed an attitude of, "I refuse to accept that Heavenly Father is my better. The nature of a father is that they aren't always right and that sometimes, they need to let their children figure things out on their own, but that they should always be their to help if it's really needed." I have a feeling that many people in the Church who are devout would find this attitude dangerous. So I guess what I'm asking is...is this stuff normal for a convert who joined the Church at my age and who had life experiences similar to mine? Am I overthinking how long it's taking me to reconcile these things? Are there any converts here who have gone through similar circumstances and were actually able to fully reconcile any of these things? Finally, I would like to state for the record that I still believe wholeheartedly that Heavenly Father is up there. I do believe that the Gospel exists for a reason and that there are reasons for why it's so specific about a whole range of things. The fact that I'm still a member after two years struggling with this, to my close friends, speaks volumes to the fact that I recognize that the Church is true and is better for me than the alternative.