I compare my bitterness and anger to the birthing pangs required to bring a new person into the world. To confuse the metaphor, it’s like when you’re a teenager and you start asserting your individuality as separate from your parents. This individuation sometimes manifests itself as anger, but this anger is part of the natural order of things. It helps us to create our individuality by breaking with the old. The same with leaving Mormonism.

Some of those of us who leave Mormonism go through an angry period that helps us leave Mormonism behind. Some of the bitterness that you saw on my blog recently was only temporary. On the other hand, I foresee many parts of Mormonism angering me for a very long time. Maybe I will see Mormonism with a more temperate attitude in the future, but to refuse to be angry about the bad things in Mormonism would only delay my maturation as a post-Mormon person.

I just hope that I don’t get obsessed and intoxicated with my anger. I hope that Mormonism (the bad parts of it anyway) can play an increasingly insignificant part in my life.