The more we accept a value system–and we all adhere to one or another to some extent–the harder it is to extract ourselves from it. Because what are we if not the things we’ve always been told we are? After the foundations crumble beneath our feet and the churches and casinos fall to earth, what’s left? Who are we, then? We’re newborns again, but ones with confusing memories, and there’s nobody to nurture us. Sans street signs and road maps, we begin to move again, cautiously at first, even though we feel hopelessly lost.

The Economist has a really good article about Mormons who gather together for support after losing their religion. It’s not a surprising turn of events for people raised to be part of a particularly close network. As the piece indicates, leaving the faith itself is no easy chore, especially in Utah, so overlapping are religion and culture. The opening:

IF YOU visit a long, brightly-lit cafeteria in South Salt Lake, Utah, on a Sunday morning, you can hear a low babble of conversations, over steaming mugs, eggs and pastry, between people who have only just met but seem keen to share their experiences. In a typical conversation (reported with permission), a 45-year-old woman called Sally Benson chatted to Casey Rawlins, a man 11 years her junior, about a difficult move they had both made: leaving the Mormon faith.  She explains that she “made the break” on the first day of 2013: “It was, like, my whole life so it’s hard to break out, you know…”  Her new friend is sympathetic; he explains that he made a similar decision a few years earlier, even though most of his friends and family were Mormon. “You have to change your whole social group,” he recalls.

These chats are not the result of random encounters. The cafeteria is a meeting place for “Postmormons and Friends”, one of several groups with the stated aim of guiding people through the difficulties, whether practical, social or psychological, of ceasing to practise the Mormon religion. Those strains can be especially acute in Utah where the majority of people belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).•