"I was raised in a Cult..."

My Journey Out of Mormonism

My name is Brandon Spevak, and for most of my life, I would have never imagined writing a post like this—let alone saying these words publicly. But today I’m choosing honesty over fear, truth over silence.

Like many who grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I gave everything to it. My time, my identity, my loyalty, my future. I wasn’t just in the Church; I built my entire sense of self around it. I trusted the leaders. I trusted the doctrine. I trusted the story I was raised to believe—because I didn’t know there was any other option.

For years, I was all-in.

The Day the Cracks Became Breaks

My faith didn’t unravel overnight. It wasn’t a dramatic explosion—it was a thousand tiny fractures that I tried to ignore, prayed away, and buried because the alternative terrified me. But in 2015, everything changed.

The Church announced a policy labeling same-sex married members as “apostates” and restricting their children from baptism.

That was the moment something inside me snapped.

I had always supported LGBTQ people quietly in my heart, but I told myself that God’s ways were higher, that the Church knew something I didn’t. As you know by reading my other posts, I am a gay man, always have been, but didn’t allow myself to be honest about it until 2013. Watching the institution I devoted my life to double down on something so deeply harmful—so clearly unjust—forced me to confront a truth I had been avoiding:

A loving God would not endorse cruelty.
A loving God would not demand exclusion.

And suddenly, for the first time, I allowed myself to question more.

Not the small, safe questions we’re permitted to ask within approved boundaries—
but the real questions.
The historical issues. The doctrinal contradictions. The truth claims I had been taught were unquestionable.

As I dug deeper, I discovered things about the Church’s history and foundations that I had never been told—things that contradicted what I had spent my whole life believing.

And when I finally opened my eyes fully, the belief system I had built my entire identity on came crashing down.

It was devastating.
It was liberating.
It was irreversible.

Heather Gay’s Words Gave Me Permission

Recently, I watched Heather Gay’s special, Surviving Mormonism. Near the end, she said something I had never allowed myself to say out loud, even though I had whispered it in my mind a thousand times:

“I was raised in a cult.”

When she said it, something inside me broke open.

Those words were brave. Honest. Unfiltered.

And they gave me permission to finally speak my own truth without shame:

I now know that I, too, was raised in a cult.

That word is uncomfortable. It carries weight. It carries stigma. But it also carries clarity.

For me, calling it a cult isn’t about attacking the people still in it. It’s not about mocking belief or belittling faith.
It’s about naming the system that shaped my life:

A system that discouraged critical thinking.
A system that demanded obedience over authenticity.
A system that used fear—fear of spiritual failure, fear of eternal loss, fear of disappointing God—to control behavior.
A system that told me that if something felt wrong, I was the problem.

Leaving that system felt like stepping out of a long, shadowy tunnel into the sun.

Rebuilding a Self I Never Really Knew

When I walked away in 2015, I didn’t just lose a religion—I lost a community, a worldview, and the version of myself that had existed since childhood. There is grief in that loss. But there is also immense beauty in rebuilding.

I’ve learned that my worth is not tied to obedience.
I’ve learned that love is not conditional.
I’ve learned that truth doesn’t require threats to sustain itself.

And I’ve learned that standing in your truth—even when your voice shakes—is the beginning of real freedom.

Why I’m Speaking Out Now

I’m not writing this to convert anyone away from anything. I know how painful it is to confront the possibility that the foundation of your life may not be what you believed it was.

I’m writing this for the people who feel the same cracks I once did.
For those carrying silent questions, silent doubts, silent pain.
For those who think they’re alone.

You’re not alone.

And if you someday find the strength to say the words I only recently found the courage to speak—whether quietly to yourself or boldly to the world—I want you to know that I see you.

I was raised in a cult.
And I survived leaving it.
And you can survive too.

Can you see the TRUE happiness?