I don’t know if I’ve said this in so many words before, but a while back I created a 10-point scale to gauge my mood at any given time. “5” meant truly neutral, “7” meant cheerful, “3” meant oppressed, and so on. And to drive the point home I claimed that, on average, I had been living around a “3” for years.

This always surprised people, to hear that I considered “sad” my most normal state. But that was how it felt. Each day varied, but when nothing special was happening to make me particularly happy or sad, I hovered below neutral, and I couldn’t figure out why. And that’s why I sought out a counselor.

It’s been many months since that first session, and I’ve thought about a lot of things. For most of that time I was focused on the effects my sexuality had had on my self-image. I had grown up hiding a crucial truth about some of my deepest emotions, and it had stunted my growth. It was a lot to process, and even after I had made some decisions about myself, I didn’t exactly have a lot of opportunities to behave any differently. Things were going slowly and I had to keep telling myself that was okay. It takes time to heal a downtrodden soul.

And then suddenly in the middle of all this worrying about my non-existent sex life, I started questioning my own faith.

I started noticing phrases that people would often repeat that didn’t sit well with me. I looked back on my religious experiences and noticed that, much like my mood hovering around a “3” for many years, my faith also hovered around a “3” for most of my life. Except on very special occasions – like going through the temple for the first time, or spending a whole summer in a church pageant – I was really just going through the motions. I had questioned my faith once or twice before, and each time I determined to stay because of how I had felt at one of those special times. But this time I took a wider view and didn’t equate happy emotions with doctrinal belief.

It was weird, questioning the feelings that had been fundamental to my testimony my whole life. Suddenly nothing was immune to skepticism, even the existence of God. And when the question of God is on the table, you realize how most of the persuasion in the scriptures and pulpit assumes that everyone listening takes God as a given.

The voices in your head insistently inform you that Satan’s a thing, and doubting God and Christ is exactly what he wants. And you tell them, “maybe Satan doesn’t exist either.” And they reply “Good, keep thinking that. That’s just what Satan wants.” It’s infuriating.

And this continues for a month or two. You keep going to church, because you need all the convincing you can get. But now that you’re aware of exactly how much you never really believed, everything they say bounces off this shield you’ve erected but can’t take down. You want the words to pierce the shield and convince you it’s all real, but you’re scared of either outcome.

Maybe you’ll never believe, and then what? Do you stop going to church? Stop talking to the only friends you’ve made in this whole state? Stop participating in the social structure you grew up with, that’s the only reminder you have of home and family?

Or maybe you’ll find your faith again. But if everything the Church tells you is true, then doesn’t that mean you’ll never find love in this life? Sure, maybe there are some girls out there in the world that you could fall in love with, but without some intervention from a higher power, you know you’re never going to meet, befriend, and consider them attractive in the same way guys are. You’ve seen it happen to some of your friends, but you don’t believe you can do it. And if believing in God and the Church means a mortal life without companionship, it’s a pretty terrifying thing to believe in.

So eventually you boil down all the noise and dogma and zealotry. And you find one thing. One thing that you truly believe.

I believe that I am more than this body.

And you run with it. You begin to reconstruct new possibilities. If we have a spirit, that spirit could have a different lifespan than our body, and our spirits could have parents. And if we have spirit parents, then one of those parents could be God. And you look at how different your religion’s view of God is to others and get very excited, because you’ve found a logical progression from a core belief to a fundamental religious doctrine. And it doesn’t require magic to be real. And you take other things you’ve been taught, and try to figure out “real” explanations for them as well. Like why come to Earth to get a body, and why forget our pre-mortal life?

And you construct a bridge between what you believe and what other people are telling you. You learn to translate between what feels “real” to you and what sounds like “magic” coming from their mouths. Some things can cross the bridge largely unchanged. But some things must shed all their eloquent explanations, and come out the other side looking like a wholly different creature.

Sometimes you wonder if the things that you discard in translation help or hurt you in the long run. And you’re scared to tell those closest to you that you don’t actually believe in “sin” the same way you think they do. Because if “sin” isn’t “real,” then what’s the point of the Atonement? And that’s a question you can’t translate.

But one day you wake up, and while going about your normal business you remember that 10-point scale you made up almost a year ago. And you realize: you’ve been averaging a “5” lately, and that’s a major improvement.

So maybe there are things about religion that you still can’t answer. Maybe the way you’ve come to see the cosmos doesn’t snugly fit into the mold you’ve been given. Maybe you’ll never be able to have the same kind of emotions when thinking about the things of eternity that you had as a child.

But you’ve found something. You’ve created a picture of the universe that, while lacking certain details, follows the same shape. And most importantly, it’s all your own. There may come a time when that most fundamental building block also crumbles to dust, but until them, I’m apparently content.