He describes it this way: Let’s say you remember loving McDonald’s as a kid. But then later you’re told that the sodas are mostly corn syrup, and that the meat is “pink slime.” Would you keep eating there just because it made you happy once?

In 2017, nearly two years after I first connected with Alex, he removed his name from the records of the Mormon church, the final step in a long, soul-wrenching process of quitting.

After college, Alex had made a career as an insurance salesman, where he applied the skills he learned persuading strangers on his mission. Like religion, he told me, insurance “is an emotional purchase that’s usually sold with the buyer’s best interest at heart.”

A few years ago, he considered quitting insurance sales and becoming a law-enforcement officer. Given his Mormon mission experience, he figured he could handle a job that involved walking the streets, approaching people, and, potentially, making himself a target. He felt well equipped for the rigor and strictness of police life. It reminded him of his missionary training.

Alex sailed through the admissions process for the academy. He seemed unusually clean-cut, as someone who had never used drugs and only had his first drink at twenty-seven. After passing the written test, physical, and background check, Alex enrolled in his local sheriff’s academy.

That’s when he began to get the same ill-at-ease feeling he got on his mission. According to Alex, the academy asked cadets to buy their own uniforms—a $1,500 expense—and their own textbooks—another $300.

There were long homework assignments to be completed at night, extra time the recruits weren’t paid for. He didn’t like what he considered the patriarchal, fratty culture, in which drill instructors practically hazed the cadets.

When I reached out to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for their perspective, a spokeswoman said recruits do “incur some expenses,” including uniforms and study materials, and that the recruits perform homework because they receive college credit. She rejected the characterization of the culture as similar to a fraternity and said hazing is forbidden. However, she added, “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is a paramilitary organization and part of the recruit training involves stress indoctrination and leadership protocol training.”

To Alex, though, the academy felt too similar to being on a mission again: the lack of time to oneself, the strict chain of command. To someone who hadn’t felt traumatized by a mission trip, the academy might have been tolerable, or even enjoyable. To Alex, it felt too close to a cult. “My missionary experience prepared me to be a deputy,” he said, “but also showed me I don’t want to be one.” He quit and returned to insurance sales.

Leaving his church, he realized, had prepared him to stand up to authority in a respectful way. Being an outcast in his religion taught him the value of questioning why you believe what you believe.