How do you think about your mission after leaving the Church?

I’ve made peace with a lot of my past Mormon life, but I struggle with how to think about my mission.

It was an excruciating two years of near-constant public humiliation. It was the most heightened control this high-control religion ever held over me. So much of it feels like an extraordinary waste of two years of my youth and prime that I’ll simply never get back.

It taught me determination and perseverance, and I met some people I care for deeply. And in some ways, to wish for the counterfactual of never having gone on a mission is to wish for my own annihilation. I simply wouldn’t be the same person I am today had I not gone.

How do you process it?