When I joined TSCC, at the age of 17, I was filling a huge void. I joined with all of the sincerity I possessed, but it sounded right because it was something I "needed". My poor mom was horribly mistreated as a child and never went through any type of recovery and put the brunt of her anger and sadness on me. She was physically abusive...though not to the severity of broken bones and hospital stays...bruises yes. Mainly she scared me to death. She was so cold and neglectful, she seemed to delight in my discomfort and pain. Emotionally she like to trick me and set me up for disappointment. She was cruel and cold, and I knew that she hated me.

Families put on a good face in TSCC. I remember being at church and seeing everyone rubbing each other on the back and being really lovey dovey. It made me a little uncomfortable, but at the same time I envied it. Then when I heard about the romantic idea of having my soul sealed to my husband for time and all eternity and of having a loving family of my own forever, I was hooked. It was all I could have ever dreamed of.

Without knowing it I was showing major signs of PTSD...and I needed more than anything, some way to cope. Some way to supress my anxiety and fear. All the rules and extreme ways to show devotion helped me feel sincere in my magical thinking and feel like there was someone out there who knew me and who would take care of me. The PTSD didn't go away, by any means, but religion ended up being my way of self medicating. The idea of having heavenly parents who love me unconditionally was vital, and all the ridiculous rules made me feel safer.

Just ONE of the huge opportunities of finding my way out of TSCC was the opportunity to face my problems head on. I have been in therapy every week for a year and have just recently started going every other week. So many improvements have been made. Most of my PTSD symptoms are greatly diminished. When I think about how I was living before I am in awe, I have no idea how I made it. I was completely over-emotional about my own mothering because I was so afraid of making my mother's mistakes and was reinventing the wheel everyday, because she taught me nothing about being a good mom. Things are much improved.

That being said, with mother's day being just recently past, the pain of never having a mother or mother figure who really instilled in me that solid core...no warm memories...no internal voice pointing me in the right direction and rooting me on - well it hurts so much. I read your posts, about how you've told your families how you feel about TSCC and how they will never look at you the same again. How their love is so limited, they may never again "see you" or know you. You will be the black sheep endlessly. I sympathize, not because I was a mormon like you, my family was thrilled when I left the church...but because I know all too well the pain of parents and siblings that are too limited to show any real love or support. I know what it feels like to be very lonely and to have to start my life all over again.

Anyway I'm thrilled to be without the crutch. I am happier and healthier than I have ever been. But it hurts sometimes. Sometimes it really, really hurts.

Mormons are borderline narcicists

-Love is Conditional

-Ready to throw you under the Bus if Any Questions/Doubts

I truly pity them all, there can be so much MORE TO LIFE!

However, it's the job description of "leaders" to keep them away from anything but the Morg!

Hugs rmw (((rmw))), we're all GLAD U MADE IT OUT!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2011 06:15PM by guynoirprivateeye.

We could have had the same mother, right down to the setting me up to be disappointed! I too feel a sense of mourning around mother's day. Mourning for the love and nurturing I never got. It's hard!

I'm still looking for a therapist. Yours isn't in Boise are they? ;-)

Thanks guynoirprivateeye and lillium, really thanks.

lillium, no, I'm in Virgina. I wish I could hand my therapist over to you. She's lovely and patient and professional and warm. Hope you find someone.

I am really sorry to hear that you were without a supportive mom. That is so heartbreaking. Congrats on all the progess!!

I was right outside of Richmond for 4 years while my husband was in grad school at VCU. We were in the Bon Air ward for a year and half and then moved to the Midlothian ward, both about 20 minutes outside of the city.

Now we live in Charlottesville. One of my best buddies here that I met by happenstance grew up mormon in a pretty prominent LDS family in Richmond, the Bell family. Any connections?

Always happy to meet a fellow exmo in VA...

My parents have been in the Midlothian ward for about 6 years. It is one of the most arrogant congregations I have ever seen.

I have heard of the Bells. I also know the family who owns the crap college out in Buena Vista (my DS is, unfortunately, obtaining a useless degree from there right now).

Wow, sounds like we have a lot of connections. Boy do you have the Midlothian ward pegged. So many rich and successful people in one ward makes for an interesting dynamic, add the ego from that to the ego from being one of God's chosen and you have a lot of "I'm so awesome" going on. We happened to be in an apartment in that ward while my hubby was in grad school. We had nothing. We were cute and sweet and did a good job at our callings (in fact, if your sister was in YW there, I may have taught her a lesson or 2), so we were accepted there, though we kind of felt like they treated us like their pets. We too know "the family who owns the crap college"...hahahaha. I'm so sorry your sister is getting an, "education" there. Anyway...you should email me...then we could drop some real names

rwagley@gmail.com

Prestige counts. In the family, everyone has a Bachelor's and several have grad degrees from:

An Ivy
William and Mary
UR

and

BYU

Each of which has market value. I cannot believe the Kniggets have perpetuated this Amway college on the LDS families in the east.

I can relate to the crutch idea. I joined the church about a year after my beloved grandma, who raised me while my mom worked full time, had died. My mom had leaned on her mom a lot and was devastated by the death. She made sure from that time on that I didn't lean on her the same way, so that I would be independent and not so hurt when she died. But the effect was being emotionally adrift at age 11 with my grandma who was like a mom dead and my mom determined to distance herself from me. And then Dad was a 80 hour a week workaholic. I pretty much raised myself. Sure, I had a roof over my head, food and clothes and no one physically abusing me but I had no one parenting me either. No one even noticed I was there, unless I was doing something they wanted me to do and they were great at giving me this look of utter dismissal if I said or did anything that they disagreed with. So I leaned on the crutch of the church's idea of forever family and finally having someone there for ME, an eternal soul mate.

Mormon marriage requirements do NOT lead you to find that person and I was pretty devastated to find myself married to a stranger who didn't at all fit that soul mate idea. It wasn't til a decade later that some stuff happened to cure me of the idea that being a good Mormon would get me a soul mate and fix everything. Then, I was open to the idea that Mormonism was a total hoax - once the emotional crutch was kicked out from under me.

Sure, sometimes I seem sadder and more quiet now but it's because I'm processing things I should have worked through years ago. I'm happier now because I'm real and sadder because I'm dealing with things. But once I've resolved those issues or learned to live with them, I'll be in the best place ever in my life. I would have stayed handicapped in the church because I would have used a crutch my whole life instead of getting the surgery I needed to cure my affliction. Like a little lame child in a third world country who continues with a crutch because they can't get the help they need. I got the help I needed and am getting a little better every day. And then I'll be able to walk on my own. And that feels good.

CA girl! I always resonate with your posts. I guess if the crutch were enough we'd still be at it. But it just doesn't work, does it? I'm glad you're finding your way too and I'm always interested in your posts.

...but I never really understood the appeal of "eternal families". Still don't but this post was enlightning for me. Don't get me wrong, I love my family but that doesn't mean I want to spend every hour with them. Seeing them a few times a year is perfectly alright for me. And I cannot see why not being "sealed" to them would exclude me from meeting them now and then in the afterlife, if there is such a thing.

Perhaps when you grow up, as I did, in a family slightly less dysfunctional than the ordinary, where everyone actually loves each-other, you just don't think about it that much. In the end my family accepted my disbelief and haven't withdrawn their love or respect for me. It's the way things are and one doesn't really appreciate it like you would do, knowing from experience how horrible it can be.

You don't sound like you have a personality disorder to me...you sound healthy. You're right, if I had grown up in a family like yours I probably wouldn't have been concerned with such things. But I needed so much to be loved by someone and connected to something. Trust me though, after several years when I found out that eternal marriage and celestial glory meant having your own planet and populating it with spirit children and pimping out your husband to get the job done...it sounded like the stupidest most undesirable thing I had ever heard.

I'm so glad your family is understanding, that's pretty amazing, they must be pretty great people.

Yup, that's how so many of us got hooked.

I was a HS dropout, working a menial job, binge drinking, had a false start at community college, and my GF had a fling behind my back.

The church had an "answer" for all that. It was desperation, not inspiration.

I guess that's how TSCC picks up most of us devout converts.

I also had a mother like this. My father was cold and distant to the children as well. Both were TBM's. All of the children in my family were scarred, although my brother is still active and on a senior's mission with his wife.

Going to church was all about the impression it made on others...I was not allowed to skip church. In fact, some Sundays, I was bodily dragged from my bed and screamed at to get ready for church. [No way better to turn a child against all religion than to do that!]

Therapy has helped me get over my great loss in having parents who really disliked their children. Al-Anon helps as well---even if LDS parents aren't alcoholics, they really exhibit alcoholic behaviors, which is weird.

I'm so sorry to hear about your parents. May I ask what you do on Mother's Day and Father's Day? I'm just wondering how other people handle it. That goes for anyone in the same situation as us. I'd love to know...

That is interesting what you said about Al Anon, you're right it is weird but after hearing you say it it makes perfect sense to me. For some people the church is their drug of choice and selfishly they can't see anything outside of it. You either support them in their habit or get out of the way.

I always HATED to go to Mother's Day programs at church. Father's Day wasn't quite as difficult, because the talks all centered around HEAVENLY Father....not so much earthly fathers.

But since I no longer attend the LDS church, and instead go to the Presbyterians, both days are fine. The minister's sermon on Mother's Day was about a woman who never married, never had biological children but who saved thousands of Chinese girls from the sexual slave trade in San Francisco during the late 1800's and early 1900's. The minister focused on her "motherhood" to those girls. It was fabulous.

I wonder if leaders have charted how many converts came in a times of Crsis / desperation for some stability in their lives...

Mormonism is Overboard about numbers for 'internal' use; they don't/won't divulge them to the rank-and-file...

Kinda like mish's looking at the death notices in the newspaper, contacting survivors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2011 11:58AM by guynoirprivateeye.

my guess would be that 100% of the people who didn't come from falling in love with a member or missionaries, came because of an internal crisis of some sort.