From a blog of a mormon mom with a daughter who has cancer:

http://ashtynsarmy.com/she-chose-this/

"When I see the physical and emotional pain Ashtyn is going through, I feel sad and have shed tears with and for her. However, if I had the ability to take this cancer away from her, I wouldn’t. You heard me right. I would not take this cancer from her. Why would I rob her of this life changing experience?

Ashtyn chose this before coming to earth. She knew the pain she would experience. She also knew the blessings that would be hers from going through it. Lives would be changed. Her life would be changed. Every moment of her trial will be worth it. She will never want to give back what she gains and what she learns. It will be precious to her. So as a mother, why would I ever take that away from her? I am happy for her that she is the kind of girl that God has trusted to go through this with faith, strength, and dignity. God has every confidence in her. I do too."

This is so completely insane and disgusting, I can't even come up with adequate words to express it.

Plus, WHY would anyone want to be involved with a God who would put a child in a position to "choose" this? Seriously?!!

As a parent with a child who has been through a life threatening disease and has recently been diagnosed with a life long, chronic disease that will affect the rest of her life, I think any parent who thinks like this should be shot. Ok, not literally (calm down!), but really?!! This is disgusting.

If she did choose in the pre-existence to suffer in this life, why didn't the mom choose in the pre-existence to fight harder to take this trial from her beloved daughter? Why did the mom choose to just stand by and watch her daughter suffer? I mean, that must have been what mom chose in the pre-existence if it's playing out now on earth.

Wow. I'm so glad to be free of anything even close to this warped mentality.

It's okay my little girl is dying, since it's not me, and she chose it in a previous lie.

I am not going to go too harsh on this one... Crazy and whacked yes - But this is the very reason religion comforts some (and not just Mormons) - The bottom line is that unfortunately her daughter has cancer. It is a fact. If Religious myths give you and her comfort through distortion of reality- good for you. When I am in deep pain I take pain killers that alter my reality and subdues the pain. to each their own.

The mother has her delusions. But--is this any comfort to the poor child? How heartless! The Mormons, IMO, compared to other people, seem to have this callous, un-feeling core. I hope this child has advocates in the hospital, or in school, who will offer her some love, hugs, comfort, and real peace.

I have suffered some painful illnesses, and never have I thought these horrible bouts have made me or anyone else a better person--nor has pain enhanced my life in any way. The "Refiner's Fire" belief is hogwash!

God damn that woman.
I've had cancer. Nobody would choose that.

May anyone who thinks so, rot in hell.

If, there is a God, and he chose that for me, I have no respect for him/her.

I'm a mother. I would never, ever intentionally inflict suffering and misery on my children. In fact, I would do all I could to prevent or soften the effects of any suffering that might come their way.

My stake president made the comment that God must really love me to cause me such suffering. I stood up, looked him in the eye and told him that was some of the sickest rhetoric i've ever heard in my life. If that was the case, I demand that God immediately cease and desist his love for me. I want no part of it!

He looked stunned as I turned and left the room. What an idiot he is.

total support...please be well



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 01:11AM by donbagley.

Go Mia! Agreed 100%.

Not only have I had cancer myself, I've had a child with it too. Anyone who tries to say their child "chose" such a path in the pre-existence deserves to rot in their scariest version of hell. How any parent could actually trot out that crap when their child is suffering is beyond me and I don't buy the "giving them comfort through higher meaning crap."

Making up excuses so that your child can't experience the rage and anger that comes with having a life threatening disease is just wrong. It prevents them from dealing with the reality of their disease because their parent isn't dealing with reality. It's not about you, in this situation, it's about your kid being faced with a completely unfair and horrible situation they did nothing to deserve. Your job as a parent is to face it and help your child to face it and have the strength to fight it, not to come up with reasons why they have it from choice. There are no reasons why and to tell a child they chose it is just sick and wrong.

Maybe this sounds harsh, but I've been there. It's reality, excuses don't cut it. I've seen the kids whose parents don't deal and it does not help them. In fact, I think it's a form of abuse to convince a child that the disease they are dealing with is because they volunteered for it in a previous life. Sick and depraved and cruel.

+1

Cancer is nothing more than cells that mutate. We all have them. Some go out of control. Nobody and I mean nobody would wish this on themselves.

If my mother had said what that mother said, I would have an extremely difficult time wanting anything to do with her after that. It's like the mother is saying: You asked for this.

Really? Talk about child abuse.

I thought cancer was, by definition, the ones that get out of control?

+1 Yep.

I've seen this mentality so many times within the cult, & within my own family. It's sick, sick, sick! These people don't care about their kids, or people in general, at all.

Even during a Mutual/YW lesson, I was told that I had chosen to be sexually, physically, & mentally/emotionally abused in the damned 'pre-existence'. That it was my burden. What bullshit.

YES to everything already said. I have been following that blog as we have mutual friends with that family. I am a childhood cancer survivor myself and I was sick to my stomach reading that.

this is a weird mentality of a situation. doesn't this mom think she has suffered enough? I'm a stranger and I would cure this girl. she has already suffered a trial.

If I heard my mom say something like that to me, it would make me feel so bad, I would certainly give up any hope of getting cured.

This TBM mom is certainly brainwashed.

As a Christian you can accept life's uncertainties but you have faith in God to help yourself and others. It is called a will to live, something we are all born with.

This TBM needs to change her attitude and stop thinking about the pre exsistence and try to change the present and future.

Sick and wrong.

People seem to be going off on tangents here, and that reveals a lot of pent up anger. Why go ballistic over what "they" do? (and "they" are anyone who is not "us"). The us vs. them dynamic plays out here, of course, in terms of mormons & exmormons, but also religious & atheist, gay & anti-gay, faith & science, etc. Is it really so easy to draw black-and-white distinctions here? The meta-distinction in all of these is presuming unity vs. presuming separateness...and all of these contests come down on the side of separateness. I'm reminded of specks and beams...

I'm not presuming some mormon doctrine (is there an official one in this case?), only what the OP wrote. "God" did not choose this for the daughter, she chose it for herself. The 'pre-existence' notion is a rather shallow compromise with the post Nicean Christian rejection of reincarnation, but many other traditions have the concept of karma...and that children/infants are not innocent blank slates but come with the tendencies of all the variety of adults now living.(Yes, even playing the Hitler card here.) If someone gets a second sight from a higher perspective and is determined either to make amends or to expiate through reciprocal suffering, we can and should do everything to help them in whatever circumstance, But we may not be able to dissuade their subconscious determination.

But look at the alternative metannarrative that many of these responses presume: the universe is a threatening, heartless, random affair, where people of certain ages and circumstances are NOT responsible for their conditions (while at the same time others are definitely held responsible), and we are all heroically trying to gain an inch or so on inevitable extinction. Who has determined that's the realistic view? But anyone who challenges it is labelled an imbecile...

So the first paragraph of your post is miss placed blame.

I don't really care what the mom thinks. The question is whether or not her daughter feels supported by what the mom is saying to her, since the daughter is the one who is suffering. I think it's easy to say "you chose this" when you are not the one who is getting radiation or chemotherapy. Plus, Ashtyn is a child. By definition she has less capacity to understand her suffering.

The mom's comments come off as cruel and uncaring.

"Cover the flow of karma with the ice of understanding."

Still, who is to say that the mother isn't torn up emotionally by this. Does one always have to scream, curse, wail, and take one's grief out on others? If she is not really understanding (or at least intuiting a bigger pattern) but is in denial, whose self-appointed job is it to 'correct' her? It seems to be presumed that she is neglecting to love and support her daughter, maybe even fail to get advanced treatment. But isn't that our own impotence raging, even if we were in a similar situation?

Again, why presume the worst of a fellow human who is trying her best?

This is just so wrong. What kind of a mother would tell this to her child with cancer? She *chose* to get cancer in the pre-existance - that's just another way of blaming the victim, rationalizing away the reality of cancer-treatment and taking away the opportunity to feel angry about having cancer and deal with the all the (negative) emotions in a healthy way from the daughter.

Sick, sick, sick!

My parents said I chose them, knowing what I would get for parents. They said they didn't have to make any effort to be good parents because I chose them knowing just how they would be. And their lack of effort really showed.

It's a really sick doctrine, cancer or not. Anyone who believes this is excusing themselves from expending effort to improve themselves or their situation.
I mean, if the girl chose cancer, why even use chemo if she wanted it? It's a very slippery slope. I don't excuse even one step down it.

But defeatism is far from my way of thinking. I can't understand anyone who isn't always working to improve. But then I was never cut out to be a TBM.

"My parents said I chose them, knowing what I would get for parents. They said they didn't have to make any effort to be good parents because I chose them knowing just how they would be. And their lack of effort really showed."

I read sh1t like this along with what the original poster said and all I can think is that mormonism needs a reformation, much like what happened to catholicism back in the 1400s-1500s.


To t-h-i-n-k..that then REITTERATE to your kids just to absolve yourself as parents of any responsibility and wrongdoing is just sick.....

Thank you, I agree. Reformation or complete transformation into something harmless. But that's so much wishful thinking, it is riddled with toxicity.

I TBM I used to know justified being verbally abusive to her children with this same blame the victim illogic. "They knew what they were getting into and chose me as their mother anyway."

I thank the imaginary gods above that mormonism probably no longer teaches that stupid, harmful doctrine.

I'm sure there are plenty of grandmas teaching the deep doctrine to grandchildren while the parents are oblivious, much like was done with me.
I got taught deep doctrine by my grandma like Adam-God and polygamy to gain exaltation, which my mom has denied to my face. But Saturday's Warrior was my mom's favorite movie, so that predestination crap was still being taught to her.

Mom's probably been telling my nieces and nephews that they chose the grinding poverty that my sister is putting them through...

Fuck the church!


It makes me sick to see the expected posters actually defending this disgusting concept. A mother who WOULDN'T take this "test" from her child if she could???
Those of you defending the blogger are subhuman.
I hope like hell she's lying, because treating cancer _takes that "test" away_. This child needs modern medicine, not magical thinking and god bothering.
I don't even have children! And I can't imagine not sacrificing everything I could for a child of mine. Not excusing it as the will of god or a premortal choice.
Many people don't deserve the children they bring into the world. At least some children are smart enough to never associate with the demented monsters that raise them ever again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 03:36PM by WinksWinks.

There are no words for this...

Really

Well mybe a really long and most rude swearing session...

What a monster..

The thinking permeates moism. The concept that God has some plan for us is OK. But God does not have our lives planned out. Nor does God determine who gets cancer. It happens for a number of reasons including radiation, genes, sicknesses which may strike us randomly, etc. etc. God does not inflict it on us. We made no choice to get it or other diseases (unless we intentionally inflict such as using tainted needles). If I believed that God inflicted such things - especially as a "test" - I would not consider God to be "loving".

From the link in the OP:

"Tonight Ashtyn finally fell asleep at 4:30 am listening to Pandora’s LDS Hymns and looking at a picture of Christ loving children."

rather than see them suffer. Seeing them suffer as 27 year olds with their own problems is living hell.

My cousin died of cancer. She was only 3 days older than I am and I was close to her mother. I know without a doubt my aunt and my uncle would have laid down their life for their daughter. I wondered if the 2 of them would survive the experience. She died at age 37 leaving 6 children behind ages 16 to 3.

I don't care who you are--that is one of the coldest things I've ever heard a mother say.

How far is it from the words, she chose this, to the thought that she deserves this, in someones mind? If we feel someone chose or deserves something awful which happens to them, how far is it from a feeling of this is not my/ our concern and I/we do not have to do everything possible to help, if we can. Mom is imposing a religious condition on a medical situation. That is a religious decision being used to determine care and not a medical one based on medical facts or known outcomes, and is an extremely selfserving selfish one which helps the mother who is imposing it- not a caring one designed to help or alleviate suffering of the patient, the daughter, and thus really has no place being inserted into a health care setting where a separate individual, which is the daughter rather than the mother, deserves access to the best care possible.

The daughter, to the extent she is able, should he treated as individual and be permitted to know and have explained to her as much as possible, and has the right to be cared for as fully and as well as that d aughter herself wishes, given all the info she needs to know to participate in the plans for her own care and wellbeing. If that were a patient in one of the clinics I worked in I'd be asking the Dr assigned to her to call in the social worker to make sure the needs of the girl and not the religious delusions of the mother were being catered to.

This mom is no different than Mother Theresa and her brainwashed minions, who allowed patients and penitents in their "care" to suffer and struggle through horrendous pain and mental anguish because it was gods will and their choice, according to the nuns and it was therefore the bedridden patients' personal struggle to face on their own. The patients' persecution here on earth was preordained so that they could receive a greater heavenly reward when they died. And no one else had the right or obligation to ease that suffering when they could, because that might mess with gods plan for those people, was playing God which is never our place or decision.

If her daughter needed morphine to strip the pain away, in the worst case scenario where that daughter lay dying, would mom say no because this is my daughter's pain to endure and she chose it, God wants this? I surely hope not, but am not convinced mom can choose what is right medically for her daughter with this sort of thinking at the forefront of her mind.

Quote: "She knew the pain she would experience."

Knowing implied already having lived that pain before.
Which does not make sense.

When I was told that notion of "choosing before coming to earth", I always saw it as accepting that there was suffering on earth and being mortal I was going to experience it. Nothing more.

I saw good friends and my own mom suffering and dying of cancer. When I found out last october that an ex-director of mine who had caused me (and most people) much suffering, had advanced bone cancer I felt very sad for her. Having seen the sufferings of cherished ones, I never wanted that even for my worst enemy, which she had been during a few (recent) years of my life.
So I realy don't understand that about the mom. Even if she believes it, to express it is very heartless in regards to her daughter and anyone suffering from cancer that may stumble upon her message.

the LDS is not the only religion with this creed.
buddhists and their Karma is not too different, and as a mother who lost an adult child to cancer, as a sister who lost a brother to cancer, as a daughter who lost her mother to cancer, I simply have to believe that cancer like $!## happens. Nothing to do with gods, creeds or invented after/pre existence.
Librarian

Two words:

Saturday's Warrior

It's caused a lot of this mentality. Doctrinally, I think you'd be hard pressed to find it taught over the pulpit by the 15.

I'm with Richard and a lot of what he says.

My main concern would be for the girl. Is she being adversely affected by her mother's belief/words? I have never been in such a situation, so I wouldn't presume to know what she should/could say to her daughter.

Would you lie to your child if you knew it would ease some pain?

If you believe, as many of you probably do, that tscc is a brainwashing factory, and this woman has been brainwashed by tscc, can you really blame her for using these words to comfort her?

How many of you who were stuck in the morg were also blinded to other ways of thinking, even concerning your family?

What things that make perfect sense now, were silly and unbelievable then?

Hypocrisy when it comes to compassion is one of the many reasons that so many of us left tscc, why carry it over into this spehere of your existence?

If you must be angry, maybe you could redirect your anger to tscc for allowing the perpetuation of so many myths in the first place.

Having lost a husband (True believer) recently, to complications from cancer, I will not engage in any judgement regarding the beliefs of this mother with a daughter with cancer.

People who have loved ones with cancer, often struggle and grasp at straws to figure out: WHY. Why is this happening?

In an effort to find some way to make sense of this disease, people often rely on a belief system that will help them make sense of it all.... on some level.

It makes sense to her.

It's about her, not me.

We dealt with cancer (for nine years) on a very different level.

Let me be absolutely clear about this:
I would never, never find fault or criticize or denigrate anyone else's World View that puts it in some kind of eternal thinking. That is her way to make sense of her world.

Although I don't agree with the bloggers sentiments I am of the mind of 'whatever gets you through'. Maybe if the mother believes this it altimately helps the child as the mother is calmer?
I am not sure of the fact we chose these things. I always think if I chose some of the things that have happened to me I obviously was not given the full details!
One of the 'downs' of loosing faith is coming to terms with there is not reason why things happen- they just do

After reading that, I would call the local police department and see if charges could be filed for Child Endangerment.

If this mother is crazy enough to say this, God knows what else she might do if her daughter gets worse.

I've read very similar things from a TBM aquaintance whose son has cancer.
Just vile.

Reading those words, that she would not take this away, makes my blood run cold ... but at the same time, I don't believe her.

I have been in a situation with a child with a severe birth defect and, while not always fatal, was fatal in our case. The pain upon learning the diagnosis was beyond anything that I could fathom. I was literally unable to function and thought I would never actually experience happiness again in my life - I thought that emotion was gone forever. I decided that I just had to fake it 'til I made it. Meaning, I decided to say out loud things that suggested that I could handle this issue and it wasn't all bad, that it was a blessing in disguise, blah blah blah. Kind like the whole "the Secret" thing -- if I put it out there in the universe, maybe it will boomerang back and become my reality. If my brain forms those thoughts, maybe my heart will begin to feel them, and some of the pain will dull. The one practical thing that came out of it was that there were a lot fewer of those total pity comments that felt like a knife through my heart. Instead, people told me that I was right, that I was amazing, that my daughter was so lucky to have me, blah blah blah. Of course it was all a bunch of bullsh*t, but those things were better for me to hear than what I had been hearing before and which just brought me that much further down.

I haven't read the blog, so I don't know what kind of cancer it is or what the prognosis is. If it's treatable and she'll go on to live a happy life, it's easy to say those kinds of things and actually easy to feel those things. But if this is the nasty of nasties with the possibility that she will lose her daughter, perhaps this is just her way of coping. And I say, cope however you can. It's probably also a way that her daughter copes.

Oh dear lord. My "sister" as in Sorority lost her son to cancer three years ago today. She and her husband would have changed places in an instance. I would have too. No child should suffer like that. Today his sister is coping with the loss and the knowledge that in less than a month she has outlived her big brother.

I would not wish cancer on my worst enemy much less my child.

I was going to bring up this topic a few months ago. I sometimes read a blog by a TBM mommy blogger who has twins, one of whom has serious birth defects. She posted some time ago about how it was such a gift to have a child so profoundly sick because it gives her "a chance to serve". I didn't end up posting because she's been featured on RfM before.

I guess if thinking her child's illness is a "gift" helps her get through it, maybe I shouldn't judge. On the other hand, it still boggles my nevermo mind.

OMFG.

I took care of my mother while she died of cancer. Cancer is cruel and it destroys and it is painful and takes away a person's dignity. There is no good from it. The patient and the caretaker endure what must be endured.

Read the list below of what all this poor suffering child will have to do in order to be "worthy" of cancer.

Fing nutcase whackjob mother.



==================================

This experience has been so tender. So special. So touching. As I listened to calm music while rubbing Ashtyn’s feet as she went to bed, I felt so honored and blessed to be by her side. I believe Ashtyn chose before coming to earth the plan that was in store for her. I believe she agreed to come to earth with the assignment to conquer cancer with courage, strength, and faith.


I believe she willingly accepted the call to have cancer, knowing it was a sacrifice she was making in order to help others.

She will be able to teach patience, faith, trust, compassion, optimism, service, love, and charity.

She will be able to inspire people to care about family and strangers alike.

She will be able to help others recognize their talents, purposes, and strengths.

She will soften hearts and bring families together, bond friendships, and rally communities.

She will help others recognize that individuals can change lives and by so doing can change the world.

She will be an inspiration for all to come unto Christ. And because of her sacrifice and a job well done, she will be blessed.