The time i was around family was way more than my time in the religion although their brains were definitely the religion. This is probably why it has taken me longer to overcome my parents and family psychologically. I think this is why the religion uses family against you. Since you are around them growing up the religion can reach you even outside of a church. Leaving you trapped and feeling like a hostage all the time. This finally clicked in my brain yesterday of why my father can still affect me longer than the actual religion. Its like the family is a cult in itself and my father was the leader or at the head of his mini cult. Anyways this clicked for me yesterday of how family and especially a parent can affect me longer.

unconditionally and want you to find happiness, not force you to be what they want you to be. But, no, mormon parents are oftentimes not like that. They are just an extension of the church.

Exactly. I even tricked my mind that my parents were better people than they really were. My brain wanted to pretend they were real loving parents blocking out tons of hurtful memories and making myself into the fall guy martyr with the only one with problems in the family. The designated crazy guy/bad guy. I think i have seen doctors more than i probably needed to. There had to be something wrong with me because my parents said so. They were innocent of all their behavior somehow because they were the parents. The worst part is i may have simply been a good person the entire time just putting up with crazy parents behavior and respecting them way and their beliefs way too much. I didn't know they were chanting and doing death oaths like a couple of crazies in secret the entire time. There was no way to know before the internet.

We never escape our childhoods. For most of us Mormonism is intimately entwined with our families, and leaving one often requires leaving the other.

But you are right to focus on your childhood. So many of the patterns in our lives are established in the first two or three years, well before our brains are capable of understanding any part of religion. True healing requires dealing with the demons from that period, which is prior to, and more important than, Mormonism except to the extent that that religion conditioned our parents' behavior in the home.

It sounds like you are focusing on the right things.

Trying to run and escape from the past does not work. It will come to the surface eventually. Reality is never pretty. Its easier for the brain to create a delusion of a perfect family that never existed.

Yes.

But if you suppress that stuff, it manifests in bad behavior later in life--destructive to others, to oneself, or both. Everyone has suppressed problems and must negotiate them daily. But for people who, because of some idiosyncratic combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental trauma, face challenges that interfere with life in substantial ways, therapy is one of the best ways to overcome the handicaps.

That, in my tentative surmise, is one of the sources of your growth.

Agreed.

Most adults have kids. Some adults are equipped for that (to one extent or another,) and some are not. Luck of the draw. As kids, we tend to put our parents on pedestals, but as adults we realize they are just average human beings like anyone else.

I did put them on pedestals. I was ok with taking all the blame for all their actions and be the bad kid that could never be cured. Overcoming my parents and the things they said and did is my biggest challenge for sure. They can make me feel very small like no one else. I am not even around them and somehow they affect me. How is this even possible? I need more self-esteem. I need to believe in myself that i can self-sustain without any family. I can not bury the past and i can not go back and fix the past no matter what i do.

I started to get self-esteem when I set some ambitious goals for myself, and then proceeded to do what I needed to do to meet those goals. A big part of that was my goal of getting on my feet financially (going back to school, getting a degree and certifications, pursuing a career, and working through career challenges.) It was a very gradual process. I realize that living on disability gives you a unique set of challenges, but you might want to give some thought as to how you can improve your standard of living and your ability to be independent.

A big part of that was getting to a point where other people's opinions about me started to count for a whole lot less. I was able to look at myself, my strengths and weaknesses, and be very self aware and honest about them. People lose the ability to drag you down when you already know and fully accept your imperfections. So if someone criticizes me, I can analyze what they say and decide for myself if it's something I need to deal with, or not. I have a saying, "not everyone is going to be a fan." So if it's something that I can't change or don't need to change, I don't worry about it. Their opinion is their opinion. It doesn't have to have anything to do with me.

Religion is a personal choice. As an adult, you really don't need to justify your personal choices to anyone else.

Whenever anyone else tries to interfere in a personal choice, I find the most minimal responses are often the best option, i.e. "It doesn't work for me." Then redirect the conversation. If people are going to be upset over a personal choice that doesn't affect them, that's on them, not you.