And as it tends to also stifle expression of authentic emotion?

I've thought about "Me's" idea and I think she/he is correct.

I think Mormons feel they must look, act, and speak more "appropriately" than average. This tends to curb normal interaction.

Mormons worry excessively about what observers are thinking of them. They want to present a positive example of humbleness, cheerfulness, and solid faith. They also feel they must craft their questions and answers to fit whoever they're with. They alter what they say about their church precepts and expectations depending on it the other person is an investigator, a convert, a TBM insider, a church "leader," or a sinner/nonmo.

Mormons also often swallow the idea that spontaneous raucous laughter is bad or even of the devil. Many of them try not to laugh too much or too loudly and try to teach this to their children.

I think all of this tends to exert pressure that shows in their slower speech and tentative mannerisms. I'd say they do have more subtle body language than the boisterous nonmos I know.

I know this was very evident with my students when I was a teacher. The Mormon kids tended to be harder to read and more reticent, except that when they couldn't hold it, the boys especially might have naughty, sneaky outbursts to let off steam. Typically, children have quick reactions and don't try so hard to hide their feelings which means they're not having to resort to out of bounds wild or sneaky behaviors to covertly use their excess energy and express individuality.

That's how I see it and I want to thank "me" for bringing up the topic and also the two who posted about Mormon feelings and filter systems.

I related a week or so ago how, when my TBM mother came to visit, she would turn away from the table every time my sister and I took a sip from the beers we ordered.

I think that's related to this topic. This was her body language, and to her it was as "disapproving" as she could be without being verbal.

I wonder if this could be empirically proven. Complicated, thinking about it.

I had never thought about how deeply the brainwashing goes in TSCC. You not only have to act as if you agree with every arbitrary and often foolish thing that all of the leaders say --- but you also are taught, severely, to stifle your most basic human urges.

Not only sexual urges, either. Although the control demanded there is ludicrous and senseless.

You are required to shut down your mind. Curiosity must never be followed with a search for the truth. Questions must never be allowed to go beyond those which the church approves. The questing spirit, one of the greatest of human attributes, is denied and demeaned.

You have to control your voice so that you never speak out too loudly or harshly or angrily. (Unless you are one of the leaders. Then you can yell at people and it's fine.)

If you are a woman, you must extend the vocal control to extreme lengths.

You must stifle your laughter. (How twisted is that? I would be willing to bet that learning to smother spontaneous laughter does all sorts of psychological damage.)

You must choke off your need to be a unique person --- a true individual. The need to individuate is a powerful and important part of growing up. Unless you are a Mormon. Then it is forbidden. And the twisting of normal development marches on.

There are lots of other things --- I wish that there weren't.

If you were raised by a super try-hard Molly mo, or one of the "higher law" types, then you were probably trained like me.
Training during the week to endure sitting still for three hours on Sunday is a cruel and inhumane thing to do to toddlers.
I thought it was revolutionary that she made us some "quiet books". Who remembers those? Full of felt and fabric and buttons with fiddly things to do on each page.
To endure both the training and Sundays, I learned to "check out" of my body. I still had to listen sharp for any commands, and at least pretend to listen to the lessons, but in my head I was off having mental adventures.
Turns out this way lies the way to dissociation. Now as a 37 year old I have work to do in therapy...
I do indeed believe this kind of thing is behind the altered functioning the teacher above in the comments saw in some of his mormon students. The body is full of sin, disobedient, and must be denied as the "natural man" we were warned against. Rule over its every stray impulse, your very salvation is at stake.
More like sanity.

"Quiet Books" wouldn't be required if the church provided programs to fit every age. They need climbing and crawling equipment out doors or in gyms. Also, art supplies, musical instruments, toys, games, sand boxes and rubber balls.

I remember sitting quietly at general conference with only my fingers and a handkerchief to keep me occupied for hours. It was cruel punishment for being small.

I agree, in other churches, there are things for all ages, so children don't need "quiet books" to keep them busy during a sermon. One other thing about other churches is that the service is over in an hour at most, and that any adult Sunday school is purely voluntary. Many churches also have refreshments and even coffee available, which is obviously a sin in Mormonism.

She was much younger than the other kids and had not yet mastered their self-restraint. So I made a little tie-string bag with tiny "Little Golden Books," puzzles, crayons and small coloring books, and other little things I found, to keep her busy and quiet so that the rest of us weren't having to constantly "hush" her.

It really is cruel and unnatural to force a toddler to sit still through all that drivel.

One of my all-time non-favorite things was when barely-primary-aged kids were assigned to stand up in front of the congregation before the SM started, with serious scowls on their little faces and their arms folded, as a display to their errant elders of "reverence." YUCK!

Re: The mormon kids being harder to read.

When I was 16, and full blown TBM, I worked after school at the public library as a page. (A job title I always thought was funny. Of course, libraries would have pages. LOL) I worked in the children's department, which was headed by this old battle axe. She was a large, middle-aged, lifelong single woman whom I was completely terrified of. She seemed to be sort of brutish and snapped at people all the time.

I bet if I met her now, I'd think she was just some crusty old character and I'd think she was amusing. But then, I was terrified of her and she represented Power and Authority. So she got poker face from me.

I had come up in a dysfunctional family and there are a couple things I'm really, really good at: Reading someone's face and body language and intuiting what kind of mood they're in (children of abusive parents get really good at this, it's a safety mechanism so we know when to skedaddle if trouble is brewing), and not outwardly showing any emotion at all. Because if I showed fear or started to cry at home, my dad would take it personally, as if he though we stayed up nights thinking up ways to emotionally manipulate him. He really, seriously thought that, when he terrified his two girls enough to make us cry, that we were crying on purpose just to make him feel bad. (My crying does not have anything to do with your precious, fragile feelings, dad.)

So one day, this crusty old grumpy woman was trying to engage me in conversation and I wasn't having it. I gave her the poker face stare and answered her questions politely, but in the shortest answers possible.

"How's it going?"
"Fine."
"Aren't you about to graduate?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Will you be staying on through the summer?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I got a summer school scholarship."
"Well, any time you need some hours when you're home on break, call us, you can sub sometimes if we need coverage."
"Okay."
"You just don't show anything on your face at all, do you? I cannot read you at all."
"..."
"Okay, you can go. I give up."

I never realized how much that is also a product of being programmed by the church to stifle any and all personal feelings.

Winston in 1984 comes to mind when I read this tale, because you describe the self-preservation default of a person who dares not ever trust.

Except this story is real. And you were a child. My heart is heavy to read of it and it still shocks me that people are able to free themselves.

There is also the other body language, smell, that wafts from the leadership podium...particularly on fast Sunday.

This Mormon lack of affect reminds me of people playing dead to survive a terrorist attack.

Mormonism is a subculture with many similarities to Islam, in which the expressiveness of women is literally smothered with fabric. Mormons just do it without the burqa.

It's not surprising that both men and women in Mormonism become detached observers of their own lives. Your life is a checklist and your only purpose is to check off the boxes properly, in the right place, at the right time.

What is more depressing than a life where the smartest action would be to die before age eight?


Kathleen

anagrammy Wrote:
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>
> What is more depressing than a life where the
> smartest action would be to die before age eight?
>


This is really sick and twisted. Much more should be made of the place this holds in mormon theology. I frankly stand in amazement that more kiddies aren't slaughtered for their own benefit.

Someone should write a parody primary song about hoping to die before baptismal age, and how blessed of ghawd you'd be for achieving that boon.