Reading this made me wonder how fundamental learning emotions in a dysfunctional family embedded in the church is in me?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01358-9

I remember interacting with my siblings and youth in the ward way more than my neglectful parents.

I didn't learn emotions from my parents or adults. It was all from fellow children. I survived and synchronized with primary children and we sang and we talked and talked and talked and talked.

Since I came from a large family, my father spent most of his time working. My mother was tough as nails, and taught us life skills well, but she was a screamer.

As a youth I had no idea what nurturing was since I never really got it from my overworked parents, and the kids I grew up with were bullies. This is where my independance came from. But you are correct, I had no idea how to interact with people outside of Mormonism. My mission opened my eyes, but it took years into my adult life, and a divorce to find my place.

But even today those fears from my childhood raise up inside me and I have to push them aside, knowing they were not healthy or real.

So yes, I get it, I know exactly what your talking about.

Good to know another understands.

I don't know if it helps to know our formative stages of life were so colored with Mormonism and DIY emotional learning.

I wonder why I share this stuff here.

"Thinking about sharing in terms of how it might help someone else not only increased activation in brain regions associated with self-related thinking, value-related thinking, and social-related thinking (particularly mentalizing — the act of imagining what others are thinking), but also increased a person’s self-reported willingness to share an article."
https://neurosciencenews.com/news-sharing-psychology-23323/amp/

I guess RfM is my Facebook.

Someday in the future we may not even have to type to post.

"Later, provided that the participant is open to having their thoughts decoded, their listening to a new story or imagining telling a story allows the machine to generate corresponding text from brain activity alone."
https://neurosciencenews.com/thoight-text-ai-decoder-23437/