Posted by:
IsaacJacob
(
)
Date: March 08, 2016 12:30AM
Im a 17 year old dude. I'm a senior in high school. I've been a member of the LDS church my whole life but am now questioning it. The more I learn the less I like it and the less I want to be a member.
My girlfriend is not a member, she is catholic, but everyone in my family is. Her and others have been telling me my parents are abusive and I didn't want to agree but now I'm starting to. Here's some of the bulls**t I've gone through and my parents have done. It's lengthy but I need this off my chest.
• I have to ask to use the computer, then explain what I'm doing, how long, get a parent to enter a passcode to give me an amount of time, then have a parent possibly walk up and read over my shoulder, and have my parents check my history after I'm done.
• We have strict Internet filters that block YouTube, MTV, and other harmless entertainment sites.
• My parents have warned me about anti Mormon propaganda, once my mom tearfully telling me it's "spiritual porn" without any truth only designed to "tear apart your spirit."
• Parents know EVERY SINGLE PASSCODE and check my Facebook, Instagram, and email and bring up things I talk about in private messages in everyday conversations.
• No wifi in the house, only hardwired Ethernet cable to the desktop.
• they threw away my iPod 4 when they found out I got sucked into an online predator
• they didn't explain that my online suicidal canadian friend was actually an online predator, and just cut me off with no explanation leaving me thinking that person had killed themselves and I could have prevented it if they hadn't intervened.
• they knew about this relationship for about a month before realizing it was harmful and cutting me off.
• dad read all the messages between me and the predator but never told my mom how graphically sexual and explicit the conversations invariably were
• the one time my dad talked to me about the sexual content he said "your mom doesn't know about this but I do and I don't think you want her to know."
• once I made a joke soundcloud page with some crass rap songs and my dad printed out a screenshot of the lyrics and a note that said something along the lines of "take this down and I won't tell your mom"
• I had a porn addiction for 5 years and I'm pretty sure my dad knew but didn't tell my mom, because i did a really bad job hiding it and also talked about it profusely with both the predator and my girlfriend in Facebook messenger, which my dad had access to at the time
• I quit porn with the help of my girlfriend and told my parents 6 months later and they responded by interrogating me as to how I got away with it for so long and then increasing my limits on Internet access.
• dad wanted to take away my broken iPhone 3 until I let him disable safari on it, because he didn't want the opportunity for me to watch to be there.
• now there is even a password on the roku and YouTube was disabled. I can't even watch Netflix without parent permission.
• parents will drive me off somewhere alone and talk to me about the contents of private emails and messages they snooped and read.
• my girlfriends uncle died and I skipped school to visit her at home and we made out. I put my hand under her shirt and my parents found out via reading messages and decided I could never go over to her house again because it was an unsafe environment.
• they judge my girlfriend based on messages taken out of context. Ex: She asked if I had looked in her purse and I said no, I hadn't. She said my Christmas present from her was in there and she didn't want me to see it. We joked about it being a box of novelty condoms. My parents think that it wasn't a joke and she actually had condoms, even though the item was an aluminum 3d X-Wing model kit for a hobby store.
• went to New Orleans for a week with the high school band, I payed for it almost entirely out of pocket by doing commissioned drawings. My parents almost didn't let me go because they were concerned I'd get involved in heavy drugs or have sex while gone, so they had me write a list of rules I was going to follow and sign it, the rules were basically just repetitions of the official school rules I had to sign for official documentation.
• everyone on the trip started getting sick, (i had a cold) and 3 kid were hospitalized for dehydration, my girlfriend included. I helped her until the paramedics came then had to leave upon instruction of the band director. Later that night I was extremely stressed and couldn't sleep or stop coughing and I wanted to go to the hospital but couldn't. I took some NyQuil, an average dose, so I could sleep and try to stay healthy. My mom posted on my Facebook wall telling me to call her so I did right after I saw it, which was midnight. I told her everything that was going on and that I took some NyQuil to sleep so I would call in the morning. She called again at 2am, waking me up, asking how much NyQuil I had taken. I said the dosage on the box, and she kept questioning me asking if I had taken anything else or more than the recommended amount of NyQuil. I said I hadn't, and said she didn't trust me, and she said "should I?" I said goodnight and hung up. She called and texted several chaperones claiming that I and some other kids were abusing NyQuil, and that is why everyone was sick, from overdosing. The nyquil box ( it was all gone ) was confiscated at my moms request and my parents kept calling the band teacher who explained that it was mathematically impossible to get high or overdose on the amount of NyQuil we had. I felt embarrassed that so many people were dragged into the affair and that my parents evidently did not trust me or the chaperones.
• recently I went to my girlfriend's grandparents house and asked her grandpa about orthodox Christianity, missing dinner with the missionaries at home. I returned and my mom said "I wouldn't have let you go over if I knew they were going to harass you about your religion the whole time"
• my mom has expressed concern multiple times about how my girlfriend is manipulating me, claiming she wants to "tear my family apart" and she is scared that we will be financially unsupported with a baby very soon and will hate our lives.
• sent me to a Mormon counselor to talk about the predator incident. i also talked to him about my parents a bit and he said I'm just doing "normal teen things" but my mom didn't take it seriously
• my mom sat in on one of the sessions and told the counselor that I've been growing distant and she feels like she can't trust me and there's a big problem and it's my fault, I protested. I wanted her to leave but felt uncomfortable saying it.
• I legitimately feel uncomfortable at home and going home from school.
• I've wanted to kill myself because of this aggressive parenting and i told my girlfriend and she hugged me a bunch while i cried and made me promise not to hurt myself, my parents read a message about how I felt and my mom talked to me in the car later and I lied that I was joking and was actually fine.
• Any time my parents talk to me it's just my mom talking and my dad sits there looking disappointed.
• once I stayed up I until 4 am crying and reading the bible and talking on the phone to my girlfriend, after finding out what an endowment means. I thought everyone was asleep but they came into my room at 4am and sat down on my bed and vote me their testimonies and asked why I was questioning the church.
• asked my mom about the trinity vs multiple gods, she said that we don't believe in lots of gods, then I said we CLEARLY do. She asked where in the Bible it specifically says there's only one God. She then asked where I got that question, she assumed my girlfriend told me about the inconsistencies.
• once I went to a school bball game with my girl, we snuck out and made out in the back of the school. My dad showed up unexpectedly half an hour before the game ended for some reason, and we missed him. The next day my mom picked me up from school and talked to me about how I lied to her about where I was and how it was like I took a knife and jabbed it into her heart and twisted it. She claimed that the whole time I had been "going to school events" I was actually getting driven off to be "demormonised" by my girlfriends parents.
• now I'm not allowed to leave the house without a family member.
• about two months ago my girl and I walked around town to the nearby burrito restaurant. It was dark so we ate at a park gazebo and then made out some, and I slipped my hand up her shirt and had some fun ;). My parents intercepted an email about it (I thought my email was private) and I couldn't walk around town with her anymore after that and my dad said I need to go trough the repentance process
• after that incident I begged them to let me walk home from school with her, and they agreed. My dad drove around us in his pickup with no explanation, making me feel very uncomfortable. We stopped at a coffee store on the way and my dad saw. The next time I asked if I could walk my mom said "is ___ going to make you go get coffee again???"
• once my friends and I were being dumb teen boys and were taking shots of Mio Energy, a concentrated caffeinated drink mix. My dad, again, intercepted a message about it, ransacked my backpack, found the little bottle, threw it away, then my mom gave me a talk about how damaging caffeine can be and how I'm probably addicted and THAT'S the reason I don't want to get up at 5:20 am for seminary.
• read another message about a kid I know using drugs and not only made me tell them all of the people I know who abuse substances but guilted me into calling the cops on him.
• this is minor but they won't take any college ideas seriously unless it's BYU or UoU
• my mom talked to a teacher about how my girlfriend is "stealing her son" and "ruining me" and "sending me down a path I'm going to hate" and "trying to stop me from going to college." (She did try to stop me from going on a mission but said that if I want to she won't judge me. She asked that if I decide LDS is true that I break up with her so I could be married in the temple.)
• they read some private handwritten notes that were in my desk drawer. They were from my girlfriend and one had an offhand comment about how cute it would be to one day have a little baby who is half her half me. My parents are VERY concerned about this comment.
• my mom keeps telling me about how mean my girlfriend is because the first time she was here I cut a burrito the wrong way and she called me an idiot jokingly.
• I feel like my parents are not at all happy with their marriage but I'm too scared to suggest marriage counseling.
• My dad is constantly on the computer and my mom HATES electronics with a passion, she thinks they are evil. Ive had a couple electronics I've bought on my own but I've never had a cell phone until this Christmas they bought me a POS Nokia that's now broken.
• I feel very sorry for my parents but I really really need breathing room because their parenting is legitimately making me want to end my life.
I don't know if this is normal? If this is abusive what should I do to confront them? Thanks a ton!