Posted by:
Breeze
(
)
Date: May 12, 2017 02:22AM
You can get over it, but maybe never completely. Your past experiences are a part of you, but the present is your biggest strength.
Stay in the moment. No one is hurting you right now. You are safe now. No one is lying to you at this moment. You can "suspend" your beliefs for a while, until you find the truth. For example if you think someone is lying to you, say something like, "I need to Google this, sometime." I am always telling myself in business and in my personal life: "I NEED MORE INFORMATION!" I feel confident that I'm in control. If someone ever says that I need to make a decision immediately, without taking time to think it over or to investigate--it's an automatic "NO!"
Saying "NO" will get you your power back.
If someone asks me to do something, I never say "Yes" right away. I always say, "That sounds good. I'll check my calendar and get back to you." This is not to stall or play games. This is to give myself a chance to protect myself. Mormons used to trap me into doing things I didn't like, and things that took valuable time away from my family and career.
Be your own best friend. Do you really HAVE to go into a church building? Do you have to listen to those conference voices. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir gives me the creeps! It's their inhaling--like old people gasping for breath--and the slowed-down hymns sound like funeral dirges.
You are not crazy. The Mormons are the weird ones--remember that. Personally, I think the Mormon cult is evil, but that's just me. I went through the temple when they still forced us to perform the blood oaths, and the women vowed obedience to their husband. My BYU RM husband conned me into marrying him. He was a violent abuser, with a past history of assault. He beat me almost every day, for no reason, and would often quote D&C Section 132 while he did it. He put me in the hospital a few times, almost killed me, but I kept trying to make it work--it was for eternity. When I divorced him, I got all the blame, and the cult would not give me any kind of temple divorce or cancellation of sealing. The Mormon authorities said I would always be sealed to this thug. Years later, when I married another Mormon, we weren't allowed to get married in the temple, and our children were considered the possession of my temple husband, too! My scary ex and his family (related to a famous and well-hated GA) stalked me for years.
When my second husband abandoned me and our children, the PTSD really hit me hard, with depression, anxiety attacks, and nightmares that would make me scream in my sleep. Our ward was full of fanatics, who wormed their way up the ranks to become mission presidents, stake presidents, temple presidents, and in "the seventies", whatever that is. My children weren't keen on Mormonism, and they never did believe in the Joseph Smith lies in the first place. I was left on my own to support my children alone, and they got three paper routes, to help out. They had to get up very early Sunday morning, to get all the papers delivered on schedule. Sometimes, after I left for church to play the organ, they would go back to bed. The priesthood leaders would break into our house and into the boys' bedrooms, and pull them out of bed, onto the floor, and kick them, and shove them, as they forced them to put on their suit and tie. We were new in the ward, and these men were strangers to my boys. The men threatened my sons not to tell me about what was going on. They did the same thing to other boys, too. One Sunday one of my sons was very sick with a high fever, so they held priesthood meeting in our living room. A few years later, my children told me about this abuse, and other incidents of abuse. My daughter had been threatened by the bishop not to tell anyone about when the bishop's hideous older son tried to molest my little 11-year-old girl, as she slept in her sleeping bag. My daughter woke up and screamed, and several girls saw what was happening. No one dared tell.
I'm telling you this story, because my church-related PTSD was extreme--and if I can get better--anyone can get better.
When I got on my feet financially, I went to a psychiatrist, who was highly recommended in the medical community. He is not a Mormon. My psychiatrist is a cognitive-behavioral therapist.
A person is complex, and there were many pieces to the puzzle, but if you understand yourself, and what is happening to you, and why, you can use this knowledge to talk yourself through the horrors.
Some things you already know--like the men-in-white-shirts thing. I run away from them, too. Eliminating the "triggers" is my favorite coping mechanism. I shun the shunners, before they have a chance to shun me. The judgmental, blaming family members, I avoid as much as possible. I also had an older brother who bullied and tortured me, my whole childhood.
The thing that bothered me most, was the way the Mormon church favor men over women. My brothers could get away with anything, but I was blamed for not "being a peace-maker" and I was rewarded when I took abuse in silence. My parents didn't punish my brother, and they didn't defend me. I grew up feeling that I wasn't worth defending. I was nothing.
My last serious anxiety attack was triggered by a PTSD flashback of my abusive ex-husband in the temple. I thought I was recovered enough to go back to our same ward house, to see my granddaughter be baptized by her father. I felt claustrophobic and nauseated in there. Someone handed me a camera, and asked me to take pictures. The men were wearing white jumpsuits, that were too tight and short, and the little girls had their hair braided like the little polygamous child-brides you see on the news. I had to do yoga breathing, these images were so disturbing to me. My dear little granddaughter trapped in this cult!
Even with help, it was several years before I could be alone with a man in a car. My ex-husband would beat me in the car, and I couldn't get out. I had a major anxiety meltdown while driving alone across the Nevada desert--why? Then I remembered when he pushed me out of the car, and drove away, and left me alone in the 105 degree heat. The Christus statue at the visitor's center in SLC seemed like a safe public place to tell him that if he didn't stop beating me, I would have to divorce him. He dragged me up the ramp, breaking my wrist, and threw me as hard as he could on the marble floor in front of the statue of Christ. I hit my jaw and broke a tooth on the floor. He said, "What would Christ say, if he knew you were thinking of getting a divorce?"
You must resign! In my resignation letter, I stated that my temple marriage was null and void. That physical abuse automatically cancels all the vows. The Mormon church should respect the laws of the land, including divorce laws and women's rights. My children resigned with me, and I wrote that they had nothing to do with the temple or it's man-invented rules--nothing whatsoever.
Taking action counteracts the helplessness of PTSD victims. Throw away all the reminders of bad times, and of the cult. I threw my garments in the garbage with coffee grounds and used cat-litter.
Today, I had my first anxiety attack in about 3 years. One of my best friends had died. When you're down, the PTSD seems to come back--but it really doesn't come back permanently. Allow yourself to backslide sometimes. Don't beat yourself up for not recovering perfectly! My attacks last 10 minutes, max, but during that time I feel that there is no escape. There is no end. I am going to die. I quickly removed myself from the situation, got in my car and screamed.
Then I remembered what my psychiatrist had told me: anxiousness and fear lives in the past and sometimes in the future. My brother and ex husband are not with me. No one is harming me. It was only a threat of harm, from which I removed myself. I will never go back there. Right now, in the present, I am safe, in my locked car, away and hidden. My life is amazing, my children are great, loving souls. Mother's Day is coming up.
You can learn just what to say to yourself, to calm yourself down. Learn yoga breathing. Breathe into a paper bag. Pray. Understand that if you take yourself outside, into a private bathroom (like at a party), change your scenery, your mood will change. Most anxiety attacks last less than 20 minutes. A lot of them last only a few minutes.
(((hugs to you))) I'm sorry you had bad experiences. Don't let horrible people take up any more of your memories. Don't let them ruin you happiness in the present. Keep them out of your future. I had to get rid of some toxic people in my life, and that was tough, but worth being well. I was never so bad that I couldn't do a good day's work, though, thank goodness.
Please return and report.
I have no "manuals" to recommend, but I do recommend that you study your enemies. "The Mask of Reason" from the AMA Journal helped me the very most. It helped my understand the psychopaths who abused me. Soon you will realize that their victims aren't even part of the equation. It's all about the abuser and their own issues.
It helped me not to think of the cult as a whole, but to single out each individual, and my relationship with them, and resolve things, one person at a time. It has taken me years.
The upside is that the world outside Mormonism becomes more and more friendly, and loving, and beautiful, and exciting. Getting to know yourself can be fun, and surprising.
Last piece of advice, in deciding what is toxic to you, and what your PTSD "triggers" are--and that is, to always follow your own gut instincts!