Posted by:
severedpuppetstrings
(
)
Date: October 31, 2018 12:33PM
Friendship and fun. Ha!
<--Insert .gif of someone uncontrollably laughing here-->
Friendship was what I had hoped for when I joined the TSCC. Yeah, I met many people, but when you take a good, deep look many of them were never my friends.
I'll echo AmyJo and say that TSCC "loves" people into it's church. That's what happened to me. Getting lovebombed every Sunday and then asked if I would consider joining their church.
I was lovebombed after baptism but like many novelties, they fade.
I had an assigned friend from the moment I started attending services as an "investigator" but I wouldn't say we were true friends. We don't even speak now. Yeah, she gave me rides to church, but we never truly hang out or shared things like friends do. After she started dating the guy that is her husband, I became the third wheel. After she married, we didn't speak much. All I was was an "assignment."
There was another girl in the ward, who I had a rocky friendship with. We did hang out at times before she left for her mission. We kept in touch through letters, and I sent her a package with a sketchbook, writing utensils and art supplies for her birthday. When she returned, her aunt told me that she would like to get in touch with me. So I would give the girl that I had mentioned my number and email address on two occasions (I had moved at the time), but she would NEVER get in touch with me. Others, yes. But she did when she got engaged. I would get the wedding announcement and and an invite to the wedding shower. She called me (someone else in that ward - my old ward - gave her my number...after I had given her my info twice) and asked for my contact information. Congratulations on getting engaged, but where were you for the past six months?
When I moved to Columbia (a suburb of Baltimore), I was lovebombed as a "new attending member." Some took an interest in me, but I wouldn't say that I made any friends there. I was twenty-five (and turned twenty-six during that time), but I did not fit in with the ward's YSA focus group. I tried, but it wasn't working. I would look forward for it to be over, until I decided to go to the investigator's Sunday school (was it called Gospel Principles? I cannot remember). The people in that ward that I was closest to were the elder Sister Missionaries. They would visit me at home, and we got together for lunch and dinner a lot. We would spend time getting to know each other and talking about things deeper than TSCC.
At twenty-six I would have a cerebral hemorrhage. I would take a leave of absence from work, which would lead me to leaving the home that I had rented. I would get lovebombed with cards and flowers while I was recovering from surgery. I actually thought that I was loved. My former coworker (who is TBM) stated that that is one of the beautiful things about being in "the church."
After my experiences, I now strongly disagree.
I would return to the ward in Columbia after seven months. Just before services began, I would have a gran mal seizure that would take me out for twenty minutes right in the church's parking lot. I would officially return to church two weeks later and would get the "welcome back lovebomb" and told how wonderful it was for them to have me back.
But shit would get real afterwards. Since my brain was affected by the hemorrhage, by the radiation surgery, and by the seizure, I would have struggles mentally and emotionally (it's THE BRAIN after all). I would struggle with severe depression...and the anti-seizure medication that I was on didn't help me either.
Those same people that had "lovebombed" me with cards, flowers and hugs started backing away from me. Even as I had improved and gotten better, they still couldn't stand the sight of me. Even when I tried to smile and greet them at church, they would turn their heads and pretend that they didn't know me. Funny, because they would get up on the pulpit for a talk or front and center for a lesson and talk about how important charity is and how necessary it is to be kind and uplift people. Hypocrites. Their sermons are pure bullshit in my eyes.
I would love to know how friendship is defined in TSCC. Through my eyes and my experience, it just goes as far as the "Hi, how are ya!" or cards or Visiting Teaching (or Home Teaching in some cases), but in reality, all it is is them checking your name off of a required monthly box. The majority of it was shallow, short-term, and at times with ulterior motives.
That's all just based on my experience though. I'm sure that some people here have had different experiences, and may have people in the church that they may have a true friendship with.
Me? Out of the twelve years I spent in the church I feel that I only have one true friend, because we've been through so much together. She's seen me at my worst, and still loves me like a sister.
So yeah, good luck with TSCC on their possibly attempts of adding friendship and fun to their agendas.
Sorry for the long post, and the quasi-rant.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2018 12:33PM by severedpuppetstrings.