This was recently posted on reddit/exmormon
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/dok1o3/id_like_to_bear_my_testimony_one_last_time/I am sharing this with the RfM audience with the OP's permission, stated as follows:
"Yes, please feel free to share. I’m not worried about getting credit, it feels good just to send this pyre out to burn."
==== I’d like to bear my testimony one last time ====
Dear Mormon Church,
I’m angry at you, at the institution, at your tradition of female abuse and subjugation. I let you determine my life, my path, my worth, my value, my strengths and weaknesses. I let you devalue my humanity. I let you hurt my children. I’m angry.
I’ve stayed quiet for 46 years but no more. I’ve smiled, I’ve shrugged my shoulders, I’ve made excuses, I’ve bowed my head and closed my eyes for too long and I cannot anymore. I sat on my pew every Sunday with the men presiding over me dictating my every thought and action as a woman. The clothes we wear the movies we watch the volume of our laughter. We shush the children we have born because of duty as you sleepily preside over us.
You sit in the young women classes I teach listening, watching, making sure I am not leading them astray. I have played by the rules, all of them all my life. I sat while you asked me about my sex life, berated me for masterbating, not wearing the correct underwear, garments, while at the gym.
I’ve sat there being judged by a standard that I didn’t chose and that no one could ever possibly live up to and I’m angry.
I sat outside the closed door while you sat alone with my scared 14yr old daughter asking about the underwear she was wearing during her sexual assault, asking her if she orgasmed?! She didn’t even know the definition of the word. I’m angry!
I’ve taught hundreds of young women over the years that their sexual purity was their MOST prized possession. Not their intellect or their sense of humor, their PURITY. So ask me what happened to all those girls who “sinned” sexually? What happened to their sense of self-worth, now that they are damaged goods. Remember you can pull the nail out of the wood but there will always be a hole! Remember that example? Yeah, I’m angry!
What have I learned from being raised in this tradition you ask? My shoulders and knees are too provocative to be exposed. My human female body is inappropriate. Sex is not a natural expression of mutual attraction but a sacred act ONLY to be experienced with one person after marriage. My most important role is that of wife and mother, I have babies assigned to me waiting in heaven and if I don’t have them they will go to another family that may not be a safe loving family like mine. My role is to have babies and raise them to grow up and have more babies.
We women are given cursory roles to placate us but we don’t have any power. The men hold the priesthood and all the power. We all know we are here to keep a nice home, make delicious meals, be as modestly attractive as possible, raise happy healthy children who obey all of the commandments. That is the standard, I’m angry.
I am more than a vagina, my internal organs don’t dictate the rules you’ve determined for me, my daughters and all the millions of women under your control. Yes I said it, control, what else can you call it? That’s what it is isn’t it? It’s emotional control, it’s Psychological control, it’s mental control and yes, physical control.
I’ve sat 4 times while my husband and all the men of his choosing gather around the newly born child that I carried for 9 months and pushed into this world, circling around with hands on shoulders to proclaim a blessing while women sit, heads bowed, scratching the words a man speaks like it’s a Prophecy worthy of canonization. Then he hoists the baby overhead like a prize and the congregation all collectively sigh in admiration. What if I wanted that moment, what if I was inspired to proclaim this blessing? No, not possible, my vagina dictates otherwise. I’m angry!
I lived a life that was a lie. It turns out all these rules were just made up and ripped off from other religions or movements. It’s strange finding out that that rock solid foundation that forced you to overlook all those red flags your whole life, is literally just lies. It’s not a foundation at all but a janky multilevel corporation with a gross sexual deviant founder at its core.
That beautiful miracle of God appearing to Joseph Smith never happened. And the church, who dictates your every move, knows full well the truth and has waged a campaign of deceit for 200 years to keep those lies covered up. I’m angry.
I want a do over! I want to be 8 again and NOT feel like a piece of shit for sinning after my baptismal clean slate. I want to choose a career based on my desires and strengths! I want to date and have sex and fall in love naturally over and over until one day it’s the right person. I want a wedding where I don’t take off all my clothes and have someone wipe oil over my naked breasts, bare stomach and thighs. I want to decide for myself when and if I want to have a family. I want to raise my children to be healthy normal humans without guilt and pressure and evil and Satan. I’m angry!
I want to wake up and find out it was just a very elaborate dream and I get to start again and this time I’m free!
Guess what, Mormon Church? I have broken those creepy bonds you’ve held me down with all my life and I’m doing my damndest to erase the damage you’ve caused me and my family. I’m teaching them there is a different way, that they don’t have to be afraid, ashamed, that they can have everything I was denied and they can live free.
I may not be able to turn back the hands of time but I won’t sit down, I won’t shut up. I will take back my power I never knew I had and I will scream and shout and yes I will allow this anger to take hold of this wheel and steer this life forward and this time I will aim for the stars, because I am free!!!
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 09:20PM by beyondashadow.