Posted by:
exminion
(
)
Date: November 14, 2019 01:53AM
I like your story, Elderolddog. You obviously had/have writing talent.
I'm a BYU grad, too, and probably graduated in scholarship tennis and recreational skiing. I began as an English major, and wanted to teach high school English, but didn't like the English Department, so I majored in science, which was less subjective. The dorms and student government were fun, but we played like children. The classes were interesting, but bland, and it was a lot like high school. I graduated and got married in the temple to a RM, like I was supposed to. After 14 months of being battered, I escaped to another city, got a job, and put myself through graduate school, so I could support myself for the rest of my life. Personally, I would never have made it as a working female in '70's, if I hadn't gotten a DECENT education from a REAL university. I was married again, briefly, long enough to have several children, but then went back to being single and self-supporting again. Most Mormon women still don't prepare for this eventuality.
I found it almost impossible to survive in the Mormon bubble! I was almost killed by my TBM ex, cheated on and abandoned by my second TBM ex, and robbed of hope and confidence by the Mormon cult. Life was much easier outside the bubble--in every possible way! My children did much better in life, too.
I know fellow BYU students who never did leave Provo. They can throw their weight around, be "experts in their field", and administrative big-wigs, without having any real talent or imagination.
Sorry to ramble--my point is:
The BYU Mormons I knew didn't have a sense of humor!
They didn't appreciate humor of any kind, coming from others, either. Of course, they didn't like elderolddog's writing. Mormon literature? (Seven Habits and the Twilight books) Mormon art? (Frieberg's muscle men and those statues of silly, skinny people dancing) Mormon music? (Janice Knapp Perry, Saturday's Warriors, the Motab Choir, don't get me started). That's partly why I left BYU, because nothing really great (except Philo Farnsworth) came out of BYU. Both my ex-husbands came out of there. I came out of there.
I feel I changed things, and broke the curse, by graduating from graduate school from a different University, which I consider my true Alma Mater.