Thought i overcame this but as i passed someone with a suit on today i realize that i have not overcome this trigger quite fully yet. Still have some work to do to not let people in suits bother me. Was surrounded by people in suits for a lot of my life it seems. Dress up dress up look nice to everyone at church over and over for no reason other than portray a false image to the public of a 'perfect' family.

Can anyone relate? Maybe not. Still have trauma from it all obviously even being resigned for a while now.

Anyways, hope you guys are doing good where ever you are in life and hope you have a merry christmas even if there may be no jesus. The debate if jesus did exist and walk this planet at one time will go on and on and on i think haha. Oh well the holiday comes regardless if christ existed or not.

Absolutely yes... but I think it is more than just the Mormonism thing. I also have a reflexive distrust of salespeople, lawyers and people that live in the corporate world and likely wear suits.

Basically, if someone wears a suit, I start from the premise that they are a phony lying piece of shit until they prove otherwise.

When I left the cult, one of the first things I did was trash my white shirt collection. I now own just 2 ties and those virtually never get worn. I should get rid of them as well. On those rare occasions when I wear something formal, it is a colored dress shirt - never white. It takes me back to my missionary days.

Ditto. Well said.

Strength in the Loins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Absolutely yes... but I think it is more than just
> the Mormonism thing. I also have a reflexive
> distrust of salespeople, lawyers and people that
> live in the corporate world and likely wear
> suits.
>
> Basically, if someone wears a suit, I start from
> the premise that they are a phony lying piece of
> shit until they prove otherwise.

Totally agree with this. You can another category... our rulers.

The whole thing is about prestige not faith. In the old days, the pioneers would have ordinary clothing, now it's designer suits etc.

Amen. You beat me to it.

Strength in the Loins Oh your username made me laugh. Oh Lord hear the words of my mouth.

I admit that i also do not have dress clothes and haven't for many years now. Maybe it is childish for me to not even have one suit but i don't know. I feel i served my time with dressing up in life at least for now. I felt like a phony as well when i dressed up and went to church. I never even believed in the religion so every time i dressed up to go to church i felt like a phony lie just doing what the fake 'family' was doing.

One of the main things i learned is the lengths that some people will go to to portray a false image of perfection. Like we are talking decades and decades of pretending and acting. Felt like my 'family' of origin were just full-time actors really and i do wonder how many others grew up in a similar scenario as myself surrounded by false people for most of life. My mind still struggles to wrap my mind around the whole thing really.

Only on Sundays. I often do some grocery shopping late on Sunday mornings or in the afternoon, and seeing people wearing church clothing is triggering. I don't know why, since I really don't care if people attend church or not, yet I find it disturbing nonetheless.

My trigger is having one-to-one interviews with my various bosses at my employment. Despite feeling confident in my skills, my work ethic and abilities, I develop tremendous anxieties of answering questions behind closed doors.

Ditto. Well said. It started early and now I'm in my 50s and I still feel like an 8 going into a room and closing the door by one in authority.

I can see how being behind closed doors would cause anxieties. It would for me even still. The shadiest and most disturbing things i experienced in life happened behind closed doors with another individual. They think if its just you and them behind closed doors and they are the stronger individual and more prominent in the religion that it gives them free reign and power to do whatever they want to the weaker individual. No witnesses behind closed doors and they know this also. Your word against theirs and people will always choose the side of the more prominent person in religion and the more well known one unfortunately.

Yes, I'm triggered. It doesn't bother me if they have something other than a dress shirt and tie on under the suit coat. Mormon men, though, have that look. Some do. Not all. My dad didn't. They have that look as if they have authority over you. I had to learn to let them know they don't since most of the bishops have been next door neighbors since I quit going to church. In fact, the bishop that was in this ward when my husband left is now the stake president and lives two doors down.

When they moved here, they weren't active. I'd walk to church and he'd be mowing his front lawn on Sundays. I pointed that out to him when he e-mailed me his testimony. My daughter is close to the family. He was bishop when she decided to go back to church.

I don't go many places that I see men in suits even if I live in a mormon neighborhood. I live in a lower middle class neighborhood, so not many businessmen who live here. The stake president teaches institute these days.

The word "tithing" triggers me. Money hungry cooperation :(

Merry Christmas to you Adam.

You too and happy new years. Hope you all have a good year this next year.

Happy New Year from France, Adam. Wishing you a great year.

Not unless it is a group of them, and every one of them is wearing a white shirt.



Hint, only happens with Mormons.

Mormons in suits belly bucking in the downtown crosswalks when I first got here--just deliberately walked right into me. Guys in dark suits would eye me across the street, shift their gaze just off me, then deliberately veer into walking right into me in the crosswalk no matter if I aimed off to their side. They shifted their direction right into me when I tried to walk around them coming on.

Just looking right through me until the light/walk sign changed, then adjusting their crossing to barge right into me while I aimed to walk to the side of them. I learned to just keep on coming right into them, bounce them, and make them go around.

Not triggered per se. But between religious folks, politicians, business leaders, etc., white men in suits are the demographic that have ripped me off the most.

> . . .between religious
> folks, politicians, business leaders, etc., white
> men in suits are the demographic that have ripped
> me off the most.

That's an interesting way to put it. I venture that if we added "heterosexual" to your list of adjectives, the vast majority of posters on RfM would personally agree.

The truth is that that lock-step "demographic" doesn't describe us and it doesn't describe most Mormons or even most Americans. By appealing to IBM's human resources department, the LDS church is marching right down a cul-de-sac of white picket fences that ends in, well, a locked white picket fence.

wear a suit for my job sometimes and I can get triggered by my own reflection in the mirror. I told a never mo recently that to me a suit is a symbol of religious oppression.