1. How my first ward that I grew up with and all the people that I loved as my friends and family could suddenly be broken apart and I NEVER saw many of those people again due to newly drawn ward boundaries. It was like someone cut off a piece of my soul and all the "love" I'd been taught about was gone as I could not understand why even as a child all these people I loved and was totally comfortable with were suddenly out of my life.

2. My new ward was in a rougher part of town, I knew no one and had to start completely over with friendships. This was really hard on my young mind.

3. The pressure to get baptized.

4. Turning 11 and going to Merrie Miss and having my first lessons on how when I graduated high school I was to marry an RM and do his dishes, iron his clothes and do all the housework so he could go into the world and fulfill his duties. This terrified me. I was a budding yound woman, good at sports, had a great voice and my entire life was to be based soley around a man. This was terrifying to me.

5. Turning 12 and going to church week after week and hearing the same lessons over and over in YW about marrying young, having many babies, and then in Sunday School about the same stories of JS that I'd already heard a million times. I was at the time watching my mother go through 11 miscarriages and the realities of multiple pregnancies was terrifying to me as I saw what could happen and how tired and angry she was all the time.

6. Feeling like I had to have this extraordinary personality because the older I got the more the people around me were dumbing down and I refused and therefore had to be super human.

7. Turning 16 and hearing that my job as a mother meant I had to sacrifce ALL my desires even staying physically fit to be there for my children and husband. Also being taught that I had to accept polygamy when I died, and that the boys were so insecure with their lot as "men" that they had to be given the priesthood, therefore I was not to show them up with my intelligence, talent, or appearance or else I'd make them feel bad, Jesus feel bad and/or cause the boys to sin. Those dang boys just could not get their self esteem together without controlling the women.

8. Realizing that there was no RM to marry after high school graduation and that I done NOTHING to prepare for my audlt life as I was promised if lived the "gospel" as a teen and forsook sex, worldly friends and activities, the Lord would bless me with my Celestial life. I was shocked that I didn't meet Mr. RM right after graduation. Honestly. First of many let downs and "ah ha" moments.

9. Realizing that my parents did not save one dime for my future. All money went into tithing and her health bills. I had nothing and no where to go.

10. Upon going on a mission and attending the temple prep class, I learned NOTHING about the temple, just felt like another ad naseum sunday school lesson.

11. Upon going into the endowment room, being told I could leave if I wanted before I was even told what was going on. I was surrounded by family and friends and felt trapped but the alarm bells in my head were going off.

12. Upon finishing the endowment, thinking..."my parents have been doing this for how many years??" Then upon some research after mission learning they had promised to have their throats and bowels cut open if they ever told me the truth about what they did in the temple. If I ever would have been told about the death penalties, I promise you I'd have left the church at whatever age that would have been. Those penalties are the prostitution of pure filth. Also feeling like my parents were conned and foolish for wearing such strange and odd clothing, especially the bakers hats for the men. I could not understand how a man that is supposedly supposed to be "King" could look so utterly foolish and still think that was ok.

13. Feeling nothing in the Celestial room other than rushed out.

14. Feeling the worse mental pain and trauma on my mission that I'd ever felt before in my life.

15. Upon returning being shunned by my family for not wanting to get married and breaking off an engagement.

16. Upon researching the church and choosing to leave, reading about the realities of polygamy and how miserable the women and children were and how much poverty and emotional abuse they lived under and to think that my family and culture were perfectly fine with this.

17. To see the pure hatred in the eyes of family and friends when I stepped out of the church. Such evil and hate projected at me was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

18. Seeing the plight of women in the church. Seeing them severly depressed, over weight, without hope, without their own minds, with out their own sovereighty, without their own personhood as if they'd been abducted and broken. And...feeling those same things happening to me as if all the happiness in my soul was being taken from me and I was doomed to a life of slavery.

19. Realizing that the men, in very UNPAID, very UNPROFESSIONAL positions had very real power over me, and my family. I saw them attempt to infiltrate my mind, my choices, the way I felt about myself. It was real and it was terrifying. These supposed men who had no training whatsoever were judging people, hurting people, and thought it was their right. All the while the fools weren't even getting paid for all their time away from their own families and their own lives and ambitions.

20. Finally, the way earning money was looked down upon. For me in YW, earning money was to be avoided as that just isn't what Jesus would do. So, education was not needed, the Lord would magically provide through the boys and the church. We were to focus on childrearing and homemaking and magically that would make every single one of us regardless of our various personalities...blissfully happy.

21. One more thing. As a youth the constant talk about sex. It was always "don't have it". There was no other talk about the future, about honor, integrity, hard work, achievment, just "don't have sex". It was sick how much time they spent on sex. It was if they were projecting their constant horniness at us young blood. It repulsed me.

+1

Wow - such an articulate, well-thought out post that I feel bad my only comment on it is "ditto". But seriously, ditto. You captured so much of the plight of women in the church. The breakable nature of significant relationships as you change wards and move, the stunted goals of YW resulting in the trapped, desperate position of Mormon women, the incompetence of most men forced to fill leadership positions they are not trained or suited for right down to the bad, hateful, un-Christlike behavior of his so-called followers when someone doesn't knuckle under and do as they are told by the church. It is scary and while I'm not a big believer in the existence of an actual personage called Satan, it's easy to see what a brilliant deception the LDS church would be with him in charge. I mean, it really is the church I think he'd found if he were real. Like when C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters and discussed how to lead good people astray. That's the scariest thing about the church, IMO..

Lori,
You are doing some serious work, and some serious thinking for yourself. You are going to come out of this ok. You're so much further ahead of it all than I was at your age.

I'm amazed and proud of your progress. Keep heading in the direction you need to go.

I'm so glad that you have RFM support. I think it makes a huge difference. I didn't have that when I was 30 and 40 because it didn't exist. Use it to your full advantage. There is a huge community out there that sees your potential and value. Your parents, all 4 of them, really missed the boat.

Thank you Mia, that means so much to me.

I remember about 10 years ago I was sick with the flu. My stomach hurt like hell. In that moment it occurred to me that that is something of what I would have gone through for 9 months every time I had a child. I knew at that moment that I could not have done all of this mental processing and gone through a traditional marriage and child rearing. I knew then that I had made the right decision for me in not having children. I also realized at that moment how DISGUSTING it is to assume, and to force women to go through a pregancy, let alone several without full disclosure of what that really means to a woman and her body and mind. I find it horrifying to assume that every woman who get pregnant can handle it fine. It just isn't true. I think it isn't fair to a young woman with stars in her eyes to be forced to face a pregnancy and PAIN before she even gets to leave her parents home, go out into the world and LIVE!!!

When I realized I wasn't going to have children, I was so glad because if I had done so I would have forced Mormonism on them because I wasn't out yet. Now, I can say...for me, I did the right thing.

But dang, asking a young woman who has already gone through the mental brainwashing and trauma that is YM's, and then ask her to go through such physical pain and the responsibility of marriage at such a young impressionable age is frightening to me. If you are ready for such things, great, but very few young woman really are. IMO, if you have not travelled to a different State, Country, Military, College, have some cash in the bank for your own independence, then no, you don't know what the real world is, and how can you teach that to your kids if you don't have it first? I know so many woman have married young and had kids early because that is what they had to do, but man, is that fair? I don't think so. People need a chance to actually grow up and experience the world and figure out who they are and how they handle different experiences before you can know what you want, what sexuality you are, what you feel about different things...you must have your own identity and sovereignty firmly in place before you can know if you are ready for marriage and parenthood or even if you want that...but then, that is exactly why they push it so young isn't it?

To all the women out there, I hold you, I get you. I am you.

Thanks Lori, for your profound post. I too sat through years of doubt while I ignored my gut feeling that this was just all wrong. The years of my youth were full of doubt and confusion as were everyones regardless of race, religion or circumstanses.I was lucky to escape after graduation and find my own path.I am not a patient person, but believe me time will heal.I read this site daily and it never feels to give me peace on some level,Thanks to all.

last one was supposed to read Fail..not feel. still early. ;)

Ward boundaries always seemed awful to me. My daughter is a convert and I thought, how terible it would be to not go to the "church" of your relatives because you lived too far apart. I know it is to keep eyes on you. The bishop is nearby, and he can send his minnions out to home teach, etc, He can get good reports on you by all the spies. IT is another control aspect of the "church". So stupid and not of Christ. Freedom to go to a church building of your choice is one part of religion that enables you to leave one easily and go to another if they change pastors and you don't care for the new one, or it may be they elimiate programs you like and can go elsewhere to get what you do like. Mormons sure do like control over their freedoms.

06.02.2012

I just happened to come across this while researching on Wiki exactly what Mormonism really is. This very well written article tells it like it is. I am totally shocked, my mouth is hanging open. My lightweight upbringing as a Catholic was no big deal, but this is unbelievable. Something is wrong out there somewhere, and I have to ask myself, "What country are we in?"

What country are we in? Keep that in mind in November, especially if you are female.

And as for you, Lori, thank you for enlightening us. I have been an ex-Catholic and ex-everything else for 50 years, I think I'll stay that way

J

Bravo! Well written and great thoughts!

I didn't learn how to be a genuine human being until I was 30 years old. I had never had a truly honest relationship before. It was always a matter of obeying Mormon pretenses and of role playing.

That changed when I met my wife who, somehow, had survived her own Mormon background and had learned to stand on her own feet. She was the one who finally taught me how to be honest!

Much of what Lori has said here reminds me of my wife. Mormonism always paints men as the leaders...just as often it is the women.

concept of "role playing". That is a perfect discription of what I and all of us did as we "obeyed". When I found my own authenticity and stepped into my own personhood and felt the beautiful selfhood, the truth, the reality of what it meant to be ME, I saw clearly how every single thing about the church for both genders is that role playing. Women don't want to be submissive and breed for an organization...men don't want to sell religion...and pay for that opportunity, not get paid mind you...and then come home and instantly take on the responsibility of marriage and parenthood. People want freedom to live their lives the way they know is right for them, the way they know their minds are best suited to live. If I was a male, I'd hate feeling like I ALWAYS had to be tough, preside over any and all things, constantly ask someone to pray over noodles, pretend to be ok, at all times and in all things and it all places, especially if I was cracking inside and could never show it. What if I wasn't suited to being "in charge" with my personality? What if I wanted to be friends with the women, not dominate them?

Either way, male or female, the church attempts to destroy the "self". I'm so glad we are all awakening.