Thoughts on some of my reading . . . .

Jonathan Shay, a Boston psychiatrist with the Veterans Administration, who treats psychological trauma, writes and speaks about the concept of Moral Injury--the betrayal and violation of "what's right" by people holding legitimate power in a high stakes situation causes us moral harm. That harm is is the destruction of social trust, a sense of helplessness, and fear.

Although Shay is writing about combat and the experience of men and women in the military, the idea of Moral Injury can be applied to some degree to the experience of many of us who were committed to Mormonism. Whenever a leader of the Mormon Church, whom we invested with authority, violated our trust by acting unjustly and arbitrarily, and it wasn't put to right, we experienced mistrust, violation, frustration, anger, and sometimes helplessness.

The consequence for some of us is to mistrust others in authority, particularly religious authority, and to become very sensitive to any other possible violations by anyone, so much so that it can be difficult to form close relationships and we become isolated.

Shay also writes that Moral Injury heals through participation in a trustworthy, accepting, and supportive communities, and by telling our stories through narrative and art. The story-telling, conversations, and cartooning we do here is potentially healing as long as there is a high enough level of safety.

Your thoughts?

Not sure that I could really consider a website as a supportive community - there's too much anonymity for building trust.
I hadn't heard the concept of Moral Injury before, it makes a lot of sense to me.

I joined the church during a period of emotional fragility. Those Mormons all seemed like such nice folks, even if their religion was a bit hokey.

When they started leaching all the fun out of activities and harping about things like white shirts and no flip-flops and tattoos and ear piercings, I got this "WTF???" feeling. I remember thinking, "This isn't spiritual, it's micro-management!"

The church I joined was like one big family. When it morphed into a dictatorship, I found the EXIT sign. I'm not keen on dictators.

I feel I've been morally injured at least twice, neither time having much to do with Mormonism. I blame my parents for exposing me to that, although I suppose I could count the church as a third, indirect moral injurer.

The Mormon church steals people's money; deprives them of knowledge, experience, and enjoyment; prevents them from having healthy, fulfilling relationships; and basically sets them up to fail at life. That's four huge moral injuries. Much of the harm done, and I happen to think most, is irreparable. Even those of us who escaped early carry a lot of mental baggage.

This is a great supportive community, if you can stand a few know-it-alls. It's been tremendously cathartic for me, and I especially enjoy the learning aspect of it. It's addictive, though, and I sometimes wonder if it's all that good for me personally. It tends to dredge up my stuff, and it seems the more I read about what the church is doing now and what others go through because of it, the more disgusted I become.

But, on the whole, it provides some satisfaction I wouldn't otherwise get. And I do enjoy giving advice.

:-)

I do believe this is a supportive, albeit virtual, community. For people who are traumatized by being ostracized by the ward and even their family, it is safer risk-wise to find acceptance using a pseudonym and interacting two-dimensionally.

It's a good first step--and some posters become acquainted for real when they meet. The awkwardness is eased by knowing the poster's sense of humor and POV. You have a starting point, "I loved your post when you said...."

You can also choose to stay virtual yet have people who know your story and can give you good advice. It's not ideal, but it is part of recovery, for sure.

Anagrammy

I agree. I very definitely was morally injured by mormonism on many levels.

This board is where I came "full circle"--came to understand why I got where I was. I got over my regrets about the decisions I'd made based on bad info. I've been able to talk about such things as bishopric interviews which were extremely damaging to my sense of wellbeing. I have dealt with many of my demons from mormonism thanks to the people on this board.

Very few of the people I know--TBM or not--were not morally injured in some fashion by mormonism whether they choose to recognize it or not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2010 10:31AM by cl2.

This is what I find morally injurous in mormonism. You have 15 old men that expect us to acknowlege that they are prophets, seers and revelators, and/or special witnesses of Jesus. But these self proclaimed special witnesses are either #1 delusional or #2 outright conning us. I assumed that the level of integrity would be very very high for such self proclaimed prophets and special witnesses. But they are leaders of an organization that manipulates, and controls information.

We expect this behaviour from polititions, but men that proclaim to the world to be leaders of the one and only true church, and you find out the manipulating of facts, then my integrity says that I must leave from following their leadership.

An organization that blinds its followers from critical thinking, researching and accepting facts, from controlling most aspects of your lives, should have a high level of integrity, and should be promoting a lifestyle that will benifit your life. But what I have found is that they just want to use us to benifit the cult. It is soooo very very full of irresponisble, one size fits all, mormon expectations, in a culture of conditional love/affection, that it in reality appears to be anti individual, anti critical thinking, anti accepting, anti relationship, and anti family.

They promote the church as the #1 priority, above all else, even God, Jesus, spouse, children, finances. It creates delusional followers that are void of cooperation, acceptance and compromise.

Mormonism will damage your relationships with either your friends, parents, your spouse, your siblings, or your children. Just read this board for a half hour and you will see the aftermath of destroyed relationships. Even amounst tbm's, one turbo tbm may be dissatisfied with efforts of the other tbm. Many tbm's lose the ability to enjoy life and a variety of activities, to only act happy doing only mormon stuff.

The self righteous, worthy unworthy culture can seriously affect ones self esteem, and the culture of shame through interviews, damages self worth and acceptance. It seems like ego driven mormons become increasingly heartless, and judgemental/victimizing and regular mormons become victimized, guilted and dissolutioned.

When you believe it all and try to do it all, it may negatively affect your maturation.

"Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

I openly acknowledge Mormonism helped me to a point--I would say to the point I completed my education at BYU. After that, I found myself not well-equipped to deal with life. I don't blame Mormonism for my original lack, but the encouragement in magical thinking reinforced my tendency not to face what I needed to do and hindered me from moving on (hence the scripture above).

Had I not invested so much in the Mormon Church, I wouldn't hold this against them. However, they promised much and delivered a lot less. What is worse, the church strongly discourages and hinders members from evaluating whether or not it is good for an individual. The church as an organization and its leadership doesn't admit fault or error but readily attributes fault and blame to members, which they take.

As a member, I spend a lot of time feeling I was going in circles and only had myself to blame. Some of that is on me, but a great deal of it is on the leadership and organization that discourages its members from evaluating how the church and leadership contributes to the problem and speaking up for themselves.

There was a time when I was a pretty laidback fellow.
These days though, I find myself more judgemental and less forgiving than I was before my stint as a faithfull axniously enaged mormon.
Perhaps, it came about as a result of the steps needed to repent and be one of them. In order for me to return into full fellowship, I had to cast off many heavy chains. Chains made up of bad habits, lingering mistakes, addiction to various chemicals and moral discrepencies. I went to the Bishops with full intent and confessed everything I could think of. As a part of my repentance process, I was disfellowshipped and put on Probation for a year.

It was very hard. It was an agonizing yet promising time. When they said I was free to partake of the Sacrament, it was an experience that I cannot describe. It was the first time since I was 18.

Where much is given, much is required. I took that to heart and swore my allegience to my saviour and the church swearing in my heart that I would be the last remaining member if needed. And while i have many faults and weaknesses, I did everything as perfectly as I could and obeyed every commandment to the best of my ability (admittedly laziness sometimes won over) and expected the same from other people.

To be sure, I became very judgemental even to the point of developing roadrage. Surely, if the rules say this, you can at least try to stop for a red light (you rotten so-n-so)? My family began to resent the new rules that befell us, and the person I was becoming.

Anyway, discovering that the church was false and subsequently discovering that the church lied to me about everything, it made me bitter. Bitter because I bared my soul and submitted myself and my family completely to them. Everything including the family was put behind the first priority of the church, just as it demanded. Demanded as payment for my salvation and possible exaltation.

Injured? You betcha. They injured my family, my soul, my integrity and my personality.

Too bad I can't make them pick up the tab for the counselling expenses...

BobbyB if you have some links to the moral injury material I would appreciate it. This is a fascinating concept I would like to read more about.

I think this paper is helpful. Although the situations soldiers find themselves in are much more intense and dangerous, you can see the kinds of dilemmas and situations in general that lead to a "moral injury."

I'm not wed to this idea as applied to the Mormon Church and ex-Mormons but I think it is worth taking a look at and thinking about.

Correction: Sorry. Gave you a bad URL. I really wasn't being a smart-ass giving you the search page :-) Here is the one I should have provided:

http://www.bu.edu/ssw/research/social/pdf/Moral%20Injury%20CPR.doc

I usually test them before I post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2010 05:04PM by robertb.

Much obliged -- very interested in the ideas.

RfM strikes me as an inbetween stage: a wildly diverse place where one can vent and rage and argue and rant and bitch and whine but ultimately RfM does not offer a high enough "level of safety" to heal moral injuries. Having said that, I wouldn't want RfM to be any different. It thrives on diversity.

Post-LDSinc I haven't known a community that is supportive, accepting and trustworthy. I don't trust communities but have learned to trust some individuals. My mistrust of communities might be a result of being Mormon, but I wonder if you could give an example of a community that does offer a "high enough level of safety" to heal moral injury?



robertb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Shay also writes that Moral Injury heals through
> participation in a trustworthy, accepting, and
> supportive communities, and by telling our stories
> through narrative and art. The story-telling,
> conversations, and cartooning we do here is
> potentially healing as long as there is a high
> enough level of safety.
>
> Your thoughts?

I always thought the safety lay in the anonymity. Developing the ability to communicate thoughts to a diverse range of people is not a trivial accomplishments.

Being able to take criticism as not personal (they don't REALLY know me) is very helpful.

Where do you take it to the next step? Why in your community, of course. In your apartment building, or in your new church. Or in your horseman's group, or in your book discussion club. This is how real society functions: people find friends at places of common interest. Not through people assigned to be friends by your mutual commitment to an exploitative corporation posing as a spiritual guide.

I like meeting people at the library and at my meditation group. My best friend is my neighbor. She knows nothing about Mormonism and if I said anything about anything Thomas Monson said, she would be puzzled as to why I was interested.

So this is a special interest group right here! And it can become a hobby (historians, anthropology, it's got it all) and also an outreach.

So you find your own niche in the world. Some never want to hear another Mormon word. Others have an addiction or fascination like to CSI.

Anagrammy

Human Wrote:

>
> Post-LDSinc I haven't known a community that is
> supportive, accepting and trustworthy. I don't
> trust communities but have learned to trust some
> individuals. My mistrust of communities might be
> a result of being Mormon, but I wonder if you
> could give an example of a community that does
> offer a "high enough level of safety" to heal
> moral injury?
>

I struggle with this, too, although I had good experiences with the local Methodist Church, a psychotherapy process group of which I was a member, and a local NeoPagan church--but that has all been years ago. I think your assessment of RfM matches mine. I think online forums offer some great opportunities in spite of limitations.

Perhaps it would be useful to talk about what makes a community healing. For me, a main characteristic is members are valued and can contribute as they are able or wish without being exploited by others. Rules and expectations would be transparent and to some degree negotiable and those rules that are not negotiable would be at least discussable.

I remember talking with the Methodist pastor about something about why Methodist do some thing or another--I don't remember what--and he gladly explained and added I was not expected to hold the same opinion. I liked that. Let's see . . . . Although people were sometimes asked to account for their speech and behavior, and people disagreed, shaming wasn't allowed. Humor was part of the groups, as was anger, grief, joy, and a range of emotions. I'm just writing things down as I think of them . . . .

What have you seen you like or might want?

I like your story about the Methodists and the pastor, but ultimately I've ruled out organized religion for this life-time at least. I hold a tiny place of envy in my heart for Catholics. I like the tradition, the rituals and their astonishingly rich cultural heritage, but even that small place of envy has all but disappeared with the ascension of the new Pope.

I like your question, though: "What have you seen you like or might want?" It's funny, but after LDSinc I don't think I felt myself wanting another community. I think I was just happy to be out of a community (LDSinc). My wife, on the other hand, struggled mightily for another community and tried out a dozen or so churches, from UU to hard-core evangelicals. I attended some social functions attached to these various churches and found them all to be much more welcoming than any LDS wards I've attended, but ultimately I kept myself aloof from "belonging" to any of them. My wife let all that drop as well. Community for us now is a loose-knit network of friends that aren't inter-connected in any way. So, really, we live sans community.

But I like your ideas of what makes a community healing. Sounds nice. Heh... When I first left LDSinc I thought about looking for a Robert Bly/Iron John kind of drumming circle kind of thing (neo-pagan?), but I caught myself chuckling to myself about my being a 'hippie'. That's unfairly dismissive, of course, but I surmised rather quickly that I wouldn't be comfortable in such a group.

Ultimately I'm happy enough living without a formal community. I'm rather unclubbable anyway, and after work and family I value time alone more than I would another group of people. My wife, on the other hand, needs it. Our kids are getting up there (youngest is 15) and I do worry slightly over how my wife and I will get on once the kids leave. Maybe then will be a good time to seek out a community we can share ourselves with.

How about you? Do you belong to something today that fits your idea of a healing community?

Human Wrote:
>
>
> How about you? Do you belong to something today
> that fits your idea of a healing community?

I don't. I graduated from my M.A. program and got into the licensing process and just ran out of energy. Some of my reluctance is being disconnected for so long and some of it is a hangover of mistrust from Mormonism. I really feel the lack of a community, though.

My therapist and I talk about it and she's encouraged me to make more connections. Seems like I run out of time or energy, but I think I'd be better for it if I did.