#859 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8

I was a girl around 3 to 5 or so. A tomboy. I loved doing rough and tumble things with the neighborhood boys and I loved camping. My brothers and my dad were loading up the truck to go camping. I was soooo excited to go. But…. I was told to get out of the truck because I was a girl and so I could not go. Their camp out was just for fathers and sons. I was confused. I didn’t understand what being a girl had to do with camping. I was denied, rejected and devalued. I felt crushed. Due to this being a church activity, I didn’t understand why God didn’t like girls as much as boys. I cried and begged to be allowed to go. No one cared about how I felt. And actually, I believe my middle brother enjoyed my rejection. From then on, I always tried to prove that I was just as good and tough as boys. But through my life it didn’t matter. I was just a girl and girls are required to grow up to be the servant to a man and vessel for breeding his children. This is the truth that is hidden between the colorfully deceitful lines.

When I was in first grade, there was a boy that had bladder control issues and peed his pants every day. One day my teacher became fed up with this boy. My teacher sent all of us out of the room, un-attended, while she took his pants, and I believe his underwear, off of him and taped paper hand drying sheets on him like a diaper. She then made him stand on his desk. She brought all of us back into the room to observe him that way for the rest of the day. Growing up, I also had bladder control issues. I wasn’t as bad off as he was but I did have accidents too. I was mortified by what this teacher did to him and I felt so awful for him. I also became terrified that she could do that to me.  It is humiliating enough to endure peeing your pants at school in front of other kids, but what she did……I don’t have the words for…. but she should’ve gone to jail. It was very hard and humiliating to go through adolescence with this problem. My parents knew I had this issue but they never attempted to do anything about it. I dealt with it myself.

That year, this same teacher told my mother she should hold me back due to my reading. My mother, not having much ability to think objectively toward authority figures, did just that. I repeated the first grade. That year is when I adopted the belief that I was stupid.

My second, first grade teacher was very intimidating and stern.  I was afraid of her. I always tried to be invisible to her. Almost every reading day, she sent me home with a frowny-face card to have my mother sign. These cards hurt my feelings and made me feel stupid. I always did my best to read well but it didn’t matter. Everyday I lived in fear at school that the other kids would realize that I was stupid. Every day till the day I graduated from high school I had stress and anxiety at school.

I am the youngest of six. Like the Brady bunch, we were boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl. My oldest brother gave me positive attention and I loved him more than anyone else for that. The same year that I had been held back, he died.

My parent’s friend pulled me and two of my siblings out of our classes at our school. Dad was waiting for us in the big white Cadillac. We got in the back of the car and were told that my brother died. It was an odd feeling of complete numbness that washed through me and filled my body like a wave from my feet to my head. I was emotionally paralyzed. I knew he was gone but I could not feel anything. I could not cry or do anything. It was like I was watching a story being told that I had no attachment to.  I was just an observer and yet I knew my life had taken a real bad turn. That year I realized that life was not a good thing. It was serious, painful and hard.

Mormons have a way of trying to make light of death. Death is not suppose to be so traumatic because we will live with them again. Even our funerals are more about proselytizing for the church instead of honoring the person who we have lost. Their death is secondary at best. But ok, fine, one day I will die and see him again, but…. what about me living my life without my favorite person? I was 7 years old. What about all of the years I was going to have to grow up in a home without the person that was most attentive to me.

He was 19 when he died. I believe this played into my difficulty with his death too. He was like an adult to me. He was an adult that valued me. I don’t know why that is relevant but it just feels like it is.

I guess God didn’t care about me and my needs. But then how selfish of me, what a bad little kid I was to think I should be important enough to God for God to put my needs ahead of the decisions to take my brother away. Not only did I feel unimportant to God but I also felt guilty for wanting to be that important to him. Everyone just moved on like his death sucked but eh, that’s life, we’ll see him again.   I am still dumbfounded by my families ability to have diminished  the heaviness of this event on us or at least on me. But what could I say? I was just an insignificant kid with no way to understand or express what his death did to me.

As a child, I felt like I was a burden to my parents in general and also I felt like a financial burden. I didn’t ever feel comfortable asking for things. There was food and all the other basic things we needed in the house but taking care of ourselves was our own responsibility. My diet consisted of mostly cereal and eggs. I don’t have any memories of mom cooking anything but microwavable TV dinners and pot pies for herself. I felt unimportant and overlooked except when it came to a few issues with school and when it came to the church. The energy that my parents put into me seemed to be to fulfill their legal obligations, but more importantly to fulfill their Mormon duties to make sure I was indoctrinated. I was made to go to church and church activities and they were interested in whether I was being a good Mormon girl, but other than that, not much attention. Not much affection in actions or words. We did do some family activities together from time to time but my day to day life, I was almost invisible.

– Side Note: My brother, the one that is just older than me, and I get along like two peas from the same pod. But, if we give each other a compliment, it is done through saying a negative thing in a sarcastic manner. This is code for a compliment. Affection and affectionate words are just so awkward. I have told him that I love him maybe twice. I had to force myself to do it because it was so…… I don’t know….but not comfortable. To this day, I do not like to be touched by my parents. On the rare occasion that it happens, it creeps me out.

My parents didn’t take the time to get to know me. They took the time to tell me what to believed, but they were not that interested in me. They didn’t acknowledge my issues or pains. They didn’t notice my struggles. No one noticed that I was a wreck or they just didn’t care. It isn’t that I never told those around me that I had issues. I did, but my issues were always minimized, disregarded, used against me or to tell me that there was something wrong with me. As I got older I learned to keep my problems to myself. I cried a lot as a child.

One day I was in my room with my door closed, laying on the floor at the foot of my bed and was crying to myself. My middle brother walked in my room without out knocking. I don’t know why he came in but he saw me there crying. He did not ask me why I was crying. Instead, he critically ridiculed me for crying and called me a baby, only babies cry. He was so heartless.

I believe my parents were so bombarded with their own feelings of inadequacies trying to live up to the Mormon delusion that they were dysfunctional, unable to deal with life, each other and their children. My parents fought with each other so much, their yelling was just the normal daily background noise.

My mother dwells in a very small box sustained by fear. If we did anything that made her feel uncomfortable, she would use humiliation to get us back into the confines of her little box. I believe, because she was a Mormon woman with no power, she used passive aggressive tools to manipulate situations in order to get things that she wanted and to keep her kids under control.

Dad was a typical Mormon male. The mighty priesthood holder, the authority and the all powerful head of the household. THE MAN! When he felt like being the dad, (no consistency), he exercised his power  with a big dose of force and sometimes a little bit of degradation. A few times, with my brother, the one that is just older than me, my dad used physical abuse. For me, my dad was a bit unpredictable. I hated being around him and I was always uncomfortable with him and his behaviors. Yet, I did appreciate him for going out and working to keep a roof over my head.

I appreciate my parents but I hate them too. They are toxic to me but I think they do actually love me in their way. To this day I struggle to figure out what to do with these dual feelings towards them.

Although it was obvious to me that my parents were not nearly as attentive to me as other parents were to their children,  I mostly welcomed their neglect. When I wasn’t getting their attention, I didn’t have to deal with their negative religious judgmental “love“.  I didn’t have to deal with their weird confusing behaviors. Best of all, I had a lot of freedom. At least until I got to high school. This is when dad’s control and weirdness kicks into a higher gear.

The LDS doctrines were confusing and damaging to my sense of self. I was  taught contradicting messages and  taught that my confusions were due to my own inability to understand. I was taught to not trust my own mind and feelings. I was taught that being angry was bad. I was taught to avoid confrontation because it was bad. This kept me from developing skills to create and enforce proper boundaries and self care. I certainly did not have an understanding of covert abuse. Therefore, I chronically allowed myself to be used and abused, especially by two of my siblings. I didn’t even recognize most of the abuse as abuse. Because I was taught that being angry was being bad, and I wanted to be a good person,  when I was mistreated I created “possible” reasons and excuses for the person’s miss treatment of me. Then, I gave them that benefit of the doubt.

SOME SIMPLE EXAMPLES Of CHURCH TEACHINGS THAT CAUSE ME CONFUSION, DEPRESSION AND SELF LOATHING:

 – Love one another, –  but you can degrade and/or ostracize those who do not fit in, people from other races, any who leave the church, those who are LGBTQA.

– (Love unconditionally  =  Conditional love? I didn’t fit in so in the back of my head I was not acceptable or lovable and the church (God) condoned and supported this. )

 – You are important as a daughter of God, –  But only as a baby making vessel, a servant to the church and a man, a maid, a cook, a child care provider and as an indoctrinator of your children.

– (So…. I am important but my importance is limited to assigned obligations that may require me to put aside or give up choices and dreams that may fulfill my desires and needs?  How does this teach me that I am important?)

 – You have free agency, –  But really only to be obedient.

– (How is agency free when it comes with coercion, threats and fear of being negatively judged, condemned, ostracized, being damned or losing your eternal family? I have recently come to realize that my motivations for doing things are to avoid negative judgments. I have been living my life running from negative judgments instead of doing things to give me joy.)

 – I love you, – but you are a disappointment and a failure.

– (This was confusing and I had a lack of understanding why this was confusing. This made me feel like it was my fault that I was undeserving, unacceptable and unlovable. I learned that I had to do what others expected of me in order for me to be lovable. To this day I have zero sense of value for just being me. I  am struggling to trust my fiancé’s love for me because he does not require anything from me. So what does he want from me, just me? That doesn’t compute.)

-God loves you, – But you are unworthy of his love. You have to earn his love but you will never be able to live up to his requirements and expectations. Therefore you will never be good enough for God’s love. But God loves you.

– (There are so many ways this is just messed up. Psychologically this principal is cruel, manipulative and controlling. But then again, maybe I am just too stupid to understand God‘s ways.)

I was unaware that my parents or the church were doing anything wrong. Both of my parents are very passive. They avoid confrontation unless it is with each other. They were being good Mormon door-mats but I thought they were being good Mormons following God.

I never had many friends but I had a friend that lived across the street from me since I was five. I did everything with her and her brother and my brother, the one that was just older than me. Their family was like a surrogate family to me and I’m sure to my brother as well.  Eventually I was able to open up to the mother. I love her very much and always wished she was my mom.  They moved away when I was 11. This was an incredible loss for me and I know it was for my brother too. To this day, no one has filled that void.

One day when I was in Jr. High the neighbor boys had a friend or relative come home from school with them. That evening we were all in my back yard jumping on the trampoline. This kid was trying to be inappropriate with me. I was rejecting his advancements but somehow it got crazy and all the boys began trying to hold me down. I fought like no bodies business but I was one girl against all of them. I felt the fingers of one of them touch me between my legs. I’m sure they were from the boy that instigated this event. This is when I began to get freaked out. I was tough but at that moment I realized that I may not have the ability stop this. I was defiantly scared. I didn’t know how far these boys were going to take this. I think I was dealing with some sense of denial of how bad this situation was too. There was an attempt to remove my pants.  At that point, the oldest boy let go and demanded that the other boys stop.

I was soooo relieved but also confused. I was angry and felt violated. I believe those were normal feelings but I had other emotions that I didn’t know how to process. To this day I have not processed that event because I don’t know how. Imagine being in the desert for a long time and being incredibly thirsty. You come across a small group of people. One of them thinks it would be fun to pee in a cup and force it down your throat. The group helps him do this to you.  On one hand, it was so gross and awful. It was so disgusting and made you want to gag.  On the other hand, it moistened your painfully dry mouth.  Maybe you mostly hated it but also felt that there was something about it that seemed relieving.  I did not want the attack but I could not help feeling …?…a sense of boost in my self-esteem that I was desired that much?!? I feel like a wacko or a bad person to have felt anything good come from such a horrible attack on me.

To add to the confusion of this event, when I grew up, the sayings were, “No” means “Yes” and “ boys will be boys”. It was normal for boys to push girls aggressively physically and manipulatively. This event didn’t even register in my mind as a sexual assault. I don’t know if that was even a term back then. I knew I wasn’t raped. I thought of it as boys doing what boys do when they are attracted to you sexually.  I don’t know if I am just numb about this event or if I was just so programmed to not acknowledge this as assault….I don’t know what to think or feel about it. It is kind of on a shelf until I have more information that will help me make sense of it all.

As a child, I had one thing in my life that made me feel good about myself. I was very good at sports. The year I started 8th grade I was put on a drug called dioxin to help me in school. Dioxin is a legally prescribed methamphetamine. I did not know that drugs had this thing called side effects. I had so many side affects from this drug, including a heart murmur, but I had no clue that they were coming from the drug. I was already trained to not bother others about my problems, so I kept all of these weird heath issues to myself.  As far as school, this drug made a huge difference in my grades. I never stopped having anxiety at school but I was happy that I could get better grades. However, due to the drug,  I was not very coordinated in sports anymore. Sports was the only thing I had that I could use to sustain any sense of self worth and it wasn’t there anymore.  I cried many times over this. I had no idea it was because of the drug. If I had, there is no way I would have continued using it. Sports was everything to me. I always pushed myself in sports anyway. I had to. It was all I had left. But….I blew out my knee when I was 14 years old. Everything that made me happy was gone. Now I was living in hell without anyway to cope.

In my family, my value was predicated on my being a good Mormon girl but I hated church and I hated myself. I felt stupid, ugly, unimportant and defective. I had developed social anxiety disorder with selective mutism. My first anxiety attack was when I was 11 or 12. I did not know what was wrong with me. I didn’t understand what it was. I had never heard of mutism, anxiety or anxiety attacks. I just felt even more like a freak.  My selective mutism was more pronounced around adults. My inability to talk was so humiliating to me that I began to force myself to at least say “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know”. This was still frustrating to me and those people that tried to talk to me but it was the best I could do. My parents didn’t even know that I had this disorder until a couple of years ago and I just turned 46 years old.

My senior year in high school I was basically anorexic. One day my mother told me that I looked anorexic. I shrugged my shoulders at her and that was that. It was never spoken of again.

I think I was in my teens when my mother told me, when the nurse handed me to her,  her first words to me were, “ were you worth it?“ I guess I was not but she should have made that choice before she got pregnant with me. Oh wait!, that’s right, it was her duty as a Mormon woman to pump out kids.

When I cried to my mother about how the members viewed me so negatively, she told me it was just in my head and then had no interest in discussing it further. Thanks mom for disregarding me again and again. It is impossible for you, even to this day, to ever be my advocate?! At the same time, you would die for the fucking church that almost completely destroyed your kid. It wasn’t in my head. I heard things that were said. I was told different things. Yeah….so that was just in my head? So not only am I wrong but I am suppose to be crazy too?  The evidence was there mom, you just didn’t care about me more than having to deal with the nuisance of  me and my pain. Oh, but what has changed after all of these years? Nothing! You still won’t listen or validate Me because you still don’t give a shit.

  I love how my parents claim and pretend that the church makes them happy while it is beyond obvious that they are truly miserable. They will claim that they love each other and then turn around and degrade each other. They believe they will get along in the after life because they will be made perfect. So, I guess there isn’t a  reason to work out their relationship problems while they are alive.

Oh wait…. They did try a time or two! But of course they went to the church for counseling. It had zero benefit in their marriage.

By age 12 or even earlier, I desperately craved validation and attention but, outside of sports, I did not have the skills to achieve getting it or even knowing how to receive it if I did get it.  I lost my virginity two months before I turned 15. I thought my self-worth was bad before this, but I was wrong. I learned a new low.

My father said I would be better off dead rather than to be committing fornication. Thanks dad!

The attention from guys, even in it’s smallest form, was validation and attention. I knew I was being used but at least I had enough value to be used. This gave me a small moment of escape from feeling the pain of being completely worthless. But, right after I got this momentary relief, I would be hit again with the pain of feeling completely worthless but with the added shame of being weak, ruined, unlovable by a future husband and by my God.

Because of my age and social anxiety disorder, I felt completely trapped with no way out except to get married. But even then I would still be trapped to a man.

I felt trapped to the church as well. I was a believer, so no matter how much I hated it I could not discard it from my life. I also felt like there was something wrong with me because I hated it.

Over my teen years, I wanted to die. I did not want to live this life of hell but I could not kill myself. I could not bear the thought of being a quitter.  I could not allow myself to be that weak. That became the only thing I had to hold onto to not be a complete failure, a complete loser. Not killing myself became my last value.

The Bishop Interviews.

So,…….Putting a kid like me in a room alone with an authoritative figure, ordained by God, whose job it is to negatively judge me is mind blowing to me today. It isn’t that I somehow handled it. I didn’t. I just didn’t physically die.

My bishop was a good person with good intentions. He did not seem to derive pleasure from asking me about my sexual transgressions. However, these interviews were still traumatizing and I believe they are nothing short of abuse by their very nature. To be forced to divulge and expose the  inner most private humiliating shameful facts about me……leaves me without words!  To be forced to give another person permission to know and judge these things is so ridiculous to me today.

The anxiety leading up to the interviews was intense to say the least, but dealing with the social anxiety and selective mutism in the meetings turned into out of body-like experiences for me. It was like being both in my body but also beside and slightly behind my body watching my body say, what little it would say. I in no way would choose to subject myself to this ridiculous mental and emotional torture without the belief that I had no choice.   I had no choice.

I had way too much negative self-judgment to take on his negative judgments as well. I don’t even have the words to properly explain how awful these interview were and how they made me feel. When you get hit by a truck, you don’t just walk away from it without destruction to your body. It takes time to recover if you can at all. These interview were like getting hit by a truck to my soul. Over and over again every time.

During my last interview with him, while I was still a teen, he told me that if I didn’t stop having sex that he would have to excommunicate me. This sent a jolt of fear through me. Being excommunicated would be a humiliation that I did not believe I could overcome. My membership was my life line to God. I knew that if I was excommunicated that I would never have the strength to make it back into the church. The last tinge of hope to make myself  acceptable to God would be gone. All would be lost.

I also knew I didn’t have it in me to stop letting myself be used. I wasn’t the pursuer of these encounters. I didn’t have the confidence to pursue guys. I let them pursue me in order to get that feeling of being desired. That was my drug. I didn’t want the encounters to advance all the way to sex but I felt obligated to let the guys go all the way after I allowed them to touch me. At that point, I didn’t stop them but I didn’t actively participate in the sex either. I just laid there. Unless sex occurred with the same guy more than once. Somehow that changed things.

I moved away for a while in order to protect my membership. When I came back, I was looking to find a man to marry and get my life together. I figured if I could power through long enough to get married I would be okay.

Emotionally unhealthy people don’t usually marry emotionally healthy people, do they?  I found a guy that treated me pretty bad. Yep, he was the man that God wanted me to marry.

 Due to my bishop’s threat, in my last interview with him a couple of years before, I feared  going to him for my worthiness interview to go to the temple. Although I had not had sex with my fiancé, I had stuff to confess from the time that I was away. I shared my fears with my fiancé and he suggested that I go to his bishop. I said ok. He called his bishop to set up a time to see him. We got there, told him why we were there, which included the information that I wanted to go through him instead of my bishop, and he sat down with us so that I could confess my sins to him. After I told him everything, after I endured this humiliation,  he then tells me that he does not have the authority over me. I would have to go to my bishop.

Why would a man, knowing before hand that he had no authority to help, sit down with a person under false pretense and have them expose all of their shame to them?  Because he is a piece of shit that likes to know all the private garbage of others. Do not tell me that you can not rape a person without touching them. You Can! And he did! He stole my dignity.

I pulled myself together and went to my bishop. Dude was fine. All that anxiety and that horrible experience with my fiancés bishop was all for nothing. We moved forward, Yay! I was on my way to becoming a normal mormon! I was going to be able to have an eternal family! I was happy! BUT!!! Silly me, tricks are for kids!!!!!

My Interview with My stake president.

President _______   Yuma, Az in 1993

I was of course nervous about this interview. They are all about submitting your power over and subjecting yourself to the opinions and judgments of someone else. They get to tell you how bad you have been and you get to believe them. This is painful. But!, I had no idea the magnitude of what was about to happen to Me.

As I was walking into his office, he snidely accused Me, in a question/statement form, of being rebellious. I was stunned with his tone and how he asked this question. I said no. ( I did not do things out of rebellion. I did not want to disappoint my parents. I did what I did to survive!)  He sat down and began the interview. His tone continued to be accusative and filled with disdain. It was clear to Me that he did not like Me and he enjoyed his position of power over Me. I didn’t even really know this man. I saw him around from time to time at church but I didn’t interact with him. Nor did he know me personally. I was dumbfounded by his attitude toward Me.

He accused Me of being a bad example to the youth and attempted to shift blame onto Me for their bad choices. (He offered no examples of proof for this accusation). He then ask Me, how could he let Me go to the temple, this would give the youth the impression that they could go commit whatever sin they wanted like I did, (giving no examples of what  he believed I did) and still go to the temple. Most of my answers to these questions were Me just shrugging My shoulders or nodding no. He was trying to dump the burden of other peoples choices onto My shoulders.

He told Me that if he let Me go to the temple, and I didn’t keep my covenants, he would be held accountable to God for letting Me go.   So I guess I was high risk for him personally?

He asked if I had been pregnant but before I could answer no, he asked if I had had an abortion. I told him no. He looked at me as if I was lying and asked Me again. I said no. Not until I said no to this question 4 times did he move on. But he never acted as though he had believed Me.

He asked Me about my sexual interludes with my fiancé. I had told him that I had not had sex with him. The look of shock came over his face and he asked “ you didn’t?“ As I said no he then looked reluctant to believe Me for a moment. His expression then became more accepting of My answer. This caused Me to think he gave the credit for refraining from sex to My fiancé. [Let Me make this clear. My fiancé once told me I was being a bitch for holding his advances off. He was a typical guy that pushed and pushed. He tried to convince Me to go to Vegas and get married by Elvis.  (I know, what a catch?!)  I was the one that refused to do anything that would prevent Me from getting an Eternal marriage. This was so important to Me that, even with my past history,  I actually held his ass off for a year and a half! But…. he got all the fucking credit!]

My stake president continued to degrade Me and drag Me through the mud with this unbelievable disdain for Me. Like I was a dirty stain or plight on the church. Like I was a disgusting piece of trash that he hated.  Then he proceeded to dive into all the sexual questions. These questions were just as awful and intrusive as the other horrible questions that are coming out to the public. However, even though he is a pervert, he is also a power thirsty pervert. I believe he was purposefully using these gut wrenching questions to humiliate me and strip me of any dignity. He was abusing Me to the point that I went beyond hurt, I was actually becoming angry.  He noticed this and told Me that I didn’t need to be angry. I was not aware that I looked angry and so I change my expression. As I thought about this, it angered Me again. He had no right to shit on Me and then tell Me that I had no reason to be mad. The hell I didn’t!

The worst was yet to come. His power trip was not over.

He asked me if I supported My leaders, which included him. I wanted this man to die, I did not support him!!!!!!! BUT, I went through all of this hell, I knew My heart was submissive to God and the church, I went through all of this because of the doctrine of eternal marriage. I went through all of this for God’s acceptance of Me, I did not want this piece of shit that was sitting before Me to stop Me. I had come too far for this man to stop Me. So what the hell was I suppose to do? Lie?  And participate in supporting this man in his abuse of Me, making Me a participant in my own abuse? (Yes Sir, may I have another?) Or walk away and disappoint my parents, piss away all the money that was spent on the wedding preparations, give all the horrid judgmental Mormons the satisfaction of seeing Me crash and burn, and most of all, throw away my eternal connection to my future children? He was holding My future hostage. He was holding My future children’s eternal family hostage. I was left without a choice. I had to tell him yes. He forced Me to participated in pissing on my own worthless dignity after defecating on Me with this interview. I walked out of his office beat down, crushed and ruined.

The Aftermath.

When My fiancé finished his interview, he came out all happy and full of smiles. The stake president had a fun light hearted joking kind interview with him. I had been crying. He was confused. I told him to take me to the car. He asked me what was wrong. I just said take me home. When we got home I told him what had happened. He was confused. What I told him was kind of hard for him to grasp at first, but it did sink in and he believe me. His dad had been a bishop so we decided to tell his dad. His dad was disturbed by my story but decided to give the stake president the benefit of the doubt. As a bishop, he had people complain to him that he offended them with questions. To him he was just doing what he was suppose to do and so his interviewees were just being overly sensitive. He presumed that I might be being overly sensitive too so he gave the benefit of the doubt to the stake president.  (I am the person that gives everyone a made up excuse and a benefit of the doubt.) Even I could not excuse this treatment away as a misunderstanding. He knew what he was doing.  Now my new father in-law just let me down, put me below my abuser, did not validate me and added more weight to my feelings of being unimportant.

When I left the interview with my stake president, I had a lot of anger and hurt that quickly turned into this mind maze of circular confusion. My brain was scrambled. My emotions consisted of strong anxiety, confusion, sadness, self loathing, worthless, unlovable, anger, defeated, wanting to die, wanting to disappear,  lost, stuck, tale spin, you name it. All of these kinds of negative emotions and thoughts were running full bore on a merry go round in my body and mind continuously for weeks during every moment I was awake. Not that sleep came easy during this time.

When I was in the temple getting my endowments, It was sort of a blur. Except  for the washing and anointing. That one was throwing me for a loop while I was in total mental chaos. Once again, I was subjecting myself to doing something I didn’t like or want to do. I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS! I was participating in and allowing someone to touch my barely covered body in a manner that made my skin crawl. As a believer, and in the mental condition that I was in, I could not process it. I could not handle this. I was frozen while enduring this disgusting moment. I did not have the power to say anything or do anything. I didn’t know if I was a bad person for not wanting to do this or not but it didn’t matter because it was getting done.

During the rest of the time, while I was in the temple, I started questioning if I was crazy. I was still in the mind maze of circular confusion from the interview and had all of My emotions all over the place. Nothing was making any sense. The temple made no sense. These things that are supposed to be good were weird and/or silly. I was such an emotional wreck trying to process everything that had happened to me and now I’m trying to understand what is going on in the temple. The church teaches you that you are not allowed to do certain things but when you go through the temple it is full of all of that shit.   Good is bad and bad is good? But just when God and the church does a bad thing then it is actually a good thing. How could this be reasonable?

The next week, on my wedding day, I was still on the emotional merry-go-round. I just went through the motions that I was directed to do, step by step. I didn’t hear a word the guy said that married us. I don’t know what covenants I agreed to.  I felt defeated even though I had made it to temple for my wedding. I felt little to no accomplishment.  I was stripped of any feeling of reward.  I was not a happy Bride.

I could Not stop the merry-go-round of emotions and I couldn’t stand the thought that my stake president could get away with what he did because of My failure to do anything for myself.  If there was ever a time to push myself to stand up for myself, this was it. I told my husband that I needed to go tell my bishop what happened. He set up the appointment and he went with me to tell my bishop. I told my bishop and he looked kind of pale and at a loss. He told me that he would speak to the stake president and get back to me. I never heard from him again. Once again, crickets when it comes to support for me. I did not have it in me to push my bishop any further just to be dismissed again. I never bothered to tell my parents because I knew they would defend the church at all costs and I could not handle their disregard for me in this situation.

Fast forward, Due to my inability to function in society with my social anxiety disorder, I spent 19 years of my life with an abusive man.  I dealt with suicide ideation again but did not have the same resolve as the first time. Somehow I chose to live, to get rid of my ex for good and take each step day by day. The stress almost killed me anyway.  I ended up with uterine cancer and my thyroid stopped working. I had not had children and now I never will.