coming clean

In an attempt to ensure anonymity of my blog, I've mixed up some details sometimes. Most particularly, I refer to "kids" instead of "kid," and "work" instead of "school." The truth: I have only one kid. And I'm a full-time grad student, with a part time job. There. I said it.

I say this now because lately (as in, my most recent therapist session, which I haven't written about), all my split identities have been bothering me. I have my superficial family blog, and not once have I mentioned my split with the church. I have my fta blog, where I am honest about church stuff, but leave out personal stuff like the fact that I'm a student, and what specifically I'm studying and the subjects I'm interested in. There's stuff I still haven't talked about anywhere. There's no place where I'm totally me. As the therapist pointed out, I've very concerned about the boundaries of public and private, what can be said and what can't, what parts of me to hide and what to lay open for all to see. While my fta blog can get raw, honest, show my confusion, seemingly the deepest me, it is still contrived. I choose what to say and how to say it, and when.

I've been mulling this over in my head since Friday, drafting a post of "coming clean" about some of the details. I'd thought about revealing more, and revealing less. On Saturday I heard a segment on NPR about the public-ness of the internet. Children who have grown up with the internet have a totally different sense of privacy that older people do; to them, it's not a big deal to have pictures of yourself drunk and doing something stupid on the net. Also, once something is on the net, it's always there. You give up control of it. Anyone can see it, copy it, send it, modify it.

While I've felt a comforting sense of community in Outer Blogness, it also occurs to me that devout Mormons would think my blog is disgusting trash. This was pointed out to me by Arizona Awakening's fight with his wife when she discovered him reading my blog. I can't even imagine the devastation my family would feel if they connected the blog to me. Some part of me wants them to find it--to discover the real me. But even then, is it the real me? No. It's just the part of me that still wants to talk about how Mormonism affects my life every day. But some part of me feels there is no need for them to find that part of me. Why should they? It's private; why shouldn't I have parts of me that are private from them, separate from them?

I feel in some ways like I'm still a teenager, negotiating and pushing boundaries of identity, privacy, and self. As if I never really was a teenager, developmentally. As if this secret blog is something of my rebellion. I also realize I can hardly make up my mind about things. There's always "some part of me thinks this, but on the other hand..." I don't know why I do this. I think perhaps it's from a desire to present myself as objective, as having thought about multiple points of view. Like I'm a textbook, reporting all the information from various sources, rather than a scholarly book, making a point.

So what's my point? My identity is in flux. And I want to be more honest about it.

weird

A friend of mine told me he didn't find Mormonism that weird. Even polygamy doesn't seem that weird, since exists in most of the world and in the Old Testament.

Then I told him about the secret handshakes and the temple robes.

He was speechless.

"If you think Mormonism isn't weird," I told him, "it's just because you haven't heard enough of it yet."

"I baptize you for and on behalf of fta, who is dead"

Should I never tell my family about my resignation? What will they think? That I'm a prideful, evil apostate who is so completely deceived by the devil that I would voluntarily turn my back on the church. If I don't talk to them about it, they'll have no idea what courage I had to muster to leave. They'll have no idea I followed my conscience and stayed true to my integrity. They'll have no idea that this route is initially much harder than staying; that staying without questioning would have been the easy way out.

It reminds me of my great grandma, who was basically inactive, drank coffee and alcohol. Never went through the temple, was not sealed to her husband. We never talked to her about it. We just visited her and loved her. It was a non-issue. But as soon as she died, talk began up about how we're going to baptize her (also deceased) husband and get them their endowments and their sealing. And their work was done. Everyone felt that Grandma wanted it done, but she just never got around to doing it. Just couldn't get past her laziness or whatever to get out there and go to the temple.

It never occurred to anyone that maybe Grandma and Grandpa never got baptized and endowed on purpose! What if she really hated the church, or at least didn't like it? And here we go, first thing as soon as she's dead, and (probably) go against her wishes and get her temple work done. What kind of family are we? We couldn't even ask her when she was alive, why don't you get your husband baptized? Why don't you get yourself over to the temple? But, boy, when she's dead, we know exactly what's best, didn't we? We fix her salvation for her.

It's an ultimate disrespect for the dead. I never understood while I was a devout Mormon why people got so mad when Mormons baptized Holocaust survivors or other prominent people. Finally, I understand. Now I am enraged over it.

Since I've resigned, will my relatives, one year after I die, think, "Hey, I'm sure fta really wanted to get re-baptized. I'm sure there was just some little problem she couldn't get over. Couldn't give up her drinks or her lazy Sunday mornings. Just didn't want to pay tithing. Just too intellectual. Let's go fix that.” And then go and redo all those ordinances?

Am I comfortable with that happening? No. Of course, if I'm dead, I won't know it. But if there is an afterlife, boy, will I come back and haunt the idiot that thought they knew me better than I knew myself! Right now, my only vision of the afterlife is what we leave behind on the earth--how people remember us, what impact we had on the world. In this sense of the afterlife, getting someone their ordinances, having no idea (or worse, having an idea) of what they felt about the church is disrespect for the dead and downright despicable.

lightning & therapy session 3

Yesterday, still reveling in my new symbolic freedom, I noted happily that the devil hadn't suddenly taken a hold of me. God didn't strike me with lightning for disaffiliating with His One True Church, either. Not that I expected anything like that to happen, but it was a little fleeting thought from my old paradigm come back to make me giggle.

....

I saw the therapist again. I picked a new topic to discuss, something that has been bothering me for a while now. I won't get into it publicly, since this blog isn't the forum for such things. But I will say this: it had nothing to do with Mormonism. That struck me. I go to the therapist to help me adjust to my new life outside Mormonism, and it turns out that's not even what I need the most help with. Not yesterday, anyway. There were other, more pressing needs and adjustments.

You know what that says to me?

I'm moving on. I had a post-Mormon day.

(And yet, somehow, I still manage to post about in my ex-Mormon themed blog.)

resignation

I've thought about resignation from the church for two years now. I had planned on writing a post about "to resign or not to resign" but never got around to it. And here I am, resigned. So I guess I decided, didn't I? Why did it take so long?

At first, in those few months after leaving, I was just too scared. It was too big of a step, and I was unsure of myself. The way I was raised still had a very strong hold over me. Resignation was bad, bad, bad, stupid, stupid, stupid. Eventually, those feelings wore off, but by then, I didn't think about resignation much. Life and recovery just happened. It was inertia, I guess, that kept me from bothering. Kind of lame, huh?

When I did think about it, I debated between three choices: resignation, excommunication, and mere inactivity.

With resignation, I'd take matters in my own hands, decide the day I ended my relationship with the LDS institution. Resignation is often referred to as "having your name removed," which I think is disturbingly passive. It gives the action and power to the church. With resignation, even if the difference is in terminology only, I am the actor. The church insists on name removal, but legal precedence says the moment you hand in (or mail in) your letter, you are no longer a member. Whatever they do afterward--name removal, disciplinary action--is their business and has no bearing on you. In fact, if they initiate disciplinary action after your resignation, they are on legally shaky ground (according to precedence).

Excommunication would, I imagine, hurt my family's feelings more than my resignation. I figure that they would construe resignation as my mistake, my sin, while excommunication couldn't be a mistake because the church is perfect, isn't it? But I figure there are good reasons to "allow" the church to excommunicate you rather than just turn in a resignation letter, such as in the cases of the September Six. They wrote legitimate , good scholarship and the church asked them to stop. They said no. So they were ex'ed for telling the truth and refusing to retract those truths. That is a worthy cause, although undoubtedly painful for them. I played with the idea of not resigning just in case I eventually decided to write about Mormonism, and see if the church bothered me about it. Become yet another martyr in the intellectual freedom battle. I guess I decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I may yet publish about Mormonism, but they can't ex me now.

Inactivity would, I suppose, make my family the most comfortable. They could go on imaging that I'll come back any week now, that I'm not a hard apostate, I'm not so deceived and confused that I would do something so stupid as "ask for my name to be removed." This would be the easiest route, the route many take to appease spouses or extended family. Inactivity, though, would open myself--and my children--to harassment from the church. The church wouldn't think of it as harassment, of course, but an organization calling you every year, sending you letters, enticing your children to their activities with treats and games in hopes of indoctrinating them, even though you've asked them to leave you alone? That's harassment. I don't want the primary to bother my family. I don't want the deacon's quorum to make a project out of my son. I don't want insincere "thinking of you" cards from the relief society. I don't want to be talked about in bishop's council, to have men creating strategies on how to get us to show up at church so they can boost their attendance numbers.

I eventually decided it was a matter of integrity and conscience to resign. If I came across a non-profit institution that formally discriminated against women and homosexuals, that hid its financial dealings but was obviously rich, not to mention all the other wacko things the church does, I would most certainly NEVER consider joining or even giving money to it. To me, the church is an organization whose policies, actions, and doctrines I profoundly disagree with. How could I remain on its rolls, especially since my name was put there when I was just a little kid, far too young to decide for myself?

Don't count me in your 12 million, Hinckley. I am not LDS.

the day

This is a significant day for the FTA family. We finally wrote, signed, notarized, and sent our resignation letter to Salt Lake (cc'ed to the local bishop), priority mail with delivery confirmation. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as we were signing those letters, and the notary public put all the official stamps and imprints on it.


I've been meaning to write a post about resignation, the debate about whether or not to bother, and why I hadn't done it yet--these two years as a non-believing, non-attender--but I'll save that for another post. I just want to bask in the satisfaction of having sealed the letter in the envelope and sent it to good ol' Mr. Dodge in Member Services.

If you want information or advice about resignation from the LDS church, see Mormon No More, and great resource put together by Kathy Worthington, may she rest in peace. I regret that I didn't do this earlier so I could thank her personally.

housekeeping

Doing some spring cleaning this weekend, I stumbled across lots of LDS church-published books and pamphlets. It surprised me a bit, because I thought I had done a thorough throwing-out-of-the-propaganda months ago. Among the books, I found some foreign language Books of Mormon, my scriptures from college, my husband's mission scriptures, flip charts, and a bunch of Liahonas (the foreign language version of the Ensign).

A couple days before, I had a conversation with a nevermo friend of mine. She said how very satisfying it had felt to break a bunch of dishes when she was packing up her apartment after a divorce. "We ordered these plates special for our apartment together." SMASH! "We got this as a wedding gift." CRASH!

I thought I'd apply this to the Mormon books, and put everything on a big pile on the living room floor and set to with ripping. I ripped my way through Books of Mormon, seminary charts, missionary discussion booklets, magazines. I eventually grabbed a razor and slashed through a hymn book.




It turned out to be rather unsatisfying. Not negative, just...blasé. I just couldn't care enough about the books for it to feel cleansing or cathartic. I should have done this two years ago. Then it would have felt like I had to actually overcome something, that strong psychological pull that would have told me those books were sacred and special, and that destroying them was tantamount to spitting in the face of God. But these two years down the road, I just don't care anymore. They're just silly little books with shallow theologies. Meh.

therapist, session 2

I finally got in to see a therapist (stupid insurance). I'll be leaving the area for an extended time, so I will probably only be able to get in one to two more sessions. But I decided to go ahead and meet with the counselor anyway. Two sessions can't hurt.

I've been feeling much, much more emotionally stable the past couple months than I was in February, when I originally called a counselor. But I certainly still have things to talk about and issues to think through. Since we only had a couple sessions, the counselor asked me if there was anything I'd like to target our sessions on, any issue in particular. I choose to bring up relations with my family, because I'm going to be visiting them soon, for longer than just a few days like my normal trips.

I'm worried about setting boundaries to keep away attempts to indoctrinate my kids. I don't think anyone would do it on purpose (no one would secretly baptize him, as the therapist said), but Mormon culture doesn't teach boundaries well. They could cross them without it ever occurring to them that a boundary could even exist. Like the time I was telling my son about boy animals and girl animals, and my mom piped in, "Yep, and that's how Heavenly Father made it." Cringe.

I'm worried that no one will just acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in the room. That looming, stifling, uncomfortable presence of our non-Mormon-ness that sometimes feel so obvious that I just want to scream, "Will somebody say something!?! I'm not wearing garments! I drink coffee! I think Joseph Smith was a putz! I don't believe we need Jesus!" But I never would. No, I never would.

I'm worried that I'll feel out of place when the family says prayers. Food prayers and family prayers, multiple prayers a day. I wish my dad would ask me to say a prayer. And then I could say it in my own way, not invoking any deity, but expressing gratitude and joy and being together and being alive. I wish that if I did that, my family would accept it as a legitimate prayer, instead of seeing it as an empty, lost shadow of The True Way to Pray that they use.

I'm worried that my nieces and nephews will hear things in primary about how bad non-Mormons are, and start to believe about how their cousins--my kids--are failing somehow. How my kids are lost in the world, without the gospel, and need to be brought to the light. I'm worried that they will, in their childishness, chastise them for not praying before lunch, or for not attending church, or for saying, "God's just pretend" or "Jesus is dead" as they sometimes do.

I'm worried I won't be able to stand up for myself when it's important, worried about how to find that line of when to let it slide and when to challenge. I'm worried about making them uncomfortable. I'm worried that simply being myself will make them uncomfortable. And then I wonder, is that so bad? Wouldn't it be better to just live my life how I will live it, and let them make the adjustments necessary to having a non-believer in their family? Where's that balance of not being bowled over by their Mormon-ness, and not bowling them over with my position?

Why am I subjecting myself to this?

And isn't it profoundly sad that I feel spending time with my own family is subjecting myself to something?

grasping death

The other day, the new excitement among the neighborhood kids was that yet another squirrel had died. Its body lay there on the ground as Little FTA and two other boys gathered around to discuss it. My husband overheard their conversation.

Boy1: Look! There's another squirrel that died.

Boy2: looking up Yep, now it's up in heaven!

Little FTA: following Boy2's gaze upward, puzzled about how a dead squirrel could be in the sky when it was so clearly on the ground No, now it's body is falling apart into lit bits and becoming a part of the dirt.

Mormons and depression podcast

All right, readers, now you get to be listeners, too. The voice of fta is now on the web. Head over to eight hour lunch to hear me podcast with Doug and Heidi.

We talk about, what else, depression and Mormonism. Specifically, we touch on the "Utah has the highest rate of antidepressant use" meme and empirical studies done among Mormons and depression, as well as suicide.

I haven't listened to it yet. I really don't like hearing my own voice recorded. And I don't have headphones at work, so I'll have to wait until I'm home tonight.


From eight hour lunch:

Inside the LDS Church and out, people seem to generally accept that Mormons have had more than their fair share of depression. And who can blame them? Utah women lead the nation in antidepressant use, and our young men are more likely to commit suicide than just about anywhere in the country.

But can Mormonism really make you depressed? For all of the studies and reports out there, the results seem, well—inconclusive. To find out more, Heidi and I spoke with the author of the blog Emerging From the Ashes. She’s taken an in-depth look at the studies that have been done, so you’d better have a listen (you uninformed piece of shit).