I Am Not Cool

the minotaur, born like a day ago:

People in Utah:

this man on my street always looks creepy and is up at odd hours. 😱 there was a dead cat in his yard too. 😱😱we found a book with creepy latin in his yard and he had friends come over in the middle of the night on friday the 13th where we saw them chanting in a dead language, sacrificing someone, and summoning a demon 😱😱😱😱😱

.

cults in real life:

my elderly neighbor just came over today with a plate of cookies to ask if i was okay because i haven’t been to church in a while. i take them and immediately throw them away once she leaves because i’m suffering from an eating disorder caused by this “church” telling me that my body is to be kept pure and beautiful for my future husband. i haven’t yet admitted to myself that i’m a lesbian. one old friend won’t talk to me because i expressed hesitation at the idea of being a mother. 

my bishop wanted to talk to me a week ago to see if i was worthy to go into the temple and pledge my life to the lord. he asked me, alone in a room with him, if i masturbated, looked at porn, was sexually involved with anyone, or had impure thoughts. we’ve had this interview several times, starting on my 12th birthday. 

i don’t go to youth group for a while because i feel too impure to be around other human beings. one of the girls brings me a coloring book of scripture quotes and says that all of the other girls are wondering where i am. they’ve noticed i’m “struggling with the faith” and want to know when i’m available to be prodded until i share my faith trauma like a slumber party crush so they can invalidate it. “it’ll be so fun,” she says “we can do our nails, make popcorn, and read our scriptures. you’ll feel so much better!” she leaves and i cut myself up to my elbow again.

it takes me over a decade to leave. i’ve been forced to give 10% of all the money i’ve ever made in my life to this group, and needed a lawyer to leave. when i die, they will baptize me back into the cult “by proxy”. i haven’t been involved for years and still can’t look at myself in the mirror. 

i hesitantly bring up my struggles with it during a conversation about religion. 

If I got married my parents would not have been allowed to see. My brothers would not have been allowed to see.

When I told my youth leader that I was leaving she kept me in her car outside my home and told me that Satan was lying to me and I needed to pray and not stop praying until God told me to stay.

When I moved most recently I got a facebook message from a member I have never met saying that they saw I moved and asked if I wanted my church records transferred out of Edmonton. I never went to church in Edmonton. I lived there for ten years and left the church four years before that.

People in the church are told that if their family members leave the church then they themselves are not able to get to the highest level of heaven.