Exmo Post And Stuff

Do NOT come in here and tell me my faith was insufficient. do NOT come here and tell me i didn’t try hard enough. do NOT tell me i listened too readily to the whisperings of the devil, that i was persuaded too easily to the whims and temptations of the world. do NOT tell me i must have just wanted to sin

I will say you will never know how many nights i cried myself to sleep in prayer. you will never know how many talks and testimonies i bore with every shred of truth i could wholeheartedly swear. you will never know how many times i scoured the scriptures for answers to my questions, how studiously i took notes in class, sacrament, seminary, general conference, the lessons i strove to inscribe on my soul from testimonies and FHE, from girls’ camp and youth conference and fire sides and every other spiritual interaction i ever had. the guilt ate away at me for not feeling as guilty as i should, for even thinking that i could like girls, for doubting, for not “having enough faith”, for tainting my family’s immortal salvation, for decimating my own chance at the celestial kingdom. i wrote “worlds beyond number” on my arm for weeks in the hopes that the reminder would strengthen my resolve in my faith, but instead left me devastated that i would end up in the telestial kingdom if i was lucky, but more likely outer darkness for my deep seeded sinful ways. the root of my depression in high school was my faith crisis, and although yes i was unmedicated, i wasn’t in therapy, or otherwise addressing my mental health, the part that kept my depression going strong was the fear that i was doing everything All Wrong, because I didn't etch the gospel into every aspect of my life, every moment of every day. And that must have been why I felt so hopeless. Perpetual despair.

I began to truly Doubt™ right about a decade ago now, back when i moved from a charter school to a public school my sophomore year of highschool. i was introduced to a whole world of people who weren’t largely mormon, and many of them were intrinsically good without the “gospel” in their lives. i made more and more friends who weren’t mormon and they made me feel more welcomed than the ppl in my stake that went to the same school. I realized that mormon didn’t equivalate good, that the most entitled, self righteous, holier than thou pricks in school were mormon (rectangles and squares here). the things that were supposed to drench me in guilt - swearing, mentioning sex, exploring sexuality/gender, reading less-that-wholesome books, trying caffeine - they never scarred me the way i was always told they would. i tried every trick in the book and them some to see what argument reason would remind me of the One And Only Whole And Complete Truth. nothing took. the guilt and insecurities dragged me deeper into my pathetic self-loathing pity party. if i wasn’t happy, i must be sinning. right? so what was i doing so wrong that didn’t bring instant waves of guilt and shame that was keeping me so unhappy? why were my prayers and scripture huntings answered with silence? was i that unholy? that unworthy? so despised by capital g God Himself that i was unworthy of even a hint for why i was this way? there was no quiet comfort, no gentle reassurance, no uplifting encouragement that i just had to Move Along. i have never felt so violently lonely and alone as i did then. it left me vehemently aimless, directionless, void of any modicum of hope, it left me wide open for my abuser to swoop in and give me Purpose, building off the basis that the ends would always justify the means. also an exmo, he turned my need for approval into a tool of his own making, used my desperation to be loved against me, manipulated my idea of working hard for the benefit for my family in his favor. mormonism left me naïve and vulnerable and in need of direction, and he gave that to me, and i fell for it because i didn’t know better. 

i was told from the earliest ages of life that my divine calling was to be a Mother Of Zion (there is so much wrong with that phrasing, and so many more racist and appropriative ideals that mormons have coopted as their own over the years, but that’s a different post). when i read Pictures Of Hollis Woods in middle school, i realized that adoption wasn’t just an option in general, it could be an option for me, a first option, too. yet i still struggle to shake the idea that my body isn’t a temple for me, it is a public temple for lease, a resource to share, that childbearing is less a privilege, but more a duty that is intrinsically tied to the fate of my immortal soul. i personally do not need to bear a biological child to raise. it is not a personal requirement for a fulfilling life. but it always sits in the back of my mind, that i should be so grateful for the Blessing of a likely very fertile uterus, that i should make use of it and Share My Bounty with both my spouse (who should be a cis man and rm) and the world. i know logically that it’s because that’s the most surefire way to introduce new tithe paying members into the world, but i still, still, STILL have this burning anxiety that it is Greedy of me to deprive a soul the use of my womb.

do not tell me i did not struggle