It’s interesting how Mormon culture shames those who leave because the doubts, the lies, and the pain became too much. You are taught that God will love you unconditionally, but if you turn your back, if you deny the things you “know” are true, you will forsake the Celestial Kingdom. (And from my understanding, any other kingdom? I had been told on multiple occasions the only way to hell aka Perdition is by denying God after knowing all these wonderful truths.) It’s a similar train of thought in other Christian religions I’ve studied with – if you lose that mustard seed of faith, if you don’t have God anymore, your life is empty and meaningless. You might as well book a one-way ticket to Hell, unless you change your ways, of course. But God’s all-knowing, right? If that’s the case, wouldn’t he understand how hard it is to believe? To suffer the abuse from your so-called brothers and sisters in Christ? Wouldn’t he know that sometimes the religious trauma impacts your mental health so deeply, you just need to do what’s best for you to be safe…even if that means taking a break from it all?
I’ve struggled with religious OCD and anxiety symptoms since I was just a little girl. I’ve always feared death and doubted the existence of Heaven or an after-life. In fact, that’s my biggest fears, y’all. It’s not so much the dying, it’s the not being in control and potentially ceasing to exist that freaks me the fuck out. When I was 11 years old, I had just finished reading Mourning Song by Lurlene McDaniel. If you’ve read any of Lurlene’s books, you know they deal with death and dying a lot. This particular book is part of the One Last Wish series and the main character had a brain tumor. She was dying. I had just finished reading the book when my mother called me from my room to let me know that my MRI results had come back. I was having headaches and petit mal seizures (though I didn’t know that’s what they were at the time!). I had a growth in my brain, she said, tears in her eyes. I asked her if I had cancer and she said no, but we’ll find out more at the doctors. My first thought? “God is punishing me for masturbating.” Well, kind of, cause I didn’t know it was called masturbation. I thought only guys masturbated, but I knew what I was doing was related to sex and sex was bad and God hated me and this was his punishment. I just knew I was going to go blind like the girl in the book. And more importantly, I was going to die. I cried so hard, having what I now know is a panic attack, shaking and crying and praying fervently that God forgive me and I won’t ever do it again and please don’t let me die.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t die. I also didn’t stop masturbating, but each time I was filled with so much anxiety and fear of being punished.
Fast forward, I’m 16 and this cute boy that worked at the market took me out on a date. Well, he said it was a date. He was in his 20s but I didn’t care, cause you know, I was a CHILD. Anyway, I was wearing a pink tinkerbell shirt and jeans. I was on my period and I had a pad on, because I didn’t even know how to use a tampon at that point. We drove to the middle of nowhere and he asked if I touched myself. I refused to answer. He proceeded to tell me to close my eyes and touched me, working his way down, and I flushed with embarrassment as he poked where my pad was, eyes flying open, and grabbing his hand to push it away. I was shaking. I was scared I was going to be raped. He reluctantly took me home. A few days later and I put on that same pink shirt and later had a spell of facial drooping and numbness. (We now think those are mini strokes, but that’s a story for another time!) As always, I tied the symptoms of my physical health to my disobedience to the Lord. I was being punished. I was going to die. And this fear slowly morphed into me not wearing certain clothes, things having to feel right if I did them or wore it, and basically just your average day in OCD. But I couldn’t even pray to God for help, because I was afraid the devil would intercept my prayers.
After some self-prescribed exposure therapy and a deeper understanding of a loving God, I started letting go of these fears. When I read Melody Carlson’s “The Other Side of Darkness”, I found such peace and comfort. The book dealt with a character who has a religious OCD and I felt so validated and I knew that those dark thoughts didn’t come from God.
And we as Christians always say that. I mean, except for the fear-preaching ones… But we say that God will not give us a spirit of fear when quoting the Bible. And we use this to distinguish what is from God and what is not. But this all just gets so blurred and all-consuming when you have an anxiety disorder. And all that hard work I put into recovering from my religious anxiety, it’s all slipping away. The experiences of being in the Church, of living through terrible trauma and being told it is God’s plan for me to suffer so I can learn and grow or whatever, having my grief compared to losing a pet by my bishop at the time, shamed for the clothes I wore, the tattoos I had, the color of my hair, my piercings, and oh yeah… back to the masturbating? I was never temple worthy because of that. No matter what Bishop I saw. I was never good enough to go to the temple. Eventually I gave up on that idea and just went back to drinking coffee and tea, cause what the hell, right?
And before anyone says “that’s just the Mormons”… it happens in other denominations all the time. Remember, I wasn’t Mormon all my life. Or even most of my life. I was Christian. I had attended Baptist, Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witnesses, non-denominational, and many other denominations.
The point is… I need a break. From religion. From spirituality. If I practice meditation and manifesting good vibes or whatever, I start to panic that its of the devil. Or if I read about a non-Christian religion or spiritualist ideas, I get scared that I’m doing something wrong. If I don’t pray, I feel scared. If I do pray, I feel scared. And finally, after all of these events, my heart shattered when I was listening to my favorite worship and Christian songs and not only did I not feel the spirit. I just felt so anxious and sick and afraid. What if God doesn’t exist and I die and there’s nothing? Or what if God does exist and he’s done with me now?
And so I’m taking a break and I’m focusing on my safety and my peace. I do intend to continue meditating and manifesting, because it does bring me joy and helps me, and I personally see nothing wrong in it, but I’ve had so many voices from the past, or presently online, and whatnot condemning anything and everything and its too much. So for now: I choose Love. I choose what’s good. I choose to accept that I don’t know everything and that maybe I may take the wrong path and stumble and fall, but I also know that I choose to believe that whatever happens, this Love that I choose, is not going to condemn me for making a mistake or losing my way, when Love has been so patiently silent on the matter, and maybe that’s because Love is everywhere. There are so many ideas and beliefs about Love but because people are not Love and everyone connects to Love differently, I haven’t found my place yet. But I will. I know that much is true.
(….In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen? 😅 )
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