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Black Sheep
I never fit into the culture of the mormon church. My family has always been mormon and my single mother did her best to raise us according to mormon standards which she believed would truly make us all happy. She is a loving mother and a wonderful person!
I spent the first 25 years of my life trying so hard to believe and praying that I would WANT to believe, but I just never bought into it, although at times I was sure that I did. I felt all the feelings they wanted programmed into me, like coffee/alchohol is pure evil, sex is even more evil, and the one I got down the best was GUILT. I always felt I wasn’t trying hard enough, I wasn’t cute and perky enough, I wasn’t faithful enough. I just wasn’t enough of anything! I felt guilty when I would get what was supposed to be an answer to a prayer, but I realized it was just my own thought. It must be ME doing something wrong!
I was never a typical mormon girl. I didn’t want to grow up and get married at 18 and have 10 kids. I didn’t want to be a house-wife/ homemaker. Although I have nothing against people who do that, it just wasn’t ME! I didnt like crafts or making cookies, I liked fixing cars, snowboarding, and watching kung fu movies. I didn’t want to go to college to become a kindergarten teacher! I wanted to be an engineer or psychologist. As you can imagine this never jived with the 30 second church introductions we always did in young women’s or relief society. People would think that I was so strange, it even seemed they were scared of me. I never felt like I fit it, but oh how I tried. I thought if I smiled more or complimented people more or FAKED it more somehow I would fit in. We lived in a rich ward, but we werent rich, we lived on the outskirts of the boundaries in, oh dear god yes.....apartments! In retrospect I think that had a lot to do with my never being accepted.
I have always tried to be a good daughter, and I think it was more amplified by the fact that my dad died when I was 3 years old. I saw how much my family suffered and how sad they were and I never wanted to be the cause of that myself, so I was always a good kid. Never got into much trouble and was quite responsible. I wanted to make my family happy, especially my mom. I always lacked a loving male figure in my life. My big brother had his own emotional problems to deal with, having witnessed my dads death at the age of 7. I always secretly hoped that in a community of upstanding, righteous men that SOMEONE would take notice of me and give me that loving male attention that I seriously craved as a young girl. Fathers day was always an aweful day at church for me...not because I missed my dad but because I had to endure the pitiful looks and watch people panic, thinking "oh shit! What is becky going to do while we all make cards for our daddies." i remember having my heart broken when there was a daddy daughter function and my mom, trying so hard to make me feel good, called one of the men in the ward and asked him to take me. She never told me that she called HIM but i knew better. To make a long story short, we went to the party but I didnt feel an ounce of fatherly love or concern, keep in mind that I was about 8 or 9 and still operating under the assumption that people in the church of Jesus Christ should, well, be christlike. This man was only as nice to me as he had to be but there was such an ackwardness that I will never forget, like he had been put in charge of watching this little alien creature and resented it. This is by no means why I left the church, it just feels really good to spill my guts to people who may understand me.
As I got older I kept on trying. I was kind of lazy as far as reading scriptures, praying, etc, but even when I DID try really hard I always realized that it was my own brain that brought me an insight. As i got older I kept searching for posative male attention. Boys in the ward were never interested in me. Not even when I started going to the single adult ward. Im not drop dead gorgeous but im not ugly either. I always found this strange and just assumed that mormon boys wanted trophy wives who would cook, clean, and drop out of school to have lots of babies. i NEVER accepted the gender roles that the church teaches. Eventually I started dating outside the church but non-mormon guys always thought i was too goody goody and the mormon guys always thought i was too bad. Haha. The irony. Finally I just couldn’t stand being a virgin anymore!!! Haha, yes, I had sex at the age of 25 for the first time. I’m surprised I even knew how it worked by that age because NOBODY had ever talked to me about sex, and heaven forbid I should ask about something so evil. Boy did I feel guilty! I tried to repent after that, but I realized I didn’t really feel sorry. I thought I would go back to church and get a testimony because I had actually done something worth feeling guilty for. At this point I graduated from college (Computer Engineering) and went to China to teach English for four months. Most of our group was mormon and I really tried to participate in the little church meetings they all held, but after a while I just couldn’t fake it anymore! When I got home I finally moved out of my mothers house. What a change that made! As I got my own apartment I realized that I didn’t have to go to church anymore, but the guilt followed me. My mom would call me every week and ask if I went to church. Finally I told her that she needed to back off and let me decide for myself. She did. I went on and off because I thought I had to, but finally I was just done with it. I would never be someone that I wasn’t. When I really decided to stop going I felt the biggest sense of relief, like I had been under water and could finally breath again! Like I was on top of a mountain and the clouds cleared and I could see! Like someone just took a 1000lb weight off my back! What freedom!
What followed was difficult. I was content for a while just to be free of the BS. Soon though, I felt lost and was doubting my decision….what if the mormon church IS true! Oh no! then I’ve really screwed up! You know what they say about someone who believes and then doesn’t! That’s the worst thing you can EVER do against god! My brother would ask me if I believed in JS. I was so unsure, that all I could say was "i don't know." How I wish I knew then what I know now.....that JS was a horny old man who used his power to get laid. My brother would have LOVED to hear that! I had fear, and anxiety, I was lost. The terrifying thing was that I didn’t know what I believed. I had never been given the chance to figure that out. What did I think? I’ve spent the last 5 years working on that. I relate quite well to Buddhism, zen in particular, but I still just can’t put a sticker on my forehead about which “religion” I belong to. I don’t think it can fit into a nice little package. I don’t believe in god, and in fact that word is totally spoiled for me now. However, I am happier than I have EVER been! Life is wonderful, and I don’t have to pretend to be someone else anymore! My family is very accepting, and we have a silent agreement not to talk about religion. I can sometimes sense their sadness though, perhaps thinking that I won't be with them forever. What they don't know is that I feel the same sadness for them. They are so snowed by this really ridiculous story, but I know if I preach to them or bring up facts, it will never shake their faith, it will only cause problems in our relationship.
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