Saturday, September 05, 2015

Beware Mormons Bearing Gifts

My daughter has been in a psychiatric residential treatment center for most of the last year because of suicide attempts,  self harming behaviors, and emotional instability. On her birthday she had a day pass to spend at home with her family. The young women at church took this opportunity to set up a visit and bring her a gift. How thoughtful, right? And the gift?

Drum roll please...

A nicely wrapped copy of "For the Strength of Youth" and another young women's pamphlet. Because everyone one knows that that is what a girl with severe self image issues needs to turn her life around.

Fortunately it stayed unopened and at home at the end of a very nice day when we had to take her back.

This is just another instance of the church's complete lack of understanding of mental health and the role that their messages play in some of those issues. I don't blame anyone for my daughter's problems. But I haven't found anything in Mormonism that provides any answers or help, but I know many things continue to the problems: arbitrary dress and grooming standard, sexual repression and shaming, perfectionism, arbitrary rules like the word of wisdom, and many more. My daughter has issues with all of those things.

3 comments:

JoyLovePeaceHappiness said...

I'm so sorry for the pain the self righteous has caused. They just don"t have a clue.
If the LDS church teachings and principles did half what they claimed, if they actually lead people to be inspired and make reliable choices, the outside world would flock to its doors and they wouldn't need missionaries. If it's as good they say it is it would be obvious.
My ex also suffers from mental illness and the guilt she has lived with all her life is unconscionable. She couldn't accept my love for her (over three decades of long-suffering, patience, understanding, tears, counseling, you name it) all because she couldn't love herself, she was "never good enough". She lost all respect for me when I left the church and wouldn't take any of my advice, thought I was what the dog left behind. All my counselors, pastor, previous bishop and friends who had children with BiPolar told me I had to let her go when she ran away. She's now stabilized on medication and gaining some independence.
So, there is hope; very painful to go thru (I'm sure not as painful as her suffering) but the best for everyone involved.
{{hugs}}

Unknown said...

I haven't attended church (with the exception of funerals) since 2004. I literally had to "lose my religion" to find it, "it"being true spiritually, and the simplicity of the gospel, not mired in dogma and mind control.
I feel free and more centered on blazing my own path, and just trying to be a quiet Christian, with good intentions and simple acts of kindness. The problem is, I spent my life as a Mormon paralyzed with fright about not being worthy and morally clean. I developed extreme OCD, and have been in and out of hospitals, once for 18 months. The indoctrination has been hard for me to shake, it's so deeply ingrained in me. I've loosensd up considerably, but I still carry the strict standards and repressive morals of the church with me. I wish I could find a decent lapsed/exmormon to date that understands the sexual repression drilled into people's heads, and would be patient with me as I continue to "detox" from the damage I sustained as a Mormon. It's been really hard to find like-minded people that understand what the church has done to mess people up sexually.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

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