exmosuggestion
i belong to the church of myself
mentally ill transgender ex-mo sharing their thoughts on tumblr. expect sacrilege, bitterness, and maybe some coping. personal tag fine to reblog, just more bitter than the other posts. you don't have to be ex-mormon to reblog from here.
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it's been a while since i've posted here. but this is just a general reminder to other ex-mos, and also to current mormons, that you have to put in anti-racist work into your deprogramming and/or ongoing church efforts.
regardless of the intentions of the "original" gospel or the current-day statements on racism (including partnerships with the NAACP on scholarships), the church has a racist legacy and history that they have not apologized for or made restitutions and reparations on (including the early practice of taking slaves as tithes, the forbidding of black men from holding the priesthood, the "lamanite" placement program, and no formal church-level apology and public admonition of individual racist statements and actors within the church). white supremacists feel home and comfortable within the church, and we have to unlearn the things that allow that comfort, and actively fight against it.
#ex-mormon#exmormonsuggestion#mormonism#mormons#mormonleaks#ldsconf#the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints
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Uh oh! A Jehovah’s Witness is at my door!
A guide on what the fuck is happening and what to do about it as a never JW, from an exJW.
JW congregations have just been told to start doing door-to-door preaching (aka ‘service’/‘service work’/‘witnessing’) again this September. They stopped for the past few years due to…well. The whole state of things. But it’s starting again! Fuck!
So, to get you folks in on the Secret Inner-workings of a Cult:
JWs do service work mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, but any day of the week is fair game, just less of them will be out on other days. Generally it’ll be in the mornings (anywhere between 9AM to 1PM being common, my family did 10AM to noon Saturdays), but any time of day is also fair game. Evening witnessing is encouraged, to catch parts of the service area who didn’t answer during morning service, like people who were at work or asleep.
JWs are given ‘territories’: entire neighborhoods if they’re a majority language and can generally bet on most of the people in a given area speaking that language; SPECIFIC ADDRESSES if they belong to a smaller language demographic. These are on ‘territory cards’, which include areas to fill out once they’ve called on houses. They often pull addresses from the phone book or other such directory, pulling based on name, or get referred new addresses from neighborhood sweeps in other congregations and were told x language was being spoken, so if you get called on by someone speaking your language and wonder how they got your address, it’s because they’ve collected data already! On You!
On that note: JWs collect data on you! A lot of it!! Those territory cards they fill out? They can include any information they gleaned from conversation (age? gender? personal details like if you’re married, if you live with your parents, etc? what religion do you belong to? any problems in your life they can ‘help’ with? any ‘problematic’ details, like if you’re queer? all of it.); if someone was home or not (yes we can see you peeking out from behind your curtains! we looked in windows!); if the person answering the door was uninterested; if they were aggressive; if they have dogs; if we were able to leave any publications with them; the details of any conversations we had, like which topics we discussed and which seemed to interest you the most; when to call on you again. The areas to fill this in on these cards are rather small so they usually only write down the most important information, but it is the most important information for trying to indoctrinate you into a cult. DO NOT give them any personal information. It will be used against you.
So that’s the gist of it. Now, you don’t want them at your door, probably.
Please do not harass them.
I know they’re annoying. We always knew we were being annoying. They do it anyways because they think they’re helping you. They often have children with them - not only because it’s often families going preaching together, but also because it’s a well known tactic to get a softer response from people they call on, to have a child with you. Even if there are no children, please do not harass JWs - they are cult victims, and doing so will only enforce their ‘us vs them’ mentality, and discourages members from leaving. The outside world hates you so much, so how can you leave?
“But what if—“ Nope! Beyond the whole ‘don’t be fucking cruel to abuse victims’ thing, it doesn’t even work! I’ve been threatened with dogs; my mother has been threatened with machetes; others have been flashed, or physically assaulted - we still went back eventually. Usually someone else would get the assignment, and usually we’d wait a bit, but we still went back.
“Okay, but what the fuck do I do, then?”
You open the door (yes, open the door; if you ignore them they’ll return again, assuming they just missed you or you were busy), let them tell you what they’re there for, and before the conversation goes further, you simply say:
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
And then you tell them goodbye. Nothing more. Don’t say you have your own religion. Don’t say you’re queer. Don’t try to use the ‘magic word’ apostate - actual former members can get harassed.
Unfortunately, despite this being the most successful and least harmful strategy, it isn’t 100% foolproof. They’re supposed to write ‘do not call’ on the territory card next to your address, but they’re human and forget sometimes (or might not mark it intentionally, though I haven’t seen that personally); the next person who gets that card might not see the mark, as well. On top of everything else, even if not forgotten, they will eventually come back. It’s policy to come by after some time to check on you, ‘just in case’: just in case you changed your mind, just in case you moved and there’s someone else there now, just in case, oh, you recently had a loved one pass away and suddenly find yourself in an emotionally vulnerable position in need of support and sympathy.
If you have the knowledge and mental/emotional energy and stability to, you can go about trying to debate them, maybe help some of them doubt, but it is no easy task and there is no guarantee of any success. It takes a lot of patience. They are undergoing some extreme brainwashing and ‘waking up’ is incredibly traumatizing, and you will face a lot of resistance in trying to deconvert any of them. Again, only attempt this if you have the energy, stability, and knowledge required - the delicacy required, too. Otherwise, remember, it’s
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
Nothing more.
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hymnal number 3
even nearly six years out from my formal resignation from the church, with most of my life being restructured as far from the church as possible for me, i still get a few hymns stuck in my head. mostly, i find them annoyingly monotonous: "ah right, this is the primary propaganda dirge", "this is the rejoicing at the end of times", "this is the rejoicing at the end of times but sorrowful", "some more propaganda", "this is the rejoicing at the end of times". but one line from "now let us rejoice" never fails to stick out in my mind in all-caps, bold impact type face, obscuring every other thought in my brain, shout-sung at conference.
"and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n"
and i sit and think very hard about that.
(cw discussion of sexual abuse, bishop "help line", inaction)
the associated press received 12,000 pages of sealed records from a west virginia civil case about sexual abuse within the lds church, alongside the intimate details of an ongoing case in arizona of a particular family's sexual abuse history. rundown here: https://apnews.com/article/Mormon-church-sexual-abuse-takeaways-f01fba7521ddddffa89622668b54ac10. this links to the main article that features several paragraphs of details of horrific sexual abuse. within the main article are sections with statements from church officials through both the mainline church and the legal representatives through kirton mcconkie. one of those people was my bishop as a younger teen, and then the stake president.
within his sealed affidavit statement, he explains that maintaining ecclesiastical disciplinary proceedings as separate and confidential from law enforcement is to maintain the trust that a perpetrator has with their ecclesiastical leaders, in order to allow for the perpetrator to repent and make spiritual amends for their crimes.
which implies: the physical and emotional safety of victims of crimes like sexual abuse are less important in at least one person's mind than the spiritual welfare of a perpetrator of abuse.
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while my family's personal history of abuse and pain is not fully my story to tell, i do think that a church culture that is fundamentally focused solely on spiritual redemption and not material restitution and protection led to the heinous abuse that a sibling of mine endured. and this particular stake president, who was likely made aware of the abuse because he was in our ward, was a coward, alongside the current bishop at the time, and my parents. the ball of "secular justice" didn't roll until i was confided in about the abuse by the perpetrator years after it happened. and thankfully, the bishop at that time, said that it had to be reported. i credit that mainly because he was apparently a convert to the church as an adult.
how many families have been ruined by the cowardice of the church and its lay clergy? how many children have been kept in harm as a result of these inactions? how many sins must church officials commit to keep the church afloat?
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now let us rejoice in the day of salvation
no longer as strangers on earth shall we roam
good tidings are sounding to us and each nation
and shortly the hour of redemption will come
when all that was promised the saints will be given
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
and earth will appear as the garden of eden
and jesus will say to all israel, "come home"
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
and none shall molest them from morn until ev'n
why should we wait until the millenium?
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America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)
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i'm not going to pretend that i understand what it's like to be flds, nor will i equivalate brighamite/corporate church trauma to flds trauma. but damn it is exhausting and triggering seeing people who have never lived a day in a high-demand group (hdg) treat documentaries and fiction based on irl groups like it's the latest release of their favorite show.
you people need to be fucking careful about how you interact w/ hdg media. you know someone who was in one if you live in the so-called united states. we see how you treat our trauma like a new marvel movie, or the latest season of stranger things, or like a rerun of goosebumps. yes, be horrified, but your pain and shock will never be the same as the lives we had to abandon and rebuild. if you're white, your rage should never take up more space in conversations about hdgs as the voices of those who have been harmed by hdgs, and the voices of people directly targeted by their (very often) yt supremacist beliefs.
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Credit: Something Strange Creations on Facebook
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sometimes i miss the burning rage and pain and tears from being freshly out of the church. but mostly, i'm happy that i rarely think about it as intensely as i used to. it still lives in my head, but it's much less likely to cause problems, and when it does it's so much easier to mitigate.
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My hypothesis is that in like 10 years gen z is gonna have a big cult boom the way the boomers did in the 70s
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To my queer exmos in mormon areas: I hope that you are able to be safe. I know that it’s hard after the latest talk, but please remember:
You are not wrong or bad for being queer.
You do not have to struggle with your queerness.
You deserve to be loved and protected.
Your queerness is beautiful and lovely.
You deserve to be treated with kindness and compassion.
You deserve to be heard.
You deserve to be heard.
You deserve to be heard.
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You're killin it babe
thanks! i think? but thanks!
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Can't get over the prominence of the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in my childhood. Can't get over the prominence of the moral of God above family and friends in my childhood. That always tore me apart.
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something really touching about david archuleta coming out is that he feels at least safe enough to confide that he is both bi and ace. asexuality is often seen as "not real" and a lot of folks assumed that being ace or aro made being mormon easier for me. but it's not? because there's so much pressure to get married and have your own kids, so much pressure relating to sexuality and sexual activity. sex is seen as a sacred action, and to not desire to do something sacred is seen as just as sinful as wanting to do something sacred in an unrighteous way.
hope his journeys in life are as peaceful and self-fulfilling as he wants them to be. 💙💜💖 🖤🤍💜
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mormonism is so funny because it will have you obsessing over perfection because the fate of your eternal soul rests on the quality of your contributions in the coming apocalyptic war and at some point you’re like “actually i just want to drink coffee in normal underwear while saying swear words, which is ideologically aligned with none of this”
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