how i lost my testimony and found myself, part I

what a day.

i'm surrounded by gifts i just finished wrapping, scraps of paper, a variety of cookies from the cookie exchange i hosted today, and a bowl of popcorn.

feeling consistently happy is pretty much the best.

it's been tricky to figure out how to write this post. i'm in a really great place now, and when you feel happy it can be hard to explain how you felt during the unhappy times in life. our memories are often tainted by our present state.

plus it's a lot of information, emotion, and history to write down in an organized fashion.
but here goes.


about a month and a half ago, i had a big realization.
i was in the bathroom, fresh out of the shower, trying to decide whether or not to put my garments on.
i had been having the same argument in my head for months, whether or not to wear them, whether or not to stay in a church i wasn't sure i agreed with or believed in. this wasn't a decision i took lightly. i had covenanted to wear my garments both day and night, for the rest of my life. i had learned a lot from wearing them, as i've written about in the past. i never enjoyed wearing them, because they just aren't comfortable, but i was willing to make that sacrifice because i believed.

so standing there in my towel, water dripping on the tile floor, i realized something.

during the two most difficult times in my life, dealing with sexual assault and then my hyperemesis pregnancy and postpartum depression, the lds church didn't help me. not only that, but my involvement in the lds church only made my life harder and sadder.

i pulled my bra over my bare skin and left my garment top sitting on the counter.


you may be wondering how i came to this realization.


rewind ten years. and know that this is really, really hard to talk about.
i was just barely 15 and i knew i was a dirty slut, unworthy of love.
my 10th grade school year had just started and everything was all wrong.
six months earlier, the neighbor boy who i had hoped would be my first kiss, had assaulted me for the first time, and then continued through the summer.
my parents had wondered what was going on with me, as i must have seen different, and they asked me one morning.
i lied to them, because i was afraid. afraid of the boy and what he would do. i didn't even know how to explain what had happened. it wasn't in a dark alley late at night. i wasn't wearing a short skirt. could i be assaulted by a boy i liked? so i told them that i had been doing things with the neighbor boy, who happened to be one of our home teachers.
i went to the bishop to confess my sins.
sitting across from a man i barely knew, mumbling private things. afraid to meet his eyes.
i was pronounced unworthy to take the sacrament.
all the boys involved (he and his friends) and also my best girl friend, were furious with me for telling. they were all in trouble.
he lied. said i was lying.
he was ordained to the office of a priest. he wore a black shirt. everyone in the chapel raised their right hands to the square and supported him.
my parents and i sat in our pew and refused to raise our hands.
he blessed the sacrament that i was unworthy to partake.
i knew i was a dirty whore.

my grandparents bought me a church book about sexual purity. i asked them if they had bought the same book for all my cousins, who are boys. several of them were sexually active at the time.
"oh, i guess that would be a good idea." my grandma said.

i had lesson after lesson about sexual purity and modestly.
i learned that an immodestly dressed girl was walking pornography. learned that it was up to me to help keep priesthood holders worthy, a task at which i had already failed.
at youth conference when we had a water fight at lunch, my bishop told me, "you look like a wet t-shirt contest winner. you need to change your clothes."
i was wearing a yellow t-shirt that covered my shoulders, neck, chest, stomach, hips.
no one told me about rape. no one told me about consent.
this church that i just knew was true, it never taught me how to protect myself. the message i received over and over was that my body was a temptress and that if you messed up sexually, you were a chewed up piece of gum that no one else would ever want.

i knew all the repenting in the world couldn't fix me.

this isn't just my story. i have exchanged this story with countless other women.

so i spent years believing i was damaged goods. even after i came to terms with the assault and realized it wasn't my fault and that i shouldn't have had to go through the repentance process, it still lingered.
every time i went to the temple, i felt like the men checking my recommend were thinking, "she isn't worthy to be here."

and let me explain to you. i took the lds church very seriously. even as a child, i can remember the sacrament being passed and my thoughts straying to school or the book i was reading, and scolding myself for thinking of "worldly things" when i should have been thinking of Jesus.
i prayed long prayers every night, asking forgiveness for every tiny mistake i had made.
as a grade school kid.

i never tried alcohol, coffee, drugs.
i tried not to lie.
i always paid a full tithe.
i read my scriptures and prayed daily.

i followed the rules and took them seriously.

then fast forward to last year during my pregnancy.
i don't need to rewrite how sick and afraid i was.

during those months before i was getting medical help, i was home alone almost every day, and a third of the nights. caring for myself was impossible.

i remember one afternoon, i had thrown up everything i tried to eat. i was too weak to walk up the stairs without holding on to the railing. i was so alone. thinking of the countless visiting teaching stories of sisters coming to the rescue, i sincerely begged God to send someone to my house to help me. i waited, expecting a knock at the door at any moment.

none came.

during my months of absence from the church, no one came looking for me. no one offered to bring the sacrament to me so i could take it weekly. every time i had a priesthood blessing, i would half jokingly ask my dad or travis to bless me to be healed and feel completely better. i was told it didn't always work like that. i wondered why not. what was wrong with my faith, that i couldn't be healed?

i started to doubt those blessings.

there is a well known saying in the lds church about how God never gives you more than you can handle.
i disagree with that.
i don't think God gave me the trial of hyperemesis because he knew i could handle it. i only handled it because it was my only choice, and many times i wished i could miscarry or i considered ending my life. if i didn't have that deadline of my due date and i would have been stuck that way, i would have ended my life.

then i had remington and was so terrified that God would tell me i had to have another child and i would be powerless to decide for myself. i kept thinking, God i can't do this. and then i would hear the well known phrase, "i never said it would be easy. i only said it would be worth it."  after weeks of this, i started to examine why i felt that way. it was because of the many, many stories i had heard of women deciding to have more children like this. they didn't want to, but God told them they should. all the pressure to have children came from hearing things like, "there are spirit children waiting for bodies." i was having panic attacks and feeling such guilt from these thoughts. one of the worst things in the world, not feeling like you are the boss of your own body and your future.

then remington's blessing day.
i had been the person who had suffered to get remy here.
i grew his body at the expense of my health.
i was the one who had postpartum depression and had to stay in a mental hospital. 

and yet i received no public recognition for my hard work.
i wasn't invited to stand in the circle to bless my child.
no one wanted to hear about my experience, the way a missionary is asked to speak.

here i had finally done the thing i was supposed to do as an lds woman, and i was being asked to stay in the background.

everyone was patting travis on the back, wishing him luck, telling him he gave a great blessing.
no one was saying anything like that to me.
just the mother. 

then there are all the social issues i disagree with, which is an entirely different post.

over the summer, at a family barbecue, the subject of the lds church and the boy scouting program came up. i didn't know that the lds church was supportive of the boy scouting policy to not allow gay men to be leaders in boy scouts. it felt like my best friend had punched me in the stomach.

how could this church i believed in and defended support discrimination? what other things were going on that i wasn't aware of? i started thinking that it was crazy for me to belong to an organization that seemed to support the opposite of what i believed in.



fast forward back to the day i stopped wearing my garments.
i left the house wearing "normal" undies and i wasn't struck by lightning. i felt the same. except maybe a little more comfortable in my own skin, knowing i was being true to my feelings.

xo.