July 28, 2024 • 49 mins
Sammi shares what it's like being deeply invested in the church just to realize that you can't stand by the beliefs and history that you spent your whole life defending.
CES Letter (print): https://cesletter.org/
CES Letter (audio): https://archive.org/details/CESletter
Note: We are not experts--we are just humans with real-life experience.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, brothers and sisters and othersiblings.
It's me, Karina.
And I'm Sammi, welcome.
And this is the Peculiar People podcast,an Ex-Mormon podcast.
And this is going to be our secondepisode.
And you can now find us on Instagram,TikTok, and Reddit.
And it's all under the name PeculiarPeople Exmo.
(00:24):
So you can follow us there and get updateson episodes.
Yeah, we are also on Patreon now becausewe use swear words and talk about some,
like, harder topics.
You have to type in the whole URL and it'spatreon .com slash peculiarpeoplexmo.
(00:46):
So the handle on everything is the same,which makes it easier.
Today we're going to be talking about exitstories.
last week we did mine and then this weekwe'll be doing Sammi's and she's just
going to kind of dive into why she leftand how she got to where she is today.
(01:06):
And I'm really excited to hear about it.
Thank you.
I'm honestly so nervous, but we got this.
So I guess I'll start with like mychildhood.
like I mentioned in the last episode, Igrew up in an extremely orthodox
household.
(01:26):
My dad grew up Mormon and it was just allvery letter of the law for him growing up.
And my mom was a convert in her twenties.
She grew up non -religious, but she likedefinitely dove right into it with my dad.
(01:48):
And so religion was everything that weate, breathed and slept basically.
And I really went along with it.
I was a very Mormon.
If you're not familiar with Mormon terms,
(02:09):
They call people who are just like superduper Mormon, if they're female, a Molly
Mormon.
And I was definitely that.
I don't know what the male version was.
Peter priesthood.
Thank you.
you're welcome.
(02:30):
So just to give you kind of an idea of howMormon I was, was, my gosh, so
embarrassing.
I was the annoying person on social mediawho would like repost every religious post
I ever came across and...
it's literally the most embarrassingthing, like when I have memory pop up on
(02:52):
my Facebook, because it's like, just likeyou keep scrolling and keep scrolling and
keep scrolling.
it's just like quotes from the churchbarf.
Yeah, I've deleted them whenever they comeback
Yeah, no, I've definitely started doingthat for sure.
I was doing it every day for a while andI've just like kind of stopped, but I'll
(03:15):
probably keep doing it eventually.
I can't wait for the day that I open mymemories and there's like literally zero
left.
That will be the day.
Yeah.
Yeah, so along with that, I was the kindof person who would like give people at
school
Book of Mormons, I went out with thesister missionaries to teach people when I
(03:42):
was a teenager.
And I had my high school boyfriend andsome of my friends taking the missionary
lessons.
I was just fully in, deep into the church.
And yeah, so about when I was
I want to say 15 or 16, I got mypatriarchal blessing.
(04:05):
If you're not familiar with a patriarchalblessing, that's basically what the church
teaches is that you get this very specificto you blessing from God given by someone
who's a patriarch, which is like, it'sjust a special assignment in church
(04:29):
basically.
and they speak for God is what the churchteaches.
Anyway, it's basically supposed to be likea roadmap for your life.
They tell you what is going to happen inyour future if you remain a worthy member
of the church and what blessings you'llreceive if you're just doing everything
(04:54):
And they tell you generally to come intohaving this blessing given to you.
It happens one time in your life normally.
That you should be praying and askingquestions.
Like come with a question and you'll getyour answer from God through this
blessing.
And so one thing that had been heavy on mymind was whether or not I needed to serve
(05:17):
a mission for the church.
That is
For women, it's 18 months, for men it'stwo years.
And you go when you're 18 if you're a man,19 if you're a woman.
And I didn't fully know if I wanted togive up that time in my life because I was
(05:39):
basically in the mindset of like, hey,God, if you don't tell me I need to go on
a mission, I'm just gonna get married assoon as possible.
So.
The Mormon brainwashing, it's at itsfinest.
Right?
And so I go and get my patriarchalblessing and sure enough, very clearly it
(06:04):
says that I'm to serve a mission.
So I make that my mission to serve amission.
So graduate from high school and I headoff to BYU, Brigham Young University.
in Provo, Utah.
(06:24):
And I put in my mission papers pretty soonafter I get to BYU.
And I ended up getting called to serve inthe Canada -Toronto mission as a Spanish
-speaking missionary.
And I was to leave in February of 2017.
(06:47):
So in January,
2017 I Went to the temple to get myinitiatory and endowment done.
As Karina mentioned in her episode lastweek It is high -key a cult like you oh
(07:09):
man you go into the temple having zeroideas what you're about to walk into and
There's all sorts of like rituals andceremony things that happen that are
beyond wild.
We will have a whole episode on this, I'msure, eventually.
(07:30):
Or more than.
how they have changed over time becausewhen my family first went to the temple
versus when I first went it's verydifferent and honestly the one in the past
is crazy.
Yeah.
Much worse, much worse.
Yeah, definitely.
(07:51):
But yeah, so a few things just to touch onwith the temple ceremony.
It's one, when you go to get yourendowment out, you start wearing special
underwear.
The church calls them garments, but it'sbasically like a t -shirt and shorts that
go down to your knees that you wearunderneath your clothes.
(08:15):
And they're supposed to give you likeprotection, both spiritual and physical.
So magic underwear, basically.
Were they super uncomfortable for youbecause I...
I had so many problems just wearing them.
(08:35):
Yes, super uncomfortable.
When I first got on my mission, so I'dbeen wearing garments for about a month, I
started having like rashes under my boobsand they were like, hi, I wonder why?
Are you, are we serious?
thighs would always get like hives on.
Yeah, yikes.
(08:56):
They're so uncomfortable.
like, why do we want to be wearing anextra layer of literal clothing?
Like it covers your whole body basically.
Especially if you live in a hot climate.
So anywho, you have to wear it all thetime.
So that was one thing that was verystrange to start doing.
(09:19):
But then in the initiatory,
You're like taught your whole life as aMormon that only men can have the
priesthood, which is the power to act inthe name of God.
You can do different things like givepeople blessings and stuff like that, be a
mouthpiece for God.
It's what they believe.
(09:39):
And you go into the initiatory and there'swomen doing all these things that you've
been taught your whole entire life thatonly men can do.
And I was like, what?
is happening.
this breaks all the rules.
What in the world?
(10:00):
And so that really kind of shook me, butthen the endowment itself.
You learn secret handshakes that arerequired to get into heaven, say some
really weird shit, and...
There's this weird prayer circle.
We'll get into this later.
It's just a lot.
It is a lot and very culty and you arepromising to things that you've literally
(10:20):
never heard of before.
You have no idea going in what you'reabout to like sign on to and they give you
one opportunity at the beginning to leaveif you don't want to be there and then
you're basically locked in.
Creepy.
But also you're like super peer pressuredbecause you're in a room full of people.
(10:42):
And usually there's only one person therethat's new.
And so if you get uncomfortable, you haveto leave in front of everyone, which is
usually your family and friends and peoplethat are there to support you.
Because I remember being uncomfortable andbeing like, well, I'm not going to get up.
(11:02):
Everyone came here for this.
I'm not just going to walk out.
They're all going to watch me leave.
Right, and then you're just gonna get likeso much backlash from it.
It's yeah, you're basically just cornered.
I remember while I was, I might havementioned this last week, but while I was
in the, in the endowment room, I was like,everybody thinks this is normal, right?
(11:27):
Like, okay, this is weird, but everybodyelse is doing it.
I also remember,
When you're in the temple, going throughthis part of the ceremony and anything
past this part of the ceremony, like, youwear some...
(11:49):
bat shit crazy clothes.
Yes.
and I remember before I had gone into theendowment room, I like went, came out of
this room where they had talked to meabout the garment and there was these
people walking down the hallway towards mein the temple clothing and I was like,
(12:13):
excuse me?
Am I about to wear that?
Like what is going on?
yeah, real wild.
So that shook me to the core.
I remember being in the celestial room,which is where you have a fancy, dancey
(12:35):
room that you go to after the ceremony,with my parents and just being like, what
just happened?
And I don't know what to think about this,but trying to feel the spirit, because
that's what you're supposed to do in thetemple.
And then we got home and I was
(12:56):
I don't know if I can stay in this.
this just, what in the actual hell justhappened?
I don't know if I believe this.
Like, what is going on?
I reached out to my best friend and like,was like, I might leave the church.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do.
Like, I'm supposed to leave on my missionin a couple of weeks.
(13:16):
What do I do?
And I brought it up to my mom as well andshe just kind of did the thing.
that Mormons do where they try to liketalk you down and make everything okay.
And a very common thing in the Mormonchurch is to remind you that even though
(13:37):
we don't know everything now that God willmake it known to us eventually, even if
that is not until the next life when we'rein heaven, which is just super, super
great advice.
and so yeah.
I just kind of had an existential crisisand buckled down and decided that I was
(14:00):
going to go on my mission.
And I think that that was in part, likeyou're told your whole life that going on
a mission is this huge, exciting thingthat you can do.
So I think I was partly excited, but Ithink I was also highly peer pressured and
I knew that I would let down so manypeople if I backed out at the last minute.
(14:23):
so yeah, went on my mission.
And I just went all for it.
I was going to be the best missionary.
I was going to figure out all the templestuff.
I went to the temple a few times duringthe six weeks that I was in the missionary
training center and just tried to likegain understanding and find a way to make
(14:46):
it beautiful in my brain.
And then I went, think, two times on mymission.
And I eventually got to a point where Iwas like, you know, this actually is kind
of beautiful.
What in the hell?
But what was
So it's easy to get used to keep tellingyourself you like
(15:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Acquired taste.
Yikes.
Yeah, so my mission was, it was themission.
We can talk about that later.
Missions are crazy.
You basically work 16 hour days for thechurch for free, and not only are you
working for free, but you're paying for itout of your own pocket, generally.
(15:33):
And it really affected my mental health,
I didn't really feel like I could leavebecause they make it really hard for you
to leave.
You have to have pretty insanecircumstances to be able to go home.
(15:53):
And so I just like kept on going andtrying to pray away my mental health
issues and I got through it somehow.
And then I got home from my mission inAugust of 2018.
And I remember like as I was nearing theend of my mission, they really shift gears
(16:19):
when you're a missionary from like, don'tbe thinking anything about the opposite
gender.
You've got to have your heart locked andsealed because you're the Lord's
missionary right now.
To all of sudden in like your lasttransfer, which is the last six weeks of
your mission,
You're about to go home and get married.
Start popping out babies.
(16:41):
And, it's, it's insane the pressure thatyou feel, but they also talk to you about
how, you really have to be diligent aboutkeeping up with praying and studying the
scriptures and church attendance.
Because when you get home from yourmission, it's going to feel different.
And you're going to go from, you know,doing this all day and all night to.
(17:06):
going back to your normal life and intosociety and I was like, yeah, yeah, sure.
You know, it'd be fine.
No, I got home and I went from likefeeling like I was on a spiritual high to
just like a nose dive.
And it wasn't for lack of trying either.
It was just the fact that it was literallymy whole entire life that I was thinking
(17:30):
about Jesus, preaching about Jesus.
Literally talking to every single person Isaw on the street or on the bus or
whatever about Jesus to trying to exist asa young adult in the real world.
And so that like really hit me hard.
(17:56):
It hit me hard to the fact or to the pointthat I like was researching like, you
serve a second mission?
as a young girl.
Like, what?
Yeah, I was like, I look back at that, I'mlike, wow, that's actually so crazy.
(18:16):
And I remember like, I had gone back toBYU at this point, and I was like, maybe I
should just try to get a job in the MTC sothat I can be around the missionaries all
the time, have them be teaching me as likea fake investigator or whatever.
And that never ended up happening, but Iwas just like, was pulling at every last
(18:38):
straw that I could find to try to get backto feeling the way that I felt on my
mission.
And, um, it just never really happened.
And so fast forward to like summer of2019, I went from BYU to Virginia to work
(18:59):
as a nanny for this Mormon family that hadtried to get
a nanny from BYU because they wanted aMormon nanny for the summer.
Terrible experience.
Terrible experience.
That's a story for another day.
Yeah.
but during that summer, I met this guy whowas Mormon, but kind of not totally
(19:27):
invested.
we started dating.
And within three or four weeks we wereabout to get engaged.
yeah.
And he had had like this dream a couple ofweeks into us dating where, he described
(19:52):
it.
He had never been in the temple before,but he described like the ceiling room
with altar and all of this stuff.
And we just thought this was a sign from
that were supposed to get married, sealed,whatever.
yeah, we're like literally, it was theweek that I thought I was going to get
(20:14):
engaged because he was giving all thesigns.
We had gone like ring shopping and he toldme like, maybe you should get your nails
done, you know?
And he broke up with
out of the blue.
It was the most random, like I literallywas in shock.
(20:37):
And I was like, what the fuck, God?
Did he say why?
I think that it came down to like, he wasreally just kind of scared about it, but
also like we barely knew each other.
And what we did know about each other wasthat we both kind of wanted, we wanted
(21:00):
similar things.
Like we wanted marriage and we wanted kidsand stuff like that.
But like I was very invested in the churchand he was.
one foot in, one foot out, kind ofinvested in the church.
And he was just like, my lifestyle justdoesn't, I don't think our lifestyle is
(21:20):
aligned, basically.
And so totally understandable.
yeah, but like, wow.
Like we were literally like, my gosh, it'sso crazy.
Cause we literally knew each other forlike two seconds, but we were planning our
wedding.
pre -engagement, we wanted to get marriedlike probably at the end of that summer I
(21:45):
think.
Our parents ended up convincing us to waituntil the winter and then we were just
getting so much pressure on every side.
His family was like inactive basically andhe had been converted by missionaries in
his like early 20s but
(22:06):
Yeah, we were getting so much pressure andwe were just like, why don't we just go
elope?
Like there were literally days when he waslike, let's just go to the courthouse and
we like almost did.
And I was like, I don't know.
I kind of want my family to be there.
And then he breaks it off.
And I was like, what is happening?
And also Mormon God, what the fuck?
Like you gave us this sign that we weresupposed to get married.
(22:29):
And now here we are.
And my heart is shattered and I don't knowwhat to do.
I literally took the next semester off ofcollege because I was just wrecked.
And yeah, yeah, was crazy in every way.
But that's normal.
(22:49):
That would be a lot to process.
Good and bad.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I felt so just conflicted about so manythings and, yeah.
I think that was the first time that Ireally felt like the physical effects of
heartbreak because you actually do feel itin your chest.
(23:11):
Like it's crazy.
Yeah.
And so at that point, when I took thesemester off of BYU, this is now fall of
2019, I went to California to live with mysister and help with her kids.
And,
(23:35):
Gosh, Mormonism is crazy because theyteach you just get fucking married.
And so I told myself, I'm not going todate for a while.
Guess what I started doing?
Dating.
And what was that?
My job?
Yeah.
Yeah, it literally is your job.
Um, so I reconnected in September of 2019with my now ex -husband.
(24:04):
He had served as a missionary in my ward,just like congregation, when I was growing
up.
Yeah, that happened.
Yes.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
(24:24):
And I remember when he was serving in myward, like I had the biggest crush on him.
I was like a, I don't know, 15, 16 yearold girl.
And so yeah, we reconnected on Facebook.
We started talking.
Yeah.
You were 15 or 16.
Did - Please tell me he didn't have acrush on you
(24:44):
He didn't do anything and I didn't know ifhe did.
What?
Just cause if he was I'd be like, that'ssketchy.
She's a child.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That was something in our relationshipthat he would always feel so embarrassed
if we were telling our story because ofour age gap was like six years and we met
(25:08):
each other when I was a child.
Yes, that's definitely something that itweird, but nothing happened when when I
was a child.
If that's what you're.
Yeah.
Yeah.
yeah.
He be jeebies.
Anyhoo, so we start talking, then I goback to BYU for the winter semester of
(25:35):
2020, right before COVID wrecked theworld.
And one of the classes that I took thatsemester was the history of the church,
which is a real doozy.
I don't know if you took that class, but
(25:56):
can't remember which ones I took now.
If it was required, I'm sure I did.
I think it was one of my religiouselectives.
Okay, maybe
Yeah.
So I went into that class like kind ofexcited because there's like a, I don't
know, there's like kind of a limit to whatyou learn about the history of the church,
(26:20):
just in like Sunday school and otherchurch meetings.
And I was shocked at what I learned.
Like,
And the fact that they were saying thisopenly in a religious class at a church
sanctioned school.
(26:41):
We talked about how Joseph Smith, thefounder of the Mormon Church, had, oh, you
know, between like 30 and 40 wives.
And he was
having these wives behind his originalwife Emma's back and that some of them
(27:01):
were like 14, 15 years old and that he wasmarrying other men's wives while they were
off preaching the gospel across the worldfor him.
And we talked about the fact that blackpeople couldn't have the priesthood until
the 80s and
(27:24):
Not to mention the fact that women can'thave the priesthood still today.
we talked about like some LBGTQ plus stuffin that class.
And I remember being like, why doeseverybody think this is normal?
This stuff is really shitty.
(27:45):
We get taught these, all of these likehistorical things in a very like rose
colored glasses type of way in the church.
But this stuff sucks, like more thansucks.
And it's not okay, and why are wepretending that it is?
(28:05):
And I think at that point, like I ofcourse had had a few other things happen
in the past, as I've mentioned, but thatwas really the point where my shelf
started to get things stacked onto it.
If you didn't listen to Karina's episodelast week, go back and listen to it.
(28:25):
But the shelf metaphor is basically thatlike you have this shelf that you create
in your mind and you put all of thequestions and concerns that you have about
the church on it.
And eventually it gets really heavy orsomething happens and the shelf breaks.
And that's the point where you realize youcan't remain in the church anymore.
(28:48):
So yeah, my shelf just really startedgetting stacked with stuff at that point.
So then COVID hits mid semester and I'mlike, I don't know what to do.
I don't really want to stay here.
I suck at doing school online.
So I don't think I don't foresee me likestaying in school during this online
(29:12):
school period.
And I didn't want to go home because myrelationship with my parents is not great
at this point.
And I just really didn't know where to go.
And I ended up talking to my ex -husband,my now ex -husband, who was my boyfriend
at that point.
(29:32):
And we decided that I would move in withhim.
Rebels!
I know.
So I sneakily moved up to Idaho.
finished out the semester at BYU.
(29:53):
Thank god I had my ecclesiasticalendorsement already at that point because
I was feeling real guilty and I would nothave passed that interview but yeah we
start living together doing you know allthe things that people who live together
do and snap
(30:16):
And yeah, throughout, well, I guess I'llsay we got engaged then in October of
2020.
And then around that time or a few monthsbefore we had moved from one place to
another, we weren't really attendingchurch for a while, but then we started
(30:40):
attending when we moved to the new area.
And
There's this thing that happens inMormonism that us exmos like to call
leadership roulette, where your leadershipin your ward, which is again a
congregation, is either great andaccepting or they suck.
(31:05):
And you can just feel all the seethinghatred from them.
And we lucked out.
We had the best leadership.
Our bishop, when we first startedattending, just welcomed us with open arms
and said that like precedent for the wardthat they needed to accept us and love us
(31:28):
just as the two human beings that we were.
And he ended up eventually becoming ourstake president.
And the next bishop, same deal.
Like we were
loved on hard, never felt any pressurereally to like get married.
(31:49):
Or at I felt that at the time.
I feel a little differently now.
But yeah, so we're just attending churchand figuring things out and got engaged in
October of 2020.
And then in January of 2021, we
We have like some priesthood leaders comeover and we both got priesthood blessings.
(32:13):
And as soon as the priesthood blessingshad happened, we looked at each other
we're like, we need to get married and weneed to get married like now, basically.
And we ended up, that was a Sunday.
We ended up getting married the nextSunday in the church gym.
Yeah.
Okay.
The leadership loved us so much that theylet us break the rules and we got married
(32:35):
on a Sunday, which is like unheard of inthe Mormon world
in the Mormon world.
but yeah, I was very just like throwntogether.
Nothing of what I really like expected orhad dreamed of for my wedding.
But at that point it was kind of likethat, that feeling that you get as a
(33:00):
Mormon when you're told that like, ifyou're doing something wrong, the spirit's
going to tell you.
And if you don't get on it right away,you're just going to keep getting bugged
about it.
And
We just got married.
And honestly, the ward was great.
Like, you can either have really bad wardsor really good wards.
That ward was pretty, pretty awesome.
(33:20):
It showed up for us and it was awesome.
So, anywho, over the course of the timethat I was with my ex -husband, both
married and unmarried, I had brought up
my shelf items.
(33:40):
And there were lots of Sunday morningswhen I didn't want to go to church and we
would just end up hanging out and talkingabout my shelf items.
And the metaphor that I like to give forthis is that it kind of felt like I was
taking things off the shelf.
We were talking through them, but it neverreally got resolved.
(34:04):
So it kind of felt like we were justdusting them off.
and then putting them back up on theshelf.
And it happened over and over and overagain.
And I just like, was like, okay, well, youknow, this is the only true church.
So gotta just keep on keeping on.
(34:27):
And there were times during ourrelationship that like, I felt like I had
to be the strong one because my ex-husband was struggling with things.
every once in a while, times when I'm surehe felt the same way.
But ultimately, yeah, I just kind of kepttrying to be the good Mormon woman.
(34:53):
And then...
So at that point we were living in Idaho,which is very Mormon.
And in April of 2022, we moved to Maine,which is where I live now.
And the culture is very different becausethere's very few Mormons here.
(35:15):
And I feel like it honestly gave me theperfect space to be able to leave the
church.
I wasn't intending on
We got here and I started attending myward in Maine and making connections with
the people and everything.
(35:38):
And then in June of 2022, Roe versus Wadewas overturned.
And somehow that broke my shelf.
It felt random and weird.
But I think that it was like the fact thatabortion was one of those things that I'd
(36:01):
always been told to believe one way about.
And I had started having like cognitivedissonance about so many things, including
that, like women having rights over what?
Their own bodies?
Wow.
Like the fact that
The government was taking that away fromus as women.
(36:26):
And so many religious people, especiallythe Mormons that I had grown up with, gone
to school with, whatever, were all like,yes, you know, this is God's work we're
doing.
It crushed my soul.
And I was like, I can't, I cannot be apart of this.
And I think it kind of like unraveledeverything else too.
(36:50):
That I had been having cognitivedissonance about because if I couldn't
stand by a church that was celebratingwomen's rights being taken away, I also
couldn't stand by the racism and theirlike issues with the LGBTQ plus community.
All of the things just came tumbling down.
(37:10):
And I like for the next two or three daysafter Roe versus Wade was overturned, I
felt numb.
Like so
disassociated and my gosh, I was so scaredto tell my husband.
So scared.
(37:31):
And yeah, it all just kind of came apartat that point.
trying to decide now to go, like, if wecontinue going down the how I told my
husband route, that could take a longtime.
But maybe that can be an episode foranother day.
(37:54):
But basically at that point, I decidedthat I couldn't continue going to church.
For a while, I kept going to church forthe sake of my husband and my stepkids.
that was like pretty short lived.
And around that same time, it kind oflike, it kind of made my marriage rocky.
(38:21):
And I was talking with one of my sistersat the time about just all the things.
And she had brought up things about likeexploring her sexuality.
And I realized at that point, I was like,don't, I don't know if I'm actually fully
straight.
There may have been signs over time.
(38:42):
and yeah, so I started like exploring mysexuality and that added a whole other
thing into my marriage.
and
I ended up filing for divorce in thesummer of 2023.
(39:11):
Yeah, I also, it was really, reallyincredible.
The same day that I filed for divorce, Ireceived my letter of confirmation of
resignation from the church.
That was a monumental day.
-husband that you were leaving?
Or did you...
You told him, right?
That you didn't...
(39:31):
How did that go?
Even if we don't get into how you did
It did not go well.
Yeah, yeah.
A big factor in that was that my ex-husband was very adamant that we didn't
have kids until we were sealed becauseMormons always want their babies born into
(39:53):
the covenant.
And I was always like, but wouldn't it bebetter if I like am actually ready
go to the temple and be sealed and notfeel like I have to do it or I should do
it because I want kids so badly.
But did he not already have children?
(40:17):
Yeah, he did have kids.
I wanted kids.
And so it was, yeah, it was just thisthing of like, he didn't want us to have
kids outside of the covenant, but I didn'treally feel ready to go get sealed,
because I was questioning a millionthings.
(40:38):
And so me leaving the church basicallylike took away
that for him, him having more kids in thecovenant.
And so that didn't go super well.
(40:58):
there's so much behind this.
He kind of tried, but he definitely didsome things.
We definitely have to have another episodebecause he definitely did some things over
the course of the next few weeks, monthsthat broke my trust.
Right when I was in like
the very raw beginning of having left thechurch and trying to figure out anything
(41:26):
and everything that I could about who Iwas and what I actually believed in.
Just rerouting my whole entire lifebecause it had all been, you know, laid
out in front of me by the Mormon church.
So yeah, it was a rough, rough time andreally changed the
(41:46):
trajectory of my life in a thousand ways.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
So I have officially now been out of thechurch for two years, I guess, officially,
(42:06):
officially with my name off the record forabout a year now.
And it is crazy how much life can changeand how much you can to like totally
debunk
The fact that Mormons will tell you thatyou can't be happy outside of the church,
(42:27):
that's a lie.
Yeah.
my gosh, me too.
And the way that you can like be happy inthe ways that actually make you happy and
not in the ways that they tell you thatyou're supposed to be happy, it's
incredible.
Mind blowing.
(42:48):
Yeah, so the growth that has come with
leaving and finding myself, it's insane,insane to look back at those versions of
myself and cringe a little bit, but alsobe able to be like, okay, like you were
doing what you could with what you had atthe time.
(43:09):
And like you said last week, you likelearn new things and you do better.
And that's what I try to do every day
So where would you say you're at now asfar as religion and God goes?
Great question.
I don't believe in God, at least notMormon God.
(43:34):
He's a pretty shitty guy.
I also like really questioned there for awhile at the beginning when I was leaving
the church if I could remain Christian.
And then I started really looking at whatChristianity is
(43:57):
the fact that they believe pretty muchsolely in the Bible.
And I was like, actually, like, the wholeBible is just a bunch of like, God telling
people to murder other people.
And, no.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, so I decided I couldn't be Christianeither.
And I kind of just settled into agnostic.
(44:24):
I kind of go back and forth sometimesbetween being feeling like maybe I'm
theist agnostic and then atheist agnostic.
I don't really know.
And I feel it's amazing how comfortable Ifeel in the unknown.
Because in Mormonism,
you have to know everything.
(44:46):
Like they tell you, pray to know that thisis true.
When you talk about your beliefs, youdon't just say, I believe, you say, I know
as if it's fact.
That's a lot of pressure.
And I'm grateful to now not feel like Ihave to know.
I can just exist and be okay with that.
(45:10):
How about you?
Where are you at with religion,spirituality?
I would consider myself atheist, butthere's still times where I am spiritual.
Can there be spiritual atheists?
I am one.
Just because I'll have like experiences ormoments where I feel maybe something
(45:33):
beyond me or like I'm part of a biggerpicture and I don't know if it's
necessarily God or if it's just natureplays a big part in it or energy or
connection with people.
where I still be the same feeling that Iused to think was the spirit.
(45:53):
but I think that positive energy, whetherit has to do with God or not is spiritual
for me.
And like you said, I'm pretty comfortablewith not knowing.
And I don't ever want to think that I havethe one right answer and everyone is
wrong.
So I try to at least be open minded.
and yeah.
(46:14):
Sometimes if I'm in the mood, I'll say aprayer.
Sometimes I don't do that for months.
Sometimes I'll do some random rituals andplay with tarot cards.
I just like to explore, find things thatmake me feel good.
That's awesome!
that's so cool and it feels I'm sure sonice to just be able to like do exactly
(46:37):
what you want to do and nothing morenothing less not being told this is
exactly how you should act this is exactlywhat you should do that don't miss
So I'm much happier being able to letmyself decide what feels good to me and
(46:59):
what feels right and wrong and what bringsme peace.
Even if it doesn't make sense to anyoneelse, it doesn't have to.
Right, exactly, it never has to.
That's so real.
Well, thank you for letting me share mystory.
Thank you for sharing it.
I feel like I have so many questions andmore things I want to talk about, but
(47:21):
we'll run out of time so we can just divein on all of that craziness later with
missions and marriage and temples and
The list keeps going.
yeah, like all the history.
I know the history is a big factor in bothof our journeys out of the church.
(47:42):
There's so many topics that we can talk onand we will.
I'm excited to keep going.
It'll be great.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Just as a reminder, we're on Instagram,TikTok, Reddit, and Patreon.
And it's peculiarpeoplexmo as the handle.
(48:07):
So go like, subscribe, share our content.
That would be sweet.
Tell all your other Exmo friends about us.
And yes, so true.
lot of people who have never been Mormonthat ask me all kinds of crazy questions.
if you know people that just want to hearabout it, go for it.
(48:30):
Find us every Sunday.
Yeah.
I'm definitely like a cult documentaryfanatic and so I...
Yeah.
Everybody's interested, pretty much.
Maybe not everybody, but...
We'll definitely have some Never Mormonson here, I'm sure.
(48:50):
It's interesting and batshit crazy stuffthat we've been through.
yeah.
Alrighty, well, I hope you all have agreat week.
See you guys, thanks for joining.
See ya, bye.
Hello, brothers and sisters and othersiblings.
It's me, Karina.
And I'm Sammi, welcome.
And this is the Peculiar People podcast,an Ex-Mormon podcast.
And this is going to be our secondepisode.
And you can now find us on Instagram,TikTok, and Reddit.
And it's all under the name PeculiarPeople Exmo.
(00:24):
So you can follow us there and get updateson episodes.
Yeah, we are also on Patreon now becausewe use swear words and talk about some,
like, harder topics.
You have to type in the whole URL and it'spatreon .com slash peculiarpeoplexmo.
(00:46):
So the handle on everything is the same,which makes it easier.
Today we're going to be talking about exitstories.
last week we did mine and then this weekwe'll be doing Sammi's and she's just
going to kind of dive into why she leftand how she got to where she is today.
(01:06):
And I'm really excited to hear about it.
Thank you.
I'm honestly so nervous, but we got this.
So I guess I'll start with like mychildhood.
like I mentioned in the last episode, Igrew up in an extremely orthodox
household.
(01:26):
My dad grew up Mormon and it was just allvery letter of the law for him growing up.
And my mom was a convert in her twenties.
She grew up non -religious, but she likedefinitely dove right into it with my dad.
(01:48):
And so religion was everything that weate, breathed and slept basically.
And I really went along with it.
I was a very Mormon.
If you're not familiar with Mormon terms,
(02:09):
They call people who are just like superduper Mormon, if they're female, a Molly
Mormon.
And I was definitely that.
I don't know what the male version was.
Peter priesthood.
Thank you.
you're welcome.
(02:30):
So just to give you kind of an idea of howMormon I was, was, my gosh, so
embarrassing.
I was the annoying person on social mediawho would like repost every religious post
I ever came across and...
it's literally the most embarrassingthing, like when I have memory pop up on
(02:52):
my Facebook, because it's like, just likeyou keep scrolling and keep scrolling and
keep scrolling.
it's just like quotes from the churchbarf.
Yeah, I've deleted them whenever they comeback
Yeah, no, I've definitely started doingthat for sure.
I was doing it every day for a while andI've just like kind of stopped, but I'll
(03:15):
probably keep doing it eventually.
I can't wait for the day that I open mymemories and there's like literally zero
left.
That will be the day.
Yeah.
Yeah, so along with that, I was the kindof person who would like give people at
school
Book of Mormons, I went out with thesister missionaries to teach people when I
(03:42):
was a teenager.
And I had my high school boyfriend andsome of my friends taking the missionary
lessons.
I was just fully in, deep into the church.
And yeah, so about when I was
I want to say 15 or 16, I got mypatriarchal blessing.
(04:05):
If you're not familiar with a patriarchalblessing, that's basically what the church
teaches is that you get this very specificto you blessing from God given by someone
who's a patriarch, which is like, it'sjust a special assignment in church
(04:29):
basically.
and they speak for God is what the churchteaches.
Anyway, it's basically supposed to be likea roadmap for your life.
They tell you what is going to happen inyour future if you remain a worthy member
of the church and what blessings you'llreceive if you're just doing everything
(04:54):
And they tell you generally to come intohaving this blessing given to you.
It happens one time in your life normally.
That you should be praying and askingquestions.
Like come with a question and you'll getyour answer from God through this
blessing.
And so one thing that had been heavy on mymind was whether or not I needed to serve
(05:17):
a mission for the church.
That is
For women, it's 18 months, for men it'stwo years.
And you go when you're 18 if you're a man,19 if you're a woman.
And I didn't fully know if I wanted togive up that time in my life because I was
(05:39):
basically in the mindset of like, hey,God, if you don't tell me I need to go on
a mission, I'm just gonna get married assoon as possible.
So.
The Mormon brainwashing, it's at itsfinest.
Right?
And so I go and get my patriarchalblessing and sure enough, very clearly it
(06:04):
says that I'm to serve a mission.
So I make that my mission to serve amission.
So graduate from high school and I headoff to BYU, Brigham Young University.
in Provo, Utah.
(06:24):
And I put in my mission papers pretty soonafter I get to BYU.
And I ended up getting called to serve inthe Canada -Toronto mission as a Spanish
-speaking missionary.
And I was to leave in February of 2017.
(06:47):
So in January,
2017 I Went to the temple to get myinitiatory and endowment done.
As Karina mentioned in her episode lastweek It is high -key a cult like you oh
(07:09):
man you go into the temple having zeroideas what you're about to walk into and
There's all sorts of like rituals andceremony things that happen that are
beyond wild.
We will have a whole episode on this, I'msure, eventually.
(07:30):
Or more than.
how they have changed over time becausewhen my family first went to the temple
versus when I first went it's verydifferent and honestly the one in the past
is crazy.
Yeah.
Much worse, much worse.
Yeah, definitely.
(07:51):
But yeah, so a few things just to touch onwith the temple ceremony.
It's one, when you go to get yourendowment out, you start wearing special
underwear.
The church calls them garments, but it'sbasically like a t -shirt and shorts that
go down to your knees that you wearunderneath your clothes.
(08:15):
And they're supposed to give you likeprotection, both spiritual and physical.
So magic underwear, basically.
Were they super uncomfortable for youbecause I...
I had so many problems just wearing them.
(08:35):
Yes, super uncomfortable.
When I first got on my mission, so I'dbeen wearing garments for about a month, I
started having like rashes under my boobsand they were like, hi, I wonder why?
Are you, are we serious?
thighs would always get like hives on.
Yeah, yikes.
(08:56):
They're so uncomfortable.
like, why do we want to be wearing anextra layer of literal clothing?
Like it covers your whole body basically.
Especially if you live in a hot climate.
So anywho, you have to wear it all thetime.
So that was one thing that was verystrange to start doing.
(09:19):
But then in the initiatory,
You're like taught your whole life as aMormon that only men can have the
priesthood, which is the power to act inthe name of God.
You can do different things like givepeople blessings and stuff like that, be a
mouthpiece for God.
It's what they believe.
(09:39):
And you go into the initiatory and there'swomen doing all these things that you've
been taught your whole entire life thatonly men can do.
And I was like, what?
is happening.
this breaks all the rules.
What in the world?
(10:00):
And so that really kind of shook me, butthen the endowment itself.
You learn secret handshakes that arerequired to get into heaven, say some
really weird shit, and...
There's this weird prayer circle.
We'll get into this later.
It's just a lot.
It is a lot and very culty and you arepromising to things that you've literally
(10:20):
never heard of before.
You have no idea going in what you'reabout to like sign on to and they give you
one opportunity at the beginning to leaveif you don't want to be there and then
you're basically locked in.
Creepy.
But also you're like super peer pressuredbecause you're in a room full of people.
(10:42):
And usually there's only one person therethat's new.
And so if you get uncomfortable, you haveto leave in front of everyone, which is
usually your family and friends and peoplethat are there to support you.
Because I remember being uncomfortable andbeing like, well, I'm not going to get up.
(11:02):
Everyone came here for this.
I'm not just going to walk out.
They're all going to watch me leave.
Right, and then you're just gonna get likeso much backlash from it.
It's yeah, you're basically just cornered.
I remember while I was, I might havementioned this last week, but while I was
in the, in the endowment room, I was like,everybody thinks this is normal, right?
(11:27):
Like, okay, this is weird, but everybodyelse is doing it.
I also remember,
When you're in the temple, going throughthis part of the ceremony and anything
past this part of the ceremony, like, youwear some...
(11:49):
bat shit crazy clothes.
Yes.
and I remember before I had gone into theendowment room, I like went, came out of
this room where they had talked to meabout the garment and there was these
people walking down the hallway towards mein the temple clothing and I was like,
(12:13):
excuse me?
Am I about to wear that?
Like what is going on?
yeah, real wild.
So that shook me to the core.
I remember being in the celestial room,which is where you have a fancy, dancey
(12:35):
room that you go to after the ceremony,with my parents and just being like, what
just happened?
And I don't know what to think about this,but trying to feel the spirit, because
that's what you're supposed to do in thetemple.
And then we got home and I was
(12:56):
I don't know if I can stay in this.
this just, what in the actual hell justhappened?
I don't know if I believe this.
Like, what is going on?
I reached out to my best friend and like,was like, I might leave the church.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do.
Like, I'm supposed to leave on my missionin a couple of weeks.
(13:16):
What do I do?
And I brought it up to my mom as well andshe just kind of did the thing.
that Mormons do where they try to liketalk you down and make everything okay.
And a very common thing in the Mormonchurch is to remind you that even though
(13:37):
we don't know everything now that God willmake it known to us eventually, even if
that is not until the next life when we'rein heaven, which is just super, super
great advice.
and so yeah.
I just kind of had an existential crisisand buckled down and decided that I was
(14:00):
going to go on my mission.
And I think that that was in part, likeyou're told your whole life that going on
a mission is this huge, exciting thingthat you can do.
So I think I was partly excited, but Ithink I was also highly peer pressured and
I knew that I would let down so manypeople if I backed out at the last minute.
(14:23):
so yeah, went on my mission.
And I just went all for it.
I was going to be the best missionary.
I was going to figure out all the templestuff.
I went to the temple a few times duringthe six weeks that I was in the missionary
training center and just tried to likegain understanding and find a way to make
(14:46):
it beautiful in my brain.
And then I went, think, two times on mymission.
And I eventually got to a point where Iwas like, you know, this actually is kind
of beautiful.
What in the hell?
But what was
So it's easy to get used to keep tellingyourself you like
(15:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Acquired taste.
Yikes.
Yeah, so my mission was, it was themission.
We can talk about that later.
Missions are crazy.
You basically work 16 hour days for thechurch for free, and not only are you
working for free, but you're paying for itout of your own pocket, generally.
(15:33):
And it really affected my mental health,
I didn't really feel like I could leavebecause they make it really hard for you
to leave.
You have to have pretty insanecircumstances to be able to go home.
(15:53):
And so I just like kept on going andtrying to pray away my mental health
issues and I got through it somehow.
And then I got home from my mission inAugust of 2018.
And I remember like as I was nearing theend of my mission, they really shift gears
(16:19):
when you're a missionary from like, don'tbe thinking anything about the opposite
gender.
You've got to have your heart locked andsealed because you're the Lord's
missionary right now.
To all of sudden in like your lasttransfer, which is the last six weeks of
your mission,
You're about to go home and get married.
Start popping out babies.
(16:41):
And, it's, it's insane the pressure thatyou feel, but they also talk to you about
how, you really have to be diligent aboutkeeping up with praying and studying the
scriptures and church attendance.
Because when you get home from yourmission, it's going to feel different.
And you're going to go from, you know,doing this all day and all night to.
(17:06):
going back to your normal life and intosociety and I was like, yeah, yeah, sure.
You know, it'd be fine.
No, I got home and I went from likefeeling like I was on a spiritual high to
just like a nose dive.
And it wasn't for lack of trying either.
It was just the fact that it was literallymy whole entire life that I was thinking
(17:30):
about Jesus, preaching about Jesus.
Literally talking to every single person Isaw on the street or on the bus or
whatever about Jesus to trying to exist asa young adult in the real world.
And so that like really hit me hard.
(17:56):
It hit me hard to the fact or to the pointthat I like was researching like, you
serve a second mission?
as a young girl.
Like, what?
Yeah, I was like, I look back at that, I'mlike, wow, that's actually so crazy.
(18:16):
And I remember like, I had gone back toBYU at this point, and I was like, maybe I
should just try to get a job in the MTC sothat I can be around the missionaries all
the time, have them be teaching me as likea fake investigator or whatever.
And that never ended up happening, but Iwas just like, was pulling at every last
(18:38):
straw that I could find to try to get backto feeling the way that I felt on my
mission.
And, um, it just never really happened.
And so fast forward to like summer of2019, I went from BYU to Virginia to work
(18:59):
as a nanny for this Mormon family that hadtried to get
a nanny from BYU because they wanted aMormon nanny for the summer.
Terrible experience.
Terrible experience.
That's a story for another day.
Yeah.
but during that summer, I met this guy whowas Mormon, but kind of not totally
(19:27):
invested.
we started dating.
And within three or four weeks we wereabout to get engaged.
yeah.
And he had had like this dream a couple ofweeks into us dating where, he described
(19:52):
it.
He had never been in the temple before,but he described like the ceiling room
with altar and all of this stuff.
And we just thought this was a sign from
that were supposed to get married, sealed,whatever.
yeah, we're like literally, it was theweek that I thought I was going to get
(20:14):
engaged because he was giving all thesigns.
We had gone like ring shopping and he toldme like, maybe you should get your nails
done, you know?
And he broke up with
out of the blue.
It was the most random, like I literallywas in shock.
(20:37):
And I was like, what the fuck, God?
Did he say why?
I think that it came down to like, he wasreally just kind of scared about it, but
also like we barely knew each other.
And what we did know about each other wasthat we both kind of wanted, we wanted
(21:00):
similar things.
Like we wanted marriage and we wanted kidsand stuff like that.
But like I was very invested in the churchand he was.
one foot in, one foot out, kind ofinvested in the church.
And he was just like, my lifestyle justdoesn't, I don't think our lifestyle is
(21:20):
aligned, basically.
And so totally understandable.
yeah, but like, wow.
Like we were literally like, my gosh, it'sso crazy.
Cause we literally knew each other forlike two seconds, but we were planning our
wedding.
pre -engagement, we wanted to get marriedlike probably at the end of that summer I
(21:45):
think.
Our parents ended up convincing us to waituntil the winter and then we were just
getting so much pressure on every side.
His family was like inactive basically andhe had been converted by missionaries in
his like early 20s but
(22:06):
Yeah, we were getting so much pressure andwe were just like, why don't we just go
elope?
Like there were literally days when he waslike, let's just go to the courthouse and
we like almost did.
And I was like, I don't know.
I kind of want my family to be there.
And then he breaks it off.
And I was like, what is happening?
And also Mormon God, what the fuck?
Like you gave us this sign that we weresupposed to get married.
(22:29):
And now here we are.
And my heart is shattered and I don't knowwhat to do.
I literally took the next semester off ofcollege because I was just wrecked.
And yeah, yeah, was crazy in every way.
But that's normal.
(22:49):
That would be a lot to process.
Good and bad.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I felt so just conflicted about so manythings and, yeah.
I think that was the first time that Ireally felt like the physical effects of
heartbreak because you actually do feel itin your chest.
(23:11):
Like it's crazy.
Yeah.
And so at that point, when I took thesemester off of BYU, this is now fall of
2019, I went to California to live with mysister and help with her kids.
And,
(23:35):
Gosh, Mormonism is crazy because theyteach you just get fucking married.
And so I told myself, I'm not going todate for a while.
Guess what I started doing?
Dating.
And what was that?
My job?
Yeah.
Yeah, it literally is your job.
Um, so I reconnected in September of 2019with my now ex -husband.
(24:04):
He had served as a missionary in my ward,just like congregation, when I was growing
up.
Yeah, that happened.
Yes.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
(24:24):
And I remember when he was serving in myward, like I had the biggest crush on him.
I was like a, I don't know, 15, 16 yearold girl.
And so yeah, we reconnected on Facebook.
We started talking.
Yeah.
You were 15 or 16.
Did - Please tell me he didn't have acrush on you
(24:44):
He didn't do anything and I didn't know ifhe did.
What?
Just cause if he was I'd be like, that'ssketchy.
She's a child.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That was something in our relationshipthat he would always feel so embarrassed
if we were telling our story because ofour age gap was like six years and we met
(25:08):
each other when I was a child.
Yes, that's definitely something that itweird, but nothing happened when when I
was a child.
If that's what you're.
Yeah.
Yeah.
yeah.
He be jeebies.
Anyhoo, so we start talking, then I goback to BYU for the winter semester of
(25:35):
2020, right before COVID wrecked theworld.
And one of the classes that I took thatsemester was the history of the church,
which is a real doozy.
I don't know if you took that class, but
(25:56):
can't remember which ones I took now.
If it was required, I'm sure I did.
I think it was one of my religiouselectives.
Okay, maybe
Yeah.
So I went into that class like kind ofexcited because there's like a, I don't
know, there's like kind of a limit to whatyou learn about the history of the church,
(26:20):
just in like Sunday school and otherchurch meetings.
And I was shocked at what I learned.
Like,
And the fact that they were saying thisopenly in a religious class at a church
sanctioned school.
(26:41):
We talked about how Joseph Smith, thefounder of the Mormon Church, had, oh, you
know, between like 30 and 40 wives.
And he was
having these wives behind his originalwife Emma's back and that some of them
(27:01):
were like 14, 15 years old and that he wasmarrying other men's wives while they were
off preaching the gospel across the worldfor him.
And we talked about the fact that blackpeople couldn't have the priesthood until
the 80s and
(27:24):
Not to mention the fact that women can'thave the priesthood still today.
we talked about like some LBGTQ plus stuffin that class.
And I remember being like, why doeseverybody think this is normal?
This stuff is really shitty.
(27:45):
We get taught these, all of these likehistorical things in a very like rose
colored glasses type of way in the church.
But this stuff sucks, like more thansucks.
And it's not okay, and why are wepretending that it is?
(28:05):
And I think at that point, like I ofcourse had had a few other things happen
in the past, as I've mentioned, but thatwas really the point where my shelf
started to get things stacked onto it.
If you didn't listen to Karina's episodelast week, go back and listen to it.
(28:25):
But the shelf metaphor is basically thatlike you have this shelf that you create
in your mind and you put all of thequestions and concerns that you have about
the church on it.
And eventually it gets really heavy orsomething happens and the shelf breaks.
And that's the point where you realize youcan't remain in the church anymore.
(28:48):
So yeah, my shelf just really startedgetting stacked with stuff at that point.
So then COVID hits mid semester and I'mlike, I don't know what to do.
I don't really want to stay here.
I suck at doing school online.
So I don't think I don't foresee me likestaying in school during this online
(29:12):
school period.
And I didn't want to go home because myrelationship with my parents is not great
at this point.
And I just really didn't know where to go.
And I ended up talking to my ex -husband,my now ex -husband, who was my boyfriend
at that point.
(29:32):
And we decided that I would move in withhim.
Rebels!
I know.
So I sneakily moved up to Idaho.
finished out the semester at BYU.
(29:53):
Thank god I had my ecclesiasticalendorsement already at that point because
I was feeling real guilty and I would nothave passed that interview but yeah we
start living together doing you know allthe things that people who live together
do and snap
(30:16):
And yeah, throughout, well, I guess I'llsay we got engaged then in October of
2020.
And then around that time or a few monthsbefore we had moved from one place to
another, we weren't really attendingchurch for a while, but then we started
(30:40):
attending when we moved to the new area.
And
There's this thing that happens inMormonism that us exmos like to call
leadership roulette, where your leadershipin your ward, which is again a
congregation, is either great andaccepting or they suck.
(31:05):
And you can just feel all the seethinghatred from them.
And we lucked out.
We had the best leadership.
Our bishop, when we first startedattending, just welcomed us with open arms
and said that like precedent for the wardthat they needed to accept us and love us
(31:28):
just as the two human beings that we were.
And he ended up eventually becoming ourstake president.
And the next bishop, same deal.
Like we were
loved on hard, never felt any pressurereally to like get married.
(31:49):
Or at I felt that at the time.
I feel a little differently now.
But yeah, so we're just attending churchand figuring things out and got engaged in
October of 2020.
And then in January of 2021, we
We have like some priesthood leaders comeover and we both got priesthood blessings.
(32:13):
And as soon as the priesthood blessingshad happened, we looked at each other
we're like, we need to get married and weneed to get married like now, basically.
And we ended up, that was a Sunday.
We ended up getting married the nextSunday in the church gym.
Yeah.
Okay.
The leadership loved us so much that theylet us break the rules and we got married
(32:35):
on a Sunday, which is like unheard of inthe Mormon world
in the Mormon world.
but yeah, I was very just like throwntogether.
Nothing of what I really like expected orhad dreamed of for my wedding.
But at that point it was kind of likethat, that feeling that you get as a
(33:00):
Mormon when you're told that like, ifyou're doing something wrong, the spirit's
going to tell you.
And if you don't get on it right away,you're just going to keep getting bugged
about it.
And
We just got married.
And honestly, the ward was great.
Like, you can either have really bad wardsor really good wards.
That ward was pretty, pretty awesome.
(33:20):
It showed up for us and it was awesome.
So, anywho, over the course of the timethat I was with my ex -husband, both
married and unmarried, I had brought up
my shelf items.
(33:40):
And there were lots of Sunday morningswhen I didn't want to go to church and we
would just end up hanging out and talkingabout my shelf items.
And the metaphor that I like to give forthis is that it kind of felt like I was
taking things off the shelf.
We were talking through them, but it neverreally got resolved.
(34:04):
So it kind of felt like we were justdusting them off.
and then putting them back up on theshelf.
And it happened over and over and overagain.
And I just like, was like, okay, well, youknow, this is the only true church.
So gotta just keep on keeping on.
(34:27):
And there were times during ourrelationship that like, I felt like I had
to be the strong one because my ex-husband was struggling with things.
every once in a while, times when I'm surehe felt the same way.
But ultimately, yeah, I just kind of kepttrying to be the good Mormon woman.
(34:53):
And then...
So at that point we were living in Idaho,which is very Mormon.
And in April of 2022, we moved to Maine,which is where I live now.
And the culture is very different becausethere's very few Mormons here.
(35:15):
And I feel like it honestly gave me theperfect space to be able to leave the
church.
I wasn't intending on
We got here and I started attending myward in Maine and making connections with
the people and everything.
(35:38):
And then in June of 2022, Roe versus Wadewas overturned.
And somehow that broke my shelf.
It felt random and weird.
But I think that it was like the fact thatabortion was one of those things that I'd
(36:01):
always been told to believe one way about.
And I had started having like cognitivedissonance about so many things, including
that, like women having rights over what?
Their own bodies?
Wow.
Like the fact that
The government was taking that away fromus as women.
(36:26):
And so many religious people, especiallythe Mormons that I had grown up with, gone
to school with, whatever, were all like,yes, you know, this is God's work we're
doing.
It crushed my soul.
And I was like, I can't, I cannot be apart of this.
And I think it kind of like unraveledeverything else too.
(36:50):
That I had been having cognitivedissonance about because if I couldn't
stand by a church that was celebratingwomen's rights being taken away, I also
couldn't stand by the racism and theirlike issues with the LGBTQ plus community.
All of the things just came tumbling down.
(37:10):
And I like for the next two or three daysafter Roe versus Wade was overturned, I
felt numb.
Like so
disassociated and my gosh, I was so scaredto tell my husband.
So scared.
(37:31):
And yeah, it all just kind of came apartat that point.
trying to decide now to go, like, if wecontinue going down the how I told my
husband route, that could take a longtime.
But maybe that can be an episode foranother day.
(37:54):
But basically at that point, I decidedthat I couldn't continue going to church.
For a while, I kept going to church forthe sake of my husband and my stepkids.
that was like pretty short lived.
And around that same time, it kind oflike, it kind of made my marriage rocky.
(38:21):
And I was talking with one of my sistersat the time about just all the things.
And she had brought up things about likeexploring her sexuality.
And I realized at that point, I was like,don't, I don't know if I'm actually fully
straight.
There may have been signs over time.
(38:42):
and yeah, so I started like exploring mysexuality and that added a whole other
thing into my marriage.
and
I ended up filing for divorce in thesummer of 2023.
(39:11):
Yeah, I also, it was really, reallyincredible.
The same day that I filed for divorce, Ireceived my letter of confirmation of
resignation from the church.
That was a monumental day.
-husband that you were leaving?
Or did you...
You told him, right?
That you didn't...
(39:31):
How did that go?
Even if we don't get into how you did
It did not go well.
Yeah, yeah.
A big factor in that was that my ex-husband was very adamant that we didn't
have kids until we were sealed becauseMormons always want their babies born into
(39:53):
the covenant.
And I was always like, but wouldn't it bebetter if I like am actually ready
go to the temple and be sealed and notfeel like I have to do it or I should do
it because I want kids so badly.
But did he not already have children?
(40:17):
Yeah, he did have kids.
I wanted kids.
And so it was, yeah, it was just thisthing of like, he didn't want us to have
kids outside of the covenant, but I didn'treally feel ready to go get sealed,
because I was questioning a millionthings.
(40:38):
And so me leaving the church basicallylike took away
that for him, him having more kids in thecovenant.
And so that didn't go super well.
(40:58):
there's so much behind this.
He kind of tried, but he definitely didsome things.
We definitely have to have another episodebecause he definitely did some things over
the course of the next few weeks, monthsthat broke my trust.
Right when I was in like
the very raw beginning of having left thechurch and trying to figure out anything
(41:26):
and everything that I could about who Iwas and what I actually believed in.
Just rerouting my whole entire lifebecause it had all been, you know, laid
out in front of me by the Mormon church.
So yeah, it was a rough, rough time andreally changed the
(41:46):
trajectory of my life in a thousand ways.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
So I have officially now been out of thechurch for two years, I guess, officially,
(42:06):
officially with my name off the record forabout a year now.
And it is crazy how much life can changeand how much you can to like totally
debunk
The fact that Mormons will tell you thatyou can't be happy outside of the church,
(42:27):
that's a lie.
Yeah.
my gosh, me too.
And the way that you can like be happy inthe ways that actually make you happy and
not in the ways that they tell you thatyou're supposed to be happy, it's
incredible.
Mind blowing.
(42:48):
Yeah, so the growth that has come with
leaving and finding myself, it's insane,insane to look back at those versions of
myself and cringe a little bit, but alsobe able to be like, okay, like you were
doing what you could with what you had atthe time.
(43:09):
And like you said last week, you likelearn new things and you do better.
And that's what I try to do every day
So where would you say you're at now asfar as religion and God goes?
Great question.
I don't believe in God, at least notMormon God.
(43:34):
He's a pretty shitty guy.
I also like really questioned there for awhile at the beginning when I was leaving
the church if I could remain Christian.
And then I started really looking at whatChristianity is
(43:57):
the fact that they believe pretty muchsolely in the Bible.
And I was like, actually, like, the wholeBible is just a bunch of like, God telling
people to murder other people.
And, no.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, so I decided I couldn't be Christianeither.
And I kind of just settled into agnostic.
(44:24):
I kind of go back and forth sometimesbetween being feeling like maybe I'm
theist agnostic and then atheist agnostic.
I don't really know.
And I feel it's amazing how comfortable Ifeel in the unknown.
Because in Mormonism,
you have to know everything.
(44:46):
Like they tell you, pray to know that thisis true.
When you talk about your beliefs, youdon't just say, I believe, you say, I know
as if it's fact.
That's a lot of pressure.
And I'm grateful to now not feel like Ihave to know.
I can just exist and be okay with that.
(45:10):
How about you?
Where are you at with religion,spirituality?
I would consider myself atheist, butthere's still times where I am spiritual.
Can there be spiritual atheists?
I am one.
Just because I'll have like experiences ormoments where I feel maybe something
(45:33):
beyond me or like I'm part of a biggerpicture and I don't know if it's
necessarily God or if it's just natureplays a big part in it or energy or
connection with people.
where I still be the same feeling that Iused to think was the spirit.
(45:53):
but I think that positive energy, whetherit has to do with God or not is spiritual
for me.
And like you said, I'm pretty comfortablewith not knowing.
And I don't ever want to think that I havethe one right answer and everyone is
wrong.
So I try to at least be open minded.
and yeah.
(46:14):
Sometimes if I'm in the mood, I'll say aprayer.
Sometimes I don't do that for months.
Sometimes I'll do some random rituals andplay with tarot cards.
I just like to explore, find things thatmake me feel good.
That's awesome!
that's so cool and it feels I'm sure sonice to just be able to like do exactly
(46:37):
what you want to do and nothing morenothing less not being told this is
exactly how you should act this is exactlywhat you should do that don't miss
So I'm much happier being able to letmyself decide what feels good to me and
(46:59):
what feels right and wrong and what bringsme peace.
Even if it doesn't make sense to anyoneelse, it doesn't have to.
Right, exactly, it never has to.
That's so real.
Well, thank you for letting me share mystory.
Thank you for sharing it.
I feel like I have so many questions andmore things I want to talk about, but
(47:21):
we'll run out of time so we can just divein on all of that craziness later with
missions and marriage and temples and
The list keeps going.
yeah, like all the history.
I know the history is a big factor in bothof our journeys out of the church.
(47:42):
There's so many topics that we can talk onand we will.
I'm excited to keep going.
It'll be great.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Just as a reminder, we're on Instagram,TikTok, Reddit, and Patreon.
And it's peculiarpeoplexmo as the handle.
(48:07):
So go like, subscribe, share our content.
That would be sweet.
Tell all your other Exmo friends about us.
And yes, so true.
lot of people who have never been Mormonthat ask me all kinds of crazy questions.
if you know people that just want to hearabout it, go for it.
(48:30):
Find us every Sunday.
Yeah.
I'm definitely like a cult documentaryfanatic and so I...
Yeah.
Everybody's interested, pretty much.
Maybe not everybody, but...
We'll definitely have some Never Mormonson here, I'm sure.
(48:50):
It's interesting and batshit crazy stuffthat we've been through.
yeah.
Alrighty, well, I hope you all have agreat week.
See you guys, thanks for joining.
See ya, bye.
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