Exorcising the Mormon Demons of My Past

Hello fellow humans 😍

As many of you know, I am currently in a two year therapeutic community for drug and alcohol treatment. I'm open about it. I have no shame in the fact that I have needed help. One of the beautiful things about this program is this letter you have to write about the worst time in your addiction, and what were some things that lead up to your substance abuse. You have to open up and put your balls to the wall. Really open up your old wounds and tell the 50 guys here everything about yourself so they can get some insight into what your life was like before coming into the program. It has been about a year since I read that letter in front of everyone who is in the program with me. After my last blog post I began reminiscing on that time, and I realized how much of a turning point it was in my program.

(Side note: I know there are some good parts of the LDS church. It’s not all bad. But maybe that’s a bit Stockholm syndrome(ish) of me. And no. My whole life wasn’t miserable, just a decent amount of my experience was. I have began rebuilding healthy relationships with those who have stuck around after I began speaking my truth and life has been amazing. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. Love you all ❤️)

Normally people pick a specific point in their life that was their rock bottom. I really wanted to get open and vulnerable. I'm used to doing that on here but up until reading that letter I had never verbally opened up to a large crowd. Plus when I was new here I was still trying to use heterosexual pronouns and blend in with the other guys. I really needed to be vulnerable if I expected to heal. So I decided to start from the beginning. For the sake of this blog post I have opened up a bit more on the details. I am definitely missing stuff still, but I hope you will get the gist by the end of this. I didn't want my letter to be too long for the guys. We would have been there all night. When we finished reading our letters we had a burning ceremony. I, for some reason came into the program with a copy of the Voices of Hope book. A book produced by Deseret Publishing and promoted by the LDS church. It has resources in the back of the book for conversion therapy and places you can go to suppress your sexuality. I burned it in the fire with my letter along with a Christian book about sexual sins. It says that homosexuality is something you need to repent for. I ripped it in half in front of all the guys and we all watched these books burn. It was one of the most spiritual experience I have ever had 💓

I first looked at (gay) porn when I was 11. I think a lot of people start earlier then that but it definitely alarmed my parents. Yes because it was gay, but also because it was porn. There was multiple conversations where they asked me if I was gay. At one point I told them that I had been taught to respect women, so why would I look up straight porn? That got them off my back for a little bit but then they kept finding it in the cookies and search history. Turns out my mom was hoping I would acknowledge I was gay, but I was terrified. I was in denial due to the teachings of the LDS church. There is A LOT of indoctrination that happens with kids in any organized religion. By default you are basically taught to be straight so I was always in denial about my sexuality. I believed that my gay thoughts were coming from the devil. I would even tell myself that I was only gay when I was horny. In reality that was never the case though because I thought about guys romantically more so then sexually a lot of the time. It was what I told myself so I would feel better about the thought of having to be celibate for the rest of my life or marrying a gender I'm not attracted to in order to gain the straight benefits of the LDS Temple (that's what I believed at the time).

When I was in the sixth grade I sat in my room and drug a sewing needle across my arm (I think I had just finished looking at porn) I was already done with life by the age 11. I remember going to the park with my sister and her boyfriend soon after that and I was just quiet. I was dead on the inside. I put my hoodie on and hid my arms because they looked pretty scary. Luckily it wasn't anything deep enough to scar and healed quickly. I never opened up about that until I wrote this letter for the program though. I had kept that a secret for so long.

In my letter I talked about the times that I would ask my Bishops for priesthood blessings to remove my sexuality. At one point, I knew my dad would not have given me that blessing. So there was one time I just vaguely told my Dad and my Grandpa during Thanksgiving that I was struggling with something, but I didn't tell them what it was. I just thought that if God knew my intention of getting the blessing then that's what mattered. He didn't need my dad spelling it out for him. I am grateful to know my dad would NOT have done that if I told him what my intentions for the blessing were. I should have known I could have just talked to him. I didn't feel like I could at the time. I was still terrified because this was all uncharted territory for our family.

God wasn't hearing my cries for "help" and if anything I was just getting gayer. So I began wearing a rubber band on my wrist. I had heard that if you associated pain with certain thoughts that you wanted to get rid of then it became easier to train and redirect your brain. My wrist was obviously full of welts because most of my thoughts are gay 😄

When I was in high school I had done some research on eating disorders and found that if you were anorexic or bulimic long enough then your sex drive diminishes. It was an answer from Mormon Jesus! I began taking laxatives and binging and purging. I started starving myself because I was desperate to be accepted by the Mormon God. I was taught that being in a gay relationship was the closest you could get to murder. People are claiming that was not taught in the LDS church, but I guess I was in the wrong Sunday School class.

When I was 16 I decided to get my Patriarchal blessing (I have a copy if you are interested in seeing it, I won't post it though because last time I did that all Hell broke loose 😑 maybe I will eventually) I wanted to know what the Mormon God had in store for me. I needed to know how my life would play out if I was to live by the teachings of the church. Obviously the Patriarchal blessings only talk about straight relationships because Mormon God loves gender roles and 50's social constructs. I was told that I would go on a mission and be called to teach people about Christ for the first time in their life. I was also told that I would come home and marry a woman and we would have a lot of kids. We would have sons and daughters, but more sons than daughters. (It was weirdly specific) I was also told a bunch of other things, but that was the main thing that stuck out to me. I had been working so hard to shut my feelings off like a light switch. I was mentally exhausted . After my blessing I began bawling. I was so convinced by this "blessing" that God was going to take my sexuality away from me so I could live up to his expectations. My mom asked me what was wrong and I said "I just know everything is going to be OK now". I don't think she knew what I was referring to but I honestly thought it was possible for me to be straight. God was going to fix me. I was happy. Or at least had a false sense of happiness.

Around the age 18 I had to really come up with a game plan because it is hounded into you growing up in the LDS church that men go on missions, and women can but they are not really expected to like men are. Once you get to the mission age and decide to NOT go, that's when everyone decides to tell you that all along it was never expected of you! Contrary to popular teachings. It creates a sort of complex because you feel like God will be disappointed in you if you don't go. I had began talking to my bishop about other options.

I was worried that if I went on my mission then I would be attracted to a companion or someone on the mission and then I would do something that would result in being excommunicated. We decided I might do a service mission so I could stay local and not worry about having some hot sex on my mission. I also wanted to expedite the process of going through the Temple. I was taught that once you go through the Mormon Temple you know more than the average person. You gain more of a perfect knowledge. Therefore if you commit a serious sin after you go through the Temple you have more severe consequences. It takes God longer to forgive you because you have gone through his holy house. I wanted to go through the Temple so I would eternally secure my fate. I wanted to make sure that if I did anything gay then I would have to go through a "Court of Love" which is anything but loving. If anything it is just a lack of ability for leadership to understand and be empathetic.

Sometimes I think I should have opened up when I was younger, but then I also think it's good that I held onto a lot of these things and dealt with them on a more internal basis because my Bishops growing up would have probably encouraged my parents to take me to conversion therapy if I opened up about my sexuality at the age I noticed I was different. Which was 5 years old. I did some mental damage to myself by trying to go through the Temple and by hoping that would fuck up my eternal salvation if I was ever romantic with another guy, but I could also be a lot worse off.

At one point I was encouraged to move out of my parents house to work on my anxiety and depression before going on a mission. I moved in with a guy who was in my parents ward. He had opened up to me and told me about his SSA (Same Sex Attraction) a conversion therapy term. He was one of the first ones to open up to me. He was also the first one to tell me about North Star. An organization within the church that has ties to the books that I burned in the beginning of this blog entry. They encourage you to suppress your sexuality. Not change it, just treat it like an addiction and see it as a problem. Something you need to confess if you are ever romantic with the same gender. They also encourage those who are trans to not transition because to them God has given people these "problems" to become stronger. (Now I believe that if there is a God then he probably made people who identify as queer to test Christianity. To see just how Christian the Christians are.) I went along with it because at the time just acknowledging that I was attracted to guys was progressive for me. I began slowly having experiences with guys. I made out with a couple people and I felt like I was so edgy. I felt so rebellious because let's face it. If you're Mormon that is pretty edgy. At one point while I was confessing to my Bishop about my little make out session with a guy, I became an informant. You are taught to call people out for their sins. The guy I made out with told me that he had recently had sex with a return missionary. I saw my opportunity to gain some favor in the eyes of God so I decided to tell on him. My Bishop at the time called the other guys Bishop and called him in for questioning. I am so grateful that he denied everything. I would not be able to live with myself with what could have happened. I seriously feel sick for things I said and did when I was LDS. I was trying to survive.

When I decided I was not going on a mission I began asking Bishops what was OK for me to do. How far could I go with a guy and it be considered OK? Some Bishops believe that you can do everything with the same gender that you can do with the opposite gender before marriage. However, they do not believe in marriage between the same gender so from this viewpoint you are expected to just walk around with blue balls until you die. Another theory is that you can not act in a homosexual manor if you want to be an active Latter Day Saint. Some bishops will head your lynch mob if you confess to kissing a guy or jerking another guy off, some are sympathetic and work with you. Basically you never know what you're going to get and it is just a giant emotional roller coaster. So it really become cafeteria style where you pick and choose your Bishop, your ward, and what you follow in the "gospel". All things that are frowned upon. You need to be all in if you are to be considered active.

(SIDE NOTE: No matter how progressive a bishop is though, you will never be seen worthy after an interview. Mormon Gods plan only works out for straight cisgender couples. I guess you can progress in the afterlife? You'll just be further behind though. Some people are just naturally more pure I guess. With the LDS Gospel set up the way it is, it's no wonder the suicide rate is so high. There is nothing set up for an LGBTQ youth to actually feel fully accepted and supported in a place that constantly teaches about being straight when you die, and having to marry the opposite gender in order to live in the presence of God.)

At this point I had already began drinking. I was also still trying to fit in with the Mormons so when I "came out" on this blog in the beginning I said I struggled with SSA (Same Sex Attraction) I was trying to hang onto any thread I could grab onto because I still believed in the church no matter how much I had been hurt by the Gospel. People creepily supported my when I said I had SSA. Some people tried telling me it was OK to be gay, but I only wanted to listen to the people who were encouraging me to continue suppressing my sexuality for Mormon Jesus. I realized a few months later how fucked up that was. If God was real he'd let me be human and live my life. If he really made me then he would know all the bullshit I had to go through. I still had this dark cloud over me. I felt guilt all the time for coming out for real and using the word "gay" instead of "SSA". Then one day I read the CES letter and my whole world changed.

I was a mess. I had waisted so much time trying to make this "gospel" and this "church" work for my life and my life work for the church. I finally began looking into the history of the church. bushes that are constantly beat around. Perverted, sad things that are still continuously justified by people who don"t want to see things the way they are. I had finally stepped out of the matrix. Mormon Zach was still in my head though. I was possessed by him. I had to get rid of him. Drinking really helped. I was able to drown out the Mormon thoughts in my head. It was peaceful but I caused an unspeakable amount of harm to everyone I love. I also began isolating because most of my friends and family were Mormon and I had a hard time believing them when they said they support me because I know what the root beliefs of the church are. I still have family and friends who say "you can always open up to me. I'm always here for you" but they themselves have voiced that they will teach their kids that being gay and loving someone of the same gender is sinful. So now I have had to come to terms with loving people from a distance. For the sake of my recovery I need rid myself of toxicity.

When I first came to this program I was in a cloud. I was getting used to being sober so I didn't really have time to let Mormon Zach out of the cage in my head. I slowly began having these super dark thoughts that would creep into my mind. I have a few journal entries contemplating death and fantasizing about the Mormon "Afterlife" I wanted to know where I would be if I died right now. It was like I had paused my mental healing by drinking to the extent that I did. Drinking numbed the pain but my problems were still there. Time had passed but Mormon Zach was still there tormenting me. I soon realized that I had it all turned around in the beginning. I wasn't possessed by a gay demon. I was possessed by this negative self hating shit that was consuming my mind. He needed to go. I think I have finally put him in his place, he has a few outbursts once in a while but definitely have the upper hand. Since I have had time to process my thoughts in a safe place I have grown to love myself more than I ever would have elsewhere. If I didn't come to this program I can promise you I would not have survived another day on this planet. I am finally getting excited about my future and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. My Mormon lens is finally almost all the way off and I am seeing the world in a much clearer light.

Thank you everyone who has stuck by my side after I began speaking my truth. Also, if you managed to complete this novel of a post, thank you. I love you guys.

Sincerely,

Zachary 💓






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