Leaving the Church: A Journey Through Faith and Abuse

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Hello and welcome to the inner workings of the not so genius mind.

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I'm your host, Amanda McCombs, and we are diving deep into the ordinary mind to uncover extraordinary insights.

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Today, we're just diving into my mind again.

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Um, I know I'm a little late in posting, life just kind of gets in the way sometimes.

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So, Stop it.

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I have a kitty coming over.

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There's always a kitty.

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Might have to kick them out.

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Anyway, um, welcome.

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Welcome to the podcast, friends.

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Last time, if you were here, I kind of left the end of it, the tail end of it, saying that I was going to talk about part of why I left the church.

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Um, Which is a really sensitive topic.

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And yes, I am going to talk about it today.

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But, um, when I talk about the church, I talk about the LDS church, the Latter day Saint church with the Mormons and all that.

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Um, but it is, it's very sensitive.

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And a lot of what I'm saying in this podcast is stuff that I haven't really talked to a lot of people about, like maybe my therapist and a couple of members of my family.

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Um, some of you that know me, like really know, um, my story and have really stuck by me through all of it.

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And I really appreciate it.

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You guys are amazing.

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Um, so just, just know for today and for my whole life, really, because, um, my friends that are practicing Mormon are practicing LDS.

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They know I mean no harm by what I say.

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And really for everyone, um, This is just me sharing my experience and not everyone had the same experience I did.

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In fact, it brings the, going to church brings them a lot of comfort and I'm so glad that that is a thing that they have, but that is just something that is definitely not going to work.

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Um, Religious abuse is real and there's a lot of sensitive things being talked about today.

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So when you're listening, please just keep that in mind.

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Um, some of it may be hard to hear.

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Some of it you might not agree with, but, um, I really feel like it just needs to be talked about.

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Um, so I was raised LDS my whole life.

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Like my grandparents were LDS.

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And my whole family is, I'm the youngest of seven kids, and I think it gave me a lot of really good core values, um, helped me, I don't know, helped me learn a lot of really good skills and kind of some things that are really important, but at the same time, it really hit the mark.

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Like, I didn't realize that I had faced.

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religious abuse until very recently, like within the last couple years.

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Um, guys, hold on.

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If you're on video, this is David.

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David's one of my foster kitties.

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Ooh, she's actually a girl.

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But she's black and white, so I call her David.

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I'm sorry.

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Do you not like the attention? I'm going to put you down.

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Oh, cool.

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Okay.

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Um, I loved the way that I grew up.

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I spent a lot of time outside and really connecting with nature.

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But then like when it came to.

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It was kind of hard and I tried to put my, all of my faith into it.

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And like, there were just things about it that didn't really rub me the right way.

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I don't know if that's the right phrase.

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I just always had a lot of questions.

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And like the stories in the Bible and the book of Mormon didn't really make sense to me.

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And, you know, why can we drink Coke, but we can't drink coffee? Um, things with the word of wisdom, I just, one thing after another, I had all these questions and I was pretty much told to.

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Just not have the questions and have blind faith and to trust in the Lord and everything was going to be okay.

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But I couldn't just blindly trust because my trust had been violated so much.

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So of course I'm going to ask questions.

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Of course I'm going to, if I don't understand, I want to know why.

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Maybe this is why I became a teacher.

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Um, but you know, when I was a kid, I also grew up in Oregon, um, up until I was like 11, almost 12.

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So moving to Utah was a totally different experience.

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It was a huge culture shock because I went from being the only Mormon kid in my school to, Being like one of 25 my age, just in my ward, which is like my people that I go to church with, if you're not familiar.

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Um, but yeah, it was, I wasn't the weird, I'm redhead.

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I'm not, I wasn't the weird redheaded Mormon girl anymore.

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I was like, just like everybody else.

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Um, but this is where we start to like, understand where things kind of fall apart.

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Right.

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Um, I started to not really go to church when I was a teenager.

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I was like 15 and.

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My mom kept saying I was never going to find happiness outside of the church.

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And I needed to come back to the straight and narrow, and I wasn't going to be able to be in heaven with her, and I wasn't going to be able to live this full enriching life, like I'm never going to know what happiness is if I'm not going to church and if I'm not following the teachings and things like that.

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And it was like a constant, it was a constant fight, like even into my adulthood.

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Um, I'm very thankful that towards the end of her life, that she was able to accept me for who I am and understand why it's okay for me to not go to church.

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And it's not going to be the end of the world.

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Right.

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Um, anyway, my mom would say a lot of stuff like that and just like, I'm never going to be happy.

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What am I doing? What about the plan of salvation? What about going to heaven? But like, what about my life now? Right? What about the life that I'm already living? Why am I getting ready for some magical life up in the clouds where I get to have my own planet? I don't want one.

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Anyway.

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Um, so eventually I started dating and my mom thought this was why I stopped going to church.

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But really it was because like, It doesn't make sense to me and I have to find my own way and you have to let me find my own way.

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Um, she would say things like I'm condemning her to hell with my actions and things like that.

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Um, eventually I'm in high school, right? And my Friend and I liked the same guy.

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Um, and I like had a private moment with him and I wanted to tell him to date my friend because I had another guy that I was interested in.

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So this is where we start.

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This is where we start getting to the story.

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I'm a virgin at this point, right? Um, I tell this guy that I really think he should give my friend a shot because she really likes him a lot and there's somebody else that likes me and, you know, maybe I'll date them and if things don't work out we can come back around and try but like, my friend really likes you and I think you should try to date her.

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Well, the whole thing is Ah! Black kitty! Johnny, stop it! Um, The whole thing was blown out of proportion.

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Um, text messages were sent and my friend came to the house screaming and yelling at me that I betrayed her because she thought I was in there doing stuff with this guy and then rumors spread and.

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Next thing I knew, like, I was some big, huge slut and I had done all these things that I had never done before.

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So then I'm dating this new guy, who was in my ward.

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We had the same bishop and everything.

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Um, he just lived right down my street.

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Eventually, he, um, cheated on me a lot.

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And he was making this big deal about Valentine's Day.

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He actually broke up with me the day before Valentine's Day.

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And that's when he told me that He was cheating on me because he had been telling me all about this wonderful date he was planning.

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Um, and then he told me that the date was someone was with someone else and it wasn't with me and I'm gross and I should take a look at myself in the mirror because I'm not leading a virtuous life and all this stuff.

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This is the first guy that I had ever slept with.

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I gave him like my everything and I cared about him a lot.

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Um, I came to find out, find out years later, he didn't even date me because he liked me.

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He dated me to make me an unavailable for his friend.

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Who actually did like me.

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So like the whole relationship was fake and there was a lot of pressure to have, um, there was a lot of pressure to have sex.

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We were sexually active.

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There was actually one day when, um, our moms, this was actually mortifying.

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Our moms pulled us both out of school and took us to go eat and his mom.

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threw a box of condoms on the table and was like, what's this? Um, so we had to have this talk about us being sexually active with our moms in a restaurant.

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We got pulled out of school for it.

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And there was a lot of, um, why are you doing this? You shouldn't be doing this.

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You should save that for marriage, all the other normal things that people will say.

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And I get it.

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Like, I can understand.

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that part.

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So if that's something that you do, go ahead.

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You do you.

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Okay.

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But eventually it came down to the time where he was going to put his papers in for an LDS mission.

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Um, and to do that, you have to be temple worthy.

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And that means, um, you're not having sex outside of marriage and you're not drinking and you're not smoking and you're not doing drugs and you're not doing all this other stuff.

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Like you're worthy to go be in the house of the Lord.

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Um, and he would still kind of pressure me to have sex.

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And I kept saying, if you're wanting to go on your mission, then you probably shouldn't be wanting to do this with me.

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Right.

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Um, eventually I, we broke up obviously.

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Valentine's day.

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What a nice Valentine's day that was.

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I actually have had very many good ones.

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That's for another, that's for another day.

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That's for another episode.

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Um, when I went to my Bishop after I was, how old was I? 17, 16, 16, 17.

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Um, I went to my Bishop to talk to him about everything that had happened.

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Like one time I had refused sex and this guy threw me down the stairs.

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Um, and I was just supposed to.

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I wasn't, I went in to talk to my Bishop, um, and come clean.

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It wasn't, I wasn't going in to be a tattletale.

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I wasn't like this guy did this horrible thing to me.

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It was, I am doing what I'm supposed to do and I'm going to my Bishop and I am telling him that I was inappropriate and I sinned and what do I need to do to repent so that I can be worthy again, because there's like this underlying theme constantly of being worthy.

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So I tell him all this stuff with my now ex boyfriend, um, not realizing that he had put his mission papers in.

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And my bishop told me that the Holy Ghost told him I was lying about every single bit of it, that none of it happened, and that I was trying to keep him home from going on his mission to punish him for breaking up with me, which could not be further from the truth.

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That is not why I went in to do any of this.

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Um, That made me really uncomfortable.

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And then it wasn't long after that I actually was asked to speak in church and I was like, fine, I will.

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Um, I think this was when I was 17.

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Yeah, I was 17.

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And they Scheduled me for the day that it was my ex's missionary farewell.

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So I like did a quick little change on my topic.

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I can't remember what it was about, but I like switched some things around and I made it so that we talked about honesty and left it at that.

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And then I didn't want to go back to church after that because why would you do that to somebody? Like I talked about how this guy was really abusive.

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He cheated on me.

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He didn't treat me like I had any worth or any value.

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Like I was just a piece of junk.

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Whatever, whatever he wanted me to be.

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Um, and then my ex, while he was on his mission, um, his mom actually asked if it was okay for him to send me a letter because he wanted to apologize.

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And really he was just apologizing for not breaking up with me sooner.

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It wasn't anything like an actual apology.

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And he actually trash talked to me through the whole thing.

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He was talking about how, like, I needed to take a good look in the mirror and I got the abuse that I got because of how I looked and I'm not worthy of anything and all this other stuff.

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It wasn't an apology.

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At all.

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Like on what, what planet would that be an apology at? Like, I'm sorry, I didn't break up with you sooner.

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You're a piece of trash.

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Thanks.

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Thanks.

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Um, that was really disappointing.

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So, um, soon, soon, soon, soon.

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I'm dating another guy.

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And I am done going to church because if some guy thinks that the Holy Ghost is being truthful when I'm, and saying that I'm lying about my abuse and like, how does that even work? It doesn't even make any sense to me.

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Like, I don't know.

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Anyway, later in my life, I am not life.

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And it wasn't my life.

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It wasn't that later.

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Nevermind.

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What am I saying? See and lost.

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Um, I was dating a new guy and it was the Sundance Film Festival.

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I love going to that.

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It's up in Park City.

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And he had some family members that were in from out of town to go see because, um, his, his dad's girlfriend had.

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Some stuff up there, like she was a model and she did a bunch of other stuff.

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So we went up to go see her things, her new banners and advertisements and stuff.

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And we went to go have Sundance with his family, right? With his grandma and grandpa that were there from out of town.

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It just also happened to be a Sunday, still 17.

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This is after I was forced to give a talk at sacrament meeting.

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at my ex's farewell.

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Um, and I'm getting something out of my car.

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My car was very recognizable at the time.

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This is another reason why I didn't want any identifying anything on my car for like years and years and years, years and years, is because I didn't want to be found.

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And the Relief Society president, mind you, you don't start Relief Society until you turn 18.

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I was not 18.

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The Relief Society president drove around the town, drove around the city looking for me.

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My boyfriend's house was not close to my house.

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It was still in the same city, but it was not close to my house.

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So she literally drove around.

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looking for me.

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Um, I was out of my car getting something and she grabbed me and drug me by the arm to pull me into her car to take me to church because I had to go.

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This random lady who's pulling me away from doing a family activity to go to church and I did not want to go.

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I actually had bruises on my arm.

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Um, she came over to our house later to apologize.

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And she said that she had embarrassed me.

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And I was like, uh uh, honey, you embarrass the whole church.

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Because my boyfriend at the time, his family was Catholic.

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And they saw the whole thing and they were like, what the heck was that? Like that is not how you get somebody to go to church.

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Like I was literally being pushed out when all those rumors were spread around about me.

199
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I had like no friends.

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I didn't have any.

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And in between the time that this one guy broke up with me, And I'm dating the other guy.

202
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I actually was drugged and raped in the back of a car.

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And something that they talk about a lot, um, in the church when it comes to like morality and things, I don't know if they still do this.

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It really hurt a lot, but they talked about, um, how, if you give yourself to a man before marriage.

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That you're like chewed gum, you're used up and nobody wants that.

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So I went around believing that I was chewed gum, especially after that guy raped me and especially after the letter I got from my missionary ex boyfriend.

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Like nobody deserves any of that.

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Um, and I know like a lot of people that are hearing this, if they know me, you might be looking at me a little bit differently now.

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Um, But like, I'm not going to be able to go back to a place where I had faced so much abuse and I wasn't allowed to be my own person.

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And now here I am, like years and years later, I stopped going to church officially when I was 17.

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But now I'm in my thirties and it wasn't until like the last few years that I really realized that, um, Women are kind of treated like a minority, right? Like we get paid less, but I just thought it was because of the jobs.

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And then you think about it more and it's, that's not really what it is, but especially in the church, like I just really, I really felt pushed down and like I was supposed to be small and that I didn't have.

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A say in what my life was going to be like.

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So I'm very thankful for all of it now.

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Like I obviously can't go back in time and change what happened.

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Right.

217
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Um, I am where I am and that place is here and I'm thankful.

218
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And other things, other, other random thoughts.

219
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Here we go.

220
00:21:00,926.9784398 --> 00:21:08,776.9784398
Um, I, nope, they're gone.

221
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See, that's the inner workings of the not so genius mind part.

222
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They just kind of like disappear.

223
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I just think, um, Eww.

224
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Like 21.

225
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Sorry.

226
00:21:44,266.9794398 --> 00:21:55,386.9794398
Um, so women in the church and just kind of in general, throughout all of history, have kind of been treated like a minority.

227
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Um, or something that should be controlled or like we were property, right? Like it was, I was talking in my podcast interview with, um, Ben Brown.

228
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Benjamin Brown.

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He vibing through the apocalypse.

230
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That's his podcast.

231
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You should go listen to it if you haven't listened to it yet.

232
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But he really talked about how women were just kind of property.

233
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There were just something to like.

234
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Use and do whatever with, right? They weren't, um, um, we talked about how in the past women weren't even able to read or go to school.

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Um, and if you think about that, like, why, why can't we learn to read and why can't we do all the things? Um, my other thought is I had no idea.

236
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Like I used to joke all the time with my friends about having relationship PTSD, but I actually.

237
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100 percent believe that it's a real thing because I have it.

238
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Um, after talking to my therapist and like that was who had to kind of drill it into my head that I have PTSD and you have, you can have all kinds of things and traumatic events that can cause that.

239
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It doesn't have to be going to work.

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It doesn't have to be.

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A health crisis, which I've had, it doesn't have to be a religious crisis.

242
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It can be all of those things.

243
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And for a lot of us.

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We have them all.

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Right.

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Um, and I think we need to acknowledge that because that's when the healing begins.

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Um, I am thankful for all the experiences I've had in my life.

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If you have listened this far, I appreciate you.

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Thank you.

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Like and subscribe.

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Um, leave me a review if you can.

252
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I'm trying to get out there a little bit more, uh, and remember to take care of yourself.

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I'm not so genius on Instagram.

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You can send me a message, ask me any questions.

255
00:24:02,616.9794398 --> 00:24:05,396.9794398
Um, say hi, let me know you're listening.

256
00:24:05,936.9794398 --> 00:24:07,96.9794398
Ooh, one more thing.

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There is a dragon boat festival in Daybreak on August 24th.

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It's a Saturday and I'm going to be row, row, rowing my boat to do this.

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And I've never done one of those before.

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I'm having all kinds of cool experiences.

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So come on by and see me.

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Daybreak Lake, August 24th.

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Um, take care of yourself.

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It's a crazy world out there.