so much to unpack… (my family was almost on Dr. Phil)

I will just let myself type this all out and see what happens. I am a 25 yr old female and ex-mo. I grew up in the church, and lived in various suburbs along the Wasatch Front in Utah. I am the great-great-granddaughter of prophet Heber J. Grant, and even am named after one of his daughters.

My father is a Mormon scholar, with degrees from 4 different Ivy League schools, including a doctorate in Relgious Studies, and a law degree from Columbia Law School. My Mom was a housewife. From the outside, we seemed like a well off and pretty typical Mormon family.

Due to this facade, a lifelong of abuse was easily and routinely swept under the rug. Some examples of this include prescription drug abuse and OD’s, home foreclosures and bankruptcy, various CPS visits, and the wild fact neither me or my siblings graduated high school despite my dad’s credentials (I went back as an adult and did receive my diploma, I’m working on my undergrad now). Everyone, even those who inflicted the trauma on me, suffered greatly in order to protect the family’s image. I feel like that is a very common thing, especially in LDS families where a perfect image is so emphasized.

To avoid going into even more detail about how dysfunctional my family is here is another quick example to highlight it… I remember writing into the Dr. Phil show around 6 years ago. Producers liked the shit show enough to call me. They tried to convince my parents to appear on an episode. It’s probably for the best that it never happened, and that we weren’t exploited for cheap entertainment.

Now, I have been in therapy for the last ten years. Since other traumatic things have happened to me, this decade of therapy hasn’t delved into my religious trauma much at all… it almost feels like the other things that happened to me growing up have been more important than the religious trauma. I know that I need to process all the weird ass shit that the church caused, both directly and indirectly… idk. It’s hard when I don’t even know where to start, I find myself downplaying this religious trauma very often. I try to tell myself it wasn’t THAT bad. It doesn’t help that a lot of my family and my partner’s family are still active members.

Thankfully, I left the church at 16 when I ultimately stopped believing in any God. Due to an existential dread that started very young, I’ve always had some doubts about the church (which caused so much shame and low self esteem, thinking I was going to hell for not being “faithful”). I distinctly remember having a panic attack during my baptism interview when I was 8, where I questioned my bishop if God/Jesus were even real. I don’t think he saw that coming.. Leaving the church at 16 helped me to avoid serving a mission or getting married way too young in a temple. But those 16 years caused deep rooted issues I’ve yet to even really deconstruct.

I’m not sure what exactly I’m looking for writing this on here, maybe sympathy or advice from people who have struggled with similar feelings? I appreciate this community, I feel validated and not alone in all of these things that many of us unfortunately feel. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.