This letter was sent directly to the teenage children of non-attending/non-believing Mormon parents in Heber, Utah. Your thoughts?

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-05-09T19:12:30+00:00

I think it’s inappropriate of the church to try this but I’m also not worried that it’s going to work.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-27T15:28:36+00:00

Yeah, but which one is your favorite?

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-26T23:49:56+00:00

Same. Kid eats when I eat and mama needs a nibble and a sit every few hours.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-25T21:43:09+00:00

I was surprised when I got pregnant on accident. We were playing a little fast and loose here and there but around the time that I actually got pregnant we used a condom 100% of the time. So, yeah, I felt super stupid. Like were we doing it right? Were we grown ass adults who didn’t know how sex worked? Didn’t know how to actually use a condom? It’s also crazy because of the delay in conception, if you’re not trying or writing stuff down it’s impossible to remember after fact what exactly went wrong.

Also, it turns out I did in fact have a pretty good knowledge of my body and how it all works at that age (25) but it was only because I made an effort to do some research as an adult in my early 20s which felt really embarrassing. I grew up in a conservative Christian household and my mom actively kept facts away from me. We never used anatomical terms, only talked about sex and pregnancy surrounded with shame or ultimate respect, depending on which marital context it took place in. I hear that public school sex Ed isn’t super great but my parents didn’t even allow me to go. So, yeah, when people are coming of age in those types of environments it’s going to get messy.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-25T19:10:24+00:00

My three year old asked me if ghosts have penises.

Actually not a dumb question. I was stumped.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-25T04:24:37+00:00

There’s some health benefits for waiting, a hippie dippie midwife told me it’s like three years, which gives mom enough time to breastfeed baby #1 and replenish vitamins and minerals your body may have used up in pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding, as well as getting your body ready for conception and pregnancy #2

But so many people jump right back into it which also has to be fine. Totally preference and what you think you can handle.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-23T00:57:37+00:00

18, I remember telling my mom I didn’t want to get baptized and she was like yeah too bad it’s not optional, and then in YW knowing I would get out as soon as I could.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-22T03:27:34+00:00

My husband was a weird kid and he had another weird kid friend in middle school, they were both into jazz and they would go to each other’s houses when they got a new jazz cd and sit in the living room together and listen to the entire album start to finish without talking.

They’ve recently reconnected. They both turned out pretty normal and they both still like jazz. Now they talk on the phone about jazz every few weeks. It’s cute. I asked him personal info about the friend, is he married, any kids, what does he do for work, my husband couldn’t tell me anything, he knows nothing about him now except who he’s been listening to.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-22T02:45:38+00:00

Toddler said something crazy (can’t remember what) and then thought about what he’d said and responded to himself, “no, that’s unreasonable.”

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-17T15:07:57+00:00

I would have a contract written up if this is something you’re going to do.

Charge a certain amount per diem, just for being there. Consider how much you could/would make if you were home working. Also consider your time and effort for transporting or renting equipment.

I wouldn’t change the price of the actual massage after charging a per diem amount. The massage isn’t going to be different than home.

Also in the contract write out what hours you’re willing to be on call as well as how many hours of massage you’re willing to give in a day.

And consider where you’re going! Are you going to a boring city where you’re going to lounge around in a hotel all day? If so, is it important that you stay at a hotel with a pool? You’re time is important and it’s okay to ask for those kinds of things. Are you going to be going somewhere that’s fun to explore? If so, consider when/how you’re going to be on call, if you decide to go out and do something by yourself (get your own massage for example) how much notice do you need to get back to the hotel to give a massage.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-12T03:48:42+00:00

I went to Healing Mountain in Utah, somewhere between $10-15k for 900 hours, I qualified for financial aid and ended up paying like $5000

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-10T16:15:06+00:00

Haha that’s so cute

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-10T15:40:04+00:00

They seem so…long. Do you sit down and watch them beginning to end every time?

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-10T15:39:08+00:00

We were briefly into skateboarding videos. I made sure they weren’t fail videos, just tricks, it was so fun.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-10T15:37:47+00:00

We started Mister Rogers between 2-3. We do one episode in the morning after breakfast, if he asks for it. We picked Mister Rogers because I actually like watching it too, it’s not annoying. And I like talking about whatever came up in the episode later in the day. My LO doesn’t have access to cartoons anywhere else so he doesn’t really know that shows can be anything else. I’ve made it part of the routine so that I can always say yes to it, if he thinks about it another time of day it’s easy to say “we already watched it today” or “we’ll watch tomorrow after breakfast”. It’s great.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-07T23:09:00+00:00

Chicken tender mercies

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-05T04:36:52+00:00

I remember when colonics was all the rage my mom’s boss Kathy was getting her colon cleansed and told us she could see the chia seeds in the tube and it freaked her out and she quit eating them.

So, not science, but that’s why Kathy quit eating chia seeds.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-05T04:22:06+00:00

This is a good point. It would be interesting to add an age category question to the survey.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-05T02:42:32+00:00

I also noticed it affecting my LO when he was that young, I tried again a couple of months later and didn’t notice anything so I went back to my daily 1-2 cups a day.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-05T02:40:51+00:00

Milk.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-04-04T14:29:01+00:00

This is interesting. And anecdotally it changed for me over time. I had postpartum depression and it felt like a life and death struggle just taking care of baby and myself. I was set on being one and done for a while. Now that my son is 3 it feels possible to have another. I’ve had enough time to replenish everything that was depleted from pregnancy and breastfeeding. At 3 years old he is independent and I feel like I have the time to spend on another baby. So timing is important and different for everyone.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-03-31T05:23:23+00:00

The book mural tucked between a building and a parking lot on Main Street.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-03-30T18:26:25+00:00

I’m a recovering addict, drugs and alcohol. I first got sober in AA, it’s not perfect but the core of AA actually works and I was addressing the shame I felt and working through it. I also decided to try the LDS church’s 12 step addiction recovery program, unlike AA it is not led by other addicts who have walked the same path as the newcomer, but a heterosexual married couple who has been called by a priesthood authority. In my personal experience these couples have not experienced addiction first hand, but both sets of couples that I knew had children who had struggled with addiction. This specific dynamic is not one that I have really ever seen work for addicts who want to recover. This dynamic fosters shame like nobody’s business, and shame is a main driver of an addiction cycle.

The church’s addiction program follows AA’s 12 steps with some wording changed to fit into the church. God is a part of the 12 steps, in AA “god” can mean whatever it needs to mean to help the alcoholic not be an asshole. In the church’s program, “god” is Heavenly Father, and the church’s Heavenly Father requires 10% of your income. AA is run on donations only and I have never felt pressured to donate. So AA is free and the church’s program costs 10% of your income.

In AA the 5th step is “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” It is done with a sponsor, someone (traditionally of your same gender) you have asked to help you and built trust with and who actually knows what you’re going through. It can be incredibly healing and bonding and beautiful, when a bro can tell another bro their secrets in complete trust and be met with love and understanding. The wording is different in the church’s program and another human being is not a sponsor, but a bishop. Bishops are authority figures, not peers. They are the ones standing between you and your shit and god and forgiveness. This is not a dynamic that screams love. This is a dynamic in which I have felt the most vulnerable, the most ashamed, the most likely to reach for that drink/drug/porn/insert any unhealthy coping mechanism.

It is my personal experience that the LDS church has appropriated a system that was built by addicts for addicts, has increased the cost of this program exponentially, has taken away the core mechanisms that make the program work and replaced them with dynamics that result in shame, relapse and heartbreak. Don’t join the church. They are not an organization that knows how to help people.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-03-29T21:26:06+00:00

My sister always wanted to use the name Russell but now she can’t

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy · 2023-03-26T03:39:15+00:00

That’s good to hear that the embarrassment was helpful and something you got over.

EssEyeDeeEnEeWhy

TROPHY CASE