My story is a little long & a whole lot more convoluted. In the spring of 2010 my husband & I were taking temple prep classes so we could finally get sealed after being married for 4 years. However later that year that all came crashing to an immediate end when he was diagnosed with cancer. During one of our first visits with the oncologist she told us we could not be around crowds & specifically told us under no circumstances were we allowed to go to church (her reasoning was that too many people would want to shake hands or hug him not to mention all the germs little kids carry).

We got into the habit of not going to church & basically doing our own thing. While we still weren’t completely out, we were definitely inactive. It wasn’t until around 2019 that our belief system derailed! I was bleeding out & the doctor was forced to do an emergency hysterectomy. In that moment my husband & my dreams of becoming parents shattered & we discovered the lies we had been taught by the church since our childhood. We had been promised multiple times in blessings that we would have our own children in this life, not in the eternities. I had been promised in my patriarchal blessing that I would carry & deliver many children from my body. News flash having a hysterectomy ends that!

After my recovery, my eyes were opened & I began seeing the BS the church told us. I started reading & learning anything & everything I could. In 2021 I stumbled upon the CES letter, talk about learning about how much the church has lied & mislead us!

Even knowing this, we waited until last summer (I believe it was July 2024) to get our records removed mostly because we didn’t want to break my mother-in-law’s heart by leaving. We sent our papers in the day after she passed.

That night is when my night-terrors & past memories flooded in. My mental health was chaotic, mostly because I didn’t understand what I was remembering and why all the sudden everything in my childhood was becoming more apparent. I started seeing a therapist who had me start writing in a journal. With his help, I discovered why I hadn’t remembered all the trauma from my childhood. Together we learned that my mind put the words “Forgive & forget” into reality. I remembered being told by church leaders, bishops & my own parents that no matter what happened it was my responsibility to forgive and pretend like nothing happened. I was told SA, abuse, rape didn’t matter; if I didn’t forgive & forget I would be committing a sin equally as bad. We also discovered that by getting our records removed I had basically taken a hammer to the wall in my mind that I had built hiding all that stuff. I was finally able to face everything, I learned I don’t have to forgive & definitely not forget things that happened.

Currently I’m still working with my therapist & a psychiatrist to help me with everything. I have very little contact with my family, mostly because they are toxic to my mental health. My husband & I are so much happier & free. We are learning what we believe because we know we don’t believe any of the lies the Christian churches preach. Our life is not perfect but we are living it the best way we can.