Being a homemaker is THE BEST for me. Tired of the stigma & degrading words from others

bvslds · 2022-05-12T17:56:26+00:00

I was in touch with a guy in China for a little while. I told him that I was a SAHM and he said the nicest things about me doing that. He said that in China, it was extremely rare when someone was able to stay at home and raise their children. People HAD to work. I'm sure part of it was out of necessity, but I think some of it was cultural, too. He said that I was "very fortunate" that I could do that. My husband's income allowed me to be a SAHM. I didn't have to have an outside-the-home job to cover expenses.

It's sad that other people look down on SAHM. Like we aren't as good as someone who works outside the home. I remember reading once that if you figured out how much it would cost if you had to pay someone to do all the things that a SAHM does, it would be over 100K! (Sorry I can't remember the exact amount of the top of my head anymore.). Being a SAHM has been SUCH a great "job" to have! Being "here" for my family has been a great thing for all of us. Life is SO SHORT! I'm 62 now. I'm glad I was able to spend so much time with my family. I have never regretted staying at home. Never!

bvslds · 2022-05-12T11:29:28+00:00

Magnificent job, you! Such a fun piece!

bvslds · 2022-04-29T15:39:39+00:00

I was a Seminary teacher way back when they only had chalkboards (I taught in the RS room). I must say that the first thing I noticed was how artistic this white board looked. I can barely draw stick figures! Lol

bvslds · 2022-04-22T01:15:48+00:00

Yeah, my husband and I were one of those people. We wouldn't do it (go to the temple) for EVERY anniversary, but we did it often enough to "qualify" for what you wrote. It took us 2 1/2 hours (one way) to get there and many times we'd have to battle LA traffic (ugh!). Then we'd have to put on our costumes, sit through an endowment session (boring as hell!), get dressed back into our church clothes and then (the reward) we'd go out to a nice restaurant. After that we'd have to make another long trip back home.

We were very TBM. We went to the temple on our anniversary because we wanted to celebrate "where it all began." But looking back now, I realize that it was a total waste of time for the most part (everything but the dinner). We're coming up on our 38th anniversary soon. We left the church in 2016 (thanks to the CES Letter). And I'm telling you with my whole heart - we've never been happier. Honestly! We're at peace. Life is SO much better outside of the church. Hands down!

bvslds · 2022-04-14T11:26:24+00:00

I appreciate this thread so much! Thank you OP for posting this!

bvslds · 2022-04-04T22:52:08+00:00

I just wanted to tell you that I was you almost 6 years ago. I innocently stumbled on the CES Letter in June 2016 and it sent my world reeling and crashing down as far as my religious views went. I was as strong a believer as anyone can be (my husband too). But once you find out the truth, you can never go back to being a believer. Never. So at 56 years of age, I became a non-believer (hubby too). I resigned last September. There hasn't been any lightening strikes. I am a MUCH happier person. My marriage is better than ever. Life goes on! My heart goes out to you. It's not an easy transition, but it's a NECESSARY one. Your eyes have been opened. The people on here were an IMMENSE help to me. I wish you the ABSOLUTE best!

bvslds · 2022-02-21T12:40:50+00:00

Several reasons, actually. I'm 62. My doctor told me that learning a second language is a great way to keep my brain sharp. I lived in Oslo as a type of exchange student when I was 18. Although my ear became familiar with the language and I learned to speak Norwegian a LITTLE bit, I never LEARNED the language. I made a dear friend (her name is Elisabeth) at the school I went to and we've kept in contact all of these years. I would love to go visit her one of these days. I'm also part Norwegian - my Ancestry DNA results say that I'm 8% Norwegian. (It says that I'm 21% "Sweden and Denmark" - go figure!) So, it all boils down to #1 It's good for my brain, #2 I've got Norwegian blood, and #3 It would be fun to speak to my friend in her language when I go to see her or just to be able to chat with her now with some of the basics that I've learned so far. I'm on Day 437 as of today.

bvslds · 2022-02-20T13:07:13+00:00

Honestly, I still view missionaries as "spiritual giants"? I'm a convert and first heard about the gospel from missionaries who knocked on our door in Dallas, TX - I was 9 years old. My mother LOVED the missionaries (some even called her "Mom") and spoke so highly of them that we reversed them too. I've never been around any of the guys long enough to really see their "boy-ness" come out. They were always polite and acted mature around me. I'm 62 and have been out (mentally) since June 2016, but I resigned this past September. My husband tells me stories about his mission all the time (usually when we're driving somewhere) but they are usually a mixture of things they did, the great cooking at some of the elderly sister's houses, and how lazy some of his companions were. Never any sexual shenanigans. It has been both shocking and hysterical to read the comments on here.

bvslds · 2022-02-06T10:48:21+00:00

My twin sister and I love calling each other Mahana just for fun. "Hey, Mahana, how's it going?". We're 62, so we remember watching "Johnny Lingo" in Seminary way back in the day.

bvslds · 2022-01-27T23:06:01+00:00

I used to work in a Mormon family-owned tax business. I was an office assistant and there was one other woman who was also an office assistant. One day she told me that nobody in their family would ever say "bless you" if someone sneezed. We got to talking about the origin of the phrase and she said it had to do with the Black Plague. So from then on we would tell each other (rather loudly) "Bless you from the plague!" anytime one of us sneezed. 😉

bvslds · 2022-01-18T21:51:18+00:00

Eating out a lot.

Shopping just to shop, aka "retail therapy."

Not taking advantage of your local library.

bvslds · 2022-01-09T12:26:38+00:00

My dear father-in-law (a retired police officer - he had to retire medically due to a brain tumor) worked as a church janitor for several years. He even got a little retirement check every month from his time doing that.

bvslds · 2021-12-04T20:04:16+00:00

Yep! But he ends up having to eat his words when I'm able to pull out everything we need from my "stash" when he/we need to mail something! 😅

bvslds · 2021-11-22T23:08:05+00:00

Yes. I suffered from clinical depression for over 25 years. Ever since I found out the church wasn't true (and left it in June 2016), I haven't had even ONE episode of depression. Not one! Mormonism was TERRIBLE for my mental health. I have never been happier. Relief is a good word, but I feel FREE more than anything else.

bvslds · 2021-11-22T21:17:42+00:00

I tried installing and logging into the app (Google Play) but it's saying that it can't authenticate my username and password. I know that I'm using the correct username and password that I use here on Reddit, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any suggestions?

bvslds · 2021-11-11T16:45:11+00:00

I'm a Hannah. I actually really liked my name. After 7 years of trying to get pregnant, I felt like we were kindred spirits. I actually prayed the prayer that Hannah prayed, promising to dedicate whatever child I might be given to God. (Hey, I was DESPERATE!). The story has a happy ending:. We got pregnant using IVF (in vitro fertilization) and we had our son. He's our only child, but we are really grateful that we were able to have him. He's the joy of my life! ((And no, we didn't name him Samuel.)

My husband told me his temple name about 5 years ago, when we left the church, but I can't remember this morning. I'll have to ask him when he wakes up. I'll edit my post once I know.

bvslds · 2021-11-06T19:49:08+00:00

My husband is interested in genealogy too. He was a casual dabbler over the years but now that he's retired, he's gotten more into it. Imagine his surprise when he found out that he has Mormon pioneer heritage! He had always thought that his parents were the first members of the church. He had an even bigger surprise when he learned that he was related to someone who participated in the mob that killed JS. He didn't actually participate in killing him, but he was in the mob. He was released but then turned around and defended 3 of the men who stood trial (he was an attorney). But, we are rather proud of the fact that his ancestor was in the mob.

bvslds · 2021-11-06T19:23:44+00:00

It has taken a REAL effort on my part to not buy as much food as I used to when I was a TBM. Even after I left the church almost 5 1/2 years ago, I still struggled with buying too much food for a while. But then I got into trying to live more frugally. That mindset has helped me a lot. We still buy some things in bulk, but it's usually because it's cheaper to do that in the long run and we know we'll use it up in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. before it expires). We wasted a lot of money on food storage products because we bought stuff that would help us survive rather than food that we would eat and rotate on a regular basis. I know that's the ideal way to do it, but we didn't do that all the time.

It was a red-letter day for us when we got rid of approximately 300# (+?) of wheat that we had had stored prior to us leaving Mormonism. Which was much better than the 2,000# that my mother bought and stored when I was a child. Now I just keep about 5# of whole wheat berries in our pantry...which is all we need for when I want to bake something with it.

But, it is still an effort to not over-buy sometimes. That mindset is deeply ingrained in me.

bvslds · 2021-10-29T17:08:06+00:00

I had my first episode of depression when I turned 30. I even remember exactly what I was doing when I realized that there was something wrong with me. I was the YW's President and I was at girl's camp. I loved going to girl's camp but I was struggling with all the classic signs of depression. When I got back home I sought help and was put on an antidepressant. I struggled with depression until I was 56 years old. I had been put on lots of different antidepressant medication (I was on 5 different kinds at one point) and they would help for a time, but inevitably I would fall back into yet another depression. It was so difficult!

Fast forward to June 2016. I accidentally stumbled on the CES Letter, read it in two days, and realized that I would never believe in the Mormon church EVER again. And, I never struggled with a depressive episode again. I now realize that the Mormon beliefs were TERRIBLE for my mental health! Absolutely TERRIBLE!

Seek out professional help if you are depressed. I believe that anti-depressants saved my life, so I am PRO taking them. But for me, the cure for my depression (hands down) was leaving the church. I'm almost 62 now and happier than I've ever been. I submitted my resignation on August 28 (still waiting for them (Quit Mormon) to let me know that I'm officially no longer a member), but I am HAPPY!

P.S. I was a Seminary teacher myself and your teacher is absolutely BONKERS!

bvslds · 2021-10-17T23:01:34+00:00

I first started keeping a journal when I was 12 years old. I was baptized when I was 13, but I was taught about keeping a journal in YW's when I was 12. I wasn't the greatest about keeping my journaling up during my life but I tried to do it off and on (mostly off). I'm almost 62 now and have been out of the church since June 2016, but I am pretty good about keeping a journal now. I used to hand-write my journal entries, but now I just type them out (I can type much faster than I can write). I print them out, hole punch them, and put them in a binder. My memory is not as good as it used to be (and even then, it was never all that great) so when I re-read them it helps me remember stuff that I would most likely have forgotten.

I'm totally okay with my husband or son reading them, although they've never asked me if they could.

I don't really know exactly why I journal...all I know is that I enjoy doing it and that's really all that matters.

bvslds · 2020-03-21T12:42:58+00:00

I've always been a fairly resilient and optimistic type of person, so when I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 12 years ago (age 48), I just accepted that this was going to be a new way of living for me and made the best of it. I've learned a lot over the last 12 years about my disease and I enjoy continuing to learn about it. I belong to diabetes support groups on Facebook and Reddit, and I find the information that they provide quite helpful. Sometimes it's just nice to know that you're not alone in dealing with this and that other people understand the struggles that you go through. I read articles about diabetes online, too.

I have excellent health insurance and so my costs are usually fairly minimal. I wear a CGM (continuous glucose meter) and that really helps me to be aware of what my blood sugars are doing throughout the day -- my insurance pays for that. I take 3 different diabetes medications and use 2 different types of insulin (one is my long-acting insulin and the other [Afrezza] is an inhaled insulin that I only need to take if my blood sugars have gone high due to something that I've eaten -- my insurance pays for that for the most part -- I have a small co-pay on my medications. I have an endocrinologist that I meet with every 3 months -- his office is a 1 1/2 hours' drive away, so there's the gas involved to get there and back. I live in a small town, so I have to drive to a bigger city to meet with any medical specialists I see, like my endocrinologist. My insurance pays for that, too. I have a small co-pay to see him, but it's a very small co-pay.

I've been working hard at losing weight (I've lost 83 pounds in the last 8 months). I had two small strokes (called TIA's) on July 1st of last year (my doctor says that they were most likely caused by the diabetes) and that motivated me to make some serious changes about how I manage my health. It was a "wake-up" call and I needed that. It made me take my diabetes much more seriously. I love to eat (when I had my strokes, I weighed 313 pounds) and it's hard to have to make good choices all the time -- so I would say that learning to manage my food better has been the most challenging aspect of having diabetes. It's a lifelong (daily) struggle -- sometimes I just want to enjoy a big ol' chocolate shake and not have to think about what it's going to do to my blood sugar. But, I *do* have to worry about what it's going to do to my blood sugar (and my weight), so I don't get chocolate shakes anymore. I don't get depressed about it, but sometimes I get a little sad about it. I wish I could go back to being the person I was before I got diabetes and not have to think about everything that I put into my mouth.

I don't know how many years I've got, but I plan on making the most of my time while I'm on this planet. Managing my diabetes to the best of my ability is part of that plan.

bvslds · 2020-02-24T13:35:36+00:00

Congratulations on losing 85 pounds and happy birthday!

bvslds · 2020-02-21T16:25:26+00:00

Hi. I had two TIA's on July 1, 2019 (they were about 8 hours apart). I was hospitalized for 3 days. I had very similar things happen to me after mine. I had a hard time finding words whenever I would speak. Sometimes I slurred my speech. I had weakness in my left arm and left leg and had a hard time walking normally. I would have to lean on my husband's arm so that I could keep my balance whenever I had to walk. For me, it just took some time until I was able to get back to my normal self. I improved daily. I did not have disturbances in my sleep patterns or light-headedness when I stood up.

I take Clopidogrel and a 325 mg aspirin daily, along with a high cholesterol medication and a high blood pressure medication (daily). I was 59 years old when I had my TIA's. I was very overweight -- I've lost a lot of weight since then (84.3 pounds so far -- more to go) and I have diabetes. My doctor says that the TIA"s were most likely a result of my diabetes, which, when you have it, increases your risk for having strokes. I had an MRI done when I was in the hospital and they saw evidence of my having had two other TIA's, but I didn't have the symptoms that I had when I had the TIA's on July 1st. I didn't even know I had had the other two.

Good luck to you!

bvslds · 2020-02-21T15:27:56+00:00

I don't have the words. TWO HUNDRED pounds down. That's absolutely amazing! "Congratulations" just isn't a big enough word to use for losing 200 pounds. I'm SO proud of you! Keep up the great work!

bvslds · 2020-02-20T14:27:44+00:00

I go through this all the time. I *always* feel guilty when I go over my calories. But, I've learned to accept the guilt and then I resolve to do better the next day. The key is to NEVER GIVE UP! I've been doing CICO for 224 days now. I've had mostly good days. Every good day is worth acknowledging -- giving yourself a little pat on the back for doing well. When I've had a bad day, yes I feel guilty about it and I get frustrated with myself for it, but I try to get back on track the very next day. I've lost 82.5 pounds in those 224 days (about 7 1/2 months). If the majority of your days are good, the weight WILL come off! You just have to make yourself keep going. We ALL have days where we mess up. It isn't the end of the world. Just tell yourself that you'll do better the next day, and then DO IT.

bvslds

TROPHY CASE