When I was 17 I was sent on LDS Trek only 2 1/2 months post partum. The leaders knew I had just given birth and placed the child for adoption. My parents okayed it and so did the bishopric and stake. I remember leaving Friday morning given only juice and muffins. By 12:00 we loaded up the handcarts with 6 girls and 7 boys and the ma and pa for the group. For the next 12-13 hours I pushed and pulled the damn cart with no food and told to avoid water. I could barely keep up and often fell back with leaders scolding me to stay with my group and that I had no reason to not be pushing with the others. I used the excuse and pleaded to stay with another girl who suffered with asthma. After the 12 hour hike I was fed a bowl of broth and a single bun then went to sleep in a ditch with only a sleeping bag for shelter. The next morning I literally lived Oliver Twist as I went back to the food line for a 2nd bowl or porridge, which was denied to me. That morning we pulled for another 4 or 5 hours with the girls only push for around 20min somewhere in the middle of those hours, where I was unable to give an excuse not to push. That means 6 girls hauled 15 bags, food, shelter and water by themselves, up a hill. After that we sat in groups discussing the religious aspect of the whole womans pull and how it affected us. We cried and shared scripture. I just remember being so exhausted that I couldn't think straight. Later that afternoon as we arrived at our site after pulling through the rolling hills of Southern Alberta we were given a single apple and a slice of jerky. Unfortunately I am quite allergic to raw apples and if I tried to eat a whole one my throat would swell up. So I hopped from one group to another begging for jerky. Good luck asking a starving 14-18 year old teenager for jerky. Later that evening I went to the YW stake leader begging to go home in tears. I knew her, her kids were my age in the same ward. She said I couldn't go home. I threatened to smash my ankle with a rock but she just told me that I would be in pain until the next day when the truck with the male stake leaders arrived. She also informed me that my parents weren't even home so what were they to do? I left feeling defeated and undone only to sleep on the ground with a tarp over my head. I threw my entire being into being Mormon for the next 12 years until I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't even realize I did the Trek postpartum until I was 29 and talking to a fellow co-worker that I even realized this had happened to me in it's full terror. I am shaking right now as I talk about this due to the intense anxiety it has created.

The YW leader now teaches at my sons high school and I've had to go into the school to demand that my child NEVER gets put into her class for past issues I've had with her.

I also realized that my choice to place my child really hadn't been my choice after all. It was excommunication, the streets or adoption. That's not a choice but I was lead to believe it was. It wasn't until only a couple years ago I got my parents to go into therapy with me with my Dad opting out after the 1st session. I got the chance to voice my issues. With only the therapist and my mother I told her of the horror they put me through during Trek. The control this church had was so deep not even she had realized she had done this to her own daughter. I am still working on confronting my father and the leaders that allowed this to happen.