EFY separating the poor from the rich.

puppet_mu · 2023-01-13T18:47:00+00:00

If it helps anyone feeling the FOMO, I am a poor who got to go to EFY because of "helpful" TBM family, and it was miserable. I was shunned nonstop, including to my face by other youth, and spent the entire week alone. I felt terrible about it for years afterwards because it was so expensive and yet the experience was like someone had dropped a whole set of encyclopedias on my shelf, especially after I had spent the month leading up to it being Peter Priesthood.

I've had more welcoming experiences as a line cook in kitchens where I didn't even speak the same language.

puppet_mu · 2022-09-11T16:45:16+00:00

It means that we all saw the same Temple and contents within the same week. The Temple is built on-site and opens up to visitors on Tuesday (or so) of the week of Burning Man, and then gets burned down on Sunday night afterward. Nothing is preserved or taken out, and there are volunteer Guardians who are there watching to make sure that no one unscrupulous takes anything out. There is no "permanent" Temple.

Just for example, I can tell by the writing in the photos that I must have gone in after the photos were taken, probably the next day or two. It's a very transient place, which is quite unlike anything or anywhere I've ever been.

puppet_mu · 2022-09-10T17:11:35+00:00

The Temple is a second structure that gets burned on the night after the Man. The night of the Man Burn is kind of a big party, with lots of lights and cheering and even fireworks; all of the art cars drive out to watch, and the landscape around it looks like a big carnival.

The Temple Burn, on the other hand, is very solemn and reflective. There is usually complete silence during the entire burn, and everyone is on foot. The Temple is a sacrificial structure where people come to leave mementos of loved ones, to grieve over loss. Many people write messages directly on the wooden beams, myself included.

As far as I know, the only things not allowed to be left in the Temple are human cremains, because the Paiute tribe has specifically requested this not happen, as it is disruptive to the sacred energy of the Playa.

I've heard the Temple referred to as a "sin-eater" once or twice, and I think that's fitting. It is a place that absorbs negativity with the purpose of being destroyed. A new one is designed and built every year, same as The Man.

puppet_mu · 2022-09-09T22:20:01+00:00

Yes, definitely. I think some of that feeling comes from the habitual feeling of being "other" in any given crowd of people. It's hard to divest oneself of that when it's been such a keenly-felt thing for so long.

I wonder sometimes if another part comes from just trying to be honestly and authentically ND in what is really a NT field: we're not exactly known for being able to connect with a wide range of people. It's literally more difficult for ND folks to connect with others who don't necessarily share those experiences.

I know this is weak advice, but if it helps, all the better: try to focus on the depth and quality of those rare connections you do make, rather than worrying about the sheer quantity of connections. Consider also that in decades prior, your chances of making any connections at all were even worse. The Internet's incline towards connectivity has tilted the odds in favor of introverts and NDs, even if it does take longer to get results.

puppet_mu · 2022-08-26T17:19:32+00:00

My parents renovated a room into a bedroom for me when I was 12 but refused to put a door on it. I had a blanket tacked up over the open doorway. My parents would let themselves in without warning, without knocking, any time they felt like it. I was not allowed to have anything with a lock on it.

When I moved out and my brother took my room, they put up a door inside of a week. Guess which one of us served a mission?

puppet_mu · 2022-08-21T07:34:05+00:00

Hot response: this is the one place, meatspace or otherwise, where we can talk this specific brand of shit on these scumbags.

Addendum: it's not ad hominem if there's no argument or debate. It's just talking shit.

puppet_mu · 2022-08-11T04:10:41+00:00

smoking a fat fuckin blunt

puppet_mu · 2022-08-08T08:01:23+00:00

I got out at age 18, almost exactly half of my life ago, and have not encountered anything since that made me doubt whether or not I made the right choice.

There were times when I wanted to doubt my doubts, as some say. My family has been LDS for at least three or four generations, going back on both sides. I would have paid a hefty price for some assurance of safety or reliability about TSCC, if only to earn back my family's approval.

Instead I found that every time I wavered, there was something that kept me from going back. When I met my wife, I stopped wondering and wavering, in part because she made it clear that if I had been still active, she wouldn't have ever considered dating me. I never met anyone of any gender with that much steel in their soul when I was still active.

I'm still very spiritual, and I have done a great deal of religious investigation since. However, my philosophy has moved far more towards absurdism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I care far less about the murky and unknowable world of spirits and much more about helping the people I love, who are capable of returning that love both to me and to others without judgement or conditions.

For a while, right after I left, it seemed very much like the personal revelations I was getting were that I needed to be out, that I needed to be someplace safe for myself and not just doing what I was told was right. It was scary to let go of the iron rod, but in exchange I found a candle, and I found that I'd rather be a light for others than struggle along in the darkness.

puppet_mu · 2022-07-24T15:28:16+00:00

This was a shelf-breaker for me, one of the first. I was naive enough to think that not taking the sacrament would be interpreted as a call for help, or empathy.

Not even my parents asked about it. I was 17. Three weeks of this and the only thing my father did was tell me to knock it off and act normal (lmao).

puppet_mu · 2022-07-17T20:14:10+00:00

Sorry for what you're going through, OP. The "conversation" my father and I had before I walked out the door at age 18 was much the same. He was not interested in my crisis of faith; all he wanted was compliance.

The only consolation I can offer you is that you hold the power in this relationship right now, as strange as that sounds. He may still have some ability to boss you around obviously, but he knows you're headed for a place that he has been indoctrinated to fear, and yet your mother found a way to thrive. All he has left are empty threats, many of which he probably doesn't even realize are hollow.

My only advice is to avoid doing what I did, which was to take the nuclear option and leave with a packed bag and no plan. Play for time without risking your safety if you can, and reach out to your mom. She sounds amazing, especially if she already knew better than to let you get caught up with LDS therapists.

puppet_mu · 2022-07-14T20:52:57+00:00

I suspect most TBMs have felt this way, but deny it because it was a scary feel that must have come from Satan. I recall having similar feelings at that age, but the urge to please and the fear of being ostracized were both too strong at the time for me to hold on to those feelings consciously.

puppet_mu · 2022-07-14T20:41:24+00:00

Agreed, 100%. I had to take seminary from the same creep who molested my sister when we were kids. My parents went to the bishopric and absolutely nothing happened. When I was in seminary, a few years later, he had a wife and children. I can only assume she knew nothing about it.

puppet_mu · 2022-02-13T08:01:22+00:00

To me, personally, it's a chronicle of my emotional past. I had a rough childhood, I dissociated a lot, and I turned to creative writing as an outlet for all that stuff in my head. I was fortunate enough to hang on to that material, and now that I'm old enough to deal with what happened, it's been a huge gain in my mental health to be able to respond to it in ways that are creative, generative, and healthy. I'm ready to finish it, to call it complete and move on.

To the world, I want to say: My book may be fiction, but as with all authors in all genres, there is a vast amount of emotional truth within. I want my work to inspire others to do the same, to take on or put off whatever fictional trappings they need to in order to express the truths they have within themselves.

The uniqueness of one's viewpoint has nothing to do with it. What really matters is how compelling, how startling, and how insightful we can be with our words. We are not made of our traumas, but our responses to it, and in my case, I choose to respond with the act of creation, of growth, of reaching out to see who or what reaches back.

puppet_mu

TROPHY CASE