ExMormon Sober

I’ve been over on the exMormon reddit sub for a week and a half and fuck. These people are nuts. I feel for them. Here’s a video:

I left THE Church when I was 16. They made me president of the young women’s while I was smoking and drinking and said that God wanted me as their leader… that’s when I hightailed it out of there. I didn’t trust their discernment. I told them I didn’t believe in their gospel and to this day, my eyes and brain will gloss over with boredom when I hear anyone talking about the faith. It is so boring. And SO NOT TRUE- I don’t even know what that means… how do you know what’s true? Rules? Underwear?

I  mentally check out when I hear the Mormon/Utah diction in someone’s voice. The Book of Mormon is one of the most boring THEE and THOU bullshit. I love Shakespeare but I can not pay any tribute or study to the Book Of Mormon which they are trying to go for, the King James version when they pray. I’d rather die. Or roll over and pretend that it wasn’t happening, it’s something that has been going on with me since I was a child.

When I did go to church, I would pass on the readings in class and one leader made fun of me because she said I didn’t know how to read, told everyone I was illiterate. I couldn’t read OUT LOUD all those stupid scriptures and make them sound like sentences or make them make sense or true. I would just look at the reading and stumble. I was writing in my journal like they taught us to do. I have them since I was 8 years old. What a mean bitch!

It wasn’t until I took Italian in college that I gained confidence in reading out loud. Isn’t that crazy?  Italian is phonetic. Has an accent. I can read you anything now, in front of any audience and sound like I am telling a story and it will make sense, (in English). I am a good reader of reading out loud, thanks to that teacher at the University of Utah for Italian. She didn’t like me the last quarter of five quarters together because I fucked up and didn’t do my homework for the final because my boyfriend was heading off to Julliard, so I got a C on my final grade but she gave me an invaluable gift.  She taught me to look at the words and feel them in my mouth and understand their meaning and help the listener relate to what I was saying.

Che Bello!

Before that I was always stumbling…

I left the Mormon Church a long, long time ago. 1990. When I was an exchange student in Sweden I would write to my youth group and tell them my doubts and how I got drunk. I got letters back from the leaders (not the same leader that said I was illiterate… she has a prescription pill problem now and accidentally burnt her house down)  saying I shouldn’t tell the girls about how I was drinking but how life was going. I am glad they wrote me. Letters in the mail were a lifeline.

My drinking and the Mormon church has nothing to do with my addiction.

Or does it?

I drank to rebel. I remember when I started smoking that it was my “smoke signal” so nobody would ever mistake me as a Mormon and I am still addicted today.

All I have to say, before this gets too long.  I called my girlfriend tonight from Scratch Ankle, Tennessee (yes, that is a real place) so I could talk to someone who is “normal.” I’m having a hard time in my relocation because my friends aren’t my friends anymore. I’m doing a much better job at being sober and feeding myself. I can’t wait for it to snow and friends for that to pop up because we are ski buddies. My extended family doesn’t want anything to do with me because I left the Church… it’s just me and my mom and my fur family (two cats and a dog) watching our favorite shows because I stopped reaching out to the old pals, drunks and believers.

I went to some AA meetings. I almost made some connections. I was turned off because a lot of them got up and said that they thanked their higher power and also the Church. I can hear it in their voice/accent. I know a Mormon before he even admits it just by the way he talks, walks and vibes.

I just can’t do another cult.

Sober Island …