exmo-with-a-god-complex

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

> sees someone complaining about a mormon hate post spreading misinformation

> looks at post

> it’s literally just facts about the church

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

something that never quite goes away for me as an ex-mormon, is that whenever the tragic events start piling on. the natural disasters, the wars, etc. I start to get this voice at the back of my head that says what if they were right.

what if this is it. the beginning of the second coming.

and it's so stupid. and it's so hard at the same time to make it go away. and I don't know why I'm telling you all this, besides maybe to ask for some help in making it go away. cause I'm really scared right now, and the fear that I'm going to be burned alive at the end of days really doesn't need to be added to that.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

I've had this account now for 5ish years now. I've been in therapy for years, not exclusively for religious trauma but it's a major part. I've gotten better. I have a lot of content here I could reflect on, but I don't think I want to. I like knowing I progressed. I don't like looking at what from. Usually religious trauma comes up in therapy as an "oh yea...." instead of by name now. It's indirect. Enmeshment. Parentification. Vaginismus. Scrupulous and Harm OCD. Alexithymia. Derealization and Depersonalization. Paranoia.

I'm like, a real adult now I guess. I have a bachelor's degree now. I walk this upcoming weekend. I live in a house and I'm renting out a room with my own money. It has a backyard my cat likes to run around in. I had a job interview in my chosen field today. It went well

Then I'll go back to my family for the weekend and I find out they're spiraling into AI generated christian conspiracy theory videos. Their pastor is preaching about Trump being the anti-christ, and any non-Trump or Conspiracy message is the same thing he's said for the past decade, sometimes word for word. My uncle is convinced he's a prophet. He tells a story about a girl that was paralyzed after not listening to his message. My grandfather is convinced us black people are the true Israelites and chosen people. I thought I was the only one medically neglected by my aunt who's a doctor. I was not. I show her my emotions chart app. She tells me it's good so I can recognize when I feel bad and remember Jesus's love until I'm happy again. It's not normal for your joints to pop out of place apparently. We all learned this at the same time. It's Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. That explains a lot. My grandfather fell asleep to a video about the Ethiopian bible and how other bibles were made to take out miracles by Jesus and angels again. The remote is lodged in his hand so we can't change it

Then I talk about plants and food with my dad and my grandmother. My dad jokingly complains about his mom making him garden with her all day half a century ago. I give her a little kiss on her forehead before I go. My dad sends me home with leftover peach cobbler he made. I eat it with my lunch at my job. I answer phone calls at a front desk. I paid real taxes for the first time this year. I go to therapy and I talk about everything from my sex life to my graduate school plans to my opinions about generative AI (I hate it). I'm like, a real, breathing adult that has autonomy I guess. I'm not even claimed as a dependent anymore. I built my own desk that I bought from Big Lots.

You get where I'm going with this right? I'm not cured or healed by any means. Far from it in fact. I still get a pang of anxiety using the lord's name in vain and a chill down my spine when manifesting feels too close to confessing. It's harder making a personal post about religious trauma now though. It's not necessarily that I'm cured, it's just so engrained that I've created atheistic excuses to stay stuck in my religious trauma. I can pinpoint the source of it if I think about it long enough, so I don't think about it long enough

I'm not afraid to think lustful thoughts because holding lust in your heart is a sin, it's because I feel like a creep. I'm not worried I'll be sent to hell if I make mistakes that take me further from Jesus, I just think making mistakes would make me a bad person and an asshole. These beliefs popped out of nowhere, of course. They aren't influenced by the religious trauma so deeply buried in my head that taking it out would feel like taking out the gray matter of my brain itself. I'm schrodingers's man where I'm only a human when I'm observed. It used to be a deity but then it was you. I'm observed by you and that proved I'm human just long enough to get by when I most needed it. I still have that problem, but I'm seen outside of here. I see myself more often too

I don't want this post to seem like a good-bye, because it's not. I'm just currently in a period of limbo and I feel like the next generation of religious trauma bloggers are rising. I'm too busy arguing with my therapist about why I'm a bad person in a way that doesn't just boil down to "I'm a sinner in need of redemption" in a desperately-secular way. I'm self-aware enough to know that's what I'm doing, but not progressing enough to stop yet. I think what will happen is I'll eventually get frustrated enough to give up on the secular origins of my mental distress. I think a lot of you are in a similar place. You're out long enough that it feels like it should be over. You don't live in the bible-thumping, belt-wielding, gay-bashing, hellscape you once did. You might even be no-contact. You pay taxes now in your apartment. But it's not over. It's still there. It's just harder to say it's Jesus's fault I'm like this. It feels like it's been too long to still blame the bible.

It's not. It's buried in your synapses and neurons and muscles and bones and skin and hair and teeth and it's hard to remember that after 5 years. It's not oozing out into your bloodstream and filling you with enough cortisol and adrenaline to fuel an elephant anymore. It trickles though like a leaky faucet. I think I've lost the plot at this point, but you get it

Like I said, not a goodbye despite what it seems like. I just have to remember that a leaky faucet is still a concern

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

average mormon kid experiencing their first suicidal ideation and hoping they'll die in a freak accident before their 8th birthday:

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

google search will this uneasy feeling in my stomach I've felt since I was 13 ever go away

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

Amazing how I’m a grown adult and I still cannot shake the exact same childhood feeling of thinking im going to “get in trouble”

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

Generational toxic masculinity.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

Christians will unironically be like: "We have moral standards 😌💅." Yeah, so does literally everyone else you stupid twats, you're not special.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

I don't do a lot of exmormon posting directly from me, but as general conference approaches, i want all my fellow exmos and the ones still trying to leave–or even just questioning–to know that my inbox is open, and that there's a thriving community of us that are doing better than ever now that we're out.

"Apostate" can be a badge of honor if you let it.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

Content Warning: religion and transphobia⚠️

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️ I made a comic reflecting on my church upbringing as an eXvangelical trans person. The Jesus conservative Christians claim to represent looked lot more like many of the LGBTQ+ friends I know and love. Just some food for thought 💖

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

let me try to explain this to you.

you are eight years old. tomorrow, everyone tells you, will be the greatest day of your young life so far.

you can finally join this club all the adults in your life are in. your best friends, already joined, have silver rings to show it. they have been wearing those rings constantly since they got them, and will for another two years.

you are burning with jealousy.

you have been nervous and excited about tomorrow. your standards, obviously, are high. you dream.

in your dream, a figure behind a pitch black curtain holds out two brilliantly white hands. in between, dimly lit by the hands’ glow, is a plaque. on it is engraved your name.

up to this point, you have spent a considerable amount of time wishing to be someone else. you draw pictures of people like you- but not quite. they have similar names, similar lives to yours, but not quite. you often dream of waking up as them.

this dream you are currently having is not so kind. you reach out to the plaque–it is cold to the touch–and for a moment it resembles a headstone, and you realize you are standing on dirt.

you shiver, and the individual behind the curtain seems to grow impatient. they grab your arms in the way of baptism, which you recognize from your practice with your father. the hands are burning hot, they brand your skin, and when you are pushed underwater (you stressed about the baptism, you couldn't hold your breath without pinching your nose) you do not come back up again.

the morning comes, and you wake. the day is underwhelming as ever. you do the dunk–dully noting the marbled faces all staring at you through the glass–and come back up wondering why this was such a big deal.

your mother braids your hair, afterwards. it is a bit tight, but you don’t tell her. in some years she will do the same thing before you go to camp. you will try to kill yourself when you get back.

but i am getting ahead of myself. for now you are eight.

you take pictures with your family. in one you pose with your father, who just baptized you. you, in a white dress, new ring on your finger. you look like a bride, and you kind of are, now; eternal marriage to your loving god. your father who art in heaven.

you swear you see the red marks on your skin, from your dream, but in the photos your skin stays white, no matter how long you stare.

years later, even despite the new name and that dress thrown away, you still feel that burn. you look in the mirror and cannot decide what you see–the bride or the father. you cannot decide which scares you more.

do you get it? i need you to understand.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

i think my autism helped me avoid the subliminal messaging from the mormon church that was being hyucked at me throughout the first 12 years of my life. i just never fuckin noticed lmao

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

Can we talk about how lonely it feels to no longer be religious in a religious family? Not only is it another way in which we've grown apart, but I also know it would break their hearts to know where I stand- that I am no longer Christian.

Also seeing my nieces and nephews being introduced to religion is very bittersweet. Yes, them praying so ernestly is cute and pure, but I can't help but think about what lies in wait for them. Will they overcome everything that religion adds as obstacles? If they move away from religion, will they survive it- it's no easy path? either.

[exmo-with-a-god-complex]

no offense but every single thing i have gotten through has been without god, and every single thing i will do will be without god. if he does exist, he abandoned me and i got through it anyways.