#i myself am not ex mormon

[drnightingale]

The following is a message from @frostmoon-willow / @frostmoonwillownova regarding her mother's behaviour over the past few months, which involves forcing her to continue to do a medical assistant course that she didn't want to do in the first place after it severely worsened her mental health. Details under the cut.

"Hello everyone! I love you all so much, and thank you for all the support and kindness you have given me over the years! It genuinely means so much to me! -Frostmoon"

The following is the message she sent to her mother earlier today. I have so far heard nothing, but I will keep you all updated through reblogs and further posting.

"This has gotten to the point that I feel I need to write this.

I'm sick and tired of you choosing everything for me. You keep saying that you aren't choosing everything, and that you're doing all of this for my better. You have been choosing everything for me for a long time. Choosing my classes for me, making me go into different things that I don't want to. I have not expressed one ounce of interest in medical assisting, and you put me here. I may not plan on going into EMS in the future, but you know full well that I enjoy EMS and EMR things. You say that this is to get me a good job, but I am not going to get a medical assisting job.

You say that I hate this class because I'm behind, but the reason I'm behind is because I don't care. I'm not just procrastinating this because I'm a natural procrastinator, I am because I don't feel like or care about doing any of this. I have not had any fun in this class, except for the blood stuff because I wanted to be a blood spatter analyst (which I'm thinking I might not be, I'm not interested in taking physics). 

Everyone in my year has chosen fun senior year classes. I could have been in science fiction, where they go to movies and write stories. I don't care if I would have taken a math class, that would be way better on my mental health than this medical assisting class.

You force me to do things just so I can do things I enjoy, like playing video games and hanging out with friends. I have been struggling through this class so far, but I don't want to continue. 

I don't have a fear of needles, but I dislike them. Seeing knives sticking out of skin somehow doesn't bother me, but needles do. They make me uncomfortable. Yes, I get shots, but have you noticed how I never look at them? I don't like needles.

If you hadn't put me in this class I could have been doing things that would help me on the path to a career I do want. I could be taking online courses for forensic science. I could have a lot of things done and that would help me get the job I want, not the one you want for me. I think you are projecting your wants onto me. You are into nursing and medical assisting and are making me do that. 

I do not want to do this. I am not happy, and I am struggling mentally. I've cried multiple times during this class, and you know I've gone to talk to counsellors. How has that not rung a bell? Can't you tell I hate this? I'm behind because I have no motivation to do this. I have to pretend to be characters to get stuff done, but at this point of doing injections, I am done. 

I know you've paid money to get me into this course, but I don't care. I'm struggling. I could've had an amazing senior year like everyone else, and like what I imagined. But because you always choose things, I'm stuck in this class, crying, because you won't let me out. I'm sick and tired of it. You don't listen, and you continue to tell me that I'm only struggling because I'm behind. But I'm behind because I just don't care. 

You think that it's my friends that are telling me you're a horrible person, but I've noticed some of the things you do as well. You think you're guiding me to an amazing future as a medical assistant, but that is not what I want to do. You choose everything for me. I don't get a say in things. You didn't even ask me if I wanted to do the medical assisting program, you just signed me up. I told you I didn't want to, but you still went with it. 

I don't want you to take away my video game privileges or my snails, but I'm done. I want to be able to enjoy my life without having to think about coming here every day and doing things that I don't care about. I understand that I have multiple mental issues, and I know you're trying to help me with that, but forcing me to continue this course is not helping me. I do not want to continue with this.

I've decided to try and write this to try and have you realise how much I'm struggling, but I know you'll either ignore this and force me to continue, or even if you let me drop out, take away my phone and video game privileges. And don't you see that as a problem? I'm nearly 18, and here you are, grounding me like I'm a little kid. I know I struggle with many things, but this is one thing I'm done struggling with. 

I would like to be able to not worry about forcing myself to do these things just to play video games to make myself happy. I've tried to tell you a million times but you don't listen. You blame my friends for making me think you're horrible, and blame them for making me 'gay'. All I would like is for you to accept me for being pansexual, and maybe even try to support me. It would be wonderful. But you try to squash that out of me. 

I'm tired of being controlled by you. I want to be happy, and the medical assisting program is making me stressed and depressed. I really am tired of you making huge decisions like this for me. I don't get to choose, and you force me to stay in this class just because you think it's good for me.

I don't know how things will end out after you get this, but I just hope that somehow this might make my life easier. I hope you can find it somewhere in your heart to do what's actually best for me and my mental health. I want to be accepted for who I am, and want to begin on the course I want for my future. If you get mad at me, fine. I'm actually quite used to you being mad at me for contradicting you. But I hope this can persuade you to actually take a moment. and think and realise that what you are doing is causing me stress and anxiety.

 I'm tired of you being controlling. You are even if you think you aren't. You may not be a helicopter parent, but you are forcing me to do things, and monitoring my every move. You cut off contact with my friends just because they're against what you see as right. I'm tired of it all.. What I would like is to have a supportive mother, who will help me do what I want, not what she thinks is best for me. A mother who asks what her daughter wants and tries to help with exactly what she wants to do. 

I hope you read this and take a moment to think about all of this. I haven't written a note like this yet because I was scared you'd ground me, take away my phone, video game privileges, and snails; but this is at a point where I just can't take it anymore. I'm done.

Nova"

I am hoping to hear from her soon, and I will keep you updated on the situation, however, depending on how her mother reacts, it may be a while.

I'd like to end this off on a happy note.

I don't know much about her mother, only that she is an ex-nurse and a very strict Mormon woman who controls frostmoon, not only in the ways mentioned there, but also forcing her to wear makeup, go to church and abide by Mormon doctrine when she fully knows that she doesn't care about any of it.

Frostmoon standing up to her mother like this is a huge step up for her. I have tried to convince her to stand up for herself more over the past year we have been together, but she has always been too scared or nervous, and for good reason. But today, even if it was because she hit an all time mental low, she made a huge step to communicate what she needed from her parents, concisely and clearly, and I cannot be any more proud of her.

Anyone with experience with these kinds of parents are welcome to offer advice if they wish

[fallenandproud]

i suppose this fits here but i just needed to get shit off my chest.

the idea of growing up terrifies me now. im 18 finally and ive graduated high school and i have a job and its not what i thought it would be. i dont remember the details, but i woke up thrashing and panicking this morning over. some dream that had something to do with growing up. i spent my whole goddamn life trying to get to this point as fast as i could, because it was the only way i could see to break out of my parents rules and restrictions and finally be free and be myself without fear.

and. now i made it. im here, i did it, and. id give anything to go back. i wasted so much time, so much energy, being afraid and letting that fear control me and focusing only on this one nebulous far off goal that i wasted my life. i missed every opportunity that might have been there had i decided to just stick up for myself instead. i already had a fucked up high school experience and i made it worse for myself out of fear.

im never getting those years back.

ive already lost so much to the way i was raised in the mormon church and now this, by proxy but still at my own hand, and its. i dont know. it makes me sick. i only ever wanted to be normal and this is what i fucking got and theres nothing i can do about it. my whole life was stolen from me because of this church, be it directly or indirectly and theres nothing i can do about it.

[unityrain24]

are you serious. my painting professor is fucking mormon?

[callmedarthrevan]

I have class with my ex twice a week and I think I can now confidently say they are Annoying As Fuck and I am not the only person who thinks so

[ldsqueerstakeofficial]

Applications to join the Queerward Discord

We've noticed a lot of people asking where to find the link to join the discord. While we cannot safely justify having a floating link, the mod team has agreed that we can open entry to the general public. The discord is no longer limited to a know-someone basis. If you would like to join the discord, you can message @relatablemormonmoments @notsostraightandnarrow @vaguely-heavenly-things with this form: Name or nickname: Discord username: Age or general age: How I discovered Queerward: Sexuality: Gender Identity: Romantic Orientation: How long have I been out to myself: Am I out to others: If straight, am I willing to be an ally and leave discrimination at the door: Do I hold concerning biases, such as racism, homophobia, or sexism?: (y/n) If yes, am I willing to unlearn them: Do I get into fights on the internet: [regularly, only when important, never] Do I promise to follow Queerward rules: (y/n) Am I kind: (y/n) Am I interested in a server dedicated to LGBT+ Mormons: (y/n) Am I Mormon or associated with the Mormon community, including ex-mormon, post-mormon, Church of Christ?: By sending in this application, you are permitting the mods to scroll through the blog you message us from to check that you are a real person, not a troll, not homophobic, racist, or sexist, and that you tend to respect others online. We will not be accepting requests from blank blogs.

[brightgnosis]

↠||↞ Who ⬩ Am ⬩ I ↠||↞

Piggybacking off of @musingmelsuinesmelancholy's new introduction post they just made, because it's prolly time I reintroduced myself craft-wise, too; even though I still maintain this isn't specifically a Pagan / Witchcraft blog, it still makes up a good part of my life and it's been a while 🤣

So hi! My Name's Anna (It / It's). I'm a 34 year old disabled Queer practitioner from North-Central Oklahoma, and I've been practicing in one form or another for 23 years now.

I'm an ex-Irish Reconstructionist, now practicing as a Dual Faith Traditional NeoWiccan and converting Masorti (Conservative) Jew; my philosophies are Spiritual Vitalist (Non-Animist) and Pantheist in nature, and my Witchcraft is explicitly theist and directly tied to my religious ideology and worship.

Spiritually my primary focuses are on Ancestor Veneration, Tree Speaking, Water Priestessing, and Prairie Medicine & Magic. Magically, I practice predominantly as a Hearthkeeper, Verderer, Healer, Shadow Worker, Hedgewalker, Skinchanger, and Diviner (Pathfinder); even as a Traditional NeoWiccan and converting Jew, my practice is heavily influenced by Traditional Witchcraft, and Schulke's strain of Cultus Sabbati- as well as several strains of Ancestral Folk Magic and Belief (including Mormon Folk Healing, American Braucherei, and Germanic and Ukrainian Folk Tradition), with some Rosicrucian leanings.

It's honestly a bit of a mess every time I try to explain it because there are a lot of various moving parts that interlock in some interesting ways you wouldn't expect (especially just looking at it from the surface). But I'm always open to questions about it as long as you're meeting me respectfully.

You can find my broader (and bit more simplistic) Pinned Post here if you want more information about me.

[confessions-official]

I'm a teenage ex-mormon. Realized Mormonism was all bullshit around a year and a half ago, and finally told my parents this January. (I'm safe; they took it fairly well.)

A lot has happened. I'm still in the process of distancing myself from the church (as I will be for the next couple years until I can legally revoke my membership), and also still in the process of letting people know that I won't be coming back ever.

The main thing I came here to say is that I think I've ruined my mom's life.

Not because she doesn't accept me-- no, she's been my biggest ally and supporter ever since I told her the truth. The problem is, she's realizing the same things about the Mormon church that I did several years ago and is now having her own faith crisis. All of her friends, all of her family for generations were part of the church, and now that I've opened her eyes to the truth about it, it will never be the same. I don't know what she's going to do... she's way more trapped than I am. If she leaves the church she's going to lose everything. Maybe even my dad.

Sometimes I think we all would have been better off if I hadn't told her those things that led her to question the church. Ignorance is bliss, right?

 

[thepowerisyouth]

Eh mental health is annoying. Buying & cooking cheap low-FODMAP diet is annoying. My best top note for now is I'm using this blog to practice writing. I need more practice in it. I only know business, accounting & economics stuff. Its stupid stuff. Theres too much actual fraud everywhere that its annoying

Also I use mobile so formatting sucks cause Nvidia GPUs, or Arch dont like tumblr site. Or tumblr site dont like tumbkr site

Also also I 100,000% support all my fellow ones-and-zeros and their identity. Everyone is welcome here.

Except transphobes/zionist/long list of others but you get it. I'll help harrass any of those types endlessly if someone wants to tag me, and bring me in on an argument like that friend you call for backup with fights

Im unhinged so who's to say exactly what will end up here but this is also a completely public blog to me friends, family, hell, even acquaintances i dont give a fuc.

Blog should be expected to be roughly as child-friendly as simpsons or bobs burgers. But also boring like a civics/economics lesson sometimes. Yay

--------

I (and my husband) am ex mormon. Its a weird thing. Look into it if you havent recently. Realllllyyyy look into. Takes time to figure it all out in this fuckin fucked up world.

I just moved a year ago. Didnt watch the US stock market as much as I normally do. Had my first snowstorm 10 weeks ago, that was.. fun to handle while ill prepared. About 6 weeks ago I was hopping back on the market and notice its a huge tech bubble about to pop and all the conditions Ive been warned about my whole career imply this is not good. Just took a little more thinking & digging and I'm a little too confident to stop talking about it now.

(Oh I'm also care-free as fuc so I dont really read or desire to change past posts more than lil-nitpicks. More informative for the reader & myself-in-the-future-reading that way)

And I'm not kidding I do love feedback & questions. Its a very public blog tho so I get that part for sure.

If you search "life story" in my tags I had that pinned for a min Im just moving shit around rn

Being poor sucks. Will write more on that later.

---------------

First of all-- the exact timeline of an "economic shock" is literal insanity. Dont worry about the exact timing of any of this-- just know its doomed to happen soon.

Here are some effects I predict of this upcoming economic downturn

If anyone comes across any sources for these events that support my arguments please feel free to add in comments, reblogs, etc.

This concise list is mainly for my own reference, but it would be great to add to it if any one has something to add!

0.5. US Stock market collapse-- I have no desire to try and predict this one exactly. Too many conspiracies are actually correct about this big guy. Lets just say 7 US Tech stocks are worth 25% of the entire worlds market, roughly. "Too big to fail"-- I believe is the phrase

1. Corporate (slightly later will be residential by extension) real estate crisis: currently way too overvalued. Most of the houses, land, & urban corporate property we see could stand to decrease by about 60-90% from its current price.

2. Bankruptcy crisis: similar to the after-effects of the 70s inflation-- we can expect to see a huge wave of bankruptcies affecting a variety of business: from the micro-self employed; to the small business with leased buildings; to the largest corporations who commit massive accounting fraud & hope to escape accountability in time

3. Bank runs-- there is an extremely high overreliance on the Federal Reserve, who does not have good control over this situation. Once it becomes clear that there is a crisis (we call this a catalyst event)-- bank runs for physical cash are a surety. Hard to say how long a crisis like this might last. I should ask my siblings who lived near the SVB bank crisis hotspot (but those were rich fucks they do their "bank runs" over the phone)

3.5. Global currency collapse, which takes effect in every single local, state, & national economy at slightly different times. This means prices lower. Much lower. But takes time

4. Whatever the fuck the geopolitics is gonna do???. Its weird. You got Russia wanting to invade Europe? (Look at global economic forum 2024) Trump wants to let them. Biden wants to be an establishment corporate ass. North Korea has changed its #1 public enemy to South Korea (dont remember my source but it was a couple months ago). USA is stationing more troops in Taiwan, but probably only because of semiconductor technology?

The scope of our global financial woes are larger than can be explained in any of our lifetimes. Its much, much closer to pre-revolution France or the late 1920s. Big change is coming. Itll be soon

5. More to come

[transsexual-mankisser]

um…

in all honesty i don’t know what to do. i’m an ex mormon. a PIMO, technically. i’m a minor and my parents don’t know that i don’t believe because i’m scared that if they know they’ll at best be even more overbearing about the church and forcing me to go to things i don’t want to go to or at worst start restricting my freedom. they might go through my phone, they might take away my phone. they’ve done both for much less already. and as a queer person that will put me in very real danger if they do. so they don’t know. they can’t know until i turn 18 at least, and preferably until i move out.

i got called to be the class president for my young women’s today. i said yes. i’ve heard it’s different in some Mormon families but in mine you don’t say no when the church asks you to do something (real healthy, I know /s). when the bishop asked to set up this meeting i knew this was what this was about. the current president is graduating and there are very few people in our young women’s to choose from. I knew I would have to say yes even if I didn’t want to. During the meeting I even felt that I did personally want to say yes. It was coercive. Obviously it was coercive. As soon as I left I felt sick to my stomach.

I feel like I am actively betraying everything I believe in. I don’t believe in the church and I do not worship the Mormon god and I have publicly spoken out against them in places I felt it was safe to do so. I literally wear mjolnir underneath my shirt all the time to honor thor. I am queer. I’m not even a woman, I’m a bisexual trans man. I’m completely out of the closet at school. I feel like I’m betraying my people, and myself. I also feel guilty for accepting this position in a church i so adamantly do not believe in, until of course I remember that they’re the only reason I felt pressured to say yes in the first place. I feel sick.

The bishop told me he chose me (he said god called me but that’s up for debate) because I can reach people others can’t. I think that’s true. No one else in my young women’s class could reach another trans man, because they don’t believe that he’s a man. But in order to be “doing my duty” as a class president, I would have to also try to convince him that he’s not a man. It feels like I’m being taken advantage of in that way. Like they’re asking me to use a skill I have BECAUSE I am different to convince others NOT to be different while not being too different myself in order to be a good example.

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through this next year like this. My life had really been looking up, especially now that I’m out to my friends, and this feels like a targeted attack to try to end that happiness. It’s not going to work. I’m still going to be me and I’m still going to be continuing to get more and more appreciative of life. But I don’t know how this will fit into that, and I’m scared.

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

Hello Mara,

I wanted to know what your opinions are on Buddhism, judaism, islam, or any other belief systems. Not long ago I’ve found your account and you write a lot on Christianity however you did mention in one of your posts that you would not consider yourself a “Christian” per se (I might be wrong). You are also interest in Scientology and was wondering if you are interested in other beliefs?

Hope you have a wonderful day!

hey anonymous; (drawing from a letter i wrote to a ko-fi supporter today, thank you ko-fi supporter!)

i write about christianity often because i am Haunted by the Specter of Christianity -- it:s baked into me! as is leesburg, as is florida, as is a family fascination with getting suckered into fancy alien books like URANTIA;

but, for other beliefs, outside of Scientology and Christian-Science i:m not very interested in "actively pursuing," with an asterisk for Judaism*, being that i feel like unless you:re outright born into it then there is little point in having an interest in it (but i:d be lying if i said i wasn:t influenced by Zohar and Chabad); Zoroastrianism is really neat to me from the clean/unclean element divisions; i think Palo is one of the pure in-illusion representations of chiral idol worship and really like it for that; i studied islamic art history for a bit and it really left an impression on me via iconoclasm and anti-idolatry belief and depicting god non-representationally; Shinto is pretty neat but sort-of so blurred into Buddhism that it:s hard to figure out what it is -- but reading a bit about the Old Shamanistic traditions of it are neat to me; Buddhism i:d get these morning lessons from Iris (my ex! she studied/studies it), and have a lot of her little Buddhist knowledge-points drilled into my head (but otherwise i don:t really care for it; this is super dismissive of me: sometimes Buddhism seems like the thing people turn towards because Christianity is too lame and typical -- BUT, i was forced to read Siddhartha in highschool and i:d be lying if it didn:t leave a big impression on me growing up, and Iris sort-of reinforced the lessons of it -- my dismissiveness aside it:s neat but it:s so broad it:s hard for me to have thought on it); generally "i like religion and think they are all interesting," but i mostly don:t "care" (defined specifically here as: wanting to involve myself with) for them outside of finding context maps related to chirality;

it:s one of my favorite things to read about; picked up a bunch of mormon texts from a thriftstore lately and want to read some of Joseph Smith writings and prophecies (i have a soft spot for prophets); take care; happy sabbath (it:s orsday sabbath).

[earlgraytay]

...Welcome Home has been making me want to do some kind of puppet horror project myself, because I am an incorrigible sponge/idea thief

But I haven't been able to figure out an angle that isn't ripping off some iteration of Welcome Home or that isn't well-trodden ground

.... but you know, I've seen a couple Christian/ex-Christian takes on the Puppet Horror genre, but I've never seen an explicitly ex-Mormon one....

(the horror of realizing that The Thing You Just Know Is Normal is actually real fucking bizarre to everyone else, the horror of interfacing between a fucked up subculture and the normal world, the horror of being told you're Special while being groomed into an utterly disposable role, etc. etc.)

like, this is not just back burner, this is the backest of back burners, there are 7000 projects I need to get to first and projects that writing won't actively trigger me

but it's something I wanna noodle on

[loupy-mongoose]

I’m also atheist, but I’d actually like to thank you for the trigger warning. You see, I have a fairly large amount of religious trauma surrounding how I was raised. I am capable of interacting with it now to a certain extent, but thoughtful people that put trigger warnings for it in allow me to brace myself and not encounter it without warning.

The religious reference there was very tiny, and it didn’t cause any trouble for me personally, but as someone who was seriously messed up by the Catholic Church, I really appreciate you and all other creators that take the time to put in warnings like that.

I'm glad to know it made a difference! I'll continue to put warnings if the implication is prominent enough! (And I'm super sorry if I forget!)

I was very blessed to have grown up in a home with two graceful, loving Christian parents--My brother and I never had any direct experience with the kinds of people who make Christians look bad. But I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea, and my hope is that I can be someone who makes others go "Huh, I guess not all Christians are bad!"

And if anyone's wondering, I'm not Mormon. My mom is ex-Mormon and is very glad to have left them.

[fruityyamenrunner]

About 1,000 current and former Mormons marched to the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City Friday to deliver petitions demanding an end to closed door, one-on-one interviews between youth and lay leaders where sexual questions sometimes arise.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints changed its policy this week to now allow children to bring a parent or adult with them to the interviews, but protesters said that doesn't go far enough to keep children safe.

The policy change followed recent revelations that a former prominent missionary leader was accused of sexually assaulting two women in the 1980s.

The ex-leader denies the allegations.

the mormons have a better handle on this than the papists. i think your average catholic would take it as a grievous insult if you were to suggest that a responsible adult be present during a child's induction into the priest-centered blackmail ring. i am not sure the idea would even occur, and if it did?

Q: This is a delicate question, but you are really the only one who can answer it. I am an abuse survivor, but I do not want to abandon the Catholic faith for another religion. My question is, for a survivor who has young children and has obvious difficulty with trust, can the parent be present in the confessional during the young child’s confession? I could see myself doing this until the child seemed mature enough to understand, and agree that I would be right outside the booth, and he/she would know to immediately leave and report anything inappropriate, etc. I apologize for the question, but it’s hard to ask your own parish priest this question in person. -L.

Answered by Fr. Edward McBlackmail, LC

A: I am sorry to hear that you have suffered abuse in your past. You are a beloved daughter of God, and this was not part of his plan for your life. It is good, though, that you haven’t left the Catholic faith; Our Lord wants to give yogu many graces through the Church, especially the sacraments.

Your concern for your children is understandable. In regards to the sacrament of reconciliation, the best and most practical way of ensuring your children’s safety would be to find a church that has either a closed confessional with a wall and screen between priest and penitent (each being in a separate, closet-like compartment) or a confessional room with glass walls, so that you could easily see what is going on. (In some parishes, for example, the “crying room” doubles as a makeshift confessional room.)

If you want to wait nearby outside a confessional, that is fine. Frankly, it would not be a good idea to try to enter a confessional room along with a child. The child has a right to privacy when confessing sins. Moreover, it is not likely that a priest would tolerate a third party being present. The last thing we would want is to turn the sacrament into an arena of conflict. And that wouldn’t help your children.

If your parish is the only practical option for confession, and you aren’t comfortable with the arrangements in the church (say, if it only has enclosed confessional rooms), then perhaps you could ask the pastor for a different venue. Perhaps a kneeler and screen could be set up in a visible area (such as the sanctuary) that is out of earshot of other people.

A positive development in recent years is that clergy have been required to undergo special training in the area of abuse prevention. And there is certainly a heightened awareness within parishes and schools about the need to be on the watch for suspicious behavior and attitudes. All this can contribute to producing a culture of alertness that helps protect anyone who might be vulnerable. I hope that some of this helps. God bless.

[horce-divorce]

finding myself in a relationship where we have managed, in just 2 weeks, to have more healthy and productive and reassuring conversations about our trauma, goals, hopes & fears, than me and any of my exes ever did!! Ever!!! Combined!!! And it is. insane actually lol. it's so new to me to say to my loved one exactly what I'm thinking, without mincing words, and to not only have him not take it personally and freak out / end the conversation, but he answers eagerly and candidly and in a way that actually puts me at ease and makes my anxiety stop??? He specifically talks with me to make ME feel better??? 🥺

I am finding myself with a guy who hears me state my needs and doesn't immediately make it about him, even if our needs don't exactly match or he can't help me with that right now! It's amazing! It feels sooo much better than when my exes and I would lie to each other about our needs totally being met and it being "fine" and then fight about it when one of us inevitably told the truth. he doesn't try to make me feel bad about it when we don't want the same thing! which is fine bc honestly most of the time we genuinely do! and when we don't it's simply not a big deal! like!!!

and not only that but he notices and cares when I'm in a bad mood and asks about it, and remembers the shit I said about my feelings months ago? I was having some Fears the other day, and he asked, and I told him, and he said, "I remember you saying once that you felt replaceable and that's NOT true!!!!" and then hugged me and told me he loved me and that I deserve all his love and care, until I actually felt better??? Like. that cut immediately right to the center of how I was feeling and I didn't get to saying that part out loud, I started to and he immediately knew exactly what I was getting at, because he cares how I feel and was already paying attention before?? Like, I didn't have to ask him to notice how I feel, because he was already paying attention.

For once my boyfriend is more emotionally intelligent than I am and is actually teaching me so much about communicating and stating my needs and asking for/finding the things I need. He is so resourceful and he's done so much therapy already and he knows so much about like trauma and DBT and coping skills. He's so smart!! He's so good at setting boundaries!!! He is always teaching me new things!! I'm literally so inspired by him every single day!!!!

part of me does feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and we will face plenty of challenges I can already foresee.. but that's life. my friend told me something so wise the other day. she said "anxiety is loud, intuition is a whisper." anxiety screams constantly that I'm not good enough and that everyone is just biding their time until my true flaws rear their ugly heads. Anxiety shouts and yells and stamps it's feet and demands to be heard above all reason and all other emotions.

But lately there's a quieter voice, much deeper down, that's telling me, "I really believe it's gonna be alright." That he really cares. That these are genuine green flags and not 'red flags through rose colored glasses.' That we want the same things and that following him is not only the romantic, idealisric thing to do, but actually the right thing for me, too. So that I can have someone who loves and cares for me, too. So that I have someone helping me achieve my goals, too!! So that we can build queer community and a family and a life together, cause it's a lot easier with the buddy system, and with someone who wants good things for you.

Yesterday we were hunting rocks on the beach and talking about how people subconsciously look for their parents in a partner, and how he's looked for emotionally unavailable partners in the past bc his parents were so abusive (about his mental health, about his queerness, about the fact that they didn't even want a child; he was never anything more than a chesspiece to his Mormon mother).

And he told me, "you're nothing like my parents." I don't have a word for how it made me feel. Something akin to "hopeful," I think, and grateful, and so much love.

Because I've done that, too. we've talked about this before, how when you've been traumatized, you often seek out what's familiar instead of what's healthy. His mom is awful. she met me once (1) and I was so visibly transgender she went on a month-long rampage that ended with her kicking her own son out (bc it's my fault he's on T, despite him being out & transitioning for YEARS longer than me rofl). I know how hard he's trying to break the cycle and he is actually probably the first person in his whole family to ever do it. He's doing SO good and I am so proud of him bc it's so hard.

To be told I'm nothing like his parents is something to wear like a badge of honor. Thank fucking goodness I am nothing like his parents, for his sake. Thank fucking goodness he finally found someone who can try to love him right. And thank goodness it gets to be me!!! Hot damn!!!!

like not to brag or anything but this absolutely rules. I'm so glad I made it through everything I've been through just so I could meet him, it was worth everything. gay t4t love is healing me from the inside out 🥰

[exosupport]

Is it okay to use a this-world term for something I experienced in my exomemories? I recently realized what I went thru would count as ramcoa if it were in this universe, but I'm not sure if I count as an... "actual" survivor.

I'm not a ramcoa survivor, so I won't give you like a yes on that in specific, but I think so long as you're specificying in exomemories, it should be fine. Like I talk about being a rape / trafficking survivor in exomemories and use those terms when talking about that exotrauma but I wouldn't consider myself, as I am now, to be a survivor of those things.

Ultimately, all that matters is that you're respecting current/ongoing victims and survivors of trauma by not coming uninvited into their spaces or talking over them. Like as a CSA survivor I wouldn't care at all if someone called themselves that in an exotrauma sense but I would care if they, say, started saying things like "I'm a CSA survivor I never got intrusive thoughts, you have no excuse."

Or in the case of a specific community, I wouldn't feel comfortable with someone calling themselves ex mormon if they were a fictive from the book of mormon musical or something to that effect rather than someone who's actually escaped that cult

[ID: A banner with a Winnie The Pooh and Pokemon theme. It says, "You're not alone" in a decorative font. The background is colored with a blue to green gradient with the texture of cartoon apples over it. There's two images, one at the either side of the banner.

The image on the left has Pooh bear, a yellow stuffed toy bear wearing a red tshirt, hugging piglet, a small stuffed toy of a pig. There are stars drawn around them and above them is the word "hug" with a heart next to it. They are both smiling.

The one on the right has Snorlax, a blue and vaguely bear-shaped pokemon smiling widely and giving the viewer a thumbs-up with its claws. End ID]

[sleepydogslie]

becoming an adult, i saw so many things about trans joy and wondering about when i would experience my own kind of trans joy because i never really felt like i related to most of the posts or videos i saw online. not to say that my euphoria from transitioning doesn’t make me happy and i’m not trying to shame anyone out there either!

but i think today i finally did :)

i went to a check-up at my planned parenthood not expecting anything to be different, just going through the motions and going through the chart with the RN before seeing the doctor. then when the doctor came in to go through with my check-up and get my T prescribed, it turned out that it was my dad’s old coworker that had hosted me on her radio show once! she was happy to see me and she was so happy for me.

it felt healing? to see someone who’d seen me before when i was in the closet and then to see me now as a trans adult going through HRT to still be happy for me and want me to be happy. i’ve never been so happy to see someone from those days, especially her

she talked about how the radio station has an LGBT+ radio show now and how it would be fun if there was a trans radio show :) i need to reapply to volunteer at my local radio station

my parents are both mormon and i was also raised mormon (i’m ex-mormon now), and i guess i just wanted someone like her who knew who i was, who knew me back in high school, who i used to be, to be happy for who i am now. i know i’m happy for myself at least :)

i hope my trans sibs out there are happy/will be happy like i am today, i know life sucks these days but i really hope it gets better for all of us