When will the Church acknowledge the harm?
Posted: Thu Feb 29, 2024 8:16 pm
When will the LDS church acknowledge the harm caused by those who believe they have the truth?
Can we talk about post traumatic stress disorder and situations that might lead to that:
I came home from my mission after two months in late 1980. Unkind things were said to me from ward members.
I make a mistake and that night I go to the Bishop. I am called to a disciplinary hearing. I walk into the high council room to be met by the stake President, his two counselors, 12 high council members, and the stake clerk who is running the reel to reel tape recorder with a large microphone to speak into. My Bishop shows up to support me. I tell everything and I was put on formal probation.
Three months later, I make more mistakes. I’m scheduled for an interview with the 2nd counselor of the stake presidency for a probation update. When he hears me, he says that people that did that in the Book of Mormon times were cast out. Immediately another court is set with 16 people, my bishop does not attend, I say what happen and they ask me to leave the room for a couple minutes. I’m called back into the room. The stake presidency says excommunication is the call. I leave and cry for an hour in the bathroom, repeatedly telling god to kill me. I keep saying, I’m tired of being hurt - super bullies. I’m still 19.
During the next year I isolate, unable to study, poor relationships, sit in the back row alone, my world is falling apart. I have times I just sit and cry, other times I pick out a specific place to shoot myself.
I wasn’t married but excommunication can bring divorce and all sorts of problems. A recent film maker doing a story for PBS on Mormons said excommunication is barbaric.
John Larsen said life is hard enough without Mormonism. If my friends from my street, all born in the early 60s, saw me sobbing in the bathroom asking god to kill me, they would have surrounded me, took me home and checked on me multiple times during the day. No such thing from the church.
Can we talk about post traumatic stress disorder and situations that might lead to that:
I came home from my mission after two months in late 1980. Unkind things were said to me from ward members.
I make a mistake and that night I go to the Bishop. I am called to a disciplinary hearing. I walk into the high council room to be met by the stake President, his two counselors, 12 high council members, and the stake clerk who is running the reel to reel tape recorder with a large microphone to speak into. My Bishop shows up to support me. I tell everything and I was put on formal probation.
Three months later, I make more mistakes. I’m scheduled for an interview with the 2nd counselor of the stake presidency for a probation update. When he hears me, he says that people that did that in the Book of Mormon times were cast out. Immediately another court is set with 16 people, my bishop does not attend, I say what happen and they ask me to leave the room for a couple minutes. I’m called back into the room. The stake presidency says excommunication is the call. I leave and cry for an hour in the bathroom, repeatedly telling god to kill me. I keep saying, I’m tired of being hurt - super bullies. I’m still 19.
During the next year I isolate, unable to study, poor relationships, sit in the back row alone, my world is falling apart. I have times I just sit and cry, other times I pick out a specific place to shoot myself.
I wasn’t married but excommunication can bring divorce and all sorts of problems. A recent film maker doing a story for PBS on Mormons said excommunication is barbaric.
John Larsen said life is hard enough without Mormonism. If my friends from my street, all born in the early 60s, saw me sobbing in the bathroom asking god to kill me, they would have surrounded me, took me home and checked on me multiple times during the day. No such thing from the church.
The church is immune from apologizing which spells vile hypocrisy.