Water Dog wrote:This whole thing is like a victimhood culture popularity contest. This is why I've never had much respect for folks like John Dehlin or Kate Kelly. I don't mean to be insensitive, or some unsophisticated conservative neanderthal or however people perceive me, but it really just seems like muchado about nothing.
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Dehin. Yes, his excommunication was stupid and hypocritical and I'll acknowledge fault on the part of the church for it. But candlelight vigils? Press releases in major media outlets? Countless hours of podcasts? Therapy cruises? WTF?
As if any of these people's problems are bigger than anybody else? It would be an insult frankly to even describe these as "first world" problems. I can think of many people that have been "victimized" in far bigger ways, even just as victims of circumstances, accidents and such, and they don't create podcasts so they can spend the rest of their lives dwelling on it and bitching about it.
Like, I learned for the first time recently that a relative of mine was shot in a school shooting as a child back in the 60s. And she still has shrapnel in her body from this. And I had never even heard of it before!!! She doesn't talk about it, and not because it causes her to meltdown, just because she doesn't talk about. Upon being asked she had no hesitation whatsoever. Yep, happened, no big deal. That's her attitude. She joked that there isn't enough metal to set off the detectors in the airport, so not a problem at all. Not a problem! She went to school, raised a family, good and successful kids, etc., a successful happy lady that has improved the world. A role model.
So much time and energy spent on these things, a profound waste of time.
People like your relative have my respect. I like to think that I take the traumas other people suffer seriously and that I try to respond to their suffering with compassion. It is best, I believe, to support people who are suffering and reach out to others for help. For the victim, it is better to get support, if and when you need it, than to let it eat you up. Professional help is also key. That said, I have a great deal of respect for people with the kind of psychological endurance to survive big traumas with such a stoic, survivor's attitude.
To that I would add that I think there is something to the idea that the victimhood phenomenon has exploded to the point where unfortunately it is becoming a trope that many exploit for questionable purposes. The problem with airing grievances like this in a public forum--as I have done in this thread--is that it is almost impossible to separate legitimate and authentic trauma from a public performance undertaken for other reasons. It can also become something like Munchausen syndrome (not exactly, however), where a person feigns/exaggerates victim status in order to get attention and sympathy from others.
And, I guess that I have finally been around long enough to grow somewhat jaded about the "victim of Mormonism" narrative. Notoriety is a tricky thing. A little too tricky for me, so I hang out in the shadows. On the one hand, people look to imitate others in order to understand how they should behave in any situation. That is why the Church stigmatizes apostates. If you can see the apostate, you can imitate the apostate. That is also one reason why we transitioners spend some time studying the exit narratives of others as we are considering an exit. How do you exit? Read the literature.
But, once you have read the literature so many times, and heard so many stories, further repetition begins to taste bad in your mouth. "Ah, yes, I've heard that one many times." It is hard to retain the same kind of unfailing sympathy when you have both heard it a thousand times and also started to see a pattern of people cultivating their celebrity apostate status. It may be a difference of personality, but I can say that my personality does not resonate well with the phenomenon of the celebrity apostate. It is probably better for me not to comment when I see it, but I am feeling uninterested in the latest editions of podcasts of exit stories. No doubt I am not the target audience.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist