Ordinary Mormon Trauma

This is for encouragement, ideas, and support for people going through a faith transition no matter where you hope to end up. This is also the place to laugh, cry, and love together.
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Red Ryder
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Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by Red Ryder » Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:17 pm

I’m copying this post from the Mormon subreddit.

I think it describes in words what a lot of us feel in regards to the trauma we felt going through our faith crisis.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/commen ... on_trauma/
Dr. Gina Colvin interviewed Lindsay Hansen Park and they discussed “Ordinary Mormon Trauma,” the lived experience of dealing with institutional contradiction in the church. (Edit: link to interview will be up later today.) She wrote:

Ordinary Mormon trauma is that everyday experience of being in a culture that has never resolved its formative pathologies or repented of its institutional sins. Mormon trauma is passed on from one generation to the next.

Mormon trauma is experienced as death by a thousand cuts, from the way that policy and doctrine is dropped to way we teach and lead, to the way we are with each other and in our families. …

Mormon trauma creates an environment where it is OK to be:

Nice, but not kind

Disciplined but not regulated

Curious but not open

Service oriented but not care oriented

Devout but not holy

Religious but not spiritual

Studied but not thoughtful

Worthy but not good

Confident but not integrated

Gratified but not delighted

Sacrificing but not openhearted

Obedient but not teachable

Repentant but not merciful

Self-absorbed but not self-reflexive

Doctrinal but not theological

Certain but not whole

Dependable but not safe

Accomplished but not formed.
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blazerb
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by blazerb » Fri Jun 11, 2021 5:40 am

Wow. That is a brutal indictment. The problem for the church is that those pathologies are most demonstrated by the actions of the highest leadership. There is no way for the church to improve unless the Q15 decide that they are collectively a destructive force and commit to improving their own behavior and instituting policies and training to improve the behavior of the rest of the leadership. I cannot imagine that ever happening. Even if the most insightful apostles rise to leadership, they will be blocked by Quentin "How to steal a hospital" Cook and David "Don't stand up before me" Bednar and others since unanimity is required for any decision. They don't have to worry about how to maintain membership because the hedge fund will provide for themselves and their families in perpetuity. The trauma will just continue for everyone who chooses to stay in.

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alas
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by alas » Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:13 am

Wow is right.

Reading through that list of “service oriented but not care oriented” and a couple of the others and I am having flashbacks to “why my family of origin is out of the church.” The church is perfectly happy to bring in a meal or two when someone just had a baby, but when more than a couple of meals is needed, suddenly, the bishop refuses to talk to anyone from the family and forbids the RS from sending in any help. Because horrors, they might be stuck helping for months, so let’s not even start by acknowledging the hospitalization. Total abandonment for the sin of a serious injury. I was married and away in Germany when my brother was injured, but the badly injured brother was the only family member who was ever active after his recovery. None of siblings or my mother ever wanted anything to do with the church again, well, and my father was some kind of narcissistic sociopath so he doesn’t count. Yet, none of them ever talked about it. I had to find out what happened through my husband whose mother was ward RS president at the time. She wouldn’t even talk directly to me. I have heard fragments, like “Mom was at the hospital with S for my high school graduation service, so I didn’t bother going.” But they are in incidental fragments that escape from a traumatic time, and then everybody goes silent for several minutes. It is really weird. Like my dad and WWII. He never talked much, except fragments then long silence.

But service is token service, for things that the person could stop at McD’s and solve for a few bucks. But when real things are needed, like someone else to go to the hospital for a few hours so parents can attend a high school graduation. And how in hell does a bishop justify forbidding a RS president doing what RSs do for any family with a family member hospitalized. It obviously bothered my MIL a lot to be told “you may not send any help....” so, token service when no real service is needed is fine, but if there is real need, yeah, just disown the family.

And “obedient but not teachable”. Yeah, just try telling someone that Jesus is too busy with starving or abused children to give a shit how many earrings you wear. Good Mormons don’t know how to process the idea.

And we have talked here several times about how if you think deeply about Mormon theology, it stops making sense. “Studied but not thoughtful.” You can study Mormon theology, but if you start thinking about it, it falls apart.

I could go on about these, because they are so true.

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Angel
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by Angel » Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:43 am

Yes - Service is token service, for things that are "socially acceptable". Having a relative who is mentally handicapped, autistic, or otherwise disabled? NOT socially acceptable, so no service (or party invites, or church activities) for you or your family. Going through a divorce because your "protector and provider" is a dependent abusive adulterer? Well, that is not a "socially acceptable" problem, in fact, you must be lying about that problem because all men are priesthood holders who support and protect women, so no service and shunning for you. Did you sprain your pinkie while tugging the arm of an out-of-control autistic child? Oh you poor thing, let's get you a priesthood blessing for your sprained pinkie!! Then let's talk about how that unruly child should not be allowed in primary as it is just too disruptive to the others in the building.

Ever learning, never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
“You have learned something...That always feels at first as if you have lost something.” George Bernard Shaw
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alas
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by alas » Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:24 pm

Angel wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:43 am
. Yes - Service is token service, for things that are "socially acceptable". Having a relative who is mentally handicapped, autistic, or otherwise disabled? NOT socially acceptable, so no service (or party invites, or church activities) for you or your family. Going through a divorce because your "protector and provider" is a dependent abusive adulterer? Well, that is not a "socially acceptable" problem, in fact, you must be lying about that problem because all men are priesthood holders who support and protect women, so no service and shunning for you. Did you sprain your pinkie while tugging the arm of an out-of-control autistic child? Oh you poor thing, let's get you a priesthood blessing for your sprained pinkie!! Then let's talk about how that unruly child should not be allowed in primary as it is just too disruptive to the others in the building.

Ever learning, never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
Well, an accident with brain injury should be socially acceptable, but the amount of service needed could become too much, so let’s not even consider any service. It could be years before he is even out of an institution, and the ward simply cannot be expected to give long term service. They can’t be expected to make sure other children in the family get fed while the parents are traveling back and forth to the hospital 70 miles away for the brain trauma unit or like giving rides to other children while mom is doing full time nursing care because the family cannot afford full time nursing care. The needed service needs to be fairly simple, like meals taken in for maybe a week tops. But if it looks like that isn’t going to cover it, well then don’t even start because you might raise expectations, or something.

But yes, as well as fairly simple, the problem needs to be a socially acceptable problem.

So, don’t get me started on how the church treats parents of disruptive autistic children. I have a close friend who has three highly intelligent, but highly autistic children. The kind that strip naked in primary, then bolt from the building. Yup. She was expected to control all three at once if she wanted to attend church. And of course, no one was getting anything but frustration attending church. So, her family quit going to church and now that those “difficult children” have full ride scholarships to Ivy League universities, do you think anyone in that family is going back to church?

Special helper given a full time 3 meetings a week calling, like was given in my ward for the deaf child so that her parents could actually go the their meetings, are you kidding? For a “difficult” child? A deaf child is socially acceptable, so issue a calling for a person to translate all meetings into Sign so that child can “hear” the meeting and her parents can still enjoy a relaxing church experience. But a person to help control an “uncontrollable” child, nope that is asking too much.

See, the real problem is leadership roulette. One bishop may decide to help, where another has a personal grudge or some kind of problem with helping. Church isn’t like a box of chocolates where you never know what you are going to get. Church is like Bott’s every flavor beans, where you REALLY don’t know what you are going to get.

hmb
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by hmb » Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:06 am

I think this list applies to a larger percentage of the population. Mormons are not special to this list. So while I agree with the recognition of these things in my faith transition, I see these contrasts everywhere. I am disappointed in mormons not being above this, because they are the only true church and should be a light. The natural man is an enemy... As a whole, they are no better.

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blazerb
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Re: Ordinary Mormon Trauma

Post by blazerb » Sat Jun 12, 2021 6:18 am

hmb wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:06 am
I think this list applies to a larger percentage of the population. Mormons are not special to this list. So while I agree with the recognition of these things in my faith transition, I see these contrasts everywhere. I am disappointed in mormons not being above this, because they are the only true church and should be a light. The natural man is an enemy... As a whole, they are no better.
I agree that these are broadly applicable. Like you, I am also disappointed that members are not above this, especially those who are sustained as prophets and let everyone believe that they are talking to God on Thursday.

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