Mormon Stories #1322: The Excommunication of Bishop Sam Pinson and his Family in Ammon, Idaho Pt. 2

so how take us up to the point where the cracks started happening you know so let's go up to that point so I need to backtrack just slightly when the prop 8 stuff was going on oh you were so I a hammer in Washington yes I was in Washington and I I don't know if I was on the City Council at the time but I was very much like politically I used the word radicalized now I didn't think of myself as radicalized at the time but always very politically conservative I felt that politically conservative positions were consistent with gospel teachings and adopted a lot of libertarian positions at the time and so on the one hand I don't want the government in people's lives any more than necessary and then we have the government telling gay couples that they can't get married so there was there was a little conflict between what I personally felt was correct and what the church is pushing and teaching that didn't cause me to think the church isn't true or to doubt anything but that was a I mean look what is the church involved I think that was part of losing the zeal to write it was it's not something that I really can get behind like I don't understand so in 2013 I'm called to be Bishop and I don't know exactly when it was probably within the first couple of years of being Bishop there was a policy change with respect to gays 2015 and we were having a discussion in Ward council about it because of course the church was going to take a lot of heat this was a controversial thing and I was I was pointing out to members of the Ward council that you know a lot of people are going to compare this to how the church changed its position on the blacks and the priesthood that eventually the church is going to change its mind about homosexuality and I was trying to explain that this is different it's not gonna happen and I was using the teachings that I had received growing up to justify and to explain that and a member of the ward counsel raised his hand and gently pointed out I'd be a little bit careful there the churches disavowed those teachings and the racist teacher yes and in that was the first that I had heard anything about that and and it didn't compute like what so anyway okay can I pause you for just a second so so just because I really like timelines and I really like to highlight the bubble so I started Mormon stories in 2005 the podcast starts growing other podcasts come online CES letter at some point comes online the church comes out actually before CES letter the church comes out with its gospel topics essays around 2013 CES letter comes out around 2014 Kate Kelly you know her disciplinary council starts happening around 2014 she's excommunicated in 2014 I'm excommunicated in 2015 all of this happens along with all the other communications and you know all leading up to the the November 2015 policy so to what extent had you guys heard of any of this stuff had opinions about podcasts blogs church history the gospel topics essays did any of that how about International Press any of that penetrate your Mormon bubbles up to 2015 in general no the only thing that I could say maybe I was aware of was that there were some unruly women somewhere somewhere in the church there were some women causing trouble and I didn't you wouldn't have even known take Hillary's name I don't know I don't think so well I knew Kate Kelly's name and you saw it and I thought it was wrong well I didn't know what was really behind it I just heard what the church said about it which was which was that she was out of line or that it comes from the Brethren it doesn't come from you know she's not allowed to make changes like that and I didn't even realize all they were doing was saying hey could you ask God if it's okay you know I so I didn't realize that part of it and and when she was excommunicated I kind of thought well I got she shouldn't be surprised because she's fighting against the church right and I hate that I thought that you know I have these regrets about things I thought and sad as a and part of that that's interesting to me is that your spirit was kind of feminist yeah you were having these feminists impulses all along the way you were packing them down Kate and although women fighting for doing women were trying to enact change in the church that would help elevate your voice so that your conscience and desires weren't as muted so that the patriarchy would be weakened a little bit and women could be elevated but you had a guess into internalized sexism is that yeah I think that's what I mentioned earlier I definitely did because I couldn't see her cause for what it was and I think sometimes when you're packing something down deep down you want something like that equality or but you don't get it it's easier to criticize those who are trying to get it does that make sense mmm you guys kind of a psychology thing of what we do to make us feel better about the fact that we don't want have something we want deep down so I think I was doing a little bit of that just mentally mm-hmm I'd never heard of Mormon stories never heard of CES letter not even the gospel topic essays I mean the church didn't advertise as Bishop you didn't know about the gospel topics essays so I by the way it's not like you're some Idaho farmer right right like you five years of Microsoft super you don't not just tech savvy but a programmer savvy with computers this is 2015 2013-2014 you know how to use the Internet and your bishop right and well I wasn't looking that's for sure I don't know that like it never registered that such essays exist but I'm super busy I'm a bishop and I already know the gospel I already know church history I graduated from Institute and a church University it went like there wasn't something missing that I was looking for and so what would we the purpose in going out so I don't know exactly when somebody ever mentioned for the first time to meet gospel topic essays but I know in 2015 it was news to me the church had disavowed some of its teachings really quick did did did you guys want to say Sam Sam junior were you wanting to say something really quick well yeah I don't want to just repeat the point but personally in terms of the bubble around my experiences I think that I mentioned briefly that I kind of started getting involved in philosophy and politics and started exploring ideas and I not only knew how to use the internet but I used it um naively unsuspecting or not just not suspecting the the possibility of real like legitimate criticisms of the church because again when you when you have experiences when you're trained this is the church you know you can think there will be criticisms but you know I'm secure in my knowledge of the validity of the church so I think that me actually exploring ideas of philosophy made me as a 12 13 and 14 year old actually feel like well I'm enlightened like I I know the ideas there are and I understand that there might be some criticisms of the church but that's okay so I think the first time that I actually ever discovered independently discovered something that made me wonder about the church just just a little bit was during my freshman year of high school we I was actually at public school at that point and I was looking at the news and there was an article about the Mormon Church changing its position on like homosexuality in terms of apostasy and so yeah I basically had the same experience overall but the the internet I think played a slightly bigger role in the things beginning to change just a little bit for me if you want to add Olivia to all this did you hear about Kate Kelly ordain women or any of that feminist stuff yeah I did and I think I'm like my mom where I have feminist spirit I mean I remember like going to activity days you know as a little girl and just being mad that I couldn't play basketball the boys and scouts cuz that was so much cooler and we had sit and do crafts and talk about girl things and so I definitely I think part of my personality is just what maybe like made me I was always very interested in like social justice like from a really young age and I did I did stumble across like the church essays as I probably at 14 um just in doing a lot of research and there was all I had a ton of internal conflict with feeling like I needed to believe and I needed to be a perfect Mormon and realizing that like I wasn't and I really never had been and I was trying really hard for years to become that person and so I I did a lot of research I was always like reading the scriptures and trying to do it I was supposed to do even though none of it was working for me and um yeah knowing about these things that no one else seemed to care about even if they did know about them was really hard for me and like our ward youth group was really small it was me and one other girl at one point and so I didn't have a lot of support there I was home-schooled through middle school and so I kind of became really socially isolated and so all these internal struggles I wasn't able to talk to you guys the times I do remember attempting to it was very like shut down like what are you saying stop no and so that was about what topics I remember so I I I don't really like labels but I I I had feelings for a girl at when I was 14 I kind of started to realize that I wasn't just straight and so I started to really care about LGBTQ issues and why your dad's bishop yes so I remember bringing that stuff up a little bit and I was you know of course there's always like that's so unnatural and that's not God's plan and I felt very misunderstood and so I think I had a lot of resentment a lot of resentment towards church leaders and towards you guys which kind of just put me in like this downward spiral because girls camp became progressively less fun every year because I felt like I was just surrounded by people who were different than me and I and that's okay but I felt like I wasn't able to be myself I wasn't able to express who I was I always felt just kind of trapped and yeah my dad being bishop didn't help hmm and I was not supportive I was not helpful so I'm sorry it's okay yeah no it's it's I mean it took a lot of forgiving though I remember when it was about a year ago that dad was like um so I'm leaving the church no it definitely took some forgiveness of like people change and that's okay and it's been really healing so so there's okay so there's hope to this story yes that's nice so we're talking about those unruly women and so I think I was aware that there was some kind of movement and I would have offered at least this argument this church is led by God if God wants to make a change it's not we're not led by grassroots movements God will it comes from the top down not the bottom up and I really believe that and and thus even if maybe it would be better if women participated more fully and equally in the church that's not the way the church works it which is the church's line right so I find out in 2015 that the church has disavowed former teachings I read the essay the reason the priesthood the race and the priesthood essay and as a bishop troubled me it did why troubled me why at least two reasons the first is that God can be a racist but he can't disavow himself and it wasn't that I wanted a racist God and I never thought of the LDS Church as racist or its doctrines as racist or myself reading the Book of Mormon and supporting what it says as racist never would have occurred to me now as now I understand it it is very racist and and got his racism but so there's racism in the in the scriptures that I had become accustomed to and and just let slide so I was comfortable with the racism that at some level but I'm not comfortable with God disavowing himself so that was massively troubling for me and the the second part of it was the church's blatant dishonesty and how it presented the issue and by that I mean this was racist doctrine this was absolutely the church's teaching and now in this essay they're trying to tell me that it was just the racist theories of past church leaders that it was never doctrine so both of those things were very heavy for me but I knew the church was true and therefore like I don't know what to make of that but I I set it aside and I really think it was because I was bishop though the sense of duty that I felt all of the social pressures family expectations and pressures caused me at that point to just set that and so I tucked my head down and I pressed forward and I did my best but that was not your package that was there that was troubling notice I started noticing him be depressed which is not his personality at all it's I've never seen him like that I thought maybe he's just getting burned out being Bishop it's hard but I could sense the weight he didn't want to go to the temple with me anymore I could I thought he was just well if you're Bishop all the time of course you don't want to spend your extra time going to the temple like I just thought it was that I didn't know you know that it was troubling him but I knew something was wrong yeah things were changing internally so it's kind of weird to think about how having a faith crisis begin when you're Bishop yeah and I this isn't because I think my story is important but I'm just curious had you guys heard about Mormon stories or Maya communication leading up to them no I know at all okay so we had traveled back and forth between Washington and Utah and Idaho and Utah and so at some point I know I saw billboards I don't know exactly when those went up but I didn't go to the website or anything like that I didn't at that like I didn't feel like I had it was having a faith Christ I didn't admit to anybody my concerns when this happened I didn't talk to Sarah about it I didn't say did you know what do you think about this we didn't have that discussion I just kept that to myself yeah I mean it's just weird that like the New York Times tweeted my excommunication but Orthodox devout Mormons living in Utah or an adjacent state are so in the bubble they wouldn't hear about something that was kind of international news whether it's Kate Kelly or me or Jeremy Runnells or any of these other communications just the bubble is real and it's super powerful yeah and if I had heard about you or anybody else being excommunicated I would have thought I guess they got what they needed to get they must have been doing something wrong yeah yeah the church is always right yeah okay so how did things progressed so I like I said that troubled me but that did not destroy my Testament I wasn't I wasn't faking it as bishop I was still trying my best to serve and testify and be close to the spirit and then the time came for changes to be made in the leadership and I was released and then immediately called to be on the high council and I got my high council assignments which included serving in the Spanish branch I don't know Spanish I do love language and I sincerely tried my best to learn Spanish and to participate in the Spanish branch as much as possible but this had the effect of allowing my church burden was greatly lightened moving from Bishop to high councilor and I guess because I didn't know Spanish I had more time for my thoughts to wander and in that time I revisited that essay I went back and I started thinking about it again and the had you had any friends or siblings or cousins leave the church have you been hit either have you been exposed to any apostasy of any friends family Ward members etc even his bishop had you had to counsel anyone who was losing their faith or was this just like the first time just the idea of it even being possible to lose your faith even occurred to you I had a brother who became an active when I guess when he was a teenager and I was probably on my mission when that became apparent or public to the family so I'm at like a spiritual high while that's going on it's never been discussed as a family it was certainly damaging like it creates distance it it's I don't have that in common with him all my life and so yes I had a family member that was in an apostate in terms of counseling people and you were distant from him as a result yeah I like I felt like anytime he wants to come and be a good member of the church then we can welcome him back in those terms but your relationship with him during so much others apostasy was what well I had gone up to Provo we've physically we weren't the same location anymore and so there was some natural separation that happened that way but when we did get together it was an unspoken divide like what happened to you the unanswered questions what happened you like where did it go will you go wrong where did you lose your faith you didn't ask those and were you distanced from him as a result emotionally it was your relationship kind of I tried to befriend him but at the same time that you're trying to have that relationship there's this problem or an elephant in the room like and he never tried to tell you know about doubts through problems or no and there was one time when we had all gotten together at my parents house and I was in the car taking him to the airport he lives in Southern California and I because I'm this devoted member of the church I I got up the courage to try to broach the subject and I asked him and it was a very apparent he was uncomfortable with it and didn't want to talk about it and so I dropped it and we're really good at not talking about the elephant Mormonism yeah yeah okay so back to you now you're starting at so I'm revisiting my that question and so I go back and I think about it again and know this just does not work for me and this is what your this would have been well you were released 20 18 18 so probably still 28 years ago yeah okay and one of the things that we're taught is that criticism of your church leaders is the first step on the high road to applause to see and I think that's right but I allowed myself to be critical like that's not okay the church is lying to me and I didn't know about most of the racist history actually like I had this vague notion that there used to be a priesthood band but we took care of that that's in the past there's nothing else to it I started doing research I had previously voluntarily kept myself in this bubble because I had been taught you can't trust anti-mormon lies you can't read anti-mormon literature there's nothing good that will come from that it'll just destroy your faith and I had voluntarily kept myself from information that I probably could have found if I had not had that attitude I read some of the other gospel topic essays Book of Abraham so you go down the rabbit hole yes Kinderhook plates that blew my mind what about it that Joseph Smith claimed that he translated a portion of these 19th century fabricated plates okay like he got caught in it in a lie yeah and so what about Book of Abraham what did you for those who don't know anything about this yes the same thing caught in a lie where when Joseph was claiming to have brought forth translated the book of a the papaya papaya Egyptian exactly people didn't know Egyptian and so how is anybody gonna tell him he's wrong housing any anybody gonna challenge him on that and as a linguist yeah that's that's kind of serious business for you yes and once again the church is as I see it while dishonesty in how they try to spin what's happening we're now before it was always there was the papyri and it was translated and now we have this catalyst theory where the papyri what was just a mechanism to bring forth inspiration mm-hmm and that just does what did you like that I mean God's powerful God works in mysterious ways well I think it's it's is a literalist there's that there's that and why didn't we know that before yeah why are we coming up with this theory now and why aren't you teaching this stuff in seminary why why is it that I'm learning about this nearly forty years old for the first time as a 100% all-in member of the church former bishop yeah yeah yeah and what about the Book of Mormon translation stuff same thing for those who don't know well so there's so much so much to it right so in the text of the book of Mormon itself there's anachronism z' that horses steal exactly archaeological problems linguistic problems genetic the gather DNA evidence which all shows what it's fiction historical document well so many things so if if the book of the text of the book of Mormon mentions horses which it does but there were no horses in the Americas during the timeframe of the Book of Mormon that is the Spaniards brought emotion they had 15 14 1500s they had existed in the Americas before the Book of Mormon times lost seen there time ago ice age stuff and were extinct right and so there were no horses and then Joseph Smith's environment included horses in the Americas and so he writes it into the text of the Book of Mormon he doesn't know any better along with we yes barley helmets and shields and wheels millions of people being involved in military conflicts and you think about the food like the logistic supplies that would be necessary to support armies like that and there's zero evidence archaeological evidence of any of this it's just spun out of the air out of nothing and I can't believe it it never even occurred to me and I feel embarrassed I feel embarrassed and when you learn about at that time a lot of people were thought the mound builders were white and trying to explain the whole Native Americans and they couldn't have done these wonderful things like it's built on the dark the dark Native Americans couldn't have developed such sophisticated societies because they're savages because we were committing genocide and you can't explain you can't respect people you're committing genocide on so they have to be unhuman savages so there must have been a light-skinned race that built these beautiful civilizations and that's all in the air when Joseph Smith in the 1820s and others come up with explanations there must have been a white skinned version of these Native Americans that were actually smart and capable and that's where that's where the Nephites and Lamanites story Springs out of sorry I just was beautiful yeah and I think that for me was a clincher because I always want to understand why people do things well why would Joseph Smith just make up a book like that but then to know people were trying to explain back then they were trying to explain just what you said and and then to see the Book of Mormon that light if he was making up the story about white people then becoming unrighteous and being banished by the not white people was also a super racist oh let's make up dark so there so there loves market loves to the lighter skin so I'm wearing out ways because they're because they're wicked that's a super racist the whole book people quote but the entire foundation is racist yeah yeah okay really quick so Sarah you guys have been living the Mormon dream you've been packing down all these feminist Inklings you guys reach the the pinnacle of kind of first level Mormonism which is Bishop and bishops wife you're in a man Idaho where you grew up and then your husband gets released and he starts going down the rabbit hole what what's that like for you as you're watching him go down the rabbit hole well I think I have to back up a little bit because I feel like I was somewhat prepared to handle what was happening to him so I was it 2018 yeah 2018 I actually started a counseling program so I started a master's program in mental health counseling okay yeah and Sam's scrupulous Sam junior scrupulous 'ti what kind of the catalyst for that I want to talk about that first or not um about this group you guys wanna mention about that no pressure no pressure just whatever you want um I guess just very briefly I'm Bishop and he's having this do you wanna tell uh sure no pressure only when you're comfy no absolutely absolutely yeah so I guess I don't know how far we want to go into this but to give the brief overview I started developing I guess scrupulous cities tell our listeners what that means for me it meant an extreme compulsively obsessive it's tied OCD compulsively obsessive you know religiosity really Jia s'ti in this case yes absolutely you know I and again with that being Bishop I would be watching a movie and I be attracted or I'd have feelings of attraction towards a woman and I'd be like holy crap you know like it wasn't just a mom and dad like like what's going on it was in my mind you know there'd be these compulsively obsessive cycles that I could not control and there's a whole history to that but yeah when it comes to how that affected me and the church I think I I won't say that the church caused that for me personally although I can definitely see how it could be the catalyst for that but it absolutely facilitated it and so feelings of guilt and shame oh absolutely sexual feelings and it was legitimately and it was insanity as far as I was concerned I I why what do you mean I wasn't capable of it's hard to put into words because it's not just I wasn't capable of reason I wasn't capable of seeing clearly it was not only the compulsive and obsessive aspects of it it was also like every single thing I did had the potential to become something that you know consumed my mind for hours or days or weeks right like everything had that potential and so then on one hand it turns into constant fear like and this at its worst it probably lasted about two years um 10 to 12 roughly I think for me and so it was a matter of you're living in constant fear and when you're always thinking like it's gonna go off you know I'm gonna have some huge downward spiral into being terrified of having sinned right having to confess then I you know that makes it far easier to have those problems began to have that downward spiral began in the first place and one thing that was huge and I don't know if our interactions on that basis with confessing like multiple times in a single day sometimes two different incidents that I thought were like you know I was damned to hell basically because of this if I didn't confess like I I definitely remember asking some questions like like I I wanted because of this dangerous mental condition I was like I want basically like like what is it that I have to confess to because like worrying about and trying to figure it out because especially with the bishop being your dad like it's torture to try to say hey dad here's this personally embarrassing thing that I feel like is horrible right I was the worrying about what was or was not something I need to confess about that was the real problem for me and so yeah I kept coming to you and saying you know I'm like like what's the the to-do list basically of like this is when and how you need to confess and that was something that many conversations circulated around and and I'm not sure if that if the culmination of all of those interactions that influenced at all your that wasn't part of my crisis transition or anything but it was part of yours so let me just let me just try and understand this and we've covered scrupulous in the past and warmer stories check it out it's hyper hyper religiosity trying to manage your thoughts taking the gospel very very literally to the point where you're literally fearing death in interpreting scriptures like to have a thought a sexual thought is this as bad as community adultery that it's that it's near murder in in severity and so you've got these teens or young adults thinking there are almost murderers if they have a bad thought or do what normal teens do to kind of express their sexual urges or feelings and there's a level to which that's all of us that's you that's me that's just like oh oops we goofed up we had bad thoughts and that's the shame cycle is kind of what it means to be Mormon you know but then there's a point where it crosses the line it becomes clinical where where either the OCD is just eating up hours and hours a day or you're hyper can Piper prang hyper serving even to the point where it's starting to severely impact your mental health anxiety depression and then sometimes suicidality become very severe so my question to whatever extent you're comfortable sharing is was there a point where it kind of crosses the line and it's not just like well he's like really righteous and really conscientious where you're starting to be worried for his emotional or physical safety and whoever you know okay so well as Bishop as he said it was bad multiple times a day sometimes he's what he would be coming to me and say hey Dad I need to talk to you at home not even like yes I work from home so I'm sure to get work done so I mean it's not a nuisance - well I guess it multiple times in a day he'd come need to confess something that he had already confessed that didn't need to be confessed he would write letters confessing all of these things and and it didn't matter what counsel I gave it didn't matter what he would say things like yeah you don't need to confess that don't confess like so when he says do you don't confess what goes through your mind well well at its worst during the times where I imagine you'd be tempted to be yelling stop confessing more or less um it was seriously just an inability to compute the like to process the idea of not confessing and partly because as you mentioned it's a regardin religion is literal in a an increasingly toxic way I remember reading scriptures in my diligent righteous scripture study time you know like he who takes the Lord's name in vain like will not be forgiven and like I am screwed and so then I've come to my that'd be like help me I'm really gonna you know like like I believed it and so you know I believe it and then there's you have the Fahd or if you're the word slap right you're damned yeah exactly and so then like oh my gosh what am I gonna do with this so yeah if my dad as bishop would say stop confessing I'm like no no like you don't you don't get it you don't understand and I guess that not just with the religious aspect of scrupulous atiba also with OCD and other delusions right when you're in a certain mental state it's like you just don't understand right like you don't get it and and that's the that's the real tragedy is when obviously again there's a mental component that isn't wasn't for me completely tied to religion but you know there I felt like unfortunately there was actually or remains some sort of basis for my actions in the scriptures meaning that if I started something and read the scripture like that like I interpret it in the way that's worse for my eternal happiness and then you know why not like why not have that be something that's all consuming so it was definitely a vicious cycle that was again facilitated by religion and at the core I'm sure you're worried that you won't go to the social Kingdom that your family won't be a forever family like the stakes I'm guessing we're super high for you yeah and that's something that we've talked about at length is when you have this idea of eternity and of like oh my gosh there's the celestial kingdom there's these things like this idea of I could be the the weak link that makes so that our future right right yeah like that's that's terrifying and then you know as you began to start to develop and you know 10 11 12 13 whatever age it is you start to sort of think about the world in more abstract ways and develop your sort of world view and perception you know when all that baggage comes along I think that yeah for me at least that was hugely devastating in terms of my my capability to be competent in in in handling difficult ideas especially around religion so what you guys were saying when did you start getting worried that this was potentially clinical Thanks I think we were worried I was worried from the beginning but I had like you could just say it's a righteous son a super righteous son no because he was confessing constantly and we would he would talk to me he confessed again or four times today and we I had no clue what was going on and and hey there was some other manifestations like he stopped touching us we if I walked past him in a room he would like maintain do this like weird thing to get out of the way so he was like never within six feet of anyone what was that about do you know what that was about I like to think I saw the coronavirus coming early but at the time it was so so there were specific ideas right there specific ideas like you touching someone like your minds gonna because of this twisted you know mess that I got myself into with religion it was like if I touch someone it doesn't matter who it doesn't matter why it doesn't matter how but like it's your I'm always a step away from like making a move that with the right perceived intentions in my mind means that I'm guilty of some damnable sin like like molesting your mom or something sexual yeah well yes sexual stuff and and the the worst moment that the worst memory I have of this at all we were at Yellowstone National Park we were having a good time it was on this big family road trip and you know I was in the midst of the worst of this and we were walking by like um you know like the big grand wolves and all a static yeah right and I'm like looking back I imagine I must have looked like a zombie or something but it was seriously like head down and I was paralyzed stuff like for four hours like the whole time we were there was like if I if my foot like shifted and in my brain like the idea of like that pushing someone into the Blake I was gilma you feel someone yeah like and that's the thing like I wasn't homicidal I was some homicidal kid yeah I obviously don't want and I've never wanted to kill anyone but once I had gone down the rabbit hole of that the mental twisting and what um yeah like like well well if me like brushing shoulders with someone is like basically like me wanting to rape them or something like why not like like like murder and all these horrible things are just a step away when that's the kind of thing that's being repeatedly driven into your mind every day so yeah like it got to the point where paranoia's um not being able to trust other people's other people telling me like that and mom telling me like what was horrible and what was just like like chill out you know not being able to perceive what reality was and not being able to understand the difference between a thought and like an intent yeah yeah Olivia sir is there anything you want to add as you kind of we're experiencing your your brother going through all this is there anything you want to add in terms of just what you were experiencing at the time um did you notice this did you know what's going on yeah to some degree not as much as I should have or could have because I I wish I could formulate my words better like a lot of this has been kind of pushed down and it's not like easy for me to talk about but yeah I did notice that he was very obsessive and you know I remember like we go to the stores and he would just be like you know you'd see magazines with girls or like wearing bras or whatever you just like look away and I was like Sam like loosen up you know but I also understood it to a degree I never had it as bad as him but I like you were saying like I think cycles of shame is just part of being Mormon and I definitely had especially entering elements for at least a year just like that intense obsessiveness with being perfectly righteous and a little definitely some fear that you know I was gonna go to hell or whatever so mm-hmm so sorry yeah well and just to just to make sure that this is perfectly clear again I I I can only speak for myself but I definitely don't think as far as I'm aware that like religion is something that brings people on a consistent basis to the level like I was at like obviously scrupulous 'ti is a spectrum right assume that not everyone has like years of crippling mental illness but for me not only did the OCD already exist pre any religious involvement it was also like it was to such an extreme point that again it was like it was beyond functioning wasn't possible and so I just don't want to give the idea that that's like some guarantee or common that level at least is a common occurrence I hope it's not right in regards to religiosity no we've covered this a lot on a few pipes scrupulous to the episodes but basically the the general feeling in the mental health industry is that religious don't cause scrupulous 'ti it's more that OCD attacks the things you care about most so if you're in a high demand Orthodox religion and it's the religious stuff you care most about then if you have OCD which is often genetic and it's an anxiety disorder then it's going to manifest as scrupulous instead of hoarding or safety or cleanliness or the other forms of OCD now but I also think it is fair to say that a high demand religion exacerbates this and kind of primed someone for it and can can't add the stakes and the pressure to the level work become very unhealthy and even deadly so it's not that religious totally off the hook here a lot of the Scriptures a lot of the teachings bad leaders can take a situation that's bad and turn it worse and even deadly so we don't blame religion for scrupulous 'ti but but when high demand religions get out of control they can they can exacerbate it and make it really awful yeah absolutely and so I think the scrupulous City started I started noticing it after I became Bishop there was some evidence of OCD before that but this trivial ASSA tea started at me I became bishop and you were saying Sara that that as you noticed him going to this it it was the beginnings of maybe some unraveling for you is that no okay no but Elizabeth I was just seeing my son suffer and I had no idea why I didn't know what was going on did it seem serious like actually very serious what was your biggest fear was there wrong it wasn't like watching him change before my eyes like losing my son you were losing yeah like I didn't recognize him anymore he you he acted different he looked different he was a he couldn't function like he just wasn't my Sam anymore and that's really hard as a mom and I knew about OCD but I thought I was like the hand washing thing I had never heard of any religious thing like that and so I was praying I'm sure we were all praying for him and not having any clue what was going on and then I was at the library one day and I saw I'm kind of I love books and books have often come into my life it just right time and kind of saved me so I saw this book that had OCD on the cover really big and I just felt it like this magnetic pole to go pick up that book and I thought but that's not what Sam has that's not what's going on and but I picked it up and I looked through the table of contents and it's had scrupulous 'ti religious and I was like oh my gosh there's religious OCD and it was so for now point on we stir I started researching and I really wanted to find someone who did ERP treatment which is exposure ritual response prevention yeah because that seemed like it had good evidence for and there wasn't anyone locally who did that so we actually drove to the OCD and anxiety Center in Bountiful yeah yeah and they diagnosed him and they said it was severe based on the intake paperwork and and they wanted us to come like four days a week mm-hmm it's very intensive there and so I was like well we have to do this because he it was crippling and he was suffering so we drove home to talk about it was there a rock-bottom moment where you're like something that led to you being willing to go to the center it seemed to be getting progressively worse and that road trip that he mentioned being in Yellowstone he was physically paralyzed it was he couldn't walk he couldn't get up off the bench because he thought he would knock people into the hot pools so yeah I think that was rock bottom and and now I know we were doing everything wrong because we were constantly reassuring him which is the worst thing for OCD but we had no idea right you just try to be a normal parent and just say you're offering the reassurance the reassurance and that's for those who don't know the way that OCD works is you have these intrusive obsessive thoughts and then you develop compulsive behaviors to neutralize the anxiety you're experiencing and so the confession and or the seeking reassurance or the rumination becomes the compulsive behavior so if your family is in the role of reassuring you then they're feeding into this codependent super unhealthy toxic relationship of them actually increasing and augmenting and strengthening your compulsive behaviors and it's it's it's really awful but you're just trying to be loving rigid parents right yeah anyway we came home from the clinic and we're talking about what how to move forward we didn't have insurance that covered mental health we it's expensive it's so expensive we didn't ever attend the clinic oh you didn't know he was actually put on the waiting list and then I said I was becoming passionate you know mother bear coming out becoming passionate about mental health and I came downstairs to Sam's office one day and I said if something I want to tell you and he was like you want to become a counselor don't you look how did you know but just the fact that there weren't counsellors that knew the therapy it really got to me and I thought this is a void in our community and so I decided to go the counselor but then he spontaneously got better we never went to the clinic so if I may I think that this might actually be a source of relative confusion so so so ironically enough my recovery I actually attributed to God you know for some obvious reasons I guess but what happened was basically I we had just gone to a cabin it was in sort of one of the lulls because you know it gets worse and better and worse and better and it was during the time when it was horrible right um I kind of had a system in place of how I confess though like cuz it was just a given that you know on a daily or weekly basis confessions would be happening but we went to a cabin with some friends and you know one of these things happened which it was ridiculous right which is obvious to me now I went and confessed to dad and I could definitely tell that I remember being able to tell in that moment like that was just like like like like dude like like a wife like what is this like like you know it wasn't anger or anything obviously but it was just this is not a problem right and so I cannot like nothing was super different about that I remember it because it was a recovery or the moment of recovery but for some reason like like seriously I I can I've thought about I cannot fathom a reason for why it's somewhat changed but I think there's a technical term for it whatever grip the disease had in my mind was just like broken and I didn't do anything but suddenly I could think in a manner which like like actually rationalized reasons not to have this compulsive obsessive cycle right and so from there on out I I've expressed in the past like like guys like this is like that was it like it was over like after that I was it was done I didn't I didn't feel the need to confess and stuff and so as I think you were about to mention like apparently there was sort of a petering out of the actual like confessions and weird activities and things like that but like I knew and it was really a source of like constant joy for me like I I knew like it's over like it's changed now like like I'm free and so you know I there were still actions kind of leading out of that you know it didn't all just totally disappear overnight but my mindset has like had to look fundamentally changed what was the shift was it that my dad can't forgive me was it that God loves me no matter what like what was the shift I think the shift was in again I have no idea why it happened but the shift was really going from okay let's say I hit a little B on the shoulder oh my gosh I'm an incestuous 13 year old okay that's crazy five sorry it might be awkward it goes from like that as like a possibility then I'm like examining myself like well am I an incestuous 13 year old like like was did I have some intention and then I dig up these emotions and ideas right and like I I search for an answer that I search for an answer to a question that shouldn't exist right because that's not a normal that's not normal mental functioning and so it went kind of from that sort of cyclical mentality to I was just able to understand the nature of my actions and intense and I think that's the best way to put it right so I had Olivia on the shoulder and it's like I hit her on the shoulder now it went from oh my goodness like I've sinned against the Lord the church and all that is good then beautiful in this world - okay I like like it it's a it's nothing right because everything that I obsessed over was like quite literally nothing it was just an absolute nonsense and so again I don't know what that's almost like a miracle like it's really rare for this just to spontaneously you know usually you have to go through months if not years of what you called exposure and ritual prevention or ERP exposure therapy where you're paying 8 grand to go to this clinic inpatient or outpatient and you're just for months doing these exposures with these therapists with all these other kids so that over time you can learn to develop acceptance of your thoughts holding your thoughts and feelings loosely and learn to stop performing the compulsions that then feed feed the you know so this is almost like a saw on the road to Damascus Hama the younger moment in the mental health realm that you just all of a sudden like cold turkey had this aha moment I mean it kind of is a mirror cool yeah we don't think we considered it that I he did seem to get better and also when we went to the clinic she diagnosed him and she said you are no longer allowed to confess and I learned I'm not supposed to reassure him so that could have been part of what helped right is that we stopped that enabling behavior spoiler I confessed anyway okay so you stopped enabling it and that helped okay I think we did consider a miracle and at that point so from the time we went to the clinic to when we were like the we were wait-listed and when they called and said he can come now he was better so how I made meaning of it at that point was by then I was looking up programs and deciding to become a counselor how I made meaning of it was well maybe I'm just supposed to become a counselor but my son had to suffer for that I don't know but and then once I decided that he got better that's how it was a coincidence anyway I thought that I have and all of that so you were planning on going to school we had been homeschooling and that was going to stop now since she's starting her own master's program and so Sam would be going to high school he was he was socially isolated he wasn't having opportunities every day to bump up against people and so there's some exposure that was coming and we talked about I remember talking in the backyard are we gonna do this clinic or are we gonna try and see what happens with you going and being exposed to more social interaction that way and see if that helps and we decided to give it a try and yeah and that was something that the therapist at the OCD clinic did say was because he tries not to touch people being in public school where he's walking through the halls and he to touch people constantly will really help so he was pretty I feel like you were pretty much better by the time school started yeah but then that probably helped maintain any progress well yeah and and again not surprisingly I've put quite a bit of thought into how the whole recovery process happened and I think basically there was that that like definitive moment where I knew like suddenly my entire ability to reason and comprehend of reality the reality of things was magically transformed right and then it was like the actions petered out right and I think that that was basically done by the time that you know I started going to public school but then yeah you know you still have very powerful remnants of the mental processes and cyclical patterns right but because of the magical transformation now I could understand those for what they were and they weren't compulsive and uncontrollable and so then yeah you know I think that there's no doubt that me interacting with people at public school helped reduce or you don't change those but but it didn't I don't think it actually changed it wasn't the Cure right sorry but absolutely helped yeah that makes sense all those exposures are you know if you're home if you're isolated home-schooled you can really live in your room and you can really kind of isolate if you're out of school and all these all these girls walking around and all these thoughts you can be having maybe that that served as a way to give you some exposure yeah and yeah I've been talking to ton and so I I don't want to take up all the time in the world um one more thing I will say that was yeah that first of all that's absolutely true and it's also true that I guess with all of this you really start to realize just how how hard like how important it is at least this was my experience I I kind of thought like wow it's really important for me to understand and control how I think and so then that like led strongly again with my amazing parents who are very rapping at this time under within the church we're very reasonable and love to reason and to think about things and to study things and taught me how to think critically you know that all transformed me into someone who was relatively decent at thinking through things and being critical and somewhat objective and so that I mean we're gonna get there I don't want to rush ahead but that definitely also played a role in allow improving my ability to accept my dad leaving the church and then me leaving soon after okay you

Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast

Views: 46,035

Keywords: lds, mormon, stories, church, religion, faith, doubt, testimony, excommunication, Idaho

Id: W3Fv7FHQ_o0

Length: 60min 59sec (3659 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020