More than you ever wanted to know about "Boom"

I have nothing to hide, or be embarrassed about.

You know, I have kept going to type something up like I did in the thread in Agora. I always delete whatever it is I'll say. Why? Because sentence #1 is not what I actually believe. I honestly don't find my life all that interesting or exciting. I haven't fucked bitches, I haven't gotten into knife fights or won a million dollars in poker. Hell, at this point, the most action I've gotten is cuddling and a bit of kissing in terms of relationships, and in terms of fighting it was a while back with a kid with a hockey stick trying to kill me. Well, I guess that's kind of interesting. I'll start there.

Something you guys may not know about me first though: I earned my Second Degree Black Belt in Moo Lim Do, which is a breakoff of a much larger branch. They started handing out 9th degrees to everyone and starting making up new degrees for black belts. This didn't settle well with my Korean master who is a traditionalist (and can certainly kick anyone of your guys' asses without a thought even though he's like 85). Anyway, I'm pretty proud of what I had to do to earn it, though I'm really disappointed in myself for not keeping up the practice. I technically still have my 2nd degree (once you get your black belt you can NOT be "demoted" as long as you retain proof of certification), but I cannot do nearly as much as I could.

Anyway, I digress. This kid was just a punk with a hockey stick makeshift weapon and I kicked his ass. Grabbed the hockey stick mid-swing and kicked him in the face. Yay me.

I'm actually pretty proud of that one, first because I took on a guy with the element of surprise, second because he had a weapon and I didn't, and third because I only went as far as to disarm him and not a step further. Something I hope I'll always be able to do. On all counts.

Anyway, I'd say I was actually pretty normal by society's standards (not mormon standards, I mean looking back now) until around 10/11. That's when childhood innocence really starts to go away and the hard teachings (especially in terms of women, men, religion, etc) start to come into play and start being shown to you on a daily basis.

It really bothers me that this society does this. I touched on a lot of it in the Agora thread, but I want to rant more.

Women are treated as objects. Pure and simple. You are taught that a woman has her place and that her primary function is to "populate the earth" (verbatim by the way) and to respect (code word in mormon for "obey") the priesthood holders - namely the husband or bf, but it also includes any priesthood holder - in every way, shape, and form. It's really creepy now, looking back, but at the time it was just seen as "obedient" to God and to the religion as a whole.

Second thing is obedience. There's a real stress on obedience. Not just to husbands, but to the bishop or stake president etc. It's actually scary knowing what I know now. They start you off really young with cute little primary songs that are titled such non-cultish things like "follow the prophet". This song includes such wonderful lyrics as:

"Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet; don't go astray.
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet he knows the way."

It starts small and innocent enough with things like that, but as you grow it gets more embedded into you, your being, and your very soul. If you believe in such a thing as a soul anyway. They use passive-aggressive threats and love-bombs to keep you part of the church, mild threats of hell and eternal damnation if you do anything wrong. Not to mention "outer darkness" for those who go to the temple ("see God") and "openly reject Him" (apostatize), which is worse than hell. Apparently anyway. The love bombs are the epic guilt-trips that nobody likes. You all know the type.

There's little bits of sexism in the LDS religion like the primary function of a woman, but there's more:

Only men can hold the priesthood, no woman can have any calling besides choir leader, kid-watcher (primary/young women's leader), or librarian (basically).

Men can marry in the temple and get "sealed" to more than one woman (sealed is married eternally). Women cannot get sealed to more than one man. Yes, that's right, the LDS church still practices polygamy. It's now just of the eternal kind as opposed to the mortal kind. A man can still go to the top level of the celestial kingdom if he never marries a woman, but a woman is eternally forbidden to enter the top level of the celestial kingdom unless she marries a man (further showing that women are only worth something if they have a man).

It's shit like that, Utah.

Women are NOT objects. They are people. They don't need to be obedient to you, me, or ANYONE. In fact, they SHOULDN'T be.

A bit on the structure of mormon heaven, since I know you're all dying to know:

Three kingdoms and Outer Darkness.

Outer Darkness:

---- Outer Darkness is basically hell, though, IMO worse. I say that because it is where Satan and his followers were cast to ("And they were cast into outer darkness" or something of that sort), but there is no escape at all. Not even theoretically, not under any circumstance. In fact, they teach that you cannot ascend levels in the mormon heaven/hell, you can only go down. Basically, if you are at the very top, you can go down but never back up. No matter what. So I guess I should say maybe it's worse than Liberal Christianity's version of hell, not everyone else's.

Anyway, I digress. Outer Darkness is also where people like my parents will go. They went to the temple, "saw God" (went to the celestial room and "beyond the veil"... that's boring, you don't want to know), and are now openly rejecting his "one true gospel." Basically: they're fucked. Same goes for me.

Telestial Kingdom:

---- "who received not the gospel of Christ, nor the testimony of Jesus." It also includes "liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie."

There's not much to add to that description, it's pretty self-explanatory. Depending on your definition, this could be where most of the males who probably read this blog would be.

Terrestial Kingdom:

---- As they say: "Party is on the second floor."

"Those who will inhabit the terrestrial kingdom include those who lived respectably but were blinded by the craftiness of men and thus rejected the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ when it was presented to them during their mortal lives. It also includes persons who rejected the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it in the spirit world and those who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus after having received it."

Basically all those baptisms for the dead that you keep hearing about applies to these folks. In all likelyhood all of you would be included here. You live good lives but you didn't accept the gospel in this life for one reason or another, but you'll be baptized after you're dead like the rest of us.

and then there's the Celestial Kingdom:

----The celestial kingdom will be the residence of those who have been righteous, accepted the teachings of Jesus Christ, and made and lived up to all of the required ordinances and covenants during their mortal lives (also children who died under 8 - the age of baptism).

This is where God and Jebus reside. Everyone rejoice. Yayyyy.

This is where it gets really sexist: Only those who are married/sealed (or male) can get into the very top level of this Kingdom (kingdoms inside kingdoms, etc), and be exactly like God and get their own little galaxy to rule over and populate (more babiesssss).

Anyway, when I started learning about all of the historical inaccuracies (the church does a damn fine job of hiding them from people inside the church, btw), I got pretty pissed off. The problem is, do you knowingly and openly reject the gospel. The ONE. TRUE. GOSPEL. Remember, rejecting it sends you off to outer darkness to become a son of perdition and on the same level as Hitler or Stalin because, fuck reason. Actually, they probably would've been in the Telestial... come to think of it... FUCK THIS SYSTEM. As I was saying, do you really reject it? How do you know that the sources you're using are just made up? What if the things you're reading are made up? Would you REALLY give up salvation (of any kind) just because some dude says something?

That kind of thinking is exactly what they pound into you as a child, and it makes it really difficult to leave. Hell, to this day I'm still technically a member (that's for other reasons though, I'll talk about later). Like I said, do you really risk damnation because some book written somewhere says different from what you've been taught for 13/14 (in my case) years?

It took me another year to reject it privately, to myself. I used everything. I read the Journal of Discourses (church-written and "approved" material that showed inaccuracies), the church history, everything church approved kept leading me to the same conclusion that the non-church approved ones did. Not to mention: I'D NEVER FELT THE HOLY SPIRIT. Yes, you read me right. I have never had those feel-goods that everyone keeps talking about. Not when I prayed earnestly, not when I suffered, not when I fasted/prayed, nothing. Ever. That was one of the deciding factors for me that this was all bologna.

So, now at 15 I have decided that everything I was taught was a lie. How do I break this to my parents? My sisters? My brother who was/is my hero and served a full mission?!

It took me another year to "come out" to my parents. The reason I finally did is they hadn't been active for a while and seemed to be... strangely not-mormon. When I came out with my dirty little secret, they told me their own: They hadn't been members for about 4 years at that point and had been questioning it during the 10 years prior. They didn't want to tell me because they wanted me to make my own choices. Yeah, they pointed me towards things, and I always found it odd that they'd read such material, though a lot of mormons do to gain an understanding (or at least I figured), but it all made sense once they told me. They make my knowledge of mormonism and its dirty secrets look like a penny compared to the US yearly GDP. I knew enough though. More than enough. Maybe I'll go into them sometime, there's just too many to really say right now. But now I have other problems: Do I tell my friends, do I keep living a lie, and how/when do I tell my siblings? Do I ever tell my siblings, especially the ones I KNOW are practicing mormon?

Took me another long time to tell anyone else in my family. When I finally told anyone else in my family it was my sister and her soon-to-be husband. I told him first more out of convenience than anything, and knowing for sure that he wasn't mormon (or religious at all) did make it a bit easier. All I really remember was him being so encouraging and nice about it all. My parents were nice, but not even close to this, same with my friends. It was almost as it someone finally said "Hey, you know what? It's totally cool bro" and it all clicked for me. When I told my sister all she could do was cry and hug me. Knowing what I'd been through (losing friends, love-bombs, guilt-trips, etc) and again, like her husband just accepting it and being happy for me was really refreshing. Immediately after this I told all of my friends.

A few of my closest friends had already guessed as much, including C (names are removed to respect their - and my - privacy) and W - who are still what I consider my best friends to this day. Most of the rest took it in stride, which was a nice thing to have compared to those who didn't take kindly to me leaving. It could have been a lot worse. Reading stories from sites like exmormon.org has shown me that people have received outrageous threats, messages, etc from people who learn they are no longer members. Most of the time it comes from the older generations and those who were part of the church for a long time, but it has happened to kids.

I still have yet to tell my older brother and my older sister (J). My brother knows I'm not active and has probably guessed I'm not a believer, but I just don't know how he is on the scale of acceptance, and I'd rather not hurt him. I know Jen for sure wouldn't take kindly to me telling her. Not in a bad way, she just really had the cult-fever bad. My other sister told her (not knowing what her reaction would be) and all she could do was cry for days. She had a total emotional meltdown over this because of the idea that our family will no longer be "together forever" or be able to communicate or anything at all. Not to mention the whole outer darkness aspect. It's STILL hard to get them to communicate for long periods of time without Jen getting really emotional. My two sisters never really got along as well as I did with Jen. I mean, for fuck's sake, Jen would wake up at 5am when I was a baby (when I'd wake up) and play with me, and continued being that type of sister for my entire life. I couldn't do something like that to her. Not knowing what happened the first time. But I know it's wrong to lie to her like I am (not saying anything about it and letting her believe), and I know that the longer I wait it will only hurt more. I honestly don't know what to do on this one.

and it fucking sucks. I even know who's responsible for this, and I can't do shit about it.

It's shit like this, Utah.

____________________________________________________________________________

I'm tired of that topic right now.

On to something better.

In some ways I've been extremely lucky. I've always wanted to know what I want to be when I grow up, for example. The only debate has been between "Electrical Engineer" and "Mechanical Engineer". From a young age I'd build lego "robots" or random castles or just random shit. I used to pretend clothes-hangers were airplanes and do the whole shpeel of take-off/landing in my house's hallway. I even reasoned a way that they'd be aerodynamic:

The hangers, while being empty in the middle, followed a delta-wing design. The hooked end was really a full-cockpit but it was semi-suspended in the front so as to provide an almost-360* in all directions view, etc. It was cute you guys. Like a little kitten. I was three. 

Anyway, I'd build random shit, one of them being a type of alarm for my room so I knew when people entered, little catapults, etc. I'd also take apart VCRs or broken pieces of shit lying around the house and try to see how they worked. I was also always pretty damn good at math.

Anyway, my point is, I was always going to be an Engineer. So far nothing has stopped me, despite the hard tries life has given me:

In 8th grade, due to my hyperthyroidism (and therefore total ADHD like you wouldn't believe), I failed that entire year. Oh man the drama. I'd never failed a SUBJECT, not to mention a class or an entire set of classes.

My math teacher from 8th grade told me I'd need to repeat Algebra and therefore be unable to do AP Calc my senior year in high school (one of my goals on the way to being an engineer). That's when I met the most awesome councilor on the face of the planet: Mr. B. Dude totally had my back and took me under his wing. Helped through all the depression from leaving the church, moving away from all my friends/etc the summer before (can't remember if I typed that in this post or one I deleted... hmm... Long story short, new house, no friends, got depressed), and school. Though he probably really only knew he was helping with school issues. Anyway, he told the teacher off and said that because I have a math teacher as a father that I should be granted an exception. Especially since 8th grade doesn't count for jack-shit. The teacher protested greatly and kept changing my class back to algebra in the 9th grade schedule and every. single. time this dude had my back and changed it. Good work Mr. Brown, you're still the most awesome person from that school imo.

Anyway, after the first semester, and during all this math-class drama, I got to go to the hospital! YAYYYY HOSPITALS!

Went to Primary Children's hospital (on the University of Utah campus... this hospital is epic btw. If I ever die in a hospital, this is where I want it to be) and got to go to their "Radiology" department. Yayyy radiation technology.

The reasoning is, with hyper-thyroidism, you have four options:

1) Don't do anything and either die of a heart attack or something similar (my resting heart rate was around 120 BPM which is running normally, if I walked AT ALL it went up to 180).

2) Surgery. This is an extremely expensive procedure where they cut out your thyroid, literally. The problem is the thyroid is in your neck next to all the vocal cords and various other things. You could potentially lose your voice with this.

3) Take a pill that "reverses" the effects. Sounds great, except it doesn't always work, and basically won't do anything after a while. Not to mention the possibility of cancer with keeping your thyroid.

4) Get radiated. Kill your thyroid without surgery, take a hormone pill that contains T3 and the other hormones the thyroid produces for the rest of your life, they never wear out, always work, and you never have to worry about it ever again (other than taking the pill every day). You'd have to take the pill if you got the surgery as well.

So we chose #4. Fucking scary though. They walk you into this tiny little room and tell you to stand on the far side and wait. A couple minutes later a guy in a big hazmat-looking suit, holding a pair of tongs that contain a tiny brown bottom and a bendy-straw as far away from his body as possible (almost looking scared), walks in. He tells you in a muffled voice to stand near this little table-thing that has a little overhand on it and a small cup-holder thing just the right size for the bottle, so you do. He slowly and carefully walks over to you/the table, gently sets the bottle down in the slot and says "don't drink until I'm out of the door" before turning and quickly leaving the room. This happens twice more and then they let you out like nothing happened. 

Before that though, they go over all the ins and outs, first off I won't be in the hospital, I'm not radioactive enough to require a little cement cell, though I'm not permitted to go to school. I have to flush the toilet twice whenever I use it, and preferably get my own toilet (radioactive seats aren't fun for others). If I touch anything, it's mine basically. Oh, and I'm put on bed rest for 3 months. Should be a great time right? Doctor says I can only move up/down the stairs once/day (Once down to get to the main floor from bed, once up to do the opposite).

It was awful. Not having internet or cable of any kind was a pain in the ass. You want to know what was on for three months? Fox News, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Alex, and the shittiest of shitty local news broadcasts (nothing to do while parents at work? Sorry kids, NOTHING INTERESTING). This is when I started getting into politics. Mostly because that's all that was on besides boring divorce court cases.

My recommendation: Never do anything like that, it sucks balls.

Anyway... I've successfully typed this whole thing out in one go and NOT erased anything this time. I'm proud of myself for that.