Skip to content
Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

What doesn’t kill you makes you… what?

chanson, March 25, 2014

All this talk of Ordain Women has brought an interesting memory bubbling to the surface:

It was the last summer my family went to Camp Many Point — probably 1989, the summer before I set off for BYU. I loved going to that camp. It was a beautiful tract of pristine forest surrounding a clear lake with hiking, sailing, swimming, fishing, a climbing tower — you name it! And I had the opportunity to go there every summer as a teen (to the “family camp”, for families of scout leaders) because my father was the Scout Master while my brothers were in Boy Scouts.

I especially liked sitting out on a sandy point (one of the many points of Many Point Lake), staring at the rippling water and thinking.

That summer, I had just met a boy I was hoping to have a summer romance with before setting off for BYU. I even wrote a song for him (though I’d only spoken to him a couple of times). I think his name was Peter. (That was the name of the song: “I Think his Name Was Peter.”)

So there I reclined, in this gorgeous setting, fantasizing about all of the clever things I would say to Peter as soon as I got back to town. My train of thought traveled to all sorts of random musings about life; politics, philosophy, etc., — stuff that had nothing to do with this random guy I was hoping to attract — but it continued in the form of an imaginary dialog with him.

Then I caught myself.

Why?

I noticed that I always wanted to focus on this or that boy; on when I would see him again and what I would say to him. The old philosophical question about a tree falling in the woods came to mind. If a girl has an idea, and never tells it to a male who can appreciate it, does it even exist? It was a question I shouldn’t have had to ask myself.

Of course I liked talking with women and girls. But at church — which was a big part of my world — everyone and everything would point to the boys and say, “See our wonderful, bright future!” And we’d look up to the men on the stands and see the respected leaders that the male youth around us would someday become. I didn’t have to be told to fill my journals with tales of the boys I liked — they were all that I wanted to write about. They were exciting! I had internalized the message that the most interesting thing about me was the boy who might be interested in me.

At BYU, I didn’t fit in (to put it mildly) and couldn’t help but start learning to chart my own path. Then when I went to grad school in New Jersey, something kind of magical happened. here’s how I described it in the fictionalization:

It looks so small from a distance. When you’re immersed in it — living in Utah or in an LDS household — Mormonism is like a cage with one small clouded lens to look out through that distorts your every view of the world.

Then one day you step out. You leave home, or you leave the Mormon corridor of Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, and suddenly it’s as if it’s hardly even there. It’s this tiny, unimportant thing that you can forget about for days, weeks, months, even years at a time. You can take it out of your pocket and show people if you like, as an amusing conversation piece at parties. Or you can just not even bother with it at all.

Over time I grew to realize that I have a voice and that people are interested in what I have to say. I’m even interested in what I have to say.

My narrative with respect to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is essentially one of “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The role the church played was that of the obstacle that was just challenging enough for me to learn my own strength by surmounting it. (That’s essentially the theme throughout my novel ExMormon.)

However, I’m well aware that the old adage doesn’t always work. Sometimes stuff that doesn’t kill you actually hurts you a lot more than it ever helps you. Personally, I really don’t feel angry towards the church — from my perspective here in Europe, it looks like such an insignificant (even fragile) thing that I mostly just feel curious about what it will do next, and I feel a warm connection with the handful of people in this world who have shared the peculiar experience of Mormonism with me. But lots of people have very legitimate reasons not to see the CoJCoL-dS that way. If the church plays a different role in your narrative than it does in mine, that doesn’t mean that my life story is right and yours is wrong (or vice-versa).

This really hit home to me as I was listening to my brother describe his childhood in a podcast. As he described the joy of being the golden child who impressed the whole ward — to the point where the leaders would take him along to speak in conferences in other wards to show how clever he was — I couldn’t help but be struck by how different his Mormon experience was from mine (especially considering that we grew up in the same family, less than two years apart in age). His narrative about the CoJCoL-dS was a tale of this awesome thing he had, and when he started to recognize the problems with the CoJCoL-dS as a young adult, the awesome thing was broken. Then joining the Community of Christ was his solution that fixed the broken parts.

As I said in the baby and the bathwater, differing narratives can lead to misunderstandings. Listening to his joyful tales of finding the solution that fixes the problems, my first reaction was kind of a bewildered, “What? Fixed what? Why??” But that’s OK. His journey is his and my journey is mine — they don’t need to be the same.

Reading Petra’s Every Bloggernacle Argument About Feminism, As Told in GIFs, I laughed out loud when she got to this part:

The angry ex-Mormon and the angry TBM each independently insist that the author of the OP should just leave the Church

I laughed because it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that that’s the solution that would make your life a whole lot simpler and less frustrating if you’re a Mormon feminist. I read all the exmo blogs, and she’s right that this is a question that is sincerely bewildering for typical ex-Mormons: If the CoJCoL-dS (members as well as leaders) keep heaping abuse on you, why do you keep coming back for more?

But I think it’s not that simple. Humans are complicated. Mormonism is complicated. People’s relationships with the church, with their families, with their own childhood experiences — they’re complicated.

Personally, when I read some of the stuff that comes out of the COB and General Conference, I’m pretty damn happy that I don’t have to take it seriously or feel conflicted by a belief that those guys are speaking from a position of some sort of special, supernatural insight. (Perhaps many of you reading this feel the same way.) But I don’t speak for those who care about being a part of the CoJCoL-dS and want to try to fix it. I don’t want to simplistically dismiss their position and tell them that all they need to do is dump their own narratives and adopt mine instead. Their journeys are their own. And I have to admit that I am itching with curiosity to see what the folks of Ordain Women will do next!!

Ordain Women Women

Post navigation

Previous post
Next post

Related Posts

Toxic Perfectionism

April 4, 2013

Evidently some mormon women suffer from toxic perfectionism. So on top of being the angel in the home, they are trying to be too perfect; keep a spotless home, cook a scrumptious, frugal, healthy meal, raise perfectly coiffed children. It’s not only mormon women who suffer from unrealistic expectations (of…

Read More

Johnny Lingo! Johnny Lingo!

September 16, 2009June 21, 2011

Illustrations by Sister Mary Lisa Do you remember the first time you ever watched Johnny Lingo? I imagine if you’re typical of most of us that were raised Mormon from childhood, the memory of that first viewing has been lost, mercifully, in the bazillions of subsequent times you were subjected…

Read More

The Economic Role of Mothers

December 13, 2011December 14, 2011

A Dec 2011 APA study is making its way through the news suggesting that mothers who work part-time are happier and healthier than stay-at-homes and full-time mothers, and they make good parents. A good summary of the study can be found here. Regarding the “mommy wars” or the debate in…

Read More

Comments (7)

  1. Parker says:
    March 25, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    I think it is interesting to think that one’s life journey can be thought of as a narrative that both describes and influences that journey. I have come to think of the influencing part as the story (often I refer to it as the myth) we live by. One of the things that seems apparent is how hard people work to keep their story intact. I, like you, chose not to live by the Mormon story. As I read the extreme effort that many go to find solid footing, to make all the elements fit, and to keep the story needle always pointing toward truth, it causes me to reexamine my own myth/story to make sure I’m not doing the same thing. That means my story doesn’t contain many “I believe” components that I must adhere to for some future status, or that must be true for the story to hang together.

    It is also interesting, but I suspect unanswerable, as to how we chose to live by a particular story. Even those that seem completely fanciful still have their adherents.

  2. Holly says:
    March 25, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    I’m even interested in what I have to say.

    That is a marvelous discovery, isn’t it? and one women so often aren’t given any encouragement or help in making–we’re just supposed to be, as you point out, sounding boards for men.

    And I’m also interested in what you have to say. 🙂

  3. chanson says:
    March 25, 2014 at 11:11 pm

    @1 That is so true!

    It’s hard (if not impossible) to look back on your life and see a string of random events. There is an irresistible inclination to make sense of it by crafting it into a narrative. And that affects which parts you remember, which parts you emphasize, and which parts you forget. And memory is malleable enough that people can end up changing their own memories of past events to fit their narrative. I think that being aware of this process (and keeping an eye on it) can help up keep it real. 😉

    And I agree it’s interesting to contemplate where these stories come from.

    @2 Thanks!

  4. Just Jill says:
    March 26, 2014 at 6:00 am

    chanson it would be fun to have coffee sometime and share memories. I love hearing what you have to say and I’m glad we have a platform to come together in thought and the written word now and again.

    Raising my coffee to you and saying ‘cheers’.

  5. chanson says:
    March 26, 2014 at 7:05 am

    @4 Thanks — I’d love to get together with you for coffee!!

    Any chance you’ll be in Switzerland any time soon?

  6. aerin says:
    March 26, 2014 at 5:53 pm

    I had internalized the message that the most interesting thing about me was the boy who might be interested in me.

    This. Some people never understand why this would be an issue.

    But this is misogyny at its core – but also race and class tie into it as well. Groups of people who are systematically excluded from opportunity. And it’s insidious, because sometimes the people don’t even realize what’s going on, and don’t see the underlying subtext that’s also going on.

  7. chanson says:
    March 27, 2014 at 6:03 am

    @6 Exactly. It’s easy to be OK with injustice if you can hardly imagine how things could be different. For people who are raised from the cradle with systematic exclusion, it’s tough to grasp the idea that they don’t deserve to be treated that way, and that things could have been different…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Mormon Alumni Association Books

Latest Comments:

  1. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  2. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  3. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  4. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

  5. LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binaries – Main Street Plaza on It’s Time to Vote for the 2024 Brodie Awards!!!April 14, 2025

    […] sincere acceptance is not a priority. Fortunately, this is what he exemplifies in his memoir, the Brodie-nominated Boughs of…

8: The Mormon Proposition Acceptance of Gays Add new tag Affirmation angry exmormon awards Book Reviews BYU comments Conformity Dallin H. Oaks DAMU disaffected mormon underground Dustin Lance Black Ex-Mormon Exclusion policy Excommunicated exmormon faith Family feminism Gay Gay Love Gay Marriage Gay Relationships General Conference Happiness Homosexual Homosexuality LDS LGBT LGBTQ Link Bomb missionaries Modesty Mormon Mormon Alumni Association Mormonism motherhood peace politics Polygamy priesthood ban Sunstone temple

Awards

William Law X-Mormon of the Year:

  • 2023: Adam Steed
  • 2022: David Archuleta
  • 2021: Jeff T. Green
  • 2020: Jacinda Ardern
  • 2019: David Nielsen
  • 2018: Sam Young
  • 2017: Savannah
  • 2016: Jeremy Runnells
  • 2015: John Dehlin
  • 2014: Kate Kelly
  • 2013: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson
  • 2012: David Tweede
  • 2011: Joanna Brooks
  • 2010: Monica Bielanko
  • 2009: Walter Kirn

Other Cool Sites!

WasMormon.org
©2025 Main Street Plaza | WordPress Theme by SuperbThemes