Screaming into the void
Here I am.
Screaming into the void.
Be warned: this is not a happy post. It is also a long one. You have been warned.
I don’t know if I’ll ever post this. I don’t know if I want to. Vulnerability is the key to relationships, so they say. How many people will reject me when they know this part of my journey? The likelihood is at least some will. Vulnerability is not the universal healer that I was sold, though it certainly can be healing. Then again, all the bill of goods I bought unquestioningly are now in question, Church-based or not. I’m doubting every piece of the worldview I bought into until a month ago. Every bit of it is under scrutiny, subject to the acids of a doubt that has been building but never unleashed until, well, a month ago.
The honest truth is that I’m leaving the Church now. More precisely, I’m letting myself be excommunicated. I’m done.
Since that decision a LOT of things have come to light about the nature of my relationship to the Church. I’ve always been intensely emotionally and spiritually sensitive. It’s part of being “gifted,” a term referring to a form of neurodivergence that comes with an exceptionally high IQ (I tested 130 on the FSIQ, which is in the 98th percentile and just at the threshold for inclusion in MENSA, the high IQ society). Other things that come from giftedness include a tendency to black and white thinking, high anxiety, susceptibility to trauma from harsh environments (as well as quick healing from healthy environments), perfectionism, and idealism. Check, check, check and check. Those are all me.
The truth is, these are all exceptional gifts, when they are noticed early and trained correctly. That never happened for me. My environment as a child did not notice these things. My high intelligence and the associated traits were treated as a parlor trick, a trait to show off to the community, an annoyance in class, or an object of resentment by peers. I was told I the words I spoke were too big, and yet because I spoke and read far above my grade level, I was treated as far more mature than I actually was. I cried a lot from the sensitivity I had to the injustice of it all and was told “Don’t cry, they will bully you.” So, I stopped crying. I dumbed down my speech. I blunted my intensity and disguised my sensitivity under a smile. Society both admired and resented the talent I was given, and so, confused and anguished by these mixed signals and uncertain how to cope, I buried it in the ground. It was only a year ago that I even knew that I possessed above average intelligence, much less knowing that it was that far above average!
I have always been highly motivated by others’ acceptance, perhaps even more so than most. And even though I was and am certainly loved, I was not seen, and I certainly was not accepted for who I really am, at least not in a way that I recognized and felt. That ache became so familiar that I never even noticed it for what it was, even as it increasingly drove most of my behavior.
Into this mess stepped the Church.
The Church! The Church! The Church gave me a way out of my anguish. Have faith and believe in the Church, unquestioningly obey the prophets as the Lord’s representatives, tamp down any doubts, fill the mold we give you, and you will be loved, you will be accepted. I had tasted somewhat of the goodness of God thanks to my sensitivity, and those experiences came when I believed in the Church, obeyed unquestioningly, tamped down my doubts, and filled the mold given me. My environment made it clear that if I did not do so, my salvation was at stake. So, I put my head down, suppressed the independent thought, creativity, curiosity and sensitivity that are my gifts, and did all I could to be a good soldier for Christ.
You can probably see how damaging and destructive this ended up being. And the spiritual experiences I had in the Church (which were many and real!) only ended up deeply reinforcing this pattern. Believe in the church + obey unquestioningly + tamp down doubts + fill the mold = love and acceptance. And it worked! Until it didn’t.
My mission ended up being an abysmal experience. You can imagine how a sensitive, naive, idealistic, perfectionistic and intelligent being, buying into a Church narrative that told me that if the Church asked me to jump my only acceptable response was to ask how high, would end up experiencing disaster. Missions are already hard enough for even the most well-adjusted missionaries. They are made even harder when unchecked and unrealistic expectations of missionaries combine with sensitivity, naivete, idealism, perfectionism and intelligence to create a perfect storm. Perfect storm it ended up being. A particular six-week period of intense stress and trauma shattered my mind. I came home broken in mind and spirit. And, though I didn’t see it at the time, the Church as an institution or community did NOT care to see the damage they had caused. Churchy narratives about personal responsibility make for blindness to the institutional and cultural pressures that are actually often the source of personal problems. I was convinced something was wrong with me, that the suffering I was experiencing was somehow my fault, that I was being punished or condemned. And yet, I somehow also recognized that the particular experiences that shattered my mind WEREN’T my fault. So began the cognitive dissonance.
Then comes the homosexuality.
The Church, through its FSY pamphlet at the time, made it very clear that doing anything to even arouse sexual feelings was to be avoided. My black and white perfectionistic self took that very seriously, and so I didn’t. The moment my homosexuality arose in any form, I tamped it down, I suppressed it, I ran away from it. I attempted to shame it out of existence. I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to recognize that these were normal feelings being felt by a normal teenager and that they are not under conscious control, but the Church had made it clear that if I were to have any chance of acceptance and love by the Church, I was to obey and live its standards unquestioningly, and so I did. I got away with it, too. I had a loving group of friends into which I dissipated my sexual feelings. Well, when high school graduation came and along with it the loss of continual contact with that friend group, and then even further isolation on the mission, I no longer had anywhere to put my feelings. And because I never learned how to cope with them in a healthy and mature way, they manifested. Boy, they manifested. Of course, I made it clear in my mission papers that my homosexuality was a phase that I had passed through. This was something I said with the guidance of a professional LDS family services therapist. They should have known better than that.
So not only did I return home broken in mind and spirit and surrounded by a family and Church community that had never really accepted me for who I was, I faced the resurgence of homosexual feelings that I thought, because of the poor mentoring I received, would have disappeared by now. I was so utterly vulnerable, so lonely and isolated, so full of shame and fear and anxiety, and I had no one to turn to. In this state, and without getting into full details, I was taken advantage of by a mentor figure who perceived my vulnerability and groomed it to his full advantage. This was someone who was an authority figure in a faithful LGBT support group. This was someone who had been a bishop, fortunately not mine personally. He was in his sixties and a very successful businessman-- I was a twenty one year old music student at a church college.
I knew nothing about boundaries. I knew nothing about developing healthy relationships. I knew nothing about managing sexual, emotional and romantic attractions. I knew nothing about power dynamics. I knew nothing about grooming. I knew nothing about good ways to develop trust. I just knew that I was desperately lonely, starved for affection and attention, and this man offered generous quantities of it in a way I had NEVER known.
Thanks, Church. I let you define my identity. I let you delineate my path forward. I let you set the terms of my spirituality. I trusted you to empower me, to train and nurture me effectively. And when that never materialized and it all began to fall apart, I blamed myself. Why wouldn’t I? It was God’s church. Surely it couldn’t be wrong. I was the one who was wrong. It was always me. I was never good enough. I was never faithful enough. My life was falling apart despite all the efforts I had made to be faithful according to the terms I was given. Clearly nothing was wrong with those terms-- it was me. It could only be me.
Attending BYU-Idaho became a living hell. I was surrounded on all sides by expectations. No shorts on campus! No facial hair! Curfews! You can be gay you just can’t act on it! Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do that other thing! Attend FHE, attend Church, show your faithfulness by coming to Devotionals! You could not imagine the dirty looks I got one day when I forgot I was wearing shorts and showed up on campus one semester. I want to shake every single administrator at that damn school and say “THE SUPPOSED ESSENCE OF DISCIPLESHIP IS TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AND YOU’VE REDUCED IT TO SHAMING SHORTS AND SANDALS!???” The anxiety attacks grew in intensity and frequency. One night I was five minutes past curfew and couldn’t hardly bring myself to enter the apartment due to shame. Finally, late in 2015, something snapped. My grades were failing, I felt isolated and alone, and I found myself staring down a stairwell considering a jump. Something had to give.
I hiked R Mountain one quiet late-summer day looking for some inspiration. While I prayed, sitting on a rock, I felt a calming voice whisper to me: “Bryce, you do not belong here, and that’s okay. This school is not for everybody. Your inability to find a place here is not your fault. Find a different school.” It was an empowering experience, one of the only moments of real grace I experienced as a student at BYU-Idaho. Soon after that, I had a powerful and difficult realization that not only was BYU-Idaho not the place for me, neither was a career in professional musicianship. I finished my associates degree in general studies online the next year, from home, in shorts and sandals and sporting my first facial hair.
All the time my questions began to grow. This was supposed to the Lord’s school, I thought. One of the beating hearts of His church, of the community that had covenanted to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Here I was, mourning and standing in need of comfort, and not only did the school and LDS community NOT do this, it was the reason I was mourning and in need of comfort to begin with! The whole thing was just not adding up.
All the while, I was doing everything I felt I could to stay faithful, but my homosexuality was quickly becoming unmanageable. Perfectionistic idealism is not a healthy approach for managing difficult feelings to begin with, but soon I was in the bishop’s office confessing a sexual “indiscretion.” Looking back, I realize I was taking my first tentative and courageous steps towards healthy ownership of my sexuality. At the time, however, I felt very torn. Of course, the bishop at the time was also very black and white and not the most sensitive of individuals, and so I found myself subsequently divested of any church responsibilities or privileges. The Spirit whispered to me one day: “Bryce, your worth is not found in your activity in the Church. Your worth is completely independent of that. You are loved and have value regardless of your faithfulness.” I wanted to believe, but that’s all I could manage at the time.
Thus began a cycle. I would break the Law of Chastity, haul myself into the bishops office, repent, start over, be good for a few months, it would happen again. Eventually this led to my disfellowshipment. I remember the utter loneliness of this time. Few in the Church knew about my situation; most of those did not demonstrate any care. They were busy people, I reasoned, don’t have time to reach out. Now I’ve come to recognize that being busy is usually just code for not caring.
During this time I also started school at Idaho State University and began my studies for a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The fit! THE FIT. It fit. I had never felt such a good fit. I didn’t have so many expectations, only just to do well in class. My education was finally not under threat if I made a sexual “mistake.” I got all A’s and B’s. I thrived in my classes for once, not bogged down under the constant anxiety of never being good enough.
After one particular sexual experience during this time, I fled the house of the man with whom I had just had the encounter and sat bawling in my car, pleading with God. But instead of condemnation, I felt something I did not expect: peace, and complete acceptance. But I had just had sex, I reasoned. Surely “The Spirit” can’t be with someone who had just committed the sin next to murder? And yet, here it was, filling my heart with calm.
I made a commitment to return to full fellowship. So, I did. I hauled myself back in front of the high council and received full fellowship again. Looking back, it felt so wrong, like trying to haul a load of hay in a trailer with a broken axle. My spirit and mind were still unhealed and grinding under the weight of full fellowship. I felt wrong in my heart, almost dysphoric. But, per my usual habits, I hid my distress and soldiered on.
That was Fall 2019. Come Summer 2021.
Despite all my efforts, despite all my supposedly righteous decisions and all the faith I had thrown at this problem, my sexual urges were only increasing in depth, breadth and intensity. I prayed and prayed and went to church and did all the religious things that I was supposed to, hoping for a miracle, hoping for the strength. It never came. I finally gave in to my sexual urges one fateful night in the summer of 2021, and in the aftermath, I knew for certain things would never be the same. It was a watershed moment. I no longer had the strength left to stay chaste.
I kept going to church. Kept trying to find reasons to stay involved. My bishop was a considerate and gentle man who appreciated the complexity and difficulty of my situation, so he took my temple recommend but did nothing else.
And I began to experiment with my sexual feelings, seeing what kind of experiences and relationships I could create with them. It was like I had built a dam that was threatening to overtop because I had completely stopped the water, but now I was simply letting the water release naturally through the gates. I learned so much about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my boundaries, my hopes and dreams for the future, the intensity of my passion for the men I love, things I had completely suppressed in the name of religious belief. Things that I now see are just, well, human.
This leads up to a month ago. I had another watershed moment where I realized I had to make a choice. It was either my membership in the Church or my love for men. I chose my love for men.
Subsequently, I began experiencing the panic attacks. Hourslong panic attacks consisting of my mind throwing all the Mormonese it could muster at me to make me reconsider my choice, threatening damnation and condemnation and the loss of my eternal family. Remember, in my world, obedience to the Church was the prerequisite for the acceptance and love of God. I never realized how deep that conditioning went. I never realized how controlled I was by anxiety and fear derived directly from the Church. My faithfulness had never been about love of God; it had always been about fear and perfectionism and shame. The damage that caused me cannot be understated. But, I no longer blame myself as the cause. I recognize this as an oversimplification, but ultimately the Church’s rhetoric and narratives interacted with my characteristics to create this horrifying reality. I didn’t break my own mind and spirit; the Church did. These past weeks it nearly caused a loss of faith in God altogether, because I could no longer reconcile the absolute misery of my religious experiences with the reality of a loving God.
So, here I am, dealing with the aftermath. Now that the Church’s influence on me has diminished, so much is coming to the fore that I never had the wherewithal to deal with. I am realizing the depth and anguish that my mental illnesses, again derived from encounters with Churchy Church narratives, have caused and continue to cause me. I am realizing that if I am to actually heal, I need to divest myself from the thing that was ultimately the source of the anguish. I cannot enter a new paradigm while still attached to the old one. I couldn’t waste any more time attempting to disentangle the Gordian knot manually. It is simply time to cut it to pieces and depart.
I no longer know if the Church is true. I no longer know, and frankly I no longer care. I don’t have it in me to care anymore. I spent my whole life caring. I spent my whole life completely dedicated to a religion that was not dedicated to me in return, at least in any way that I can recognize or appreciate. I spent my whole life attempting to alleviate fear and shame by turning to the same Church that inculcated the fear and shame to begin with. And I’m just...done. I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.
Where to go from here? I don’t know, but I am excited to finally embark on my own journey on my own terms. I have spent a lot of time developing community resources that I can rely on for the love, acceptance and nonjudgmental nurturance that I never really had, at least in the way I needed it. I have had that graceful, compassionate voice whisper to me at times during the intense storms that have consumed my mind in the past month. It has assured me that God loves me, and He will accompany and protect me on this new journey. Perhaps that is the place to start. A germ of real faith, in a real and loving God, and not in the nightmare tyrant of my church-derived anxiety. And I will rely on the loving friends I’ve developed along the way in and out of the Church, who love me for me, and whom I love in turn.
I am also open. Perhaps my journey will take me back to the Church, though I find that unlikely. For now, free of psychological and spiritual entanglements with the institution that is the source of so much of my suffering, I can finally begin healing emotionally, mentally and spiritually from all these years of damage. It is going to take a long time to reconstruct a life worth living after all that I’ve gone through in pursuit of the Church’s acceptance and love.
I am grieving. What would have happened, had the Church nurtured intelligence, wisdom, grace, hope, and faith rather than fear, shame, judgment and fitting the mold? Had it empowered me rather than diminished my agency? Pointed to the God it claims to represent rather than its own self? How would things have been different? I feel like my youth was taken from me. But now I can actually give myself permission to think, to feel, to be creative, to be imperfect, to just...be. I’m no longer exhausting myself in a hamster wheel of unrealistic expectations. I am no longer expecting myself to be an Alma or a Nephi or any of that. I am just allowing myself to be me.
We’ll see where life goes. I feel very sad that I will no longer be a member of a Church that I once loved more than myself, but I also feel relieved that I am no longer attached to the toxic relationship that I permitted to violate my mind and spirit, over and over and over again. And I am leaning into trust-- that the mental and emotional and spiritual healing I have needed so desperately for so long will finally have room to grow. That the God that cares for me will continue to encourage, empower and show me real love as I need and desire it. And, that the things that matter most to me-- my family, my friends, my mission and philosophy-- will not disappear simply because the foundations of my perspective have shifted. I recognize now that there are no guarantees in life, and the world and its institutions will gladly take advantage of me if I let them, so I am leaning into my authentic “yes” and my authentic “no.” And ultimately, I am leaning into a breath, a glimmer of hope for a life that is joyful and expansive rather than bound down by fear, shame and self-doubt.
The Church never gave that to me. So, I must partner with God in creating it for myself.
Screaming into the void.
Be warned: this is not a happy post. It is also a long one. You have been warned.
I don’t know if I’ll ever post this. I don’t know if I want to. Vulnerability is the key to relationships, so they say. How many people will reject me when they know this part of my journey? The likelihood is at least some will. Vulnerability is not the universal healer that I was sold, though it certainly can be healing. Then again, all the bill of goods I bought unquestioningly are now in question, Church-based or not. I’m doubting every piece of the worldview I bought into until a month ago. Every bit of it is under scrutiny, subject to the acids of a doubt that has been building but never unleashed until, well, a month ago.
The honest truth is that I’m leaving the Church now. More precisely, I’m letting myself be excommunicated. I’m done.
Since that decision a LOT of things have come to light about the nature of my relationship to the Church. I’ve always been intensely emotionally and spiritually sensitive. It’s part of being “gifted,” a term referring to a form of neurodivergence that comes with an exceptionally high IQ (I tested 130 on the FSIQ, which is in the 98th percentile and just at the threshold for inclusion in MENSA, the high IQ society). Other things that come from giftedness include a tendency to black and white thinking, high anxiety, susceptibility to trauma from harsh environments (as well as quick healing from healthy environments), perfectionism, and idealism. Check, check, check and check. Those are all me.
The truth is, these are all exceptional gifts, when they are noticed early and trained correctly. That never happened for me. My environment as a child did not notice these things. My high intelligence and the associated traits were treated as a parlor trick, a trait to show off to the community, an annoyance in class, or an object of resentment by peers. I was told I the words I spoke were too big, and yet because I spoke and read far above my grade level, I was treated as far more mature than I actually was. I cried a lot from the sensitivity I had to the injustice of it all and was told “Don’t cry, they will bully you.” So, I stopped crying. I dumbed down my speech. I blunted my intensity and disguised my sensitivity under a smile. Society both admired and resented the talent I was given, and so, confused and anguished by these mixed signals and uncertain how to cope, I buried it in the ground. It was only a year ago that I even knew that I possessed above average intelligence, much less knowing that it was that far above average!
I have always been highly motivated by others’ acceptance, perhaps even more so than most. And even though I was and am certainly loved, I was not seen, and I certainly was not accepted for who I really am, at least not in a way that I recognized and felt. That ache became so familiar that I never even noticed it for what it was, even as it increasingly drove most of my behavior.
Into this mess stepped the Church.
The Church! The Church! The Church gave me a way out of my anguish. Have faith and believe in the Church, unquestioningly obey the prophets as the Lord’s representatives, tamp down any doubts, fill the mold we give you, and you will be loved, you will be accepted. I had tasted somewhat of the goodness of God thanks to my sensitivity, and those experiences came when I believed in the Church, obeyed unquestioningly, tamped down my doubts, and filled the mold given me. My environment made it clear that if I did not do so, my salvation was at stake. So, I put my head down, suppressed the independent thought, creativity, curiosity and sensitivity that are my gifts, and did all I could to be a good soldier for Christ.
You can probably see how damaging and destructive this ended up being. And the spiritual experiences I had in the Church (which were many and real!) only ended up deeply reinforcing this pattern. Believe in the church + obey unquestioningly + tamp down doubts + fill the mold = love and acceptance. And it worked! Until it didn’t.
My mission ended up being an abysmal experience. You can imagine how a sensitive, naive, idealistic, perfectionistic and intelligent being, buying into a Church narrative that told me that if the Church asked me to jump my only acceptable response was to ask how high, would end up experiencing disaster. Missions are already hard enough for even the most well-adjusted missionaries. They are made even harder when unchecked and unrealistic expectations of missionaries combine with sensitivity, naivete, idealism, perfectionism and intelligence to create a perfect storm. Perfect storm it ended up being. A particular six-week period of intense stress and trauma shattered my mind. I came home broken in mind and spirit. And, though I didn’t see it at the time, the Church as an institution or community did NOT care to see the damage they had caused. Churchy narratives about personal responsibility make for blindness to the institutional and cultural pressures that are actually often the source of personal problems. I was convinced something was wrong with me, that the suffering I was experiencing was somehow my fault, that I was being punished or condemned. And yet, I somehow also recognized that the particular experiences that shattered my mind WEREN’T my fault. So began the cognitive dissonance.
Then comes the homosexuality.
The Church, through its FSY pamphlet at the time, made it very clear that doing anything to even arouse sexual feelings was to be avoided. My black and white perfectionistic self took that very seriously, and so I didn’t. The moment my homosexuality arose in any form, I tamped it down, I suppressed it, I ran away from it. I attempted to shame it out of existence. I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to recognize that these were normal feelings being felt by a normal teenager and that they are not under conscious control, but the Church had made it clear that if I were to have any chance of acceptance and love by the Church, I was to obey and live its standards unquestioningly, and so I did. I got away with it, too. I had a loving group of friends into which I dissipated my sexual feelings. Well, when high school graduation came and along with it the loss of continual contact with that friend group, and then even further isolation on the mission, I no longer had anywhere to put my feelings. And because I never learned how to cope with them in a healthy and mature way, they manifested. Boy, they manifested. Of course, I made it clear in my mission papers that my homosexuality was a phase that I had passed through. This was something I said with the guidance of a professional LDS family services therapist. They should have known better than that.
So not only did I return home broken in mind and spirit and surrounded by a family and Church community that had never really accepted me for who I was, I faced the resurgence of homosexual feelings that I thought, because of the poor mentoring I received, would have disappeared by now. I was so utterly vulnerable, so lonely and isolated, so full of shame and fear and anxiety, and I had no one to turn to. In this state, and without getting into full details, I was taken advantage of by a mentor figure who perceived my vulnerability and groomed it to his full advantage. This was someone who was an authority figure in a faithful LGBT support group. This was someone who had been a bishop, fortunately not mine personally. He was in his sixties and a very successful businessman-- I was a twenty one year old music student at a church college.
I knew nothing about boundaries. I knew nothing about developing healthy relationships. I knew nothing about managing sexual, emotional and romantic attractions. I knew nothing about power dynamics. I knew nothing about grooming. I knew nothing about good ways to develop trust. I just knew that I was desperately lonely, starved for affection and attention, and this man offered generous quantities of it in a way I had NEVER known.
Thanks, Church. I let you define my identity. I let you delineate my path forward. I let you set the terms of my spirituality. I trusted you to empower me, to train and nurture me effectively. And when that never materialized and it all began to fall apart, I blamed myself. Why wouldn’t I? It was God’s church. Surely it couldn’t be wrong. I was the one who was wrong. It was always me. I was never good enough. I was never faithful enough. My life was falling apart despite all the efforts I had made to be faithful according to the terms I was given. Clearly nothing was wrong with those terms-- it was me. It could only be me.
Attending BYU-Idaho became a living hell. I was surrounded on all sides by expectations. No shorts on campus! No facial hair! Curfews! You can be gay you just can’t act on it! Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do that other thing! Attend FHE, attend Church, show your faithfulness by coming to Devotionals! You could not imagine the dirty looks I got one day when I forgot I was wearing shorts and showed up on campus one semester. I want to shake every single administrator at that damn school and say “THE SUPPOSED ESSENCE OF DISCIPLESHIP IS TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AND YOU’VE REDUCED IT TO SHAMING SHORTS AND SANDALS!???” The anxiety attacks grew in intensity and frequency. One night I was five minutes past curfew and couldn’t hardly bring myself to enter the apartment due to shame. Finally, late in 2015, something snapped. My grades were failing, I felt isolated and alone, and I found myself staring down a stairwell considering a jump. Something had to give.
I hiked R Mountain one quiet late-summer day looking for some inspiration. While I prayed, sitting on a rock, I felt a calming voice whisper to me: “Bryce, you do not belong here, and that’s okay. This school is not for everybody. Your inability to find a place here is not your fault. Find a different school.” It was an empowering experience, one of the only moments of real grace I experienced as a student at BYU-Idaho. Soon after that, I had a powerful and difficult realization that not only was BYU-Idaho not the place for me, neither was a career in professional musicianship. I finished my associates degree in general studies online the next year, from home, in shorts and sandals and sporting my first facial hair.
All the time my questions began to grow. This was supposed to the Lord’s school, I thought. One of the beating hearts of His church, of the community that had covenanted to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Here I was, mourning and standing in need of comfort, and not only did the school and LDS community NOT do this, it was the reason I was mourning and in need of comfort to begin with! The whole thing was just not adding up.
All the while, I was doing everything I felt I could to stay faithful, but my homosexuality was quickly becoming unmanageable. Perfectionistic idealism is not a healthy approach for managing difficult feelings to begin with, but soon I was in the bishop’s office confessing a sexual “indiscretion.” Looking back, I realize I was taking my first tentative and courageous steps towards healthy ownership of my sexuality. At the time, however, I felt very torn. Of course, the bishop at the time was also very black and white and not the most sensitive of individuals, and so I found myself subsequently divested of any church responsibilities or privileges. The Spirit whispered to me one day: “Bryce, your worth is not found in your activity in the Church. Your worth is completely independent of that. You are loved and have value regardless of your faithfulness.” I wanted to believe, but that’s all I could manage at the time.
Thus began a cycle. I would break the Law of Chastity, haul myself into the bishops office, repent, start over, be good for a few months, it would happen again. Eventually this led to my disfellowshipment. I remember the utter loneliness of this time. Few in the Church knew about my situation; most of those did not demonstrate any care. They were busy people, I reasoned, don’t have time to reach out. Now I’ve come to recognize that being busy is usually just code for not caring.
During this time I also started school at Idaho State University and began my studies for a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The fit! THE FIT. It fit. I had never felt such a good fit. I didn’t have so many expectations, only just to do well in class. My education was finally not under threat if I made a sexual “mistake.” I got all A’s and B’s. I thrived in my classes for once, not bogged down under the constant anxiety of never being good enough.
After one particular sexual experience during this time, I fled the house of the man with whom I had just had the encounter and sat bawling in my car, pleading with God. But instead of condemnation, I felt something I did not expect: peace, and complete acceptance. But I had just had sex, I reasoned. Surely “The Spirit” can’t be with someone who had just committed the sin next to murder? And yet, here it was, filling my heart with calm.
I made a commitment to return to full fellowship. So, I did. I hauled myself back in front of the high council and received full fellowship again. Looking back, it felt so wrong, like trying to haul a load of hay in a trailer with a broken axle. My spirit and mind were still unhealed and grinding under the weight of full fellowship. I felt wrong in my heart, almost dysphoric. But, per my usual habits, I hid my distress and soldiered on.
That was Fall 2019. Come Summer 2021.
Despite all my efforts, despite all my supposedly righteous decisions and all the faith I had thrown at this problem, my sexual urges were only increasing in depth, breadth and intensity. I prayed and prayed and went to church and did all the religious things that I was supposed to, hoping for a miracle, hoping for the strength. It never came. I finally gave in to my sexual urges one fateful night in the summer of 2021, and in the aftermath, I knew for certain things would never be the same. It was a watershed moment. I no longer had the strength left to stay chaste.
I kept going to church. Kept trying to find reasons to stay involved. My bishop was a considerate and gentle man who appreciated the complexity and difficulty of my situation, so he took my temple recommend but did nothing else.
And I began to experiment with my sexual feelings, seeing what kind of experiences and relationships I could create with them. It was like I had built a dam that was threatening to overtop because I had completely stopped the water, but now I was simply letting the water release naturally through the gates. I learned so much about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my boundaries, my hopes and dreams for the future, the intensity of my passion for the men I love, things I had completely suppressed in the name of religious belief. Things that I now see are just, well, human.
This leads up to a month ago. I had another watershed moment where I realized I had to make a choice. It was either my membership in the Church or my love for men. I chose my love for men.
Subsequently, I began experiencing the panic attacks. Hourslong panic attacks consisting of my mind throwing all the Mormonese it could muster at me to make me reconsider my choice, threatening damnation and condemnation and the loss of my eternal family. Remember, in my world, obedience to the Church was the prerequisite for the acceptance and love of God. I never realized how deep that conditioning went. I never realized how controlled I was by anxiety and fear derived directly from the Church. My faithfulness had never been about love of God; it had always been about fear and perfectionism and shame. The damage that caused me cannot be understated. But, I no longer blame myself as the cause. I recognize this as an oversimplification, but ultimately the Church’s rhetoric and narratives interacted with my characteristics to create this horrifying reality. I didn’t break my own mind and spirit; the Church did. These past weeks it nearly caused a loss of faith in God altogether, because I could no longer reconcile the absolute misery of my religious experiences with the reality of a loving God.
So, here I am, dealing with the aftermath. Now that the Church’s influence on me has diminished, so much is coming to the fore that I never had the wherewithal to deal with. I am realizing the depth and anguish that my mental illnesses, again derived from encounters with Churchy Church narratives, have caused and continue to cause me. I am realizing that if I am to actually heal, I need to divest myself from the thing that was ultimately the source of the anguish. I cannot enter a new paradigm while still attached to the old one. I couldn’t waste any more time attempting to disentangle the Gordian knot manually. It is simply time to cut it to pieces and depart.
I no longer know if the Church is true. I no longer know, and frankly I no longer care. I don’t have it in me to care anymore. I spent my whole life caring. I spent my whole life completely dedicated to a religion that was not dedicated to me in return, at least in any way that I can recognize or appreciate. I spent my whole life attempting to alleviate fear and shame by turning to the same Church that inculcated the fear and shame to begin with. And I’m just...done. I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.
Where to go from here? I don’t know, but I am excited to finally embark on my own journey on my own terms. I have spent a lot of time developing community resources that I can rely on for the love, acceptance and nonjudgmental nurturance that I never really had, at least in the way I needed it. I have had that graceful, compassionate voice whisper to me at times during the intense storms that have consumed my mind in the past month. It has assured me that God loves me, and He will accompany and protect me on this new journey. Perhaps that is the place to start. A germ of real faith, in a real and loving God, and not in the nightmare tyrant of my church-derived anxiety. And I will rely on the loving friends I’ve developed along the way in and out of the Church, who love me for me, and whom I love in turn.
I am also open. Perhaps my journey will take me back to the Church, though I find that unlikely. For now, free of psychological and spiritual entanglements with the institution that is the source of so much of my suffering, I can finally begin healing emotionally, mentally and spiritually from all these years of damage. It is going to take a long time to reconstruct a life worth living after all that I’ve gone through in pursuit of the Church’s acceptance and love.
I am grieving. What would have happened, had the Church nurtured intelligence, wisdom, grace, hope, and faith rather than fear, shame, judgment and fitting the mold? Had it empowered me rather than diminished my agency? Pointed to the God it claims to represent rather than its own self? How would things have been different? I feel like my youth was taken from me. But now I can actually give myself permission to think, to feel, to be creative, to be imperfect, to just...be. I’m no longer exhausting myself in a hamster wheel of unrealistic expectations. I am no longer expecting myself to be an Alma or a Nephi or any of that. I am just allowing myself to be me.
We’ll see where life goes. I feel very sad that I will no longer be a member of a Church that I once loved more than myself, but I also feel relieved that I am no longer attached to the toxic relationship that I permitted to violate my mind and spirit, over and over and over again. And I am leaning into trust-- that the mental and emotional and spiritual healing I have needed so desperately for so long will finally have room to grow. That the God that cares for me will continue to encourage, empower and show me real love as I need and desire it. And, that the things that matter most to me-- my family, my friends, my mission and philosophy-- will not disappear simply because the foundations of my perspective have shifted. I recognize now that there are no guarantees in life, and the world and its institutions will gladly take advantage of me if I let them, so I am leaning into my authentic “yes” and my authentic “no.” And ultimately, I am leaning into a breath, a glimmer of hope for a life that is joyful and expansive rather than bound down by fear, shame and self-doubt.
The Church never gave that to me. So, I must partner with God in creating it for myself.
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