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Dark Jedi, I feel your pain bro. To be honest, i do not think anything you so or do will change him. When we caught my son smoking, we put all kinds of restrictions on him. We even went as far as to nicotine test him randomly. He failed every time but once. Today he is 23 years old and smokes! I do not mean you should not try. One mantra that I used with my kids is that it is okay that you made a mistake. You just have to face the consequences now. The actual change has to come from inside your son. You can give advice and guidance all you want but he will only hear what he wants to hear. Mostly I think you just have to love him regardless.
I have failed as a father so I dont know if my advice is any good. However, having made a mess of my own life and am slowly working out my own issues, i know there is hope for everyone.
I had the goal for temple marriage. My fiancé and I struggled to keep our hands off of each other. We would repent and talk to the bishop. We would be good for a few weeks and slip again. After a time, we just decided to get married civilly. It was the best thing we ever did. First, we did not have to lie to get a tr. I believe many young couples do that. Second, we had a year to figure things out. Third, the pressure was gone. Nobody expected anything of us at that point. Fourth, my wife got to be sexy for one more year. That may sound superficial but for a virgin newlywed it was important. Finally, a year later, we were sealed and it was much more meaningful. It was about me and my wife. There were just close family and friends. So, I guess I don’t see it as unrighteous dominion. I see it as a church letting couples get to know each other. Where i see some of it is the not allowing the civil ceremony for non member family.
I am probably more confused than most people here so what i think might have little relevance. Take what I have to say for what it is worth. I believe many of us have emotionally abused ourselves. Whenever we felt like we were not living up to the standards, we would subject ourselves to self imposed punishments… More prayer, more study, more attendance, more service, more fast offering etc. The understanding that has come to me is that no matter how hard we work, we cannot make it. We were never intended to make it on our own. If the whole plan is real, christ already did it for us.
I agree with the others. Don’t keep going to the pain. You are worth more than that.
Welcome New Light. When I just wrote your name it made me think of you as a hippie. 😆 Who knows? Maybe you are.I find you to be kind of a kindred spirit. I was an 18 monther too. I have noticed there are a few of us here. I am more liberal than the average lds. I don’t often wear white shirts. After a semester at BYU, I decided to never go back. It was a fantastic facility. I had two of my worst professors ever and one of the best ever. The seeds of thinking of the leadership as human started with me then. (Now it has grown into a full grown forest).
Anyway, welcome and i look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you journeygirl and roy. Sometimes I think my expectations of joy and happiness are just too high. Maybe it is just the little things that can bring happiness. Of course those are hard to recognize. It is a lot easier to recognize the negative.
I don’t understand prayer either really. I pray often. I don’t pray as often as I am told I should pray. There was one particular struggle in my life that I prayed a lot. Guess what! Nothing happened. I became very disillusioned. In fact, I believe I was even angry. After stewing for a week or so, I knelt again and prayed. I cried and pleaded and asked what he wanted. I cannot explain it but there was this immense peace that came over me. I swear I heard the words I love you. The prayer where I was asking never got answered. Yet, I got the I love you response. It gave me hope for a while. So, what is prayer?
1. I still don’t know.
2. It seems to work at times.
3. Maybe it just gives us time to hear what we know we want to hear.
4. I believe it is a ritual that is over done at times. (Like having a prayer and a devotional before cleaning the church).
I hope I am not out of line with my comments and questions here but I feel a need for a little support. I don’t want to start a new thread because it relates to this thread. It concerns mental illness. Curtis, I read this blog post and I read your blog post. I have read the comments here. I did not realize there were so many like me here. About 30 years ago I was put in a mental institution for 5 weeks. I was diagnosed bi-polar. I was put on some pretty powerful drugs. They had little effect other than making me sick. About 20-25 years ago they tried zoloft and I got some relief. The problem I have now is I am maxed out on dosage. I hope I can hang on. About 6 years ago I thought I was done. I ended up making it through the next few painful days. Since then I have been pulling myself out of that hole. I don’t feel like I have climbed up alone though. I went through the church’s addiction program. I feel like it was there that I did find Jesus. (btw, I am a life long mormon and returned missionary so I thought I had already found jesus.)
I hope that little background can help somebody understand my questions. First, can a mentally ill person ever find happiness? I am not sure I understand what happiness is. I laugh a lot. I have fun but my heart aches a lot. For instance I love my kids but I hate being a dad. Fatherhood brings me down more than anything.
Along those same lines, by taking medication, I have evened out my life. I miss the highs of bipolar but the lows are just too low. Is there really any way to find happiness? I am mostly just trying to avoid unhappiness.
One of the side effects of my mental illness is that I feel there is nobody, including God, that loves me. I always feel like people just tolerate me. On the outside nobody in the world would even suspects this of me. I am the best actor in the world.
The final question I have is… How do I find happiness? I have tried to find it both in and out of the church. I believe I come closer through the church but rigidness just destroys my inner self.
If this is too much or the wrong place for this just let me know. I don’t get offended easily.
There are a lot of us just like you. Like you, i never missed church. I was so faithful. Then, i suddenly started to hate going. I basically quit going for a few years. I longed to belong again so i decided to go back. I thought it would be an amazing experience. It wasn’t. I have been going again for four years now. It is still mostly negative, though. Here are a few things that help me. First, I think of the atonement as helping me now and not so much when I die. What I mean by that is I call on the savior to ease my burden now. It works sometimes. Second, I try to find somebody to talk to each sunday. (Sometimes that disrupts sacrament meeting because i don’t whisper). Ok I am kidding about that. Third, in classes i try to participate at least once. That is a hard one for me, though. And finally, the one that has helped me more than any is that if I get overwhelmed, I go home.
Just to let you know how we are similar, I’m an RM, married in the temple, raised mormon, never missed church, never missed paying tithing. I was so faithful it was sickening. I am 50 years old and I am still an elder. I am perfectly okay with that, though. It is just hard to relate to young fathers. They, like I was, are just so naive.
One last thing, i was lucky, i did not have to go the tattoo route. I am able to grow a beard. It is braided. You should see the glares on some people….hehe
I hope you can get something out of my ramblings.
Welcome and we are glad you are here.
Welcome to this site. I am not much of an emotional man but when I found this site, I did cry a little. It was such a joy to find people with similar situations. I don’t relate to every situation on here but for the most part I feel the Lord touching their lives. In our church we are taught that only the most righteous can be loved and receive blessings. (I don’t believe it has ever been taught as such but that is how it has evolved nonetheless). As I read some of the posts, I feel the love the Savior has for all of us. Even those in a crisis of faith. Even those of us who have decided to take a different path. Good luck to you on your path.
Thanks everyone. I like HTing. I believe it is a good program for the most part. However, the ppis i havebeen to seem to be more of an interegation than a help. I guess I will just continue to avoid them. After all, who needs another meeting? I am struggling with a lot of things too. But, I have also found that some leaders are on my same page. We recently moved in to a new ward. The bishop called us to be ward missionaries. I definitely did not want to be a missionary. He must have sensed that. His next words were, “I don’t want you out proselyting, I just want you to be friends with your neighbors.” I told him I could do that much. After all, I like being friendly to my neighbors. That reminds me of this. Just be her friend. You can do more for the Lord by just being there. She is going to have to work out her own issues. Maybe she will want to remain LDS, maybe she won’t. Whatever she decides you need to still be her friend I believe.
I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ is about looking out for each other. I don’t believe it is about trying to make others believe the way we do.
That is why I keep going back. I have those little spiritual uplifts and I know it. I love those but then I have the elders quorum stuff that makes me not want to go anymore. So, for now, I am holding onto those spiritual prompts and just enjoying those for a couple of days when they happen. Thanks for sharing your day.
I have been quite impressed with this new pope. He seems to believe what he preaches. I like how he tells the people to live modest lives. He is not talking about dress code. He is talking about not using more than we need. That struck a chord with me. Of course, I still want the nicest cars. I like views that rely a lot on being more calm…. to hear the wind, to smell the flowers and to see the beauty.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I hesitate to post because when I go back to read it later, it does not read like I intended it to read. Nonetheless, thanks for letting me share my views. As for my addictions, which was most just sexual until about seven years ago, I do believe some of it was brought on by church teachings. My porn use probably started back when I was 10 years old. Then a little later, I was molested by a great uncle. So, it was not just church stuff. Later, when I started popping pills, I was just doing it to try to numb my mental anguish. That had nothing to do with religious guilt. That was just me trying to escape.
I used to justify my addiction to porn was okay because I was not masturbating while viewing it. I had been so shamed when I was young that I still believed it was one of the worst things one could do. I was so screwed up that when I had a wet dream, I would plead for forgiveness. So now I am starting to see some of damage that was done. High five me for that. (If you dare).
I agree with the posts on here… Let the couple have some fun.
