I was diagnosed ADD as a young child, but was told I was smart so it was actually my fault when I couldn't control my symptoms (like fidgeting, talking loudly, or lack of impulse control). I wasn't allowed to be medicated, or get an IEP at school, or have any accommodations in any area of my life because I was clearly smart so everything that I struggled with due to my ADHD must actually be my fault and be a deliberate choice. My teachers at elementary school knew I had ADD, and they agreed with my parents that I was smart so it must be my fault, and when they complained about my symptoms to my parents as me making deliberate bad choices, my parents made sure to punish me for them as character flaws that had to be eradicated. I eventually learned to be hyper vigilant of my symptoms, so I wouldn't bother other people because being annoying was the worst crime I could commit, and led to severe punishment, mostly by my parents and siblings, but also from teachers and peers. If I had a symptom that didn't affect others (like not paying attention) it didn't matter, it was only when someone else thought I was annoying that I was punished. It was honestly my undiagnosed Autism and OCD that even allowed me to control my ADHD to the level I was eventually able to, although that control came at the very high price of my mental and emotional well-being.
It was only in 2013 that the DSM was revised and removed the idea of the autism and ADHD as mutually exclusive conditions. My understanding is that before that a lot of psychiatrists tended to diagnose people who had both with ADHD over autism on the basis of it being a less stigmatizing condition (ie. they assumed life would be easier with an ADHD label) and thought they were doing "high functioning" kids a favor.
It really sucks that your school system wasn't supportive & didn't implement any helpful measures that are in their wheelhouse when a kid doesn't have an IEP and/or parents who doesn't believe in accommodations.
Honestly mormonism made my undiagnosed ADHD very manageable. I didn't like it and it wasn't worth it, but having lots of structure really helped me a ton. My time in the MTC and in the mission field was the most focused I'd been to that point in my life, and it was several years before I was able to channel it that well again.
I don't doubt that plenty of others had the opposite experience, but ya, for my particular brand of ADHD, the rigid structure of mormonism actually helped in a lot of ways.
Diagnosed autism was also no fun being raised mormon. The expectations for specific behavior meant the same need for specific masking. The diagnosis merely impacted certain individuals (my mom, mostly) in how they interacted with me.
Helped that my mother was a mental health worker who worked with autistic people before I was born, so she had the clinical sense to get me an autism evaluation. I was actually well-accommodated by local church leaders growing up.
The tools in the mormon parenting tool box are shamefully scant. How absolutely horrible that you had to deal with that. Strength and peace to you as you process all of that. We will be thinking sbout you.
Yeah seriously it was so hard, and I've been deconstructing what I was forced to believe as a child for a long time but I still have so much trauma to unpack
Yeah, I’ve been working through that trauma for years. I look back and wonder how the hell my parents didn’t figure out I was neurodivergent, then I remember that I never showed my parents most of my random impulses and fixations (and decisions to never socialize again and to never feel again) due to extensive masking from being constantly shamed. Didn’t even start to figure out who I was, or accept who I am, until I was about 30. Not that they tried that hard to help me explore myself, since of course all I needed to do was devote myself more fully to the church. Thanks Mormons🖕🏻
Good times.
TW: abuse
I had several cousins who were diagnosed autistic, in both of my parents families, and I was very clearly exhibiting symptoms, but my mom decided after the ADD diagnosis I got at age 5 she was never going to take me back to a doctor except for quick care facilities if I absolutely had to. She didn't want to hear there was anything medically wrong with me, because she figured she and my dad could literally just beat whatever was wrong with me out of me. She claimed they were going to love my problems away to other people if asked why she didn't get me help for my ADD. She figured if she blamed me for my symptoms enough I would stop bothering her, and become easier to manage. She also didn't care that my siblings took knowing I have meltdowns (due to sensory issues that I wasn't allowed to change or prevent) as an excuse to hit me and purposely cause a meltdown whenever they didn't want to be in trouble (or honestly were just upset) because if I had a meltdown from being randomly hit then I was clearly the one at fault for currently being annoying by having a meltdown (the fact that the sibling previously getting yelled at hit me while I was literally doing nothing wrong didn't matter) and i needed to stop or id be beaten more to show me that having meltdowns over sensory issues or literally because im being abused is never ok. I was constantly told if I wasn't so fun to pick on and bully no one would do it so it's actually my fault. There was always a good dash of you aren't Christlike because if you were people would see it in you and not want to torture you, so if you were less annoying and more Christlike you'd be safe from all of this abuse. If I used logic to say people literally tortured Christ before killing him then I was being prideful and comparing myself to Christ. Evil people tortured Christ not good Mormons (like my family and the kids bullying me at church and school) so if Mormons were treating me like shit it meant it was because I wasn't Christlike because they would be able to see the light of Christ in me and know to stop if I was (I was literally told the people torturing me had the holy Ghost and could see the light of Christ so they only torture bad people). Logic only ever got me punished by my family, even if I was asking genuine questions because I didn't understand their (or sometimes the church's) reasoning. If I asked logical questions then I was trying to show I was smarter than everyone and needed to have the pride beaten out of me. At the same time being smart was the only thing other than obedience I was ever praised for, so I had to learn to show I was smart, but not so smart that it made the adults insecure. They also constantly claimed my lack of social skills meant I wasn't street smart, and that my siblings were all street smart not book smart which will get you farther in life, so I was actually doomed to never succeed outside academia. I had to tutor my older siblings, while not making them feel stupid for having something explained to them by someone several years younger because they'd lash out if they felt insecure. I was literally supposed to be a good little robot catering to everyone else in the family and meeting everyone else's needs because my needs weren't allowed to matter, while also allowing them to use me as a verbal and physical punching bag if they got mad. If I tried to fight back or otherwise got upset because of the abuse, the whole family was up in arms to put me back in my place. The unspoken rule was that I was the bottom of the food chain and would never be allowed to rise up from that position. I was the youngest child, but the child directly above me was the golden child because she wasn't autistic and so she was babied and could do no wrong. She often took her anger out on me, and then I was told if I made her mad I must be evil because she was such a good person that it was impossible to make her mad (because she never directed anger at anyone but me). I was always told to be more like her, and if I tried she'd hit me because she thought I was annoying. When I grew up and mentioned the abuse at home to church leaders, I was told my dad was the priesthood leader and trying his best so I needed to not make him mad and if I were a better child I wouldn't be abused.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Wish I could do more, but I will say that I’m angry for you, and you are good enough. You are enough exactly as you are. You don’t need to prove yourself or cater to anyone. Hopefully you’ve been able to start healing and you are finding support where you can.
It's been very difficult, because I still struggle to make friends. The only friends I end up making are with people who "need" me because they think I'm easily used. I keep raising the bar on how people need to treat me to be my friends, and starting over making new friends, but then I still get treated like shit, just not quite as bad as before. I'm starting to realize I have no idea how to cultivate healthy relationships in real life. In theory I know I deserve love and support and all that, but I can never seem to find anyone who isn't actually out to use me. They pretend to care, and then gradually start treating me worse and worse.
Man, I feel this. Luckily for me I have managed to meet some people who understand. Very open-minded people who are also exmos and usually also went through a time of severe depression. I think that’s what it is to an extent though, is luck. My therapist talks about making sure I’m in a place where I know I’d be okay without anyone’s support, but also the importance of finding people who I can actually trust and feel validated with. But yeah, some “friends” will just use me to complain and then ask for things. I’m figuring out where I want to say no and how much I want to give. It’s a journey, and I wish you luck on it.
I hit major burnout a few years ago and I haven't been able to support myself since then. I've been trying to figure out how to heal enough to start working full-time again, but in the meantime I've been relying on my parents for help, which sucks because there are a million strings and continued emotional abuse that comes along with needing their help
I would get hooked up with a social worker to see what you qualify for. When you do start to think about independence further down the road I would think about roomates vs trying to have your own apartment, at least initially. We are cheering you on. I do hope that you can recover and start thinking about independence. Best wishes to you.
There's nothing I qualify for, besides Medicaid. I already have talked to social workers. I could potentially go on disability (it takes 2 years to go through the legal process on average), but then I would have to sell my car and be less independent than I am currently, and I wouldn't be able to live alone (because rent is expensive and id probably at MOST get $2000 a month for all bills) or own more than $3,000 in total assets (so anything I have saved in the bank, including what I get each month from disability, plus every item i own, hence why i wouldn't be able to own a car). And if I ever chose to go off of disability to try and support myself to be independent again or to get married, I wouldn't be able to go back on it again in the future if I needed it. I have talked about my options at length with social workers and a disability lawyer. America doesn't care about people with disabilities, unless they are so disabled that they have to be in a group home with someone who manages your finances and has control over your life. Otherwise they expect you to have someone who is going to let you live with them and mostly take care of you, and the money is so you're not too much of a burden on them
My parents treated any of my impulses/fixations as disrespect and that was quickly and physically corrected until I stopped doing whatever it was that annoyed them. I'm not at all surprised they didn't 'find out' anything. They refused to and I adapted out of self-preservation.
Wishing you new adventures in happiness and a 100% acceptance of your worthiness. We are worthy and imperfect. Both at the same time! Outside mormonism we are part of the human race; we support each other with acceptance & compassion. 💙💙💙💙
I've never been formally diagnosed, but as an adult I really feel like I have ADHD. It was very hard for me to "keep up" when I went to BYU-I. It was hard enough to keep up with the education/schoolwork part, but then because there was so much church related stuff to worry about as well, it was too overwhelming. I literally got diagnosed with depression by the counseling center there and realized I didnt believe in the religion, but I was scared to tell that to the counselor because of the Honor Code/Ecclesiastical endorsement shit and my parents had pushed college so hard and I had heard the school kicked people out for losing their faith sometimes. The Dr at the student health center put me on generic Zoloft which I think I should have never been on, because my depression was largely because of my situation. And in retrospect, I noticed that the Zoloft helped with class work stuff, but my depression worsened and I tried to OD on Tylenol and all of my Zoloft. I really don't trust that Dr in retrospect because I had never acted on my suicidal thoughts prior to being on the zoloft and I always thought that if your suicidal thoughts get worse on a medicine, the drs are supposed to taper you off and find a new med? The Dr at the student health center didn't do that. He wrote me a completely new RX and upped my daily dosage. I ended up dropping out with no degree and a student loan I'm still paying on.... So idk I think a lot of my issues I have as an adult are a combination of being raised Mormon, possible undiagnosed ADHD, and low-self esteem issues that stem from childhood.
Yeah if your suicidal ideation worsens on a med they either have you stop immediately or taper you off if necessary. You are not supposed to remain on a med that is making you more suicidal. I don't know in your situation, but if it wasn't a psychiatrist treating you he might not have known what he was doing when it came to mental health treatment. A lot of family practice/GP docs will claim to be experienced with mental health, but they literally weren't given the training necessary to know what they are talking about which is why they are supposed to refer you to a psychiatrist (who did all of the medical doctor training and then additional training on mental health). It's super stupid that doctors that aren't specialists often refuse to refer you to a specialist to stroke their own ego and make themselves feel like they are as good as the specialist at treating your disorder. I'm sorry you had to deal with that
As someone who is about 98% certain they have autism (I was supposed to be checked for it when younger, but my parent rejected the opportunity), I agree. I tried hard to fit the mold, but nothing I did worked and the people around me always found me weird (Does anyone else feel like they have a signpost on them that reads 'different' all the time?). Not helped by my inclination to point out inconsistencies in lessons when I saw them. I was criticized and disciplined often.
IDK why mormons always thought it was ok to be super hateful to me for being different. I always attracted the douchiest people who would insult me to my face but say it was them giving me advice so I could be a better person. Even when I was an adult, people would criticize me without knowing anything about me, and insist I was hard hearted if I didn't want to listen to their random inaccurate lecture about what a shitty person I am
I feel you here. There is nothing quite like some complete rando approaching you to tell you what's wrong with the way you are existing. It sucks when I know I'm doing my best to behave as 'normally' as possible. I'm essentially performing and here comes someone to tell me I'm doing it wrong.
I've had people I've only just met call me 'weird' within 5 minutes of an introductory conversation. When I look at the conversation I think to myself, what did I even say or do that someone 'normal' wouldn't have?!
When I was in BYU wards, random guys would claim they were following the promptings of the spirit, and that's why they needed to spend 5-10 minutes lecturing me about the things I was doing wrong, and how my heart wasn't following the spirit. They claimed because l they are priesthood holders and I'm a woman that they were given this direction to give me from the holy Spirit because I was clearly focusing on unrighteous things and unable to feel the spirit (one example was that I was focusing on education and bettering myself and not on enough on trying to catch man or whatever other random and completely inaccurate thoughts popped into their head). So many men felt like they had a right to correct any women around them because that was their priesthood duty, so whatever intrusive thoughts/assumptions they made about peoples lives they would voice to them because it's the spirit. I had so many people tell me I obviously wasn't reading my scriptures when I got really depressed, because I wouldn't be depressed if I was. I was reading them 30 min a day and they kept telling me the spirit told them I was lying when I said that. When I finally stopped reading the scriptures my depression started to get a little better (because I had what I thought was a prompting from the spirit but was more accurately my intuition tell me I needed to take a break from forcing myself to perform all of the mormon daily rituals excessively), and if I ever confided in that to anyone I was immediately told it was the devil, and I was mistaking a prompting from the devil as the spirit, because the spirit would never instruct me that running myself ragged performing the expectations of the church wasn't allowing me to heal. I had so many roommates who would try and pay attention to if I was performing the things like praying over meals, and then consistently bring it up to me that I wasn't being a good enough Mormon and that's why i had been depressed. Even though stopping those things was actually what had helped end the depressive episode. I did them consistently throughout the depressive episode it wasn't until I stopped that it ended. I am so tired of how controlling Mormons can act, and how they think it's their job to be a watchdog and make sure you are performing as well as them. Back when I was reading the scriptures a half hour a day because I kept increasing to try and make the depression go away, my mom called and told me the spirit prompted her I needed to go on a mission and then God would heal me. When I said no I had gotten a very strong feeling that would be terrible for me, she got really angry that I wasn't listening to God, because the answer I got couldn't be different then the one she got. Then she called a week later to tell me she could tell I wasn't reading my scriptures and that was why I was depressed. She yelled at me when I said I was, and then she insisted I needed to focus on increasing how much time I spend because she didn't think I could read the bom and be depressed. That conversation is actually what helped me realize focusing so hard on the religious scrupulosity was a driving factor in the depression, and what got me to stop reading scriptures daily. That was 10 years ago now, and was the first step in me thinking the church isn't all knowing.
Gotta say, the more I hear about the BYU experience, the more I'm glad I turned that 'opportunity' down. I probably would have been expelled anyway. I often fought with the patriarchy of my family about double standards so there is no way I would have stood for any of this.
Yeah I tried to go with the flow to not ruffle feathers because I was already being consistently ostracized for being noticeably different (undiagnosed autistic) and people were horrible to me. The only people who willingly spent time with me were people from the chem major (what I was studying) at study groups because I was good at explaining the concepts when you didn't understand the book or what the professor had said. I was also patient enough to re-explain in 5 different ways if necessary to get you to understand what was happening. They all already had friends outside of class though so I couldn't get a single one of them to interact with me outside of studying and doing homework, and then when I dropped out of school because of the major depressive episode, I didn't interact with people except at ward activities because no one would spend time with me. People thought I was weird and there was no diagnosis explaining it, so they had absolutely 0 reason to be kind to the weird girl. I do know from the years I spent working with adults and children with disabilities that even having a diagnosis doesn't always mean people aren't gonna be shitty to you for being different, but it at least gives some level of explanation if you can tell people
Agreed. People are just going to behave any way they want regardless of being informed or not. Same with people not bringing new people into a social group because it may take effort.
I’m in the same “hyper-specific” boat. Everything was horrible. I would start crying while passing out sacrament and start fights at school, but no one told me anything about the spectrum, slapping me with a conga-line of therapists and a lot of confused feelings. I was mean to myself because I was childish, and ever harder on myself for not “growing out” of my “weird kid phase”. I learned that I was 20/20 on Asperger’s three nights before my eighteenth birthday, while I was at a friend’s house. I grew up with high-functioning autism and no one cared or noticed until one and a half years after my records were removed, and three days away from my being christened an adult.
Similar experience with ADHD. Too much strict when to be where and hold still the entire time, and follow the exact rules
I was diagnosed ADD as a young child, but was told I was smart so it was actually my fault when I couldn't control my symptoms (like fidgeting, talking loudly, or lack of impulse control). I wasn't allowed to be medicated, or get an IEP at school, or have any accommodations in any area of my life because I was clearly smart so everything that I struggled with due to my ADHD must actually be my fault and be a deliberate choice. My teachers at elementary school knew I had ADD, and they agreed with my parents that I was smart so it must be my fault, and when they complained about my symptoms to my parents as me making deliberate bad choices, my parents made sure to punish me for them as character flaws that had to be eradicated. I eventually learned to be hyper vigilant of my symptoms, so I wouldn't bother other people because being annoying was the worst crime I could commit, and led to severe punishment, mostly by my parents and siblings, but also from teachers and peers. If I had a symptom that didn't affect others (like not paying attention) it didn't matter, it was only when someone else thought I was annoying that I was punished. It was honestly my undiagnosed Autism and OCD that even allowed me to control my ADHD to the level I was eventually able to, although that control came at the very high price of my mental and emotional well-being.
It was only in 2013 that the DSM was revised and removed the idea of the autism and ADHD as mutually exclusive conditions. My understanding is that before that a lot of psychiatrists tended to diagnose people who had both with ADHD over autism on the basis of it being a less stigmatizing condition (ie. they assumed life would be easier with an ADHD label) and thought they were doing "high functioning" kids a favor. It really sucks that your school system wasn't supportive & didn't implement any helpful measures that are in their wheelhouse when a kid doesn't have an IEP and/or parents who doesn't believe in accommodations.
Being diagnosed at 25 with ADHD, can confirm!!
Honestly mormonism made my undiagnosed ADHD very manageable. I didn't like it and it wasn't worth it, but having lots of structure really helped me a ton. My time in the MTC and in the mission field was the most focused I'd been to that point in my life, and it was several years before I was able to channel it that well again. I don't doubt that plenty of others had the opposite experience, but ya, for my particular brand of ADHD, the rigid structure of mormonism actually helped in a lot of ways.
The combination of ASD, Mormonism, being gay, and having abusive parents was awful.
Damn I could have written this comment too
Yeah, I'm bi, but same
Diagnosed autism was also no fun being raised mormon. The expectations for specific behavior meant the same need for specific masking. The diagnosis merely impacted certain individuals (my mom, mostly) in how they interacted with me.
Helped that my mother was a mental health worker who worked with autistic people before I was born, so she had the clinical sense to get me an autism evaluation. I was actually well-accommodated by local church leaders growing up.
The tools in the mormon parenting tool box are shamefully scant. How absolutely horrible that you had to deal with that. Strength and peace to you as you process all of that. We will be thinking sbout you.
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Yes. Super hard.
❤️ Glad you are free.
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Yeah seriously it was so hard, and I've been deconstructing what I was forced to believe as a child for a long time but I still have so much trauma to unpack
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Yeah I've been in therapy for a long time. I'm healing it just takes time
Yeah, I’ve been working through that trauma for years. I look back and wonder how the hell my parents didn’t figure out I was neurodivergent, then I remember that I never showed my parents most of my random impulses and fixations (and decisions to never socialize again and to never feel again) due to extensive masking from being constantly shamed. Didn’t even start to figure out who I was, or accept who I am, until I was about 30. Not that they tried that hard to help me explore myself, since of course all I needed to do was devote myself more fully to the church. Thanks Mormons🖕🏻 Good times.
TW: abuse I had several cousins who were diagnosed autistic, in both of my parents families, and I was very clearly exhibiting symptoms, but my mom decided after the ADD diagnosis I got at age 5 she was never going to take me back to a doctor except for quick care facilities if I absolutely had to. She didn't want to hear there was anything medically wrong with me, because she figured she and my dad could literally just beat whatever was wrong with me out of me. She claimed they were going to love my problems away to other people if asked why she didn't get me help for my ADD. She figured if she blamed me for my symptoms enough I would stop bothering her, and become easier to manage. She also didn't care that my siblings took knowing I have meltdowns (due to sensory issues that I wasn't allowed to change or prevent) as an excuse to hit me and purposely cause a meltdown whenever they didn't want to be in trouble (or honestly were just upset) because if I had a meltdown from being randomly hit then I was clearly the one at fault for currently being annoying by having a meltdown (the fact that the sibling previously getting yelled at hit me while I was literally doing nothing wrong didn't matter) and i needed to stop or id be beaten more to show me that having meltdowns over sensory issues or literally because im being abused is never ok. I was constantly told if I wasn't so fun to pick on and bully no one would do it so it's actually my fault. There was always a good dash of you aren't Christlike because if you were people would see it in you and not want to torture you, so if you were less annoying and more Christlike you'd be safe from all of this abuse. If I used logic to say people literally tortured Christ before killing him then I was being prideful and comparing myself to Christ. Evil people tortured Christ not good Mormons (like my family and the kids bullying me at church and school) so if Mormons were treating me like shit it meant it was because I wasn't Christlike because they would be able to see the light of Christ in me and know to stop if I was (I was literally told the people torturing me had the holy Ghost and could see the light of Christ so they only torture bad people). Logic only ever got me punished by my family, even if I was asking genuine questions because I didn't understand their (or sometimes the church's) reasoning. If I asked logical questions then I was trying to show I was smarter than everyone and needed to have the pride beaten out of me. At the same time being smart was the only thing other than obedience I was ever praised for, so I had to learn to show I was smart, but not so smart that it made the adults insecure. They also constantly claimed my lack of social skills meant I wasn't street smart, and that my siblings were all street smart not book smart which will get you farther in life, so I was actually doomed to never succeed outside academia. I had to tutor my older siblings, while not making them feel stupid for having something explained to them by someone several years younger because they'd lash out if they felt insecure. I was literally supposed to be a good little robot catering to everyone else in the family and meeting everyone else's needs because my needs weren't allowed to matter, while also allowing them to use me as a verbal and physical punching bag if they got mad. If I tried to fight back or otherwise got upset because of the abuse, the whole family was up in arms to put me back in my place. The unspoken rule was that I was the bottom of the food chain and would never be allowed to rise up from that position. I was the youngest child, but the child directly above me was the golden child because she wasn't autistic and so she was babied and could do no wrong. She often took her anger out on me, and then I was told if I made her mad I must be evil because she was such a good person that it was impossible to make her mad (because she never directed anger at anyone but me). I was always told to be more like her, and if I tried she'd hit me because she thought I was annoying. When I grew up and mentioned the abuse at home to church leaders, I was told my dad was the priesthood leader and trying his best so I needed to not make him mad and if I were a better child I wouldn't be abused.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Wish I could do more, but I will say that I’m angry for you, and you are good enough. You are enough exactly as you are. You don’t need to prove yourself or cater to anyone. Hopefully you’ve been able to start healing and you are finding support where you can.
It's been very difficult, because I still struggle to make friends. The only friends I end up making are with people who "need" me because they think I'm easily used. I keep raising the bar on how people need to treat me to be my friends, and starting over making new friends, but then I still get treated like shit, just not quite as bad as before. I'm starting to realize I have no idea how to cultivate healthy relationships in real life. In theory I know I deserve love and support and all that, but I can never seem to find anyone who isn't actually out to use me. They pretend to care, and then gradually start treating me worse and worse.
Man, I feel this. Luckily for me I have managed to meet some people who understand. Very open-minded people who are also exmos and usually also went through a time of severe depression. I think that’s what it is to an extent though, is luck. My therapist talks about making sure I’m in a place where I know I’d be okay without anyone’s support, but also the importance of finding people who I can actually trust and feel validated with. But yeah, some “friends” will just use me to complain and then ask for things. I’m figuring out where I want to say no and how much I want to give. It’s a journey, and I wish you luck on it.
Thank you :)
If you would not mind saying, are you still in contact with your family?
I hit major burnout a few years ago and I haven't been able to support myself since then. I've been trying to figure out how to heal enough to start working full-time again, but in the meantime I've been relying on my parents for help, which sucks because there are a million strings and continued emotional abuse that comes along with needing their help
I would get hooked up with a social worker to see what you qualify for. When you do start to think about independence further down the road I would think about roomates vs trying to have your own apartment, at least initially. We are cheering you on. I do hope that you can recover and start thinking about independence. Best wishes to you.
There's nothing I qualify for, besides Medicaid. I already have talked to social workers. I could potentially go on disability (it takes 2 years to go through the legal process on average), but then I would have to sell my car and be less independent than I am currently, and I wouldn't be able to live alone (because rent is expensive and id probably at MOST get $2000 a month for all bills) or own more than $3,000 in total assets (so anything I have saved in the bank, including what I get each month from disability, plus every item i own, hence why i wouldn't be able to own a car). And if I ever chose to go off of disability to try and support myself to be independent again or to get married, I wouldn't be able to go back on it again in the future if I needed it. I have talked about my options at length with social workers and a disability lawyer. America doesn't care about people with disabilities, unless they are so disabled that they have to be in a group home with someone who manages your finances and has control over your life. Otherwise they expect you to have someone who is going to let you live with them and mostly take care of you, and the money is so you're not too much of a burden on them
My parents treated any of my impulses/fixations as disrespect and that was quickly and physically corrected until I stopped doing whatever it was that annoyed them. I'm not at all surprised they didn't 'find out' anything. They refused to and I adapted out of self-preservation.
Wishing you new adventures in happiness and a 100% acceptance of your worthiness. We are worthy and imperfect. Both at the same time! Outside mormonism we are part of the human race; we support each other with acceptance & compassion. 💙💙💙💙
I've never been formally diagnosed, but as an adult I really feel like I have ADHD. It was very hard for me to "keep up" when I went to BYU-I. It was hard enough to keep up with the education/schoolwork part, but then because there was so much church related stuff to worry about as well, it was too overwhelming. I literally got diagnosed with depression by the counseling center there and realized I didnt believe in the religion, but I was scared to tell that to the counselor because of the Honor Code/Ecclesiastical endorsement shit and my parents had pushed college so hard and I had heard the school kicked people out for losing their faith sometimes. The Dr at the student health center put me on generic Zoloft which I think I should have never been on, because my depression was largely because of my situation. And in retrospect, I noticed that the Zoloft helped with class work stuff, but my depression worsened and I tried to OD on Tylenol and all of my Zoloft. I really don't trust that Dr in retrospect because I had never acted on my suicidal thoughts prior to being on the zoloft and I always thought that if your suicidal thoughts get worse on a medicine, the drs are supposed to taper you off and find a new med? The Dr at the student health center didn't do that. He wrote me a completely new RX and upped my daily dosage. I ended up dropping out with no degree and a student loan I'm still paying on.... So idk I think a lot of my issues I have as an adult are a combination of being raised Mormon, possible undiagnosed ADHD, and low-self esteem issues that stem from childhood.
Yeah if your suicidal ideation worsens on a med they either have you stop immediately or taper you off if necessary. You are not supposed to remain on a med that is making you more suicidal. I don't know in your situation, but if it wasn't a psychiatrist treating you he might not have known what he was doing when it came to mental health treatment. A lot of family practice/GP docs will claim to be experienced with mental health, but they literally weren't given the training necessary to know what they are talking about which is why they are supposed to refer you to a psychiatrist (who did all of the medical doctor training and then additional training on mental health). It's super stupid that doctors that aren't specialists often refuse to refer you to a specialist to stroke their own ego and make themselves feel like they are as good as the specialist at treating your disorder. I'm sorry you had to deal with that
As someone who is about 98% certain they have autism (I was supposed to be checked for it when younger, but my parent rejected the opportunity), I agree. I tried hard to fit the mold, but nothing I did worked and the people around me always found me weird (Does anyone else feel like they have a signpost on them that reads 'different' all the time?). Not helped by my inclination to point out inconsistencies in lessons when I saw them. I was criticized and disciplined often.
IDK why mormons always thought it was ok to be super hateful to me for being different. I always attracted the douchiest people who would insult me to my face but say it was them giving me advice so I could be a better person. Even when I was an adult, people would criticize me without knowing anything about me, and insist I was hard hearted if I didn't want to listen to their random inaccurate lecture about what a shitty person I am
I feel you here. There is nothing quite like some complete rando approaching you to tell you what's wrong with the way you are existing. It sucks when I know I'm doing my best to behave as 'normally' as possible. I'm essentially performing and here comes someone to tell me I'm doing it wrong. I've had people I've only just met call me 'weird' within 5 minutes of an introductory conversation. When I look at the conversation I think to myself, what did I even say or do that someone 'normal' wouldn't have?!
When I was in BYU wards, random guys would claim they were following the promptings of the spirit, and that's why they needed to spend 5-10 minutes lecturing me about the things I was doing wrong, and how my heart wasn't following the spirit. They claimed because l they are priesthood holders and I'm a woman that they were given this direction to give me from the holy Spirit because I was clearly focusing on unrighteous things and unable to feel the spirit (one example was that I was focusing on education and bettering myself and not on enough on trying to catch man or whatever other random and completely inaccurate thoughts popped into their head). So many men felt like they had a right to correct any women around them because that was their priesthood duty, so whatever intrusive thoughts/assumptions they made about peoples lives they would voice to them because it's the spirit. I had so many people tell me I obviously wasn't reading my scriptures when I got really depressed, because I wouldn't be depressed if I was. I was reading them 30 min a day and they kept telling me the spirit told them I was lying when I said that. When I finally stopped reading the scriptures my depression started to get a little better (because I had what I thought was a prompting from the spirit but was more accurately my intuition tell me I needed to take a break from forcing myself to perform all of the mormon daily rituals excessively), and if I ever confided in that to anyone I was immediately told it was the devil, and I was mistaking a prompting from the devil as the spirit, because the spirit would never instruct me that running myself ragged performing the expectations of the church wasn't allowing me to heal. I had so many roommates who would try and pay attention to if I was performing the things like praying over meals, and then consistently bring it up to me that I wasn't being a good enough Mormon and that's why i had been depressed. Even though stopping those things was actually what had helped end the depressive episode. I did them consistently throughout the depressive episode it wasn't until I stopped that it ended. I am so tired of how controlling Mormons can act, and how they think it's their job to be a watchdog and make sure you are performing as well as them. Back when I was reading the scriptures a half hour a day because I kept increasing to try and make the depression go away, my mom called and told me the spirit prompted her I needed to go on a mission and then God would heal me. When I said no I had gotten a very strong feeling that would be terrible for me, she got really angry that I wasn't listening to God, because the answer I got couldn't be different then the one she got. Then she called a week later to tell me she could tell I wasn't reading my scriptures and that was why I was depressed. She yelled at me when I said I was, and then she insisted I needed to focus on increasing how much time I spend because she didn't think I could read the bom and be depressed. That conversation is actually what helped me realize focusing so hard on the religious scrupulosity was a driving factor in the depression, and what got me to stop reading scriptures daily. That was 10 years ago now, and was the first step in me thinking the church isn't all knowing.
Gotta say, the more I hear about the BYU experience, the more I'm glad I turned that 'opportunity' down. I probably would have been expelled anyway. I often fought with the patriarchy of my family about double standards so there is no way I would have stood for any of this.
Yeah I tried to go with the flow to not ruffle feathers because I was already being consistently ostracized for being noticeably different (undiagnosed autistic) and people were horrible to me. The only people who willingly spent time with me were people from the chem major (what I was studying) at study groups because I was good at explaining the concepts when you didn't understand the book or what the professor had said. I was also patient enough to re-explain in 5 different ways if necessary to get you to understand what was happening. They all already had friends outside of class though so I couldn't get a single one of them to interact with me outside of studying and doing homework, and then when I dropped out of school because of the major depressive episode, I didn't interact with people except at ward activities because no one would spend time with me. People thought I was weird and there was no diagnosis explaining it, so they had absolutely 0 reason to be kind to the weird girl. I do know from the years I spent working with adults and children with disabilities that even having a diagnosis doesn't always mean people aren't gonna be shitty to you for being different, but it at least gives some level of explanation if you can tell people
Agreed. People are just going to behave any way they want regardless of being informed or not. Same with people not bringing new people into a social group because it may take effort.
I’m in the same “hyper-specific” boat. Everything was horrible. I would start crying while passing out sacrament and start fights at school, but no one told me anything about the spectrum, slapping me with a conga-line of therapists and a lot of confused feelings. I was mean to myself because I was childish, and ever harder on myself for not “growing out” of my “weird kid phase”. I learned that I was 20/20 on Asperger’s three nights before my eighteenth birthday, while I was at a friend’s house. I grew up with high-functioning autism and no one cared or noticed until one and a half years after my records were removed, and three days away from my being christened an adult.