#im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icannotgetoverbirds · 3 days

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buckle up, this one's a doozy

Idk if it's actually a doozy, but this is the story of how I deconverted from a cult and got my egg cracked at approximately the same time, all thanks to... weed.

Let's set the scene, shall we?

It is December 22nd, 2021. The pandemic has been raging for nearly two years at this point. I am, at this point, still a believing mormon. That said, my attendance to church meetings has been incredibly spotty, with the most reliable method to get me to worship being choir practice.

I am laying in my bed in the evening, and of all possible things, I am thinking about weed. Namely, the church's policy about weed, and the absolute failure that is the war on drugs, and my personal belief system (and also about whether or not I should try weed for my anxiety disorder).

What's mormonism's policy on weed, you ask? Well, it's surprisingly liberal for a whole-ass cult, but still has enough nonsense for the events of this story to play out. To put it simply, you can absolutely use weed for medicinal purposes, but recreational purposes is a big no-no.

This, of course, presents a dilemma: where do you draw the line between recreational and medicinal use, especially in the case of, say, using it to medicate an anxiety disorder? I'm sure that the Church-Approved™ conclusion is "That's between you and The Lord, figure it out yourself, good luck!" I don't remember if I came to that conclusion or not, but I know for a fact that my "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt before you make an important decision based off of Feelings Supposedly From God Or The Holy Spirit" ass would not have been satisfied with that answer.

So I think about it in terms of politics, and logic, and science. After all, science is just our frail and minuscule way of comprehending all that Our Father Who Art In Heaven has created, right? So if Our Father Who Art In Heaven can't give me a straight answer, science surely can.

I come to a few conclusions. First of all, there are very few people, if any, who are qualified to draw that line. I am not included in that group of people. Secondly, nobody in their right goddamned mind would so much as try to draw that line unless they have some serious qualifications in the variety of fields that it applies to. Third of all, and this is where shit starts to unravel very fucking quickly: who in the goddamned fuck are a bunch of old white men who've probably never seen a gram of weed in their entire lives to think themselves qualified to draw that line?

The shelf cracks. The prophets are fallible, even in this day and age. Not only are they fallible, but whoever made this decision is a FUCKING DUMBASS. God must be looking down at them and shaking his head disapprovingly, huh?

So I think to myself, yknow what, this is a stupid fucking rule. And my autistic-disregard-for-stupid-fucking-rules-having-ass was not about to tolerate it. So what do I do? Metaphorically speaking, I chuck it out the window. Who cares? I'm gonna do weed for my anxiety, and if anybody tells me that I'm disobeying god, I can tell them that god doesn't fucking give a shit about weed if he's as kind and loving as the prophets say he is.

A moment passes.

Now wait just a goddamned second! If I'm chucking this rule out the window, isn't there something else I should re-examine? If I'm disregarding what the prophets have said for my own pleasure and recreation, isn't there something regarding the lives, livelihoods, and joie de vivre of countless other people, myself included, that I should be looking at?

Suddenly, the years of (pent-up and suppressed) sheer fucking indignation of the way queer people have been othered by the church hits me all at once, full fucking force. I am angry, angrier than I have ever been. Abso-fucking-lutely not. No. If the prophets are wrong about weed, then they're DEFINITELY wrong about queer people.

And in this moment, I make a decision. "Until the mormon leaders get their shit together, I'm out! I'm fucking done! I'm gonna go live it up and get blazed out of my gourd for shits and giggles, and maybe I'll try a tiny sip of beer, and by god I am going to transition-"

"HEY WAIT JUST A GODDAMNED SECOND"

[Plain text ID: Text in a large, bold, italicized red font that reads "HEY WAIT JUST A GODDAMNED SECOND"]

Shelf shattered, omelette made of my egg, life ruined for the better.

The next morning, I come out to my mom and sister. I still believe in god and mormonism and yadda yadda, I just think the leadership needs to get their heads out of their asses.

Not long after, I decide to finally check out exmormon spaces. Yknow, get the full experience.

I am bombarded with "HOLY FUCK IT'S A CULT. IT RUINED MY LIFE. IT RUINED YOUR LIFE. IT TORE MY FAMILY APART. IT'S NOT EVEN REAL. READ THE CES LETTER, CHECK MORMONISM AGAINST THE BITE MODEL. THINK FOR YOUR GODDAMNED SELF FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE."

I check the sources provided. Well, I'll be damned. They weren't kidding, that mormonism sure can cult started by a con man. At this point, I am now beyond the point of no return. There's no going back. I have seen the light. I want out forever, I want my records removed, mom pick me up I'm scared.

My family never looks at me the same way again :>

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themasterofstudies · 11 months

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Gender queer not in the normal way but in the "i was born a girl and raised a girl but i hated the social customs and expectations of the religious community i grew up in and the society at large and Im not sure i want to be a girl. But i dont think im anything else" sort of way.

#im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon

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f-z-blackheart · 1 year

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You ever think about how there’s no real women mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon?

Does it bother you like it bothers me?

#exmormon #exmo #apostake #ex lds #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight

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girl-in-the-waves · 2 years

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i saw a thread on twitter that got me thinking so go read that first:

for the majority of my time in young womens i had a really great bishop. i was friends with his son. we had a lot of *fun* mutual activities at his house. i honestly valued his lessons and devotionals. but, when i talked to him about the harassment i was facing with one of the young men from a different ward, he didnt want to alienate him from the church by calling attention to his actions. i was given a lesson on forgiveness, and then moved to the next grades seminary class (not super helpful since i went to school with him).

i never felt more alone in the church than i did when his salvation was chosen over mine. the real tragedy of my faith crisis was that most mormons are *good people*. they are trying to help you, even when they’re hurting you. thats why you dont see it at first, thats why its so hard to leave. the community is real, the love is real, but god are they misguided. and then you realize how much damage they’ve done, but you still love them. so now, you lose eternal happiness and salvation with your family and your whole community. or, if you have to stay in the church after you lose faith, your surrounded by these threatening “good intentions” all. the. time.

i dont even really know what my whole point in this is, other than be patient with mormons on their way out of the church, have compassion for the ones still stuck, and dont trust the priesthood.

#exmormon #ex lds #fuck the priesthood #religious trauma #gee wonder where these trust issues came from #fuck the church #exmo #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight

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weaveintheends · 2 years

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I’m still getting used to drinking coffee at 31 years of age, and I still had a ton of milk to my coffee because it’s too bitter for my palate… but, I have to say, when I get the ratio right with a little bit of chocolate…. it’s so good. Coffee is delicious and I missed out on drinking it in college.

#im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon #new experiences #i’m a 31-year-old baby

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laineysbucketlist · 2 years

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Exmormon Tumblr is way better than Exmormon Reddit. This is because Tumblr is way better than Reddit.

#exmormon #exmo stuff #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight

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garlicsolitaire · 3 years

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So I got my ecclesiastical endorsement today...

1. Tired of this cult's homophobia.

2. Tired of said cult erasing other queer identities outside of gay and lesbian.

3. But also not looking forward to said cult learning about aroaces. Not gonna be pretty.

#asexual #exmo #exmormon #exlds #apostake #asexuality #pimo #pimomormon #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #aromantic asexual

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icannotgetoverbirds · 16 days

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image id: a screenshot of a cropped email. in a gray box, text reads: "This is a status update. You do not need to do anything else at this time." Below it is the following message: "Dear [INFORMATION REDACTED]

We have reviewed your resignation and approved it to be sent to the church's law firm, Kirton McConkie. We will email you again when your resignationis sent to Kirton McConkie.

We sincerely thank you for the opportunity to serve you." End image ID.

Soooooooooooo I just got this email back from QuitMormon! Now it's only a matter of time until my records get removed!

#byrd chirps #byrd is an exmo #exmo #exmormon #ex mormon #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #ex lds #exlds #exvangelical #ex christian #exchristian #excult #ex cult #described

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themasterofstudies · 11 months

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Which one of you dropped this off at my local goodwill

#im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon #exmo

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icannotgetoverbirds · 2 years

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a compilation of the ai-generated images i've made today

the one that started it all

One of my personal favorites:

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icannotgetoverbirds · 1 year

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tried to get my stepdad to scan in my quitmormon documents

like an idiot

now he wants to 'have a conversation' (he sounded really pissed off when he said that) so. wish me luck y'all.

#byrd is an exmo #exmo #exmormon #exchristian #ex mormon #ex cult #ex christian #ex evangelical #ex fundamentalist #ex lds #ex religious #excult #exlds #exvangelical #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight

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icannotgetoverbirds · 2 years

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if you've got any ex-mormon friends/moots, be sure to check up on them this weekend. conference is happening and it can be a really hard time for us.

to all my exmo moots and any exmos that may see this post: it's going to be okay. i may not know what it is that you need to hear right now, but above all else, it's going to be okay.

it's okay to be scared. it's okay if this is triggering. it's okay if you watch it or don't. it's okay if you need to take some time away from everything today. it's okay if you need to keep yourself busy today. it's okay to be angry, to be bitter, to be sad.

be extra gentle with yourself this weekend. it's going to be okay.

#exmo #byrd is an exmo #byrd chirps #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon #ex mormon #ex cult #exmo stuff #ex religious #excult #ex christian #religious trauma #tw religious mention #apostake #tumblrstake #mormon #lds #mormonism #cults #if you're a current member seeing this for whatever reason. know this.#while i cannot talk to you right now. this community is ready to welcome you with open arms if and when you make the decision to leave #there is so much out there beyond the church. you are not alone. you will not be alone.#and if you're beginning to question things #or just want to understand exmos better #feel free to look up the BITE model and the CES letter #or don't. it's up to you to make or not make that decision.#but especially for the queer members. again i cannot speak with you yet. but. my heart goes out to you #if you have questions about being an exmo (and you promise to listen instead of trying to bring me back)#im more than happy to try and answer to the best of my ability

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icannotgetoverbirds · 2 years

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#ai generated #unreality #unreality tw #byrd is an exmo #exmo #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon #ex mormon #ex cult #tw unreality #god if only

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icannotgetoverbirds · 1 year

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a little something from my drafts: Hell Is A Church

this is heavily based on religious trauma and is supposed to delve into horror territory once you get to the part about hell, so read at your own discretion

Heaven is full of holy places. Churches, shrines, temples, bonfires. Roads for endless road trips. Massive homes for generations of families. Gardens with butterflies and bumblebees and fields of lavender. Fish ponds that are always warm. Barns filled with soft hay that doesn’t itch and gentle animals. Cabins in the snow full of hearty meals and roaring hearths.

On holy days, beings of all kinds walk from place to place, visiting family and friends, and everyone has a place.

In heaven, there is a long street full of churches, tucked away in the desert. Each one resets to be like new daily. On the opposite side of the street is a construction site and a building full of tools. Sometimes, usually on holy days, people come here. Often, they are far too young, far too small, far too timid – often, but not always. Here they can take the time they need, whether they use sledgehammers, bulldozers, wrecking balls, spray paint, or even simply food and drink, even their bare hands, to say that they have had enough from this place.

Some days are quiet, filled with gentle discussion. Some days are a little louder as people graffiti walls with their favorite obscenities while joking with their friends, their families. Some days come to a roar as bricks are smashed and wood is burned, or as celebrations with the most loving sins incorporated become riotous, joyful contests against holy institutions, long empty of worshipers. Some days are silent.

Hell is a church. One building, far too white, far too cold, filled to the brim with silent, faceless people, gray skin over skulls that somehow still seem to stare at you, despite not having eyes. Your footsteps echo against the hardwood floors for days after you stop walking. The pews are unforgiving and plain and too hard, and the rows stretch beyond the horizon.

The lights hanging from the ceiling make you nauseous, and you swear they’re just a little different whenever you look back at them.

You are the only one here. There is no preacher. No matter how far you walk, you can still see the pulpit.

Sometimes, organ music plays. The people stand, and it fills you with fear as the shuffling and notes blend together in a discordant, eerie melody that seems all too familiar. You stand awkwardly in the aisle, searching desperately for a place that feels better. You have tried the stage at the front. It will not have you.

The only place for you is at the center of the front row of seats, where your blank-faced strangers will crowd too close and hold your hands in their cold, clammy fingers. Your clothing itches and doesn’t stretch, and no matter what you do, it won’t come off.

One day, you meet a little girl. The only child there - still as faceless as everyone else - she startles you from behind, tugging your sleeve. She stares at you, and you feel an immense guilt, a universe’s worth of matter settling into a pit in your stomach. Her dress is long and thick and gray.

You blink, and she’s gone. The organ starts again.

#this is incomplete btw #thinking that this would make a good song #idk how well this translates to other religions and their corresponding traumas #but for exmormons this should hit pretty close to home #exmo #ex mormon #exmormon #exlds #ex lds #ex christian #exchristian #excult #ex cult #ex religious #ex evangelical #exvangelical #apostate #apostake #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #byrd writes #byrd chirps #byrd is an exmo #but yeah if i made this into a poem with proper rhythm and rhyme and then set it to some music?#oh man i really wish i was good at poetry now kdjlskgjsdlkg #but yeah i made this like. idk how long ago #the idea had been living in my head rent-free for a while beforehand #ik that heaven and hell are very christian concepts so this isn't gonna be relatable to everyone.#this is primarily about being exchristian tho #disclaimer i am not by any means a religious expert #you can feel the autism seeping out of that line about the lights making u nauseous it's great

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icannotgetoverbirds · 1 year

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coffee my beloved

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icannotgetoverbirds · 2 years

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the model and the letter

a piece written by a friend of mine, who goes by Kea, about growing up as a little mormon girl.

A little girl does her best to sit quietly, her arms folded, her eyes closed, in the tiny plastic chair. She wears a dress that is too warm and a little itchy. Somebody is praying at the front of the room. Her eyes open accidentally, and her heart rate speeds up before she squeezes them shut, admonishing herself for making a mistake.

The sacrament is in a few minutes. She can repent of her sins then - though she reminds herself that she’s too young to need this: her sins are not her own until she turns eight. Her sins belong to her parents, and she feels a twinge of guilt for burdening them with her mistakes. Still, it’s such a small thing, which she recognizes, and it was an honest mistake that was immediately corrected.

When the sacrament is passed, she eyes the young men bringing around the bread and water. They look awfully nice in their suits. I bet I’d look nice in a suit, she thinks. I bet they’re more comfortable than this dress.

She does not realize that, despite what everyone tells her, she will grow up to be a man with a severe appreciation for button-downs and ties.

At eight, the little girl has spent much of her time wanting to tuck her hair into a baseball cap, to be the girl that everyone assumes is a boy. She doesn’t really want to pull the cap off to let her hair fall out, though. She’s not really sure what’s so exciting about that.

She wears a white dress as an older man conducts an interview for her baptism. He asks her questions. He asks her if she has what she needs.

She lies.

She does not have what she needs. She believes that being baptized will bring it to her. She believes that this lie is okay, because he does not catch it, and if she needs the baptism to gain what she does not have, surely it must be acceptable to say what is necessary to be baptized.

She changes into a white jumpsuit, and her father chants a predetermined prayer before pushing her under the water. When she comes back up, she feels… something.

If nothing else, she has completed the ritual that will allow her to be accepted by her family and the people around her. The water is warm, and she takes great pleasure in swimming away from her father with movements she categorizes as frog-like.

After she dries off and changes back into her ceremonial white dress, several men put their hands on her head, one chanting a different predetermined prayer to confirm the baptism.

She never truly receives what she was looking for.

At fourteen, she is confused, worried, and unsure. She is anxious, and she has realized that she is queer. She thinks she belongs, anyway. After all, her sexuality is the single most acceptable within her community: asexuality makes abstinence incredibly easy.

Her next ritual is with a prophesier of sorts, called the patriarch. Again, a man lays his hands on her head, and speaks her future. She hoped he would have answers for her.

He does not.

She leaves deflated but with a smile anyways - his words still meant something, right?

At seventeen, she begins to question things. After all, she wants to date eventually, but dating a man seems to not be in the cards. She wants to try and date women, but it’s forbidden by God Himself.

She tries to think her way out of it - if God loves humanity, how can He hate love? If He asked us to love one another, how can He accept the hatred His people have for those that love differently?

She can no longer think her way out of it. She shelves the issue, files it away neatly in her brain under conundrums she may never understand.

At nineteen, it hits him. First, that he refuses to be a part of an organization that treats queer people as less than human, as less worthy of glory in God, and secondly, that he is, in fact, a trans man.

Of all the things he is excited to do now that his community no longer restricts him, by far the most thrilling concept is being himself.

He finds a new community with others like him, and learns from the people within that there is more to his old community than he realized.

He learns of an evaluation first. The BITE model, which damns the organization he grew up in entirely, labeling it a cult.

He wants to think his way out of it, but he knows that he simply can’t do that anymore. His filing system has to be recategorized entirely. It’s time to relabel many of the things he learned as belonging to a cult.

On the bright side, he can now remove several concepts from the conundrums he may never understand and sort them into proper categories.

Suddenly, he is no longer an inactive or former member. He is a cult survivor, and he sees startling connections between the actions of the cult and the actions of abusers.

He tries to make a molehill out of a mountain, to level his cult with religions that have similar traits.

Then he hears about the CES letter. He reads it, and suddenly there is more recategorization to be done. An uncomfortably significant amount of fog clears from his thoughts. Things have never been right here.

He had seen the cult’s sharp teeth, just as he had seen his father’s sharp teeth. He understands that he cannot stand by and say, “this is not right for me”. He realizes that he must stand up and say, “this is not right at all.”

He cannot bring himself to tell his family that they are living a lie. He cannot bring himself to dismantle the beliefs that comfort his relatives. He cannot bring himself to quietly say to any member’s face what he should be shouting from the rooftops.

He does not say nothing, however.

He simply writes it down. Types it out on a school laptop, prints it on someone else’s machine, binds it with his mother’s scrapbook cardstock.

He is not sure what to do with the small book. He knows he cannot distribute it anywhere near home. He knows that if his family found it, they might never forgive him, or they might never stop trying to convince him of their truth.

It’s a little funny, actually. It reminds him of a story he has heard many, many times.

#THE PRONOUN CHANGE THO #also #tw misgendering #kinda #not really #it might b triggering as that 4 some ppl tho #but i feel like girl and woman are different genders #yknow?#also also #THAT LAST LINE #exmo #exmormon #apostake #apostate #deconvert #exvangelical #ex christian #deconstruction #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #like holy shit dude it's so good???#i got permission to post this #he told me he wants this to be distributed to as many people as possible #basically like #as long as you don't change it. claim it as your own. or charge for it #feel free to distribute it wherever and whenever the fuck you want #that last line im sorry i cannot get over it #like that hits extra hard for exmos #im trying to see about printing it and sending it to a friend for distribution #i checked and the friend im sending it to doesn't live anywhere near kea so it's all good #he's got quite a few of these

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