#cojcolds

[bisexualmormon]

04

I know this sounds dumb but I really hate the number four. I don’t like writing it, I don’t like looking at it, just not a fan of the number.

It’s been a bad week for me. Depression has been hitting really hard, and with me working long hours and not getting home until midnight, sometimes it takes a toll. Sometimes when I am at work and we can put on our own music (because the same generic coffeehouse radio day in and day out can grate on your nerves), I will put on a mix. Some of my coworkers call it musical whiplash. It goes wildly from different genre, especially when on shuffle. I put the Reading Rainbow theme on there as a joke to see if anyone noticed, and they did. It’s quite the hit. But something about 90′s club songs really helps. Really gets you grooving. But that doesn’t stop the intrusive thoughts at night. The ones telling you you aren’t good enough, that you aren’t good at your job, that you can’t do anything right. It’s hard fighting off invisible, non tangible threats. You grow up doing self defense classes (because I am a woman) and you know how best to save yourself from those that would do you harm. Physical harm.

No one really teaches you how to fight the emotional threats. 

Spiritual ones yes, that’s what the scriptures are for. That’s what prayers and conversations with god are for. But the emotional days when you are crying in your car on the drive home, the nights where you are unable to sleep in your own bed, where you can’t even take enjoyment from the things you love, that’s what they don’t teach you in school. Sometimes the shopping trips to target are good therapy the ones where you come home with two bags and $100 lighter in your pocket. But it only puts a small band aid on the problem. 

I was at work yesterday when my friend looked over to me and asked ‘are you ok?’. I really didn’t think that this simple question was going to break me like it did. I started breaking down and I happened to blame it on a patient that we lost and everyone understood. Everyone was ok with it. What I couldn’t tell them is that I am sad, that I’m hurting, that I have been hurting myself a lot lately. The pain reminds me that I’m alive, that it feels good to feel something that isn’t just constant sadness and anxiety. I lay in bed and night and I can feel my heart wanting to pound out of my chest and dance across the floor and go live a better life with someone else. But today I found comfort in such a small thing that the tears I am crying right now are not ones of sadness, but of relief. 

I have talked about this before but I have a terrible relationship with my father. Haven’t talked to him in over a year, I don’t keep contact with him and it’s for the best for both of us (yeah, it sucks but that’s another topic for another day). I do have a step-dad who I am close with. I joke with my mom that I might be his child because we both have an intense obsession with true crime. We swap new shows with one another all the time. We talk about cases constantly. We both followed the Lori Vallow case together really closely (didn’t help that he had a friend in the investigation who couldn’t tell us ANYTHING and we were just dying). He treats my mother so well, and he is a wonderful man. My sister and I were watching a show today and while it was sad and we were both crying, it was for two different reasons. She cried because of the show. 

I was crying because I was admitting to my mother over texts that I was breaking apart and self-harming. 

Hard to tell your mom these things when she made my body. Took her nine months and way too long to get me out and this is how I respect her? By causing cuts and welts across my body? Yeah, I was an absolute wreck (but so was my sister because Bill and Frank IYKYK). I asked if my step-dad could give me a father’s blessing. She said that he would love to but he was feeling sick and not awake so we could go see his parents instead. My step-dad has a step-dad who is a great guy, and very in tune with the spirit. I put on my clothes and went out to drive to my mom’s so she could drive me to the in-laws because we both knew I was going to be crying my eyes out after and driving was not in the cards for me with it being dark and me being a big fat baby. We lied and said it was the stress of my job that was killing me and I just needed a blessing to get through some rough times. 

Father’s blessings have been something I grew up with. My dad would give us one before the first day of school, he did it once before my brother had surgery, and I remember one time when I think my mom was really sick we gathered as a family. It’s always been a staple of my life and I just wanted that comfort. But obviously without a father or a male in the house that holds the priesthood, I’m SOL. Back when I was living in Utah I had my visiting teachers come and give me several blessings when I was at my lowest. I remember just not feeling the same way I did as a kid when I got my blessings, I didn’t have that rush, that feeling of the spirit. I don’t know if it was me or something else. I don’t think it was the brothers’ fault. They were great. They were there for me at times I was trying to end it all. But I didn’t feel that warmth that I wanted to have so badly. 

But when my pa blessed me today, there was this rush that came over me, and when I thought I was going to be crying my eyes out, because I am an emotional baby, I didn’t. It was this peace I have not felt in so long and all that sadness was tucked away for a moment. Pa reminded me that I am loved by so many people, and that everything is going to be ok. Just because I am feeling down right now doesn’t mean it’s going to stay. It’s ok to feel bad, doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. My mom recorded it for me, and so now I have this little treasure that I can have, my first father’s blessing (well step-step-grandfather’s blessing) that I have had in ten, fifteen years, and a comfort that is helping to fight back those annoying thoughts that refuse to stop.

It’s late, I got to get to bed. My kitten refuses to leave my hands alone and needs me to pet him. He keeps my hands occupied in bed when I am feeling those little urges to cause some pain. He’s a cute little turd. Even if he refuses to eat his own food and goes after everyone else’s food in the house.

Love you guys.

A.G.

#bisexuality #bisexualmormon #tw self harm #cojcolds #lds #spiritual

[brothermouse]

Guys, I'm, uh...

I'm not sure how to tell you this, but...

Uh...

Warren Jeff's put out an album?

I kinda listened to it and...

Guys... listen...

It's not great.

It's like... You know that thing that we do in the CoJCoLDS where we sing every song like a funeral dirge?

Imagine if someone made a whole album of... that... A whole two hour album..

A lot of the songs are seven minutes and change, and involve what sounds like a children's choir. Also I swear they all have the same melody

I don't know if it's actually Jeffs singing on there but either way... it's not great...

I mean, I know that us LDS folks can be cringy aplenty, but at least we can pick up the tempo once in a while.

The lyrics are also very...not poetic? It feels like they took some preexisting writings and wrestled them into a tune.

Now I need to look up some Community of Christ music. Hopefully they can pick up the Mormon musical slack.

#tumblrstake #mormon #lds #lds church #ldschurch #just mormon things #mormon church #ldslife #flds #also that title #Be Zion Increasingly? #please take a second swing at it

[theblob-1]

Insisting on using the full name for mormons is such a bad hill to die on when the acronym cojcolds is right there

#blob post

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

I've realized today that "no vain repetition" doesn't necessarily mean "no repetition at all". I hear so many people talk about how they start to get nervous when they find themselves repeating phrases in prayer (and I've felt it myself a lot, too). But if you're consistently praying for something specific, it's just repetition which, in and of itself, isn't bad. And that applies just as much to small, everyday things as it does to big things. There are some things I include in every prayer because I always hope for them, and it's become a comfort thing for me. Because I'm not doing it "just because"/to go through the motions or to get praise/attention from someone else, it's not vain, just repetition.

#im sure plenty of people have come to this conclusion already #but i hadnt #and honestly its a relief #i hadnt realized how worried i was about it subconsciously #religion #prayer #christianity #okay to interact #church of jesus christ of latter day saints #queerstake #tumblrstake #mormon #lds church #cojcolds #jeans musings

[ahundredhundredheartbeats]

sorry to be rude but i’m just super underwhelmed by the celestial rooms in lds temples

like i’m supposed to believe that the best representation of the *highest heaven* and the *presence of God Almighty* is like ... 

... a really nice hotel lobby?

#lds #mormon #cojcolds #temple #lds temple #original #and i'm not saying they're not REALLY pretty #and very impressive architecture #and wonderful craftsmanship #they're obviously very nice #but no matter how much effort they put into them #the design itself always either feels industrial or like just an expensive hotel #sterile either way

[lizartgurl]

"Papa, if the gods are omnipotent, then why do they need your help?"

"Because gods are only as powerful as those who believe in them. It's our job to help the gods look out for everyone else. The gods are all-powerful, and they do answer our prayers, but it's usually through someone else that they answer those prayers."

#yall im getting better at backgrounds now APPLAUD ME 👏👏👏👏 #my art #lizart #my ocs #phoenix #coj #nova #sketchbook #sharpies #not so subtly slipping cojcolds philosophy in there im sorry

[randomthoughtsrandomdude]

If I could change any one (1) thing about the CoJCoLds, it would most likely be the cultural stigma around ”opposition”. Specifically, the attitude that you must be doing something right, or be heading in the correct direction, as the explanation for the conflict they’re experiencing. I feel like too often, members try to compare themselves to Joseph Smith in D&C 121, when in reality they should be looking at Jonah.

#lds church #ldschurch #churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints #mormon #mormon church #tumblrstake

[faiththefinalfrontier]

I may have just lied to my 91 year old Mormon dad and told him the item in my left hand is an asthma inhaler. . In my defense, I’ve had to sit here for 45 minutes listening to him angrily discuss how doctors have made things too confusing by changing appointments and that his church leaders “don’t run things the way Joseph Smith used to.” (Presumably he’s still hoping for a shot at a plural marriage before he goes.) . #mormon #cojcolds #josephsmith #weed #dad

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[bisexualmormon]

03

It’s been a very long time since I have been here. Life has been just a roller coaster for me. Yeah, cliche, I know. But I’m getting through life. Long story short, I moved, graduated college, now work in healthcare, came out to my mom and siblings. So that cat is out of the bag. Oh, and I have two pets. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and am now on meds to keep myself together. I feel so much better, but those insecurities are still there. Especially with the current climate that is out there. 

The Trump years were not easy. I am already in a strained relationship with my father, and he is in the camp that Trump was ordained by god to be president. It was hard to hear him talk terrible things that were full of such hate. This is the man I looked up to as a kid. And now we just don’t talk. I don’t want to talk about the details leading up to it, but our relationship isn’t all that great. When I was still in Utah, I was having panic attacks (which I didn’t know where that), and it made it so much worse that I knew that I couldn’t ask my dad for help during those times. But I am focusing on positivity right now. Positive that everything will work out. 

Today wasn’t so patriotic. Everything stressing me out about losing control of my body is taking its toll. My mom did buy us notorious RBG shirts, and so I wore mine today. Still wearing it. Funny how a piece of cotton can give you strength. At work I had a coworker who said that me and other women at work were over-reacting. My coworkers know that I am LDS and that I practice and go to work, but yet I am gay and I am pro-choice. I don’t like talking about religion, especially at work. I usually let that stuff go. Then my cousin (E) and his boyfriend (S) came over to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show. Before we watched it, S and I were talking about church videos we grew up with, and I mean the cheesy VHS tapes. E didn’t grow up in the church and later converted so he had never seen the cheese. S mentioned that he loved Saturday Warrior. My Turn on Earth has not aged well. Oof. Found it on youtube and it was so hard to not have the cringe face. I remembered one of the opening songs, I Have a Plan. Guy in the red cap takes the role of Lucifer (who has the much better verse than Jesus btw) and that’s when it hit me. 

“I will force them to live righteously”. 

I played the My Turn on Earth vhs tape so hard when I was a kid, it’s a miracle it still works (yes, I still have it). I was taught in my household that it is a divine right to make choices. God doesn’t force people to make certain choices. Jesus didn’t walk around forcing people. We have the ability to choose. In my head, forcing choices on people is sinful. It’s Satanic if you want to think about it in the terms of that line from a corny musical written by Carol Pearson and my man Lex de Azevedo. I could go on a tangent how that man sculpted my entire LDS childhood but that is a different story for another day. 

Moral of the story tonight is choices are good. 

I had written a much better blog post in my head while in the shower. Gonna try to get back in the swing of the things so that I can post here for me. If I am going to keep avoiding trying to date since I have no self confidence, least I can do is work on myself. Lol. Do the kids say that anymore? I got old fast. 

A.G.

#bisexual #bisexuality #cojcolds #mormon #my turn on earth #do people even still hang out on tumblr these days?

[faiththefinalfrontier]

I may have just lied to my 91 year old Mormon dad and told him the item in my left hand is an asthma inhaler. . In my defense, I’ve had to sit here for 45 minutes listening to him angrily discuss how doctors have made things too confusing by changing appointments and that his church leaders “don’t run things the way Joseph Smith used to.” (Presumably he’s still hoping for a shot at a plural marriage before he goes.) . #mormon #cojcolds #josephsmith #weed #dad — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2MgxLxy

#Instagram #IFTTT

[faiththefinalfrontier]

I may have just lied to my 91 year old Mormon dad and told him the item in my left hand is an asthma inhaler. . In my defense, I’ve had to sit here for 45 minutes listening to him angrily discuss how doctors have made things too confusing by changing appointments and that his church leaders “don’t run things the way Joseph Smith used to.” (Presumably he’s still hoping for a shot at a plural marriage before he goes.) . #mormon #cojcolds #josephsmith #weed #dad https://ift.tt/2OXxfH7

#IFTTT #Instagram