I have several comments to make regarding this blog, and I wish to remain anonymous, although at least one of you will probably figure out who I am. I can tell you about what I experience as a man with no church-approved outlet for hormones or frustrations, and family and friends who "just don't get it."
I am a 30 year old man, born and raised LDS. Not from Utah though I was born there. I was ostracized by the youth of my family ward growing up. Somehow I survived. I faithfully served a mission, of which I loathed 90% of my time and experience. The other missionaries passed around rumors that I was gay and didn't know it yet, among others, most of which I probably don't even know about. This could be because my better friends have usually been female and I'm a musician who has no intention of teaching at the public school level. It's not a good fit.
As I entered my bachelor's degree program and Institute and student ward, I thought things would be different. Alas, no one that I was interested in wanted to date me. I have possibly always been emotionally unstable, subject to depression. You could call it the tendencies of the creative spirit.
The longer I was post-mission and single in my ward, the more negative comments came my way. Clearly I must have been gay and didn't really no it. Even one of my Mormon roommates passed around that rumor to anyone who actually acknowledged my existence. I was still toward the beginning of this darkest of periods.
As I entered the 6th year of my undergrad, depression such as I had never known took hold. Some days it was all I could do to just show up and pretend to meet my obligations. All during these years I just wanted someone to understand, to love me, whom I could love back. I've wanted to be a dad since I was a teenager.
Over the preceeding couple of years my brother got married, and they got pregnant that very first month. She had a very long, difficult pregnancy, and to top it off, a nurse accidentally broke her water and then they had to force labor. I don't know any other details other than that she had uterine polyps, and some of them ruptured. Bad stuff.
However, all my parents and that brother could say to me about my life was "why couldn't I be more like him, and go to BYU for grad school, and just get married? Then everything would be better." Starting just about Christmas, and also involving reasons I'd prefer not to discuss, my depression took a sharp nosedive, as if it needed to get worse. I was barely hanging on, no longer really alive. Why didn't my own personal hell just end???
I needed to shut off my thoughts sometimes. I began drinking. I contemplated ending my life for over a month, imagining how it might feel, what method might be the most efficient and the most painless. I wished I would just die. I had been slowly falling into inactivity from church for several years, I just didn't realize it. But I didn't care if that's what happened. I needed to end my association with most of those people. All of my good friends had found someone, gotten married, had kids or were "trying," and mostly left me alone. I no longer fit into their friendship molds because I wasn't a couple. The increasing bitterness I felt toward family, friends, and church increased exponentially after that.
Ultimately I had to choose to live or die. Clearly, I chose to live, because I can type this. But that meant beginning a lifetime effort of existence, survival, and healing. It's not recovery because these feelings still exist; the negative thoughts still circulate inside my mind. The guilt that I feel for "not living up to the expectations" is still overwhelming. The sadness of my family and friends, many of whom know this story and see my life, still haunts. But I try not to focus on sadness or guilt. That would be my end. But I can say, comfortably, that I still drink. I still swear. Alot. I hate going to church because I still don't feel welcomed. I can't honestly say that I have a relationship with God.
My depression was preventing me from making serious progress in my music. After addressing the depression and stopping attending church, I can tell you my musical progress has been easier, faster, and greater. Right now I happen to be in a one year program between my masters degree and doctorate program. I am improving.
Despite the musical progress, I'm still 30 years old. I'm still single. I've never even had a first kiss. From anyone. I still want to be a father. But I've basically given up hope of finding anybody, LDS or not, that would have me. LDS women tend to be too judgmental. I drink and swear. Unappologetically. I'm probably proud of it. LDS women are taught not to stand for this. Most non-LDS women in acquainted with are not people I'd want to be with anyway. I feel like I'm facing a life of singledom and without children. In this way I can relate to some of what you are feeling and experiencing when you struggle with being denied what you most long for.
I won't tell you that I want to renew my church membership. Too many years of being emotionally abused by members, with temple recommends, who should know what it means to "bear one another's burdens" and what having Christ-like attributes is supposed to involve have taught me to trust no one beyond what I know they cannot hurt me with. I served a mission. I know what temple covenants church people, especially returned missionaries, have made, and what they mean. I have experienced first-hand the meanness that can be had at the hands of those who should be friends or at least friendly. I have become scarred by the years of mistreatment. I feel no need to associate with people who preach one line and live the opposite. I don't think those people treat everyone like that, but most of them have treated me like that, all because I am different from the norm. I must have been the ugly chicken who was different, since I have been pecked almost to death.
I feel no peace when I attend church. I don't feel spiritually fed or uplifted. I feel no support, no welcome. Only now do I feel at least a bit of tolerance, and of some passing interest. It may be because in my current location there is no student ward. Students and singles attend the family wards, no matter their status.
My bishop has expressed an interest in getting to know me and my circumstances. I find myself hoping to avoid him. Why draw attention to myself in ways I'd prefer not to? That being said, I don't hide either. Just this past Sunday I performed in church, to most people's surprise. Most of the people there don't even know who I am, except that I wear orange and yellow shirts when I bother to show up, and usually have a Sudoku book in hand. I know I'm not helping the situation by building such a wall around myself, but I don't know how to help that. I've been taught to be afraid of church people, and to constantly question their intentions/motivations, and that aloofness is my only defense. I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to add to my hurts.
Only one of my many hurts lines up with those who post on this blog: the fact that I don't have children and I want to. In that way, I have fertility problems, as do you. Mine are not entirely self-imposed, as you might readily think, but also from the fact that no one I could want was interested in me. In this way, look at the support network you have. 1)this blog. 2) husbands who experience this with you, at least to their capacity. 3) feeling welcomed at church such that people don't ignore your presence or ridicule you to your face and back. 4) families that try to help, even if they mis-step once in awhile. 5)friends that you can trust. I don't have that. I suppose I have a little bit of the family support from my parents, but all the rest of extended family can ask is "why am I still single?," "when am I getting married?," and "what's my problem?"
Do I feel broken sometimes? Absolutely. Do I wish things were different? You bet. Do I feel powerless to change? Always. Do I despair over the seeming permancence of my singledom? Constantly. Have I given up hope? Mostly. Do I still look for someone? Kind of, but why bother? Nothing will come from it anyway. Do I feel all alone? Yes. How do I go on? I don't know, but I have to. Suicide was the wrong choice, so clearly anything else is a step up, right?
I quite frankly don't have the time to search for specific blogs, but I wouldn't know how to anyway. So I have no idea if a blog exists for single LDS men. If anyone can help me out, that would be awesome.
I know how it feels to want something so badly that is supposed to be a righteous desire and to feel denied. I don't need all the answers, but I wish I could get a helping hand or a nod once in awhile. Just something so that I would know I'm not wasting my time and spinning my wheels for no nothing. But I can only do what I'm actually capable of. I hope each of you realizes your dreams.
