Are these things considered to be normal?
I was born into the Mormon church and it was forced upon me practically the moment I opened my eyes. Can someone please tell me if these things that happened are normal with this church? I'm technically ex-Mormon but I am still forced to go due to living with my parents.
My parent's marriage was weird to say the least. They are eight years apart, my dad being older, and they dated for a year and a half to three years (not sure how much) before getting married. This stuff is pretty normal, however, my mom was EIGHTEEN when they got married. So, when they started dating, they could have been FIFTEEN and TWENTY-THREE.
Sometimes, when me and my sisters were younger, we would play on the computers at the place of my dad's work and print out pictures. I did a picture where one of the women was wearing a tank top that had thin straps and was kind of lacy. It was not provocative at all, and it was on a kids game. My mom threw it out and yelled at me.
We were constantly forced to go to church and church activities, even if we were unwell. We could be sick with the flu and still have to go because church was 'more important'.
My parents were always hiding LGBTQ+ content, content with swearing, even minimal, and social media from us. I don't mean just as kids. I didn't even know getting married to another girl, bad words, or producing videos for other people to see was even possible until mid-middle school, which they didn't even tell me then, I found out by google searches and chatter in my school classrooms. I thought I would get cursed because I secretly watched art videos on Youtube before my parents got home from work.
Speaking of hiding LGBTQ+ content, I asked my dad when I went to my 8th grade formal if I could wear a suit (I'm biologically a girl). He said no and got all teary-eyed explaining that 'no daughter of his would be cross-dressing.' When I did get him to let me wear a suit to my first homecoming, he was crying on the way there. And yet, no one judged me at that dance, and one of my friends said she was proud of me dressing the way I wanted because she knew my struggles.
The constant pushing-aside of disabilities. I have misophonia, which basically means certain sounds can trigger me to be angry and/or cause a panic attack. I also have depression (wonder why) and social anxiety. Nobody even cared. Extended family called it fake, and said I just wanted attention, and made me eat with them (eating is my biggest trigger). My parents wouldn't put me in virtual school rather than high school, even with my constant begging. And money wasn't a problem. They said I was over-reacting. Sometimes my panic attacks would stop my airflow, and the attacks always made me miss class, missing valuable instruction. My dad was a teacher and he told me to suck it up. The same people that told me I'd be a high school drop out because I was missing too much school. They didn't even bat an eye when I told them how I wanted to unalive myself, saying that I wouldn't. That hurt more than I can explain.
People's reactions to others leaving the cult -oops I mean the church- were crazy. My uncle, my dad's brother, said he was leaving the church and my dad lost it. He wouldn't show it, but he kept calling him, trying to get him back. When I, in tears, confessed to my mother I hated the Mormon religion right before church one morning, she acted like it was my fault and the members of the church were the victims. Word spread, and the pressure for me to participate in church increased tenfold.
Anyway, I do have more to tell, but that was quite a bit. I would appreciate some ground to stand on, because this stuff literally ruined my childhood.