Lilith SilversteinThis is my story covering roughly the first 30 years of my life.
I was born AMAB into the LDS church, AKA the mormon church, to a couple of very queerphobic parents. Our branch was in a small town, so it was not a mormon community I grew up in, forcing my parents to be a bit more nuanced in some ways, but also isolating in other ways.
I realized at a young age I didn't quite fit with what my parents thought I should be. When I was ~5, we had a cousin stay with us. She was ~19 at the time. I asked her if I could wear her makeup, she was onboard and did my makeup for me. I was so excited about it! I don't remember how my parents reacted to it, but I think they were dismissive.
Eventually I realized my parents were not fond of boys deviating from what they though boys should be, so I ended up masking a lot. I didn't have the language at the time to explain what was up, so I got more and more frustrated and became a violent child. My parents took me to a counselor in the church. Even though I spelled out what I would later learn are the textbook definitions of gender dysphoria and masking, he just chopped it up as I'm naturally angry and need to learn anger management. This was when I was 6~7.
That didn't exactly work, so my parents resorted to corporal punishment, which made it even worse. I became even more obstinate and closed off. Once in a while I'd work up the nerve to ask why something is wrong, but if they didn't have actual reason, then they would fall back on "because 'god'/'book of mormon'/'bible/'prophet' says it's wrong".
My father would periodically say negative things about gay men. I eventually put together that meant men that liked other men a lot. I started being more secretive about how I felt about people, even to myself. For example, I had a bit of a crush on the character Aladdin from Disney's Aladdin as well as Jasmine, though there was another component to the latter. That component I later learned was gender envy. I wouldn't even admit it to myself.
Eventually, as I became a teenager I started to explore myself. Before I even knew what sex was (my parents and school never explained what it was) I met a gay boy a year older than me. I was 13 when I met him. He took advantage of my ignorance. He didn't do anything without my consent, but he didn't exactly inform me what we were doing. Still, I don't regret my time with him. Once I learned what sex and masturbation was, then I started feeling guilty about everything I did with him and my masturbation.
Back to church, I wasn't fond of it, I always felt like I didn't deserve to be there. Whenever I did open up to people there, I'd only get information back that reinforced what my parents said. I eventually started thinking God made me wrong or I did something so awful that he's punishing me for it. I was convinced there was no way I would make it to the celestial kingdom and be a disappointment to my parents. I would cry myself to sleep often.
I did my best to pretend to be a good little mormon by going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, going to youth events, joining in dances, go to seminary, etc. I was able to lie past all the questions that should have kept me from getting the priesthood and out of the temple. I was sure that god was keeping a tally on my lies and it was going to come back to bite me.
My father was a stickler about the truth. Once he found out I accepted money a neighbor offered me for helping her with shoveling some snow. He knocked me to the floor and started kicking me for that one. Because of my fear of being found out, I became great at lying. I also developed a skill for listening in on conversations rooms away. For a while, it seemed like it was easier to listen to quiet conversations I'm not supposed to be privy to than to someone right in front of me trying to talk to me.
Around the time I was 14 years old, I started engaging hard in escapism and doing anything to not think about god watching me. Video games and technology were my preferred escapes. My parents would ground me for months in addition to the physical abuse. They would take my desktop computer and game console, so I started scavenging parts from computers people would throw out and sneak them up to the attic and build a working computer out of them. I also ran a phone cord up there and got the info for my grandpa's dial-up ISP account to connect to the internet with late at night. Unfortunately, they did find out about that when they randomly knocked over the phone on their night stand in the middle of the night.
I started modding gaming handhelds to get more out of them. They were easier to hide than consoles or PCs. My parents did know I had a passion for computers and they tried once in a while to encourage that when they weren't too angry at me. They got me an Apple iBook G4 for my 16th birthday. Before that, all my computers had been older second-hand systems. They used to make big gestures like that when I was little, like waking up to a SNES Christmas morning when I was 5, a scavenger hunt for a N64 when I was 8, etc. Those stopped when we started butting heads more.
Around the time I was 17, I had become suicidal. I couldn't handle being bi with a strong attraction to men and my desire to be a woman alongside being a good mormon. After a few attempts, I realized I was more afraid of death than surviving. I decided I'd rather live in sin. I started coming up with excuses to not go to church or any events. I was doing horribly in school. I always had troubles getting myself to do school work, even as a child, but I always did well on tests by reading through the whole text book in class, so I usually got by. By this time, though, I wasn't even able to focus enough to read the text book to do well on tests.
I'm the oldest of five siblings (Two AMAB, Three AFAB), but only three (Two AMAB, One AFAB) of us made it past a few months. Eventually, when I was ~19, we found out my father had been molesting my little sister for years. He ended up in jail. His excuse was he didn't know what he was doing to her w as harmful. My mother convinced my sister to not testify against our father, so he stayed out of prison. He did end up excommunicated. My mother took my little sister and little brother out of state to finish raising them. I was left with my father.
He had become suicidal and was afraid of me leaving, so he never laid another hand on me again. Around this time I also lost my grandpa, one that was always kind and loving to me. I spiraled even deeper into depression and just lived in World of Warcraft. It became my escape for the next couple of years. I started hearing enough about Joseph Smith to start losing my faith. I started becoming suicidal again. Eventually, I realized I didn't just want to survive, but I wanted to live. I connected with my grandma more and she helped me start putting myself back together.
I spent the next ten years figuring myself out. Connecting with other queer people and learning to love myself. Though, I always had pent of aggression towards my parents and it was difficult to motivate myself. Eventually I went to college and found my current partner. We moved to the state where my siblings were and reconnected with them. My sister found a wonderful woman and married her. My brother was young enough to avoid most of the trauma from our parents, though I took my aggression out on him back when we lived together when we were little, which I've apologized to him about various times. He grew up to be a very understanding and loving person.
I stopped talking to my parents for quite a while, but eventually my partner and I were in a financially rough spot and I reached out to them for help. My mother had gotten back together with my father, in response my sister stopped talking to her (my sister hadn't talked to our father at all since he was jailed). Eventually we moved in with them as a temporary measure, since they had big house with the room to spare. This was towards the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was tense and uncomfortable, but at least we weren't out on the street. I started heavily masking again and eventually my mother tried pushing me to check out the church again. That touched on a nerve that I didn't even know was there.
I blew up at her. We argued for a while. What I wanted to know afterwards, though, is why I blew up. I didn't really believe in the church anymore. I heard that it was bullshit and I figured I had distanced myself enough that I was past it, but after that I knew there was still something there. I did some searching online and came across Mormon Stories Podcast. I checked out an episode about another queer person that grew up in the church and the floodgates opened. Memories started coming back. Most of what I had typed up here I had forgotten or suppressed until just a couple of years ago.
These past couple of years has been wonderful! Listening to Mormon Stories Podcast and understanding the church as a high-control group has enabled me to deconstruct a lot of my childhood trauma! My partner has noticed a massive shift in me. It's like I have a lot more spoons to work with now. Instead of having to prep myself a day beforehand to do things most people don't see as a big deal, I can just get up and do it. It's like I was living in layers of thick molasses all my life and now I'm finally free.
Now I use my time and skills to help others where I can. I've been on HRT for over a year. I have a wonderful partner. Money is an ongoing issue, but hopefully we'll figure that out. Overall, I'm satisfied with my life now and curious to see where else it will go! 💜
Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸
wjrii
The Cyberwitch