Hi friends. Welcome to Not So Mali Mormon podcast minisodes. I am very happy to be back and to be reading yet another lovely story from one of you listeners. She writes, I just wanted to share with you two

amazing ladies my story of being an ex-woman teenager being raised with TBM parents. I heard on one

of your podcasts that you guys love hearing other stories, so I thought I would share.

Before I start, I just have to say how grateful I am that I found your podcast.

I've only been listening for a week now, but your content has made me feel so much better and less alone.

You see, I live in Utah, so obviously most of my friends and family are TBMs, so I can't just go and talk to someone about my faith crisis without being gaslighted and such.

Yeah, I get it. I understand.

Anyways, to provide with some background information, I have only very recently discovered the awful,

disgusting truths about the church and its history.

Ever since my early teen years, I've been quite skeptical of the church, and never thought

anything seemed quite right about it.

My mom kind of knows that I'm at least questioning my faith, but she doesn't know I want

fully out of this hellhole, and that I actually consider myself atheist now. I am the oldest

child with two younger siblings, and I am expected to set a good example for them. On my mom's

side of the family, I am the third oldest grandchild and oldest granddaughter

with about 14 or 15 younger cousins, as well as a bunch of little cousins on my dad's side, but I'm smack dab in the middle age-wise.

And all of these little cousins look up to me. So being an ex-Mormon creates this awful pressure

to set a good example. I know that a bunch of little kids are told to look up to me, and that's so

damaging because it can lead me to doing things I don't feel comfortable doing just so I can set a good

example, not only to my parents, but my aunt's, uncles, grandparents, and even

older cousins. That's what they expect me to be. Now, I want to talk about how traumatizing

this has been for me. For all of my life, I've been taught this church doctrine and told how to

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