Jas660

I think my therapist has had me do something similar before. She has asked me to do a “perfect world” scenario where I say what I would like to have happen. I haven’t tried that exercise with the fear before. I think it might help. Thanks for the idea. I tried this just as a mental exercise today. I wasn’t feeling any fear just running it though my head. I found I got angry. First I got angry at myself, the thought being “how can you imprint this negative behavior onto a child”. Then I got mad at my own parents for having done it me. I wasn’t feeling anything when I started, when I ended I was both angry and annoyed. The angry emotion was directed at my parents. The annoyed emotion was directed at me. In both case it gave me something to wright/think about for a while. That was an interesting thought exercises, it lead me to an feeling emotional. I’ve often found that when that happens it’s a good thing. Thank you for the suggestions.

I got somewhat lucky as my parents stopped attending church when I was about 10. Unfortunately it wasn’t for any logical or principled reasons. My mom more or less started her own weird little cult that still revolved around god. She just didn’t want to have the restrictions that the LDS church put on her. I think I could some up her new cult rules as “what she feels is gods will”. The only reason why I said somewhat lucky is because I didn’t have to leave the church when I was older. I have seen how hard that is. When I first found FDR one of the people I showed it to was my cousin an active LDS member. At first we had very fun and often lengthy discussions about the topics brought up by FDR. When I started talking about parenting and the negative effects of raising a children religious with my family (both immediate and distant) I was quite quickly shunned. When he saw this he stopped talking about it. Then he tried to find a way to justify the church. I kept in contact with him for several months after this hoping if we kept talking about philosophy he could work up the courage to implement it in his own life. Unfortunately he never did. Last time I spoke with him he was still trying to justify staying in the Mormon Church. He even said he would still raise any kids he might have LDS. It saddened me as he got very angry about his own parents raising him LDS. He never did get enough courage to talk to his own parents about it. Now if he has kids hill will repeat his own torment on them. In a lot of ways, it’s even worse as he has seen what his actions do to children.

I got somewhat lucky as my parents stopped attending church when I was about 10. Unfortunately it wasn’t for any logical or principled reasons. My mom more or less started her own weird little cult that still revolved around god. She just didn’t want to have the restrictions that the LDS church put on her. I think I could some up her new cult rules as “what she feels is gods will”. The only reason why I said somewhat lucky is because I didn’t have to leave the church when I was older. I have seen how hard that is. When I first found FDR one of the people I showed it to was my cousin an active LDS member. At first we had very fun and often lengthy discussions about the topics brought up by FDR. When I started talking about parenting and the negative effects of raising a children religious with my family (both immediate and distant) I was quite quickly shunned. When he saw this he stopped talking about it. Then he tried to find a way to justify the church. I kept in contact with him for several months after this hoping if he we kept talking about philosophy he could work up the courage to implement it in his own life. Unfortunately he never did. Last time I spoke with him he was still trying to justify staying in the Mormon Church. He even said he would still raise any kids he might have LDS. It saddened me as he got very angry about his own parents raising him LDS. He never did get enough courage to talk to his own parents about it. Now if he has kids hill will repeat his own torment on them. In a lot of ways, it’s even worse has he has seen what he is really doing.

To some degree I have. The past 2 weeks this is the topic I've been working on in therapy. It's partially why I finally came to the boards. I've had the desire to come for a while. It's the same fear (abandonment/rejection) that has kept me away this long. I'm making progress, it just some times feels like I have to move an immovable object. To be honest, when I first looked at this thread today I couldn't read any replies. I got a lot of anxiety seeing a response to it. My hands started shaking, I didn't read anything until lunch (2hrs later).

I’m sorry I didn’t clarify what I was talking about very well. When I was talking about emotions I meant irrational emotions such as I fear when asserting myself. I realize that when I was a child and originally had these emotions they were most likely very rational and were based on helping me survive. An example of how I mean they are irrational is if someone asked me where I want to go for lunch the thought process/emotions of “I can’t disappoint/anger them otherwise they will reject me” isn’t healthy. A few years ago this was my experiences for just about anything that required me putting forth a preference. Back then I would reply “I’m not really feeling like anything, I’m fine with whatever you want” just so I didn’t have to state a preferences. My primary goal in therapy has been to accept my own feelings and work on expressing them. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m okay with my own feelings, I’m still terrified to express them. I have one person in my life that I’m comfortable being myself with. Even with him we’ve had conversations about how I feel nervous putting forth a preferences.

I’ve never tried to get familiar with emotions before. I’ve usually worked at them until they either disappear or are so minor they don’t inhibit me. I haven’t been able to achieve either of these with this feeling. Getting to know it seems interesting. I often know when it will come up so I think I can prepare myself for it. I have always either pushed through it or ran from it. I’ll try familiarizing myself with it and see where that leads me. Thanks for the suggestion. The worst case scenario is something that I’m semi-familiar with. My therapist has had me try it a few times. In this particular case it’s felt weird. I was abandoned by my parents when I started my path down philosophy and phycology. The final conversation I had with them(about 2 years ago) was something like this. My parents told me I either had to accept them the way they were or leave. As I wasn’t willing to stay around people that couldn’t let me have my own thoughts and desires I left. In reality my fears have already happened. I just haven't figured out how to let my 5 year old self know that. I can really relate to that . About a 2 years prior to finding FDR I started to lose “friends” simply because I stopped doing what they wanted all the time. I didn’t assert what I wanted to do, I just stopped being 100% complicit with what they wanted me to do. Many of the people I knew stopped associating with me simply because I didn’t do everything they wanted me to.

I’m currently working on overcoming a powerful emotional response I have when it comes to asserting my own preferences. My problem is I don’t. When I attempt to I hit a wall of fear that leads me to staying quite or not participating. I’m currently in therapy and I've figured out where it comes from. I’m just not sure the best way to work through it. The problem comes from early childhood where I learned not to put fourth my own preferences as this would result in abusive behavior from my mother. One of three things happened when I put forth a preference. One, my mother would get angry and yell at me. Two, she would attack what I put forth as a desire. Three, if it was with other people she would make me feel insecure about going to the point that I would say I don’t want to go. What I've found that has helped in the past is re-imaging scenarios placing myself in there as an adult and defending myself from her. I've grown comfortable doing this. What I’m having difficulties doing is imagining myself asserting my preferences. I think the fear I experiences is abandonment and rejection. My mom threatened us a few times with taking us to an orphanage and leaving us there. With me and my younger siblings she acted like she was calling the orphanage. With my older siblings my parents drove downtown at night and told them to get out of the car. They said they were going to drive off and leave them if they didn't behave. I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions on way that might help me work through this.

Ha ha ha, I've often thought of them as the "Borg". I agree Utah would be amazing if they left. Were you raised Mormon as well?

My name is Jason and I’m 27 years old. I've been aware of FDR for nearly 3 years. The latter two of those years I've been heavily listing to podcast, gaining self-knowledge and working on overcoming negative early childhood experiences. I thought it was about time I checked out the boards. I've never come to the boards before for primarily two reasons. The first is I used to get extreme anxiety when thinking of posting on the boards. I've been working on this for a while and now it’s more of an anxious feeling. The second is I've been lucky as I have an older brother that went on the journey of philosophy and psychology with me so I always had someone to talk with. My hobbies besides philosophy and psychology are hiking, biking, reading, video games and snowboarding. The one great benefit of Utah is the outdoors are pretty amazing. The major downside is the people here are not the most open to new ideas. I’m looking forward to checking out the boards, and learning more about the FDR community.