From One Cult To The Next

A MEMOIR BY DAN OWENS-REID

Win’s Books Publishing

Copyright

Copyright © 2024 by Dan Owens-Reid

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Win’s Books Publishing.

Published by Win’s Books Publishing Charleston, South Carolina, USA winsbookspublishing.com 803-823-1341 winsbookspublishing@gmail.com

This work should not be used for training AI-generated content or discerned in the input and output of AI technology. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, investment, accounting or other professional services. While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.

Book Cover by Larch Gallagher Illustrations by Winnie Tataw First edition 2024.

DISCLAIMER

This memoir is a personal account of the author’s experiences, thoughts, and memories. The events described within these pages are presented to the best of the author's recollection; however, the nature of memory is such that some details may be inaccurate or omitted. The author has endeavored to present an honest and authentic narrative, but it is important to acknowledge that this memoir represents the author’s subjective point of view.

Names, characteristics, events, and incidents may have been changed, combined, or fictionalized for the purposes of privacy and to protect the identities of individuals. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or to real events is purely coincidental unless explicitly stated otherwise. The author does not intend to harm, defame, or injure any individual or group and apologizes for any harm that may inadvertently arise from the publication of this memoir.

Readers are reminded that this memoir is a personal interpretation and should not be viewed as an objective account. By sharing these experiences, the author aims to provide insight, reflection, and understanding, and hopes that readers will approach this work with an open mind and a respectful consideration of the complexities of memory and personal narrative.

While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties concerning the accuracy or completeness of the book's contents and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Sales representatives or written sales materials may create or extend no warranty. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.

TRIGGER WARNING

***

is written to mark off a section when a triggering scene of assault, or depictions of suicide, are being discussed. The same symbol, or the conclusion of the chapter, is used to mark the end of a triggering section.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Gen Z You know more than the adults that came before you Trust it 

Prologue

In my twenties, I was obsessed with cults. It was never the cult itself that intrigued me, but the stories of the people who had escaped the cult. They resonated with me. Religion is the master manipulator, but fear-based living is not exclusive to religion. What resonated with me about the documentaries, which focused on people escaping cult-like communities, were the tactics these gurus used to keep people trapped. If you watch any of the following documentaries—Alex Gibney’s Going Clear, William Allen’s Holy Hell, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s Jesus Camp, John Smithson’s Children of God, Leah Remini’s Scientology and the Aftermath—you’ll notice what they all have in common is their use of fear to control people. In some cases, the rhetoric says don’t be bad or else you’ll go to hell. In others, it’s don’t disobey or else we’ll tell all your secrets. In all of them, it’s don’t tell people about this abuse or else this abuse will get worse. The operative phrase here: OR ELSE.

Don’t have sex before marriage OR ELSE you’ll go to hell.

Don’t get a divorce OR ELSE you’ll go to hell.

Don’t masturbate OR ELSE you’ll go to hell.

Don’t tell on your church leader for assaulting you OR ELSE you’ll go  to hell.

Don’t go out with your friends OR ELSE I will leave you.

Don’t forget my birthday OR ELSE I will never speak to you again.

Don’t call the cops OR ELSE the domestic violence will become worse. While the situations, actions, and consequences vary, there’s one thing that everyone who’s told this shit has in common: living in fear.

Because these fear tactics start when we’re so young, our entire lives become fear-based. I’ve spent most of my life living in fear. As a kid, I did what mother told me to do because I was afraid of her. When I became an adult, I focused on relationships with people who were disappointed in me a majority of the time. I would answer their calls even when I was drowning in to-do lists because I didn’t want to upset them. If I had a friend who loved me whether or not I answered the phone, I would never answer. I would prioritize the relationships and jobs and learning environments that terrified me. I’d learned my entire life that my purpose was to make sure I didn’t piss someone off. I lived as a teen doing whatever I could not to piss off God. In college, I’d barely try to succeed, putting most of my efforts into not pissing off my mother who was always pissed no matter what I did. In my twenties, I was dating people who, on a base level, lived their lives pissed off, and there was NOTHING I could do to avoid getting in trouble. This is what I was used to. This is what I sought out, this is how I thought life had to be.

I was wrong. 

Thank fuck. 

1: The Cult of Christianity

Pentecostal

I grew up in the Pentecostal holiness church. I started going to church at four years old. My mom left me with our neighbors Ma-Maw and Papa Sam, who referred to themselves as my surrogate grandparents and that felt right to me. Papa Sam was in a successful gospel quartet. I would travel around with them to different churches to perform and sometimes they would go to big Pentecostal conferences. People would speak in a language I’d never heard before. Ma-Maw called it speaking in tongues, and the words did not make sense to me. I had a lot of questions: What are they saying? And if the lord was speaking through them, then what was the lord saying? And if the lord was saying something, should I be able to understand it? And if I don’t understand it, does it mean the lord isn’t talking to me?

It just happens. You ask the lord to speak to you and it happens. You feel it.

I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what the lord was saying! It was so frustrating. So I waited for the lord to speak to me, and when he didn’t... then what did that mean? Did I not believe enough? How was I supposed to believe in the lord if I had never been able to communicate with him?

Don’t worry. You will.

Would I?????

It wasn’t that I was skeptical. I’ve never been a skeptic. I take everything at face value. If someone tells me how they live, what they believe, and their belief is right, then I’m on board. They’re saying to my face this is the life they experience, so I believe them. You hear God speaking to you? Okay. Cool.

It really seemed to make sense to everyone else. They all believed, and I just had to have faith and wait until I believed too. Nothing gave me any reason to believe, but nothing gave me any reason NOT to believe, so I waited.

I remember sitting in a big church with pink pew cushions and a light wooden trim. Grey carpet lined the floorboards, and a giant stage (that’s only about 11 inches off the ground but feels like it’s the biggest, most important space on earth) stood tall before me. A long line of people crowded the aisle. I stood in line and watched as people got anointed. The music was so loud; everyone in church was singing at the top of their lungs. Ma-Maw always sang so loud. She couldn’t carry a tune, had no interest in the pitch of the song, but loved singing as loud as humanly possible. At the top of her lungs, she sang, ANGELS BOW BEFORE HIM, HEAVEN AND EARTH ADORE HIM, WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE. Always at some point in this process, one piece of the song would repeat a million times. People would start singing different harmonies and taking solos.

Men were speaking in tongues, even louder than the music. It was the loudest room in the world. There were seven or eight men in a circle on the tiny stage. One by one people went up and got a bit of oil rubbed on their head and then did a trust fall into the arms of these gray-haired stocky dudes who were all speaking different made-up languages. Then they’d walk back to their seats, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling grateful, and continuing to sing. They were cleansed.

I did it once. It terrified me. Not only was I a tiny child in the arms of all these dudes who were strangers, but my eyes were open and theirs were closed. No one was smiling. They were sweaty and scream-spitting fake words at the top of their lungs. They smelled bad. If you have ever boiled hot dogs, left the water sitting on the stove, and later gave it a big sniff trying to figure out what the heck it was... that’s what it smelled like. Cold, day old, hot dog water. After that singular experience, I never did it again. I would leave when it got close to us in line and just walk around the empty hallways or go to the bathroom. I’d join Ma-Maw in the pews while she sang, eat some butterscotch candies, and then wait patiently to go home.

I was Pentecostal from ages four to twelve years old. I went to many different churches with Papa Sam’s gospel group. All of them were in South and North Carolina, and the only ones I liked were the African Methodist Episcopal churches, or AME for short. Everyone felt more genuine. Their version of getting dressed up for church was way prettier and more colorful. And the food after the sermon was so much better. I ate buffet-style-home-cooked-potluck-in-a-basement food 50,000 times as a kid. The AME potluck is the only one I’d recommend to anyone else. And everyone in church smelled so good! It was a welcome escape from the hot dog water. Smells are important to me. I feel comfort or discomfort based primarily on how good or bad my surroundings smell. More than once at the AME church I was discovered asleep in a pew or under a grandma’s feet.

I hate half-assed answers, yet I always felt like I would get half-assed answers as a kid. My mom used to love making jokes about how many questions I’d ask. Her favorite joke was to do an impression of me as a six-year-old and say but why a thousand times. That’s still how I am today! I want to understand things.

I’m a Libra and my moon is in Capricorn. Which is to say...

EXPLAIN IT TO ME OR I DON’T CARE.

If Adam and Eve were the first two people on earth, does that mean we’re all related?

Is a pastor God’s favorite?

If I have to be good for God and Santa Claus, do they discuss it?

If I’m bad, bad things will happen to me. So if I’m good, does that mean good things will happen?

Why would I be tested by the devil if I’m being good? What is he testing?

Is it still most important to listen to my parents if my parents are lying?

Who do I listen to? My parents or God? How do I listen to both if they don’t agree? Will God be mad at me if I listen to my mom when my mom isn’t listening to God?

I found it fucking confusing.

Here comes a story of some of the assault and trauma I experienced as a child, if you don’t want to read, move ahead to the next story, Sam and the Turtle.

***

I was sexually assaulted by a babysitter when I was five years old. She was a teenager. I was living in Myrtle Beach, SC. In South Carolina, interracial marriage was illegal until 1998, this was about eight years prior. This meant my babysitter’s parents were living together illegally. Against the law. I wasn’t the only one living in fear in their house.

I would stay at my babysitter’s house and she would threaten me. If I didn’t take off my underwear, she was going to tell my mom I wasn’t listening. If I didn’t play mom and dad with her, she was going to tell my mom I was being mean. She wanted me to be the mom while she was the dad. This was how she put herself in a position to rightfully assault me. In her world, this is what moms and dads do. When she came to our apartment to watch me, she would force me to watch horror movies and then pretend she was possessed by Freddy Krueger. I locked her out of the apartment. When the door was locked, she would scream and say Freddy was chasing her and beg me to let her in. I would finally open the door and she would fake being possessed again.

One night, I just refused to let her in. Locked the door and hid in the bathroom until my mom got home. My babysitter said she had no idea what was going on, we were playing a game and all of sudden I wouldn’t let her in. I told my mom she kept scaring me and my mother never let her babysit again. I started staying with Ma-Maw and Papa Sam after that.

From a very young age I noticed one thing led to another. If a kid at school was mean, they always had meaner parents. If someone in Sunday school thought she was the most important, her older sister thought she was even more important. And on more than one occasion, I saw the babysitter that abused me being abused by her father.

Sam And The Turtle 

My relationship with God was fear-based and my relationship with my mother was fear-based. I don’t know when I made the connection between fear-based religion and my relationship with my mother, but it blew my mind wide open. I wasn’t my own person. I was walking on eggshells, desperately trying not to upset her, which was useless because she was always upset. My mother cried so loud, so hard, and so often. She wanted me to comfort her. It brought me peace to comfort her. She said I was her best friend, but I was six or eight or twelve. I should not have been an adult’s best friend. I was so young I didn’t even understand my own needs so of course I wasn’t able to prioritize them. I was afraid of my mother and being afraid of my mother is what motivated everything I did.

When I would defy her in some way—even as simple as telling someone she’d said something mean—she would do one of two things: (1) shoot me a look I could FEEL in my bones that would make me immediately take back whatever I’d said or done, or (2) lie. She would lie, get loud, laugh, and turn it around on me. Laugh so hard and lie so loud that I would become confused.

There is a policy in Scientology called fair game, which essentially states that if someone speaks out against the organization you’re allowed to shit talk, in fact, it is your DUTY to shit talk. You’re meant to laugh in their face, deny what they’re saying, and attack their personal character. Leah Remini’s show, Scientology and the Aftermath, has MULTIPLE episodes DEDICATED to this harmful and twisted policy. There is no difference between this policy and the way my mother treated me. This OVER-THE-TOP harmful cult that has spawned documentaries and an Emmy-Award-winning series on A&E is the same as my mother. I remember seeing an episode of television about the NXIVM cult and one of the former members said that’s how they protect themselves, they lash out at people who come against them. I must’ve rewound those three seconds of tape twenty times. I screenshot it. Out of context, you don’t know whether they’re talking about a toxic parent or a cult. And that’s my whole point. There is no fucking difference.

There’ve been so many moments while writing this memoir where I was like, this is so innocuous, it’s not even that bad, there’s no reason to tell it, which is how I’ve been made to feel for years. My maternal family did not support me, regardless of the fact they experienced the same shit. My friends were helpful, but often confused. It took getting into my thirties to meet people who openly talked about emotionally dangerous parents. Many of these friends still have rocky relationships with their parents. They cannot figure out how to live life in peace because of the relationship they maintain with their parents. The only answer is to get the fuck out of the relationship. Treat it like a cult, because it is one. 

My mother dated so many men when I was young and would give me the dirt on every break up. It was always his fault as he was always such a piece of shit. At least, that’s what she said. The first time I questioned her side of the story was when she was with this dude named Sam. He was a noodly military guy with dark hair, thick eyebrows, and a huge smile. They fell in love, got engaged within a few months, and he moved into our apartment. He was a cool dude. 

I was maybe nine or ten years old and he made sure I ate while my mom was out working or at school. He would ask me if I was hungry, and because I was taught the correct answer was no I would say no. He’d say, Okay, well I’m going to Arby’s, do you want to come with me and listen to music? I loved riding in a car, listening to music! I would ride along and he’d play loud music I didn’t know the words to, singing loudly. He taught me the chorus of a song: Look, now you’ve heard it twice, what’s this next part? and I would get to sing along to a song I thought I didn’t know! He’d buy me food that I didn’t ask for and I’d gobble it up, happy as a clam. I thought he was so cool and he thought I was funny. I would always ask questions and after I got answers, I’d ask a question about the answers. He thought it was hilarious and always had an answer or he’d ask me questions about my questions. He’d play jokes on me, too.

One time he asked for my full name. 

Dan Marie Reid.

Dan May Re-Read. What?

No!! Dan Marie Reid!!

I heard you! Dan May Re-read. What are you gonna re-read?

We went back and forth a million times. I was laughing so hard and squeak-screaming the way you do when you’re nine and can’t figure out how to end a joke. My mother thought it was inappropriate that he liked spending time with me.

I woke up one night with my ear in so much pain. I very rarely told my mom when I was in pain or sad or anything but this pain was unreal. I went to her bedroom and woke the two of them up. My mom hugged me while I cried but didn’t know what to do. Sam had an idea that sounded so weird: put a clove of garlic inside a cotton ball, warm it up in the microwave. Then he instructed me to lay down on my side. He put the garlic cotton ball in my ear. I can’t recall if it like... sucked out whatever was hurting or what the fuck happened, but I fell asleep and the pain was gone. Now, I might not have remembered the remedy correctly, but the experience stuck with me, nonetheless.

They broke up pretty soon after that. She was older than him. She didn’t like that he was younger than her, and didn’t like how, he carried his whole life around in his backpack like a turtle. To her, this meant he wasn’t a real adult. I didn’t understand why it was a bad thing. He was in the military so it could’ve been any second he’d have to leave. Didn’t it actually make a lot of sense that he had his whole life in a backpack?

Mormon 

From ages fourteen to seventeen, I was a devout Mormon. I was at church all day Sunday, all night Wednesday, went on Mormon excursions, and hung out with mostly Mormon kids. I had to be baptized to become an official Mormon and the steps were laid out for me:

1) Six-week course learning the religion inside and out.

2) Spend time with the Elders, asking questions.

3) Get baptized.

The Elders only came to my house once. We sat on my couch and they asked if I had read the Book of Mormon. I hadn’t read the whole thing. They laughed because reading the whole thing seemed impossible to everyone. They asked if I had any questions. I had questions but I didn’t know how to ask them. I asked if Mormons were Christian and they said yes. The only real difference was that God stopped speaking to other Christians. God never stopped speaking to Mormons... This made sense to me.

I’d really wanted to find my religion. I wanted something to grasp onto where the kids my age and the adults in the church weren’t hypocritical. I had a long experience being Pentecostal. After that I dabbled. I tried non-denominational Christian megachurches. I tried Catholicism. I tried Baptist churches. My experience was the same in each: no matter what the rules were, people were breaking them. I heard gossip about pastors who were fired for assaulting children, or about leaders of the church who were committing adultery. I saw people my age engaging in sex but screaming about saving themselves until marriage. This always messed with my head. I didn’t like all the lying! I wanted to find a religion where people stood up for what’s right, believed it, and actually stuck by their word.

I went to Mormon church, took a few seminary classes, and hung out with the Mormon crowd. They were as righteous as they said they were. No one was having sex, no one was doing drugs, no one was lying, none of the old men were creeping on teens. It was my first religious safe space. I could trust these people. I went to a sleep away Mormon girls’ camp, and it wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I realized I had a major crush on my camp counselor. At the time, I just knew I wanted to be around her. She was so pretty and so Mormon! I wanted to be... like her???? I guess?

The whole camp sat around a big campfire, singing along with the cool-acoustic-guitar-playing Mormon. We sang along to church songs and once in a while they’d throw in an acoustic pop song everyone knew. We ate s’mores, played outdoor games, ran around in the woods, did church crafts, and had a talent show. It was similar to the Vacation Bible Schools (VBS) I’d gone to as a kid. There were bunk beds. We ate soggy french fries and bagged cheeseburgers. We signed each other’s pillowcases. I felt normal the way normal looked on TV. I felt like the kids in Mary-Kate and Ashley movies! Kids who had friends and did extracurriculars!

Having a group of like-minded people to do activities with was key to me feeling normal. There was a sense of belonging that I’d longed for as a kid, whether or not I realized that’s what I wanted. Being Mormon gave me the opportunity to feel like I was a part of something. I also appreciated having some structure in my life. My mom saw herself as one of the cool parents who didn’t set many boundaries or restrictions in our home life. This seems great in theory, but in reality it was difficult. To be a kid with no structure meant I was constantly wondering if I was going to get in trouble or something was off limits. I rarely tried anything new for fear it would cause disruption in our household. Having a classic Mormon structure was helpful. Don’t have sex before you’re married, don’t drink alcohol, don’t be a liar. Do treat people with kindness, make meals for people who need them, and show up every Sunday at 8am. Structure was something my child-mind needed, and Mormonism is where I found it. When it was time for the youth to take a road trip together, I enjoyed having to be at church early on a Saturday and needing to bring $10 for lunch. 

On one road trip all of us, aged thirteen to sixteen, crowded in a van together on our way to Columbia, SC to visit the Temple. The Mormon Temple was a very sacred place. It wasn’t like a regular Mormon church where you show up to eat bread chunks, watch movies, and fall asleep during the slow hymns. The Temple is where people go to do more extravagant things. One example is a Sealing which is for couple’s getting married, this is an ETERNAL marriage ceremony complete with complimentary baptism. The Temple is also where people take their endowments which is where people get a new name and make promises to God, I think? And it’s where our van full of teens went to Baptize The Dead. About halfway to Columbia I started to understand the general concept of what we would be doing. We’d get baptized on behalf of someone who was not baptized when they were alive. They’d missed the opportunity by either not knowing what Mormonism was, never hearing about God, or being brainwashed into a different religion. Upon first hearing of this concept, I was confused. 

So, what if they don’t want to be Mormon? I asked the van full of teenagers and our Elders, which were the nineteen-year-old missionaries assigned to our town... aka also teenagers.

Well, it’s not their fault for not knowing right? But, they don’t deserve to spend eternity in limbo because they didn’t have an opportunity to learn the truth.

What if their whole family is a different religion though, and then we steal them from that afterlife and take them to ours? I clarified my question.

I mean, come on, you know there is only one afterlife. Besides, God wants all of us to be with him in Glory, no one should have to suffer because their family didn’t know any better, one of the Elders told me. 

I got the sense that my curiosity was piqued a little too much for their liking. I nodded, because it was true, people don’t deserve punishment for things they do not know. I wasn’t quite sure how we could know all these dead people wanted to be baptized, but it made sense to me they also wouldn’t know they wanted to be baptized, especially since they didn’t even know about baptism. So, maybe we were doing these people a solid. 

From the second I entered the Temple I felt anxious. Now, anxiety and excitement feel similar in the body, a slight buzzing, a quick heart rate, mind racing, so... maybe I was PUMPED to get these DeadGuys BapTized! We were all given a full body white outfit, zipper from the crotch to the neck, to don during the process. We stood in a single-file-line that curled around the Baptism tub and down the Temple corridor. The line was long; multiple vans of teenagers from all over the region had been bused in and were about to be baptized on behalf of someone’s decaying carcass. I watched as some of the unknown teens got dunked in water and tried to move my ears around with the inside of my head, like antenna being adjusted to get the best audiovisual. It seemed like the grown man in the tub was mumbling on purpose. I couldn’t hear shit. Gummalummajimbledoobedoo Amen. 

Huh? I accidentally said out loud. 

SHHHHH! the regional teen collective whisper-yelled all at once. I tried to stop trying to hear, but it was instinctive. I needed to know exactly what was being said as I was volunteering my body up for this practice!! My friend, Shantel was in front of me and gave me a thumbs up as she descended the stairs into the giant tub of clear water. 

Somethingsomethingsomething I baptize NAME-OF-A-DEAD-MAN in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. Shantel plugs her nose and DUNK. She is completely submerged for just a second and pops back up in a flash. Then it was my turn. I descended the stairs and got dunked. I tried to memorize the name of the person I was baptized for as a way to honor them, but I forgot almost immediately, because I can’t memorize for shit. I had this deep fear that I’d show up to Heaven one day and the person I got baptized for would be like, Bro, you were not supposed to baptize me!! After we all got baptized on behalf of some wormfood that didn’t ask to be baptized, we drove five minutes down the street to eat burgers and fries at a fast food restaurant called RUSH’S. I was promised it would be the best burger I’d ever eaten, it was so much better than McDonalds, but I simply could not focus on food because I was concerned I’d been a part of a scheme to fuck up someone else’s afterlife!

In the Mormon world, when people stand up to talk about the miracles in their lives, what they’re grateful for, what they’re struggling with, or if they need us to pray for them, they approach the podium and say I know this church is true before saying their piece. The phrase I had heard the most, remember the loudest, and associate the most with my experience in the Mormon religion: I know this church is true.

I said it once. After I was baptized, at church that Sunday everyone wanted me to say something. I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t know what to say. Everyone told me to speak from my heart. And say what? At least I knew how to start. I know this church is true. I begged Shantel to come up with me. She said she would if I really wanted her to. And I REEEAAALLLY wanted her to. I brought her on stage, stood at the podium, said, I’m Dan and I know this church is true— the rest I totally blacked out. I don’t know what I said, I don’t remember getting off stage. But I do know I never said that shit again.

There are three parts to the Sunday service. First, everyone sits in the main area and the Bishop talks, we drink grape juice and eat bread chunks, we pray together, we sing together, speakers from the congregation come up and say a few words. Then we split off by age group. Small groups have different activities—one group of teens watching a movie, one group learning about the next steps of Mormonism. Third, we split off by gender. 

I was fifteen in the teen girl group—the Mia Maids—and our classes were joined with the Laurels (sixteen-to-seventeen-year-olds), so sometimes they got *racy.* One Sunday afternoon, I was sat in class learning about sex from a woman who was in a group called Relief Society. She was married at nineteen and went on her Mormon mission to another country for two years while her husband went on a mission somewhere else. They both came home, she got pregnant, and he went off on another mission. She was home with this new baby, writing letters to her husband in Vietnam. He was trying to convert more people to Mormonism and could not use the phone/internet to talk to his wife or see his baby. They were what we call Devout Mormon.

Our class began with this newly adult, new mother holding up an Oreo. We all loved Oreos. There was a box of them and we were ready for class to be over so we could all have whatever Oreos were left over after whatever weird thing our teacher was about to do.

Who wants an Oreo? she asked. We all did! We all loved Oreos! She pulled apart the Oreo, licked the icing in the middle, put the cookie back on the spitty icing, and handed it to someone sitting in front of me. We all gasped in disgust. Pass it around, whoever wants it can have it.

The Oreo made its way around the room. By the time it reached me, it had been licked and in the paws of at least ten people. I passed it quickly, wondering what the lesson was going to be here. This, she tells us, is how our future husband will feel if we are with another man before him. The Oreo lesson was teaching us to save ourselves for marriage. She taught me that my body is a temple. My body is a temple and if a man has anything to do with it, my temple is dirty. I would never find a husband if my temple was dirty because who wants to be with a dirty temple when they could find someone whose temple is clean? I am the spitty icing.

I thought it was weird, but I also thought sex was weird and dangerous so I was cool with it. I could get into my body being a temple and saving myself for marriage because it’s a great excuse to not have sex with people and I DID NOT want to be having sex with people.

Senior year in high school, Shantel got some new friends and started smoking weed. I felt like my world was crumbling. I thought I’d found a religion where no one did anything bad and here was the person who’d taught me about being Mormon... doing bad things. Soon after the weed smoking started, one of the outstanding young men at my church got someone pregnant. He was sixteen, she was seventeen—he was shunned by church members and stopped showing up on Sunday mornings. Until weeks later, when he decided to get married to the impregnated. Suddenly he was invited back and more involved than ever. People congratulated him on having a child and he started wearing suit jackets. He became one of the dudes who runs classes.

When I left for college I was already done with being Mormon.

The Big Gay Loophole 

At seventeen years old, I was in college with a college boyfriend. We were friends first and he had a crush on me. Matt was sweet. I liked Matt and I wanted a husband, so I started dating Matt. I wasn’t going to church anymore but sometimes I would accidentally answer my phone when a Mormon was calling. I always felt like they caught me. It was always from a different number, never the same person, and it felt so constant. Sometimes it was a random Elder checking in to see how I was getting along at the Mormon church in my college town. Sometimes an old church buddy, like the woman who owned a baby clothing store and drove me around because everyone else