IT'S NOT OUT THERE
AN INTEGRAL APPROACH TO ESCAPING VICTIM CONSCIOUSNESS
Published by Jane Taylor Hardy at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Jane Taylor Hardy
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
1. Been There… Done That
2. Ex’ed
3. 180°
4. The Turnaround
5. Crazy Time
6. Let’s Dance
7. The Voice
8. Twin Flame
9. Move On Already
10. Mirror, Mirror
11. Love Will Keep Us Alive
12. Dis-Harmony
13. Enchantment
14. Outta The Box
15. Dis-Ease
16. The Gentleman
17. Suited To Manifestation
18. Inner Light
19. Skeleton Man
20. Karma
21. Tell Your Story
22. The Cherished Moment
23. The Lost Child
24. TWANG!
25. Sheer Hell to Utter Heaven
The “It’s Not Out There Modality”
Afterword
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
“It has always been of absolute importance to me to speak my mind, for better or for worse. Because I don’t actually have a choice. It’s my mind. It’s not a car I can trade for something slicker, or smoother, or sweeter. It’s all I have to offer” – Rosie O’Donnell
One day I came to a point where I experienced Satori. Martha Beck describes it this way: "There are some English words that address the idea of pushing past the breaking point into another way of seeing. The phrase 'paradigm shift' probably comes closest. But that term doesn't do justice to the intense psychological and emotional elements of the passage through this phase. The term satori (pronounced 'sah-toe-ree') refers to an epiphanal moment when an individual transcends ordinary perception and enters a new level of awareness. Satori must be experienced to be understood."
I have read and studied many books of varying philosophies and discovered that life just Isn’t Out There. We are making it all up, creating it as we go. If in our soul we blame or remain trapped in victim consciousness the outer world will never change. I finally learned this for myself through many of life’s lessons which I would like to share with you in this book - because It’s Not Out There.
I have listed at the end of each chapter what I call “References for Creation – What’s Out There.” There is no need for anyone to ever hit the rock bottom places that I have hit or my husband David has hit. I didn’t have these wonderful resources during many years of tumultuous experiences. These incredible books, CDs, DVDs, card decks, and other resources helped me to pull myself out of a lower vibration onto a higher plane.
Heaven can be right here on earth. Don Miguel Ruiz, M.D. talks in his books about our ability to create a dream of hell or a dream of heaven. I am dreaming the latter. I enjoy each day living with an ideal mate in an extraordinary life. It is my desire that you create for yourself a life that shimmers.
Many of the real names of people in this book have been changed. A few are their real names. Other than those changes, this book is an authentic account of my It’s Not Out There experiences.
CHAPTER ONE
BEEN THERE… DONE THAT
“Enlightenment is sought not for personal liberation, but in order to relieve the inevitable suffering of conditioned existence and to show others the way to liberation.” - Frances Vaughan
My parents were divorced when I was eleven years old. My father left with our maid, whom he promptly married, and I was left to live with my mother who had to begin working several jobs to get by financially.
I won’t go into who, when and where, but I was abused physically and emotionally, although not sexually. I remember going into my grandmother’s bathroom one day and taking off all of my clothes. I looked in the mirror and thought, “There aren’t any white spots - I’m all black and blue.” As I got older my abuser would threaten me, and I knew that if I didn’t do exactly what he said I would be beaten. The abuse continued for several years, and, together with my father’s departure, left a hole in my soul that is beyond words.
I was brought up in one of the most conservative communities in a very conservative state, and was raised in a strict patriarchal religion commonly referred to as “Mormonism.” This religion taught the angry God approach, or, “If you don’t do what I say you will be punished,” and it instilled a sense of fear and absolute obedience in me. I read my scriptures daily and went to church every Sunday. Many people believe Mormonism to be a cult. It is much more than a simple religion. It is a fear-based, severe and rigid way of life. You cannot imagine the amount of control that one lives under daily.
I was terrified growing up and was shy and introverted in school. On several occasions I would go home from school and have to change my clothing because I had perspired all the way from my armpits right down to the top of my pants. I was always frightened because of the abuse I was experiencing. As you can imagine, I was not developing normally psychologically and indelible scars were left on my psyche. As a result, I was easily controlled and lacked any real boundaries. I had no self-esteem and felt entirely empty. Fear was my constant companion and my soul was filled with anxiety.
When I was of college age, I attended the University of Utah where a young man met me and wanted to marry me. However, I wanted to get my education and go on a Mormon mission, and so I said no. He persisted and drove me to the Mormon Temple every evening, stating that Joseph Smith (Mormonism’s founding prophet) had come to him in a vision and had told him I was supposed to marry him. Having no inner strength, I caved in, though it was immediately annulled as he turned out to be extremely abusive. This became a pattern, dating abusive controlling men; and the reason why was obvious: my dysfunctional childhood.
Something interesting happened to me several years later when I enrolled in a course called the Landmark Forum through Landmark Education. In the seminar our leader Sophie told us that incidences had happened to us in our childhoods that were controlling us now. She said that we would be amazed at the amount of power these incidences have over our every actions. She told us to think of an incident that had happened to us as children and what we made that mean for us. We each thought of an incident and then Sophie called on a man and asked, “What is your incident?” He responded, “I was drowning in a river.” And Sophie asked, “And what did you make that mean?” And he replied, “That the world is an unsafe place to be.” And Sophie asked, “What is your profession?” And he replied, “I am an insurance salesman.” She then asked me what my incident was. I said that someone was beating me up and physically abusing me and I cried out for my mother’s help but she didn’t help me. Sophie asked, “And what did you make that mean?” I said, “That I didn’t have a voice in the matter.” Sophie asked, “And what is your occupation?” I said, “Well, I don’t have one. I am a homemaker.” She then asked, “What is your avocation?” I said, “I am a singer.”
Eventually, I went on an eighteen-month Mormon mission, and after I returned I earned my bachelor’s degree. I was taught throughout my youth by my church that it was my duty to get married and have children and not work outside of my home, and so of course I assumed this was to be my future. I secretly wanted to be a litigating attorney, but knew it was against the teachings of my religion. Currently the Mormon Church is a little more liberal with respect to women having a career and working; however, not at the time that I was growing up. I wasn’t in a serious relationship at that time so I decided to attend law school.
After I had submitted my application to law school I approached my father to have a discussion with him to ask for his support. Being entrenched in Mormon dogma, he told me that it was time that I should be getting married, not going to law school. I reminded him that I didn’t even have a boyfriend, but he stubbornly insisted that if I had “my head screwed on straight” in regards to the Mormon Gospel, now was the time to get married and have children.
I argued. He won; and although I was a cum laude graduate of Weber State University, spoke a foreign language and was extremely bright and talented, I was consigned to doing data entry at my father’s law firm.
The pressure to get married mounted and I married within a year. I continued to obey, attend my church, read the scriptures, and perform my many church duties. I was president of the Relief Society (the women’s organization in the Mormon Church). But I started to become disillusioned because during that time, I wasn’t really listened to in our church leadership meetings where I was the only woman. When I offered my opinion about things that were going on in the ward (congregation, similar to a parish in the Mormon Church) no one paid attention to the dress in a room with filled with suits
I found myself in a terribly abusive marriage, but just smiled and told no one. Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel, Carry On is a favorite Mormon hymn. I did. About two years later, my father discovered the abuse, quite by accident.
I had delivered my first baby by cesarean-section and my father invited my husband and me to stay at one of his condominiums adjacent to him so that during my recovery I wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs at my home. We agreed, and as I left the hospital, the nurses asked me if I would have someone helping me and I said, “Yes, my husband.”
When we arrived at my father’s condominium my husband flatly said, “This is inconvenient for me” and he went back to our house. During the course of our marriage, he was hardly ever home with me and when he was present, he was nearly always abusive. Since I didn’t want anyone to know, I just kept it a secret. I didn’t want my father to know that my husband had left me with no help, a new baby, and a fresh C-section, and so I just kept my mouth shut. I did have one problem though - how would I get out of bed when my baby cried? I couldn’t just sit up with my C-section pain. I figured out that I could pull at the edge of the mattress and flip myself onto the floor. I was in a lot of pain so at that point I crawled over to the crib to get my daughter. My father would come over with two plates of food, one for me, one for my husband, and I would just smile and thank him, thinking he would never know.
Until a crisis hit in the middle of the night. My baby began to cry. I tugged at the mattress and flipped myself out of the bed. After I fed her a bottle and got her back to sleep, I figured I would prepare several bottles so they would be ready to go. I did this in the kitchen thinking that my daughter was fast asleep in the other room. I returned to see her choking on her own vomit. I called out to my father who called 911, but the paramedics couldn’t find the condominium. We started to take my baby to the hospital, but were terrified she wouldn’t make it. I remember being petrified saying over and over, “Breathe baby breathe!”
Fortunately, a fire truck was outside of the condominium. We stopped and yelled for their help, and they immediately put my baby on oxygen and got her breathing again. We rushed to the hospital where my father called my husband and icily said, “Your daughter almost died. Would it be too inconvenient for you to give us your insurance information?”
After this experience, my father begged me to divorce my husband. He said, “You’ve been going through this all along, haven’t you? Why haven’t you said anything?” I told him I never would divorce, now that I had a child and was married in the Mormon Temple “for time and all eternity.”
I wouldn’t stand up to my husband because if I did, he would punish me. However, sometimes it was necessary to stand up to him. We had a three bedroom home. One bedroom was my husband’s and mine, another one was Krista’s our first child, and the third was my husband’s office. When I was eight and a half months pregnant I went to my husband and asked him to move his things out of his office so that I could prepare the room for our new baby. My husband said, “No, that’s my office. Put the new baby in with the other baby.” I replied, “You don’t help, even after the C-section. Krista is now sleeping through the night and the new baby will wake up several times. I can’t have him waking up Krista because then I will have two babies to take care of in the middle of the nights with no help and a fresh C-section. I know I can’t handle that. Please move your things out of your office.” When I stood firm, my punishment was to carry every book and all of his other items down all of the stairs all the way to the basement as he watched. I dripped with perspiration and he sat on the sofa and smiled.
Finally, after seven years of marriage, I became extremely physically ill, suffering a plethora of symptoms from the constant abuse. Physicians did various tests; however, they could find no physiological cause whatsoever. Eventually they asked me if abuse was occurring in my home. Ultimately, and mainly because of my physical condition, I asked my husband to go to counseling. We went for six months until the counselor told me it was no use.
One day while visiting with my counselor, he told me that, unbeknownst to me, he had called my father. The counselor told him that I needed to be out of my abusive marriage, but if my father would not financially support me, obtain proper psychological counseling for me, aid me in babysitting my children while I went back to school to obtain education for a proper career, etc., he could not advise me to get out of my marriage because I was too physically weak and ill after years of abuse. I was taken aback by this news and asked, “What was my father’s reply?” The counselor said, “Your dad said he would do all of these things. I therefore advise you to end this marriage immediately.”
I went through with the divorce and moved into my father’s condominium. I made an appointment with a psychologist and went to see him to begin the process of healing. I came home and gave the first bill to my father. He handed it back to me. I went into the other room, called the psychologist, and told him I could not afford to see him anymore.
It is almost impossible to describe how ill and heartbroken I became. Unable to eat, I dropped weight and became skeletal. One day my mother had to stop by my father’s condominium to drop something off and she came in. I was lying on the sofa. My father looked at my mother and said, “I think she’s going to die.” Since I wasn’t able to eat, I was getting weaker and weaker. I was unable to maintain heat in my body even with the aid of blankets and heating pads.
At one point my mind felt as if it wanted to go out of my body. I felt that if I let my mind go, I would go crazy and that would be it - I would wake up in some psych ward somewhere. And so I forced myself to stay awake for three days and three nights. I clenched my teeth and held on tight to the side of the bed. I demanded my mind to stay in my body during that entire time. One of the most formidable opponents we will ever face is our own mind.
After this episode, I called an aunt of mine that had been through tremendous stress in her life and told her what had happened. She said, “Jane, that’s not the way you do it.” “It’s not?” I asked. She replied, “I have been to those places mentally and you just let the mind float. The reason it feels like it wants to escape the body is because it is so overwhelmed it needs a break. Let it float and it will come back to you when it is ready.” I was afraid to let go, yet when I felt that incredible anxiety again and my mind insisted on leaving, I let it float up to the ceiling. And I fell into a deep relaxing sleep. When I awoke, my mind was rested and ready to go. They key was surrender, not resistance.
My husband would call me during our separation and threaten me, saying that I would never be able to live without him; that I was inept and would never make it. In our marriage, I never once saw any financial information. He would give me little envelopes of money to budget for myself and the children. When I had to write out my first check after all of that time of financial control, I stood in Wal-Mart, shaking.
At one point my husband called me and told me he had sold the house out from under me and I would have nowhere to go.
It was then that I experienced my first panic attack. It was incredibly severe. It felt as if I was sinking in quicksand while simultaneously being chased by lions. Although cognizantly I knew that it wasn’t really occurring, I would search for the lowest point to lie down on the ground to feel somewhat safe. I remember I couldn’t even lie on the bed. With the feeling of falling, sinking deep in the tornado of quicksand, the bed was just too high off of the ground. The panic attacks unmercifully grabbed me and sucked the life out of me seemingly out of nowhere. I was simultaneously trying to be a mother and function. My older brother’s wife had just had a baby and I was driving to the hospital to see my new nephew, but when I looked up, I was at another hospital altogether. My brain would short circuit from the heavy stress I was under and I couldn’t remember things. I told my counselor that when I was cleaning, I couldn’t remember if I had cleaned the sink or not, even after I could have sworn I just cleaned it. The room would start to swirl around me and I couldn’t breathe or lift my arms or legs. They were like lead - cement. I had to will them to lift, and when they wouldn’t, I would have to use one arm to lift the other. The counselor told me that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse I had endured.
I went to see my physician during this time. During my marriage I had experienced health problems and I wondered if he could do anything about my inability to maintain heat in my body and my panic disorder. He prescribed me Xanax. I started to take these magical pills and boy did they work. Immediately my feelings of anxiety subsided. The only problem was, I needed to take just a little more each time. Pretty soon I was being knocked out by these little pills. As I was residing with my father, I was an onlooker in his current divorce situation. He and the maid, Vicki, whom he had left with when I was eleven, were now divorcing. Vicki was addicted to prescription medications and had been for years. I recalled that during my knee surgeries while I was living at my father’s home, she got down on her hands and knees and begged me for my pain pills. I remember lying there looking at her thinking, “I will never, ever let a substance have any control over me like this. She is totally controlled by these substances. She has lost her freedom.”
Vicki and my father were in neighboring condominiums during their divorce and she asked me to come over several times to chat. On one occasion she asked me to go down to the swimming pool to scour the bottom of the pool for her prescription medications. She told me she had lost them and was desperate. When the next cruel panic attack hit me, I took one look at the Xanax bottle, and flushed it down the toilet. I never took another pill. I informed my physician of this and he was very worried. He saw how heavy my panic attacks were and he thought I needed them. I told him that I would not take them because they are addictive and I had a living example right in front of me that demonstrated to me in full color what the cycle of addiction looked like. It was not a place that I wanted to live in.
As my divorce proceeded I was inconsolable. My father would have to pour liquids down my throat because when I would try to eat, I couldn’t swallow. I just could not eat a thing. My father told me that it was as if I was being let out of a concentration camp. In my marriage I was under such severe control and then I had sudden freedom.
I tried to talk to church authorities regarding the capricious nature of the abuse of women in Mormonism. However, it fell upon deaf ears. I had talked to other women in similar marriages and abuse situations, but no one was doing anything to rectify the situation. I started to wonder if the Mormon religion was true.
At that time, my attorney called me into his office. He said that he had represented women in my situation for over forty years. He looked at me and said with a serious tone, “That’s longer than you’ve been alive!” He said that he would not help me in my divorce if I saw any counselor that was Mormon. He said that he had worked with too many Mormon women clients who had counselors that were Mormon that told them they needed to go back to their abusive husbands. He said that these clients would go back to their husbands and get cancer and die or go back and commit suicide. He said that if he heard I was even seeing a counselor in any way affiliated with the Mormon religion, he would no longer represent me. Well, the counselor I had was Mormon and I continued to see him, and so one day my attorney called me and “fired” me. He said that he had warned me about Mormon counselors and that he would no longer represent me if I was affiliated with the Mormon religion. He said that it was patriarchal in nature and that they don’t allow women to hold the priesthood or to be in leadership of the church. He said that men then feel the power and license to abuse women, and then the women feel as if they should take the abuse. After some time had passed, my brother, who is an attorney, spoke to my attorney and related to him the threatening phone calls I was receiving from my husband and the fact that I was suffering severe panic attacks. This made my attorney so angry that he called me and said he would represent me again. Bitter as he was towards Mormonism after what he had witnessed representing Mormon women, he had pity on me in my precarious situation.
An interesting development began to occur while living with my father. A woman who lived in our same condominium complex, Shauna, found out my father was divorcing and began to pursue him. My father would confide in me about it. She called frequently. Pretty soon my father started saying things to me such as “Shauna says that I am enabling you and you should move out.” My father wasn’t paying for anything for me – not even my groceries. I didn’t eat much during that time, but I had children who needed groceries. I was paying for gasoline and medical expenses; basically everything with the exception of rent. Vicki (our former maid) was extremely upset about this as she is from another culture and couldn’t believe that I was living in my father’s condominium in my frail condition, canceling psychological counseling because I couldn’t afford it and paying for my own way while living with a wealthy father. I was so ill I could barely stand up at times, yet my father had reneged on every promise he had made to my counselor.
Shauna continued to pursue my father and tell him to get me out of his condominium. My father was caving in to Shauna’s wishes and it became so unbearable that one day, I just packed up and left. I moved into my mother’s basement.
At the time, my brother was also living with my mother. It was winter and it was cold in my mother’s house. All day long I kept pacing back and forth in front of the thermostats, afraid to change them. My husband had been so controlling that he forbade me to touch the thermostats in our home. I would put sweaters on my children and curl up in blankets day and night. I was always worried that we were going to get sick. That afternoon my brother returned home from work, walked into the front door, said, “Wow, it’s cold in here.” And walked right over to the thermostat and turned it up. I was shocked. “My God” I thought, “What kind of a life have I been living? You can just turn up the thermostat if you are cold!”
I soon found out that one of the twelve Apostles lived in our ward. Apostles in the Mormon Church are considered to be just like the apostles in the time of Christ. They are famous and are practically movie stars in the Mormon world. I decided that I would go and talk to this man, Apostle Gerard. I walked into his luxurious home with my mother at my side. I related to him the abuse that I had experienced and that other Mormon women are experiencing throughout the Church. I questioned him regarding the ubiquitous nature of the abuse of women in Mormonism. I told him that I had read that the area that we live in has the highest consumption of Prozac in the nation. I literally expected him to say, “Oh I am so sorry. In the next meeting with the First Presidency of the Church I will bring this up. This needs immediate attention.” But he simply politically replied back to me, “Oh, if that happened to you, the Mormon Church doesn’t condone it.” He glad handled me. My mother and I looked at each other and left.
It was interesting to note that after we were in the driveway of his home, his wife, Margaret, came running out and pled with us to go back inside. There she ushered us into a regal library. She took out a book. She said to me, “Here, I want you to have this. Jane, you are an intellect. This is a book of testimonies by intellectuals. This will help you to keep your testimony that the Mormon Church is the one and only true church.” And then she reluctantly added, “I, uh….I…well….I understand what you were saying in the other room.” My mother and I left, and although we were very disappointed in Apostle Gerard, we felt somewhat understood by his wife Margaret.
After obtaining a legal divorce I went into the bishop’s (leader of a Mormon congregation) office and requested a temple divorce. Mormons believe that when you marry in the temple, you are sealed for time and all eternity. The bishop looked at me and said, “Jane, men in our church can be married to as many women as they want. Women, however, can only be sealed to one man. Most importantly, since you are now sealed to a man in the temple, you and your children are worthy to receive all of the blessings of the priesthood and of the temple endowment. If the sealing is canceled, you and your children will not be able to enjoy those blessings. Also, women are not allowed to get a temple divorce unless they are remarrying. Are you remarrying right now?” I looked at him dumbfounded and said, “No.” He replied, “Then you won’t be getting a temple divorce my dear.”
After my divorce and sometime of healing, my counselor suggested that I attend the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Utah and turn all that I had learned into helping others. I attended for one semester, but was physically and emotionally exhausted from all of the stress I had been under, and with two small children that needed me home, I postponed the rest of my graduate education until later.
I ascertained that I was dating nothing but controlling men and so I returned to my counselor to ask him what was wrong with me. He said that my ex-husband was personality disordered and that I was fine. I told him that I didn’t believe “I was fine,” that obviously it was not all attributable to my ex-husband –“It Wasn’t Out There” - but in me, because the pattern was recurring and my ex-husband was not even around anymore. But he just repeated that I was fine, and to prove it, pointed out that I had recognized that the men I had been dating were controlling. He told me that I had just “married wrong.”
Eventually, I met and married another man I became acquainted with on LDS (Latter-Day-Saints – another name for Mormonism) Singles Online. He lived in Arizona and I relocated there. Not surprisingly, I repeated the same pattern again. When I saw the abuse occurring in my marriage, I first went to the bishop of my ward, Bishop Harris, and told him what was happening. But again, it was as if no one was listening to me. I even told him that my husband was on LDS Singles Online dating while being married to me (I was pregnant at the time) while simultaneously teaching gospel doctrine in our ward. However, nothing was done until another woman in another ward reported it to her bishop, and then, when that bishop called my bishop, he finally talked to my husband about it. But, nothing came of it and Bishop Harris allowed my husband to continue teach gospel doctrine.
I was disillusioned about my religion and couldn’t understand why no one was listening to my voice.
In the book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development by Carol Gilligan it says, “Joining [the] understanding of women’s psychological development with theories of human development which turn out to be theories about men, I have arrived at the following working theory: that the relational crisis which men typically experience in early crisis in boys and girls involves a disconnection from women which is essential to the perpetuation of patriarchal societies, and that women’s psychological development is potentially revolutionary not only because of women’s situations but also because of girl’s resistance. Girls struggle against losing voice and against creating an inner division or split, so that large parts of themselves are kept out of relationship. Because girls’ resistance to culturally mandated separations occurs at a later time in their psychological development than that of boys, girls’ resistance is more articulate and robust, more deeply voiced and therefore more resonant; it resonates with women’s and men’s desires for relationships, reopening old psychological wounds, raising new questions, new possibilities for relationship, new ways of living. As girls become the carriers of unvoiced desires and unrealized possibilities, they are inevitably placed at considerable risk and even danger.”
It did feel dangerous to me. And it felt as if I didn’t matter because I was just a woman. Again I went into Bishop Harris’ office and I said, “Please help me; abuse is occurring in my home.” Bishop Harris said, “Look at that picture on the wall.” I looked and saw a picture of Mormon pioneers dying in the snow. He then said to me, “You need to be like those pioneers. They didn’t complain, but walked steadfastly on to their destination. You should not complain and steadfastly walk to the destination of your Heavenly Father (this is what Mormons call God).” I was shocked.
I would tell my husband that I would not lie on financial information as he repeatedly requested me to do. He would tell me that I was not worthy because he held the Mormon priesthood and I didn’t and so I had to “walk behind him and do what he said in the priesthood.” I remember being stunned the first time I entered a Mormon temple ceremony wherein the women were asked to raise their arms to the square and vow to obey their husbands in some sort of weird lasting punishment for Eve having been the first to have partaken of the forbidden fruit (no, I am not kidding).
Yet again I went into the bishop’s office and just really pled with him to listen to me about the abuse that was occurring in my marriage. Wasn’t this wrong in view of the doctrine of Mormonism? Bishop Harris agreed with me that it was wrong. The very next time I caught my husband in lies and deception I told him that Bishop Harris disagreed with his behavior. My husband angrily went over to Bishop Harris’ office and told him off. Bishop Harris was then caught between a rock and a hard place. He had actually had the audacity to stand up for a woman, against a man, only to be reprimanded for doing so by the gospel doctrine teacher of his ward, my husband. He decided to call us both into his office. We walked in and he told us both to take a knife. He had laid out two knives on his desk previous to our arrival. We each quizzically took one. Bishop Harris then instructed us, “You two go pick on the wall with those knives.”
My husband and I reluctantly got up and went to the wall. We hesitated and then told him that we didn’t want to pick on the wall. He then said, “Jane, you are picking on your husband. You must forgive him.” I then said to Bishop Harris, “When I was in the room alone with you the other day, you said my husband’s behavior was wrong and bad moral conduct, and now because he came in and yelled at you, you are doing this little demonstration because you are caught between a rock and a hard place. You actually told me to go and act like the pioneers dying in the snow! My husband stepping out on me and lying on bills and being verbally and physically abusive to me is not right in any way shape or form, and you are trying to cover up that you said that to me. You are being abusive to me right now.” Bishop Harris took one look at me, his face bright purple, his eyes bulging and blood streaked, and said, “And I can because I AM BISHOP!”
It felt like someone hit me in the gut with a baseball bat. I was more than appalled. He then told me that I was not to speak of this incident to anyone. I was not allowed to talk to the relief society president nor the stake president (the leader of a group of several wards, like a diocese) or anyone else. I was gagged!
I then went home and decided to drive my two children from my previous marriage to another ward each Sunday. I just couldn’t go back to Bishop Harris’ ward. I would drive over to the other ward several miles away. I was pregnant and at the time had some sort of weird growth growing out of my lip that my physician said was due to the pregnancy. It would bleed all over the place. I would bleed in a box that I carried, grab the children, and go to church – all by myself. I would go to the maternity room after dropping my children off in Sunday School, and sit with tears streaming down my face until church ended. I had the most aching empty feeling inside. It was as if there was no place that could contain my pain, it was too immense. I would then clean my face, and pick up my children from Sunday School and leave. And do the very same thing the next Sunday.
My husband marched over to Bishop Harris’ ward every Sunday even though he watched as I was gag ordered there. Eventually the relief society president of Bishop Harris’ ward came over to my home and inquired as to what was going on and why she hadn’t seen me in her ward. I said, “Can’t talk to you. I have been gag ordered not to.” She left.
A few days later I thought, “This is ridiculous. I am calling the stake president.” I called the stake president’s office and requested to speak to him. The secretary asked my name and put me on hold. She got back on the phone and said, “Sorry, he won’t speak to you as per orders of Bishop Harris.” I then hung up and called the Church Office Building (headquarters of the Mormon Church) in Salt Lake City, Utah and asked to speak to the regional representative (leader over the stake president in the Mormon Church). They told me that they were just in the process of designating a new one, but I could leave my name and number, which I did.
I eventually decided that this marriage could never work and I called my mother and friends in Utah and told them I thought a divorce was necessary. That day my husband came into our room where I was and requested sex. Prior to this time we were trying to conceive a child and we were therefore not on contraception. I looked at him and timidly said, “Uh, if you will use protection.” I knew the moment that I said that that he would know that I no longer wanted to have a child with him and was thinking of leaving. He became absolutely enraged. The next thing I knew he was coming at me. And it happened. I utterly froze. I mean, I was entirely immobilized. As soon as he was through, I ran to the bathroom sobbing and shaking. I called my mother and friends in Utah again and told them that now a pregnancy was risked and I must leave immediately. I returned to Utah and moved in with my mother. And I waited. When it was time I went to the store, purchased a pregnancy test and looked at the result. Positive.
During this tumultuous time I went over this incident in my mind numerous times. Why didn’t I scream? Why didn’t I fight? Why didn’t I run? Oh my god, I simply froze. This somehow left me with a feeling of culpability. At a later time when I was taking a class on post-traumatic stress disorder at the University of Utah Graduate School of Social Work they taught me that there are more responses than flight or fight while being attacked. There is also freeze. It’s like being a deer in headlights. My professor explained that when an individual has PTSD, freezing is a normal reaction to abuse.
My pregnancy was the main impetus for me to say yes when my husband begged me to reconcile. That only led to more pain, hurt, and yet another pregnancy until I finally left for good.
When I returned to Utah, I still hadn’t heard from the old or new regional representative from church headquarters. I decided not to even call them again because I had already learned that trying to break the wall of abuse within the patriarchal Mormon Church is nigh next to impossible.
I always liked to attend the annual conference for counselors at Brigham Young University and I signed up to go when I returned to Utah. The leader of the course was talking about couples counseling. I absolutely froze as he described the exact situation that I was going through. He said that if you are with a mate that has the characteristics I am describing, then you are living with someone who has borderline personality disorder. I went out on a break and immediately looked up books on the topic.
I was pregnant and so was getting up and using the restroom frequently when I saw a familiar face. It was Tara, one of the women my husband was on L.D.S. Singles Online dating during our marriage. I walked up to her and said, “Hi Tara. I talked to you on the telephone long distance from Arizona. You were dating my husband.” I had found women’s photos that my husband was dating on our computer, and had called them all to ask why they were dating my husband. The invariable answer I got was “Oh no, you have the wrong man - this man is gospel doctrine teacher of his ward and has been divorced for years.” Tara told me that she had had other similar dating experiences on L.D.S. Singles Online and that she went through the same thing with her husband which is why she divorced him. We left the bathroom and went back to the auditorium and the speaker began anew. He started talking about how men cheat on their wives using the computer and then they stupidly forget to erase the files and so almost always get caught. Tara turned around and looked at me in the audience and it took a lot of self-control for us both not to burst out laughing.
I began to go to a counselor at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute. She suggested I obtain a divorce. I kept trying at my marriage though. My husband would pick out counselors and then drop out of them. I saw these counselors alone a few times and they told me that my husband was the problem, although I kept thinking inwardly that it is just not Out There. Otherwise the pattern would simply cease to exist. But when one man would disappear, the same man in a different body popped up.
When I eventually divorced my husband, I went into the bishop’s office and said, “My ex-husband is really acting controlling with me. Please I plead with you to allow me to get a temple divorce.” This bishop said the same thing the other bishop had said to me after my first divorce pertaining to temple divorces. I left his office just as frustrated and bewildered.
While I was dating my second husband I asked him if he had obtained a temple divorce from his first wife and he said, “No.” I said, “Well, I am required to get a temple divorce in order to marry you. I would like you to go and get a temple divorce as well.” I asked him about it later and he assured me that he had done it. Then later on in our marriage, his ex-wife who had moved down the street from us and was following us so closely that we had to go to an attorney and inquire about stalking charges, was acting up again. My husband and I talked to his mother and step-father regarding this and they said to my husband, “Son, you need to get a temple divorce from your ex-wife so that she knows you are married to Jane now.” My husband went three shades of grey. I looked at him and instantly knew the truth. I said, “You lied to me. You never got a temple divorce did you?” And he said, “No.”
I thought about this now just after what my bishop had said to me and pondered on the discrimination between men and women in the Mormon Church. I thought, “If men were required to get a temple divorce when remarrying as women are, then my husband wouldn’t have been able to get away with that lie.” I was incensed. I called the church headquarters in Salt Lake City and told them the entire story. They told me that they would grant me a temple divorce. My bishop called me subsequent to our meeting and I related to him that I was indeed obtaining a temple divorce. He said, “No, don’t do it! Call the temple and ask them about it. You will no longer be eligible to receive the blessings of the priesthood nor the blessings of the eternal temple sealing and neither will your children!” I said, “Sorry, I am doing it.”
Subsequently I received a phone call from our stake president. He said to me, “Jane, I need to see you in my office immediately.” I went in and he read to me the granted temple divorce from the First Presidency at the Church Office Building. I went to sign it and he pled with grave eyes, “Jane, think twice before you sign. This will mean you are not eligible to…” I interrupted, “I know, I know. I won’t be getting God’s blessings and neither will my children. Hand me the pen please.” And I signed it.
I went home and said to my mother, “I am not sure who their Mormon God is, but my God doesn’t work that way. Being sealed to an abusive controlling threatening Mormon man will not make me or my children receive one less blessing from God.”
The last counselor my husband picked and dropped out of, Dr. Lennon, I stayed with. I saw him alone for about a year. I was once again extremely heartbroken and skeletal, unable to eat. Dr. Lennon had me read alternative medicine books such as how to heal cancer through spiritual means. I thought, “Weird topic for someone attending relationship counseling?” but I did it. I then read some books on intuition and started to access my dreams. I began to understand the link between physical abuse as a child and the subsequent cyclical patterns of being married to abusive mates and the inevitable tearing down of my self-worth. I read other books that had New Age or Buddhist themes to them. I studied A Course In Miracles and the teachings of the Dalai Lama. I began to understand the differentiation between religiosity and spirituality. A world opened up to me of spiritual access, vibrational frequencies of the spirit, sending out thought patterns to the universe, karma, aromatherapy, physics in the laws of like attracts like, psychic messages such as things can be communicated from across the world through mental processes alone, etc.
As I attended counseling sessions with Dr. Lennon, he told me that he had been working with Levina Fielding Anderson writing a book, when one day she came to him in tears. She loved the Mormon Church and had apparently simply documented some true abuse stories and had been summarily excommunicated. She was devastated. Dr. Lennon told me that her husband was a church historian but when he went to work after what happened to Levina, he was locked out of his office – fired. I am not certain why Dr. Lennon told me these kinds of stories as he was a convert to the Church and very Mormon, but he would relate to me all kinds of Mormon abuse stories. He told me about a group of intellectuals and feminists who were excommunicated called “The September Six” because they spoke out on various true topics.
With reading, a whole new perspective exposed itself to me. In the Mormon Church they warn you against reading certain books for fear that you will become “apostate.” I never understood that concept. It didn’t seem to have worked too well in the Middle Ages.
I remember driving up Parley’s Canyon one day. I was going a bit too fast and was pulled over by a policeman. I pulled over too rapidly and as I did, my soda spilled all over the floor. I immediately bent down to clean it up. When the police officer got to my car, he said, “I think that you have drugs in there. Why were you bending down? What were you trying to hide?” I said, “Nothing. My soda just spilled.” He said, “Well, I don’t know if that’s true. Can I search your car?” Knowing that I had the truth on my side I said, “Certainly. Go right ahead.” I was calm the entire time knowing he wouldn’t find anything wrong. It perplexed me that the Mormon Church wanted to censor what members read. If you have the truth, you shouldn’t be afraid at all.
I began to learn the truth about Mormon history, the papyrus, The Mountain Meadow Massacre and other historical events unflattering to the Mormon Church (for accurate and more detailed descriptions of each of these events I highly recommend reading Leaving The Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck, Ph.D.) I saw an entirely different picture than the one that had been painted to me growing up. Spiritual healing began to occur in my life. I came to the realization that for me, intense suffering beyond description had brought about a spiritual awakening within me.
It’s Not Out There –
Intuitively I knew that the cyclical experiences I was having were not Out There, yet I was repeatedly told by my former counselors that they were. As the patterns continued to repeat themselves, it became increasingly clear that my life was just not Out There, yet I was completely unclear as to how to change it. I was unaware at that time that people were showing up in my life to mirror to me that the stories that I was holding about myself were untrue. I had no real solid guidance until I started to read and educate myself on varying philosophies. Finally a new world began to show its face to me and I caught a glimpse of a stepping stone out of victim consciousness and into personal power.
References for Creation –What’s Out There:
“Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith” - Martha Beck, Ph.D., www.amazon.com
“How to Break Your Addiction to a Person” - Howard M. Halpern, Ph.D., www.barnesandnoble.com
“Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabatoges Our Lives” - Pia Mellody, www.piamellody.com
The Meadows – Recovery Becomes Reality Treatment Center, www.themeadows.org
“Co-Dependence Healing The Human Condition: The New Paradigm for Helping Professionals and People in Recovery” - Charles L. Whitfield, M.D., www.barnesandnoble.com
“The Verbally Abusive Relationship: how to recognize it and how to respond” - Patricia Evans, www.barnesandnoble.com
“In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development” - Carol Gilligan, www.barnesandnoble.com
“Healing the Shame That Binds You” - John Bradshaw, www.barnesandnoble.com
“Spiritual Psychology: The Twelve Primary Life Lessons” - Steve Rother, www.amazon.com
“Enlightenment Cards: Thoughts from The Disappearance of the Universe” Cards - Gary R. Renard, www.hayhouse.com
We Are Oneness
A presence approached me
I know it to be God
There is no separation
The heat was intense
Or was it love?
Old ideas of dogma washed away
Divinity knows no gender
It is soft
It is strong
It confers deep peace
Formerly lost in illusion
I am whole and complete
I am not me
I am we
We are Oneness
© 2011 Jane Taylor Hardy
CHAPTER TWO
EX’ed
“Organizations – including religious groups – that designate some members as ‘favored’ aren’t centered in the Tao. No matter how much they attempt to convince themselves and others of their spiritual connection, the act of exclusion and partiality eliminates their functioning from their true self.” – Wayne W. Dyer, Ph.D.
The more I experienced, the more I came to the awareness that I doubted more than ever the veracity of the religion in which I had been raised. I also began to obtain several gay friends whom I adored very much. One in particular was my hair stylist, Jay Shaw. He is an extraordinary person. He would tell me stories of gay Mormon men that had tried to commit suicide because they are taught that they are the depraved sinners. One day I went in to have my hair done and Jay was really upset. I asked why and he said that a Mormon bishop from Bountiful, Utah would no longer allow his family to have his hair cut by him because he is gay and had adopted a child. I could not figure this out for the life of me. I mean, Jay is the best possible father on earth, and yet he was being punished by a Mormon bishop because he had adopted a child? I had other gay friends who were angels and it added another doubt that lay lingering in my thoughts about the Mormon Church. I would vocalize my feelings on the gay issue to Church members, but they would come back with the same, “Gays are sinners” mantra.
I started to attend a branch (smaller than a ward) in Brighton, Utah a small ski area near Salt Lake City, where my father attended. I did this because my daughter was being bullied by a girl in our home ward. One day when I went to church, my stern branch president (the equivalent of a bishop but in a branch) said to the audience, “All those who have a testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (meaning you know in your heart the Mormon Church is the one and only true church), raise your hands.” Many people raised their hands, including my father. Mine remained steadfastly in my lap.
I had gone through several dating relationships in which I had again found myself dealing with controlling, unhealthy Mormon men, and although I had begun to see a glimpse that It’s Not Out There, I still continued to fall into those addictive cyclical patterns.
In the midst of my religious ambiguity, my friend Beau, invited me to a Mormon singles dance. A man, Daniel Brooks, asked me to dance. We went on the dance floor and after dancing a few times, he asked me to go out to his car and talk. We talked for a few hours. It turned out that he was the son of an apostle in the Mormon Church, Apostle Brooks. Daniel had been excommunicated from the Mormon Church years ago. Additionally he admitted that he was bipolar and attention deficit disordered. I had had enough of dysfunctional relationships and so when he asked me out on a date, I declined. He asked for my phone number and I declined to give it to him, although he gave me his.
With feelings of my old codependent self arising, I told him that I would call him with the names of a couple of books that would help him out. When I did that, he then had my telephone number on his caller ID. He called me and asked me to dinner right as I was at a practice singing with the Utah Symphony. I said something to the effect of, “Um, I have to start singing now, sorry I can’t talk.”
A couple of days later I was sitting in a class in the Graduate School of Social Work. The professor was discussing attention deficit disorder and how difficult it is to have. I started to feel codependent pangs of guilt. I called Daniel as I was walking across campus and asked him if he was all right. He again pled with me to go to dinner with him, and I finally relented. At dinner I found out that although he was obtaining a divorce and there was no chance for reconciliation, he was still not legally divorced. I had gone by a strict personal rule not to date until I was legally divorced, and not to date anyone else until they were legally divorced. That, in addition to knowing his problems, led me to decide that that was the last date. He followed me to my car insisting that I go out with him again, and I said, “I didn’t know you were still married – no.”
A few days later I was at home when Daniel called me and requested that I come over to his home for dinner. Again, I told him no, that I didn’t date married people. He then called me back and told me that he had called his apostle father, who was in England at the time, and that his father said that it was perfectly fine. That caused me to rethink my former commitment not to date anyone who was still legally married. When my second divorce still was not final, my counselor, Dr. Lennon, who was a former Mormon bishop and was very active in the Mormon community, told me that I was very puritanical not to date just because my divorce wasn’t final. Other people had told me the same, and so I decided that if an apostle of the Mormon Church said it was OK, it must be. I remembered Daniel’s psychological problems, but decided to go anyway. When I went over to his home for dinner, he was cordial, bright, charming and had a wonderful personality. I decided to date him after all.