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Two ex-Mormon women in their 20's. Both queer. Both divorced. Both ready to share the ins-and-outs of Mormonism and what it's like to leave.
Karina Vance (00:01)
Welcome brothers and sisters and other siblings to the Peculiar People Podcast. It's an ex -Mormon podcast. I'm one of the co -hosts, Karina Vance.
Sammi (00:11)
And I am Sammi Earnest. Welcome everyone.
Karina Vance (00:15)
Just before we start I do want to add a little trigger warning
I won't go into detail on anything, but just in case anybody needs to skip this episode, totally fine. But there will be mentions of sexual assault and then suicide and self harm. So be aware if that bothers you. And if not, thanks for joining us.
Sammi (00:38)
Yeah, definitely. And make sure that if you need to skip this episode, skip the episode. We want you to be here only if you're comfortable being here
Sammi (00:48)
So we decided that we're gonna just kind of dive right in. This is our first episode, just giving a little intros. then Karina is going to share her exit story this episode and I'll share mine next episode. So to begin, and I'm Sammi, I grew up in Michigan. I was born into the covenant. And if you're not familiar
Mormon terms, that just means that I was
born into the
I grew up in very Orthodox family. My dad grew up in a very Orthodox family and my mom was a convert in her twenties. So it was just very strict household in a lot of ways, but especially in religious terms.
in Michigan, the Mormon community is quite small, but, it was definitely like pretty steadfast and you were made to be peculiar. lots of, lots of times during my youth where I stood out in very weird ways among my peers for sure. so I went to BYU.
in Provo, Utah, as did Karina, that's where we met. And then I served as a missionary for the church for 18 months in the Canada -Toronto mission, Spanish speaking. And I returned home from my mission in 2018 and left the church in 2022. But there was definitely some stuff stewing for quite some time before I left.
Karina Vance (02:34)
Hm
Yeah, it's definitely a long journey to get to that point, especially when it's such a big decision to make.
Sammi (02:45)
Oh, definitely. There's so much to unpack.
Karina Vance (02:48)
Yeah. Um, so for me, um, I grew up in Indiana and then we moved down to Kentucky when I was a kid, but I am the youngest of six kids. So it was a pretty big family. And then I also had a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins who were Mormon. Uh, my dad has 12 siblings and, uh, 11 of them are boys. So my grandma loves to brag that she's got 10 of her 11 sons are priesthood holders.
Sammi (03:18)
That's special.
Karina Vance (03:19)
That has been like her big bragging point. so I grew up around my family a lot, the town that I was originally from, since they had so many siblings and then my aunts and uncles also had so many kids. The tiny school I went to was probably mostly my family.
Sammi (03:42)
my god.
Karina Vance (03:44)
So it wasn't, it wasn't a very Mormon community, but there was a lot of us in our little clan of people. So I still feel like it was really prominent when I was a kid. And so there were things that I liked about it. I liked having family and friends and like the sense of community that comes with being in a church. And yeah, that's probably like the main thing I miss honestly, was like default friends that I could hang out with on every Sunday.
Sammi (03:51)
[Cough]
That's so real.
Oh, me too.
Karina Vance (04:14)
But another thing that I enjoyed was the things that I learned, not necessarily the religious aspect and not all of it because a lot of it is direct gender roles and what I needed to be doing as a woman. But some of the info that I was taught, at least for my family, was really good. And just in general, how to take care of myself and take care of my house that I have now
you know, maybe a family one day if I decide to have one. so there was stuff that I liked and then the stuff that I didn't like. If you haven't heard the shelf metaphor, basically you have your shelf of questions or concerns or things that don't really make sense. And then if you have a new thing, you put it up on the shelf and I would just tell myself
It'll make sense later or if it doesn't make sense, whenever I get to heaven one day, like Heavenly Father can explain it and then it'll all be good and it'll take all my questions away. And I probably started my shelf around the time I got baptized because then it felt real and I was a big perfectionist and I felt like I couldn't make mistakes. So I got really bad anxiety.
feeling like if I made a choice that was a sin that it was gonna stick with me forever then and then I was terrified of doing basically anything because I didn't want to get in trouble and I didn't want to be taken away from my family.
Sammi (05:52)
Oof. That is such a real fear.
Karina Vance (05:54)
and I didn't want to be like the one kid who got to heaven and everyone's up there and it was like too bad, like you messed up too much, you're not gonna join us.
Sammi (06:03)
Yeah, no, for real. I feel like so many people can relate to that. Like, there's so much weight on your shoulders. It doesn't matter who you are. If you're a parent, if you're a child, if you know, you're a leader or not, like there's so much weight on your shoulder to be exactly how the church expects you to be. Because if not, you might as well just like fuck your family. Like, that or nothing.
Karina Vance (06:28)
Yeah, well, I didn't get mental health help until later, but definitely looking back, I can tell I had a lot of anxiety for a child. Definitely stemming from that perfectionism and fear of making mistakes because they were going to cause me eternal consequences. And so the struggle for that started young. And then.
Sammi (06:45)
Yeah, so dumb.
Karina Vance (06:56)
Then when I got older and I was a teenager, I realized that I was bisexual. And at the time I didn't have a full realization of everything that came with that because I don't know about you, but where I grew up, sexuality when I was a kid just wasn't really talked
Sammi (07:14)
straight facts yeah no it was so so just like country and we're all straight and we don't care about anybody's rights yeah
Karina Vance (07:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I knew that it was wrong and I knew that it was seen as a sin. And I didn't come out when I was a teenager, none of the homophobia got directed at me, but I would hear other people talk about it in general. And then I would internalize what they had to say about it. Whether that was feeling like, you know, if I acted on it, then I was going to commit a sin second to murder, basically.
Sammi (07:46)
for sure.
Karina Vance (07:56)
if I, or they would say things like, they just do it because they enjoy sinning basically, which doesn't make sense, but, or, you know, they were confused, they were led astray, they chose to be that way and they just have to turn back on it. And,
Sammi (07:56)
We could have whole podcast about that.
Hm of course
Mm -hmm.
Yup
Karina Vance (08:21)
So I had internalized a lot of that and I had a lot of self -hatred. And then probably around the time I was 16, I started having self -harm habits from just feeling like I was born a mistake, basically.
Sammi (08:37)
man, I'm so sorry you went through that
Karina Vance (08:41)
Yeah, luckily I'm good now. But, and then also when I was in high school, I started spending my summers in Utah. I would live with one of my siblings and it was pretty fun, but there were other times where I kind of realized how different the Utah culture is from being a Mormon anywhere else because their own little bubble.
Sammi (09:03)
Oh my god.
Karina Vance (09:07)
And everyone thinks the same way as them. They all go to church together on Sunday. And I really felt like I didn't fit in because I believe the same things that they did, but just the way they did it didn't make sense to me. Because I felt like when I showed up on Sunday that they were all watching to like see who was going to be there. And then talk about it, basically.
Sammi (09:35)
Yeah
Karina Vance (09:35)
and what's felt like a righteousness contest. And it made me uncomfortable because I was like, you know, I'm moving to this place where it's supposed to be a bunch of people who have the same religious ideals as me. Like, hopefully that would be like the best place to go because we all think the same. And then to feel like I didn't fit in there, but also I didn't fit in back home because I was like one of a few Mormon kids in school.
Sammi (09:39)
my god, that's so real.
Karina Vance (10:03)
and you're definitely made to feel like you have to be different from them. So I was like, well, I don't fit in either place. I don't know what to do.
Sammi (10:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. And I would add that like moving to Utah, especially just once you're like a young adult, basically in Mormonism, it's not just like a righteousness contest. It's a contest of like, be the one that the righteous guy is going to fall in love with and marry in the temple. Like you are always put out there to just be a wife and a mother. And so you have to like put on this like, I'm just so righteous. I'm so worthy.
Make sure that all the guys are looking at me and noticing that I'm here at church doing all the things and going to, you know, the 15 different activities per week that you have to go to as a Mormon because if you don't, then you're like not fulfilling your legacy, basically. Oh, it's so good.
Karina Vance (10:57)
Yeah. Yeah, I definitely I definitely felt like that when I went to BYU. And I remember whenever I applied, I was like, this is what I'm going to do. All of my family went to BYU. I'm going to be surrounded by Mormons. I'm going to have all kinds of more dating opportunities so I can marry a Mormon boy. And. It was actually the only college I applied to. was like, if I don't get in, I don't know what I'm going to do with my future, because this is it.
Sammi (11:18)
Yeah.
Karina Vance (11:28)
But whenever I got there,
Sammi (11:28)
Yeah, for real. I just realized, sorry. I just realized, I don't think that either of us mentioned that we're both divorced. Yeah, and that was kind of like the timeline of that was go to BYU, get married pretty quickly into like our early 20s, and now we're both like mid late 20s and divorced. So that's how that went.
Karina Vance (11:55)
Yeah. So by the time I got to BYU, I think also in Provo and in BYU itself, that culture was so much worse. Cause it wasn't just about being righteous or being faithful. was also, at least for me at times, it felt like a popularity contest. You had to be modest, but you had to be good looking and you had to
Sammi (12:19)
Mm-hmm.
oh definitely
Karina Vance (12:24)
talents and you had to have X, Y, and Z skills and you had to have all of this so you could basically present yourself as the best option on the market because
Sammi (12:34)
Yeah, for sure. yeah, sorry, keep going.
Karina Vance (12:38)
Yeah, so many people went there to get an education, but also, you know, to find marriage. And so it was always feeling like you had to be on and putting on your best. And it was exhausting.
Sammi (12:51)
Yeah, definitely. For sure, to get that MRS degree, the Mrs. degree. But yeah, I also feel like you could definitely tell who were the Utah Mormons. And coming, both of us, from places that weren't Utah, it was ostracizing. They are the ones, they all look the same, basically. They got their hair curled perfectly.
Karina Vance (12:57)
Mm -hmm.
They really do.
Sammi (13:20)
No, seriously. like, it's like, I didn't fit into that. I was never like one of the like, pretty girls. I'm doing air quotes, like, never really cared to do my makeup, do my hair or anything like that. And you go into this culture where everyone is like a show horse. And the people who are, I don't know, I mean, like, I didn't get a ton of dates at BYU, but the people who are, are those Mormon perfect hair, perfect makeup.
people and so it is such a
Karina Vance (13:54)
Yeah. And then like another thing when I went to BYU, that summer before was the first time that I had been with a woman. And I had so much shame about it because immediately afterwards I was like, I messed up. Like, I am in deep trouble. And if I do not fix this, then I am going to just be screwed for the rest of my
And so when I got there, I immediately was like, I need to get help because at the time I still felt like it was something that I could like fix or cure or make it go away. And so that was at the time that I started seeking help from priesthood people in my life. And that's actually what opened the door to me getting assaulted by some of them. Yeah. Basically,
Sammi (14:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
my god,
Karina Vance (14:54)
it's super messed up, but it was under the guise of like, you had an experience with a woman, now you need to have experiences with men and then you will change your mind. Which didn't work. But at the time I was like, I don't want to do this, but I don't feel like I have any other options.
Sammi (15:04)
What?
my god.
Okay, where was this coming from? Was this coming from like the top, like the bishop, or was this coming from just some rando, like single adult priesthood holders, which by the way, priesthood holders have no qualifications to be giving any sort of help.
Karina Vance (15:33)
It was leadership. I will just leave it at
Sammi (15:36)
telling you that you needed to have a sexual experience with a man so that you would un -queer yourself.
Okay, does that not break the law of chastity?
Karina Vance (15:49)
it totally does. But, but yeah, I went along with these things that I didn't want to do because I felt like at the time that was my best option. And,
Sammi (15:51)
What?
I'm so sorry.
Karina Vance (16:05)
Yeah. And so my that was freshman year and then come winter semester freshman year. I finally finally at the point where I was like, I cannot keep doing this because it was going to kill me. And then so that winter I did try to take my life. Luckily, I'm still alive. And then at that point, I was kind of like, you know
Sammi (16:30)
Yeah, I'm so grateful you're still here
Karina Vance (16:36)
If I am going to hell now for being this way, I'm gonna choose that option because I cannot keep living this way. I wouldn't make it.
So that was definitely... You'd think that I would leave the church, but I was still a full believer. I just felt very broken.
Sammi (16:51)
. . . .
Yeah, definitely. I know what you mean.
Karina Vance (17:06)
So after that, had my sophomore year of college and then my mental health got a little better because I got myself out of bad situations and I finally started going to therapy and taking medicine as needed and didn't talk about anything that had happened. I didn't start getting therapy for that until recently. But it was my sophomore year that I met my now ex -husband.
and we got engaged when I was 19. And we had known each other for less than six months when we got engaged.
Sammi (17:44)
Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. Oh good god.
Karina Vance (17:49)
It was very fast. And then we got married right before fall semester started. So we started dating in the winter. We were married by the end of summer. And it was like the beginning was good and we were both Mormon. We got married in the temple. And I remember, so I got endowed the day before my wedding and then I had the wedding ceremony.
Sammi (18:17)
Oh my god, Karina
Karina Vance (18:19)
the next day since I didn't go on a mission. And I don't know about you, but for me, having two back -to -back days of like, here's your endowment ceremony for the first time, and also here's your first time hearing the wedding ceremony, it was really overwhelming and I was honestly left uncomfortable.
Sammi (18:41)
No, definitely. I got endowed before my mission and I almost left the church before I left on my mission, uncomfy. So I cannot imagine.
Karina Vance (18:52)
Yeah. Because the temple prep classes, they talk more on like the doctrine side of what people do in the temple, but they didn't ever explain like how any of the ceremonies worked or like anything you had to do. And so when I went there the first time, I was like, this is low key, high key, culty.
Sammi (19:16)
Yeah, no straight up it's a cult.
Karina Vance (19:21)
And I was like, this is what people are doing? Like every month when my parents go to the temple, this, this is what they're doing?
Sammi (19:30)
Mm -hmm, yeah, no, I feel that too. I'm like, everybody thinks this is normal, right?
Karina Vance (19:36)
Yeah, and then so I did that and it was uncomfortable and then I went back the next day and I got married and I remember the section of the marriage covenant that you make where my husband promised to follow God basically and then it was my turn. It was me promising to follow my husband, which made me even more uncomfortable because
Sammi (19:56)
Barf.
Karina Vance (20:01)
I was like, why can't we just both agree to follow God and that should lead us in the same direction? Why do I have to defer to a man to lead him, like have him lead
Sammi (20:11)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, the patriarchy.
Karina Vance (20:16)
And yeah, so that was a big thing on my shelf because I thought that like that was going to be the pinnacle, that it was going to like make sense of a lot of stuff in my life. And then I got to the temple and all it did was make me uncomfortable.
Sammi (20:32)
Man, that is so rough. And that's all so much all at once. I cannot imagine.
Karina Vance (20:37)
Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot to take in. And then after I got married, I will skip all of the marriage problems. We can talk about that later, plus it's not all church related. But I went to a married ward soon after that and married wards were like the singles wards. But I found them even more annoying because then instead of
Parading yourself around. was also now I'm the best couple and we're going to make babies and do all this stuff. And at that point I was getting really tired of living in Utah. So even though I was still an active believing member, we stopped going to church as often and I would just go enough to meet the attendance requirement for BYU. Because if anyone doesn't know,
Sammi (21:30)
Mmm, there you go
Karina Vance (21:32)
If you go to BYU, you have to have, I think it's like 80 % church attendance, something like that. And then every year you have an interview with your bishop and then they determine if you're still worthy to go. so, If you're righteous enough to go to school. So I did enough to still meet the requirements, but then I tried to avoid all the extra activities because all they did was make me uncomfortable.
Sammi (21:39)
I don't remember.
to a school. How fucked up is that.
Karina Vance (22:03)
And then, so now we're getting to the part where my child - WHAT?
Sammi (22:05)
What year was that? What year was
Karina Vance (22:11)
I got married in 2017.
Sammi (22:14)
Okay, yeah yeah
Karina Vance (22:17)
in 2019 is when I formally decided that I was done. And my husband, he was actually the one that kind of started it. So I'm grateful to him for that. One day he basically came up to me and he said, hey, I was doing some research online and I read this article and it made me really question if the church was true or not
And immediately I was like, what did you read? Was it a church source? Like, why, why were you doing this? And he was like, yeah, you're not allowed to seek other sources. And so I was in my mind, I was like, okay, here's my time to be the strong one. Tell me what you read. And hopefully I could like answer his questions and we would be good. And he's like, okay,
Sammi (22:53)
Yeah, because you're not allowed to. Nothing else out of the source.
Good
Karina Vance (23:12)
I will let you read it on your own and then we can come back and talk about it so I don't have to tell you how to think about it." I was like, cool. So he sent me the link and it was the CES
Sammi (23:20)
That's awesome.
Ooh, a doozy. I haven't read it. I've listened to part of it, but I like was already well enough out of the church by the time that I found out about it that I was like, I'll probably listen to this in passing at some time, you know, but I'm done. Yeah.
Karina Vance (23:28)
I don't know if you've read it.
Yeah, it was really informative and he has sources listed for everything he says in the letter. And so it's kind of hard to argue when he's saying, you know, here's what happened. Here's like the historical document that goes with it. And so I probably only got three sections into it. And I was like, turns out my life is a lie. And none of this is true. And so that was like the moment where
Sammi (24:09)
YUP, my god.
Karina Vance (24:15)
If the history didn't match what they told me it was, if the Book of Mormon wasn't a true book of God like I thought it was, then there's no point in me staying, especially when I've already had, you know, long list my whole life of things that hurt me and made me uncomfortable and made me feel like I was less than. And then you're going to tell me that Joseph Smith didn't even, he wasn't how I thought he was.
I was like, you know what? We're done here.
Sammi (24:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, for real. I feel like the CES letter drives so many people out of the church. And I've seen even in like some of the Facebook groups that we're on together that are like ex -Mormon Facebook groups that people will like write it on the Relief Society chalkboard and stuff like that. It's great. It's great. We're doing the Lord's work.
Karina Vance (25:10)
Yeah, so I read that letter the summer before my senior year at BYU. And I had realized that I was done and I didn't think that it was true anymore. But I was so close to being done with my degree that I was like, I can deal with it for another year. I already had the interview, so I was just like, it's fine. We're just going to go. But we decided to basically keep it a secret. I had had a friend
Sammi (25:35)
Fake it til you make it
Karina Vance (25:40)
earlier in college who had said that she didn't believe the church was true and she got kicked out of BYU and she yeah and she had to start over at another college which takes a lot more time and money so I was like you know what I can I'll still go to meet the requirement and I will just not talk about it with anyone and just finish my degree
Sammi (25:46)
What the fuck
Yeah .
Did your friend have to start over, start over? She didn't get her credits?
Karina Vance (26:10)
Some of her stuff transferred, I don't know if you've looked into it, but a lot of BYU classes don't transfer if you try to go to another school. And they have so many religion classes that like all of those hours you put in, you could maybe get one elective for them, you
Sammi (26:20)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely heard that
YUP
Right, yeah. That pisses me the fuck off. Like, I - there was points where I was thinking about transferring and I was like, but it makes zero percent sense to do that. Like, you lose so much. That is so -
Karina Vance (26:49)
Yeah. And after I had graduated, my ex -husband actually transferred to a different college. And when he did, he lost a lot of what he had done. So I just decided I would finish. And then once I had the diploma physically in my hand, then I would actually tell people. So I did finish school and then I told
Sammi (27:01)
Ridiculous.
Good plan.
Karina Vance (27:18)
my family that I had left in 2020. I wasn't sure how to bring it up or how to announce it, because it's not something you just send in a group text. So I. Yeah, it does. So I wrote them all a letter and it didn't go into detail on why I had left, but it basically said, you know, I'm done with the church, I don't believe it's true anymore, I won't be going.
Sammi (27:30)
Yeah, it's like definitely feels kind of like coming out
Karina Vance (27:49)
And then I was like, if you want to know why keep reading. If you don't want to know, then just go ahead and finish the letter. That's all I have to say. And then I had a couple of paragraphs at the end, just giving a general, like, I don't think the history is true. I don't like how they treat women, how they've treated other groups of people, like the racism, the homophobia, the list goes
Sammi (28:11)
Mm -hmm.
Karina Vance (28:13)
And then I just sent it to them all one day and there was a lot of backlash. My parents didn't take it well at all. They were really upset and even mad. So that year was kind of rough because anytime I'd want to spend time with them, that's what they would want to talk about to try to convince me that I was wrong.
Sammi (28:15)
Wow! .
Oof.
Oh my god.
Karina Vance (28:40)
or that I just wasn't seeing it right, that I was being let astray. And it eventually got to the point that I had to pretty much ghost them. And we didn't talk for about six months because I told them I wasn't gonna allow them to talk to me that way, just in the same way I didn't wanna attack them and try to convince them that I thought that their faith wasn't true either. I was like, just leave me alone. And then if we can not talk about religion,
then we don't have to talk about it and we can move on. And luckily it has gotten better.
Sammi (29:14)
Good for you. Yeah, that's great.
Karina Vance (29:18)
it's still a huge part of my family's life. So I know it's something that they do a lot. So sometimes, you know, they still talk about it because that's like a main hobby for them. But at least now we're to the point where we can just kind of respect the differences and then not really dig into it in discussion. So I feel like we're at a good place
Sammi (29:32)
Yeah.
Sure. That's good. That can be so rough. Yeah, I have so much to say on that, but I'll probably save it for my exit story. Families are tough.
Karina Vance (29:47)
Yeah. And then, yeah, it is hard. And I think some people don't realize when you leave a religion, it's not just leaving the faith, especially with how tight knit Mormonism is. You lose family members, you can lose friends, you can lose a whole community of people just by deciding you don't believe it anymore.
Sammi (30:08)
Yeah ...
Right. And that's when the church is preaching that family is the most central, the most important. It's everything. And then if you leave the religion, yeah, bye Felicia. it's the church, I would say, I think the church does help some families to be like bound together in ways that are beautiful to them. Sure. But I also feel like it wrecks a lot more families than it probably helps.
Karina Vance (30:44)
Yeah, especially when it creates such a strong like us versus them narrative. But now out of my six siblings, I'd say there's probably one or two that are still in and then some of them have left or they're more nuanced in their belief. Some of them do totally different things now, but.
Sammi (30:49)
Oh yeah
Karina Vance (31:13)
I was definitely the first one to announce it that I was done. And so I got a lot of backlash the first time. So you're welcome, siblings, for taking that bullet.
Sammi (31:21)
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
For real, for real. That's interesting too. have some of my siblings are out, some are in, some of them are kind of on the fence. And I was definitely the most vocal about my exit from the church and definitely have received a lot of backlash from that as well. It's a role that someone has to take and we took it and that's amazing.
Karina Vance (31:54)
we did
Sammi (31:55)
Definitely, it definitely can suck in a lot of ways. For sure.
Karina Vance (31:59)
So yeah, I have been out for five years now. A lot changes. The main thing, you know, I got divorced and I feel like I could do a whole episode on that. But I will say I'm grateful that he got me to this point. I don't think I would have started to question the church if he didn't encourage me
Sammi (32:04)
Wow.
Yeah ...
Karina Vance (32:28)
read and study on my own. And there's definitely a lot of church related things that played into it, but also just life in general, because marriage is hard. And I think when I first left, there was a lot of anxiety and fear because you don't know what you're going to do or where you're going to go now. And I definitely had a period where I was angry for things that had happened.
Sammi (32:53)
Mm -hmm.
Karina Vance (32:59)
But I feel like now I've come to a pretty good place where I've made peace with my beliefs now and feeling like I can talk about it more without just getting upset or getting mad about it. So I felt like it was a good time for you to want to make a podcast because even if it had been a year ago, I probably would not have wanted to do it
Sammi (33:21)
Yeah. perfect timing. Look at that. Yeah, of course. I'm so glad that you're here with me and doing this with me. I think it's going to be great. And I'm hopeful that we'll be able to reach a bunch of people and help them at whatever stage they're in. Yeah, it's really, it's such a trip leaving the church because I don't feel like I fully recognized until I left the church that the church was my entire personality.
Karina Vance (33:24)
Yes, thank you.
Sammi (33:51)
It was everything I did. Like the sheer amount of hours, you think about like growing up, church was three hours. It changed to two when we were what? Like in college, probably.
But then you also have mutual as a youth. You have like the young kids activity days as a child. And then once you're in college, you have Institute and you have FHE and FHE family home evening and all these like random activities that you're supposed to go to. it literally, seminary, my gosh, there's just, it just like keeps on piling on. And it literally.
Karina Vance (34:30)
Mm -hmm.
Sammi (34:33)
takes up such a portion of your waking hours that when it's not in your life, holy shit, you have to figure out what you're gonna do with your time, how you're going to function as a person in society when you have such little experience functioning in society without the crutch of religion telling you exactly how to act, exactly what to do.
And you have to like question literally everything. Literally everything. Do I believe this or was this just brainwashed into me? How do I feel about this action that people do like drinking for example, or like having sex outside of marriage? Am I okay with that? What do I think about like, one night stands? What do I think about having multiple partners? You know, like all these different things
Karina Vance (35:09)
Yeah.
Sammi (35:33)
You had zero space in Mormonism to fully process all of those things, fully think through all those things for yourself because you're being told exactly what you needed to believe, exactly how you needed to act. And if you got out of line, then you got reprimanded and you lost privileges. And oof, it's just like so much all at once that you are slapped with and
I'll say five years. I'm looking forward to that because I'm at like two years fully out now and there's so much, so much that I've processed already, but I so much more that I need to process.
Karina Vance (36:19)
It definitely gets better with every year. And now, I mean, I still think about the church often just because, you know, I was a member for 22 years, but, you know, now I have times where I don't think about it and it's really relieving to know that like, their influence on how I think is not gonna be permanent.
Sammi (36:23)
That's good to hear
Yeah.
Karina Vance (36:46)
And it's really relieving and exciting to know that you can go live your own life and it's not always going to feel like it's this cloud hanging in the background. At least I don't know if you felt that way, but at first it was kind of, I felt like it was everywhere.
Sammi (36:57)
Right.
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, there's like moments that if someone asks me like, where did you go to college or ask me something just random and Mormonism comes up because you know, I went to BYU Mormon college, I feel a sheer amount of embarrassment, like even just admitting, I went to BYU or I grew up Mormon, but then I'm like, and I'm not Mormon anymore because people like, I grew up thinking
like that people thought Mormons were just like the coolest, the coolest, most kind people on the planet. No, like some - okay, some people think that, but most people think Mormons are fucking weird because they are. Like, and yeah.
Karina Vance (37:47)
Yeah, I've met people that know nothing about it. I know people that know a lot about it. Some people will have a couple of Mormon friends and be like, yeah, they were cool. Or other people will be like, do you have like five moms? And then I'll have to be like, okay, real back.
Sammi (37:54)
Yeah.
Right.
Right, yeah, that's so real. That's so real. guess it is, yeah, it's kind of all across the board, but I think I just feel this embarrassment. Like if they know what I now know about Mormonism, just all of the really shitty stuff that has happened in the history of the church, the things that continue to happen, treatment of women and all sorts of different groups. Like, I don't want to be associated with that, you know?
So yeah, it's just tricky, but I definitely, I've come a long way and you have too. And it's funny the other day when we were catching up, I said something about like, we don't even really know each other that well. And you said something like, well, I'm not the same person that I was when we met. And I was like, girl, same. Like, isn't it incredible how much we've grown?
Karina Vance (38:58)
Not at all.
Sammi (39:01)
We have come so far and it's huge to see the differences. There's so much that I look back at and I'm like, I give love to every version of myself. You have to, to be able to heal and move forward. like, damn girl, those were some rough times. Goodness. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Karina Vance (39:25)
There were moments. There were moments.
You were doing the best with what you knew at the time. So you've got to give yourself a little grace. And now you know better, so you can do better.
Sammi (39:35)
Yeah
Right, exactly. I hope that everyone listening takes that to heart because you will go everywhere you want to and you will grow in ways that you cannot even imagine. You just kind of got to get through the messy middle to get there.
Karina Vance (39:59)
and it is a messy middle.
Sammi (40:01)
It is a mighty messy.
Karina Vance (40:05)
peculiar and meh - messy.
Sammi (40:08)
Yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, thank you for sharing your story.
Karina Vance (40:12)
So yeah, that is my story. There's definitely a lot more things that we can go into detail on later. I know there's already been topics that we've thrown around because there's all kinds of reasons why people leave and then there's all kinds of complications that come with it, whether you are male, female, non -binary, gay, straight
There's just a lot of messy topics that make sometimes being a Mormon harder.
Sammi (40:40)
Yeah, all the different things.
Definitely. Definitely.
Karina Vance (40:53)
There's a lot we could talk
Sammi (40:55)
Yeah, and we will keep talking about it. So looking forward to next week's episode, I will be sharing my exit story. And then from there, I think that we're gonna start diving into each of the topics that were brought up during our exit stories. And we'll go from there. Just a little bit of housekeeping. We're gonna get ourselves onto
social media in several ways. We're going to create a Patreon. on Patreon, there will be options to, subscribe, so we can make our podcasts a little more, a little more official and put together. Hopefully the audio isn't terrible on these first several episodes that we have without a lot of equipment. but we appreciate any support that
you're willing to give as our listeners and you'll get special treatment as Patreon subscribers. If you're listening now just via audio on our Patreon, you'll be able to see our beautiful faces and have real time reactions and so it'll be cool. We're also interested in like getting merchandise and stuff like that, which will be a perk of being
a patron. So stay tuned for all that stuff. We'll definitely post on social media once we have all those things put together. So yeah.
Karina Vance (42:36)
And also if anyone listens to this and they want to reach out, please do. I would love to talk to you about their story or my story or whatever. Because me talking about this is, it's partially for me, but I also want other people to know that if their story relates in any way, that it's not just you. And I will gladly be a listening ear if anyone needs a friend.
because it's a lot to go through.
Sammi (43:06)
Yeah, definitely same here. And if that's just you wanting to like reach out and share your story with us, that's great. If you want us to share your story or if you want to be a guest on our podcast, we'd love to have you. We're open to anything. And it is like, it's such a big deal to open your mouth and talk about these things, say these things out loud, because there's so many things that like, I didn't realize how bat shit crazy.
so many things were that I experienced. Once you start saying it out loud and people hear your story and validate you, wow, it's just a totally different, totally different path you're gonna be able to go down in your healing process.
Karina Vance (43:53)
So true. So thanks guys. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for letting me talk.
Sammi (43:58)
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story. We will see you next week.
Karina Vance (44:04)
See ya!
Sammi (44:05)
Bye!