The Baptism Did Not Work

Link to the introductory warning and the cast of characters

In the LDS Mormon Church there are age milestones. When you turn 8 years old, you are old enough to be baptized and then be responsible for all of your sins for the rest of your life.

I took the words of the LDS Mormon Church at face value. They said that I would “feel the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost”.

From the LDS Mormon youth magazine, Friend, June 2019 “The Holy Ghost is…”  The Holy Ghost is a member of the Godhead, a gift that comes with baptism, and a promise from Heavenly Father. He is a comforter, warning, teacher, messenger, friend. (source)

My baptism

My father baptized me, as is tradition. Does the baptism count if the baptist is a perpetual unrepentant sinner?

I had high hopes that my baptism would make me clean. I was naive and easy for my parents to control. All they had to do was activate the LDS Mormon fear of Eternal Hell (Outer Darkness).

I read my scriptures every day. I read Friend magazine. I was surrounded by LDS Mormonism in every corner of our house. I believed in Joseph Smith, that he was a Prophet. I believed that he found the Golden Plates and translated the history of Jesus Christ in America. I believed that this life was brief, and that I was only here to be saved so I could (hopefully) live in the Celestial Kingdom for eternity. I believed that Ezra Taft Benson was a true Prophet of God.

Ezra Taft Benson is a racist who wrote, preached and endorsed an eternal font of racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Author Joseph

Mother said I would feel different.  She knew what happened to me and she knew that I believed in the LDS Mormon Doctrine of Baptism.

When my father and I left the baptismal font, I felt cold and wet.

I did not feel a lifting of the spirit.

I did not feel God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit with me.

I did not feel any better.

I felt worse because I really felt the emptiness.  

The stomach turning depression.  

God and Father left me cold, wet and still depressed as fuck.

I also saw my Father’s privates when we changed back into our Church clothes. That image haunts me. Cold, wet, empty and seeing a grown man’s private area through wet temple garments.

Part of me died the day I was baptized. My faith died. I didn’t have a Holy Ghost.

I was damaged. God left me. He left me with Mother.

My baptism did not help my Mother and Father either. Neither wrote about it in my sacred LDS Mormon Baby Book. Must have been busy covering up child abuse.

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8 year old insomniac

I could not sleep. I was wetting the bed every day. This was making Mother very angry. There were incidents with both parents abusing me when they found me trying to hid my urine-soaked bedclothes in the laundry chute at our house in Springfield*. Both of these events are core abuse memories for me.

My mother whisper-screaming “piece of shit” over and over. I don’t know if she was talking about the urine-stained sheets or me.

My father whispering “darn”. Then saying “well, golly”. Then saying “darn it”. Then yelling “gosh darn it”. Then yelling “god damn it”. Repeating the phrase with each unsuccessful attempt to save my wet bedsheets.

Listening to the radio to try to take my mind of the abuses

My grandmother gave me a cassette player for Christmas in the mid-1980s. I had it on my headboard. It was right over my head when I laid in my bed. I could listen to it at the lowest volume and try to not wake Murph*. He may remember complaining about it. A CSA-victim is not a good roommate for their younger brother.

Little did we know that Murph had also been subject to CSA from Male Rapist. We were not good roommates for each other. My parents should have had zero children but they burdened the world with six, too many for one salary.

If I did not play something, I would lie awake for hours, thinking about all that had went wrong in my life and how the LDS Mormon baptism did not work. I still felt hurt from the CSA. My stomach hurt all the time. This was depression. I needed treatment and help, not LDS Mormon abuse and forced smiling and facades-for-days.

Murph would hear the radio sometimes, so it was a problem. The family scapegoat is not allowed to negatively impact any of the other family members. If you are not familiar with the term “scapegoat” in a narcissistic-family, please read this blog at Very Well Mind.

Paul H. Dunn: LDS Mormon Pariah & Proven Liar

The first cassettes I was allowed to listen to at night were LDS Mormon sermons-on-tape. Paul H. Dunn was huge in the 1980’s Deseret Book scene. Mother went to the Chicago temple to do temple work. (Can a sinner perform temple work?) Sometimes, she would bring home a Paul H. Dunn tape for me. I would listen to this man while I tried to not think and fall asleep. I was 7 years old when I started listening to this man to try to fall asleep.

In the end, Paul H. Dunn was a real estate fraudster and most of his stories turned out to be lies. He was a board member of a property development company that went bankrupt. His famous stories from the St. Louis Cardinals organization that he said he played for were all lies.

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Mother hits her gifted children in the face

I attended a local elementary school in Springfield*. Springfield was a small suburb at the intersection of 3 townships and 2 counties. Our LDS Mormon Church was in the next county, but only an 8 minute drive, less than 7 km.

Sidebar: Mother is a narcissist that was trying to project the image of a perfect LDS Mormon family. It was the only way she could prevent further investigation into the Child Sex Abuse (CSA) that she was told about and chose to conceal. To project the image of a successful family, Mother pushed us to achieve in our school work. That meant 1980s “Gifted Education” for Courtney*, me and Murph*.

The elementary school did the tests for the gifted program in 3rd grade. Courtney made it into the gifted-class her first try. She was easily the smartest of the six children in our family. In Copper*, AZ, the school wanted to promote Courtney from Kindergarten to 3rd grade – skipping two entire grades. That would have put her in Stefanie’s* class, so Mother only made Courtney skip one grade. Father loved to brag about Courtney’s intelligence.

I did not pass the test to be admitted into 4th grade gifted-class. Mother made a stink about it (her word). She forced me to retest, which I somehow passed. I was admitted to the gifted-class for 5th grade. I was happy to be away from a couple of bullies in standard-classes. The gifted-class had some of the nicest kids that would become needed friends at that time in my life. I had developed some acquaintances outside of the “gifted”, but it was just for playing baseball, football, and basketball in the neighborhood.

I would like to state that there is a mixed opinion of what the American “gifted” education programs did for kids that were selected. I am glad that I was in the program because I would not have had Ms. Alan*. Mother pushing me into the gifted-class is what put Ms. Alan in my life. She was the only adult I trusted at that time in my life. The gifted program may have prevented me from taking my life in middle school.

Ms. Alan* enters our lives

Our school district had 6th, 7th and 8th grade in the middle school I attended. Stefanie and Courtney both attended the middle school before I did. Courtney had the gifted-class teacher, Ms. Alan*.

Ms. Alan taught language arts and reading to the middle school “gifted kids”. Ms. Alan was an Englishwoman. She spoke with a calm, steady British confidence that was just like Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. Ms. Alan was also very pretty to 6th grade me, she is a beautiful woman. She dressed well but was never overdone. She drove a white SUV (i think?) which were really new in the late 1980s. Ms. Alan was fricking awesome.

I was not in a good place in 6th grade. I had begun a lifetime of re-inventing myself every few years. Until 1990, I was trying to be a “cool kid”. I played sports, but I was scared of everything as an untreated abused child. I may have had the abilities, but the fear always got me. I rarely did well in sports. I was too afraid. note: my kids are both great at sports. They are so brave compared to me at their respective ages. They inspire me to be brave.

I tried to leave the abused kid behind in elementary school. I asked for skater clothes to emulate Courtney’s style. Courtney had gone full 1980s skater punk girl. She had shaved the back of her head, leaving a mop top that hung in her eyes. Courtney was fucking cool as hell. I wanted to be like her. I entered middle school as a wannabe skater, aka a poser.

I was a poser. I didn’t have the clothes, shoes or the skateboard to actually be a skater. I tried, but Mother was spending her “kid budget” on Courtney, Stefanie and Murph. Courtney was costing her a fortune. Mother took the money from my cup when the other kids cost too much. I was the scapegoat. That is what happens to us. This article provides a good summary, last updated in 2022.

The incident: Mother struck Stefanie’s face

So, sixth grade. I had a great teacher. I had a couple friends. My elementary school “jock friends” were now my bullies because I was a “skater f*g Mormon”. I had one friend down the street that would skateboard with me. @B*. we had fun grinding those curbs. I’m sorry our friendship ended like it did. You were a great friend.

I was being physically abused at home. Mother’s violence had escalated to a very scary incident. This would change the course of our lives.

At some point, during 1990, Stefanie (oldest child) had done something so bad that Mother’s screaming was crazy – even for her. When mother got angry to the point of yelling and screaming, the hands were not far behind. I think that Mother has Borderline Personality Disorder.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by a pattern of intense and stormy relationships, uncontrollable anger, poor impulse control, affective instability, identity and cognitive disturbances…

source: Children of Mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder: Identifying Parenting Behaviors as Potential Targets for Intervention; University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Trigger Warning: physical child abuse

Mother would normally hit the girls with her open hands or her sandal. Mother always wore sandals in the house. She could rip one off and hit you with it before you knew you were in trouble. She was fast with a sandal whack to the body, to the instinctive defending arms. Mother would sometimes get so angry that she would lose control of the sandal. Then it was hands.

I got open hands to the head and arms. Mother would hit me with objects on the parts of my body covered in clothing. Wooden spoons, spatulas, the flyswatter was very common. She would routinely hit us with the flyswatter. It had a cheap metal-handle, kind of like a coat hanger. Mother hit me with both sides of the flyswatter. She would pin me down and hit me with objects. I was her child.

I never understood the hitting. It was very confusing to sing the “Families Can Be Together Forever” Hymn and then get a flyswatter to the arms on the same day. The same face that bore an LDS Mormon testimony about how close to God she is was the same face that would twist with anger while she hit me with her hands or with objects. Mother’s face was always enraged when she was hitting. She has a scary angry face. She haunts my restless sleep.

Back to that day in 1990. Mother was beating Stefanie so badly that Stefanie was screaming very loudly for Mother to stop hitting her. I could hear the blows landing on Stefanie as she cried out. Stefanie was in pain as Mother was yelling and hitting. I was scared out of my little 10 year old mind.

Courtney appeared and took hold of me. She guided me outside of the house. There was a short, curved concrete walkway that led from the blacktop driveway to the front door of our house in Springfield. Courtney held me in her arms and tried to cover my ears. We were both crying. I could still hear Stefanie’s screams and the blows landing. Stefanie sounded like she was being tortured, even from outside.

Courtney held me until the event ended.

Sidebar: My spouse met with my Mother in person in 2021 after I become an LDS Mormon CSA whistleblower. My spouse was never afraid of my Mother. My spouse asked Mother directly about this event. Mother confirmed that she struck Stefanie in the head with an object and that “it scared her”. I believe that Mother hit Stefanie with the iron cord in the head. Only Stefanie can clear this up, she should be questioned by the appropriate non-Mormon authorities.

How does one get an F in Sixth Grade “Gifted Class” Reading?

Shortly after this event, I got an F in Reading in sixth grade. Ms. Alan*, my trusted teacher, pulled me aside in class and let me know that my report card for that quarter would have an F in Reading. I broke down, in class, and started to tell her about what Mother did to Stefanie and what she did to me.

Ms. Alan took my words very seriously and carefully let me know that she now had a duty to report my Mother for child abuse. Ms. Alan made it seem less scary than it seems now. She had a way with me, an abused child. Ms. Alan asked me if I was telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She explained that there would be an investigation and I would have a chance to tell my story, but my parents would know that one of us kids reported the abuse.

I am telling the truth now just like I told Ms. Alan the truth in 1990. I am a CSA-victim that was being physically abused by my Mother. I had just witnessed my Mother beating my sister with such violence that my other sister took me outside the home to try to shield me from Stefanie’s and Mother’s screams.

Ms. Alan reported my Mother and Child Protective Services were notified.

Mother always told me “If you tell anyone about ______ I will make your life a living hell”. It was a common phrase for her to say to me. It was one of the few true things Mother said to me.

Mother made my life a living hell for telling Ms. Alan about all the abuse. i am in hell right now.

Continue reading: The Mormon Cover Up

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