(Note: Segment 3 of this interview has been removed from the podcast feed — out of respect for the family members involved, and due to legal and other concerns).
In this 4-part series, we interview Richard Packham — co-founder of the Ex-Mormon foundation. Throughout the interview and via Richard’s own personal story, we explore 3 ways in which the LDS Church creates unnecessary enemies:
- Episode 1: By not being honest about its own history (e.g. teaching accurate history)
- Episode 2: By breaking up families (when one no longer believes)
- Episode 3: By harming the loved ones of those who have left the church (removed from the feed)
- Episode 4: To conclude, Richard discusses the benefits of religious belief and the LDS church, the mission of the ExMormon foundation, and bears a final testimony regarding the joy/happiness he has experienced since leaving the church.
NOTE: The purpose of this interview is NOT to encourage people to stay or leave the LDS church. It is simply to:
- Seek to understand and to validate the path of those who have felt compelled to leave the church, and
- Explore ways in which the church can seek to no longer create unnecessary enemies.
John,
You have done an awesome job with these interviews!!
I empathize for the families on this board. Our family also suffered a terrible loss, in hindsight half of the family thinks that Church contributed and exaserbated the problem. You would get very different accounts from different members of the family and I dont think we can agree to disagree. For the most part if any exmos speak the fragile relationship that is left will be severed. I am sorry for your pain, the loss and the drama. It is pain I wish on no one. If it was any consolation this podcast and the comments have helped me see that I am not alone. Differing beliefs and a suicide = a family completed divided. Perhaps there is no hope but at least I am not alone and not crazy for just giving up and making peace with my life minus some family.
John, I feel for you in the middle of this situation.
I listened to all 4 parts of the podcast (before part 3 was removed) and as I listened I wondered if Richard’s extended family might be upset by episode 3 – evidently they were. Suicide is a very sensitive subject and, for what it’s worth, I didn’t feel that Ted and his family came out of Richard’s account badly. It was clear to me that Richard was speaking from his own particular perspective, I believe he said as much himself. As an adult and an individual with some understanding of the effects of my brother’s (attempted) suicide on my family, it is clear to me that there are always 2 sides to every story and that interpretation of events can differ tremendously between family members. I am sure that most listeners to your interview can appreciate this and do not judge any of the family members involved because they recognise that people who weren’t there are in no position to make judgements.
Love and thoughts to Ted and his family following the loss of their wife/mother and also to Richard following the death of his sister.
I must respond to some incorrect implications (and some outright false statements) in some of the comments.
For those who knew my sister and her family, and who say that they knew them as a devoted and loving couple, and that he treated her with devotion and admiration and support, I can testify that indeed that was the impression that anyone who knew them would have. He loved and admired her deeply. But I can also testify to the reality behind the public image. And that is based on many conversations that I and my wife had with my sister, often by telephone, that no one else can know of. Of course her husband never knew about them, nor her children. She would call only when he could not overhear the conversation. When I would call her, the conversations were extremely brief if he could overhear. We heard about the reality behind the facade, and the reasons for her depression, alcoholism and desire to escape.
It is based on things she said in those private conversations that are the basis for my statements about her feelings of being smothered, dominated, depressed, and unworthy. As with many families, outward appearances are not always an accurate indication of what goes on behind the scenes.
I find it quite telling that in all the comments condemning me for discussing what I felt to be contributing factors to her decades-long depression, alcoholism, suicide attempts, and final leave-taking, no one else has even ventured to offer any explanation for why a seemingly happy, loved, devout and devoted Mormon woman would be suffering such things for so long, ending in her final successful attempt to escape from whatever was tormenting her. No one has ventured to deal with that crucial question, except in the most superficial way.
In being willing to talk in the interview about my sister, I was not seeking to cast stones, to besmirch her memory, to dredge up useless and painful memories, or to cause embarrassment or discomfort to her immediate family, but to place the tragedy into a larger picture and in some way produce some benefit for others. Because she was (and is) not the only Mormon woman in that life-threatening situation. When I first told her story publicly on an Internet discussion board which I frequent, immediately after learning about her death, I received several hundred messages of condolences, even from people I did not know. I also was thanked privately by several Mormon women who had read the story and who told me that it was a “wake-up call” for them. They could recognize themselves and their situations in what I had described. And, because of how it ended for my sister, they realized that they must do something to change their own situation, to avoid her fate.
I am told that psychiatrists in Utah see the situation so often in Mormon women that it has a clinical name: the “Mother in Zion Syndrome.”
In that small way, I felt that some good had been salvaged, making her death not a total loss. And I believe that was John’s motives in asking me to talk about her.
It is unfortunate that her husband and sons are distressed by my telling what I know about my sister. They are clearly unaware of the relationship that she and I had. They do not exclusively “own” her life, or her death. ALL of us who loved and knew her suffered a loss. They lost a wife, a mother. I lost my dear sister, and my grief is as real and as valid as theirs. And I have as much right to tell my story as do they. I choose, however, not to coat the truth with pleasant deceptions and write a “faith-promoting” version.
Two minor corrections of statements made by one of her sons:
He said that his sister and I had “chosen to distance themselves from the family.” Nothing could be further from the truth, either with respect to me or to my niece. Yes, we left the Mormon church. But it is only in the minds of the Mormons that leaving the church is equal to leaving the family. It is rather some of the Mormon family members who have chosen to exclude us, to isolate us, for no other reason than our no longer believing. My niece has begged and pleaded with her father and her brothers to accept her on an equal footing, but they cannot seem to find it in their Christian hearts to love an apostate.
And I was accused of being so ignorant of their family that I did not know how many children there were. Yes, I misspoke and said “five” when the actual number is “four.” It was a slip of the tongue, made when I wasn’t really thinking about her children. I do know them, I know their names, the order of their birth, and the names of their spouses. I would be willing to bet that my critic would be unable to say instantly how many children I have, let alone name them and name their spouses. It’s the problem of the extended Mormon family – not easy to keep at the tip of one’s tongue how many kids there are in all the big families. So I can be completely discounted for a slip of the tongue. I probably know more about his mother’s secret thoughts (the crucial issue) than he does.
I am going to turn comments off now (for the 2nd time).
And I am going to end with a plea for both sides to allow me to delete all comments….and minimize the extent to which people’s names are used on the Internet in ways that they don’t feel good about…and to let this family rift begin to heal where possible. There’s still time to keep this story, and this battle, from spreading.
Again, I am very, very sorry that this interview — which was made with the hope of bringing families together — has actually increased the chasm in yours. This was never the intent. I still don’t know how to make it right.