Introduction and Welcome to Gretchen Day

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is January 30, 2021, and today we have for you a real treat. For those of you who have been following Mormon Stories Podcast for many years, this is going to be a Mormon Stories podcast very much in the tradition of Lila Tuller, Leah and Cody Young, Jason and Jeannie Booth. You know my dear friends Julie and Jerry Johnson. Oh, and Donna Showalter. Remember those Mormon Stories podcast episodes where we find a super Mormon, somebody who was just orthodox and devout, super committed to the church, kind of like your gold star, super true believing Mormon, ultra orthodox. And then something happens and they have a faith crisis. That is who we have in store for you today. Her name is Gretchen Day. Hey, Gretchen, Welcome.

Gretchen Day [00:00:57] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:57] Thanks for joining us. Gretchen has been Mormon for most, if not all of her life. She married in the temple. She had eight children with her husband. She homeschooled a lot of her children for much of her adult life. And she would probably have been one of the least people in her ward or stake or family to ever anyone to have ever imagined actually having a faith crisis and or leaving the church. But she did have a faith crisis, and we'll see how she dealt with that. And if she has stayed in the church or has left the church, that's to be seen in the arc of the narrative. But that's what we have in store for you today. I think I should mention at the outset, Gretchen is the author of several books and these happen to be children's books. These books are a series called Value Based Parenting. The first one is called Protecting Children from Unethical Persuasion. I think it's inspired by Stephen Hasson's work on cults. So it's basically how to help protect your kids from becoming members of a cult or an unhealthy organization. The second book is My Belief or Yours, Critical Thinking 101, co written by Gretchen Day and S. Jackson Rivera. And a third book is Being Positive and Present Makes Us Safer. K. And again, that one's by Gretchen Day, but you're in, so just go grab a coffee or a tea or a soda or a postum or senka, whatever it is you drink to settle into a long, deep, slow, but long form and emotional epic story. That's what you're in for today on Mormon Stories Podcast. All right, Gretchen, what did I get wrong or right or what do you want to add to my introduction?

Gretchen Day [00:02:46] I think that's pretty good. You got it. You Nailed it.

John Dehlin [00:02:48] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [00:02:49] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:02:50] I think it's worth adding that Gretchen lives in Utah County. So, you know, Provo, Orem, kind of like, think about Utah county. Like, that's where she's in it. That's where she's been in it. She's been in the thick of it. And in some sense, that's what makes me think of the Donna Showalter interview as well. So a Utah county perspective.

Gretchen Day [00:03:10] Right.

John Dehlin [00:03:11] All right, Gretchen, well, where should we begin in your story?

Gretchen Day [00:03:15] Well, let's start with my childhood. I grew up in Davis County, Clearfield, Utah, which I'm going to say right now is a different country compared to Utah County. Like, not even a different state, different country. On my dad's side, pioneer stock. Both my grandparents grew up in our same ward, lived up the street. And my mom's side was a convert family. She. Her mom is one of those stories where the missionaries, you know, were on their P Day, they were supposed to be helping the Indians in Nebraska, and they felt prompted to visit her. And she read the Book of Mormon all 24 hours, all night long, stopped drinking coffee, stopped smoking, and it changed her life.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] How old was she at the time?

Gretchen Day [00:03:55] She had. One of her daughters was gone. And then she had two daughters at home. That's a good question.

John Dehlin [00:04:00] Ish.

Gretchen Day [00:04:01] I would say 40s, okay, 30s, but yes. And then my grandpa, which is my mom's dad, didn't join for a while later, but my mom did end up getting baptized, just maybe nine or 10. And so they're a convert family. So I grew up in Davis County, Clearfield area. I refer to it as a redneck area. Maybe not the whole town, but back when I was there and where I lived, lived by the train tracks. So my dad, I would refer to him as a Jack Mormon. So he's the type of person that. It's more cultural. He didn't always go to church. This is me, in hindsight, looking at it, but I've never saw him have a calling. So I'm assuming they asked him to do something. He probably said, nah. I mean, I saw him home, teach that. That's it. And sometimes he would come, sometimes he wouldn't. Whenever he came, he never went to Sunday school or lessons. So he'd just wander around the halls. He was like, hey, dad, what you doing? I don't know what he did, but it's kind of funny. Just, I haven't. In preparation for this interview, I started thinking, what. What was it like? And I. That was just the way it was. I hadn't thought about it, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:04:57] What was his profession?

Gretchen Day [00:04:58] He worked at Hill Air Force Base. And he was in codes.

John Dehlin [00:05:01] Okay. But as a civilian, not as a.

Gretchen Day [00:05:03] As a civilian. And then he also. We built apartments right next to our house. And so he just owns a ton of property and rent stuff out and stuff. So a business owner.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] And you don't ever remember having a conversation with him as a kid? Like, dad, why. Why aren't you going? You know, why aren't you more active in the church? Or why aren't you more committed to the church?

Gretchen Day [00:05:21] No. Conversations with my dad would be like, this is. This is his version. He'd say, hell, shit, damn, ass are in the scriptures. We can. You can say those. They're not. It's not swearing, that type of thing. And then I remember as I got. This is one conversation as I got older, I was like, dad, I read the scriptures. The shit's not in the scriptures. And he's like, you keep reading. It's in there. So, I mean, that would be like, the bulk of it. But my mom was the opposite. She was like, all in. She would be like their Leaf Society president. She's writing the road shows. I still remember all day Saturdays sometimes just painting little pearls to put on her handouts, which to this day, I can't do crafts because I'm like, oh, such a waste of time, because they're just gonna throw it away after they get it. So my mom was uber, uber active. And the funny thing is, too, is my grandparents, who are my dad's parents, who live in the ward, it was the same thing. His. I almost never. I grew up with him, my grandpa, and I almost never saw him at church, but it was. It was just the normal thing. And. But his wife was super into genealogy, really active. And so it was kind of a similar dynamic. Dynamic. And my mom's parents lived in our stake. And my mom's mom was really active, was always like the compassionate service person. And I don't like. I. I don't know if my grand. My grandpa on that side went to church or not. I. I don't know. I think he did. But there definitely was a dynamic of the females being all in. And especially on my dad's side just being more of a Jack Mormon, which doesn't mean you don't believe it's not true. You just don't like going to church or even like, I didn't. Well, I don't skip ahead in the story, but in my household, if the bishop did something Wrong. My dad would talk about it. Or if he thought the leaders, like, he would make fun of the food storage. My mom would want to get food storage. He'd be like, they've been telling us that for decades. We've never needed it. The. The type of Mormonism where you don't question your leaders existed in my mom's mind, but not my dad's. So I always saw both, both those sides.

Growing Up in an Ultra-Orthodox Mormon Household

John Dehlin [00:07:16] He was criticizing the church, like, what types of things besides food storage? Criticize the prophet more.

Gretchen Day [00:07:23] More the bishop. More local stuff. Just if they did something he didn't like, it was just like, that was stupid. Why would they do that? Or whatever. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] Did you ever sense any tension in the home that your mom wished your dad would have been more faithful or your dad was making fun of your mom for her orthodoxy?

Gretchen Day [00:07:38] Oh, for sure. For that. Yeah. Very There a lot. So I would describe our household if you took. Educated the book. Educated that house. Yeah. That family. But take the end days out. That, that family dynamic with hillbilly elegy. I don't know if you've read that or not. I know it's on Netflix now, so I haven't seen the movie. And then Everybody Loves Raymond. You put all three of those together.

John Dehlin [00:08:01] Got a blue collar.

Gretchen Day [00:08:03] Yes. My dad, for sure. My mom had a master's in speech therapy, but she was a stay at home mom. She didn't, she didn't. She didn't go out and work. But yeah, so definitely a lot of. There was a lot of fighting anyway. And that was just one of the many, I mean, reasons that they would fight. But for sure, like, I remember when they came out and said, you should be having scriptures daily with a family. You should be doing fat. So my mom would try to lead it up and my dad, like, would always mess it up. So we. So I think at some point she was just like, it's not worth it.

John Dehlin [00:08:33] Okay. And did you feel like self conscious, you know, going to church or like worried for your dad's salvation or like we're inferior or any, any of those types of insecurities as a kid because of your family?

Gretchen Day [00:08:48] Never. And that's kind of funny. I never even until I thought, oh, I'm going on John Dillon. I should think about my childhood. I. It didn't even. I thought, you know what? I had never even thought until I'm 45 years old. That's right. My dad never went to Sunday school. I don't know why. He never had a calling. I don't know why my grandpa, his dad didn't even go to our wedding or in the temple. And I never thought about it until I was thinking about. And I'm like, I just. It was just something that was. And it didn't bother me. It wasn't. I just never thought about it.

John Dehlin [00:09:16] It's super fascinating to me because I grew up in Texas, in Houston, as a devout Orthodox Mormon, but always thinking of Utah as like, Oz and as like Zion and like, you know, we here in Houston are doing our best. I was in Katy, but we here in Houston are doing our best. But the. But the Mormons in Utah really know how to do it. But then you find out that, like, Mormon kids in Utah drank in high school and partied and goofed off and. And it just makes total sense that there's these multigenerational Utah Mormons that are like, yeah, Mormonism is the thing we do just like a Catholic or a Methodist or a Baptist or whatever, who's just multi generational and just kind of, you know, kind of not totally disbelieving, but not totally obeying and just kind of like it's more cultural sometimes than it is like, this devout religious devotion.

Gretchen Day [00:10:05] Right? And I was. Yeah. And I, for me personally, I was always a true believer. When I was young, I had the, you know, the experience of you praying, you find out it's true. But I had uncles that never had. Never gone or drank or did whatever. And my. My dad's dad just passed away in August. He was 98, barely. Just was starting to lose his vision. He was complaining that they weren't going to help him with his eyes. They said he was too old, but just like this firecracker man. And it was just funny because I was one of the grandchild that grew up with him in my ward and at the funeral, the talks they're giving, you would think he was the. He was. That Mormonism was the most important thing in his life. And I'm like, I never heard him talk about it. He hardly ever went to church.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] That's what you say in the obituary,

Gretchen Day [00:10:47] but it's his kids giving the talks. And I was like, and you don't. So it was almost like that was the first time I realized, wow, these people that don't live it still believe it. And I didn't know that, like, as a. Even until, like just last summer, I. I thought you, if you don't live it, you don't believe it. That was the only way, like, there would. There was no room for me. I live What I believe that's just kind of my personality. And so the thought never occurred to me that someone might believe something but not live it. So that's been quite an interesting ride for me to find out. Oh, that's what people, some people do that. I was oblivious to it.

Childhood and Teenage Years in the Church

John Dehlin [00:11:22] Okay, so what was your Mormon journey like as a kid and then as you got into your teenage years and adolescence, like you can even start from the primary on, like just what was your Mormon experience?

Gretchen Day [00:11:32] So we, I always went to church and I liked it. I had a good experience. My mom likes, always likes to tell the story. Like my first, my first few weeks, it wasn't sunbeams, what's what they called it CTR 6 or whatever. The next one, the, the, the teacher who's a male called her and he's like, and he was like, what are you guys teaching in your home? Because Gretchen has these crazy ideas about male and females. And she was like, I don't know, what did she say? And he's like, well, we were discussing the priesthood and my 6 year old self was explaining to the teacher why are better than boys because girls have babies and God had to give men the priesthood to make up for the deficiency. And I have all brothers and the oldest of three younger brothers anyway, so, so he was really offended by what I said as a six year old because I had kind of this like reverse sexism in my brain. And my mom was like, I promise I didn't teach her that. I don't know why she says things like that. And so I would say that I went to church always and I learned the things that you learn about being like a woman and you want to grow up and you want to married. But I don't think it sunk in because in my mind I was like, yeah, but first I'm going to travel the world. I don't want to get married till I'm 28. I had all these plans. I want to run and run a business, I want to publish a book. You know, I had. And I was very competitive and very like in elementary school I always like won the spelling bee and I did the reflections contest and I, I would, every year I would make a goal of like, these are all the things I'm going to win. And every year I would win all those things. I mean I did that all through high school. And so in high school I was really competitive in like debate and speech and I was a business sterling seller finalist. And a lot of it, I think my home life was so Tumultuous. I was. I was just trying to keep busy and not have to be home all the time because Sundays were especially crazy because everybody was home and it was. There was always a lot. I would call it like a war zone was kind of like the. The theme of our family. Anyway, so I really, I was really competitive, and I took that same competitive nature and applied it into Mormonism. So I probably did personal progress, like two times when I was younger, and I've done it two times since I've been an adult. I've got like every medallion they've ever made. And. And also I'm a goal setter. Like, that's just who I am. So for, to me it's like, oh, yeah, let's set some more goals. Let's, let's. Let's make things happen. And I also think that looking back, there was a part of Mormonism that, because my home life was so turbulent, that I just really love the idea of having a heavenly father and heavenly mother and just being like, you know what? They're going to work their stuff out, but I have somebody who's perfect, like, and they have my back and they love me. And. And so I think that part of Mormonism was. Was the core of Mormonism to me. And the. There's an episode on Everybody Loves Raymond where he goes in and he's confessing to the priest. This is kind of like, I would say my. Until I graduated from high school, my Mormonism thoughts. And he's like, confessing and he's. And he's saying, well, you know, I have these parents and I have this problem. And. And so the priest has given him all this advice like you would to somebody. And. And then the priest finds out who his parents are. And then the priest is like, oh, I forgive you for everything. I don't care what you did wrong. Whatever you do, it's okay. And so I kind of had. You know what? My life is so crazy that no matter what I do, like, God's gonna love me, you know, and that's just kind of. But I was also, I rule follower. I mean, like, I never did drugs. I never thought about it. I was so busy. I didn't really date much. I mean, went to a few dances. But also when you're in a redneck area and you're smart, like, boys don't like girls that are smart. And I kind of felt like that in high school. I was just like, I had a lot of boys that were friends, but I didn't date a Lot. And usually the kids that went to dances were the girls that really wanted to have a boyfriend or already had a boyfriend. And I was the type of person that would speak my mind and just say what I think. And a lot of people didn't like that. I don't think maybe still they don't. I don't know, I still do it. But there was definitely like the tension in Mormonism, like of the male patriarchy and the female subordinate. I definitely, I think there was. I don't think I rec. I can recognize it looking back. I don't think I knew what it was, but it definitely was unsettling to me. So when things would happen, I can think of one example. This is high school, not church, but I. So every week I won something I would like go to now I went to nationals twice for debate. I did all these things. And in our school, if it was really important, the principal announced it. Right? But. So the principal never announced what I won, but she always announced the football players when they went to state or something. It used to just bug me. I'd be like, what is so much better about football or whatever or boys, you know? And I would complain about it. And I can still remember sitting in my debate class and I'm talking during, over the announcements and the, my debate teacher's like, Gretchen, you should stop talking. You should listen. And he had gotten the principal to say like I had one Sterling scholar or something anyway. And so there was just, there's definitely just this. It feels like I'm living in a world where girls aren't as smart as boys, but I think I'm just as smart, if not smarter. And I almost want to say I was born like that. My, my boys get mad at me because I always make reverse sexist choice jokes. But, but that there was, there was a. Definitely a part of Mormonism on that. I didn't like it.

John Dehlin [00:17:00] Did I see emotions coming up for you and you were starting to remember that and think about it?

Gretchen Day [00:17:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] What was that about? What were you feeling?

Gretchen Day [00:17:12] Well, whenever I think of my home life, I get emotional a little bit. Just. It's hard to go back there and yeah, just, just the men being in charge and women not having a say in things. That's just always bothered me.

John Dehlin [00:17:29] In high school and maybe even in Utah Mormon high school, you were kind of talking about the girls that were favored and they're the ones that maybe weren't brainy, that weren't high achieving unless it's in cheerleading or something around beauty and Appearance and that sort of thing. And it sounded like you might have had some years where you felt lonely or picked over. Is that. Is that.

Gretchen Day [00:17:58] Oh, yes, absolutely. In fact, my senior prom, I went with my brother, a little brother. He took me, and we didn't really go to the prom. We went and had this whole. But yeah, it was like, what's wrong? And there was a. There were definitely in that time period, I thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, looking back, I'm like, I was just too damn smart for those idiots. That's what I think now. But one summer I went to visit my cousins in Nevada, and they. They're. They're Mormons. And I went on the super activity with them, and all the boys were, like, fawning all over me there. But they didn't know me. They know I was smart. And I was like, oh, if I just keep my mouth shut, boys like me. But I couldn't. I couldn't maintain that forever.

John Dehlin [00:18:42] So I have to ask, did you have any favorite primary songs? I ask everybody this.

Gretchen Day [00:18:46] So I'm a child of God.

John Dehlin [00:18:48] What's that?

Gretchen Day [00:18:48] I'm a child of God. And give Seb a little stream.

John Dehlin [00:18:50] Okay. Why those.

Gretchen Day [00:18:52] My family, hard work was like, everything. It was. It was probably the most positive part of my childhood. We were working or fighting. And because my. My dad built apartments every Saturday when we were working, we weren't fighting. And. And that's. That's. Hard work was just a big work ethic on my mom's side. It was on my dad's side. And so I just. I love gifs at the Little Strand. She's. That just keep giving and given. And then I am a child of God. Just that you have heavenly parents watching over you. Huge, huge, huge, huge part of my life growing up.

John Dehlin [00:19:24] So what was your testimony or your faith like, your inner life as a teen with Heavenly Father in prayer, in seminary? Just talk about your spiritual life in those years, if you had one.

Gretchen Day [00:19:37] Sure. So I, like, I said my mom tried to do scripture study, and that never went over very well. So most of my scripture study was on my own. And it was through the personal progress. Like, I was like, oh, yeah. So. Because that's one of the goals. Read your scriptures every day for having. So I. I read the scriptures regularly, wrote my journal regularly, and I really wanted to have that. It says, when you get to the end of the Book of Mormon, if you pray about it, you'll know the church is true. And I can still remember sitting on my bed upstairs Overlooking the viaduct and 800 north and Clearfield and praying and praying, praying and having that experience of wow, just overwhelming burning of the bosom of like this, this church is true. The Book of Mormon's true. And understand you got the answer. At least you thought at that time. Yeah, and, and that. But that experience was so powerful. Like it carried me for 40 plus years. It even carried. Well, I don't get ahead. But yeah, it was. When you're told at every Sunday school lesson and every young woman lesson and every primary lesson, hey, when you read this book and at the end you feel this, that's how you're going to know you're told over and over and over, like for 18 years. And then when you have the experience, you're like, wow, this is. They said it. I would know it by this. And now I know it because that's what they said. So super powerful. And that carried me for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] Okay, so anything else about your high school years before we talk about what came after?

Gretchen Day [00:21:08] I don't think so. I think that's.

John Dehlin [00:21:10] Did you. It sounds like you didn't date a ton. You know, a lot of times we talk about, you know, law of chastity stuff or word of wisdom and stuff. You know, things that would make a kid feel guilty or shamed. You know, is there any, is there anything to mention about that for you?

Gretchen Day [00:21:26] No, I think when you come from a tumultuous childhood, I think survival, that's it. I was on survival mode.

John Dehlin [00:21:33] Okay.

Gretchen Day [00:21:33] Fight or flight. Survival and like.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] But high achieving.

Gretchen Day [00:21:36] I, Yeah, I didn't have the capacity to think about boys or drugs. I was just trying to.

John Dehlin [00:21:42] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [00:21:43] Survive.

John Dehlin [00:21:43] Okay.

Gretchen Day [00:21:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:45] So starting scholar, that's a big deal. How, what did, what were your hopes or ambitions? I mean. Oh, I have to ask you, did you ever listen to the music Free to be, you and Me, the Marlo Thomas kind of CD or cassette that. It had a lot of feminist songs in it. My kids listened to it when they were young. That, that doesn't.

Gretchen Day [00:22:02] Oh, I don't remember those.

John Dehlin [00:22:03] Okay, okay. Just curious.

Gretchen Day [00:22:05] Just listen to the radio.

John Dehlin [00:22:06] Okay.

Gretchen Day [00:22:07] We didn't even have MTV or anything.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] Okay, okay. So did you have ambitions for yourself? Did you. You know, you're, you're a young, aspiring, high achieving girl. Did you want to become something? Did you want to get a degree? What were your hopes for yourself? And how did that play out?

Gretchen Day [00:22:24] Yeah, that's good. So with the Sterling Scholar, I was a, I was a finalist in the state and you get a full ride to Utah State. So I got that. And then BYU had never really been on my radar. I didn't have a bad ACT score, but I didn't have a super high one. So my counselor was like, I don't know if you're gonna get in. I think that's why I ended up going there. You can't tell me I might not be able to do something. Or I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll show her. And out of like, I don't remember maybe 400, 500 graduating students, only four of us got in to BYU. It was a big deal. So it's like getting into Harvard, where I'm from, to go to byu. So when I got in, I was like, oh, well, maybe I should go there. And. And then I ended up getting a. I've always been all the speeches and stuff. I like to write. And so I had, you know, oratory stuff. And so I wrote this speech really well, an essay. And I got a scholarship, a service scholarship to BYU and got to go to, like, the leadership camp that they have the summer before and stuff. And then I also did a speech on self esteem with I can't remember what bank it was. I want to say it was bank of America. But anyway, so I won two scholarships and I just decided it was only one years of tuition them together. But. And then I gave up books and everything at Utah State because I was like, no, I want to go to BYU just because I got in. You know, it wasn't a religious decision at all. It was more of a prestigious. This isn't. This is a chance of a lifetime. Nobody else gets to do it. And that was back in the days where I can still remember, like, you dial up to register for your classes. So I'm dialing one. Oh. Trying to get this class. It takes all day to register. I mean, people don't know how good they have it now, but yeah, back in those days, what year did you start to be? Were you 92?

John Dehlin [00:24:01] 90 12.

Gretchen Day [00:24:02] 92.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] Okay.

Gretchen Day [00:24:03] And I barely turned 18, like a week after school started because I have a late birthday, so I was a youngin. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:24:10] I was there in 92. All right. So how did it go? How to BYU go?

Gretchen Day [00:24:15] So I really loved it. I lived in Helaman halls. My phone number was. Was one hunk. Meryl Merrill. Yeah. And I got on the. I was the PR vp, so I got to plan all the dances. And one of the big things when I got there was I asked out, like, someone asked me out, like every night. School night weekends, I'm like, wow, people think I'm cool. Like, it's not. It's not embarrassing to, to be. It's good to be smart. Like, you know, it's not. I don't have to dumb myself down, which I never did. That's why I didn't get asked out before. But I. That was my first impression, you know, and then just living on my own and just not having to be worried about a bunch of social or family drama, but just to. Just to live and. Yeah, I had a really fun freshman year. I didn't. That was the first time in my life I didn't get straight A's, Got some, probably a couple bad grade, and I was super, super into practical jokes. So, like, you know, I accidentally super soaked the BYU police one time. That got me in a lot of trouble back when the Merrill hall and they had the ledges on the outside. One time all the girls were at lunch and I climbed out through one person's window on the ledge, got into another person's room, got the doors unlocked, and then I just switched all their stuff and then I locked myself in my room across the hall. And I can still remember they would. They came back and they're like, wait, what happened, Gretchen? You know, so just like, just. I had never, just had fun, never in my life. It was all about survival and business, survival and work, survival work. And it was just. It was super fun to date. It was fun to have friends. It was fun to. I didn't have any sisters. I grew up with all brothers. So that was also like, I can borrow your clothes and you can borrow my clothes. Like, it was just like a window opened up and it was super fun. Probably my. That first semester, the. The joke is I. I had a. I've only had a few boyfriends and I got married and they all. They all have the same name. So like, there's this name that kept recurring, which I'm not going to say it, but. So, like, part way through, I had a little. A boyfriend for maybe like a little while, and then of the first semester and then for a couple months, and that's the only time I ever had to go in and talk with the bishop. And it wasn't even a bad experience and it wasn't even anything really big. But then after that I went back to just dating a ton of people. So, yeah, super fun. I loved. I loved my freshman year.

BYU, Marriage, and Early Adult Life

John Dehlin [00:26:36] What did you end up majoring in?

Gretchen Day [00:26:37] I majored in communications, minored in family sciences.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] Okay. Is there Anything else about BYU worth mentioning before we talk about your. Your marriage?

Gretchen Day [00:26:46] And, well, they'll go together. So let's go to sophomore year. Sophomore year, I moved off campus and moved in with my cousin. And that was. That was super fun. She's like the closest thing to a sister to me. She's. She's actually super Mormon, but she's a therapist. Her husband's. I think the bishop's still right now, anyway, and that was fun because we'd always gotten to see each other over the summers, but we'd never gotten to live together. And. And so this is the beginning of sophomore year. I always do weird things, so I'll just. I'll just warn you about that. So I was like, you know, last year, freshman year, everyone would say, you look like from. You're from Utah. You talk like you're from Utah. You. You dress like you're you' Utah. And I really didn't like that. Like, I was like, other. Other than like. I mean, I swore a lot, too. Also. I should probably back up and say I didn't know that swearing that. Swearing was bad to the extent of. They'd be like, you're not supposed to say those words. I'm like, that's. That's not what. That's not the Mormonism I grew up in, you know. But anyway, so I decided before school started sophomore year that I was going to say I was from somewhere else. And so we went through the places and my. My cousin was like, well, I had a. I had a roommate from Blooming Hill, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Why don't you be from there? And this is before the Internet, so I don't know anything. I'm going to learn a lot this semester about Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. So, you know, when you start meeting people, the first thing you say is what your major is and where you're from, right? So I start this whole thing. I'm from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and I find out pretty soon that I'm really rich. And they ask everybody the first thing we that knows. It says, what does your dad do? So I'm like, well, he's a landowner, which he is in real life. Then they're like, he's a landowner in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. So I'm like, wow, this must be a really nice place. And so when I first met who I ended up marrying, we were at Ward Prayer, and I introduced myself as sky, and my cousin was Lena Rainbow. And we're different. This is just how I live back then. It was fun. And then I'm From Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He's like, oh, really? I'm from Livonia, which apparently is really close. And so I made up some story about how well my dad's not super. Well, it wasn't really made up. It's just I didn't really live there. I was like, my dad's not super active, so we probably didn't see each other at the stake dances. And he's like, how come I don't know you? You know, and stuff like that. And I. And then we went to church. And the first couple weeks, he was the gospel doctrine teacher, and he would give out little mini Snickers if you read the lesson. And I just like mini Snickers. So at the end of every lesson, I'd raise my hand and say, I did. And I'd take one. And my cousin knew I wasn't really reading this, the script, the lessons. So one. One Sunday, she just said to him, you know, she keeps telling you that she's read the lesson, but she hasn't. And he threw me in other Snickers. And I was like, I like this guy. It's cool. But at the same time, I'm taking. And this is a pivotal moment for me at byu, and I think this class should be banned. Like, I'm still mad about this class, but I'm taking Teachings of the Living Prophets. I don't know if it's still there. Probably.

John Dehlin [00:29:43] Is it Brent Top?

Gretchen Day [00:29:44] I don't remember the name of the teacher, but this is before the days. I mean, now they say, well, whatever the current prophet says, that is not how it was taught back then. So we were researched clear back to McKay. Okay. And we're researching things like when to have kids, when to get married, like all the things that are going to be coming forward in my life. And I'm starting to realize that you're not supposed to back talk the prophet. We were living it wrong. Maybe that's why home was crazy. Like, you know, this is prophet speaks for God. And you, you would learn. We would memorize. And these were on tests we had memorized, like their whole life, their childhood experiences for all the apostles. And then they would take talks of. For just all the things about getting married, having kids. And they would have us memorize them clear back to David O. McKay. And this is what I'm hearing for that. That whole semester is there's nothing more important than getting married in the temple at the right place, at the right time to the right person. Like, I heard that a thousand times and I'M also a family sciences major, so I hear that in my prep for marriage class. All those classes. And then the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth has never been rescinded. I can still. I can still recite that from my tests because. And it was. It was in McKay's talks. It was in Kimball's talks. It was just. In all. It wasn't just the current prophet anyway. And so I. I really think my reality started. Of Mormonism started to shift. Oh, if I'm gonna live this, I. I wasn't. I wasn't living it right? Like, you know, and I need. And. And if the prophet really speaks for God, then I should be paying attention to what they say. So I, I really, really. It made. It may have been more of an underlying psychological level, but I definitely was like, whenever I do get married, I. That's. That's what you're supposed to do in the end. That. That just. That. That really affected me. It's affected me my whole life.

John Dehlin [00:31:45] It's.

Gretchen Day [00:31:45] It's. I literally made key life decisions I would for the next 40 years based on that class, which I'm still pissed about. I'm not pissed about the decisions. I'm pissed that it was. I was unethically persuaded. That's why that book. I was completely unethically persuaded. Anyway, so that going around. And then I start dating someone that I really like, and I'm learning that there's nothing more important than the right person, the right place at the right time. And for a long time I was like, but I'm not 28 yet, and I want to do all these things, and I'm only 20 and I'm. Well, I was 19 when we got engaged. But anyway, so that kind of. That fell into line. We. We would. In. In our sophomore ward, they would take a girl's group of. Of roommates and a boys group and put them together, and we'd have like, Sunday lunch. So we did this. And my husband, who eventually be. My husband, came, but he was the only guy that came from. From the group. And we. We have this thing. And I was like, this is so stupid. If boys are supposed to be meeting girls, why are they not showing up? So I get my Super Soaker because I use it a lot, and I go to the apartment and I just. I hose everybody. And they were so mad. They thought, except for him. And he asked me out, so I think that's all the funny stuff. Although he didn't find out I wasn't from Michigan. Until the end of the semester. So we even had a double date with his brother and sister. And he's like, yeah, she's from Bloomfield Hills. And I can still remember, in fact, the two ways I came out with it. My family leaning brothers. One of them was President Packer's grandson. Looked. Talked exactly like President Packer, by the way, and with.

John Dehlin [00:33:17] With.

Gretchen Day [00:33:17] Without a lot of emotion and no personality. I may love him to death, but like, you know, that type of. I can still remember. We were playing. I decided I was going to tell everybody at the end of the semester. And we were playing that game where you tell two truths and a lie. I'm really good at those games because I always play stupid. And then I win because they think I don't know how to play the game. So I start off with, I'm from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. They stop me like, gretchen, you're supposed to tell things that we don't already know. We already know you're from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I'm like, well, I just want to use that one. So I use it and that ends up being my lie. And I'm on the floor rolling, laughing, and I can still remember all of those boys faces. They're all return missionaries. And they're like, that's not even funny. You lied for an entire semester about where you were from? I was like, yes, but everybody said I look like I was from Michigan. I talk like I was commissioned. It was an experiment and it worked. They. People just say. When you say where you're from, they just say dumb stuff anyway. And then someone told. Told my. Who I ended up marrying. And he was like, what? But we. But we grew up in the same. What? But anyway, so that's kind of our. I always tease. Our relationship was based on. I. I lied where I was from, I lied what my name was, and I lied about reading the scriptures.

John Dehlin [00:34:27] Oh, because you didn't.

Gretchen Day [00:34:29] Yeah, because I didn't really read. Yeah. But then when we started dating, we dated off and on, and then we came back for the next semester, sophomore year, and that was when we got more serious and he wanted to come over and read scriptures every morning before school.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] School.

Gretchen Day [00:34:42] And I. I'm not a morning person. So I. I slept through it every time. But to me, I was like, wow, this is like. This is like what Mormonism's supposed to be. So I have this. He's just uber back from his mission. He's like the epitome of everything that I'm learning in my classes that Mormonism should be he's living it. He's teaching at the mtc. He's reading scriptures with me every day. And I'm like, this is like, if I get married and if I have a family, this is the. This. This would save my family from what I had to go through. This would be. And now that I understand. When you research Jean Jean Lac, she's. She's also like Stephen Hassan. They have. She has the bounded choice model. Stephen hasn't. Has the bite model. But people between 19 and 22 are just vulnerable, especially if they come from a broken home or, you know, some type of crisis childhood. And I was, like, ripe for the picking. So I'm 19 to 22. I'm, like, not really having any desire to get married, but learning that that's what I'm supposed to be doing now. And. And I just. It just. I just got caught up in it. And then we ended up getting engaged, and I was married by my junior year.

John Dehlin [00:35:52] How old?

Gretchen Day [00:35:53] Engaged at 19, married at 20. Okay, baby.

John Dehlin [00:35:58] So how. Thinking about kind of the story of your. Of your faith journey and important life experiences. How did you know? Take us from the. From your marriage on, how was the temple ceremony for you?

Gretchen Day [00:36:13] First of all, you know, I wish I would have saved the day. The picture was so bad. I found it in the negatives recently and I. I burned it. And my face is like this. Hated, hated, hated it. And I'm really about it. Well, I don't. I have a bubble, like, about this big around me. I don't like people touching me. I just don't like to be touched. All right, okay, we'll start with that. And leading up to it, I had heard that they touch you. Right. And so I would say to my fiance at the time and my parents, well, what do they do? And no one would tell me. I'm still kind of mad. That didn't warn me more. And, well, it's going to be so special. It's going to be so spiritual. And so my husband. Well, I don't know what to call him. My fiance at the time read the Book of Abraham stuff with me and read that. And, like, what does this have to do with, like, what they're gonna do, though? Like, anyway, creation story kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And so we go in and we didn't do it. We did it before we got married. You know how you go in, like, a week before you get married? So I go in there and I don't even undress in front of my roommates. Like, you know, I'M super private. In junior high or in. In high school, you got credit for being. You had to take your shower. I would. Every year people would make fun of me, like, I'll be the shower girl because the shower girl gets to go in and take her own show, then count everybody else off. And I always change in the bathrooms. I don't, I just don't. I don't know why. I just. I've all brothers and I just, I don't. I have that. I just have that bubble anyway. And so that was a horrific experience for me also. It was that time of the month and I didn't know. So it was like worst case scenario plus worst case scenario plus worst case scenario. And after we come out, there's a picture of me and my husband and his brother and his sister in law were in front of the. Where were we? I think we're at the Ogden Temple. That's where we got married anyway. And my face is just like crumpled up. Just like, I want to kill somebody. It looks. But I can still remember. And I give this. I used to give this advice to everybody that I went through the temple with. But I came out and my brother in law was like, on the other side. Sorry. Lean back up. I can also remember how excited my fiance was. He was so excited. He was up front. I was like, more in the middle. And he turns back and looks at me in that room and like, this is crazy stuff. I'm thinking it's crazy. But everybody around me is like just so excited for it for me. And so I think I just lived on there. Okay. They love this. This, this is supposed to be good. Um, and then when I got to the other side, my brother in law said, did you feel like you joined the Jehovah Witnesses? And I was like, yes, thank you. Somebody said that. So I always say that now when I. Or if I. If I go through a zone for the first time and they're always like relieved when you say that. I'm like. I'm like, yeah, that felt really weird. And I never loved. I never did really. We will. We'll get to that part of the story. But. But it wasn't a good experience.

John Dehlin [00:38:53] Some of the things. So I think you probably went after the penalties were removed. So you went after the really violent Masonic stuff.

Gretchen Day [00:39:02] Yeah, that would have. I think I would have left. I don't know if I would have stayed. Yeah, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:39:07] You probably would have. A lot of us did. A lot of us did stay. But that. You were still veiling your face as a woman, and you would have covenanted to hearken unto your husband as your husband hearkened to God. Those are some of the more troubling things, especially for people that are more women that are more feminist inclined.

Gretchen Day [00:39:26] Right. That it didn't bother me the first time I went through. Just because I think I was so, I was so mortified that they had touched me. That's all I could think of the whole time is like, bunch of grown women just freaking. I had to get. I was like, why did someone not. I felt like I'd been molested.

John Dehlin [00:39:41] You still had the shield. The poncho shield.

Gretchen Day [00:39:44] Yeah, but I don't even like, even

John Dehlin [00:39:45] when you're naked on the sides, even

Gretchen Day [00:39:47] giving you a hug walking in. I don't hug people. Like, I'm not, I'm just like, that's okay. It's okay. But I, I like just that, that you're in an enclosed place with people you don't know and you're half robed and then they're, they're touching you. You know, I, I.

John Dehlin [00:40:03] On your naked body.

Gretchen Day [00:40:04] Yeah. I thought I was gonna throw up. Like, I literally felt like I just totally got violated. That's how I felt.

John Dehlin [00:40:10] And, and I, that's why they stopped doing it.

Gretchen Day [00:40:11] I wouldn't even do it. It's like until they switched the ceremony. And we'll get to that. But I ended up passing out. So.

John Dehlin [00:40:19] Okay.

Gretchen Day [00:40:20] Okay. But so. And I didn't if. I don't think I noticed the words that day. But eventually when I started. Yeah. When I started listening, I'm like, what am I covenanting to do? Yeah. That was, that's always been a problem.

John Dehlin [00:40:32] Okay, so not a great temple experience. How about wedding? Just.

Gretchen Day [00:40:35] The wedding was fine. We had a great day. It was December and it was beautiful. We got married in the Ogden Temple. And I wanted to. Salt Lake was like, the list was a mile long. Because everyone at BYU gets married in the same little. Right after the, you know, you have the two week break. And I, I've been insomniac. I have been my whole life. And so I was like, I want to sleep in. I don't want to have to be up early. And the Ogden Temple is like, you can come anytime you want. They're super laid back there. So the temple experience of getting married was, was fine. And I do, like I said, I do. I remember just, just I didn't. In the line. I didn't want to hug people. I was, that was the only Thing I was worried about the whole wedding, like, and my mom's. My mom kind of relived. She always had, like, her vision of what she wanted her wedding to be like. And I literally just came home and I was getting married the next day, so she planned most everything. And I did. I had the fun stuff. We had like a Santa Claus and reindeer, and we did it at this. At the steak center, and it was like a whole buffet and. But it was the type of Mormonism back then where everybody helps everybody. Right. So everybody in the whole ward is making meatballs and cookies and doing the chocolate fun doing. Everybody's in. Involved. And when we did the luncheon, we did it at the Stake center. So all of my young women leaders and my. My friends and young women were the servers. And, you know, it was definitely was like a community event. And. And it was fun. Other than I was just like, do I really have to hug people I don't know on the line? That was like my biggest fear. And I didn't end up. I made it through. We actually just. Our wedding video got lost, and we just found it a few weeks ago. I'm still not through it because it was on one of those old cameras and my dad just passed it around, so. But it's fun to look back. We were babies.

Living the Mormon Dream as a Young Wife

John Dehlin [00:42:12] So what was your Mormon dream? What. How did you. When you and your husband got married and you were kind of either thinking about or even talking about what you wanted your life to be like, what were the main components of your Mormon dream?

Gretchen Day [00:42:25] I really wanted to graduate from college, so I was like, I for sure want to do that. But for sure, the Mormon dream was live it right. Right. So we read scriptures as a couple every day. We have our personal study every day. Do that every day. Go to the temple every week, maybe every day, sometimes. Whatever. You can't. We went to the temple always regularly. Not because. Loved it, because that's how you help your. I got into genealogy. I did a ton of temple work for my family, and definitely we started at a very young age. And this was really more him. But I caught onto it really quickly because I do love to read. I read. I read probably two or three books a week, but we would take the CES manuals, you know, that of the Book of Mormon. We would read whatever we were studying that week and the CES manual along with it. And we did that before Sunday school for like a decade.

John Dehlin [00:43:20] I remember those.

Gretchen Day [00:43:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:21] The orange New Testament one, the brown Old Testament one.

Gretchen Day [00:43:25] So we would show up To Sunday school. Like it was a college class. My husband and I even when we were in college even we were in our. We would eventually move just to Provo. But yeah it was like cuz this is like we are in it one

John Dehlin [00:43:36] with Moroni kneeling down the golden plates. And I was in all those.

Gretchen Day [00:43:40] Yeah, yeah. I mean I read the whole thing cover to cover probably at least four or five times plus the scriptures with it, you know. But yeah that type of like we're good. I. I really felt like I made these covenants back on the first day of the temple. I. I still remember the garment being like I really. They said you're the wearing of your garment is your covenant with God. So how you wear it like you should always be wearing it as I was really a now today like when I went through with my daughter it's a total different thing. It's not. It wasn't like that when I went through it was really impounded upon me that you don't ever take it off and you don't tell someone like me who is all or nothing hey you know what? This is how you represent your relationship with God. And then I'm not going to take it lightly. So like I was really always wore my garments like wouldn't take them off for anything unless in the emergency. And then I would even take an extra pair if I had to change. Like just really very rigid in everything I would say. And then when our kids. When we started having kids always I don't know if we want to go there yet but no.

John Dehlin [00:44:48] No.

Gretchen Day [00:44:48] Okay. So like I mean we always read scriptures as a family. As our girls got over we would have back to school night and we would have a parade to make sure none of their clothes were too tight. None of their clothes were. I mean we didn't wear tank tops. I didn't let them wear short shorts. And definitely family every. Every week the homeschool curriculum. I ended up there was a psychologist. Ironically we moved to. Well let me back up of how we so so I graduated. My husband graduated a semester before me. I graduated from byu. We moved into our first house in Provo over by before the mall was there and I had my first baby all in the same week. One week. That's like the beginning of my Mormon life. Okay, this is it. You know. So like I go from this I was working. Oh you know what? That's a story I probably should talk about before I go on to this. I was working at the family sciences department before I graduated and doing all These, these crazy busy things than just going to be a stay at home mom. That was a huge shift for me when I did work at BYU in the, in the family sciences department. Just a side note story. It was, it was when Hawaii was trying to pass same sex marriage. And it always bothers me today when Oaks or Nelson would say, oh, we don't pay a penny toward fighting this because I was there and we fought that, that, we fought that like hell. And they were the byu, When I worked at byu. Yeah. And so the dean, his name, his first name was Terry. I looked it up and tried to find his last name. I don't remember his last name. So the apostles called the office to him and he was like running around going, we have to find every evidence we can to show scientifically from a family science perspective that same sex marriage will hurt families, that will hurt kids. And all the professors were working hard on it. He's working, I'm working on it. And we're all getting paid. And we're getting paid tithing dollars, by the way. Like, but back then I thought it was bad too. So I thought, yeah, I'm helping. We can't let this happen. Like, you know, this is terrible to be able to pass anyway, so that, that's also going to mold and affect that type of Mormonism of, of how I, how, how I was looking at lgbtq because I was taught that, that it's wrong, that it's immoral, that it's a choice, that it's a sin. You know, the, the miracle forgiveness stuff off. Anyway, so that's back. But jumping back. So we moved to Provo. We're in a Provo ward, had our first baby there. My husband was actually trying out to be a seminary teacher. Hallelujah. He didn't make it. He got to the second last rung.

John Dehlin [00:47:26] It's competitive, it's hard.

Gretchen Day [00:47:28] Yeah. And I, I, I, I'm still like, even then I was like, I don't think I wanna, doesn't. I don't know if I'm, I'm a little bit too outspoken or, I don't know. I don't, I'm not going to be a good submissive seminary. I used to always tease him, if you ever get called to be a bishop, they're going to take one look at me and be like, never mind. Even as an uber Mormon, I was like, there's like certain qualities they're looking for in women and I, I don't possess those. But so we, I had my baby and he Or I got called into achievement days and that was really my friends. I didn't have any, I don't know anybody. So Those little cute 8 year old girls, oh, I love them. And they would come over and play at the baby. But it was a huge shock to my system to go from drive, drive, drive, drive, competition, competition. And like I'm the most important person. And even at BYU I won speech contests, I was running, winning writing contests I was published at all this, like, like, you know, like it makes you feel like you're this great person. Then I go to like just in my pajamas all day nursing a baby, feeding a baby, changing a baby, nursing baby, feeding baby. And the house is a disaster because I don't feel like cleaning or because I'm so consumed with the baby. Like, and that was, that was a hard, that was a hard shift for me. But I felt like I was doing it because I was commanded to do it. And it's not that I, I mean looking back with the eight kids, I just want to say that preface this before I, I talk about it. There's nothing that I, that I can say today. Oh, I wish I would have accomplished this instead of that child or I wish I would have done this and said like, so it's not so there's, it's not like I don't, like I wish I didn't have all these eight kids if that makes sense. But there's definitely a grave, grave where I feel like I was bamboozled, cheated, lied to, tricked, and I didn't have a choice because we did. We had baby right away because they're the multo and, and it wasn't just me. My husband really felt like that too. In fact, we would talk about it the more kids we would have and people would stop having kids and we're like, did they, did they even read the scriptures? Do they even know the scriptures say multiply and replenish theirs? Why are they only people obeying the commandments? You know, and, and then prophets would have a talk. I think now that I understand confirmation bias, it's, it's in my second book. But it's like when you're really Mormon and you're really. And you are studying. I don't know, I. Not cultural. You're studying the doctrine and you're going to the sources and you're going to the prophet and you're going to the apostles. Apostles and everyone around you is cultural. And you're like, it's not like I would look down on them, but you're like, but you're, but you really feel like you're covenanting with God and you're living what God wants you to and they can do whatever they want, but they're not living what they're supposed to be living, you know, and so for sure like we, we read everything together, scriptures and, and study and stuff. And that was just over and over and over again. Just like multiply and present, replenish the earth. It's, this is a commandment. This isn't just if you feel like it, if it's a good day, if you're school, I mean the talks and, and like so I said I think that, I think teachings of the Living Process Prophet should be effing banned from byu. It should be banned. It's straight up cult tactics. It is, we speak for God, whatever we say goes. And then they changed it now to well, the most recent. Well, it wasn't like that then. But it's still just as bad to say someone else speaks to God for you. You.

John Dehlin [00:50:54] And this is because you wish you had taken a different path.

Gretchen Day [00:50:58] I don't necessarily wish I would have taken a different path. I probably would have. I just wish I'd had a choice. I feel like my choice was taken from me when I was 19 years old and I was, I wasn't given a choice.

John Dehlin [00:51:12] Why does that make you feel sad?

Gretchen Day [00:51:14] Because part of, part of my personality type of being driven and stuff is I, I'm a goal oriented person. I, I'm like, I take a plan and I execute it, but I want it to be my plan. And I feel like I executed a 40 year plan on 12 effing men that I don't even know. I've never met them and it was their plan that I executed. I never had that. I, maybe if I were to go back in time I would still do things the same way. Maybe I would, maybe I won't. It does. It's neither here nor there. But I would like to have had a choice. And especially now with science. I mean your brain's not even done developing until you're 25 or 26. I had three kids by then and that makes me think, wow, like no wonder I was such a crappy mom because I feel like having those kids so close together. I just barely weaned my last a couple years ago, John. I haven't had a whole night's sleep. The last two years have been the only two years in 23 years that I have a whole night's sleep. And over this Covid thing, I got this book, it's called how not to Lose youe Shit with youh Kids. Oh, my favorite book. But the first two chapters, the first one's about sleep, sleep. And the second one's about getting help. And I'm like, well, that explains my first three kids. And we call them, we call them the Burnt Pancakes. Because here I am with this grandmaster plan, but I'm not getting any sleep and I'm not getting. I don't. My husband's gone all the time working. I don't have enough help. And you just can't be like, I just wanted to be the best mom ever. And I will always regret, like, I wasn't the best mom ever because I was always tired and I. And I really, I'm the type of person, I really do need to stop sleep. Like, I can't just go on no sleep all the time. But here I am having kid because our first three were two years apart. Two years apart. And then like, well, two years apart and then like 21 months apart because I feel like I'm living the highest law and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I did feel like I was capable of it. But after my third and we were still in Provo, I just hit a. Have you ever seen Overboard with Goldie Han? You know where she's in the bathtub going, and she just can't talk? I hit that point where I was just. And I. And I just can still remember just sliding down the wall, just holding my little new baby and just being like, I can't function, I can't function. And 46 year old me looks back at that little girl, and she was just a little girl. Her brain wasn't even done developing. She'd never processed her childhood hood. Nothing. And she's just, put your shoulder to the wheel and it's breaking her. And if I could go back in time and put my arms around her, I would. But I'm not, I. I don't ask for help. I'm not someone who asks for help. And my cousin and I had a conversation on this once. We both have husbands who never notice when we need help. And they were like, it's because you guys are so strong women. You're always like pushing us away. But I really needed help. And I don't remember how I got it, but I think at some point my husband or I contacted my midwife and she got me into therapy and they thought I had postpartum. But I ended up being Treated for PTSD from my childhood for a long time. For a year I did emdr, and I had just been reacting to things based on my childhood that wasn't healthy. And at that same time, my parents got divorced. They got divorced. They were divorced right after my third. For 19 years. And they just remarried a few years ago. Each other. The hillbilly elegy. Just read the book anyway.

Motherhood, Postpartum Struggles, and Healing

John Dehlin [00:55:00] I mean, it sounds like a couple things I'm hearing. It sounds like at a very base level, you. You were on the treadmill kind of doing the. The strive towards perfect, you know, perfection. And it. At least part of that was you didn't want to be your parents.

Gretchen Day [00:55:20] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:55:21] Right. Yeah. You didn't want to be your parents. Does that resonate with you?

Gretchen Day [00:55:26] Yeah. Yeah. In fact, in the don't how not to lose your with your kids. It's four simple, little easy chapters. And I. I just read it this summer and it was getting up enough sleep, get enough help, and they said, and if you don't, you'll revert back to what. How you erased. That's what will happen because you'll go into fight or flight. And I'm still. I still struggle with fight or flight. So I do so much yoga because I'm constantly. I walk into a room, I'm like, what could hurt me here? And I will just assess, like. And that's. That's how my brain still works. And it's how it worked then. And I think I read that. That book just this summer. I was like, well, that makes sense. That's why I have three burnt pancakes.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] Yeah. So you were. You were trying not to be your parents. You were in a perfectionist religious tradition, but also you were. You were operating someone else's plan. You. You weren't.

Gretchen Day [00:56:17] Yeah. The.

John Dehlin [00:56:18] Didn't make a set of life decisions based on what felt right to you. After you had done your own growth and healing, you just went straight onto the church train, I call it. And you were. You were riding the church's train, which wasn't necessarily an authentic expression of what your needs and wants really were.

Gretchen Day [00:56:37] Right. It was multiply and replenish the earth. That commandment has not been rescinded. Yeah, that's what I was living.

John Dehlin [00:56:43] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [00:56:44] I believed it. And I love those three kids, so I don't regret having them at all. But it was hard. It's hard for me even to think back because. Yeah, you're. And that's why I. There was a psychologist in my neighborhood that was homeschooling, and I Just love this idea of having your. I brought, I brought some of the books with me, but having your kids like one older child's doing this, the younger child's doing this, but it's all the same topic. So this is back before the Internet. And it was back, it was called when was that Chum Education Network. And I don't remember how I got involved with it, but I got involved. And you could like find curriculums and for Utah county moms that wanted to homeschool. And so the first thing I found, and I still use it to this day, was Grant Von Harrison's teaching your children to read from the Book of Mormon. And in there he says the Book of Mormon is the most phonetically correct book. So I've taught all my kids to read from the book from teaching even my younger ones, although now I just tell them it's a made up book when we're reading it but because I do actually really like the program. But my kids first words are Nephi, Lamanites. That's what they're learning to read. Layman, Sariah, Samuel. Those are the, those are the first words. All of them, they learn to read. And I found this homeschool mom that she put together this four year rotating curriculum and she took the Utah public system, history, science and English along with one of the sets of scriptures and scouting all in one thing. So like one year you might be learning DNC and I don't know anatomy and whatever the history is, whatever, but it goes together. So when you're studying Old Testament, you're at the same time usually studying the creation part of the earth, but through science. But she specifically left out evolution and I specifically left them. I'm not going to teach them that crazy stuff like, you know, that's not, that's not true. Not going to teach them that. And then your boys are getting their, I mean both of my boys had their eagles by the time they were 13 because it was part of our curriculum. You're just, and, and you're, and she worked it into family evening. I'm like, could this get any better? Like I'm educating them. And then your older kids would like write a report on it you to the library. And in the, in the program it's very loose. So it's, so it's outline, outline, outline, which is really good because I kind of like to add my own little spin to everything. But you go to the, the library and it would say get these books for kids ages. This, to this, get these books for kids Ages this and this. But everybody's learning the same thing you're doing and then you're doing the same thing in family name and then the boys are doing a similar thing for their project for Scouts. And I just, I just thought this is amazing. Like, and we're just all going to be this one happy family and do everything together. And this, this will be wonderful. And I, I used that for 16 years. I would you. It rotates every. There's a, it's a four year rotating curriculum. I did it for 16 years and taught them. Right. I mean, I had that program memorized down like the back of my hand. So. So when, when, when we talk about studying Mormonism, I'm not just reading my scriptures 20 minutes every day. And then I'm reading the CES manual plus the scriptures with my husband before Sunday and then I'm teaching and then I have my own little private. I. Right after my first, I read the work in the Glory. Those were my friends. The transition time of. I know they're not real people. I prayed for Josh every night. I was like, please let them, let Josh come back to the church. But reading to me and learning to me, I couldn't give it up. So I think that's. That filled the void because when I graduated from college, I was like, I don't want this to be over. I want to keep learning. There's so many things I didn't get to do yet. And you'll see, throughout my whole life, up until now, I just do things I probably would have done if I was 20. Even though I have a kid, like, I just kept doing things like that. And one of them homeschooling was learning. I just, I loved learning about history. History and science and, you know, everything that I didn't get to learn yet. I feel like I didn't get to learn it yet. It's not why I did it, but in hindsight, I think that was probably definitely an a motive underneath of just. I just love to learn.

Growing the Family and Homeschooling

John Dehlin [01:01:00] So how did you go from kind of three kids and, and having not, not, you know, not postpartum but. But having to heal from the trauma and kind of regroup. How did you go from three kids to eight kids? Kids?

Gretchen Day [01:01:17] Well, that's a fun story.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] And you're homeschooling? Yeah, like three. I'm thinking homeschooling three kids. I don't want any more kids at that point. You're homeschooling three kids after having kind of a breakdown. And how do you go from that to eight kids. Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:01:33] So I did EMDR for a year. Super, super amazing. Still love it. It takes like, you can still remember, but it takes the emotion out of it. And you're able to stop reacting, acting in those ways. So that really helped, especially when my parents were going through their divorce, because there was a lot of, who's going to be on my side, who's gonna be on this side. And. And I learned in that. That therapist still to this day, I think, said some things that I. And I'm still friends with her that saved my life. And she's Mormon, but she said to me, you can say no for any reason and you don't have to give a reason.

John Dehlin [01:02:04] Nice.

Gretchen Day [01:02:05] All the time. She said that to me. She goes, bishop asks you for a calling, you don't feel up to it, you say no. No. I'm like. She says, you don't have to say why. Your mom asks you to do something, your mom wants to come over, you don't think you can handle it, you say no. And she just drilled that into me. And I used even as an uber Mormon. And that's like. I think that saved me a ton of time.

John Dehlin [01:02:24] You're a high five this person.

Gretchen Day [01:02:26] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:02:27] And that's almost anti Mormon.

Gretchen Day [01:02:29] I know. And then the other thing she taught me was boundaries. And I hadn't learned that yet. And so she was. She said, you know, when someone from your family. The educated book. I have a brother that's kind of. I'm estranged from now because he's like, he not physically but verbally is very much like that brother. And she said, you have to learn to say to people, when you do this, it makes me feel this. If you continue to do this, I can't have a relationship with you. And so there were years where I didn't talk to my mom or I didn't have a conversation in it. And it was. I started. So I think that that set up. I was a whole new person by the end of that year of emdr because I. And just. It sounds stupid, but to be able to say no for no reason and set boundaries, it's like I was a total different person with like renewed now I remember a new Gretchen. I remember I can. I can do anything now. Right. Our third, though, was. Wasn't. Still is. Had a lot of special needs and he ended up being diagnosed severe failure to thrive and was hospitalized at 1. And so we went through that and we. When he was almost two, we moved to a different part of Utah county and we went from my, my, my Provo ward when we were first married, which was like a twin home lower income area. I mean my husband had a million colleagues. I had, when we visit our hometown, you didn't just have one or two people, you had like four or five people. And they always gave me all the inactives. You know, they give the most active people the most work. Right. So we, so we had that ward and then this. I hope maybe you'll want to edit this. I hope people don't take offense to this, but when you're in an area where that's lower income, because this is how my Clearfield word was too. Sunday school is just a fight fest, right? It's like now this is what the scriptures say. No, well, and it was always about like, well, people who have money and they're always putting down people have money. That's where we lived and that was where I grew up. And then where we moved to Utah county when my, my third was two. We're like, well this is how we chose the house. My husband called the. We, we chose, we chose the house because of the views and we put a bid on it. And then someone else swung in, they got it. And then so we're like, oh well, I guess we won't move. And then a year later we found out that had sale had fallen through and they hadn't told us. So we do it again. Same thing happens, someone puts a bid on it. We're like, geez, we can't get this house. But we eventually end up getting this house. It's got these amazing views, it's up really high. It was built in the 90s so it's kind of weird. It's got weird multi levels. But my husband always wanted to live by a church church. And he's been the elders quorum crescent in this very more less active neighborhood for a long time. So he calls, he looks up the number, calls the bishop of the ward and he's like, what's your home teaching percentage? He was like 97%. We're like moving done. That was how we chose our house based on how good are there? Because my husband's view and mine was like, if the home teaching stats are high, it's a good community, right? And that's how we moved. And, and I still live there. I've lived there for 19 years. So I live right now it's BYU professors, BYU faculty, almost, I would say 80 to 90% of the men on the ward have served in a BYU bishop brick or as bishop BYU stake president or as. Or as stake president and multiple mission presidents. One, One. One was a. He's a mission president now, but he was a general Sunday school authority and one that's in the. In the Young Women General Journal board now. So like, that's the type of people who are. And they're amazing and I love them, but it's very Uber or orthodox Mormon. And so like, let's. I'm thinking this is going to be great. Although we are. They always tease. It took me a decade to fit in because I'm going from redneck Davis county, poor Provo area to elitism. And I don't even wear makeup to church. I'm. I'm normally not like, I'm like in my pajamas all day. I'm like that type of mom. And I still remember the first day I went to church in that ward. And I look around and I was like, I'm gon to buy some clothes and get some makeup. I'm never gonna fit in here. And so it took me. It took me a long time to. And I was super. Had just started teaching yoga. I got into yoga. Should probably tell that part of the story. And super healthy vegetarian, vegan, didn't eat in my. My son, who was Severe failure to thrive. One of the things he found out was sugar. Really, he threw it up. And so we didn't eat any sugar. So the first thing everyone brings as cookies and all this homemade stuff, and I'm like, yeah, guys, we don't eat sugar. And they thought that was crazy. And it, it is crazy sounding it now. But I. After my second. Well, really after my first, I had gained all this weight and I just started feeling just like, geez, I want to do something. And so I. I got a membership at Lady Fitness and started to just taking step aerobics. I was like, this is really fun. I could teach it. This, this is totally my jam. So I get certified. And then to be. To be an aerobic instructor, you have to. You have to do continuing education every year. But rather than continuing education, I was like, I could learn something new every year. So then I trained in kickboxing, I trained in spinning, I Pilates, and somewhere in there I learned yoga. But this was back in the early 2000s. Yoga's not a big thing in Utah county at the time. And I was teaching at the rec center. I was like. And it wasn't there. I was like, hey, I want to. I want to. Will you pay for some of my training? And I had, I went to The Orem Library. And there was only one book on yoga in there by Beryl Bender Birch. And she is one of the. She's one of the premier. She's in her 80s now, and she went to India. Like, the type of story where she sits on the step. Because yoga originally was just priesthood. It's kind of like it's only men. Only men could do it. Got trained. And she's. Anyway, she's one of these. These premier. And she has this book with all the Ashtanga primary series on it. And I read it and her whole story is about how her. She. Her search for truth. And by the end of it, I'm like, she needs the Book of Mormon and she needs to be Mormon. I have the answers for her. I was like, plus, I want to train with this woman. And so I made a covenant with God. I was like, if you get me to her, I'll give her a Book of Mormon. And then she's going to find the way. And this eventually ends up happening. So my college roommate is getting married in Delaware. We had the three and we fly. And. And this is before the Internet because it's gonna make me look stupid. This is back when maps and you, you know, you rent a car and you. You're using a map and. Anyway, so I don't know how I got a hold of her, but I think I. I looked up the publisher in the back of the book and like, somehow I got her secretary's number and I said, I'm coming out. I'm going to be kind of close. I'd like to train with her. Could we set up a training? And so I was supposed to meet them in New York City. This is right before 9 11. Like weeks, maybe even a month before 9 11. It's 2001 and we're on the freeway with three little kids. And my mom came with us to help us and just use the map. What's the. You get off one round exit. We're from Utah. Well, I'm from Utah. We're just getting lost everywhere we go. And I. There was a miscommunication. I was supposed to meet her at her studio in New York City, New York. But I thought I was supposed to meet her in East Hampton and I'm from Utah, so I'm assuming they're 20 minutes apart, right? East Hampton and New York are not 20 minutes apart. So I show up at her house and she's like, you're supposed to be at the studio. What are you doing here? That's Tomorrow. So then she ended up just doing privates with me at her house. We ended up becoming friends. I ended up training with her for four years.

John Dehlin [01:09:52] Hmm.

Gretchen Day [01:09:52] I went to Puerto Rico Calabar Puerto Rico, three years in a row and in Mexico. And I actually just took my older daughters back to a training with her this last right before COVID just because I wanted them to meet her. I hadn't seen her for 16 years. So I get all this training that nobody in Utah has and it's. And I was trained in hands on adjustment and I bring it. And I started the. I was the first Orem rec center yoga teacher. And I start the program there. And this is like back. We're using an office room. We don't even have a real room to use it. And I can still remember at the end going, going namaste. And everyone's like looking back at me like, I'm not bound to you. And it was weird for some Mormons. They were like, they're like, what does that mean? I'd be like, it just means the light in me sees the light in you. You're not praying to me. They're like, okay, as long as we're not praying to you. But when I went to my trainings in cloak Puerto Rico for the traditional Ashtanga, you start off with a prayer and you're saying all the Indian God's names. And I remember, I just stand there. But I wouldn't say it because I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's not allowed. And then I was so uber about wearing garments. Like I taught spin kickbox, step trained in all. I never took my garments off to even teach. I don't wear a tank top, I don't wear shorts. I'm like, nope, that's. That's my, that's my commitment to God. And I can still remember going to Clabor, Puerto Rico and you're doing yoga in the hot, hot and. And you're just dripping with sweat. So I was like, well, maybe I should. I'll. I'll wear a tank top for the workout, but. But I bring my garments in a bag with me. And then as soon as my part of the workout was over, I'd run into the bathroom and I'm dripping sweat. I put my garments on over and then some clothes on just because I couldn't. I was like, I can't be without garments longer than an hour. That's sacrilegious. I can't do that. So that was the. Definitely the living Mormonism orthodoxy and then moving to the, the next neighborhood that we're in now. Even with the, with a lot of the people being BYU people, we were still the ones who, who read the lesson, read the CES manual before you came, knew all the. Knew what they were going to ask. I would say out of everybody. We are also a lot more strict in hindsight looking back. Like we're making our girls do fashion shows if they're going to go to a junior high class or whatever. And I didn't let them read Harry Potter because that's crazy. Now I was like, you can read. If you read all of C.S. lewis books then you can start on Harry Potter Daughter and Starlight or Twilight, what's that thing called, all that stuff. I was like, why do young junior high girls need to be reading about romance? So my husband and I are both, I would say a little too strict. Not a little, a lot too. But if you can just imagine in this orthodoxy neighborhood, we're like the most orthodox, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] Yeah, yeah. No sugar, the whole deal.

Gretchen Day [01:12:44] Yeah, yeah, I eat sugar now by the way. I didn't last too long.

John Dehlin [01:12:50] Okay, so. So you did yoga and did you ever give her a Book of Mormon? I did, I gave her a Book

Gretchen Day [01:12:57] of Mormon first time. She, she was wonderful about it. She's. We actually align a lot more now after. Well, I won't get ahead in the story but she's like, I'm going to put this up there. I just think Jesus Christ was a master teacher because she was a philosophy major. She has a PhD in philosophy, so she loves every tradition. She goes, I know this is super important to you and thank you and.

John Dehlin [01:13:22] But she didn't convert.

Gretchen Day [01:13:23] No, no, no. But she did give me advice which when I saw her last March she was like, you didn't listen to my advice. Cuz her advice was three's enough, don't have any more kids.

John Dehlin [01:13:35] And what made you decide to go for eight?

Gretchen Day [01:13:37] Okay, so let's go there. So we get to our next house and our youngest is just super special needs. He had the add to the point where the psychologists were like if you want to send him to school you have to put him on medication. I was like, I'm not putting a three year old on meds so he can sit at a desk. That sounds, I mean I was very alternative at the time. I'm still a little bit but I was extremely alternative. And so. But he was super crazy. Add all over the place, couldn't sit still, always in trouble, just Jumping off everything. And so I was thinking, this is the end. I'm. I, I can't handle any more kids. This is, this is like all I can do to just keep up with this little boy. And then I have, I guess I can share it. This is the one spiritual experience. All of my spiritual experiences I can re. I can say that was probably elevation motion. Yeah, that. This one I can, I can't. This one I don't, I don't have to. It's fun to get to that part where you don't have to understand everything. I'm at that point. So I'll just tell the story because I don't understand it all. But I started having these experiences where the fourth child would be talking to me and saying, I want to come, I want to come now, I want to come now. And I was like, well, I don't even know if I want to have any more kids. And I don't even know. And I was like, your brother will kill you because he's like insane. Like this little three year old is like, or two year old is insane. And it, the, the impression just got stronger and stronger. I can still remember turning up the street to my hill one day and I almost got in an accident because I felt like there was a bird on my shoulder. And he was like, can I come now? And I was like, anyway, so I have this, this experience of this. Just. Can I come now? Can I come out? Can I come now? Now this is exactly how he is. This is my 17 year old. That's, that's, that's like his personality, like almost to a point where sometimes I'm like, I was warned and I didn't listen. Anyway, it just got to the point where it was just so overwhelming. And then the, I heard the voice just said, you're not going to take me now. I'm going to another family. And I felt like, well, I guess we're supposed to have number four. And just to give you a little insight into.

John Dehlin [01:15:53] Did you watch Saturday's Warrior growing up?

Gretchen Day [01:15:55] Oh yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:56] Did you have that theology?

Gretchen Day [01:15:57] Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So I thought, I physically can't handle this, but this is my spiritual path, I'm being told. And just to just to briefly illustrate how like the reason why that's still a profound experience to me is like, this is who this child still is. So when he was like three or four was before you could do zooms and stuff, we were, for Christmas, we were at this office building where they had this big screen and you could Talk to your family. And family who was like, in Michigan or whatever, and he can't sit still. So I'm out in the hall with him, and there's a salesman out there, and there's this little toy car up above the salesman's desk. And my little. This little boy, he's like, can I have the car? Can I have the car? Can I have the car? I mean, like this for, like, 30 minutes. Can I have that car? Can I have that car? And then the salesman be like, no, it's an antique. Can I have the car? No, it's. And he would. And he just kept badgering and badgering and badgering and badgering and badger. I'm like, this is exactly what he's like, like before. And eventually, the salesman was so impressed that he didn't give up, because this is a salesman he's talking to. He gives him the car, and he's like, when he's 18, have him call me. I have a job waiting for him. And he's still like that to this day. He just doesn't. He doesn't let down. But anyway, that's the one thing I'm like, I can't chalk it all up to elevation of motion because there's, like, physical things that. But so. So that ended up being a home birth, underwater home birth. That was my. Probably my most a la carte natural part of my life. And we had a few. I don't remember how I came across them, but there was. There was a BYU student from. She was from Brazil, and she needed a place to stay, and I really needed help. So we exchanged. She came and lived in our basement and helped with the kids. And then it worked out so well. She was leaving. She goes, but, hey, I got a cousin. And so they were actually there when he was born. And one was coming, one was going in. The cousin ended up being converted. Converted. We were. We brought the missionaries over, and she was converted to Mormonism. I don't think she's still Mormon, but she. She was. And right about that time, I joined a group of people that were doing homeschool up in the mountains and.

Waldorf Homeschooling and Community Life

John Dehlin [01:18:11] Mountains, meaning where?

Gretchen Day [01:18:12] Just at Provo Canyon.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] Okay.

Gretchen Day [01:18:14] And so there's a group of families, and we all went to the. The basement of this one house, and the moms would take turns doing. And I did history while the Brazilian watched. My crazy child. My nursing babies, I always keep with me, so I keep the baby with me. So we did that. And then I met another lady who was starting a Waldorf program. I don't know if you're very familiar with Waldorf, but my younger kids still go to her today. Well, so. So that started a long term and she ended up. And the. This family was so Mormon. They're like, Waldorf is too. They don't even celebrate Christmas. They didn't to want. Want. They didn't want her to be part of their program. And she was supposed to be their kindergarten teacher. So at the last second she's like, I need somewhere to go. I'm like, we have this, we have a million levels. They're small, but our rooms are small but the levels. So I was like, cool, come come teach in our basement. So she started and she taught there for I think three years in our basement. We were the Walther homeschool group. And I just send my kids down to the basement for the little. And we had this, we had this wonderful, wonderful group. Ironically on the, on the drive up here, I was thinking, I think of all the. Those moms, moms like 75 of us are in the closet out or officially out. So that's kind of interesting to people who are attracted to Waldorf. So maybe that family was right to kick us out anyway. And so I think that was really the dawning of I need to start listening for who wants to come. So I go back to. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I can't do this. My job is, is. I've definitely had spiritual experiences where I felt like my calling is to be a mom. And shortly. I don't remember if it was before, after my fourth was born, but I was called into the bishop's office and they offered, they asked me if I would be a primary leader. And, and I said because of that therapist. I said, well, let me just tell you a little bit about myself first and then you decide if you still want to give me that calling. And I was like, I've been in the. I was in achievement days on my older ward with the 8 year old year olds. Then when they turned 9, I was with them when they were 9. And then when they turned 10, I was with their attend. And then when they turned 11, I was with them when they're 11. Then when they turned 12, I was the beehive leader. And I said I haven't been to relief Society in almost like nine years. Kind of like to go to really society. I said, but if you still want to give me that calling, I'll do it. And then they were like, you know what, actually we'll think about it. And then they didn't call me to that. And, and the other thing, this is the smartest thing I ever did, is I didn't tell them I could play the piano. I thought I was musical. I was like, I'm going to keep that a secret because in the other ward, you know, once they know you're musical, that's like your life. I was like the chorister or whatever, whatever. But my husband was musical too, so it was funny. He started, he was the pianist for the primary and he was the chorister. And I was like, don't you dare tell them I play the piano. I don't want him to know anyway. And so I just kind of had lower other. I can't even remember what they called me to. And then, and then after my fourth was born, I had, it was like a 48 hour labor and I started having thyroid problems. So I went from pre him I had hyperthyroid and because I was so alternative, they wanted to, what's it called, Radiate. And I said, no, I don't want to do that. It sounds, I'm like, I eat perfect, I exercise perfect, you're not touching my body, which I now realize is stupid, but I'm a baby having babies. That's kind of how I look at it back then. But then eventually it turned into Hashimoto's. And also I was, I was under the impression if I just eat perfect and live perfect, this isn't going to hurt me, you know. So I just said, well, what's the side effects of what? Well, I know. And they're like, one day you're just not going to be able, you're going to be depressed, you're not going to be able to move, you're going to. Everything's going to ache. And so some point after, I always tease my fourth, I said, you literally burned out my thyroid. Whatever was left of it after that 48 hour. I never got it back. But at some point after I started having these symptoms, like maybe six months. And so I went in and got tested. And this is back before when you get. It used to be you get blood work done and if it's bad, they notify you. If it's not, you assume it's good. So they didn't notify me, so I assumed that it wasn't a problem problem. But then it started getting worse and worse and worse. And then I would say when he was one, maybe a little bit older one, and I nursed for a really long time, so I was still nursing, but I just started like it hurt when I woke up. Every muscle like to get up like it, my body hurt and I started. When you start drifting into depression, I don't know if you felt it, but you pass a point where you know that you're there. Does that make sense? So I think at some point I drifted and then I got pretty depressed, but I didn't even know I was depressed if that makes sense because I so depressed.

John Dehlin [01:22:48] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:22:49] Anyway, and so I remember my cousin that I told you who is now a therapist or her, she was getting worried about me. We just talk on the phone only like once or twice a year and she's like, you ought to go get tested again. Or she said, I remember her saying something I'm worried about. You don't sound like yourself, you know. So I call them and they look up my blood work from like six months ago. Oh my gosh, your thyroid leg is totally not working. You should have been on thyroid medicine. So I try all the alternatives. I did the pig armor thyroid for a while and then it then now I'm just. Because I'm in my mind I'm thinking no, but if I'm perfect, if I eat perfect because that's kind of the raw food is vegan mentality. If you're, if you eat perfect, you're, you're going to heal your body, right? Well, turns out that's not really true because my body was breaking down and then once I got on those medications I felt better. But I never got back that like 20 year old energy level. And especially because I went through a long time of hyper thyroid. That's where you like super skinny. And I could teach five classes in a row for aerobics. And then, then all of a sudden it's like, man, if I do a step aerobics class I'm wiped for the rest of the day. And I have to, I had to start like meeting out my. Okay, I only got so much energy in a day. I have to be. And I was still teaching then, but I taught. But I started shifting to more teaching, you know, yoga and, and doing strength stuff rather than like spinning and kickboxing as much. And because I was homeschooling, what I would do at the rec center is I would hire a, a private swimming instructor. So all my kids learned how to swim while I taught my classes. And then, then we did the Waldorf and then everything we did, I, I did the four year rotating curriculum on top of that. And I, and I used the Abeka books. I really like the abec, which is also a Christian. Christian company. Yeah. And I think. I think I just got. I ended up having a miscarriage after my fourth because I just. I got back on the train of multiplying. Sheriff, this is your calling. Oh, I got distracted and. And then they called me back in for a calling again at some point between those two, when I. When I was depressed and before I had gotten on thyroid medicine. And they said, if you were to have any calling, what would it be? And this is. This is how amazing this ward is because they don't really need the help because everybody's super active. That makes sense. It was. Which was a different world, because in Provo, it's like, could you home, teach 10 people and visit. Teach these five people? And could you also be this, this, and this? Because there's not enough people. Well, in this word. And so I think they knew I was overwhelmed. And so I don't remember. It was a counselor bishop, but he said, if you could have any calling, would it be be? And I said, mom, I just want to be a mom. That's my. I said, God's already told me that's my calling. I know I'm supposed to be doing that. I said, and I'm happy to visit teach on the side, but that's it. And they left me in my mom calling for, like, I want to say that almost entire bishopric, four or five years. And it was the running joke that my job was just to repopulate the nursery. Nursery. Because most of the people our age have four or five at the most, six. But we keep, like, in our nurseries. Right now, I think there's only, like, two kids in it, but it was. One of them is always one of ours. So, like, Gretchen's calling is just repopulating the nursery. Just leave her alone. Gretchen's calling. Just repopulating the nursery. And. And I really did feel like I. I would go on to have a spiritual experience about my sixth, because I also thought I was done after the fifth, and so did my husband separately. And then we would come together and be like, oh, my gosh. Well, I had this, too. And then we both had spiritual experiences for seven and eight, and a lot of those I can definitely rack up to elevation, emotion, and feeling like my job was to multiply and replenish the earth for sure now, in hindsight, but at the same time, I still hold them special and. And sacred. And I. And I. I don't. I don't try to reframe them if that makes Sense.

John Dehlin [01:26:49] Sure. So that, I mean, I'm just, I'm just kind of thinking about, you know, as you're in your story, you know, you went through kind of kids five through eight really quickly. But I'm just thinking, wow, she was kind of overwhelmed at three. By four, you know, she's got special needs kids here and now by four she's got her thyroid failure healing. And you know, that's too, you know, in my mind I'm like, that's too much. Like four was too much.

Gretchen Day [01:27:17] Right.

John Dehlin [01:27:17] But because of the, and I'm not, I think there's beauty and probably wisdom in not trying to have to redefine those spirits, those experiences that we internalized as spiritual. And so that, you know, that's great. You have eight kids and you had the experiences you had and you find beauty and meaning in it. And like you had eight, you had four more kids after. Maybe health or wisdom would have said stop. And, and honestly, you were primed with Saturday's Warrior and you were primed to think that a thought that comes in your mind must be the God or the spirit communicating and that led you to had twice the number of kids that maybe would have been healthy.

Gretchen Day [01:28:01] And I also thought, thought like, I definitely thought like, if I don't have this child, I failed that child. Like this was meant. And it's interesting you say that between my fourth and my fifth, I had a miscarriage and I went to Women's Week where President Packer spoke.

John Dehlin [01:28:18] So that was your jam, Women's Week.

Gretchen Day [01:28:20] Okay, well, and education week too. No, I actually don't like to be in large crowds. I hate stuff like that. So my neighbor invited me and I didn't have a super good experience. I really don't like being in it with a ton of people. But we went to president where President Packer spoke. So this is going to be more of the unethical persuasion. And, and I think it, it probably put me on the road for four more. He gave an entire talk with statistics on how white Mormon women aren't having enough kids. It was an hour long talk. And he went like in the Hispanics or this. And he, it was numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. And I remember my neighbor looking at me and she goes, well, at least, at least you're the, you're trying. Because I had just had a miscarriage marriage. And so it definitely reinforced that teaching of the living prophets. This is what you're here for. And he's basically just like, look, you guys are supposed to be having kids. You're not doing your job. He didn't say it in those words, but that was what I internalized. And I wish I had that talk. I'm kind of mad about that talk now that I think about it. So, yeah, so definitely a combination of the prophets. I think I came home from that with going, look, I learned this before and they're still saying paying it. So to someone like, like I have TBM family members that are like, oh, that was just. You had a lot of kids because it was cultural. And I to them I say bull effing that it was not cultural. I was taught this even in the middle. I went to another talk where President Packer, who I was taught speaks for God, who will never lead me astray, told me that again, I it. This isn't a cultural thing. I don't do cultural things. Like in high school I had insomnia. I would, I would set my alarm so that I had 10 minutes to get ready. Half the time I showed up with two different socks on my clothes, I'm inside out. I don't do things to make because I want to fit in. That's like, like that. I don't even have that in my DNA, you know. And so to say with that. Some people have said that since I've resigned when I've said, well, you know, know I had a lot of kids because I was taught that they're like, no, no, no, it was cultural scene. And I will literally I say bull F and every time. So if you say that to me on the street, I will say that to you. Only I won't. I'm editing it for John. I won't edit it on the street because I was indoctrinated unethically to do that. And again, I'll say it over and over. It's not that I regret I have the kids that I have, but it is what it is. I didn't have a choice. And by every scientific standard of where my brain was, where my heart was, where my th was. It was a stupid ass idea. It was. And I'm lucky to be alive. My last pregnancy, I was down the whole nine months. The last four pregnancies were hell, you know, so I love those little babies.

John Dehlin [01:31:12] Of course, of course.

Gretchen Day [01:31:14] But I didn't have a choice. It was definitely I every. I was trained confirmation, bias wise. Every, every thought that came into my mind, oh, that's a child trying to communicate with me. Oh, I'm supposed to have another one. One. Oh, I'm supposed to have another one. And Every time I had any experience like that, I took it with all nine. All nine yards, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:31:34] And then I'm going back to the fact that you didn't have what you feel was the best upbringing. And so you're trying to be that perfect mom and you're trying to have the perfect family. You're trying to do Mormonism perfectly. And that's hard with one kid. That's hard with four kids. Kids. Now you're trying to, like, repair the, you know, not, not be your parents and do the Mormon perfect, perfect mom kind of thing. Not just with two kids or four kids, but with eight kids. No wonder your, your body was shutting down. I mean, I don't know.

Gretchen Day [01:32:14] Yep. It's a miracle I'm alive. It's a miracle we're all alive. Life. But yeah, yeah. And, and you know, I've loved homeschooling. I love it so much. My younger two are homeschooled.

John Dehlin [01:32:26] Oh, and you're homeschooling. Like, I didn't even mention that you're homeschooling too. Yeah, no, that's all of that.

Gretchen Day [01:32:31] But to me, that's easier. I, I really like being in charge.

John Dehlin [01:32:35] No, I'm just saying.

Gretchen Day [01:32:36] So for, to me, it's easier to homeschool.

An Intense and Perfectionist Brand of Mormonism

John Dehlin [01:32:38] That's one of the things that was compelling just about your story. I mean, so much of this is a type of Mormonism that. No, you know, know, the, the, the fixation on diets, the no sugar, the no media, the homeschooling, the lots of kids, the perfectionism there. Every story is different, but all in Utah County. Like, so much of, of what I hear from your story is, is this type of Mormonism that is just so intense. It's, it's so intense. I think it probably drives some people mad. Mad and, or it maybe drives some people out of the church. One or the other. You kind of either lose your health, go mad, or, or you reach a breaking point.

Gretchen Day [01:33:22] Right. I think I, I, that definitely. And it, and it's also people who get mad at me when I talk about this post Mormon is they'll be like, well, that's just your personality type. You're just an all or nothing person. You're just living it. Nobody else lives Mormonism like, like that. And I thought that for a while until I started going on Porsche Marmon websites. Oh, no, actually, I'm not the only person.

John Dehlin [01:33:42] No, no, no, no, no. This is the class of Mormon.

Gretchen Day [01:33:44] Yeah. I was like, but that, that, that's also like, that's, I Feel like that's abusive now that, that people tell me that I. Well, it's just your personality this way

John Dehlin [01:33:52] and just because they didn't live that way.

Gretchen Day [01:33:54] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:33:55] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:33:55] And we all knew these people or they don't even know the doctor. I. I love that episode Heather Gray when she's like, mormons don't know doctrine from their ass.

John Dehlin [01:34:03] Heather gay. Yeah, yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:34:04] Heather gay. Yes. I was like, that is my entire neighborhood days. She said, mormons don't know doctrine from their ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] Some Mormons don't.

Gretchen Day [01:34:14] Yeah. But. But a lot. Or, or like with John Larsen, he said, if you want to know what's going on with Mormonism, ask the ex Mormon Reddit. They'll have it on there. Like, like the whole energy healing thing. I know I have a lot of friends that do that. Other Mormon, they don't even know about it yet. I always know about stuff before they do now that I'm ex, so.

John Dehlin [01:34:30] Well, that. That's, that's true. They're just like your dad and your. And your grandpa, Your dad's dad. There are a lot of Mormons that are just culture Mormons. Mormons. And yes, it's true that there are a lot of ex Mormons that know more about Mormonism than lots of Mormons, but there is a class of super orthodox Mormons who are on top of it. Right, and that's what you were trying to do.

Gretchen Day [01:34:51] Right. But even within that class, because I lived in this class, I'm still the only one that feels like I should be multiplying and present, replenishing the earth. Does that make sense? Yeah, because still within that class, the people that tell me, well, you just live that culturally, they're the ones that live that by me. But I'm like, did you go to teachings of living prophets? Did you read what President McKay said? That's not culture that's being taught. Did you go to the talk when President Packer, like, that's what I, that's what. It makes me upset because I'm like, am I the only person following the rules here? Like, I'm the only person following the GD rules? Like, you know, and I'm gonna. I'm getting punished for it. That's how I feel my whole, my whole journey. I feel like I'm doing everything that I was told by men that I loved and revered and. And I'm being punished for. For it. And that's not fair.

John Dehlin [01:35:38] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:35:39] Getting ahead.

John Dehlin [01:35:39] Yeah. Another place that sometimes takes people is to fundamentalism, and that can be polygamy. But it can also just be like this old school, Brigham Young kind of Bruce Armaconke, Joseph Feeling Smith type of Mormon.

Gretchen Day [01:35:53] I had the Denver Snuffer book era. I did. I read it.

John Dehlin [01:35:56] Okay.

Gretchen Day [01:35:56] I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:35:57] We'll get there. Yeah, we'll get there.

Gretchen Day [01:35:59] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:36:00] So there's so much we could cover in your story. I want to, I want to make sure we take our time with the faith, with the faith journey stuff. So anything else about your story before we kind of get into any crucial points about your story that tie into your faith journey that you want to tell before we start talking about when things with your faith journey started really heating up?

Gretchen Day [01:36:22] Yes. 1. So one thing just on the perfectionism, because I know women get, get into that and then they're depressed and then they feel bad about themselves, themselves and all that. I don't, that, I don't feel like I ever. That didn't affect me. I, I never went through that. I've always had high self esteem. I've always felt like I'm, I'm confident, capitol capable. So I always used to have this joke and I won't use names because my boys get mad at me when I say it, but this was how I thought. Even as an uber, uber believing Mormonism, this is how I thought it was going to go in the next life. I get to heaven and they say, oh, okay, you're Gretchen Day. You're so and so's mom. Oh, they're like, go straight to the celestial kingdom. It's okay. Unless you killed somebody. You can go straight. And then, and then, and then, and this is God I'm talking to. This is my joke I used to tell. And then God goes, wait a minute. You sent this child to her too? I specifically said not to send those two kids to the same mother. And they said, and then he says to me, even if you killed someone, straight to the highest level of celestial kingdom. And that's really like, I never fell into the oh, I'm depress because I'm not good. I always feel like you do the best with the information you have. I always, I think that therapist probably really helped me see that. And so I think that even though I was living what I thought was doctrinally the most uber, I never fell into the I'm a bad person or I'm not good enough person. I always could fall back on. I don't need to be perfect. I just need to do, do my best. I just. And that's part of my upbringing. It was hard work. Do your best. Hard work. Do your best. And that was. I really believed that. I believed that when I died, no matter if I best mom or not the best mom or if I read my scriptures or if I didn't, that the end of the day, having those two kids, I was going to bypass everything. I really did believe that. So I think that's different in my story because I hear a lot of women, like, just with the perfectionism and then just going down the. I didn't ever go down that road. I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:38:20] That's good.

Gretchen Day [01:38:20] I really didn't.

John Dehlin [01:38:21] I'm glad.

Gretchen Day [01:38:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:22] For you. Okay, so anything else before we jump to the faith Christian stuff? Okay. So I mean, east bench, Utah County, Ward, eight kids, homeschooling. I'm just on the edge of my seat. How does. How does a woman like you, Gretchen Day, end up starting to have cracks in her testimony? When. When did it start? What do you remember as being the. The beginning point?

Beginning to Question Church History and Doctrine

Gretchen Day [01:38:50] So I would say my husband and I had remember been reading the CES and books and the scriptures. You get to a point point where you've read them so many times, you're like, okay, like, I have this memorized now. Let's study something different. So every year I go to book club in September. We bring the books that we're reading over the summer. So I started branching out, and mostly I read stuff from BYU professors because I'm so uber Mormon. I'm super careful. I don't want to read anything that's anti. You know, I want to make sure that I. That I check my sources and that. That still gets me today. When people say, did you check your sources? I'm like, yeah, I. I'm a really good source checker. I know what that. That means. But. So definitely branched out. Started reasoning. I would read things like Job, you know, finding out that it's not a real. But. But from. I think it was a BYU professor that wrote a book on that job.

John Dehlin [01:39:40] May have been myth.

Gretchen Day [01:39:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Instead of historical.

Gretchen Day [01:39:42] Exactly. Huh. Book of Isaiah. I studied Isaiah like crazy because I was like, this is. This is going to be so hard because no one understands Isaiah. I'm going to understand Isaiah, studied it from BYU professors. So it definitely started branching out. And I think. I think started listening to your podcast right at the very beginning.

John Dehlin [01:40:01] Now, wait a minute. That makes no sense. Why would an orthodox Mormon listen to Mormon stories? Well, remember around what year and how.

Gretchen Day [01:40:09] Whenever. When it probably the. The very first story I listened to was that he was A seminary teacher, and then they ended up getting divorced, but John McClay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:18] Okay. So that would have been in 2011. 11. Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:40:23] Okay. So it's. So. So. So we're branching out, reading all these books together, my husband and I, and he.

John Dehlin [01:40:31] That's about 10 years ago. Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:40:34] When did you first start?

John Dehlin [01:40:35] Yeah, well, 2005, but, yeah, it might have been.

Gretchen Day [01:40:38] It would have been probably like 2008. I would say 2007. My husband always turns stuff on to fall asleep, too. And it takes me two hours to fall asleep asleep. And he's asleep like this, so he doesn't hear it and I hear it. So let's just say I'm not allowed to say anything about his story. Anyway, so I start think, hearing some of your stuff, and we're reading. And we really liked that podcast because it gave us book sources. And you were. You were an uber Mormon then, right?

John Dehlin [01:41:09] Yeah, I was still. I was very. I was active.

Gretchen Day [01:41:11] So we thought, this is a. With. This is safe, you know, and you. And we got a lot of ideas off of people that were on the podcast for books, so we would order books and read a lot of books. And I had always hated the idea of polygamy, but I didn't want to read Rough Stone Rolling because I'd heard that was a bad book. I sure as hell wasn't going to read Fawn Brody. That's a bad book. And I just remember hearing about. I don't know if it's on your podcast or not. Might have been yours. About Brian Hill's polygamy and about. And how he came on and he defended it. And I was like, so if I'm going to pick a book that's. That's the most apologetic person on the face of the planet, but who's also going to tell me the truth? It's going to be Brian Hills.

John Dehlin [01:41:54] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:41:55] So I love. Michael Quinn says they could be having sex in front of Brian Hills and he'd still figure out a way to say they didn't.

John Dehlin [01:42:01] So.

Gretchen Day [01:42:02] So anyway, so I get. I get this series and I'm reading it, and it. I don't know if you've read it. Have you read. Read it?

John Dehlin [01:42:11] No.

Gretchen Day [01:42:11] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:42:12] I've skimmed it.

Gretchen Day [01:42:12] At the end of every chapter, he tries to let the reader have their. He goes, this is. These are the facts. This is what I think the facts mean. But you. You know, you can figure out what you think the facts mean. And I'm assuming my husband's going to read this book after me, so I'm leaving all kinds of mean, nasty things in the footnotes. You ever did this to me? Do you know I would. Do you know? He didn't end up reading it, but I'm like, getting madder and madder about these. This. And I read the whole series, all three of them. And so I would say this is my first crack in Mormonism. If you never allow yourself the possibility that maybe what you believe isn't true, you'll always believe it. I would say that's pretty accurate.

John Dehlin [01:42:54] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:42:54] And so this is the first time I was like, there's a problem here. And so it was the angel at the drawn sword sword story. I was like, whoa.

John Dehlin [01:43:05] Tell our listeners what that's okay.

Gretchen Day [01:43:06] So the angel with the drawn sword story, basically is Joseph Smith was telling women that an angel came with him with a drawn sword and said, if I don't practice polygamy, the angel's going to kill me. I'm like, okay, Primary Young Women's Sunday School, byu. What. What are we taught as Mormons that we're here to do? We're here to get a body and be tested. Right. And have free agency. Okay. We're also taught. Because I've used this in every four years of my curriculum with my kids. Part of the curriculum is the pre existence story. Okay. So the pre existence story is there's Satan's plan and there's Christ's plan, and Christ's plan is a plan of choice, and Satan's plan is a plan of force. So I'm like, this angel with the drowned sword story is a Satan's plan plan. It's not a. It's not a Christ plan. Okay, So I start. I had a really big problem with that. And I was like, I have. There's three choices here. Number one, he made it up because he wanted to have all these women, which, after you read that whole book, I don't care even if Brian Hales wrote it. That was my conclusion. Or number two, an angel with a drawn sword really came and told him to do that. And if God was behind that, I don't want to know that God. I don't want to be involved with that God. That is not the God of Mormonism. Force. Forcing a man to marry a bunch of women behind his husband's back and not tell her.

John Dehlin [01:44:27] Behind his wife's back.

Gretchen Day [01:44:27] Yeah, I'm sorry. Yes. Behind his wife's back. Could be anything today, but yeah, I was like, that's who. It's not a God that I want to have anything to do with. And then the third choice was that was it so he. That, well, maybe he'd been deceived. Like, you know, and. And so I just went through or. Or he was lying. I just went through the scenarios in my head over and over and over. And none of the scenarios, scenarios make Joseph Smith a prophet again for me. And I would say of everything that I lost it, the hardest, hardest, hardest thing for me to give up was Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:45:08] Why?

Gretchen Day [01:45:11] I don't know. I think it's because it was just ingrained that he's the prophet of the restoration. He did more save Jesus Christ for this. Just every lesson, everything I ever. And so to have this person that held so much power and esteem in my mind, possibly not be that person that was really crushing to me. And so I was in this juxtaposition of like, well, I'm going to pray about this. That's what we're taught to do, right? And I had a spiritual experience where I was like, you know, know what? I've. I received confirmation that pilgames not of God. What he did was bad. And I knew that. And I was like, I don't know if God still worked through him for the restoration. Maybe he did. I can leave that. I could leave that open. But I know that what he did was wrong and he wasn't and that that wasn't good, none of it. And I came. I really feel like researching and through feelings, I came to the conclusion that this is polygamy is not a God, never ever. And especially the way Joseph Smith was doing it. And. But then now that I understand what cognitive dissonance is, so I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance. You just do anything to get back. So then I think, well, you know what prophet today, President Monson, he's not doing it. They're not teaching it, they're not practicing it. I can just let this go, you know, just won't talk about it. It just will be whatever. So then I start going down the let's, let's, let's research. We're taught by their fruits. You shall know them. Let's really. I'm going to go back to the Book of Mormon because that's Joseph Smith's fruit. And from his fruit, I'm going to find out who he is. And you know where this is going to go.

John Dehlin [01:47:04] No, I don't. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Gretchen Day [01:47:06] Where does it go? Book of Mormons, all me made up.

John Dehlin [01:47:09] Wait, wait, don't you, you jump too fast. How'd you get there? Take it slowly.

Gretchen Day [01:47:16] I don't see if I can remember every detail. So. Well, it starts with anachronisms. Just everything. There's like a hundred things. The DNA. Maybe it was one of your podcasts, I don't remember. But I came to that conclusion that it was not made up. And I don't. It probably was over a couple years. It wasn't like immediate.

John Dehlin [01:47:40] Tell us what, for those who don't know, what are anachronisms?

Gretchen Day [01:47:44] Anachronisms means if I say, hey, let's say that we're in the pioneer era and, and I'm telling a story and they went to their wagon and they got a DVD player and played a DD dvd. Well, there's no, there was no DVD player. So in that time. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:48:00] That's an act which tells you what,

Gretchen Day [01:48:02] it's made up the story. Yes. And so, man, just everything.

John Dehlin [01:48:07] Just so taking that to the Book of Mormon.

Gretchen Day [01:48:11] Yes. And this is crucial because I've taught all my kids how to read from the Book of Mormon. Their first words are from Grand Vaughn Harrison's, which he says, the Book of Mormon is the most phonetically correct book ever on the face of the planet. That's the beginning of, of the curriculum. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me. But I'm thinking at this time, I'm also thinking, this is my whole life. This is who I am. Maybe that experience I had when I was a teenager, I, I changed it to this is your path, not the church. Is true. I'm. I'm going to hold on to that experience. This is my path. I was shown that when I was 13. I'm not DVD meeting. I'm just going to start looking at it symbolically, which is very easy when you're Waldorf curriculum related. Waldorf is all symbolism. Everything you're taught to read your Alphabet, everything they, they tell myths. You do the Norse mess, you do Greek mythology. It's all, it's all pretend. And you teach kids through. So I'm like, great. Book of Mormon is just another pretend lesson. Just like every, Just like I just like I've always taught this. This is not going to be hard for me.

John Dehlin [01:49:18] I can do this just to finish off the anachronism. So, so the Book of Mormon, some of the anachronisms, what are they?

Gretchen Day [01:49:27] I haven't read it in a while. Horses. Steel.

John Dehlin [01:49:31] What about them?

Gretchen Day [01:49:32] They weren't invented at those times.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] Yeah, I mean, horses were in Spain.

Gretchen Day [01:49:37] Right, Right. And, and the. And the.

John Dehlin [01:49:39] But they weren't in the the Americas.

Gretchen Day [01:49:41] Right. And all the quotes from Jesus Christ, I mean they were literally from the Bible version that Joseph Smith would have had of that. That time. I mean like I could spend. I'd have to go back and look at my notes. I'm a big picture person. I'm sorry John, I can't. I can't remember all the details but I literally have a hundred reasons written down about how A hundred. At least 100.

John Dehlin [01:50:02] And it even makes no sense that Nephites and Lamanites knew about. Knew Jesus's name, worshiping Jesus before Jesus, everything. There's not even the Jews in the Middle East.

Gretchen Day [01:50:14] Exactly. Didn't know deeply research it and there's no way way that any normal. I mean it would be like. Here's an analogy. It would be like you grew up in a community in today's. In 2021 that believed the earth was flat. Just a really small community of like I don't know, 15 million people when there's billions of people. Okay, we'll say that. And then you're taught that your whole life the worth Earth is flat. The Earth. Earth is flat. Everybody thinks the earth is flat. And then you start seeing all the evidence that the earth isn't flat but nobody around you seeing that evidence. And, and then you start saying things like, you know, maybe the earth could be round. There's like for a hundred years people have known this. I don't know how I'm just barely finding this out but. And then everyone around you is going shut up. What are you talking about? The earth is flat? You can't say that. But there's so much evidence that the earth is round. And it's just like you start, you, you start at the tip of the iceberg and it's like the Book of Mormon. You just go down and nothing of adds up to be a literal trans. Nothing. Zero.

John Dehlin [01:51:16] And you mentioned the DNA.

Gretchen Day [01:51:17] Yeah DNA there isn't. They aren't from where they say they were. It's the American Indians didn't have anything to do with the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:51:26] With Israelites.

Gretchen Day [01:51:27] Yeah. Nothing.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] So Asia. They're from Asia.

Gretchen Day [01:51:30] Exactly. So I, so I, I don't put things on. People say they put things on shelf. I just reasoned how I can accept this. As I would say I'm not a shelf lifter. I'm a K. Joseph Smith was crap. Maybe he's restored something. Maybe he didn't present prophets. Don't do it now. This is still a great place to teach my kids, make sure they're not having sex, they're not doing drugs, they're going on missions, they're living these great lives. Book of Mormon symbolic. Okay. It's okay. Everything else I teach is symbolic. I can, I can live with this. But then I start. The cognizant of dissonance starts getting really hard for me as I can I

John Dehlin [01:52:08] just really say really quick, quickly. A lot of people don't make that jump. A lot of people don't make that jump to. Let's let me just be a symbolic, metaphorical, progressive, non literal Mormon. A lot of people, especially if they come from a more rigid, orthodox point of view, it's all or nothing. It's either all true or a big fraud. And I guess you've already mentioned Waldorf is maybe what prepared you for, to value symbolism or metaphor before. But I just want to note that that decision to do this non literal path after you've been so orthodox is, is kind of. It's more rare, I think.

Gretchen Day [01:52:45] Sure. And I think in hindsight, the other reason I, I did it that way was I already had a daughter almost ready to go on a mission. I was like, it's too late for me to jump ship now. How the hell am I going to make this work so that I'm not going crazy and I don't ruin her life? So I really think my, my decision to say I'm going to make this path work. I didn't know what cognitive dissonance was at the time, but I was resolving it being like, you cannot have raised your older four this way and have the one child who it's working for. And you've. She's doing everything you taught her to do. She is living everything. She loves it. It's her whole life. And will destroy your relationship with her. Probably. Probably. And she'll hate you. Probably. I was willing to make up anything in my head to keep that relationship tight. So I think the Waldorf was ancillary. It was more. I always say that I'll listen to your stories. I'm like, when are they going to have somebody on who's got like kids that are already on missions? Because if your kids are 12 and under, I think if my kids have been 12 and under when I went under or when, when I started realizing these things, I probably would have gone a different route. I wouldn't have tried to make it work for eight years because I really felt like I had to, to protect my kids.

John Dehlin [01:54:03] And that's a really, you know, we, we do not realize. I don't even think the church realizes how many active Mormons, even temple. Temple recommend holding. Mormons don't really literally believe, but literally either. Because of jobs, because of parents, because of inheritance reasons, because of the children, because of fears that the children might destabilize or even disown them. A lot of people hang on purely out of fear.

Gretchen Day [01:54:33] Yeah, that was me for sure.

John Dehlin [01:54:35] Was that you?

Gretchen Day [01:54:36] For sure.

John Dehlin [01:54:36] Do you remember the year,

Gretchen Day [01:54:40] let's see, my oldest graduated from high school? 2016. I don't know, it started 2018. I would say this would probably be around 2012.

John Dehlin [01:54:52] Wow, 12.

Gretchen Day [01:54:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:54] Okay, so eight or nine years ago you knew it wasn't true, but you were committed to make it work.

Gretchen Day [01:54:59] Well, I wasn't. It wasn't true yet. I was just at the Joseph Smith and Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:55:03] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

Gretchen Day [01:55:04] I haven't made the whole thing as true yet. Okay, that's going to take me a while. So then, so then I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop. I'll go to the Book of Abraham. This is a funerary text all along. Like, you know it doesn't. It 10 minutes of study. It's like, what? And, and I'm on like whatever, whatever. It wasn't fair at the time it was called something else. Like I'm like reading stuff from the BYU is putting out. You know, I mean that's the crazy thing. I, I never read anything that wouldn't be considered a good source. And then at some point, when did the essays come out? Do they come out in 2014, 13,

John Dehlin [01:55:44] 14, something like that? Yeah.

Gretchen Day [01:55:45] So this is critical for me. So I've already started unraveling. Then they come out with the essays, the books and the resources at the bottom of those essays. I have read most of them. So when I read the essays, I start seeing this untruthful stance mattered. I'm like, they're like whitewashing some of these things. They're definitely leaving part of the truth out in their essays. And that was, I think the first crack with the modern day leaders that I had. I was like, because I, I've always, even the crap got the worst after. Well, that's jumping ahead. But up until then I just always gave. They're, they're in the same boat as me. They don't know this isn't real. They don't, they don't know. They don't know. They're just like me. Who's gonna tell them? Like that's, that was my, that was my thought process. I. There, There was never a. They, they're doing something wrong. It was a. The history's wrong. We're teaching it wrong. And I can still remember the last time I went to Sunday school, like as a semi believer. I don't know what you want to call me at that time, but it was the story on Joseph Smith martyrdom. And, and if you read Brian Hells, even Brian Hills at the end says this margin is because he was practicing polygamy and I'm from redneck area. It's vigilante justice. Okay, guys? That's what it is. You start going around taking other people's wives and that within that time period they are going to want to kill you. And that's. And he even says that. He says that in his book. And this is the number one apologist for the church on Joseph's. On the. Joseph Smith's polygamy. He says that in his book. So we're sitting there and having this lesson and they're talking about the printing press. Oh, and I wrote a book. I wrote an essay in BYU between the Navu Expositor and the Times and Seasons on that before they. So I've actually read the original document

Polygamy, Book of Abraham, and Deepening Doubts

John Dehlin [01:57:40] which says things like what it's.

Gretchen Day [01:57:42] It says things that in the class they're going to teach is not true. But the Navajo Expositor is just saying he's basically taking a girl who's. Whose mom died and he took her in from. From her father being who Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:57:55] Okay.

Gretchen Day [01:57:56] And he married her secretly and he's practicing polygamy. And Then it quotes DNC 132 parts of it before he released it. Okay. That's what, that's what was in the novel. There was. There was not a single lie. It was the truth. And so I'm sitting in Sunday school class with someone who's the general authority, like second counselor or something in the Sunday school presidency of the church. All these BYU preparations professors, and they're still tearing the narrative of, yeah, they were printing all these lies. And so it was in Joseph's right to burn it down. And Joseph Smith's the best person saved Jesus Christ and making this big martyr lesson. And I had to walk out. And I. And I didn't walk out because I was mad that they weren't telling it right. I walked out because I. It was like a light bulb went off. I've lost my voice in my own ward with my family and my friends that I love. I can't talk. Why in the hell am I here?

John Dehlin [01:59:03] Why couldn't you talk?

Gretchen Day [01:59:04] Because I couldn't raise my hand and say, actually, it was vigilante justice. And he got. And, you know, he was secretly practicing polygamy and. You want to go get the original Nabix, Foster? I read it. Nothing was a lie. I can't say that. What do you think would happen to me? Bow and arrow? Tartan feather? I don't know. Something not good. Right? Like, I'm not going to cause waves like that, but, like, how could we, in this day and age have this much information? And I'm surrounded by the people who are these? Some of them are religion professors at BYU that are teaching it. And we're still teaching the story wrong. Not not only teaching it wrong, but it would be. Be spiritual suicide for me to raise my hand and say what the truth is. Like, how can I live like this? Like, just keeping my. Yeah, just. It was the beginning of. I've totally lost my voice in this word. And I didn't go back. I was like, I can't sit through lessons because I usually was the person raising my hand, making a comment. Well, I read in the. In the commentary, I read this, I read that, and it was just like, it come full circle to where I was like, man, I'm So far. I understand their history so much. But my. I didn't know the word critical inquiry then, but my critical inquiry, I'm coming up with different answers than the churches, but I'm not allowed to have a different answer. I'm not allowed to have a different opinion. I'm not allowed to do that. And the cognitive dissonance it was creating was because I felt like I was suffocating. It was. It was just terrible.

John Dehlin [02:00:34] So that was the last time you went to Sunday school? Yeah, around. What year was that?

Gretchen Day [02:00:40] I don't remember. Okay, I'm sorry. That's fine. And then I. I would. I went to Relief Study and did other stuff, which is for a long time. And I was in the nursery. And then I actually taught Relief Society. And I would do. If I got assigned, like Joseph Smith or Book of Mormon, I would just be like, I'm gonna be out of town that week. Can I switch your lessons? And then I always tease the last lesson I gave, and then I got released. And I'm pretty sure I got released for my lesson, but maybe I didn't. Maybe it was just circumstance, but the lesson was on faith, so I'm. I'm skipping ahead. Let me back up. So on the book of Abraham. I realized that's not true. Then I read Greg Prince's how the Priesthood Came About. Okay, the priesthood's all made up. It's not true. Then I read Charles Harrell's and we actually ran into him while we were reading it into the. In the. In Costco. Charles Harrell. And. And he was like, are you sure you want to read that? It's quite controversial or something like that. And I was like, oh yeah, I got this.

John Dehlin [02:01:33] And this is the book. This is my doctrine. Yes, we. I interviewed Charles Harris early on where he talks about all the major Mormon doctrines changing over time. And he was a BYU professor.

Gretchen Day [02:01:43] Absolutely. So I'm reading a BYU professor, sir, who's retired and he's not, as far as I know, excommunicated at the time. So I'm like, this is like, this is good stuff. I'm not reading anti. Anything still in.

John Dehlin [02:01:56] Remember?

Gretchen Day [02:01:56] I think, yeah, I think, well, he. He ends the book still as, this is how you can still believe. But by the end of the book, I was like, I think that was the crack. I mean, not the. The crack, the last. Like at least for literal belief anyway. So, yeah, he goes through the apostasy. How. Even how we've. That's all made up. That's just. What do they call it? Where you take a scripture that was written 5,000 years ago and you attach a meaning to. To today, but it didn't mean that. And that's what Mormons have done. That's what everybody's done. Christianity. Let's let you know. Okay. And then it goes through. It goes through the Godhead and how that changed over time. Okay, well, even. And it went through. I have this in my resignation speech. Every single story I learned from primary up was wrong. Except for the restoration of the Iranic priesthood. That's it. No, that. Yeah. Everything else. Else. Everything I'd learned was wrong. Like, I was like, how many more. It's like, it makes me so mad when I think it was Oaks a few years ago on one of those. Those talk to talks. They're like, what do you tell. What do you say to someone who's. Who's struggling? And he mentions like, well, people say that we're deceiving or we're not being transparent because they talk about the. We didn't teach about the four versions of the first vision. It's not that. It's everything. It's the four versions. It's Joseph Smith, it's the Book of Mormon, it's the Book of Abraham. Recently, the Bible, the translation, it's the history of the Godhead, it's the apostasy. It's Satan, Satan. It's. It's everything. Yes. Aaronic priesthood, everything, like everything isn't right. Like was taught wrong. And it wasn't that it was taught wrong, but they knew the right version. And so when they say, well, in his face to face, he's like, well back, like, you know, in 1970, we actually, we actually printed something in the ensign about this.

John Dehlin [02:03:51] We have stone in the hat or whatever.

Gretchen Day [02:03:53] Yeah, it. But I don't care. We have conference 8 freaking hours twice a year, which I listen to all of, by the way, as a believing Mormon. I go to church. We have Sunday school every, every week. When you're in primary, you have primary, then you have women or young men, then you have priesthood or relief Society going every week. It's not being taught. I'm sorry. It's when they say they're transparent. That's a, that's an effing lie. They're not being transparent. And I sent you that, the clip. My, my son, last year, before COVID the one of the church historians came. It was right before I resigned, and he literally went through everything and he corroborated everything I had in my, my letter. But that's not helping people like me. It's not to just randomly go to this college and let's, let's go to uvu, let's go to Weber State, let's make these millennials. If you're not teaching it regularly, you're hiding it. That's my opinion. And that's what, that's what. Slowly it starts dawning on me. It's not just that nothing that I believe is true, but it's that it's purposely been taught to me in a way for me to believe that. That's number one. Number two is it started hurting my kids. I think that's where I should lead it to here. So I'm going through this faith crisis. My oldest goes on a mission, gets called on a mission. I'm really struggling. I really want to tell her Joseph Smith is a piece of crap. I'm like, can't say that right before she goes on a mission. So I just keep it all to myself. I don't tell her anything that I've learned, but she leaves and her. My next child's just really struggling with Mormonism. We didn't know this then, but she didn't really believe anything. So we're still in this family of trying to read the scriptures every day and trying on making sure you're. You're wearing your clothes, right? And, oh, as a family, every year, we would read the Book of Mormon together, and then we would all send the kids off to pray about it and get their own burning of the bosom. We did that every year for a very long time. So we would send them all off, and then they would come back with whatever stories they had, Right? So at some point, I found out she said she's been doing this for years, and she's. She's like, I just been making stories up just to make you feel good. And then she's in bishop interviews, and she was predisposed, really. More. More of an anxious person anyway. And just everything that. She was having panic attacks about going to young women's, and she didn't like the bishop interviews. And I could just see the. It taken a toll on her. So I switched from, okay, I was starting to be the symbolic person. I'm like, well, okay, you know what? There's more than one path. We need to stop teaching that. I'm teaching that to my family, to my kids now. And I. And I saying, you know, this isn't your path. It's not your path. You don't have to go to church. You know, this is my path. I'm choosing this path because I had this experience when I was 13 years old, and I know I'm supposed to be on this path. I'm still holding to that. And. And so she starts going less. I always, after I have a baby, take like a year sabbatical, not. Not completely off of church, but that's the only time my husband takes all the kids somewhere. So, like, I will be like, baby's napping. I can't go. And so I would stay home with her and just watching her go through not really a faith crisis, but just everything that you would think would help your teen was hurting her. It was just making her worse, was making her anxiety worse. It was making her depression worse. It was just like nothing was helping. And then she had friends that were very, very pro lgbtq. And at this time, I had gone from helping fight it BYU you to not really having thought about it, and it starts resurging. And I knew about the proposition 8 because I had a brother who had to go and distribute stuff. And I still had this thinking of, well, we really don't want to teach. Teach that. That's normal in schools. That would be bad. But, yeah, we don't want to hurt people like These are like, I don't really understand the science of it, but the, the proposition, whatever the church came out with that policy, let's call it

John Dehlin [02:08:06] the November 2015 exactly.

Gretchen Day [02:08:08] That comes out and this child is just like, this is crap.

John Dehlin [02:08:13] Like for, for those who are listening for the first time, this is a policy the church came out with. In November 2015 after same sex marriage was legalized throughout the whole United States. The church kind of freaked out and came out with this super awful policy that basically said same sex marriage is grounds for immediate excommunication. Which made it, which, which basically made same sex marriage worse than murder or rape or pedophilia because none of those things warranted an immediate automatic excommunication. But same sex marriage did. So it was literally worse to be to marry the person you love than to be a rapist or a pedophile profile in Mormonism in 2015. But also in addition, they made it so any child of a same sex married couple, even if the husband and wife got divorced and then the dad remarried, if you were a kid whose either parent was same sex married, then you couldn't get the priesthood, you couldn't get baptized, you couldn't advance in the offices of the church church and you had to wait till you were 18 to get baptized or to get the priesthood or whatever. And only after denouncing your parents marriage your, your same sex married parents marriage. So it was just off this awful policy that then the church doubled down on when there was some backlash. And Russell M. Nelson, who's now our prophet, said that it was actually revelation. So I mean it was an awful policy and it only lasted a few years before the church, church had to withdraw it claiming that that was also revelation. But anyway, so your daughter didn't love that, that November 2016?

Gretchen Day [02:10:01] Yes. And I hadn't, hadn't really thought about it. So I was like, what am I, I'm going to research this. Why, why are people gay? What's the science behind it? And I think I remember listening to that Bobby Schwimmer.

John Dehlin [02:10:12] Is that Benji?

Gretchen Day [02:10:13] Benji, yes. And I listened to a bunch of. Just straight up from a story. Oh man. His was, his was heartbreaking. I was like, wow, he really tried to make it work. And just researching the science, if it's how much testosterone you produce in pregnancy, just that, that part of it. And so I was like, so not only did Joseph Smith do stupid stuff now our leaders are doing stupid stuff today now. So this cognitive dissonance resolution which was, I'll just look at everything symbolically. But now people are getting hurt. People that I know, people that I love, they're getting hurt. And, like, I'm a part of this. Like, this isn't right. And so I think that was my second big crack. Crack was like, you go through a phase of, you know, it's not all true, and. And then you. You love your commute. Well, I. I guess I'll speak for myself. I loved my commuted, and I loved my family, and I loved Mormonism so much that I would. I would just look at everything symbolically for the rest of my life if it were healthy. But it was like a light bulb went off, and I'm like, this isn't healthy. This is starting to show signs of being unhealthy for my kids, my teenagers, and it sure isn't healthy, this policy and to be treating one group of people. I mean, this is how I feel. Feel like Joseph Smith treated women. What they're doing today to the gays. That's what he did to women. Because I've read a lot of their stories, and I'm like, this is the same thing. It's happening, really, for the third time. Because the second time was blacks in the priesthood. So I start seeing this pattern of I want to stay part of this community, but I can't. I can no longer say, but that was in the past. We're not doing it now. It's like it was in the past past. It was in the median, and it's happening now, and nobody's stopping it and nobody's talking about it. And I can go to Sunday school class, but I can't say what I think about it. I can't say what I think about history. I can't say what I think about the lgbtq. I can't even talk about. It's like. It's like I'm sitting there with my mouth tape shut. My favorite song to this day is Pink's Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. I don't know if you've heard that song. Was like, there's not enough tape to shut this mouth. I mean, there was a point where I was like, I gotta rip the tape off. I can't just. I felt like I was going to church and they were, like, duct taping me at the door. And not only were they duct taping me while I was there, but they were duct taping my mouth in my parenting. Because here I'm sending someone off on a mission, and I can't even tell her what I believe or what I think how, how, how is that healthy? Like, how can any group call themselves about the family if they're interfering with a parent's ability to teach their children, which is what I felt like they were starting to do. So she starts having problems. She eventually goes off to college and resigns.

Recognizing Undue Influence and Bounded Choice

John Dehlin [02:13:23] Resigns.

Gretchen Day [02:13:23] Resigns. Because they keep bugging her. And in her resignation letter. Letter, she outlines why it's a cult. And I hadn't ever considered Mormonism a cult. And I don't think, I don't think she could have written anything that would have hurt me more because I just wanted to protect my kids. That's all I ever wanted to do. So to have your child be like, yeah, my mom, right? Me in a cult. I was happy for her to resign because I knew it was the right thing for her to do. And I was so happy that I knew it wasn't the only true church, because if I was still the Mormon that believed it was the only two church, I would have been one of those parents who's like, oh, what have I done wrong? You know, that type of person. But I knew it was. I knew she'd be healthier out, and I was happy for her. But it started, it started racking my brain of, why is she saying this is a cult? And I started to be searching what cults were and all that. That. And when you go down the rabbit hole of what, what's unethical persuasion? And that's, that's why I ended up writing the books that I've written. My whole life was a series of unethical persuasion. My whole life. And then.

John Dehlin [02:14:39] What do you mean? Give examples. What is unethical persuasion?

Gretchen Day [02:14:41] And so in the book, the first, the first thing in John J's bounded choice model is if I'll try to quote her. She says, if a group give me the book and I'll quote it, it's the bottom one. I lost my best friend over this quote too. I'm like, it's not even my quote. It's a PhD quote.

John Dehlin [02:15:01] Okay, show the people the book and, and tell them what's the book?

Gretchen Day [02:15:05] Protecting children from Unethical Persuasion. So basically, I'm jumping ahead a little bit here. But after I resigned, I read like 25 books, psychology on what's healthy and not healthy in groups. And I was like, why is there nothing written on this for kids? Because I want something. Just, just read this in five minutes. And so I took this from the bike model, and I actually worked with Jean Jarlalec Bounded choice model. I don't know if you're familiar with hers. Okay. Her model will. Just briefly. It's like a transcendent belief system that means it's only one path. A charismatic leader that you can't criticize. Systems of control and systems of influence. Those four things. So anyway, and I just put it into. I took everything. I put it into a top 10, and then I reached out to.

John Dehlin [02:15:47] What's the bite model?

Gretchen Day [02:15:48] The bite model is if they're trying. Stephen Hass, Stephen Hassan, they're trying to control your behavior, the information you receive about the institution, your thoughts and your emotions. And I reached out to them and said, hey, I wrote this for kids based on. Do you think I got it right? And they both signed off on it. They both endorsed it. Gave me a few feedback. But. But the very first thing, and this is from LEC's bounded choice model. It says you might be in an unhealthy group if the group tells you that their path is the one and only path to truth and happiness. Happiness. This is. This is from her book. Your group also might be unhealthy if they, quote, include a total explanation of past, present and future, including the path to salvation. This is after researching hundreds of cults. That's her number one thing. I read it. I'm like, you got to be effing kidding me. I did raise my kids in a cold. I homeschooled them. I picked out the curriculum. I handpicked everything they were taught, and I taught them all a bunch of lies. And I'm like, anyway, so. So that. That's jumping ahead with this book. But my third ends up.

John Dehlin [02:16:51] Your daughter wrote that?

Gretchen Day [02:16:53] Yeah, she wrote that. And then that. Really. That was the third cliff, really, of falling off of. Like, it's one thing to say it's not true, but I'm going to look at it symbolically. It's another thing to say it's not healthy for me. It's. I'm a mama bear. Third thing, it's not healthy for my kids. Kids. I'm jumping. I. I'm not saying something that's not healthy for my kids. And. And we'll. And I'll go through that right now. So my third wanted to go to be. He got into byu. It's his live stream. He ended up doing a little bit of byu, a little bit of By Idaho, because our rule was he's the special needs. You have to do a full year and not have any problems before you go on a mission. So he did, and we went through the process with the bishop, and I was very adamant about, like, you know, he. He's in the care of a therapist. Let's. Let's make sure that, you know, that I'm really worried about this. Shouldn't be sent foreign. So he gets called to Brazil. And I went, like. The bishop emailed me. He's like, what do you think about his call? And I was like, you know, I'm gonna throw up. And I think this is wrong, because he shouldn't be going to Brazil. He's. He's under the care of a mental health professional. He has terrible insomnia, and he needs to be close in case there's a problem. Like, you know, he already has bouts of. Of. He didn't. He was never clinically diagnosed with ADD because in my alternative days, I didn't want my kids to be labeled, but he clearly was. And he. He'd go back and forth between anxiety and depression. And the bishop was like, well, I don't know what to tell you. But, yeah, I put. He goes, I'm pretty sure I put on there. Don't send him foreign. I don't know why they did that. So. So it all comes down to the prophet. And my son would say the same thing I'd say to him. I said, after his semester, because he got his call and then did another semester at BE Idaho, waiting to go, and he'd had some bad anxiety and depression. I said, I think you need to tell the bishop that you're having these feelings, and I think you need to get reassigned. Like, this is probably not a good place for you to go. I'm going where the prophet told me to go. Like, you know, and I didn't want to be that mom that was, like, so overbearing that she overturned. I have enough power. I could have done it. In hindsight, I wish I would have.

John Dehlin [02:19:08] This is reminding me, by the way, of you deciding to have lots of kids and to be a housewife. It's the authority telling you what needs to happen.

Gretchen Day [02:19:16] Right?

John Dehlin [02:19:16] An unquestioning devotion to authority.

Gretchen Day [02:19:18] But at the time. But I was fighting it internally, and I voiced it. I told the bishop, I said, said, the prophet doesn't know my son. My son can't go to Harmon's without losing his driver's license. He can't get on an airplane by himself and go to another country. He doesn't know the language, and he already has sleeping problems. If one little thing in his life gets mixed up. Said, this is a badass idea.

John Dehlin [02:19:45] I could hear Some of my listeners, maybe their brains saying, well, this is a great opportunity because if he, he doesn't know how to be fully responsible and take care of himself, what a better way for him to, to learn and to figure it out than to be away from mom, be away from dad, be in a foreign country. And that's a great, a great way for him to learn.

Gretchen Day [02:20:06] I thought all of those things too. It's just, I mean, I thought them all. I was like. And that was the part of Mormonism. Now I'm like, why can't they just send them on service missions so they're not out lying to people? But the part of me, I was like, well, maybe he'll, maybe this will be good. And, but here's the, the thing. Like, my brain and my heart knew it was a bad idea. And I will never, I will never forgive myself for going against that. Because I did go against that. I was like, okay, fine. It was the call. And this is the, the clencher for me. I also didn't tell him I didn't believe because by this time I don't believe any of it. So I'm lying really, with, with omission to my kids. And the one thing I did tell him, shortly before he went on his mission, I said, I said, son, I need to tell you something. I said, you got to remember as a Mormon, when you go to church, when you go to BYU and you go to by Idaho and you're learning the history, you're hearing it from one perspective. So I gave him the analogy. I said, what would happen if you got in a fight with your brother? And you tell me, and then he tells me, is it going to be the same story? And he's like, no. I said, so it's the same thing in Mormonism. So when you go on your mission, they're going to tell you these stories to tell. You need to remember it's just from their perspective and they might not be all true. I said something like that. This was his response. Some of them might not be true. Have you written to the prophet about this? I think he needs to know. And I'm thinking, I think he knows. But I. That was his response. Cute.

John Dehlin [02:21:33] But this is, this is a dilemma. These people that we've referred to that don't believe anymore but are still raising their kids in the church. Do I tell my kids? Do I not tell my kids? The argument for telling the kids is that you don't lie to them and you don't sin them up for later disappointment. And, or damage by having kind of misled them and manipulated them into something that you knew wasn't true. But then the flip side is, if I do tell them, it could blow their world up. It could rock their world. They could lose their friends. They could, you know, who knows? You know, worst fears, become a drug addict, be shamed by the whole community, disappoint everybody.

A Son's Mission and Troubling Experiences

Gretchen Day [02:22:11] Right?

John Dehlin [02:22:11] And there's a, It's a real dilemma. And, you know, I usually tell people, people, the last thing you want to do is lie to your kid, because then if, if something bad happens, you, you, you might feel responsible, right? You know, and they might say to you, you knew and you didn't tell me.

Gretchen Day [02:22:27] So anyway, we're gonna get to that part. It's gonna happen. But yeah, so I, I knew if I said too much, he would, it would ruin his chance to go in. And I did have, like, what you said, well, he needs to get out. I would love to have someone else be in charge of this child for two years. You know, how amazing that sounded to me to be in charge of, like, there's your money. And like, you know, I just wanted it to be stateside because I thought that would be the healthiest way to go for him. But yeah, it's. It's a juxtaposition that the church institutionally puts people in, which is super unhealthy, super abusive. In my, not even. In my opinion, it's super abusive to put a parent in a position where they have to choose, send my child on this wonderful thing that we've taught them is the most. Going to be the most amazing experience in their lives. And I still believe at this point in that time period that this is going to be the most amazing experience. And I don't want to screw it up for him, but I have to lie to do I have to lie or else not tell him the truth, which is the same thing to. For him to have that experience. What part of that sounds healthy to you? Like nobody should be in this position. It should not be. That's. That's why the number one thing on here is if you tell somebody that there's only one truth and one path, it's unhealthy. That's what all the psychologists say that study cults. That's not healthy. They need to stop saying that. So anyway, and that's what sets all this up. If, if it was a. We're a great place, we're a great community. If. If what we have, if it speaks to you, come. But if it doesn't go. If they could change that one thing thing, there would be people who don't commit suicide. There would be people who aren't in this faith cr. There wouldn't be faith crisis positions. Like, that's when people get mad at me and they say, you're just playing victim. You just want to tear down the church. I'm like, you know what? I love the church. I want to keep. What if. What if we could keep all the good and get rid of most of the bad? Well, there's two things you could do and it would all be gone. It's number one and number ten in this book. Ten's the Bishop interview process. It would literally solve 90% of the unhealthy, abusive. Like, why wouldn't you want to talk about it? Why. Why am I the bad guy? Why am I an apostate? Because I'm saying, let's do it the healthy way. I'm going to have kids and grandkids in this institution. Let's. Let's make it better for them. And so his mission experience was horrible. He ended up coming home.

John Dehlin [02:24:49] Why was it horrible? What can you tell us?

Gretchen Day [02:24:51] Okay, so he, first of all, they put him on a plane. And I, I told everybody this. I said, this is a bad idea. He's never even flown by himself before with nobody. He just shows up. So he doesn't have a partner command. I asked, I said, could you please assign him someone to Brazil? He has a list of like two pages worth of when he lands about how he has to find this. He has to find the authorities to check in. He doesn't speak Portuguese, by the way. And he's. He, he's a very slow.

John Dehlin [02:25:19] He didn't do the MTC in Provo.

Gretchen Day [02:25:21] No. Go straight to Portugal. That's. That's the other problem.

John Dehlin [02:25:23] Portugal or Brazil?

Gretchen Day [02:25:24] Brazil. Sorry, I said the wrong name. Anyway, so I just. From a scientific standpoint, knowing this child, I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. I'm gonna drop him off at the airport, he's gonna get on a plane, he's gonna go to Brazil. He has to find the Brazilian authorities. He doesn't speak their language, by the way. He has to do a list of 10 things that I don't even understand. And I'm a grown up woman, and this is my ADD Child who loses his driver's license every time he goes to the store. I'm like, this has disaster written all over just this one day. So anyway, so he gets there. He does end up meeting up with some other missionaries that are very. And he actually, I think he's. I'm assuming he's going to. I'm always. In case. I'm a worst case scenario person. So I'm like, he's going to be kidnapped by the cartel. This is a bad idea. And everyone's like, don't stress out.

John Dehlin [02:26:14] Out.

Gretchen Day [02:26:16] The person who's our bishop now wasn't the bishop then was one of his scout leaders. Like, he's like, Gretchen, it's going to be fine. And he does get to the mtc, but they make them stay awake. They don't let him go to sleep. And this is a child who has to sleep. So he's been on this long international flight, hasn't slept, hasn't eaten. And that just spiraled his insomnia from the, from day one he was out of control insomnia, which leads to depression, which leads to anxiety. And then he was having trouble with the food there. And so he goes to his. Oh, oh. And it was very much. And I think this is having had Brazilians live with us. They're very laid back culture. So. And it was a native MTC president and it was mostly Brazilians and Spanish people speaking very few English. That's what I sense it. The day they got there, they expected them to know the language. And this is a child who, he got good grades, but he had to work four times harder than everyone else to get good grades. So it takes him more time than a normal person to do everything. He's a hard worker, but he can't just. Okay, now I speak Portuguese. He can't do that. Not even with the spirit's help. He can't do it. I said Portuguese again. I meant Brazil. It's Portuguese, right? Yeah. That's why I said, anyway, so they just expect you and you get in trouble if you say a single word. Name English, like in really bad trouble. And so he's not sleeping, he's getting yelled at all the time and he can't communicate with anybody. And he said they would do things like if he even wrote in English in his journal, they'd rip his journal pages out, throw them away and yell at him if he spoke in English. And so he just starts this spiraling of. I, I think his, his MTC experience was extremely abusive, I would say, versus verbally abusive. That's just. You can't expect someone to come from another country, just snap on like the sleep schedule. I mean even when you just travel it takes you. Even a normal person without insomnia, it takes a while. And it was just like. And, and the MTC president was so dominant and domineering, I'm assuming because the Brazilians and Spanish people are so laid back. He wants to set the tone of. And so my son said he, he would say, start saying things to them because he felt like he been sent to prison. He'd be like, I mean, I. I'm here of my own free will. You know that, right? It's like, I want to be here. I've been, I've been preparing for a mission my whole life. Why are you treating me like this? And then you get in trouble because he said it in English. And so then he starts getting really depressed. And he said, because he was in the care of a therapist, remember before he left, he goes, I need to speak to a therapist. I'm. I'm not doing too well. I need to talk to somebody. And they said to him, well, we can't get you in for a few months. And so they said, unless you're suicidal. So, so then he comes back to them the next day, okay, then I'm suicidal. Because he's like, I just need to talk to a therapist. It's still not clear whether he was or he wasn't at that time. It, it could go either way. But he gets in and starts having. And they aren't in person meetings, they're over the phone with someone who speaks English. I think that was really helpful for him. But so then when he finally does leave the mtc, which he, he says is like leaving a concentration camp, that's his description of it. He's already got a red flag on this kid said he was suicidal. So he gets out into the mission field and they put him immediately with a native set of Brazilians who don't speak English. And he's also got low blood sugar, so he's the type of person that needs to eat every two to three hours. But in Brazil, they don't eat anything all day and they eat a big, huge, a huge meal at dinner time. So he gets put in with these guys that don't speak the language. They don't have any food, and they just wait. And they were hanging around doing nothing. They weren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. And at six o', clock, they go over to their friend's house and have this huge meal. Well, he starts getting like, he gets mood swings if he's not eating normally. And so he starts having all These terrible mood swings because he's fasting all day and then he's eating these huge meals. But they expect you to finish, finish. And, and he knows that they're not teaching anybody, they're not doing anything. But he doesn't have he, the, the phone he doesn't know how to use because he's not from the country. And so these, his companion and the people they're with just kind of like killed him hostage for a while because he couldn't call out. He didn't have a way of contacting the mission president. So he waits until there's a conference and that, the conference at the end of the conference, he, he goes up to the mission president, I need to talk to you right now. And the mission president's line, well, this, can this wait? And he was like, no. So he goes and he says, this is going on. We literally are doing nothing. I'm pretty sure on a mission you're supposed to teach somebody something. We're not doing anything.

John Dehlin [02:30:59] What were they doing?

Gretchen Day [02:31:00] They're just, just hanging out all day, going, going, walking them, waiting for their female at six or a walk around to just walk around. So he rats them out and then the mission president says, okay, thanks for telling me. And then sends him back with these guys, which you can imagine was a bad situation for him to be in

John Dehlin [02:31:16] because the Mr. President probably chewed out, chewed out the missionaries that were doing anything.

Gretchen Day [02:31:20] Yeah, but, but he sends them back home with these natives and they're all mad at him and it was in a dangerous situation with them. So then he had to be emergency kind of out of that situation. And the mission president put him with. But by now he's, oh, and sorry, one other thing. In their culture, if you don't eat the whole meal, it's like saying you don't love your mother. That's how he says it. So he was trying to finish these meals and one time he just couldn't. It was investigator and I don't remember which companionship it was in, but they actually went inactive because he didn't finish his meal. And the whole ward was mad at him. The Brazilians, they were mad at him. Oh, there's the missionary that lost us our future convert because he couldn't finish his fourth plate of food or whatever, you know. And so it starts becoming apparent that he's having a sleep problem and a food problem. So the mission president at some point reached out to me and just said where he's seeing a counselor. Just so you know, this is going on and so I reached back out to him and said, he has low blood sugar. So I said, you need to make sure that he is. That whoever he's with is taking him to the store and that he has something to eat for breakfast and lunch. And it comes back the same as that. He's Brazilian. He's like, there's nothing wrong with the Brazilian food here. And he gets mad at. At me because I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying anything's wrong with your food. I'm just saying he has a medical condition. If he does not eat regularly, he will have severe mood swings. This will be a problem. And he's already not sleeping. And you contacted me because he's having problems. Like, okay. And he would just get offensive about. Defensive about it and offended. Like, geez, I can see why that family left because they take their food seriously. Like, you don't mess around. You don't tell a Brazilian there's something wrong with their food. So I never could get through with the culture on that. But he transfers them to another companion who's like, from Pleasant Grove. At least he can. He can if he needs to communicate in English. But by this point, he's so depressed, he's like, barely moving. And he gets put with a companion who's like, let's go, let's do this. And who like, goes out and wants to Bible bash everybody. Cuz everybody there is really, you know, Catholic. And so he's like. But by this point, he's lost his zone deal. And he's like, he go. He said, we were having phone conversations regularly because this is when you could have phone phone calls. And so you could just tell he was going in and out of being depressed. And. But this companion's like, I don't care if you're tired, get up. We're gonna go. And just pushing him when it was probably a bad time to be pushing him, really. And then he didn't like that. He's like, I'm here to. I just want to help people and serve people. I don't want to go argue with whose Bible is right and who's Bible. Like this doesn't feel like. Like nothing that's happening. And then there were, There were. There were Lamanite things brought up, and there were things about the four Version four that were brought up, which he had asked the MTC president or one of his teachers in the, in the mtc. And this is what they told him. They said, don't you ever bring that up again.

John Dehlin [02:34:13] So you're talking about the first vision. Multiple versions of the first vision are the Native Americans, Lamanites from the Book of Mormon, those types of questions.

Gretchen Day [02:34:21] And he had asked that in the mtc. What do I do if I get asked this? And they said, don't you ever talk about that again. That's anti. Got in trouble for it. Then he gets asked about it in the mission field and he's like, well, that's just anti Mormon lies. That's what he tells them. Because that's what they told him. Right. So anyway, we're it. He ends up coming home. He's just. And he comes home and he's just like a shell of himself. It's like he's three again. He's like three year old special needs little baby boy again.

John Dehlin [02:34:49] What did it do to him? What, what made him want to. I mean, was there a breaking point?

Gretchen Day [02:34:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:55] Or what was it?

Gretchen Day [02:34:57] He just hit a breaking point and he caught. They called and they said, we're sending him home, he's just not doing well. And I said, have you tried the sleep? Have you tried the food? Now that he's already there, let's at least try. But I didn't realize until he got home how bad it was.

John Dehlin [02:35:10] What do you mean?

Gretchen Day [02:35:13] So we have a family history of bipartisan bipolar. My family does. And when you're between 19 and 21, the risks of like being pushed into a full bipolar episode. Yeah, episode can be, it's usually. It can be drugs or some type of really stressful situation. Right. I think there's the third thing. I can't remember it right now. Anyway, so it, yeah. His doctor said it was basically the perfect storm. He might never have gone off the deep end as far. He probably would never have gone if he hadn't gone. Maybe he would have. We won't, we won't ever know. But it just hit, it just split him, his brain. Just, just his therapist, after meeting with him for like a month, the therapist he'd been seeing before, she said, she told me, she said, you need to mourn the loss of him like he died because that person will never come back. Back. He's too far gone. He's not coming back. And I have worked with him over the last. I think it's been a year and a half now that he's been home. And he, he goes, he gets better. He doesn't get better, he gets better. So I don't take that like as the one and only truth or opinion, but it does seem to be like we're getting there. She said there might be a day where you'll have to put him on adult Social Security. Like this literally might not ever totally resolve itself. So this was where I'm going to hit my breaking point. So he comes back. Okay, so he comes back and gets a lot of treatment, gets treated for ptsd. Just really works hard but. But decides he's going to go back to BYU Provo instead of Idaho. I had. I'd had him reserved at both places. I'm a mastermind at colleges. They just both didn't know he was going to both places. So anyway, I had him reserved at both. Like. No, deferred. It's called deferred at both places. And he decides. He come. He came home. I think it was in May. His sister got married in June. My oldest got married in the temple in June and then just spent the whole summer. Are just. I want to get. I want to go back to byu. I want to go back. I just want to get back. But I had him. I enrolled him in some UVU institute classes, the required one, which is Foundations of the whatever. And then so he starts taking that. And somebody sent him the CES letter too, at some point. But the institute class, these teachers are teaching this stuff now.

John Dehlin [02:37:52] Teaching what?

Gretchen Day [02:37:53] The one was like the Bible's all made up. It's just symbolic. The Adam and Eve story is symbolic. That's what I believe. And then the foundation stuff goes through the four verse visions. It. 4. Four versions of the first vision. It goes through a lot of the messy history stuff from a. From a. A bit of a. Well, I don't know because I didn't take the class. But he comes home and he's starting.

John Dehlin [02:38:13] They're basically trying to inoculate the. The youth of today.

Gretchen Day [02:38:17] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:38:17] So that when they hear. Hear Mormon stories of the CS letter or just factual history books, they don't. They don't get shocked by it.

Gretchen Day [02:38:25] Right. Right. But he's saying my MTC president yelled at me when I talked about this and I just taught that this wasn't true. Wait a minute. Four months later you're telling me this is all true? So he starts going through his own faith crisis and he gets to the point over that summer where he's super suicidal. He goes to the Provo Temple, the new one, and he's posted on social media stuff about. He's really mad at the church and about the prophet. I didn't. I didn't get to see it because I wasn't. I'm not on. I use social media to monitor my kids, but I, at this point, I wasn't on social media. So I hear about it, but I believe the police were called because he was like, the churches ruined my life. Life here. I spent my whole life wanting to serve for them. I went and served them. They put me in a dangerous situation. He. He saw people, he said he saw people get killed. Like when he was there, he was, he was more. There was just things that happened to him that he felt like they didn't protect him and they should have. And then he comes home and finds out it's all his. He'd been lied to and he was just posting all this stuff in a suicidal state. So he ends up coming home and I get him back with the doctor and I'm working through the medically stuff, medical stuff, and the bishop reaches out to me and says, what can I do to help? And I'm like, stay. Stay the hell away from him. Because it's you leaders that are like the be. Because all I, I forgot this part. One of the biggest PTSD things he had was interviews now with the leaders, especially bishop interviews, because he's sitting in there and he's. And, and he's not allowed to say what he thinks and he's. He was so traumatized by the MTC experience, he just can't. It literally could send him off into mania like that. So I was like, don't you ever interview him again. At this point, I already wasn't letting my children be interviewed because of my second daughter and my fourth, two of my other kids experiences and just their anxiety with interviews and stuff. So, So I already was against that. And I was like, just don't do it. Don't interview him. And before this, he had interviewed him a few times. And I would find out later that my son had been talking to my, the bishop about his faith crisis. And the bishop said, well, I'm the judge. In Israel, you don't get to make these decisions. These are like, you just, you come to me and I'll tell you what's right and what's wrong. Something like that. I really love this man, but I was really mad when I found out about this. So I, So I just give him that instruction. I'm like, if you really want to, want to help, stay the hell away from him. That's literally what I said. I said, don't, don't just. I said, he, you're. And I, I didn't feel like he's not a doctor and he's not his dad. I don't have to tell him why. So I didn't tell him why. I just said, don't talk to him, don't interview him, don't do any. You know, stay away from him. So he gets. He does every type of therapy you possibly can. Gets. Pulls himself together, gets ready to go to byu. So excited. He's got. He's staying on campus, gets in BYU Provo. It's the night before he's supposed to move out. And he's like. He's like, I have to come back. We. We move in on Monday. But Tuesday, I'm going to walk back because I have a. I have an interview with the state president here. I'm like, what? I was like, why do you have an interview? He's like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, mom, because he doesn't want me to get involved. I'm like, why. Why would you have an interview with the state president? So I'll. I'll back up and, and tell his version. So I guess what happened after that posting? His. The bishop took away his temple recommend. I didn't know this. At some point, he found out about it, and he thought if you didn't have an active temple recommend, you couldn't go to byu. So he thought, crap, I need to meet with the bishop. So he had been meeting with the bishop. He'd already met with him twice to get temple recommend and BYU stuff and was. And had to go meet with the stake president. I was live id. I mean, kill somebody. Livid. Why, Mom? I've told that bishop to stay the hell away from my. I said, don't talk to him. And I just spent $20,000, probably 20,000 hours on his medical care to get him to a level where he could go to school. One interview. If the bishop's going to F that up, that's because it's a trigger for him. Like, Bishop doesn't have to know that, but mom knows that. And I. I told him that for a reason. So I was really mad. And. And I really do love this man because he's. He's just in a bad situation. And the church puts these poor. These poor men. So I don't want to throw him personally under the bus, but I'm, like, mulling around the house, like, what should we say? There's no way in hell you're going to that state president interview. I'm talking to these guys and. And he was like, what are you going to do, Mom? Don't like, this is the. The hillbilly elegy. I'm going to go kill somebody right now. It's like, just go to your room. Don't worry about what I'm going to do. Anyway, so I. I said something to somebody, and I. I can't say who it was, but they were saying, you should just call the bishop and tell them to say the f away from so. And so I said, that's exactly what I'm going to do. So I called the bishop and he says, hello, how is. How's it going? I said, what the hell did you not understand when I said, stay the f away from my son? And I. I said it, and he was like, oh. He's like, well, he contacted me. I said, because you took away his temple recommend. And he said, but you're. So you're saying, even as an adult, I can't wait with him. I said, I'm pretty sure that's what I said before. And so then I start. I told him, this is one of his previous scout leaders. I said, you don't love him. You don't care about him, or you wouldn't have done this. I said, it's not. It's not my job to tell you. I said, you're not a mental health professional. I don't have to tell you the whys. You. But you. But you need to honor it. Anyway, so we had this whole back and forth, and every time I said, stay that I probably said the F word 30 times in the space of 30 minutes. Yeah, this is. This is really upset Mama. And every time I said, what the. What. What did you not understand about, say the f way he goes. My job is to protect the good name of the church. Like, are you trying to make me madder? Like, at this point, he doesn't know I'm going through a faith crisis. I'm, like, at the end of my faith crisis already just barely hanging on, you know? And my daughter at this point had just gotten married in the temple, so I was just like, I'm at least going to stand for her. I'm at least going to stand for her because I wanted to not miss her temple ceiling.

John Dehlin [02:44:50] What do you think he meant by that? His job was to protect the good

Gretchen Day [02:44:53] name of the church because my son had posted on social media that he was being lied to in the Prophet was crap. He actually posted something specific against President Nelson. I didn't see it. I heard it was pretty bad. So. So anyway, that's what he felt like. I had to Take it away from him. I'm like, yeah, but you didn't have to interview him. He goes, well, he contacted me. I said, yes, but you should have, like, said, reached out to me like, I told you not to do this. He had already met with him twice. So the conversation goes back and forth with, good name of the church. F this good name with the church. F this good name of the church. F youth. You could name it. I like, I'm like, I just, I'm like. He was like, like, can I. Why don't I just come over and talk to you right now? I said, you come over and talk to me right now, I will literally kill you. I will kill you. So don't come over right now. I said, this is how mad I am. It's not a good idea. And I said, but I said, this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna put his temple recommend back. I said, you're gonna. Because. I said, because when he goes to BYU tomorrow, the last thing he needs to do is to have a red flag on his name. And that's what was will happen. Because his new bishop is going to be like, oh, this kid's temple recommend got revoked. What happened here? I said, he just gave goddamn four months of his life. He's totally off, fallen off the rocker because of the church. And you want to punish him more. I said, you're going to, you're going to reinstate that. I said, and this is the analogy I gave him. I said, let's pretend, let's pretend that I'll just use his name because he won't care. Sterling. Standing at the top of a cliff, okay? Standing at the top of the cliff and, and you and the church push him off the cliff. Because that's what happened on his mission. You literally pushed him off the cliff while he's falling and flailing his arms. He's like, the prophet's an alien. I was like, I don't care what he said. I don't serve. He said, the prophet's a prostitute. I don't care what he said. He's freaking falling. He's almost too. He's literally going to commit suicide. That's how bad this is. And you want to worry about protecting the good name of the, of the church. You better, you better believe it. You come over and say that to my face. I am going to hurt you. Like, that is not okay for you to say that. It is not okay for you to treat my kid like that. My kids is a freaking human being. And he's a person. And. And they did, by the way, they reinstated his temple recommend. They're like, whoa, she's really mad. And. And so. And then I.

John Dehlin [02:47:09] That's called revelation, is what that is. Yeah, that's called inspiration.

Gretchen Day [02:47:12] It's called people are scared of Gretchen. I get that sometimes, by the way. I don't try to do it, but I do get that. And so. And I was like, and you don't ever interview him again. Like, we've established that now, right? And, yeah. And so they did. He hung up. He called me right back. He goes, I talked to the stake president. We reissued his temple recommend. It's all good to go. He's not going to have to meet with anyone. I'm like, like, good. So then he goes to BYU before I even have a chance to call the new bishop. The new bishop calls him in because of something he said in his testimony. I think he was like, I don't know if I believe this is all true or something, because Sunday was the first day. It was like they moved in on Saturday.

John Dehlin [02:47:54] And he's just being honest. No, but I mean, he is.

Gretchen Day [02:47:58] He's being honest. I know he is, but I'm like. At this point, my advice to him had been for ever since he came home. I said, lie to the. The bishop. That was my advice, because I know he couldn't. He couldn't. I knew he'd get if I said. I said, if you want to go to a church school, you have to lie to the bishop. That's what I said. What. What part of this doesn't sound insane?

John Dehlin [02:48:20] Right?

Gretchen Day [02:48:21] Like, listening back to myself, I'm like, what. What was I thinking? But it's not me. It's them. It's the church. I said, go on. Go on campus. Get a therapist. Tell the therapist everything you don't agree with. Tell the therapist everything you feel. Don't tell it to your bishop. And he did do that. Well, he also told it to his bishop, so it didn't work out anyway. So he. He gets called into the bishop and his. His version of what happened. What this bishop's version is two different things. But he calls me right after. He's like, I want to sue the church and I want to sue this bishop. You should have heard all the questions he was asking me. I could see the level of mania starting.

John Dehlin [02:48:58] What happened?

Gretchen Day [02:49:00] The bishop just called him in and was like, you know, you need to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Because he said he didn't know if he did and you need. And like, what, what does. What's your mom's position? He was like asking about his parents and like being like, oh, well, maybe if your mom doesn't believe, then this is her fault. And just, just saying things like he said. He said to him, like, well, you know, if you ever have sex outside of wedlock, like, you take away that. That woman's. She'll never be. She'll never be 100 whole again. You take away something that she'll never get back. Like, you rob her of that. Like, things about, like just giving him advice but basically saying, you need to believe this. Like, just lean on me. But you don't get at. You don't have the choice of, of. Of doubt or that type of stuff. So I called so. And so he calls me. He's like, I'm sure I'm going to get kicked out. He's gonna, He's. He's gonna, he's gonna In. In his. This is kind of a bipolar tendency anyway, too. It's like, I'm gonna lose all my credits. Things that aren't really going to happen, but all this stuff.

John Dehlin [02:49:57] And he starts to go into a manic.

Gretchen Day [02:49:59] He starts. Yes, he starts to break. Which is exactly what I told our current bishop. Don't meet with him because I've got him stabilized. You meet with him and it could set him up. This is exactly what I predicted. Moms are usually right. Anyway, so I call this bishop and I have to smooth it over. And I said, look, he's. He. He's had. He has all these mental health problems. Please never interview him again. This isn't a good idea. And, and he actually leaves him alone. But he, it started a cycle of mania that he was. Then he was like, my, My com. My roommates wanted to go to the temple and I told them I don't want to go because it's all made up. Made up on me masonry. And they were like, you're reading anti Mormon stuff. And he's like, it's on LDS.org so he just can't keep his mouth shut. You know, I'm like, maybe a church school isn't a good idea, but is that bad? Bad?

Impact on Family Members and Difficult Church Encounters

John Dehlin [02:50:50] Like, it's weird that what we're basically saying is you need to lie to go to a religious school. Yeah. And we're basically saying being honest is wrong. Don't be honest. Which, by the way, is kind of what got you in trouble because you, you know, you were obeying authority and silencing and noticing that you Couldn't be honest. And then blowing up inside, dying inside because you had to stay quiet. And this is a recipe for illness for anyone.

Gretchen Day [02:51:17] Yeah, it's, it's so, it's so, so abusive. And that's why I hope that they change it. I be. There should be no interview process on belief at any school. Yeah, that, that should be outlawed like that. That's just, it's so abusive. And, or even the fact. I blame the leaders, Nelson Oakes, Hinckley Monson. I blame them, them to the extent of when he's talking about masonry with his roommates. It's already on LDS.org right. They didn't teach it in Sunday school, they didn't teach it in priesthood. They didn't regularly teach it. So for them to hide their little underneath saying we're transparent because we put it on these lds.org essays when everybody doesn't know about it or BYU students don't know about it, they automatically.

John Dehlin [02:52:11] Or bishops or state presidents.

Gretchen Day [02:52:13] Your answers. Anti. Oh, you're anti. Oh, you're anti. That's, that's, that's, that's. No, you know what? I'm a victim of abuse. Actually. I'm not anti anything. And that's so abusive to make the, the victim be the bad guy. And that's, that's the worst part I think of Mormonism is that victims are now portrayed as apostate. Victims are anti because they tell their store. Victims are. No, you know what? They put it in the essay. They should be teaching it to every GD person in Brazil, in Russia, in America. Everybody needs to learn it and everybody needs to be on the same page or, and, or just not have a one truth philosophy. You know what? Research what you want about Joseph Smith. Believe what you want. We love you anyway. Research what you want about the Book of Mormon. You can believe it symbolically. You can believe it literally. We love you anyway. Believe the Bible. Believe Christ is literal. Believe he's not. We love you anyway. I mean that's what a healthy religion would, would look like.

John Dehlin [02:53:08] But what did this do to your son?

Gretchen Day [02:53:10] He ended up being hospitalized. He. I had just had surgery and I just come out and just gotten home and I got a text from his bishop saying we don't know where Sterling is. Is he with you? I was like, no. And he went missing for about three days, I want to say. And he said, and they said the last thing he said was that he was feeling suicidal and he's disappeared. He asked the BYU police to take him to the hospital Hospital and I have hipaa. I, I'm, I'm. I have. But he went to the hospital that's not under our insurance, so I lost track of him and nobody would give us any information. So I'm like half drugged just coming out of. Of surgery, and I can't drive, and my husband was supposed to be taking care of the little girl girls, and I don't know who to call. I. I skipped this part in my story. But back when visiting teaching was a thing, I actually pulled out of it after a while because I was like, this is too much stress for me. But it was because of my faith crisis. But I didn't tell anybody, but they said, can we still just help you? This would be for ministering. Then a year later, ministering came along. They're like, hey, this is what Gretchen already asked for. I'm like, I told you, I'm ahead of everything. Anyway. So I have a ministering. I call her my ministering. English who's the bishop's wife, though? I want him to know about this because I know in. In my son's mania that if he thought I was collaborating with a bishop, he would hide more. Right? And also, one of the things I know from mania, because I have a parent with mania, is anybody could be the bad guy. So I'm like, am I going to be a good guy in this story or am I going to be a bad guy? And if you're the bad guy, even if you haven't done anything wrong wrong, they think you're the bad guy. So I'm. I'm. I'm half drugged and I need help, and I call her and I'm like, but you can't tell your husband, can you? Just watch my girls. Don't tell them why they're there. Like, I just. I said, if Sterling finds out that I call that I called any your family, it. And anyway, so we go through. I go through about two and a half days of we don't know where he is. We don't know if he's alive. We don't know if he's dead. The hospital gave up a little bit of information, so we believed that he was at a psych ward that was close to us. We went there, they wouldn't tell us. So I make myself an appointment with his therapist because I'm having a total breakdown. Oh. And I'm supposed to be taking med meds, but I just go off all my meds because I'm like, I got to be alert. I got to be like some. If something happens, I can't be on, I can't be on an opioid, you know, so, so I'm like in a ton of pain but just trying to mess through it, not doing well. And I, I went to his therapist and she, she gave this. His therapist at this time was the one that was mine originally, by the way, because she does emdr. And she says, gretchen, people or the police don't like dead bodies. They hate him. If he's dead, we probably would have found his body by now. He's probably alive. He's probably, he's probably getting care somewhere, you know. She goes, you can't. I can't guarantee it, but I can give you a 90 probability that if he was dead, we would have heard about it by now. So it's a good sign that we don't know, you know, and that that helped. And then my second oldest daughter, I was, I was totally losing it. She was like, mom, she goes, this is like that analogy they give you on the airplane where you have to like put air on yourself. She goes, go home and take your drugs and go back to bed because you're just driving everybody crazy. Because I just like, what do we do? What do we like? Contacting all of his friends, just trying to figure out where he was. So anyway, we eventually end up. He did. I did not have a good experience with that psych ward and I, My mom's been. I've. I've done helped people in psych wards like three times, so this isn't my first rodeo, but finally find out that he's there, finally get to get in there and he's like, yeah, I didn't tell you because I was afraid. Afraid you'd talk to the bishop. It was the same thing. It was exactly what I predicted, the mania thing. I didn't want you to know where I was. And he spent a week there, helped, helped try to help redo his meds. Ended up dropping out of BYU again. Going through. I can't remember what it's called, but we tried another alternative therapy, a place in Utah county, something with your brain. And I can't remember what it's called, but he did that and decided, well, I'm just going to go back to be Idaho. We hadn't even told the Idaho he was back from his mission and he had a scholarship waiting there. So we just pretend like he hadn't been to BYU Provo and just send in, hey, I got back early to be Idaho. So he, he gets an apartment There this time I'm proactive about everything. So I handpick. His sister was living there. So we go, we handpick his roommates. We handpick. We talk to the bishop before he even goes there. Look, this is the situation. Don't ever interview him. Pick. Like I said, if he can have the right infrastructure and he's hell bent on going to school, I'm thinking maybe you just shouldn't go to school for a while. But he really wanted to go, and he only had. We actually looked at him going to uvu, but the way the credits transfer, he only had six credits left to finish his associates through byu, but at uvu, he would have had almost start over. They were only going to count them as electives.

John Dehlin [02:58:25] Yeah, church schools.

Gretchen Day [02:58:26] So going to byu, Idaho, it was a better fit. So he gets there, just the most amazing roommates. They all know the situation. They're wonderful with him. The bishop never talks to him because by this time, I think everybody's pretty scared of me. My kids used to tease that at the high school counselor's office, there's like a picture of my face, and when the phone rings and it's my number, everyone's like, I did it last time. I'm not talking to her. So anyway, so he didn't have any major bad experiences, except he just started getting depressed. And he went to a therapist there. You know how they have the three therapy, the free therapy. And that therapist was saying, you should stop taking this med. You should. It was giving him advice he shouldn't be giving him because he's not his doctor.

John Dehlin [02:59:07] Yeah, psychologists can't do.

Gretchen Day [02:59:08] And so. Or that's what he was telling me. He was telling me. I mean, maybe that's. Maybe he got it wrong. But I was like, yeah, you can't just go off a med while you're. You can't do that. So he got. He got depressed. And I said, why don't you just. Just come back home. So he came home, and this is right before COVID So we. He only needed 16 total credits to graduate. Six were generals. It was 14 credits. Anyway, so we decided we'll just do the spring semester but do it all online. So we signed up for everything online, and then it ended up being Covid, and everybody was online anyway. And then he ended up getting his associates, but from our house. And then he ended up going to uvu and getting him out of the church school was the best thing ever, because he loves it now. He's like. He goes. He wears. He's very Christian. He wears a cross to church and blue jeans. And he's like, I go in and have bishop interviews all the time, but they don't have any power over me. So I'll say, what do you believe? Interesting. Well, this is what I believe. And they can't control me. They don't get a control. And, and we've gone over this because I'm like, well, if you ever meet someone who wants to get married in the temple, you'll actually, you'll have to go through a temple recommend interview again. And so we've practiced. It's. It's number 10 in my book. What's healthy and not healthy in interviews. And we practice with them. And I. So if they say something that makes you uncomfortable, you say, I didn't give you permission to ask me that. My therapist said that's not okay. And, and he knows that. So I don't know if he'll stay or if he'll leave, but he goes up and he goes down and, and it'll be interesting to see what happens. But.

John Dehlin [03:00:43] Couple, couple, just quick reactions. One is that you would think that church leaders following the example of Christ, not to pile in anyone, because I really do believe everyone's a victim here and everybody's trying their best.

Gretchen Day [03:00:56] I agree.

John Dehlin [03:00:57] Most of these people are good people, but, but when they're in the position of, of being watchmen on the towers, of guarding the church's good name, this whole worthiness thing and this whole, like, we have to protect people's testimonies, you know, a special witness of Christ or, you know, a bishop, a leader of a flock, someone who follows Jesus, whatever you would think. Rule number one of following Jesus is put the person over everything else. But they're literally defending the institution at the expense of the individual. It's like, it's like protecting the 99, sacrificing the 1 to protect the 99. And that, that's, that's messed up. The fact that you know your son and you and everyone is feeling like you have to lie and, and shut these bishop bishops up and tell them what to say, what not to say, and your, your son just can't be healthy and authentic and question naturally and doubt and even go through a regular, normal, normative, developmentally appropriate experience of doubting and questioning and even disbelieving and question college. You can't have that, right?

Gretchen Day [03:02:05] So unhealthy.

John Dehlin [03:02:06] Yeah, but, but, but the fact that he's bipolar, like, and they're making it worse, that's all just Totally unacceptable. But, but then I guess as, as the climax I'm thinking, well really what's going on here is your son isn't well and he shouldn't be in college and it doesn't matter where he goes at this point. He's going to just struggle, struggle. And maybe that's true, but he goes to a non church school and what happens like you would think a secular school would not be what makes him better, but that, that seems like the, the worst possible outcome from the church's perspective that his healing starts when he leaves the religious school. It shouldn't, shouldn't the religious school be the safest place to be, the most healing, the most nurturing?

Gretchen Day [03:02:56] I don't want any of my kids to go unless they, they stop those interviews. I mean I love the, the kids and the experiences they have. But yeah, those interviews are so abusive. To tell someone that, that you have, you get a, you get to control their beliefs, you get to control their sexuality, you get a control and that if they don't give you that control, they are bad. That's what those you get to do. You're determined.

John Dehlin [03:03:20] You get to determine their worthiness. That's the worst part of all is that some man gives you the, gives you the impression, gives you, intimidates you at the, at the sake of getting kicked out of school.

Gretchen Day [03:03:32] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:03:33] That he gets to decide for God whether you're a worthy human being or not and whether you get to continue in your school or lose a semester or two or three or four worth of time and money. It. There's a lot of suicide and depression and anxiety in these church schools and this is the system where it happens.

Gretchen Day [03:03:53] And that's interesting because it's. If that's number 10, number 10 in my book, you might be in an unhealthy group with the group questions members about their worthiness or purity goes on then it tells you what, what is healthy. You were born worthy of love. A healthy group would not question your innate worthiness. A healthy group would serve to enhance your inner feelings of love. Healthy groups who provide leaders with professional mental health training use youth initiated conversations of trust and guidance. And in the case where abuse or guidance is outside the parameters of leaders training such as sexual questions and your sexuality, marriage counseling, abuse, etc, they would refer you to licensed mental health professionals. The church did that one thing. Could you imagine? And the interesting thing about this part of my book, it's not just Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:04:34] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [03:04:34] Scientologists do it crazy like this. The Nixium cult, the producers of it contacted me because both Stephen Hassan and John Jean L commented sit on it every 10, every one of these 10 things they used in the Nixium cult to get those girls. I don't know if you've seen the nixium and number 10 was in there because they would go in there with their supervisors who had no mental health training and be told who to have sex with and be told who what job to take and be given advice that those people didn't have the training to give. Happens with Jehovah Witnesses. That was interesting to me. When I read post Mormon the psychology I was like what other people do this? So I knew it wasn't unhealthy. I didn't know that it was a common practice in unhealthy groups to, to set up a leader with not the right training to be in charge of your worthiness or your, your status in the community or whatever. So it's, it's not just Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:05:25] And, and even Stephen Hassan, a cult expert will say it never is useful to tell a member of a cult that they're in a cult. And you know there's a lot of good about the LDS Church. So this is confusing using and on Mormon stories I try and never use that word, never try and refer to the church as a cult. But I just want to reiterate what you just said. These, these books, these cult experts know very little about Mormonism. They focus on other religions. These, this bite model that, that an unhealthy religion and or a cult tries to control your behavior, tries to control the information that you receive, tries to control your thoughts thoughts and then, and then tries to control your emotions and I will add, manipulate you through emotions and through behavior control and through harsh punishments and judgments of your worthiness. This is what cults do and this is why there's such an epidemic of suicidality amongst youth and young adults in Utah and in church related high schools and church related culture and anxiety and depression and prescription drug abuse because of the pressure cooker. You know that, that, that, that, that can come from Mormonism and or church related schools, right?

Gretchen Day [03:06:45] Absolutely. And along at the same timeline, about a month or two after my son came home early, my oldest got married in the temple. So I got to go back and. Because they go together.

John Dehlin [03:06:55] Sure.

Gretchen Day [03:06:55] Okay. Because this is going to be you. Why. So she gets engaged and plans to get married in the temple right before they, you know, they make that change where you could get sealed later or now you can. Okay, so she has this whole Mormon and her Attitude was like, you know, I've been told this is my whole life. This is what I wanted. This is. I want to get married in the temple. Like, you know, I'm not going to do it differently. This is how I'm going to do it. So that's fine. But I'm. I'm in my mind, this is what I'm thinking, okay? One person having one child having this wonderful, great experience. She served this awesome mission in Russia. She says it saved Mormonism, saved her life. She still says that she loves it. She's had me met this wonderful man, graduated from. By Idaho in psychology, getting married to the. To a wonderful person who I love, who I think is great. Okay. Then I have this son who's been totally effed up, comes home F, F, F, F, F by every other bishop or leader or teacher from byu And I'm just like, in this, this, which way do I go? Because look, it's so good, but it's so bad, but it's so good. And I felt like. I felt like. This is the analogy I used at the time. I felt like I was born into the Mafia. And I was told the Mafia is like the most awesome place. And it's. And it's got all this truth and we help people and we're these amazing people. And then one. And I raised my kids in the Mafia because I'm like. Because this is the best and it's our culture and the Mafia is awesome. And then one day I realized, like, oh, this is the Mafia. The Mafia, Mafia. And actually have mafia heritage too, from the Italians in real life. What do I do? I'm in the Mafia. You. I can't just leave. They're going to kill my kids. That's how I felt. I felt. I felt completely ripped up inside. Like, I felt like. I felt like I was being pulled in two different directions. And I felt like I can't abandon my daughter on the most important day of her life. And if I say anything to the bishop or anything to the ward or anything that I haven't already, because I haven't told, the bishop doesn't know. I'm going through a faith card to see things I'm just trying to protect. Checked my kid. He doesn't know because I don't trust him to tell him. Not, not him as a person, but his job as an institution would be to put. To tell me that, you know, and he always would be from the pulpit. Questions are welcome. Questions are welcome. I'd be in the background. Bsps, because I knew if I really walked into his office and said what I thought, that my temple work would be on the line. So I'm just feeling like I've got to. I've got to support this daughter. I've got to be there for her. I've got to be able to go to the temple. I've got to. I've got to stay in for that. But I'm not sure that I can do this forever because I literally feel like I'm dying inside, keeping my mouth shut about everything. And so I don't know if you. Have you ever watched Escaping Polygamy Cape? So there's one of them that's called Not Without My Daughter, and it's where they go in and she's been separated from her oldest daughter, and they can take her out, but they don't know if they can get her daughter. And then they go back and they find her daughter, and her daughter goes with her. But then her daughter's so indoctrinated, her daughter goes back, and she goes back because she's like, I'd rather stay. And I felt like that for so many months. It's like, I can't leave my daughter here. I can't leave her in the church because I knew if I left how much it would hurt her. I knew that I would look like a horrible person to her. Her. And it's not her fault and it's not my fault, but it's what was going to happen. So I felt like I had to get pushed to a point of I had to choose between which child I would protect and which child I would sacrifice. And I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't stay and support her and protect the children that were coming up because I have five more kids at home. And the fourth one had already been bullied severely by our Mormon neighbors because he believed he disagreed with the lgbtq. He'd been bullied from, like, birth on Hate that stupid Sunday school class. And he was having the same experiences as my second that resigned. He was on the resignation path. It was already starting. So I'm like, okay, statistically speaking speaking, one out of four, this was good for three out of four. It's literally messing up their lives. Me personally, it's literally messing up my life. What do I do about this? So I go through. I, I, I drink my coffee on the way to the temple, and I only wore half my garments. I just have to say that because the dress. I had a dress malfunction. And, like, the top Garment top was. It wasn't working with the zipper. And I was like, you know what? I don't even believe in any of this anyway. They're not going to know if I'm not wearing my garment top, so I didn't wear it. I was like, that felt awesome. And oh, I forgot. This is a good story. I went. The last time I went through the temple, it was right before my son went on this mission. I hadn't been in years. I have a problem with passing out. I passed. I've passed out in the initiatory. I passed out as a witness couple. I passed out. And like, I don't know, maybe that's some emotional thing. Thing. But even when I was a believer, I, I. As soon as you veil my face, it. I only have like so many seconds before I pass out. Anyway, so before my son went on his mission, I of course wanted to be there with him. So we go through with him and we get to the part you asked at the beginning how I felt about when they, they say, bow your head for your husband. So I get to that part. I hope it's okay if I do it. Because I bow my head. It's like, do you agree to listen to your husband or I bow my head and I, I said out loud, hell no.

Temple Covenants, Gender Roles, and Breaking Point

John Dehlin [03:12:49] In the temple, when they, what they ask is, do you agree to hearken into your husband as he hearkens unto the Heavenly Father? I just said, you're supposed to bow your head and say yes.

Gretchen Day [03:13:00] I just said under my breath, I said, hell no. Like that. My daughter, I don't think so. My daughter was next to me and she kind of looked at me. And then afterwards I was like, did you hear what I said? She's like, no. But it didn't sound like yes. And I said, I said, hell no. Anyway, and then now that's actually been taken out. I've heard. I, I haven't got since then. So anyway, so I go through. I'm. I. And it was a beautiful ceremony. And I remember thinking, I can't imagine. I can imagine having missed this. It was a spiritual ceremony. Beautiful. It bothered me. Her sister has resigned. All of her younger siblings are old enough. Of her 10 family members, only three of us can go because in the. And my son almost didn't get a goal, only he only had a temple recommend because I. Because I yelled at the bishop. So that just seems. Doesn't that sound a little crazy? I'm sorry, John, but, but you have 10 people in your family and three people get to go to your wedding. Like, what part of that sounds normal to you? And they did have a ring ceremony afterward, but that's just not normal normal. And those are just because my kids were. The other ones were too young. But eventually, like if you have a family that's part in, part out like that, just. That's just. I don't know. Anyway, so I. I was going through these definite emotions of. I'm so glad I kept my temple workout, man. I'm so glad I kept my mouth shut. I'm so glad I'm here. I couldn't imagine, like, if I were standing out. I kept thinking about this through the whole ceremony. If I were standing outside right now, she'd be humiliated. I'd be. Be depressed. Like it would have been. I'm so glad. I'm so glad I'm still Mormon just for this one experience. But. But that's all I was being Mormon for, was for if one of my kids got married. So after she got married and then after my son was hospitalized, maybe even a little bit before he was hospitalized, I went to Relief Society and I attended a lesson. It was careful versus casual. I don't know if you know that talk, but one of the general, um, I think it was young men, women's, gave it. She talks about how if you're not. If you're casual in your covenants and you're not careful, you'll fall away from your covenants. And one of the analogies they use was like someone gave the example of her friend. And you know, I do yoga a lot. Her friend got used to wearing her yoga pants and she was casual in her yoga pants. And then she quit wearing garments and then she left the church. I don't know what that, that just. That just sparked something in me because I was like, if I continue to be silent, that's what. And I leave. Everyone's going to think that about me, including my children, including my. That I'm casual. I didn't try that. I didn't care that I didn't believe that. I don't love it. And then there is not a casual bone in my body. I don't have one. I wish I did. I'd be a lot less. I'd be a lot less nicer. I don't have one. That's not true, by the way.

John Dehlin [03:15:58] That. That was your dad and that was the whole lifestyle that you have been spending your whole life trying not to emulate was the casual Mormon parent.

Gretchen Day [03:16:10] It's true.

John Dehlin [03:16:11] Am I right? Am I Right.

Gretchen Day [03:16:12] Yeah. I'll pay you later. So I went home and I, I wrote. I don't normally write in my journal a ton, but I wrote a journal entry, ended up being like 14 pages long and it was a. I titled it Careful vs Casual. And it was just kind of my story. But in the. I would say topics that I studied but. And that I don't believe them anymore, literally. But I wouldn't say, I won't go into the details because I thought I might want to share this and I specifically wanted to share it with my, my TBM children because I thought if I'm going to leave, leave or even if I go inactive. I hadn't at this point when I wrote the journal entry, I hadn't decided what I want, what the course of action was going to be. For one thing, I thought I have to stand also until my son's done with BYU schools because if he needs an intermediary, I'm not going to be very healthy. I'm not going to be a very helpful intermediary if I'm not Mormon. I write this journal entry and I think, okay, I'm going to start sharing this and see what people. Because I just, I felt like, I felt like I had like a 3,000 pound brick on my back and I just, I had, I had to get it off. I couldn't walk, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't do anything because it just was so heavy. And so I picked my, my cousin that's like my sister and my, my best friend in the neighborhood and I sent it to one. It took me like 20 minutes to get up the nerve. You know, I just said, hey, I'm going through this. I haven't decided because at the end of it it says I don't know what going to do basically, but it goes through my faith crisis. It's very long. But it talks about in faith crisis in terms of careful versus casual and about how I have not made a single decision that has been casual. Not a single one of my decisions. Not only did I finally did I realize it wasn't true. I tried to make it work. Then it was hurting my kids. I'm. I'm very careful about this decision whenever, whatever I do. But I need everyone to know that I don't believe this. I need you to know that. And I knew I wrote it in a way that if the bishop ever saw it, I thought one of two things gonna be hap is gonna happen. It's, it's just under the radar enough that I might get. I get in trouble. I probably wouldn't get excommunicated, but I was definitely on that line, right? So I start off with people that I think won't turn me in, basically, which also is so unhealthy now that you think about it. But. And I got some really good advice from my cousin who's a therapist, and she said, this is the first time I heard the word cognitive dissonance. She said, gretchen, I can see that you are suffering some pretty. And this, her husband's a bishop, by the way, doesn't live in Utah. You're suffering some pretty severe cognitive dissonance. I think you should leave. When I told her I was thinking about it, she said, if, if you're. This, if this is really what you believe. She goes, you will have physical and psychological pain and consequences if you continue on a path that you don't. You don't believe it's not healthy for you. She goes, I've. And she said, I've. I've researched a lot of the same topics you've researched, and I came to a different conclusion. So I don't agree with you, but if that's really what you feel. And so that had, that had a bit of big effect on me because I thought maybe, maybe I should consider, like, leaving officially. But I. I wanted to see how it would. People would react. So I sent it to. It took me nine months. And I slowly sent it out to everybody in the neighborhood, every BYU professor and whoever else. Just slowly and at the last, like, eight people, I was like, I know all these people turn me in. So I was at the point was, I was like, you know what? I will resign if it's a problem. I'm not retracting it. He can do whatever. When the bishop and one of them, I send it to the bishop's wife as well, I was like, if they see it, if he sees it, he sees it. I'm not hiding it anymore. Like, it's not healthy for me to hide. It's not healthy for me to be silent and, and my kids are getting hurt, like, too. This isn't just. This isn't just like one kid, you know, and other kids are getting hurt. I, I won't know I. Until after I resign how bad it is because I'm just living in my own little world of, of what's happening anyway. So also, as I'm disseminating this and I, I'm literally, every. Every time I send it, I felt like I was going to throw up and it would take me a half an hour to hit send. Like that type of like people will be like oh my gosh, I can't believe you. So some people would respond nicely. Some people said really hurtful things. Some people ignored it. I would say like the 50 and ups mostly ignore me 47 and under. Oh thanks for sharing or I'm sorry you're feeling like that. And so I had mixed. Mixed. A good friend told me if you dec when I was deciding if I was going to resign he told me when you resign you'll find out who your true friends are and you're going to find out you that you don't have very many true friends. And at the time I was like that's not going to be true. You don't know my. I have some good truth.

Resigning from the Church and Delivering a Farewell Letter

John Dehlin [03:21:01] You've been there how long at that point in that ward or in that

Gretchen Day [03:21:04] area coming up on 19 years now. Yeah and these are really good people. I mean my last pregnancy I was down. They brought in food for four months for our family. Four months. I wouldn't even talk. I have really bad anxiety at the last trimester and I get bad insomnia. I won't, I won't even talk to anyone on the the phone. I don't have anybody. My husband's like the go between and they just started bringing in stuff because they knew how they didn't. I think they could just tell that they're that type of people. They will, they're. They're really big on that too. They want when you move in the non Mormons they are really nice to people who aren't members. But nobody's ever left publicly. There's been a few people that have gone away inactive and then just don't talk about it. Nobody's ever talked about about it. So I am definitely like the first person that I know of to be like I'm leaving. I want everyone to know why. I want you to know this wasn't casual. You know and some people were rude and some people said some really hurtful things and some people ignored me. But over this nine months period every day I would go to. It's only been about. My youngest was old enough to go to the Waldorf Waldorf School three days a week like two years ago. So I started going back to hot yoga and I hadn't been doing yoga regularly for a long time and I just fell in love with it again. I was like yay, there's hot yoga in aurum. It's like 100 degrees and you're like the most flexible person out there ever. And I'm like, but I. But I got more into my meditation again. And so every morning I would start off and I had the resignation letter that I would eventually write, or the resignation speech. It's not really letter. It would just. It was like I could be Joseph Smith with the hat. It was literally, it was written in front of my screen. And I was like, I gotta resign today. I gotta go home and write this. And then I go home and I talk myself out of it. For nine months I did that. And then one of my good friends was teaching Release the setting. She's like, you should come. Just come because it's me. And she's like, if you come, I'll take you out to lunch. And I was like, okay, I'll come. So I can't just because I missed people too. And so I came, I sat in there and she gave this story about. It was about listening to the whole Holy Ghost. And it was. She had this story about how she was on this wagon and it was a horse drawn wagon, they were out in the snow, they were going really fast. And she had this prompting that said, jump out of the wagon. And she's like, that's, that'd be stupid. We're in the middle of moving. Why would I jump out of the wagon? She goes, she. And then she said it came again stronger. And then it came again stronger. She goes, so I jumped out of the wagon right after I jumped out of rag and one of the reins on the horse, horses snapped and it snapped so hard it went right where I was. And it would have just gone right through me. And I, I had. I don't call them spiritual experiences anymore. I don't know what to call them because I'm jaded with the word God and the word spiritual experiences. But the voice said, you gotta jump out of the wagon. You need to jump. This is after nine months of every morning being like, I can see the speech, I just can't put it down. You need to leave. You need to leave. You need to. Like, in Mormon terms, it would be the spirit talking to me. I don't, I don't know what I want to call it now, but. And I went home after that and I took me like an hour. And I wrote. It ended up being 14 pages, single spaced. Well, first I wrote my resignation letter. And then I wrote. Yeah, first I wrote the resignation letter. I was ready to resign and someone passed away in the ward. And I was like, I don't want to bug the bishop now. I'll. I'll just wait. Two weeks later, someone else passes away. A week later, someone else passes away. Like, three people passed away. I'm like, man, somebody. It's. It's almost like the reverse Mormon story. You're supposed to do it and everything gets in your way and you just can't, right? So then I was like, I'm just. I. I literally felt like I was going to explode if I didn't, like, send off this letter to somebody. So I just sent the resignation letter, which included my coming. Coming out letter, and then all the reasons why I felt like the church was unhealthy and was a. Was an actual cult. I used that word in it. I sent it at the same time off to the. The stake president, the bishop, and the. And the church headquarters without talking to the bishop first. I wanted to. I wanted to discuss with him my questions and concerns. I wanted to discuss with him first because I knew it was gonna. I didn't know if it was going to blindside him because I'm so controversial. Maybe he already. I figured someone already told him about my coming out letter, so maybe he knew it was coming, but. And I'm more good enough friends that I really did want to discuss it, but I also just felt like he's going through too much. I can't. I don't want to take his time, but I got to do this. I can't keep waiting. If anybody else dies, I still have to do this. So I send him off, and then he ends up. He ends up getting it, and then he calls me, and it's like, looks like you've already made up your mind. I was like, well, I did what want to talk with you. And two days after I sent off my lever letter, everything got shut down for Covid. This is Covid, 2020, end of March. And so he said, well, do you want to ask questions? You want to talk? What do you want to do? And I said, I want to give you a presentation. I said, I want to give you a speech. I said, I want to. I said, I need. I said, bishop, I have not had a voice in this ward for eight years. And I said, and no one's ever going to listen to me. So I said, if you would, I'd like. And I said, I don't want to meet with you alone. I said, pick. I picked a counselor because he was the one who had been who scouts with all my boys and knew them. I said, I. I just want to Tell you my story. I said. I said, I think I need to do it. I think it's going to give me closure. And. And so we set up a time. It had to be over zoom because. Or something like that, because of COVID And I went and I wrote down that I had seen. It was 14 pages, single space. Took me 50 minutes to recite. Which ironically, later, my husband said, I think that's how long they give you in an excommunication trial. Exactly 50 minutes. And I teased them leading up to it. I said, make sure you've gone to the bathroom. Make sure you have popcorn. I'm not giving breaks. I've already practiced it once. It takes 50 minutes. And I'm a. That's what I did in high school. I'm a public speaker. Right. Like, I really wanted to give it in person, but I was like, it's okay. I'll. I'll. I'll give it. And. And I gave it. And it was a damn good speech. It's on my website. Gretchen day.com. all my. All my letters to my ward. I have a letter on choice, my coming out letter, my books there. It's all on my website.

John Dehlin [03:27:21] Do you have a version of it where you're delivering it, where it shows your. Your face and your.

Gretchen Day [03:27:25] No, I have never done that. Do you think I should.

John Dehlin [03:27:27] Will you do it for me?

Gretchen Day [03:27:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:27:29] We do it for Mormon stories.

Gretchen Day [03:27:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:27:30] Okay.

Gretchen Day [03:27:30] So not right now, though. Right now.

John Dehlin [03:27:32] No, we'll have that be after. We'll have that be like an. And like.

Gretchen Day [03:27:35] I will. But I'll tell you this. It was. It won't. It'll be good, but it won't be as powerful because these two men know the kids that I'm talking about. And I redacted all the names and I redacted a bunch of the experiences.

John Dehlin [03:27:44] That's okay.

Gretchen Day [03:27:45] Okay. But so while I'm talking to them like it's not some Joe Blow off the street, like a YouTube clip, let's say. Okay. They know these kids. They were their kids leaders. I don't think they understood how bad these kids were hurt.

John Dehlin [03:27:58] And your kids.

Gretchen Day [03:27:59] My kids. But like the counselor, I would consider. Consider a second father to my two boys, like, as far as scouts and stuff go. So it was powerful in that sense that all the names and the stories that I had to redact, they were there and they were. And this bishop had gone from my oldest getting called on a mission to now like he was the whole time. And he'd gone through the resignation of my Daughter. He'd gone through the mission experience with, you know, the whole thing. So I think it was powerful and that sense because it wasn't just words. So I, I just go through, I give him the speech and the counselor, he's not a big reader. He didn't even know about the angel, the drawn source story. I think like, I think he was like that a lot. And I get to the climax after of everything I'm reading and I was like, do you guys want the PG version or the PG13 version? And they sit there, they don't. They didn't say. So I was like. And so I said. And I was like what, what the. And you can edit me out. But I literally said that in my speech because that's what this is. And I went. And I didn't. And I didn't. And I did tell them why I didn't believe too. Like I went through everything. Like it wasn't my, my coming out letter was like, oh, I hope I don't have your offend your feelings. This letter was I'm not going to be Mormon anymore, so I can say whatever the hell I want. And I'm going to do it right now because you'll probably never listen to me again. Let's better, right? And so I get to the what the F part and both they're like, oh my gosh, what did we allow this person to do? Because I'm not done. I'm only 2/3 of the way done. And then I just go through the. How it's hurt my children after that. And, and what I told you about the climax was, you know one, the thing that I loved the most about Mormonism was the Heavenly Parents idea, right? The Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother. I love that when I found out that the origin of that, that which is this is all made up the, the Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Mother and the whole that, that theology and that it might not be true. And I had like banked myself on that. I said almost killed me like it. And then to realize that I'm hurting my kids rather than helping my kids when my whole life was designed around helping them. Them like not a normal helping mom. I didn't just send them off to school, have a good day. Not that that's bad, but I was like proactively and like I'm the type of person that. And they tease me about this because I've worked with both of them in callings the Bishop, the one I planned out to the day of when my son's mission papers had to be done by so that he could be back at byu. Like, I had it planned out. Like, I plan. I'm planning three years in advance to. For this six and the other one. That's the scouts. Both of he. He was the scout leader under. When they got. When they got their eagles. He knows they. Like, I'm like, you guys know I'm a planner, right? Like, they're like, yes, we know. We're scared of you, of how bad you plan. I'm like, so, you know, And I said this, you know, in my life, how. You know, how important planning is to me. Said, do you think that I would plan my entire children's lives and my entire life around this life and the next, because that's what I've been doing, and then leave it because I'm casual or because I don't care or because there's nothing going on? That's. That. That isn't me and you guys know it. And I will be forever grateful to them for listening to that. Because I just felt like, finally, somebody from the church who represents the. The church, just listen to me. But you know what, Sad John? I had to do it by resigning. And the last of my speech, I pretended to put my temple recommend because they weren't there for real. I was like, you want my temple recommend? Here, have it. And I flip it like that. Because I was like, I am not going to be punished for being the best damn Mormon there ever was, because that's what I am. The church punishes the people who do it right? The church punishes the people who study. They punish the people who know the doctrine and who live the doctrine. We're the ones who that are. We're the ones that are getting punished. And I got to the point where I felt like they pushed me off into this pole or this hole. And Monson's throwing dirt on my head, and Nelson's throwing dirt on my head, and Oakes is thrown dirt on my head. And Hinckley, who I loved, I would have, like, done anything for her. He was part of the correlation committee. Like, you learn things like this. And they're burying me alive, and they're just saying, shut up. Don't talk about it. Shut up. Don't talk about it. They didn't help me get out of that pit. I got out of that goddamn pit by myself. God didn't help me. Christ didn't help me. The Book of Mormon didn't help me. Joseph Smith didn't help me. Nobody helped me. I climbed out tooth and nail by myself. And that's what this speech that I gave represented to them. I said, I love you guys, but this is all bullshit. And I'm mad, I'm really mad that I lived my whole life like this and I'm just now finding out about it and that I. My job was to protect my kids and, and I didn't protect my kids. But you know what? That's not going to happen this time, is it? Not under my watch. I resigned to protect my kids. And I said, I hope you go and you tell everybody in this neighborhood that that's why I resigned. I said, I don't want this meeting to be confidential. I said, they did keep it confidential. I said, tell them all. Tell them. I said, the last thing I want is that stupid ass talk where it's careful versus casual. I was not casual. Casual. I didn't make. I don't make any decisions casually. I wish I could. I'd probably be a lot nicer person, but I don't. And I think, I think you could have heard a pin drop at the end of that. We'll just say that. And then the bishop said, well, I can see you've made up your mind about this. Is there anything. No, no, sorry. So this is the first thing they say, which is like the worst thing to say. Say to me. He goes, well, I don't know what to tell you. I just know my spiritual experience. I'm. I'm thinking, did you listen to anything I just said? And then that's what the counselor said. Well, I don't know what to tell. Tell you, but I just know my personal experience or my spiritual. Not personal. My spiritual experiences. Like it doesn't matter if it's so. I'm like, so what you're saying is it doesn't matter if it's all not true, as long as you had good spiritual expenses. Because that's what they're saying. But then the bishop said, is there, well, is there anything like, like, like, why do you have to resign? Like, I mean, is there anything that. Like, I just want to know if there's anything we do to get you to say. And I said, after everything I just said, would you let me keep my temple recommend? I'm going to give you the. I'll put the ball in your court. He's like, oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. I said, any institution that punishes someone for doing what's right, let the consequence follow, which is what we're taught in the song, punishes someone for reading their scriptures, which is what we're taught to do. Punishes someone for following the Spirit, which is also what we're taught to do. I can't have anything to. I don't want my name associated with it. I don't want my children in it. It's not healthy. I told them. I said, it's not just that it's not true. It's that telling people they can't talk about it isn't healthy. They go together. I said, I could have lived with it not being true. I would have stayed Mormon. I would have stayed. I would just looked at everything symbolically. If I could have talked about. About it, if I could have been open about it, if it could have been healthy. I said, once you take away the healthy part, you're going to be losing people left and right as soon as they realize how much it's hurting their kids. And that was the end of it. Now I'm like, what, nine months out? I don't know, 10 months? I don't know. I feel like I've been out forever. Want to go through that story, what it's like to be out?

John Dehlin [03:35:42] Well, I'll just say that was so super powerful. Thank you for sharing. You know, it's hard. People come to me daily saying, I don't believe anymore. What do I do? You know, I need to come out to my spouse or my family or my bishop or my ward. What do I do? And the deep default advice I always give is, don't tell anyone anything. Keep it quiet. You know, don't give them the rope to hang you. You give away your power when you give away information. So just keep it to yourself. Tell them everything's fine. You know, tell them that you just need some space. And then you and your spouse and whoever figure out what you want to do. But the more information you give them, the more they can hurt you with it. And the more they'll gossip and the more they'll make you a problem project, or the more they'll demonize you and accuse you of trying to take people's faith away. So my default advice and advice is always problematic because there's no such thing as advice that works for everybody ever. Everyone needs to do their own thing. But my default advice is always don't tell anyone anything. Just keep it private.

Gretchen Day [03:36:49] I've heard you say that. That's. It's your fault. I told my son to be quiet to the bishop. I was giving him your advice. No, I'm just.

John Dehlin [03:36:56] No, no, no.

Gretchen Day [03:36:57] You're No, I have. For all your. I've heard most of your podcasts, you've heard that that's why I had to be at the point where I could give it up. I was like, I'm only going to, I'm only saying these things because I'm. And I said this, I said I'm either a Mormon with a temple recommend or I am not Mormon. There is no in between for me. I'm not going to be punished for being a good Mormon. And if that's the case, then, well,

John Dehlin [03:37:16] the reason why I bring this back up again is just that number one to say everyone's got to do. Everyone's got a like the lesson of Mormonism and of any high demand religion or bad unhealthy organization or cult for those who've experienced it that way is learn to look within, learn to look inside, decide what's right for you. And you did that. And it's so inspiring. But it's also just this idea that you weren't going to be. You had been, that's the whole thing. You had been something silenced your whole life. You are a woman in a patriarchy. You had been silenced, you had been stuffing, you had kept it in for your whole life and especially for the eight or however many years you don't believe anymore. But you're, you're torn between honesty and truth and like caring about your family. And it's such a powerful, beautiful example of claiming your voice, of speaking your truth to a bunch of people that probably don't care and probably don't want to hear it. But instead of going out silent, instead of going out with a whimper, instead of just fading away quietly, it is such a powerful and beautiful story of you going out by raising your voice, finding your voice, speaking your truth. And by the way, way, kudos to them for letting you do that.

Gretchen Day [03:38:44] I will always be. I mean most people. Can you imagine how many people that's. They're my good friends. That's why I say I don't want to throw them under the bus. We're all victims in this and yeah,

John Dehlin [03:38:53] but kudos to them for, for letting you listening for just how many leaders should be inspired by this. Like the church is not going to make this standard procedure. I mean their biggest fear, I mean it's always ironic. Like in a time of a pandemic, in COVID 19 time, we're talking about viruses spreading, right? Truth is a virus, truth is the deadly Mormon virus. Because if the truth spreads, Mormonism dies. And so the church is in this weird position of telling people that truth is all that matters, but doing everything it can to hide and fight the truth. And then, and then, and you know what you did is you said, no, I'm going to raise my voice. I'm going to speak my truth. And they listened. So kudos to them, but kudos to you. And I love that you, you found it to be healing. And I just want to apologize for everyone who I've given bad advice to. Maybe being silent was the best for you, to protect you, your family, your friends. I know that that works for some people, but maybe for some of you, you do need to raise your voice. You do need to write that letter. You do need to send that, that letter. And maybe you need to pull aside your priesthood leadership or whoever and speak your truth, because maybe that's what you need. And it sounds like for you, how was it for you? Like, was it healthy? Was it unhealthy? Do you regret it? Or is it the best decision you ever made?

Life After Leaving and Finding Post-Mormon Community

Gretchen Day [03:40:20] This decision. It was. I felt like, I felt like that 300 pounds was lifted off. Yeah. I felt so good that day. And I felt like they did, they did ask me to think about it. And then I sent another email later saying I, I'm. Because they wanted me to talk. I live with a lot of higher ups and they wanted me to talk with one of them. And I was like, Like a general

John Dehlin [03:40:43] authority kind of thing?

Gretchen Day [03:40:44] No, but just someone who knows a lot about church history and stuff from byu.

John Dehlin [03:40:48] BYU Professor.

Gretchen Day [03:40:49] So I was like, I thought about it and then I, I emailed them and it was three pages, single spaced. I can't write, sit down and write something without it being like, no, no, no. But I said, at the end of the day, it's still not healthy. I said, I said you had to answer two questions for me. Is it true? Is it healthy? I said, even if you could make a case for it being true, it's still not healthy. It's not. And I said, you're. Nobody is going to make that case and convince me of that, because it's not. And so I was like, just process it immediately. You want to go through the aftermath.

John Dehlin [03:41:27] Yeah, yeah.

Gretchen Day [03:41:28] So tell us it's going to be high.

John Dehlin [03:41:30] Tell us what it's been like since

Gretchen Day [03:41:31] then, because, yeah, so I did that. This was right before general conference. And then Covid hits.

John Dehlin [03:41:37] So April 2020.

Gretchen Day [03:41:39] Yeah, the resignation I gave him was like two days before the end of March. And, yeah, 2020. And then, I mean, I think I got my Letter in the mail, like, April 3rd or 4th worth. But everything shut down. So you know how you. You're worried that you're going to resign and everything's going to shut down, like you're going to lose all your friends and your family? Well, everything really did shut down, but because of COVID and when people online talk about the dark night of the soul, I thought I, I. This is what I fully expected, John. I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start skipping everywhere. I feel so good. And I did for like a day. And then I don't remember if it's when the letter came or if it was just a few days later. But at some point when it sunk in, I just hit rock bottom. I started. I don't cry a lot. Not super emotional person. I was convulsively sobbing day and night for almost two weeks. I couldn't, like, in fact, it almost felt like, geez, I don't cry a lot. So I probably could have to cry everything. I never cried right now, like, right. I, I thought I was. I thought, I'm totally broken. I'm never going to, I'm never going to overcome this. And I was just feelings that just like, I just gave up my whole life. I just wasted my whole life. I just raised my kids in the cult. I grew up in a culture. Nothing's ever going to be the same. Nobody's ever going to look at me the same. My oldest daughter hates me, which she doesn't. But that's what I was feeling. Just taking. Taking somebody like me who likes to plan and take, just pull every plan out from underneath my feet. It was like I stepped off a bridge and I was just free falling. But it was dark. And, and every time, everything you try to hold on to, like, even the Bible or Christianity, that's. That's all I, I researched my way out of that. Like, there was nothing I could hold on to. That's how I felt. I felt like I was falling. And so my husband recommended. He had heard about Waka, and I had never used social media before because I'm pretty much an introvert. And I just. Plus, with eight kids, like, all I'm doing is like, just putting my shoulder to the wheel in my own house. So, So I, I joined Facebook, which, ironically, my cousins thought, this is, this is right after the earthquake and right after Covid. And they were like, this is the most apocalyptic thing that's happened so far. Because I joined Facebook, they're like, we not. We didn't ever think you would join Facebook because I don't like stuff like that to join WAKA though. So I joined it.

John Dehlin [03:44:21] Tell our listeners what WAKA is women

Gretchen Day [03:44:23] of a certain age and I'd heard on a podcast of yours.

John Dehlin [03:44:26] What is it?

Gretchen Day [03:44:27] Just to help women who've left church.

John Dehlin [03:44:29] It's a, it's a support group for post Mormon women.

Gretchen Day [03:44:33] Right.

John Dehlin [03:44:33] Who are. I mean it originally started as 40 and above. It was started by Kim Sandberg Turner. She's got a great Mormon stories podcast episode. A couple actually that talk about waka but. But later they allowed some women under 40 to. To be involved. But you basically go to the Facebook group, you fill out a questionnaire, you get a pretty approved. It's really for post Mormon women. Not really is women who are now

Gretchen Day [03:44:59] I think they even have a 20. Yeah they have 20 to 40, a 40 to 60. And I think anyway, yeah it was super intimidating because I don't like I'm the type of mom that like I just give my phone to my kids and say do this or do. I don't know how to do anything Internet wise. So I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can figure this out. But I saw how many people aren't walking. That was intimidating. So I just joined the Utah Kitchen county, you have to join the Worldwide. And then I put it on mute or silence or whatever it's called. And then I, and I just sat on a post and I just said, I just resigned. I'm here in Utah County. I thought, I thought I was going to be skipping and dancing. And I said and I'm like, I can't stop crying. Is something wrong with me? Because even at the end of that interview with the bishop, they've made me feel. They were nice, but they also made me feel like something was wrong with me. Because when you say 50 minutes of why I'm leaving, the only response you get is, well, I don't know, but my spiritual experiences have held me through. I don't know, I'm sorry you can't feel it. And then the other person says the same thing. I don't know. But my spiritual experiences have held me through. I'm sorry, you can't feel it. They made me feel like something was wrong with me. Like enemy. I thought, well, maybe I am broken. Maybe I don't have a lot of emotions. Maybe I should like, you know, you're going through all this. Did I make the right decision? But I kept coming back to but it's not true. And it's not healthy. I can't. I just go back through the speech. I'm like, I've known for nine months that this needs to happen. So I. I really felt like with the cognitive dissonance, your brain's going in one direction and your heart's going in another. And I felt like I had to suffer the loss of a broken heart to get them back together. And I thought, I'm just going to have to suffer this loss. But I put a post out there and said this normal. Anyone else gone through this? All right, this is now. Now that I'm on social media, like, there's someone posts something like this every day now. Yeah, but I think I'm the only one, right? I think I'm the only one going through this. And I. I mean, one person, she's my good friend now, and we figure out we're neighbors. She brings me flowers and she. We went on walks, like in the middle of COVID And someone I knew that had left, I called her. She'd left. 10 years. One of the Waldorf teachers, I. And she taught me for an hour. And someone else said, they gave me their phone numbers and they really, they really helped me. And I. And I think this is important if anybody that's. That's a Mormon or active believing Mormon to understand. I felt like one of my kids died. And do you know how many people from my ward said something or did something? None. This is a ward who do anything for anyone. Anyone, because they are good people. A few people said some pretty hurtful things. So, I mean, how would you feel if you knew someone in your neighborhood's child died? You didn't talk to them, you didn't bring them any food, you didn't say, how you doing? You didn't check in with them. And maybe even somebody said this was kind of probably your fault because that's what happened. And that's what happens to every G.D. mormon that lives beliefs in every ward.

John Dehlin [03:48:03] Actually, really quickly, were you ever on the giving end? Were you ever the one making the casseroles, serving your fellow ward members? Like, did you do your time serving, you know, the. The people in your ward and not just being served?

Gretchen Day [03:48:17] That's a good question. Not in the sense of food. I don't cook. Okay, well, I do, but it's all healthy and nobody would want it. So I'm all. I always. I always put that out there. I'm not going to be the person that brings you food.

John Dehlin [03:48:28] You're not the casserole lady.

Gretchen Day [03:48:29] But I am like you got little kids. Bring them over. I'll watch them. So yes, in the sense that, I mean how many people of, of their kids that I literally walked their kids through the personal progress program when I was advisor. Like I literally did everything with them. Like, you know, I.

John Dehlin [03:48:44] You serve their families. You serve.

Gretchen Day [03:48:46] Yes, in the, in my calling sense, but not food.

John Dehlin [03:48:49] And that's the thing.

Gretchen Day [03:48:50] And I'm not that type of person. But they are. So that's, I don't know, neither here nor the there.

John Dehlin [03:48:54] But I mean that's, that's what's so heartbreaking is you give your whole life, you literally give your entire life to this organization. You give your whole life to serving the members of your ward, the members of your congregation, your callings. You think that these people are really your true friends and they're followers of Christ. So you think, oh, unconditional love, they're going to love me no matter what. Then you go through the faith crisis. Then if you decide to leave the church, church, you know what happens.

Gretchen Day [03:49:26] Well, and at that time, that's what I'm making the case for. I don't think Mormons know how much it hurts to leave. I don't think they know or they would have done something. So it wasn't a she's a bad person. It was like they didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to do. I'm telling you, if you're Mormon, it's like their kid just died. Treat it like that.

John Dehlin [03:49:49] What do you want? What do you want them to say?

Gretchen Day [03:49:51] Are you okay? Is there anything you need? Need? Send them a card in the mail. I still love you. Our beliefs don't define us. I mean anything because I, I probably when I officially resigned because I had sent my coming out letter over nine months, I resent just to a couple people. Hey, you know, I resigned. Like 1 out of 10 people even responded and said thanks, I got your email. That, that, don't do that. Like respond. See, I'm so sorry you felt like you had to do that. I still love you. I still love you. Would be, would be the easiest thing to do. I mean, that's it. So I don't think nobody did anything intentionally wrong. Nobody did anything intentionally bad. But this is the same neighborhood that if you stub your toe they are going to bring you a casserole. I'm not kidding. They are that nice. And to the, even to the non members like they are, they are that type of people. And here I am sobbing all day, all night uncontrollably. And who do I call? I call some post Mormon person from another neighborhood. What does that say about how this. And they're not bad people. This is systemic because the prophet is saying if someone leaves, they're bad. If someone leaves, don't talk to them. If someone talks about their experience, it's ambiguous. Anti that's what they're being told. And so they're staying away from me, I'm sure, because they're like, I don't get infected. That's not healthy.

John Dehlin [03:51:23] They're quarantining you because you have the virus and they don't want to catch it. And it's not, it's not like I'm let me be mean now. Let me hurt you. It's terror. They're like their whole lives, guess what? Their whole lives were built on this too. And their marriages and their kids and their relationships and their jobs and their income. Income. Their life decisions and careers and non careers were all in educations and non educations were all built on this too. And so you've got the virus, you've got the doubt virus and they have to quarantine you or else they risk also losing everything.

Gretchen Day [03:52:03] Well, that's what they want to have you believe. But I think it's not true. So I have a YouTube clip. It's my first YouTube clip. First and only. Mormons are from Mars. Post Mormons are from Venus. Go watch it. It's actually a shortened version of the same two leaders. Three months after I go and have a discussion, I said, you want to know what it's like to be post Mormon in this neighborhood? At first they said no and then they decided to let me talk anyway. But it talks about that this faith crisis and what it feels like. But then I go through confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance. I just use psychology and I don't use Mormonism. And I think you have to step out of like what you just said. Let's not talk about what your life's built around. Let's not take belief out of it. Belief's gone. Gone. What's psychologically healthy? Okay, we can all agree on that. And that's what my website, Gretchenday.com and my books and everything. What's healthy? What can we all. I'm just trying. And that's kind of like who I am. I'm a win win type of personality. Like what, what, what do we all, what can we all cling to? And Mormon, non Mormon, atheist, Muslim, I don't care who you are. Mental Health and healthiness is really big. People can, everybody can agree, agree that there's such thing as confirmation bias. There is such thing as cognitive dissonance. There's such thing as, as keeping yourself silent is not healthy. We can all agree on that. And, and so I would push back on that and say to anybody who's a Mormon that you don't have to agree with them. You don't even have to sit and listen to their story. Saying I love you doesn't require the same belief system. It doesn't require it. You can love somebody just because they're worthy of love. And I felt like I wasn't worthy of love. And I still have because of things that people have done and things that people have said. But you know what? My beliefs should not determine whether or not I'm worthy of love. And that type of thinking of all my whole life is built around this. I don't want to get infected. That's not even the gospel of Mormonism. The gospel of Mormonism is love. Gospel of Christianity is love. So if you want to be a Mormon and you want to do it right and your family or friends leave, you need to love them. You need to love them. You need to let them know you love them. Not say mean things. Not saying some of the things people said. Are you just going through a midlife crisis? Oh, you just want to get attention. People have said stuff like that to me. Oh, you're just playing the victim card. Oh, oh, this. Oh, that. That's not love.

John Dehlin [03:54:22] How about you? You just wanted to sin or you.

Gretchen Day [03:54:25] Yeah. Or you just wanted to sin or

John Dehlin [03:54:27] you never really had a testimony.

Gretchen Day [03:54:28] That was the whole careful versus casual talk. That's why I bout lost my mind through that whole thing. I'm like, are you kidding me? That's none of my reasonings for leaving. Zero.

John Dehlin [03:54:36] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [03:54:37] So I just think that two weeks, that was hard.

John Dehlin [03:54:40] Or you were offended, Right?

Gretchen Day [03:54:41] I was offended. And I know a lot of people thought I would be offended because of my. Because my son's experience. That was part of my letter.

John Dehlin [03:54:47] And how do you want to address that? Now if somebody says, oh, she left because her son's experience at BYU and with the bishops and blah, blah, blah. You say what?

Gretchen Day [03:54:56] It's the last nail on the coffin, but the coffin would have sealed eventually anyway. No. Yeah. It's not true. It's not healthy. Yeah. And waka. So waka was really helpful. And then it was my first glimpse into. Oh. So then I joined the Mormon Stories Facebook group and I'm I'm a woman. Enlightenment and Utah Valley Post Mormons and like, two other, like, women ones. And I just start, this is. I've never used Facebook before, by the way.

John Dehlin [03:55:25] Way.

Gretchen Day [03:55:25] So my kids are like, mom, you're getting addicted to Facebook. Because I'm like, all day, I'm like, every five minutes there's another story just like mine. This is amazing. And I'm like, oh, I feel that way too. And then I'm like, having. It's Covid. But I'm like having the. I'm having the healing really, that I need to have happen, which is just talk to somebody about it, right? And it was amazing. And then. And. But then I start seeing Post Mormon. I'm like, holy crap, how much the brethren knew. I. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt. I just, that, you know, you go through the stages of grief, my anger phase. I'm still not out of it. I was like, hinkly knew what

Recommended Books and Resources for Leaving a Controlling Group

John Dehlin [03:56:09] beats Roberts or Fielding Smith?

Gretchen Day [03:56:12] Everything.

John Dehlin [03:56:12] Like, like what?

Gretchen Day [03:56:15] Or even just the Smithsonian document. I didn't know that exactly existed because I researched everything from Brian Hills. I'm like, this has been around since the 90s. The Smithsonian knew that the Book of Mormon wasn't literal. And they posted this. And we don't know. I didn't. I didn't know this, incidentally. I actually sent that letter to my. To the bishop that I resigned under because we have the ongoing joke. I said, I said, one day, and I think it's going to happen in your lifetime. The church is going to start saying it's okay to look at the Book of Mormon symbolically. And when that happens, happens, you owe me lunch. And I said, and I expect you to be on your knees on my front steps apologizing when that happens. So. So then when I got out and I saw that letter, I was like, I sent that to him, the Smithsonian.

John Dehlin [03:56:59] When I said, describe what that is.

Gretchen Day [03:57:01] It's just a letter debunking because they have a copy of the Book of Mormon. They're saying, yeah, we, we. We have a copy of this, but it's not literal. These are. There's no way. These were ancient inhabitants and Indians. And it goes through the anachronism, the DNA and all this stuff. You know who's writing this letter? The Smithsonian Institute, like a pretty credible source. Nobody that has anything to do with Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:57:20] What happened was.

Gretchen Day [03:57:20] And it was their scientists writing it, right?

John Dehlin [03:57:22] There were. For those of you don't know, tell me if I'm wrong. There were so Many Mormons that believed the Book of Mormon was literal and true. That there became this urban legend that archaeology, Mesoamerican middle, you know, Central American archaeologists were using the Book of Mormon in its description of geography to help them find the ancient, you know, Lamanite civilizations. And people kept writing the Smithsonian saying, is this true? That the Book of Mormon is so true that your, your archaeologists and anthropologists are using it on their, on their digs, on their, you know, expeditions to help them find the true civilizations? And then the Smithsonian responds.

Gretchen Day [03:58:02] I think that came out like in the 90s, right?

John Dehlin [03:58:05] I don't know.

Gretchen Day [03:58:06] But, but, but I'm just saying why am I. I felt like I was Truman on the Truman Show. Yeah, I stepped off on the other side of the wall and there's this world that even within my own neighborhood because we have like two non members and a few less actives and our mutual friends. Like I don't even know them. If you're not, if you're not active, you don't know each other. And so I feel like I stepped off and I was. So I started getting some healing with that and I thought I'm going to read every book on psychology about. Because I really didn't, hadn't decided what I'm gonna do with my kids. I just knew this was best for me and I wanted to be able to. I thought if I'm gonna have all these little girls and my 13 year old's pretty TBM wanting to go through the temple, I gotta start putting the brakes on that now. Nope, this is what, this is what I'm gonna suggest you. Because I, I couldn't with my oldest. But I had it, I had some time. I thought I got the temple marriage time thing here and I want to give them an alternative, you know, not just have them go to young women's and just be ingrained with that. So, so I started. I read like all of Stephen Hassell's books, all of Jean Jar Lux. I'm probably saying her name wrong. Books. Recovering agency.

John Dehlin [03:59:09] That's Luna Lindsay.

Gretchen Day [03:59:10] Right, Luna Lindsay. And she endorsed both my books too. She's been amazing. She's actually helped me, help me a little bit. So I just start reading all these psychology books and I just start making what the common lists are and that's, that would, that's what ends up being this. And so I'll do. I used to do this in my homeschooling already. So I, I made this chart. Unhealthy groups, healthy groups. It's just on one sheet of paper. And this becomes, and we always had always have like a, a value or anachronism or something. And so I had, when I first started realizing that. More Mormonism. Not you. I thought it was, I made up this thing. It was called Jesus Christ's gospel makes us safer and safer. Service, appreciation, forgiveness, eternal love, respect, kindness. Well, we added kindness on like a year later because everyone was being pissy. So at the K, at the K. Then I'm like. Then after a while I'm like, I don't even know if I want Jesus Christ's name in my mantra anymore. So we changed it. And that's the third book being positive and present because I. Makes us safer. Anyway, so I, I, I started compiling a list of what's healthy and what's not healthy. And I make it into one of these like a, like an anachronism thing. And I put it up in the bulletin board board. And it's the, and the crazy thing is, and it ends up being this book. It's what the basis of this book is, but it's what all the books have in common. And none of these books are written by Mormons. Well, except for Luna Lindsay. None of these are cult books, right? Yeah, yeah. These are cult mind control. So Freedom of mind. Take back your life by Jean. Jean Lux. My favorite one. Growing up in a cult and getting out. Yeah, I, I make this list and I'm, I realize that I'm seeing through a post Mormon confirmation bias, by the way, for people who are going to say that, I understand that that's okay. That's what I'm seeing it through. I understand. So I'm sure I'm pulling out stuff that resonates with me. Maybe if I was someone else, I would have pulled out a different 10. But I pull them out. And when I homeschool, one of the best methods of teaching is letting the kids help you make the lesson right. That's how I teach. So I'm like, we're going to make a book. And I've done this a million times. And we're gonna, and you guys get to draw the pictures and I'm gonna write the words. And, and then what I usually do is I cop, I just copy it ten times and we staple it together and I glue up their pictures on. That's how, that's the, that's, that's all the, that's all the farther we get with the book, usually. So I make this book, I have them all drawn and except for my My, my psychology major. And she was like, I don't want anything to do with that. That looks anti. So I. We do it. I'm like, at least if we're going to grow up, if my kids are going to grow up in Utah county, they're going to be know where they're going to be when they're being unethically persuaded. If they say, mom, can I go to you. Young woman's. I want to know that they know what's happening. I don't want them to not know. Not just in, in church, in politics and religion and it goes everywhere. So, so that's the, the mindset because I as. I'm digging myself out of this pit. You're. I am assuming it's like the servant. You're like, what do I believe believe in? I don't believe in anything. I gotta believe in something. What. And you're just trying to cling on to something. So I'm like, the one thing I can figure out is what's not healthy and what's healthy in groups. I can figure this out. Okay? I got 25 psychology books here. I'm gonna put it all together. None of them have anything to do with Mormonism. This isn't going to be anti anything so that my TBM children can't say, mom, you're being anti. Because I'm gonna be like, read the. Read the source material. This did was, you know, that's. That was my. What can I do that won't be considered ant. That was really my, my coming up with it. So we get it all put together and then I start realizing I'm like, hey, there's. There's like people in the neighborhood who've left, but they went away silently. I don't know their store. I don't even know them. I'm like, like, why don't we. And so I start like talking to people, reach out to the neighbors that you're, you know. And we, we get together, we become friends and. But I do this single singly. And then I'm like, some of these people have lived here for 15 or 18 years. They don't know each other. So this is the great part about being Mormon, right? You know, how to get people together. So what I found out is the two keywords are coffee and wine. I don't even drink wine, but if I use it, I'm in. Okay. And some of them are like, if you could get together a wine group, I would. That would be so amazing. And so I contact like, there's five or six people. And now we have a wine group fruit. And not everyone even drinks, but it's code for you can say whatever you think around us. And it's been really fun. It's been really fun. And so I started recreating my community that way. But one of them's a writer and she's the one that co authors with my second book and I was showing her my staple together book. I was like, hey, do you think this is good? Do you like this? She's like, I think you should post publish it. I was like, I don't, I don't have any skills. Like there's a reason why it's stapled and glue sticked. I don't even know how to put like I don't, I don't even know how to scan a document. John I, I'm very old school everything. So I was like, I, I. But I am the type of person where I'm really good at finding someone who's good at what I'm not my husband and I use this. I don't remember who it's by, but it's like a, a tiered theory. So you have 1, 2, 3, 4. One is what you're so good at. Nobody else is better than you. You're the best. And when you do it, you get so much energy and you just feel like you're on top of the world. Two is like you're really good at it, but some other people are probably as good as you. And it, it mostly get energy but maybe it's a little bit draining. 3 is just factory worker type that everybody could do with that. And fourth is it sucks all your energy. You hate it. All right, so I'm really good at going, okay, who's, who can do my number four? Because I just want to do one. And so I was like, you know, I'm going to write this, I'm going to find everyone else to fill in the like electronic stuff. And so she helped me find a formatter and they took all my kids pictures. So they're. These are. All my kids drew the pictures and then she put them into, she put color and just made them look better. Anyway, made it into a book. And I was like, and tell our

John Dehlin [04:05:02] listeners again what the book's called.

Gretchen Day [04:05:03] It's called Protecting children from Unethical Persuasion. And if you YouTube it, my daughter does a reading of it.

John Dehlin [04:05:09] Okay, so tell us about each, each of these books.

Gretchen Day [04:05:12] Okay, so the first one I'll just go over it real quick and I'M gonna. This is me. If I could be the Prophet for 20 minutes, I could fix everything with this book. I'm not kidding. Okay, so real fast. Gretchen Day is now the prophet, first female prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You can edit out anything that's too sacrilegious. So the first is just about one truth that like I read at the beginning, it's not healthy for any group to say that they have the one. The one path. Path. Okay, get rid of that in Mormonism. Gone. You can believe however you want to believe, right? Second one is you might be in an unhealthy group if the group tells you that you can only listen to positive or happy stories, that you can't listen to people who have, have a negative experience. Okay, that's gone out. So now what that means is instead of me being an apostate, instead of you being apostate, we're just people with different stories. Okay? Third is you might be in an unhealthy group if the group tells you that you cannot disagree with or openly criticize the leader of the group. So that's gone. It's okay to have a difference of, of opinion with the leaders. That's. It's fine. Fourth, you might be in an unhealthy group if the group wants you to only research and study from group approved resources. So I love this. One healthy way of doing it is you can research anything you want. You can believe it however you want. But we all come to church and we all just still love each other. Like have your. That's what critical inquiry is and that's one of the top cult. If you, you type in, you Google anywhere top cult Italy say not allow critical inquiry on all of them. And that's that one. And then this one's. You might be an unhealthy group. I'm not reading the whole thing, but if it's. If you're allowed to question but not doubt, it's easy to trick someone into feeling things. Like when you tell a funny or sad story. When a group makes you feel things by telling part of the truth or bending the truth, your feelings or testimony have been unethically persuaded. And that's a huge one because for a long time I really felt like there's something wrong with me because I'm not feeling. But then I found out feelings. And that's what the goods feelings come from the thinking and studying you have done or the thinking and studying you have not done. Well, I did so much thinking and Studying my feelings changed. I wasn't broken, but I was told I was. That's just not healthy. So fix that. Um, six. I just posted this the other day on Under Something where the. It said that Nelson speaks as the prophet is as if God's speaking. You might be in an unhealthy group. And this, by the way, isn't written by Mormons. This is literally. This is my. My words. This is just children's version of Stephen Hassan and John. That's it. If the leader says he or she can speak to God for you, or if the leader says his or her words are the same as if God has spoken, they said one of. One of John books literally says if they call themselves a messiah or a prophet, it's a red flag. She says that in her book. I'm like, what the hell? How did I not know this? So if you can have your own personal relationship with higher Power Shower, you know, it's healthy. Might be unhealthy if they look down on you, shun you, or if there's a formal punishment. I'm not. I don't get to be sealed to my husband anymore. I supposedly lose my family in the next life because I left or, you

John Dehlin [04:08:06] know, kicked out of byu, Right?

Gretchen Day [04:08:08] Yeah. Not healthy. Or people don't want to be friends with me anymore because I believe differently. That's not healthy. Then the eighth is you might be an unhealthy group if they try to control your behavior outside of things that could hurt yourself, like what you eat, what you wear, who you can be friends with, who you can. Can love. I hope the group would give you freedom for those choices. I'm. I'm paraphrasing. 9. This is crazy because this was a big one. It was in every single book I read. You might be in an unhealthy group if they require or pressure you to donate money. It also might be unhealthy if certain groups or family events such as marriages, require donations to attend. That was my addition. But that's not. But that's a. That's normally a very big red flag is that there's a requirement for status of mother money. That if it's either donation or it's not a donation, that's the healthy. And then number 10, you might be in an unhealthy group if the group questions members about their worthiness or purity. From a psychological standpoint, it is never okay for a child, male or female, to be alone in a room with a leader asking about group expectations of personal worthiness. Or questions of a sexual nature, especially if the leader has no licensed mental health training. It is also not healthy for leaders of groups to try to do the work of licensed therapists, such as counseling members about behavior, fear, abuse, or especially sexual sexuality, without formal license training. And I read the good side of that. You were born worthy of love, like, and even, like, I've been to therapy. Do you know of a single therapist that would question someone's worthiness even with a mental health training? I don't know of any. Like, that's just. This is basic.

John Dehlin [04:09:34] So I said, use our license.

Gretchen Day [04:09:35] Okay. I don't even think I did that in 20 minutes. Gretchen day profit for eight minutes. We could change the world, John. Come on, get me in.

John Dehlin [04:09:42] Yeah.

Gretchen Day [04:09:42] So that's book one.

John Dehlin [04:09:43] Okay. How do people buy that?

Gretchen Day [04:09:45] It's on Amazon.

John Dehlin [04:09:46] What's it called again?

Gretchen Day [04:09:47] Protecting Children from Unethical Persuasion. I also have a website, Gretchen Day.com which they can find it on all my. All my stories, my resignation speech and tier four. Somebody in Mormon stories. Facebook reached out to me and was like, you should have a website with all these things you're always posting. And he actually put everything into flipbooks for me and made a website. So if you try to contact me through my website, I. I don't still. I don't know how to do that part. Private message me if you really want to. So then. So that started. That book started a process for me. I was like, look, everyone keeps telling me. Not everyone. Some of my family members say, what do you believe? What do you believe? Don't tell me what you don't believe. I said, well, what do I. What do I want to keep from Mormonism? And what do I want to teach new to my kids? And that's what. It's a seven book series. And first three are already published. So the second, second book, it's called My Belief or yours with a question mark. And It's Critical Thinking 101. And it's basically. It's a faith crisis. And you're in. There's a. You have a part in there. It's not your name. You're. I call you something else.

John Dehlin [04:10:48] What do you call me?

Gretchen Day [04:10:50] Some crazy alien name because it's aliens. I'm an alien in your book, you're an alien. It's all about aliens. Because I'm not trying to be offensive. Remember how I said, like, why can't we talk about psychology? So I took my story and put it in an alien story.

John Dehlin [04:11:02] Okay.

Gretchen Day [04:11:03] It really is only I get to rewrite the ending. So I won't tell you how it ends, but it goes through and it teaches and it has the bite model and stuff at the end, you know, to. And it basically goes. There's a group of Venusians on Venus that grow up being taught the apples can only be green. And this belief system keeps them spiritually healthy, it keeps them physically healthy. They make an. They make a covenant at the age of 12 to always be believe it. And they're only allowed to pick the apples at the harvest festival if they donated a certain amount of money, they donate a certain amount of time, and they adhere to the code of conduct and they say that they believe apples can only be green. All right. And what happens when they go to Mars and find a red apple tree? I won't tell you the ending. It's good. So it goes. And it just goes through my faith crisis, really. And then Susan, I can't say your whole name. S. Jackson Rivera. She has a pen name. Who's my neighbor. I wrote it. And then I was like, you know, I'm not a fiction writer. I'm really more of an educational or persuasive essay writer. I don't have a lot of like, I'm not even a good bedtime storyteller. So I was like, hey, can you. What would you do differently? And so she rewrote the first two paragraphs and it was so much better. I was like, can you just rewrite the whole thing like that and then we'll co write it? So she took my story and changed the. The ending. Mature ending's better. I like it. And made it more fun.

John Dehlin [04:12:26] So that's like shout out to Susan. Yes, thank you, inner dear partner. Love to you both.

Gretchen Day [04:12:31] Yes. And so those are the first. I was like, I'm going to start teaching my kids about unethical persuasion. Not just for religion. I mean today's world, they need it for social media, they need it for politics, they need it for everything. Second, critical thinking skills. Just the confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. You know about those things? No, no, those. And the third is just our family, that being positive. And president. President makes a safer K. And my yoga teacher endorsed it. She put or she has like five books on it.

John Dehlin [04:12:56] Again, it's about.

Gretchen Day [04:12:58] It's about just. It goes through being positive, being present. It goes through the teaching kids values. So service, appreciation, forgiveness. And from Mormonism, I've always loved the eternal family idea. So I threw an eternal love because that's something I can still hold on to like, the love you have with your friends and, and family now you're still going to have after they die. And so that's really, that's really important in there to me. And respect and kindness. So it's just a values book. And the fourth one, which is I'm waiting for the formatter to finish it. It's called I have a Choice. And it's crazy that I didn't learn this Till I was 45, but after I went on all the social, all the social media, someone recommended Parenting Beyond Belief to me. And I just was reading every parent.

John Dehlin [04:13:37] Is that right?

Gretchen Day [04:13:37] Yes. And I was reading every parenting book, book I could because, well, if I don't have a correlation committee, what am I going to do now? Right? For how am I teach my kids about drugs? How am I going to teach my kids about sex? I'm like, re. I'm like starting over, you know, start over at 45, how I'm going to teach. And I. That's the nice thing about having eight kids. You can start over and you still have four more. Well, I have five at home. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this again. This time I'm going to finally get it right. And so the fourth book is, it's based on something I learned in their book, which is dumb that I didn't realize this, but after I resigned from Mormonism, what a lot of people said to me was, well, just what are you going to believe now? What do you believe now? But I didn't know because I had 45 years of deconstruction. So I thought I was a bad person for not knowing. I felt bad. And I thought, not only do I have to figure this out, but once I figure it out, I have to keep it for forever. And in their book, they talk about how you can change your beliefs every 15 minutes. I was like, what? You can. That's amazing. So the fourth book, I have a Choice. It literally starts off and it talks about just for kids on a kids level. This is what polytheism, this is what mon Monotheism is. This is what agnosticism is. This is what atheism is. Then it says, on Monday, I can study the Torah on Tuesday I can study the Bhagavad Gita on Thursday. And it goes through all the different things you can study on. And by Saturday you can study agnosticism and, and, and learn about humanism and just helping people and not worrying about like, or whatever and then, and then the end of it. Is. But I have a choice. My choice is mine. And the intro of it talks about how when we're born, we're born with a nationality, we're born with a. We're told we have a certain religion, we get, we're given a name, we're given an ethnicity, we're given a, you know, where you live. And then we spend the rest of our lives if the defending that or accepting it. But this book, the. For me it was, it's huge for me because the point is you don't have to do either one of those things. You can choose and you can change your mind. And that was for being such a full believing Mormon. I didn't even understand that after, even after I resigned, I didn't understand that it took like reading and reading and reading to go, oh, I don't have to have all the answers. You know how beautiful that is. But it was so ingrained in me that I did and that I was bad if I didn't. And that when you're falling that dark night of the soul, I think that's why everyone's falling because they're used to having all the answers. They're used to knowing where to go for what. So my, my series started out for my kids. That's been a super healing for me. But I hope it's something people, when they, they're like, I just resigned. I don't know what to teach my kids or I don't. Or even you could read them as an adult. I don't know what to believe anymore. It doesn't tell you what to believe, but it tells you what's healthy and not what's not healthy. And I don't care what religion you are, I think that's applicable. Confirmation bias, applicable. Whoever you are, unethical persuasion, applicable. Values, applicable. Choice, applicable. And the fifth one is, it's a family history story of my grandpa and it's about hard work. It's his first job. The sixth one is on finances. My husband's a financial planner. So it's three little pigs in reverse about how the first kid buys this huge house but gets a mortgage. And the third one, because we're kind of like millionaire next door type people and we've always taught our kids that. I'd like to have it in a book. And the seventh one, which I'm not done with, it's a combination of Glennon Doyle's the Cheetah because there's going to be a cheetah in it with Brene Brown. It's going to talk about shame and shame resilience with Martha Beck's North Star. So it's going to be a cheetah trying to find, I don't know. Have you read Martha Beck's book? So she talks about Hugh Nibley's daughter. She talks about your following yourself versus your social self. Anyway, I, I was like, when I read all three of those books post Mormon, I was like, there needs to be a children's version of this. Nobody should be 45 and just figuring this stuff out. So some, it's not done yet, but yeah, and, and that's just someone resigns or they're worried or they don't know what to teach their kids or they even, they want to stay Mormon. I'm trying to make it so that even if you want to stay Mormon, it's applicable. I've lost friends over it though, so. Good friends who only, only read like the first page on Amazon. So it's like, I, I don't know, I, I, I said I. It was literally endorsed by two PhDs. It's their work. It's, I rewrote it in children's terms. I don't know how you can hang out hate me for that. Like, but apparently people can. So.

John Dehlin [04:18:07] Well, I'm, I'm super inspired and I, I can relate so much to this end part because when I had my faith crisis in 2001 and then I went through depression and by the way, there was no waka, there was no Facebook, there were no Mormon stories, there's no podcast, no Cesar, no Mormon stories, podcast community. There was nothing. And went through a couple years of just dark depression, depression. And then I was just like, I gotta, I gotta do something. Like, I'm like you, I'm this hyper achieving type a Mormon. You know, Mormonism created me.

Gretchen Day [04:18:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:18:39] Dan Reynolds once said, a Mormon is a dangerous thing. Right. Because we know how to get done. You know what I mean?

Gretchen Day [04:18:47] Right.

John Dehlin [04:18:48] We're motivated and we know how to work hard. And so Mormon stories for me and all the stuff I've done done has been an outgrowth of needing to convert my pain into passion just to stay healthy, you know? And so that's what I've done. And it freaking sounds like that's what you're doing. I mean, seven books, eight books. Like you're a crazy woman in a good way. Right?

Gretchen Day [04:19:10] Well, you know, when I read all those books, the common, none of them said this in this order, but I wrote it down. It was a common theme and it's what you just said when you get out of a cult or a high demand group, whatever you want to, to call it, the first thing that you have to do is research what's healthy and not healthy in groups. So either you don't go back or you don't go back to the same thing. That's the number one thing that they said. Then the second thing they said is you need to share your story with somebody. You need to process it. So whether that's with fan and what they. Most of the books recommend, share your story with your family and friends because most high demand groups you get pulled in when you're 19 and your family and friends aren't in it. So it's like that's not going to go over too well that, that step. But that is a step. And so that's why I went public and that's why I posted everything online. And then the third step it says that people do to heal is they help other people get out of the same situation. And so I think that's why, that's why Mormon stories is here. That's what you're saying you did. And this is going to sound super anti Mormon and I'm going to say I disagree. It's not. But in my patriarchal blessing it says I'm going to serve a mission in foreign countries. And I'm serving a mission now. I've helped 44 people resign. I've done it. I told my husband I wanted to double however many he did. He said 20 on his mission. I said, okay. And I'm already past my goal.

John Dehlin [04:20:20] What's the foreign country?

Gretchen Day [04:20:22] I haven't been in a foreign country. Actually I did. I don't, I haven't.

John Dehlin [04:20:24] I'm just saying, yeah, we have to reinterpret the words so that they actually are fulfilled.

Gretchen Day [04:20:28] Foreign country. So it already has those. No, no, no, no. Because somebody contacted me from Australia and bought this book. So that counts. Right?

John Dehlin [04:20:37] There you go. Yeah.

Gretchen Day [04:20:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [04:20:39] Or you could say non Mormonism is a foreign country to Mormons. Right.

Gretchen Day [04:20:42] And it's not, it's not. I don't say that like I'm actively out there saying, did you know this isn't true? I'm not doing that. I see people going through the same eight years of pain that I did and say, can I cut that in half for you? So I, I'm so online is mostly and I, and on my website I have, it's just a, it's just a resignation letter, form letter that you send to your bishop. But because it's Covid. You basically have to do hardly any interaction. And I just, I, I helped two people from my neighborhood resign that way because they wanted to resign but they didn't want to have to interact with the bishop. And so it's, it's formatted so that. I mean it's always bishop roulette who's going to go along with it or not. But to be like you just email it. It's, it's way easier than QuitMormon.org and, and I'll see people post their story like, I really want to resign, but I'm going through this and I'll just say, hey, you know what? I have a form letter. I will get on a three way call with your bishop if you, if you're scared about it, I will do anything. Like, because I don't want you to sit there for eight years. Like I did like it hurt and I don't want you to hurt. And so it's not an anti, it's like. And I really feel like it's part of my healing journey to be like, oh shoot, I unethically persuaded my kids for all these years. How can I make this up to them? How can I make this up to people? And helping other people I've helped. Oh, we didn't even go through my son that resigns resignation story. I don't know if you still want to go through that. It's, it's after I resigned. He resigned about three months after I did.

John Dehlin [04:21:58] The, the son from, from BYU.

Gretchen Day [04:22:00] 17 year old, different son.

John Dehlin [04:22:02] Oh, different.

Gretchen Day [04:22:02] My fourth. Yeah, the one that had been, he had been bullied and he, a lot. Most of his friends are gay and every time he speaks up about that at church, he was being put down by the teachers or the friends or whatever. I'll just steal it real quick. So we have a new bishop now and this one's my age and I know, I don't think he likes me. Maybe he does. I don't know. We're friends, but my son, we told her, we told our daughter, kids, you have to wait till you're 18. And he's 17. And he just, he's like, I really want to do it. I really want to do it. So he, so he, I told him, if you write a good enough letter and it convinces me, then, then, then I'll talk to your dad, we'll decide. So he wrote a whole letter. He included like a bunch of YouTube clips of the aversion therapy patients. This isn't his resignation letter. To the bishop. And then he included that. It's on my website. It's like a 79 page document of everything bad that the, the Mormon leaders have said from Joseph Smith to today. And, and he sent it and he told the bishop he had to read it. This is the new bishop for a new bishop. So this is his first thing is. So he responds. And he, and, and he's like, well, can you come meet? And my son was like, I would be willing to meet with you as long as it's meeting in a capacity of. I get to tell you my views and you can tell me your views, but you don't get to tell me that I have to have your views. Because he goes, that's why I resigning. Like I've been told that my whole life and I'm sick of being. So he said, and I'll only come if you read, read what I sent you and look at some of the video clips and if you provide lunch. My son said, this is his old scout leader, by the way, so they're, they're very good friends. So we arranged the meeting and he put, he, he texts me and we give him our order of food and we show up at his house. And my husband was the financial clerk forever, so I know how this works. And I, I was like, let me make up a name. John. Wasn't John, but I was like, I want you to save your receipts for lunch today and I want you to turn them in because I want my tithing money back. And he goes, I'm gonna tell them you said that. I was like, good, tell him. Because I said, I don't want you paying for our food. I want the church to pay for our food today. That was how the meeting started. But then I was mostly quiet and he, he said, you know, Max, my son's name is Max. I've read the letter. I want you to know I couldn't get through all 79 pages of what the leaders have said. Said goes. But they made me sick. Some of the. He goes, it was really bad.

John Dehlin [04:24:18] Like, did you say 79 pages?

Gretchen Day [04:24:21] It's 79 pages long. It's, it's. I have a link to it. It's online somewhere and I just, it's on my website. And he linked it to his resign in his resignation. But it starts with Joseph Smith and goes through the current of what. Just like it takes quotes of what they've. When they call them pedophiles. When they call, you know, all the

John Dehlin [04:24:36] horrible gay lesbian people.

Gretchen Day [04:24:38] Yeah. So. And then he did a couple YouTube clips of the patients of aversion therapy, therapy that went to byu. I don't know if he watched those or not. I was impressed. He seemed to have really. He has seemed to have really taken my son's letter apart because he talked about being bullied in the ward for his beliefs. He talked about feeling suicidal because of how the kids treated him and his beliefs. And the bishop went through. And we were there for like, for like an hour and a half or what. Maybe it felt too long, but. And he really felt like he listened and they had a back and forth. But he never had a good answer. My son said, he says, because he kept saying, well, how can you still be Mormon if you know that? That's how they talk about. Because he resigned because of the. Because he's like, I don't think they treat the gays right. I think everybody should be allowed to get even. Now, a lot of people, like, even my, my BYU Mormon people, I don't even think they understand that it's still an excommunicatable offense to get married while you're gay. Eaten, not primary anymore. It depends on your bishop. But it's still that, like, that's still hate. Like, you know, and people in my neighborhood would be like, oh, we love gays. We're fine. And lots of. Lots. I know BYU professors in my neighborhood with lots of gay. More than one gay children. I'm like, I don't know how they stay gay. I mean, sticky. I don't know how they stay Mormon. Like, you know, and this is what my son said to the bishop. He said, I don't even know how you stay Mormon enough. You're reading that. How can you do that? And he said that to him. And the bishop just kind of. He didn't really answer the question. He's like, well, you know, there's a trajectory and they're a product of their time and we never know what God's plan is for us, but we, you know, that type of thing going around in circles. He never really answered the question, but he did talk about, like his family had. Had had problems with. Not faith crisis, but with mental health. And he basically got to the. To the. We got to the end. He's like, I'm worried that you're resigning because of mental health, not because of it not being true or because of this thing. So he said, max, is what I want you to do. This is like after we've been there for an hour and 45 minutes.

John Dehlin [04:26:34] Wait, was he questioning Your son's mental health. Am I getting that right?

Gretchen Day [04:26:38] Yeah, because we actually talked about it, and he. He has family members that had gone through the same thing. And so it was almost like he was saying, this is a bad time to resign if you're having these mental health problems because maybe you're not thinking straight. He didn't say. He didn't say it in those words. He didn't say it in those words. But I. But I. I infer that. So. So he says, Max. And they're really. They are good friends because this is one of his scout leaders from, like, his whole youth. And he said, I want you to. I want you to wait. I want you to think about this for a while. And I didn't. I sat there, like, being like, is he seriously trying to talk him out of it? But I thought, I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I don't ever want anyone to say I. Even though he was number 43 person that I helped, I don't want them to say I pushed him. Like, I. This was his decision. I'm just sitting here and boundaries are getting pretty close to being crossed. But this is his. I'm just gonna. If. If he talks him out of it, then I'm gonna let that happen because I really want this to be his decision. So he says, he says, it sounds like you've been going through, you know, you've had some depression. Depression. You've had some struggles. Maybe you should just wait and think about this.

John Dehlin [04:27:43] It's so not his job to.

Gretchen Day [04:27:44] I know. And at some point in this, to my son's credit, I don't remember him saying this, but he said the bishop at some point had said that there's 15 million Mormon members. Okay, I just have to. You're gonna know. And this is on my website, too. It's called It's Over. It's a flip book. It's under My stories, under Gretchen Day.com. anyway, his whole letter and then his response. And so he. And I thought, I literally, in my mind, I'm going, well, it's okay. He's going to fold. Maybe it would be good for, you know, this is still the. The programming of how deep it runs. And maybe it's still good for him to be Mormon. Maybe it's. Maybe he'll still be able to go because he'll be a priest this year. And my son said. He said this is his answer. He said, if there's 15 million Mormons today, tomorrow, I want there to be 14 million, 999. He said, I am tired of the way they treat the LGBTQ community. Those are my friends and I love them, and I don't want my name associated with it. And then he said, said, I don't know what's true. I don't know if there's a God. I don't know if religions is for me or not. But I do know one thing, and the one thing I know is that Mormonism failed me, it failed my friends, and it's not true, and I'm done. And I was sitting there going silently. I was like, that was awesome. Why am I not recording this? Anyways, I went home and wrote down everything I thought. I think that's pretty close to what he said. It was epic. It was, it was like, did that seriously just happen? He was like, well, point take. I will go ahead and process this.

John Dehlin [04:29:20] But yeah, well, I'm super inspired and it's been a really enjoyable experience to hear your story. Thank you for the gift of your story story. You're, you're kind of like 99, as is your personality type. You're kind of 99th percentile in terms of, like, how you're doing your ex Mormonism because you're writing books and you're, you're counting, you're, you're counting the people that are, you know, and you're like, achieving and, but that's okay. That's. We're all gonna be who we are. But it's inspiring to see just that you're trying to educate and you're trying to be responsible, you're trying to help people and you're trying to turn, again, your pain into purpose, and that's a recipe for health. So it's just inspiring. So to close. I hope everyone's enjoyed this as much as I have to close. Are there any final words you want to give? You know, there are a lot of listeners who are either still faithful or they're have lost their faith, or they're losing their faith and, or they've left. Any final words you want to say to any of those groups of people?

Reflections on Resigning Loudly and Moving Forward

Gretchen Day [04:30:34] Well, I'm biased. My confirmation bias is leave and leave loud. I, I, I really feel like the more people that just go inactive silently, that nothing's going to change, it's not going to get better. And I would say, I mean, if I could have this is my mama bear side, but if I could have five minutes with the prophet or the apostles or all of the above, I would say, look, if you really do believe in an afterlife, and you believe that you're going to be judged and that you're going to. You're going to meet the savior and see your family on the other side. Do it is right. Let the consequence follow. We're not numbers. Whether you're going through a faith crisis or you're believing in member, you're not a number and you matter. And if we could just apply those 10 principles, even if we just did one and two, there's not one true path. And quit doing the bishop interviews the way it could just, it could be so much healthier. And I feel like they're at the end of their lives. And what I know that they know now, if there's a judgment, they're in super deep doo doo. And if I were their mom, because they know they're hurting people. They know that their suicides are happening. They know that families are. They know that people like me aren't getting to see my child get mar. Married or I have to lie to see my child get married. They know that my son has to lie when he comes home. Everywhere you. They know this. I mean that. The recording that I sent you with the church historian, he acknowledges all of it, but they're acknowledging it. Little pockets here, little pockets there. Acknowledge it from the top down. Talk about it in conference, put it in the lessons. Talk about just let, just let it be healthy. And Nelson has a sworn oath to the state of UN Utah for health. He knows. And I, I'm around enough BYU professors. I mean, I know what we did on the BYU Hawaii thing. I know other studies which I can't talk about that have been done, that they know about. And they are recklessly just acting like. Well, it didn't, it didn't serve us saying gays can't be married. So we just won't publish that one. I know about this. And so I know what they know. And it's just, it's wrong. And if, if they have a conscience and they're worried about dying. If I were Nelson person's mom on the other side, I would smack him upside the head when I see him. I'd say, I taught you integrity. I taught you honesty. Do you know how many people have died coming up here telling me what you did? And he's, he's old. He's gonna die. Does he want to die with that on his conscience? I wouldn't. I had to leave Mormonism to keep my integrity. They can do the right thing and, and make it so people like me and people like, like you and People that are listening don't have to leave. They can make it right. They can make it healthy. It. It wouldn't take rocket science. And yeah they're going to lose some money but what's more important? Money or, or numbers or people. I think the people should be more important. And then I would say to my children I love you. My TBMs won't watch this.

John Dehlin [04:33:41] What's the body count in terms of faithfulness of your. Your kids? If you can say or want to say. You don't have to if you.

Gretchen Day [04:33:48] I have two resigned. One on the fence for resigning.

John Dehlin [04:33:50] Out of eight yes.

Gretchen Day [04:33:52] That are adult. Well they're older. One will never leave. In fact I know my resign made her dig. It'll be a hill dig. I knew that too. I this is going to make her stronger. Not that that's she loves it so but you know this child is also. She's one of those more Mormons they're going to change Mormonism. So I'm like, like she doesn't wear her garments the way like and she doesn't live in Utah and she knows the policy is wrong and so there's still people that can stay and make a difference and if anyone is it'll be her and so I'm happy for her for that. I'm not raising. We're not my younger kids to be strict orthodox at all. So I worry about the 13 year old because seminary starts next year. We haven't crossed that bridge yet. I really really want to just teach seminary at our house and do it my way. She thinks it sounds like a stupid crazy idea but I do.

John Dehlin [04:34:47] Gretchen Day's homeschool seminary I'm not kidding. Gretchen Day's homeschool ex Mormon seminary or

Gretchen Day [04:34:54] in the in my Utah Valley post Mormons I know I could just send something out. There'd be some old boy, some old professor that or even seminary teacher. Wouldn't that be awesome? And then I was just going to get letter to my wife life would be the curriculum would teach them the truth. We'll just teach them the truth. And then maybe some some of my books like unethical persuasion critical thinking like you know but she doesn't think I think it sounds like a great idea and she thinks I'm crazy so so to my kids, I love you if you ever hear this I hope that they know that it's not healthy if someone believes differently to to call them names and to say that they're anti or they're apostate and I'm not And I love, I feel, feel like I'm not a super, I'm a type A red personality, which means I don't, I don't, I'm not a super loving person. That's going to sound terrible. I'm just really not. I'm passionate. But that's not like, that's not my go to, if that makes sense. I'm more. Let's get this done. Let's do the right thing. And there's a part of me post Mormon that I can feel in my heart that I've never felt but before. A, A love for people, whether you are Mormon, whether you are not Mormon. And I hope that that can be reciprocated one day to the people who are mad at me and the people who hate me, because I don't feel like that to them. I feel like there's a place in my heart that opened up and that all of a sudden all the judgment and the. It needs to be like this and it needs like that. It's gone and it's, it's helping me be a more authentic, loving person. Person. And I was, I'm not naturally like that. But that's probably going to be really healthy for me and it's healthy for everybody. So that's it.

John Dehlin [04:36:35] Gretchen day, everybody. Gretchen Day.com is the website, but she's down in Utah county stirring it up. I can't imagine what your bishop and stake president like having you in their word stake boundaries. It's, it's got to be a nightmare for them a little bit. And, and they know you're nightmare.

Gretchen Day [04:36:52] Come on.

John Dehlin [04:36:52] Well, no, they know you're keeping count now and like they've got.

Gretchen Day [04:36:56] They didn't know before. They will now. I didn't know before, but I, I already have my eyes on a couple people from the ward. You know who they are? I'm just waiting.

John Dehlin [04:37:06] Oh, man. Watch out. A Mormon is a dangerous thing and an ex Mormon is a dangerous thing. Anyway, Gretchen, thank you so much. You're lovely and you're inspiring and I'm just so grateful you were willing to share your story with us on Mormon's Stories.

Gretchen Day [04:37:21] You bet.

John Dehlin [04:37:21] Thank you.

Gretchen Day [04:37:22] Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:37:23] And listeners, if you want to get in touch with Gretchen, go to Gretchen Day dot com. Thank you for your support. For those of you support Mormon Stories podcast, your donations make this possible. So thank you. If you value this program less than one out of a thousand, support us. We are losing every month, especially since we've talked a little bit about fascism and talked a little bit about politics. We've lost a lot of donors. So if you, if you value this programming, if you want to see continue, if you can just become a monthly donor, go to moremorestories.org, click on the donate button, whatever you can afford per month. It'll allow us to keep providing us programming like this. So thank you for your support. If you support us, please support us. If you don't, if you can and you can always give us a positive review on on Facebook on the Apple podcast app, you can always share these episodes with other people. Spread the word word. And if all you do is just become healthy and spread the love and help others heal and grow, pay it forward. That's, that's probably the best gift you can give yourself and everybody else as well. So thanks for all you do, thanks for tuning in, take care of yourself and we hope to see you again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Bye everybody. Thanks, Gretchen.

Gretchen Day [04:38:35] Amen.

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