Official Tapir Signal Blog

Saturday, November 18, 2017

I like to sin. Sinning's my favorite. Part II

"We are not here to change people’s beliefs, but rather to be that helping hand when they feel there is no one else out there for them."

This is continuation of Part I of Cece's story.

Getting to a stable mental place allowed me to start thinking about what I could do to help people in similar situations to me. When I first started looking at the exjw subreddit, it was difficult because seeing posts about situations similar to mine would bring up so many negative thoughts and emotions. However, as I was going through therapy and working on my issues, I could look at those posts and start offering support. I had been in the similar situations and I knew how it felt to be abandoned and hurt.

One amazing thing helped me put things in perspective. It was when everyone posted their selfies. I know it can be a controversial subject, but the selfie craze made me see these posters were real people: People who needed help, needed to laugh, needed to find their own truth, and just needed a community. The waking up and escape process has many stages, and I felt I was at a good place to help. I just didn’t know how to help. I would leave comments for people, but I knew that my skill with words and expressing my emotions was lacking. I would see things here and there about the Tapir Signal, but was discouraged that it seemed to be only for helping exmormons. I just didn’t see the exjws having something as organized as that, but I felt like maybe it could be something in the future.

In the meantime, I became an admin on the Exjw subreddit’s Discord server. It was amazing to see how many people just needed a place to come and have casual conversation about anything and everything. It hasn’t been that long, but amazing friendships have formed and it feels like I have a family again at times. Later down the road though, something came up about a Sparlock Signal specifically for exjws. Excitedly I applied, but was worried I would not be able to help as I’m not great with talking to people.

I found out quickly that there is so much more to it than just talking to people. There are so many behind-the-scenes things to do. You can help program bots and websites, gather and compile resources, be on the lookout for those in need, open up your home to those in need, offer a kind word to those who are feeling down, and be there in support of each other. Those are just a few things volunteers give of their time to accomplish.

I started helping create a map of all the volunteers and looking for those in need on the subreddits. I alert volunteers about those who need immediate help or even those who just need a kind word and encouragement. One thing that appealed to me was that it was not necessary to wake people up, but instead to help those already awake or just struggling in general. We are not here to change people’s beliefs, but rather to be that helping hand when they feel there is no one else out there for them.

We have to be realistic in expectations of ourselves. We cannot help every individual, but we do our best. I know I will have my days when I am down, but on the days where I feel I can help, I want to be there to make sure that someone has the help they need. As always, whether you are having a good day or a rough day, I’m sending you all lots of internet hugs.

If you are in need of help, you can reach us here.

If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-784-2433.

If you are LGBT+ and need to talk, please contact the LGBT National Hotline at 1-888-843-4564 or find them online here.

Know you are safe and among friends and we will do whatever we can to help.

Lastly, if you would like to be involved or volunteer, you can reach out to us here.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

I like to sin. Sinning's my favorite. Part I

"The next couple of years would be challenging as I came to the realization that I was living in a cult and everything I had known was a lie."

Hi, I’m u/Cecelia92, and everyone usually calls me Cece. I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My father was an elder, and my mother a pioneer. Growing up, I never celebrated holidays or birthdays. I wasn’t allowed to be friends with kids at school or participate in any school sports, activities, or clubs. Instead, my time was spent going to meetings three times a week, going out in service on the weekends, and making sure to study for all the meetings.

Once I graduated high school, I spent three years pioneering, spending at least seventy hours a month doing the preaching work. As higher education is discouraged, my options were limited after high school. I wish I could have made a decision for myself about what I wanted to study in community college, but my decision for higher education was driven by what would make good money and still allow me to pioneer. I went into the local community college’s accounting program, but I never finished as I ran out of scholarship and personal money. Eventually I had to stop attending school once I picked up a part-time job to help pay for food and housing for my family, as my parents were out of work at the time.

That was a stressful time for me. Many in the congregation told me to pray more to deal with my depression. I had few friends and I reached out to anyone I could find. This included those who I had met on the Internet. Eventually I became friends with someone who connected with me on so many levels. We started dating long distance, and after things started to get serious I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret for long.

One thing that pushed me over the edge to confess was my guilt that I was taking advantage of my parents. I remember my mother telling a friend of hers that if one of her kids was not going to follow Jehovah anymore, she would rather know sooner so then she wouldn't waste any more time on them. That stuck with me. At the same time, I was pitting the feelings in my heart against the small whispers of guilt in my head. I had a plan in place. I knew I would probably get disfellowshipped, but after we got married and were not sinning anymore, I would return. In order to get the process going, I had to confess my sin, of dating an unbeliever, to the Elders.

After confessing, I met with three Elders from the congregation. They told me it was a sin to marry someone outside of the organization. They proceeded to ask me question upon question about my history with my boyfriend. Did we commit fornication? How far did we go? What exactly did we do? Did we enjoy it? How many times? And many more intimate and embarrassing questions. After writing all of my answers down, they tried to make me doubt my relationship with my boyfriend, insinuating that because he was a worldly person, he might be doing drugs or cheating on me, and he was basically worthless.

I was sobbing the entire meeting and after I left I couldn’t cry anymore. I knew my parents wouldn’t allow me to stay at their home, so I packed up and left as soon as I could. The next couple of years would be challenging as I came to the realization that I was living in a cult and everything I had known was a lie. It all started when I came across the exjw subreddit accidentally by pressing the “random” button on reddit. I knew I probably shouldn’t look at it, but I figured I was already disfellowshipped, so what could really happen?

So I learned about JWfacts.com and JWsurvery.org. Learning all the history, facts, and current cover ups was huge for me. The biggest thing that drove me to decide to never go back was that I never ever wanted to put my future children through what I was going through. I did not want an organization telling me I needed to shun my children because they made a mistake or turned out to be “different” in their eyes.

Because I was disfellowshipped, I lost all contact with my family and friends and they would not respond to anything I sent them. I felt lonely and I struggled to stay afloat mentally. At night, I would lay awake sobbing, just missing my family. Even though good things were happening in my life including getting married, moving into a nice apartment, making friends, my husband graduating college and getting a good starting job, I still felt hurt inside that I could not heal.

It all came to a head one weekend. I wanted to die. I couldn’t take the pain anymore, and I just wanted to get revenge on my family for abandoning me. My husband was barely able to drag me out of it, but we agreed I would get professional help. Starting the process was hard, but it has been so helpful. It has led me to becoming calmer and realizing where a lot of my pain comes from. It is an ongoing process, but getting to a stable place allowed me to start looking at what I could do to start helping other people, which we will discuss next week.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

All Hail the Mighty Warrior Wizards

"People leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses can face some truly harrowing obstacles, and often have to do so without the support of their parents, siblings, and friends. It can be a gut-wrenching experience."

On the family tree of the ex-religious, ex-Mormons and ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses are close cousins. That’s why it was so easy for the Tapir Signal to expand to include those shaking off the yoke of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. On the ex-JW subreddit, though, the Tapir Signal is more commonly known as the Sparlock symbol.

What’s Sparlock? Allow us to present this visual aid:

(Yes, that video is real. No, you are not wrong for feeling terribly angry about it.)

Sparlock is a warrior wizard toy in the universe of the “Be Jehovah’s Friend” video series produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. The video was released five years ago to show parents how to talk to their children about obeying the commandments of Jehovah.

On the ex-JW subreddit, Sparlock quickly became a rallying point, a symbol against everything ex-members find wrong with the Society – the stifling of creative and critical thinking, the emotional blackmail used to keep members in line, and the arbitrary rules Witnesses are required to adhere to, among other things.

And now, Sparlock is a symbol for the courageous, magical things the ex-JW community is doing to help members who are struggling.

We acknowledge that many people find comfort and joy in the Kingdom Halls across the country. However, we also know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have severely harmed countless individuals. Leaders have covered up child sexual abuse, relying on heinous standards of proof to confirm abuse and failing to alert the proper authorities when it is uncovered. People have died because the tenets of this religion prohibit members from receiving life-saving blood transfusions. They are commanded to shun anyone who disassociates or is disfellowshipped, ripping families apart .

People leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses can face some truly harrowing obstacles, and often have to do so without the support of their parents, siblings, and friends. It can be a gut-wrenching experience. That’s why it’s so important to have compassionate, dedicated volunteers on their side – people willing to fight for others, to defend them in times of peril, to help them see the magic in a life outside of a Kingdom Hall. In effect, they need warrior wizards.

So while we love Gandalf and Dumbledore, when we need help, we’re calling on Sparlock.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

We do more than just validate parking

"Oh God, are we going to have a bunch of stray missionaries camping in the guest bedroom?"--Random Dude

I’m u/Writergal1421, and I’m a little different than your average Tapir Signal volunteer. Round these parts, I’m what you’d call a “nevermo,” meaning I’ve never been a Mormon.

In fact, the closest I’ve ever been to the LDS church was dating a Mormon boy in high school. Religion didn’t actually factor in too much, but every now and again he’d try to read to me from Nephi and I’d tune him out and do my actual history homework. Another time I visited his ward building and saw a painting of Jesus hanging out with some Aztecs. He was all proud to be explaining his beliefs and I was staring at this painting thinking, ‘You know that’s bullshit, right?’ We dated for nine months and broke up right before his mission for reasons that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with him being weird.

I was raised Presbyterian, also known as “Methodist-lite” and “Baptist-but-with-drinking.” For various reasons, my family stopped attending church when I was thirteen and I haven’t been a part of any religion since. I don’t remember how I stumbled on the Exmormon subreddit two years ago, but when I did, I was hooked. I love, love, love reading stories of people who triumph over self-important bishops or successfully bring a family member out of the church with them. I read through all the posts and silently cheer you all on.

I also read the posts about LDS history and think how glad I am that I never took my ex-boyfriend up on his offers to take me to church with him.

And then there are the posts where all I want to do is hug the OP. There are the posts that talk about the subtle, and not-so-subtle, sexism, racism, and homophobia in the church. The posts about an unwed mother who was pressured into giving away her child, or the posts where someone was horribly abused or sexually assaulted and the church either looked away, or worse, protected the abuser. The posts where a teenager committed suicide or a family shunned their gay son or daughter. Those posts break my heart. I don’t know what it’s like to leave the Mormon church, but I do remember the heartbreak of leaving a beloved church community. I know how it feels to be rejected and condescended to and pitied. I know the feeling of being furious about injustice, and being unable to do anything to fix a broken situation.

But if I can’t fix it, I can at least help a little. If you didn’t notice from my handle, writing is kind of my schtick, and wouldn’t you know it, the Tapir team was looking for a few good writers to help out with the blog. (“I’m going to help the exmormons!” I told my husband. “Oh God, are we going to have a bunch of stray missionaries camping in the guest bedroom?” he asked. No, honey. Relax.)

For the past few months, I’ve been talking to exmormons about what aid they need and how the Tapir Signal has helped them. I write up blog entries based on those interviews so that others can lend a hand if they’re able, or know they’re not alone if they’re struggling. I write so that the people I talk to have a voice.

I’ve been privileged to talk with some wonderful folks so far. Their stories are incredible and their resilience and determination astounds me. Talking with C about how excited they were to start college was so fun, and I loved talking with Alex about her job and her cat. Like so many others, they’ve been dealt a rough hand but they keep shining on. It was an honor to be a part of sharing their stories.

Too often it seems like the church wants its members to sit down and shut up.

Screw that. Stand up. Shout out. I’ll help tell your story.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Suicide Awareness - The Fourth of a 7-Part Series

"Don’t spend more than a few days looking for providers—or a few hours, if the person has a suicide plan or is extremely upset. Instead, with their permission, take the suicidal person immediately to an emergency room."

Continuing our posts on suicide awareness, this is the fourth of our series. The previous first, second, and third parts are well worth the read if you haven't already. Now, on to what you're here to see...

Professional Care, Part 1: Finding Psychological/Psychiatric Care

The first phase of an existential crisis can be especially hard because of the difficulty of finding proper medical care. Here are a few tips about this:

Do get psychiatric help. This is very unlikely to be something you can resolve alone or with nonprofessional help. The suicidal person may need medication and/or hospitalization immediately, and certainly needs skilled advice.
Do ask your insurance company for a list of in-plan providers, but be careful about allowing them to choose a therapist. (The insurance company may offer this if you don’t have a primary care physician.) They are likely to choose the cheapest possible alternative, which may be someone without comprehensive training.
Sites such as Psychology Today's Find a Therapist, HelpPRO's Therapist Finder, and GoodTherapy.org's Find the Right Therapist allow you to search for care providers and to narrow your search by insurance company and location.
At certain times of the year psychologists and psychiatrists tend to be booked up or on vacation. There are also some therapists who refuse to work with suicidal people. Don’t spend more than a few days looking for providers—or a few hours, if the person has a suicide plan or is extremely upset. Instead, with their permission, take the suicidal person immediately to an emergency room. This will ensure that they will be able to talk to a professional right away and will have access to referrals. If the person is in immediate danger of harming themselves, use the words “acutely suicidal” or “having active suicidal thoughts” when you check in.
Be cautious about taking advice from friends or others who have not personally met the suicidal person. Don’t be overly perfectionistic about care providers, but do terminate relationships with therapists who are clearly not good matches. Many people may want to help, but unless they are professionals and have met and talked with the suicidal person, their advice is likely to be at best generic and at worst biased. It’s also necessary that the suicidal person trust the therapist, so while it’s not helpful to undermine the therapist, if attempts at resolving personality conflicts fail, take them seriously and find another therapist.
Family members are the constant throughout a patient’s journey through the medical care system. Touching base with therapists and new caregivers at hospitals or outpatient programs allows parents or others to ensure that key information is accurately conveyed from one person to the next, and helps the family to stay informed. As you do so, keep in mind the patient’s right to privacy and be responsive if he or she needs you to step back.

Tapir Signal is looking for volunteers in a variety of areas including housing, employment, and other practical concerns as well as LGBT issues and suicide awareness. Suicide awareness volunteers must be 21 or older. They should be mental health practitioners and/or have personal or close family experience with suicide.

If you are in need of help, you can reach us here.

If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-784-2433 (outside the US, these calls are free via Skype).

If you are LGBT+ and need to talk, please contact the LGBT National Hotline at 1-888-843-4564 or find them online here.

Know you are safe and among friends and we will do whatever we can to help.

Lastly, if you would like to be involved or volunteer, you can reach out to us here.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Why I am here, a volunteer's story

"I once fought a unicorn that was trying to steal my child's lunch. It was epic!"--Denise

Hi! My name is Denise, (you’ll more often see me as eowyn_), and I am a TapirSignal volunteer.

When I first heard of something called the TapirSignal, I had been out of the church less than a year. The trauma and anger were still pretty fresh. Not so fresh that I felt like I had nothing to give, though. Reading through r/exmormon, it was the young ones that hurt me the most. The LGBTQ+ teenagers and adults who wanted to give up. The straight teenagers who felt rejected. The kids and young adults who had been forced from their homes without a clue about how to adult. The young people whose families refused to be happy for their children. I couldn’t help talking to them, offering to be a listening mom for people whose actual mothers couldn’t hear them. One conversation with a woman who was moving in with her boyfriend stands out to me. Her family was furious, and so no one had asked the usual questions: How did you meet him, what do you love about him, does he make you happy, have you found an apartment yet, all that jazz. So I asked. It was wonderful to see the answers. Happiness bubbled out of them like champagne out of a freshly uncorked bottle. And there, at the end: Thank you for asking all the normal questions. And it hit me-- I could do that. I could be good at that.

That’s the awesome thing about the TapirSignal, you see. Not everyone has to do everything. We all have lives that happen offline, and outside the ex-whatever sphere. So we take what we’re suited for. Some of us work with people who have suffered significant trauma. Some of us work with people who are local to us. Some of us do the logistical work, or the tech work to try and catch as many people as possible without someone having to be watching all the time. I like to be the mom. And somehow, when you put us all together, it starts to work.

Whether or not Christ was real, I find the ideal of him compelling-- that kind of love, sacrifice, and compassion moves me. What happens every day behind the scenes at TapirSignal is one of the closest things to that ideal I have ever seen. We’re not Great People. We get impatient, and frustrated, and sometimes we’re at a loss for how to help someone (although that happens less often the more volunteers we get). This is work, and it’s often hard and heartbreaking. In spite of all that, we keep finding ways to make a real difference in people’s lives. We let people know they’re loved. We help find solutions. We mourn with those that mourn. We party with people who need to celebrate. We shine light into places that others darkened. Together, we destroy nightmares. And it’s pretty freaking awesome.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Suicide Awareness - The Third of a 7-Part Series

"As the depression lifts, they may suddenly view previously acceptable questions or conversations as inappropriate and may be embarrassed by things they have confided to others. Try to avoid overstepping, and to allow the person a normal amount of privacy."

This is the third of a seven-part series. If you haven't already, you can find the first and second parts here.

Suicide Awareness: Practical Tips

The approaches below have actually helped various people during a suicidal crisis.

Ensuring Safety

Ask the suicidal person if they have planned or thought about how they would commit suicide, and determine whether they have the means (a weapon, pills, etc.) to follow through. If so, make every effort to take them to the emergency room. If that is not possible, remove the means from where the suicidal person is living and don’t leave them alone. Note: Extremely lethal means such as guns ***must*** be removed from the home. Locking them up is not enough.

Identifying Patterns

After his release from the hospital Tom noticed that although he was no longer suicidal he often felt extremely anxious and depressed late in the afternoon. At first he tried to nap during this time, but insomnia made that impossible. So instead, he wound up stuck in his darkest thoughts. It helped him to identify these patterns so he could plan to counteract them.

Identifying Patterns

Tom decided to go for a jog instead of lying down late in the afternoon, and this helped to mediate his anxiety. He also started going to yoga and found that he enjoyed it. For Tom, exercise alleviated anxiety; he discovered that his actions could influence his feelings.

Cognitive Behavioral Training

Carol’s therapist gave her some exercises to use at difficult moments:

To fight feelings of unreality or meaninglessness, engage with your surroundings through your senses—touch, smell, listen to, taste, and look at what’s around you.
Avoid black and white thinking and worst-case scenarios, which can feed anxiety. Some techniques to correct this type of distorted thinking include doing a cost/benefit analysis about the belief, looking for evidence of its accuracy, testing the theory, asking what you would say to a loved one who thinks that way, and rephrasing the belief in more neutral language. (These and other techniques are described in When Panic Attacks, by David Burns.)

Establishing Routines

Laura was fortunate to be admitted to a good psych ward, which provided structured activities as well as appropriate medication. But once she was released from the hospital, unstructured time made her anxious and all too aware of her disturbing thoughts. Weekend breaks from her outpatient program were especially difficult. With the help of friends and family members Laura created weekend routines involving exercising, socializing, and playing music.

Keeping Things Simple

It’s not useful to discuss complicated emotional issues during an existential crisis. Laura, who is an ex-Mormon, avoided challenging conversations about religion. Likewise, her love life had to be put on hold. She simply found emotional intimacy too stressful at that time. Simpler and less demanding relationships were easier to navigate.

Respect

During a mental illness a person may lose some inhibitions. As the depression lifts, they may suddenly view previously acceptable questions or conversations as inappropriate and may be embarrassed by things they have confided to others. Try to avoid overstepping, and to allow the person a normal amount of privacy. This will help as they begin to reclaim their ordinary life. In general, resist the impulse to advise about life decisions. Be respectful about the information that you share with friends. If you need to vent, choose a safe listener such as a therapist. Except in the most extreme circumstances, get the suicidal person’s permission before taking them to an emergency room or admitting them to a hospital.

Self Care

A suicidal person is in sheer, free-falling crisis. Unfortunately, so are that person’s loved ones. It’s terrifying to think of someone you love committing suicide. It’s horrifying to see them in that much pain. Much of the time, there is little friends and family can do but try to provide protection and emotional support as they wait for medication and therapy to take effect—yet that support is crucial. To help someone who wants to die is to sacrifice one’s own needs, time, energy, and emotional comfort in deference to theirs. The prolonged uncertainty can cause severe anxiety. Don’t complain to the suicidal person or ask them to comfort you. Deal with your own feelings constructively: exercise, keep a journal, work on a project, go outside, spend time with friends. And don’t be afraid to set some limits on what you’re able to do.

Tapir Signal is looking for volunteers in a variety of areas including housing, employment, and other practical concerns as well as LGBT issues and suicide awareness. Suicide awareness volunteers must be 21 or older. They should be mental health practitioners and/or have personal or close family experience with suicide.