I’m Finally Speaking About My Religious Abuse: Why I Left the Mormon Church 15 Years Ago (and Why I’m Never Going Back)

By Mama Tiff
👑 Queen Taboo
& Channel of 🔵The BLUE

To all my religious friends, I want to start by saying—I love you. I respect your beliefs. And I hope you can respect mine as I share my experience.

I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Back then, we just called ourselves Mormons.

From the time I was young, I was taught to outsource my authority.

To trust the church over my own intuition.

To follow the prophet, no matter what.

When I was 14, I received a patriarchal blessing.

And in that blessing, I was told:

“You were one of the noble and great ones who was chosen before you were born.”

“The man that you would marry would be worthy of your love.”

“Your job was to be a mother and a homemaker in Zion.”

And most terrifyingly:

“Satan has been loosed upon this earth and desires to have your soul. He will do everything in his power to tempt and destroy you. If you keep the commandments and follow the prophet, you will be protected from Satan. Otherwise, you will be lost from God.”

As a 14-year-old girl, this TERRIFIED the shit out of me.

It set me up to be compliant.

To ignore my own desires.

To follow the path the church laid out for me, no matter the cost.

I felt ashamed of my body.

Ashamed of my sexuality.

I married a man who was not a match for me—because he was "worthy" in the eyes of the church.

I was a singer and a songwriter, but I put that aside.

Because it wasn’t what a "homemaker" should do.

I tried SO HARD to be the perfect Mormon wife.

The perfect mother.

But I was dying inside.

The neglect in my 21-year marriage was crippling.

I spent the first eight years in bed with depression, on psychotropic drugs, undergoing 14 rounds of shock therapy.

Because I couldn’t pull myself together.

I couldn’t be what the church told me, so I just stayed in bed hiding and medicated.

And through it all, the specter of Satan haunted me.

Every bad thing that happened—Satan was trying to get me.

Every moment of self-doubt, fear, anger, every discouraging thought—it was Satan.

Every time someone was cruel to me—Satan made them do it.

I was TERRIFIED to leave my house.

Terrified to follow my dreams.

Terrified to LIVE.

Because I "knew" Satan desired to destroy me.

And if I wasn’t PERFECT in following the church, he would get me and hurt me somehow.

Then I would be lost from my Heavenly Father, which at the time represented my safety and love.

It was a prison.

A prison of the mind.

A prison of the soul.

A prison of the SELF.

And I’m here to say—

I’m fucking DONE with that prison.

I’ve left the church.

And I’ve learned the truth:

THERE IS NO SATAN.

It’s a lie.

A control tactic.

A way to keep women (and men) enslaved to a patriarchal system.

The only "Satan" I see in this world are the men who rape women and tell us to shut up about it.

The men who use religion to control and diminish and DESTROY the feminine.

But I’m free now.

Free to trust MYSELF over any external authority.

Free to follow my desires, my dreams, my TRUTH.

Free to be the kind of musician I wanna be.

I’m free to be the spiritual teacher, the psychic medium, the Channel of 🔵The BLUE, the WOMAN I was always meant to be.

And I’m never going back.

To any woman (or man) who is still in that prison—

I see you.

I FEEL you.

And I’m here to tell you—you have the power to break free.

You are your OWN authority.

Your body, your mind, your soul—they belong to YOU.

Not to a church.

Not to a prophet.

Not to ANYONE but yourself.

And when you claim that authority, when you TRUST that truth—everything changes.

The chains break.

The fear dissolves.

And you become SOVEREIGN over your own life.

It’s not easy.

It’s fucking HARD to break free from a lifetime of conditioning, of fear, of control.

But it’s possible.

I’m living proof.

And I’ll spend the rest of my life shouting this truth from the rooftops:

YOU ARE FREE.

YOU ARE POWERFUL.

YOU ARE THE AUTHORITY IN YOUR OWN LIFE.

And no church, no doctrine, no patriarchal system can EVER take that from you.

It’s time to rise up.

It’s time to break free.

It’s time to REMEMBER who the fuck we are.

We are not slaves.

We are not property.

We are DIVINE BEINGS.

And it’s time we started living like it.

And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen!

Mama Tiff
👑 Queen Taboo
& Channel of 🔵The BLUE