blog news, LDS, mental health, obits, psychology

For some people, Mother’s Day is a “day of infamy”…

Happy Mother’s Day, everybody. I know not everyone loves this holiday, but if you do celebrate Mother’s Day, I hope it’s a nice one for you. I don’t mind Mother’s Day much anymore. My mom and I get along pretty well, and I’ve come to terms that I’m a “mom” to dogs. I don’t really think of my dogs as my kids, although they are kind of my babies. At least I don’t have to send them to college. 😉

I’m kidding about the last part. I think I would have enjoyed sending an adult child to college, even though it costs so much. On the other hand, it’s nice to be debt free… and not having to pay for student loans anymore.

Younger daughter sent us a couple of videos. In one, she talked about how so many people her age are forgoing motherhood. It’s very obvious that she loves being a mom, and she’s very good at the job. I admire her patience and dedication to being there for her children. It’s more than she got from her own mom.

Something surreal happened the other day. I was sitting here looking through old blog posts and I found one in which I mentioned Heather B. Armstrong (nee Hamilton), author of the very popular blog Dooce, and a couple of books. I was never a regular reader of Dooce myself, but I knew about Heather because she was an ex Mormon and had grown up in Bartlett, Tennessee (near Memphis), which is where Bill’s dad lived for years before he passed. I think it might have even been May 9th when I looked at that post, not realizing that I would be getting shocking news about her that very day.

On May 9th, it was announced that 47 year old Heather Armstrong had died by her own hand. She reportedly suffered from depression and alcoholism, which was likely made worse by the toxicity of the Internet. Her writing had enchanted and delighted millions of people. She was even dubbed “Queen of the Mommy Bloggers”, because she was a Mommy Blogger before it was “cool”. At a time when blogs were mostly for people to trade among friends and family members, Heather Armstrong made it a place where anyone could have a voice. Dooce.com took off, and soon, scores of people were reading Armstrong’s thoughts on living, loving, marriage, and motherhood.

But Dooce.com had also excited mean spirited people who harassed her on a site called GOMI (Get Off My Internets), an “anti-fan” blog launched in 2008 by New York based blogger, Alice Wright. I had never heard of GOMI before I read about Heather Armstrong’s suicide, but apparently, a very special class of haters hang out there. They make a habit of reading blogs and trashing the writers.

Aside from garden variety clinical depression and alcoholism, Armstrong also had very severe postpartum depression after she had her older daughter in 2003. It was so bad that she needed to be hospitalized. In 2009, Armstrong published a very well-received book called It Sucked and then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown and a Much Needed Margarita. In spite of her experiences with postpartum depression, Armstrong had another daughter in 2010. Then she divorced her ex husband, Jon Armstrong. She was in another relationship with Pete Ashdown, a two-time Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Utah, at the time of her death.

Heather Armstrong had reportedly quit drinking for awhile before her death, but then relapsed into alcoholism. She continued to write, although her posts– which had been almost daily for years– became a lot less frequent. Some readers were unnerved by the content of her most recent posts, which revealed a downward spiral.

I think a lot of people were shocked and saddened by Armstrong’s suicide. Even though I wasn’t one of her fans, I had heard of Dooce, and realized its success was what a lot of bloggers strive for. Many aspiring writers looked up to Heather Armstrong as a role model, but I think other people just thought of her as a dependable friend. And now she’s gone, and people are left wondering what happened.

I read a few news articles about Heather Armstrong’s death. I was saddened to read that so many comments people left were either clueless or kind of mean. Heather Armstrong will never read those comments, but she was a mom, and her kids can read. Now, it’s Mother’s Day, and their mom is gone forever. For them, Mother’s Day may turn into a “day of infamy”. That’s a day in which a person remembers something awful every year.

Although Armstrong killed herself, I know that her action was caused by legitimate mental illnesses. Many people will say she was selfish to commit suicide, but those people might not understand that suicidal people are often not in their right minds. I write “often not” because sometimes people commit suicide for reasons other than depression. Clearly, in Armstrong’s case, her decision came as a result of deep, unrelenting psychological pain that wasn’t eased by medical treatment. Her death, while brought about by her own hand, was every bit as the result of an illness as a death due to a stroke, cancer, or heart disease is. It’s not like she didn’t try to get well, either. Heather’s depression was severe enough that she even underwent an experimental treatment involving being put into chemically induced comas for fifteen minute sessions. The treatment was supposed to mimic brain death, to see if it might cure extreme depression.

I have suffered from depression myself, and I know how it made me feel. There were times when I was tempted by suicide. But by the grace of God, I managed to resist those impulses. I doubt that my issues were ever as deep as Heather’s were… and although sometimes I get rude comments on my blog, I have never been harassed like she was. I don’t go looking for comments about me, or my blog, so if anyone is talking trash about me, I’m oblivious. But I suspect my blog is too boring for people on GOMI.

I was also never Mormon… and while I know that a lot of people find joy in Mormonism, I also know that a lot of people suffer despair because of it. Armstrong, who had once been a devout church member, left the religion, and reportedly suffered backlash from her family and friends. She poured her thoughts and feelings into her writing, and wound up being fired from her job in Los Angeles. At the time, it was probably awful for her… but then the blog took off, and she was soon earning millions from ad revenue, book sales, and product endorsements.

As a blogger myself, I wonder if maybe Dooce’s success was a source of terrible stress for Armstrong. I know that writing, for me, is kind of therapeutic. But when you become popular, you have to be much more careful about what you write. And when you make money from sponsors, you have to be even more careful, because businesses don’t want to be aligned with controversies or bad press. So then, that “therapy” kind of goes by the wayside, because as a writer, you can no longer be so free with what you express. I would imagine it also becomes harder to stay authentic and interesting.

My own blog used to be more popular. When I was writing it on Blogger and lived in Stuttgart, I shared it a lot more, and I had more readers. I eventually realized that I didn’t really want to be super popular, especially in a military community. Even years since I moved the blog to WordPress and kind of started over, I sometimes run into people who have never even read it, but had a negative opinion of it and me, just because of the name. I try to remember, though, that everyone who becomes popular has to deal with negative opinions and even haters. The most talented, likeable, and famous people in the world have haters.

Heather Armstrong obviously had mental health issues. Writing was a comfort for her… until it was used as a weapon. And now she has two daughters who no longer have their mother on Mother’s Day. I don’t blame Heather for what happened, because I know that the horrors of depression and alcoholism are real. But I do feel for her daughters, who have lost their mom forever. So, my thoughts are with them today, as I am reminded that for some people, Mother’s Day is difficult, at best. And for some, it really is a “day of infamy”.

Wherever Heather B. Armstrong is today, I hope she’s finally at peace. And I wish the most peace and comfort to her survivors, especially her daughters.

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LDS, Netflix, true crime

Repost: Let’s talk about Toni Fratto and Kody Cree Patten…

I’m having a terrible time coming up with a fresh topic today. I’m in the middle of reading a new book about the Kennedy family, and I just don’t have the stomach to cover what I’ve been reading about regarding politics. Every time I read a new headline about the Republican party, I feel more outraged. But I’ve already written so much about the current “hot button” issues, and I just don’t feel up to it today.

So, instead of writing something fresh, I’m going to repost this true crime piece I wrote October 19, 2018. It got a lot of hits on the original blog, so I know people were, at one time, interested in the case of Toni Fratto and Kody Cree Patten. I also remember that my take was a bit controversial with those in the know, so I will add the original comments.

If you choose to comment on this piece, please be civil, and please remember, most of it was written about five years ago. If it seems “wrong” or out of date, it may be because of that.

I was inspired by my recent reintroduction to Netflix yesterday and wound up spending a few hours binge watching a show called Deadly Women.  I had seen it before, although the cases presented in the shows I watched yesterday were new to me.  It always kind of amuses me that the narrators they use on shows about salacious crimes involving murder always sound like they’re oversexed or something.  They also have “experts” who comment.  One woman who is consistently featured on the shows has striking blue eyes and dark hair.  She is a former FBI profiler.  But she always sounds like she’s scandalized by some of the stories she analyzes.

So anyway, one of the episodes I watched involved a young Mormon woman from Nevada named Toni Fratto.  Fratto’s religion wasn’t mentioned in the episode, but apparently, she was a very devout believer and Patten eventually converted to Mormonism so they could eventually marry in the temple.  Patten even moved into Fratto’s family’s house after a particularly nasty fight with his father.  Fratto’s family evidently felt they could help straighten out Patten and keep an eye on their daughter, who had informed them that she intended to marry Patten.

I found out about Fratto’s faith when I got curious and looked her up online.  The British tabloid Daily Mail ran a story about Fratto’s sensational crime.  In April 2012, Fratto and her boyfriend, Kody Cree Patten, were sentenced to prison for murdering Patten’s friend, 16 year old Micaela “Mickey” Costanzo.  Fratto and Patten brutally murdered Costanzo on March 3, 2011.

A story about this tragic and horrifying case.

As I was watching this show about Fratto and Patten, I was reminded of a somewhat similar situation that occurred in the 1990s.  In 1995, David Graham and Diane Zamora were a Texas high school power couple with plans to attend military service academies and embark on high powered military careers.  But then the two of them decided to commit murder one night.  They killed 16 year old Adrianne Jones because Diane was extremely jealous of the pretty teen.  She thought Adrianne was a romantic rival, particularly since David had told Diane that he’d had sex with Adrianne.  When Diane found out that her boyfriend had cheated, she became enraged and felt compelled to kill Adrianne.  She asked David to carry out the task and sadly, he obliged.

Fratto’s case was somewhat similar, except she and Patten weren’t necessarily a “power couple” in the making.  Patten was apparently a troublemaker, while Fratto had apparently led a fairly quiet life.  On the show, she was described and portrayed as “homely”.  Patten had grown up with Costanzo; she was one of his “buddies”.  According to Deadly Women, Fratto had become irrationally jealous of Mickey Costanzo.  

Wow… she sounds pretty out of touch with reality here.
Anderson Cooper talks to Toni Fratto.
What a terrible, tragic case…

Although Patten’s and Costanzo’s relationship had been platonic, Fratto was extremely insecure about the attention Patten paid to his friend, who was pretty, athletic, and described as “promising”.  Mickey Costanzo also had a boyfriend, though Fratto was convinced that she was going to ruin her relationship with Patten.  Despite Costanzo’s promises that she wasn’t interested in Patten romantically, Fratto refused to believe her, and continued to insult and threaten the girl.  Fratto had repeatedly confronted Costanzo, telling her to “stay away” from her man, Kody Patten.  Costanzo then decided she wanted nothing more to do with Patten, which apparently enraged him.  

And yet, even though she was repeatedly harassing Costanzo about her friendship with Patten, Fratto had never been in trouble with the law.  She had no criminal record when she and Patten kidnapped Costanzo, took her to the desert, beat her over the head with a shovel, and buried her in a shallow grave. 

While Diane Zamora appears to have masterminded Adrianne Jones’ murder and David Graham had simply gone along with the idea, I think in this case, it was more Patten who got the idea to kill than Fratto.  It appears that Patten got a charge out of playing on Fratto’s insecurities.  He would deliberately set up situations that he knew would upset Fratto and cause her to react.  Patten had a history of being a troublemaker, while Fratto was more of a “sheep”– this was actually how her attorney described her.  Given what I know about Mormonism, I can see where that tendency would originate.  

I even remember in 2014, watching BYU TV and hearing a Relief Society president giving a talk during that year’s spring General Conference.  She was telling a disturbing anecdote about a farmer who had to train one of his ewes not to stray.  The ewe would wander off from the herd by herself.  So he tied the ewe to a stake until she learned not to stray.  Then, once he freed her from the stake, the farmer had to coax her to move around again.  The ewe had become submissive and compliant, and the Relief Society president’s message was that church members needed to be taught the same lesson.  

With messages like that coming from a place of authority, I can see why Fratto might have been talked into helping her boyfriend commit murder.  That’s not to say that I think all Mormons are “sheep”.  It’s more to say that the religion does train people to be followers.  I think in some cases, women are especially conditioned to follow the direction of their men, and that tendency can be exacerbated by untreated mental illness.  Fratto apparently didn’t have a lot of experience with men and, for whatever reason, really thought she loved Patten.  Later, she said that Patten had abused and controlled her throughout their relationship and she feared that if she didn’t help Patten kill Costanzo, she would be murdered herself.  So instead of doing the right thing, she sat on Costanzo’s legs and helped hold her down while Patten slit the teen’s throat.

There could be some truth to Fratto’s story, although I also believe that Fratto was at least as dysfunctional and abusive as Patten. The fact that she could be talked into committing such an act of violence is a clue to her weakness of character. Would she have committed the murder on her own? I don’t know. But she was clearly lacking the moral fortitude to resist her own dark impulses.

To Fratto’s slim credit, she did eventually come forward to confess what she’d done.  It was small comfort to Costanzo’s mother, who pleaded with the court to hand down a maximum sentence.  Frankly, I can’t blame Mickey Costanzo’s mother for being so incredibly angry about the senseless and tragic murder of her child.  

Fratto was eventually convicted of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon.  She was sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after 18 years.  Since she was 19 when she was convicted, it’s possible that Fratto could be out of prison before she turns 40.  As of August 2018, Toni Fratto was in Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Patten pleaded guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole.  He is at Ely State Prison in White Pine County, Nevada. 

Edited to add in 2023: On April 4, 2021, Toni Fratto was denied parole. Her next chance to be paroled will be in May 2024. However, even if she had gotten parole in 2021, Fratto would still be locked up, as she has a second sentence that would begin for using a deadly weapon in the commission of second degree murder.

Listening to Toni Fratto on Anderson Cooper in the above clips, Toni Fratto sounds more to me like a psychopath. At the very least, she’s out of touch with reality, and the sheer horror of what she did. Listening to these interviews in 2023, I now believe that Toni Fratto was just as diabolical as Patten was. She is definitely where she belongs. How absolutely terrible it is that a beautiful and innocent young woman would lose her life due to these two criminals.

And here are the original comments:

5 comments:

  1. AlexisAROctober 20, 2018 at 10:40 PM That Relief Society talk you described is beyond scary. A person would have to be virtually brain-dead even to read that talk from a teleprompter. Whoever wrote it is likely certifiable and should be locked up.
    1. knottyOctober 20, 2018 at 10:57 PM I was horrified when I heard it.
  2. Pcofwork January 21, 2019 at 5:32 AM I actually don’t agree with you. Toni and Kody had a history of aggressive behavior with Mickey. Toni initially confessed to being the one who slit her throat, I believe that the version she told to Kodys lawyer is close to the truth as we are ever going to get. Kody has shown remorse since he confessed to the police, all Toni has ever done is blame him. She didn’t even apologize to Mickey’s family. And she had more of a motive than he did. 
    1. knottyJanuary 22, 2019 at 5:03 PM Alright.
  3. Chris Middleton February 6, 2019 at 3:01 AM Just a couple selfish, cold blooded pieces of shit! They took someone’s daughter! Hope they both rot in jail and then go straight to hell. I see she is eligible for parole in 2021, if she gets out, may people in their town take revenge on her cold
    Blooded ass!
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book reviews, celebrities, LDS, religion

A review of Bad Mormon by Heather Gay…

Ugh… Monday morning again. This week, I get to endure it all alone, as Bill is on another one of his many business trips. I truly hate it when Bill travels alone. I get lonely hanging out here by myself. The good thing is, I often finally manage to finish books when Bill goes away.

Early this morning, thanks to a bout of insomnia, I completed Heather Gay’s book, Bad Mormon, which I’ve been trying to get through for the past week or two. I bought this book just as it was published last month. I probably would have read it regardless, but I think it was a discussion on the Recovery from Mormonism board that made me decide to take the plunge so soon after its publication. There was a time not so long ago when I eagerly devoured books about ex Mormons, but I’ve since sort of lost interest in upbraiding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I also had absolutely no idea who Heather Gay was before I read her book. I don’t watch her on the Bravo reality show, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, nor am I the sort of person who attends medical spas. I’m not impressed by vapid celebrity wannabe types, nor do I like facades. Someone on the RfM thread mentioned that Heather had been written up in the New York Times, though, and I am a subscriber to that publication. So I probably read the New York Times piece and headed off to Amazon soon afterwards. If you like, you can read the New York Times piece, too. I’ve used a gift link in this review.

Anyway, now I’ve finished reading Heather Gay’s story of becoming a “bad Mormon”. Overall, I’m left with a mixed mind. The book starts out very interesting, as Heather explains her family of origin and their devotion to Mormonism. Heather Gay (nee Deans), now 48 years old, was born in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, the third of six children. Her parents moved around a lot when they were first married, so her siblings were born in scattered places across the United States, much like my sisters and I were (we’re Air Force brats). When Heather was five years old, her parents moved to Denver, Colorado, where they settled for the rest of her growing up years.

Heather’s parents were fairly devout members of the LDS church, and she lived by the strict lifestyle rules of the faith. On the surface, she lived the wholesome lifestyle expected by her family and church leaders. She participated in church activities, dressed modestly, eschewed premarital sex, and did not use alcohol or other forbidden substances like coffee, tobacco, and tea. She dutifully submitted to interviews with her bishop, who asked her probing questions about her sexual habits and other personal topics. This was all normal in the LDS church, where members must prove “worthiness” before they can attend temple ordinances.

Heather attended college at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, earning at degree in Humanities. Then, having graduated BYU at age 21, she decided to go on an 18 month church mission in Marseille, France. She’d had visions of enjoying French culture and becoming super fluent in the language, but the reality was that she spent most of her time there trying to convince very reluctant and resistant French people to join the church. And she had very little success in that endeavor.

Before she could go to France to sell the LDS church to the French, Heather had to attend the Missionary Training Center at BYU. There, she developed a crush on one of her language teachers. She was flirty and bawdy with him– as much as female LDS missionaries can be when they’re being heavily indoctrinated in religion and crammed with language training. One day, their class was in a different room, and the teacher tried to “warn” everyone through a lesson that they were being watched by the powers-that-be. The next day, the handsome teacher was gone, and Heather was sure it was because of her outrageous behavior (which would have been perfectly normal and appropriate for us “Gentiles” at her age). Years later, she looked him up on Facebook and determined that there was an entirely different reason for the teacher’s sudden dismissal.

At this point, I must interject. This part of the book was fascinating and a quick read. I was really enjoying the book through her stories of her mission in France, especially since we’re about the same age.

When Heather got back from her mission, she met her husband, Billy Gay, a member of so-called Mormon royalty. He came from a wealthy, connected family, but to Heather, had seemed very grounded and normal. She loved how he went surfing and lived a low key lifestyle, even though she hated his penchant for booking Southwest Airlines. Although she noticed some subtle signs that maybe they weren’t a good match, Billy and Heather got married, and he bought her a Porsche.

Then, Heather was pregnant with her first of three daughters, and the reality of being a Mormon wife hit Heather with a traumatic force. She was expected to quit working to be the perfect wife, mother, and helpmeet. Heather had a drive to work, a creative bent toward photography, a head for sales, and other ambitions. But she was supposed to be a good Mormon wife… quiet, obedient, servile, and always facilitating her husband’s and children’s dreams. The lifestyle was stifling, especially since Billy didn’t seem to appreciate his wife’s efforts toward domestic perfection. By the time their eldest daughter was eight years old, the Gays’ ten year old marriage was on the skids. Much to Heather’s horror, after a period of separation, Billy served her with divorce papers.

There Heather was, living in a McMansion that, without her husband’s help, she couldn’t afford. She was raising her daughters mostly without Billy’s help, although he insisted on having access to the marital home. Before their split, Billy showed up after Heather changed the locks. There was a fight, and Heather called the police, who filed domestic violence charges against Billy. At that point, there was no going back, and Heather soon found herself enjoying life as a woman outside of the LDS faith, drinking, partying, and getting stopped by the police while driving under the influence of alcohol.

Then, as she struggled to recover from her failed marriage, Heather ran into a woman at church who asked her who’d done her Botox. The woman said she’d been “spocked” (meaning her eyebrows took on a vulcan like appearance, like Mr. Spock on Star Trek). The woman, who was a nurse, offered to put Heather in touch with her boss, an ophthalmologist turned facial plastic surgeon who ran a medical spa in Salt Lake City. Soon, Heather was also involved in the business, and eventually bought it with her friend. As the spa blossomed, Heather found her way out of Mormonism, and apparently into certain television viewers’ hearts.

Heather Gay’s Mormon Stories podcast about Bad Mormon.

My thoughts

Like I mentioned up post, I’m of a mixed mind about this book. I loved how it started, even though I struggled to get far at first. Those darn afternoon naps have a tendency to kill my reading efforts. Heather offers some very juicy and revelatory comments about her experiences in the LDS church. I’ve been reading about Mormonism for many years now, since I’m married to an ex convert, so none of what she wrote was personally shocking to me. I was just surprised by how very open she was about it in the book for others to read.

Mormons typically regard temple rituals as secret– er, sacred– and they don’t talk about them outside of the temple. Now, it’s true that Heather Gay is an exmo, but she still has family members in the religion. I would imagine the backlash for being so open could be very serious… not unlike what Prince Harry is now experiencing in the wake of publishing his book, Spare. But just as she once taught church investigators about the LDS religion, so is she now teaching non-members about the church… but in a much more negative light.

My positive impressions of Bad Mormon started to wane as I read about Heather’s divorce. It’s not that I don’t think the divorce was warranted. It clearly was. It’s more that Heather seemed to trade one artificial construct for another. Although I know a lot of people love Mormonism, I’ve always thought of it as kind of the Wal-Mart of religions, borrowing a lot of stuff from many different faiths and passing it off as something “different”. I also know how difficult leaving the religion can be, especially when a person’s entire family is invested and devoted to it. Ex Mormons are some of my favorite people, because a lot of them are very brave and intelligent, while still kind and friendly. I also love that so many of them have lived abroad, like I have. I ‘ve found many ex Mormons to be very thoughtful and interesting people, with good taste in books and music.

I guess I was turned off a bit when Heather went from being a member of a very demanding and kind of fake religion to peddling cosmetic spa treatments. I know a lot of people are into their appearance. Heather writes that looking good makes people feel good, after all. I guess I’m just not that impressed by extremely image conscious people. I find that a lot of them are not very genuine underneath the veneer. Naturally, I don’t know anything about what Heather Gay is like. I’ve never seen her on her TV show. I thought the first part of her book was very interesting and substantive. But then, she falls into this sort of vapid lifestyle change that seems less genuine to me. I found it off-putting, and frankly, simply found Heather’s story about building her business less interesting.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who will love Bad Mormon. I see the book is already getting high marks, with only a modest number of neutral and negative reviews. I did really like about half of this book. The second half, however, impressed me far less. Heather Gay seems very fixated on looks and money and other obvious trappings of success, and while those are important aspects of living to a lot of people, I don’t find excessive image and money consciousness attractive. I am especially unimpressed when the image and money obsession is coupled with religion, although at least in Heather’s case, she finally decided to leave the religion.

Don’t get me wrong. I like having money, and I like looking attractive when I can. I just don’t like a shallow, single-minded focus of those things, because they don’t tend to last, and they usually matter a lot less to most people than less tangible markers of success.

Anyway, I’m truly not sorry I read Bad Mormon, although I do think it could have used some editing, especially in the photo section. I commend Heather Gay for figuring out the truth about Mormonism and living life on her own terms. I wish her well, and hope she continues in her successful endeavors, even if I, personally, don’t necessarily admire what she does for money.

Overall, I think I’d give Bad Mormon 3.5 stars out of 5.

As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon on sales made through my site.

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Bill, divorce, LDS

Lessons never taught– or, how to camp like a champ.

Morning, y’all. I hope all of you had a nice weekend. I know not everyone celebrates Easter, but if you did celebrate “resurrection day”, I hope it was a pleasant experience. Bill and I had a nice quiet day at home. I did some writing, of course, and afterwards, picked up my guitar and played “The Old Rugged Cross” with surprising ease. I was inspired by Rhonda Vincent’s beautiful live version, which is easily found on YouTube at this writing. Although I don’t play the song perfectly, I do play it reasonably well, especially for someone who has learned everything from Fender Play at this point. I might be a fairly decent player by now if I had an in-person guitar teacher. Maybe someday, I’ll get around to investing in one. For now, though, I am really glad I used the pandemic as an excuse to expand my musician skills/cred. I hope to eventually get good enough that someone besides Bill will want to hear me play.

After I played my guitar, I tried and failed to finish my custom made puzzle by Collage.com. My mother-in-law gave me a puzzle by them for Christmas. She found a photo I took in Slovenia and had it made into a one-of-a-kind jigsaw puzzle. I was so impressed by it that I ordered another one of a photo I took in Croatia.

Unfortunately, I was not finished with the Slovenia puzzle when I made that decision, and didn’t realize that the quality of the puzzle wasn’t quite 100 percent. So, the Slovenia puzzle had five pieces that didn’t fit properly. I must have made a mistake, but obviously, there were pieces in the puzzle that were very close and fit convincingly. I had an even worse problem with the Croatia puzzle. Now, it could turn out that I put the puzzle together again someday, and somehow get the puzzle right. But I won’t possibly be doing that for some time, since I have several to do that I haven’t done yet.

Bill cooked baby back pork ribs on the grill that were delicious. We enjoyed some adult beverages and listened to music. We did some talking about current events, some of which have been pretty sad and dramatic, if you read yesterday’s post. Bill and I both feel kind of cut off from our families, and yet we do talk a lot about how completely dysfunctional some of our experiences have been. In fact, last night, we were talking about a post the actor Wil Wheaton shared by a Facebook page called The Holistic Psychologist, that we both could relate to with ease. Bill probably related more than I did.

Wil Wheaton, as many people know, has said that his parents were abusive to him. He describes them as “emotionally immature”. I’m sure Wil Wheaton’s observations are perfectly accurate from his perspective. I liked the link he shared, and commented that maybe it would be even more useful for younger daughter. There were many examples of “emotionally immature” parents included, and descriptions of how a child who was raised by such a parent might respond by their behaviors as an adult. Wheaton also shared another link by The Holistic Psychologist that might also be useful to anyone who has grown up with parents who never quite matured properly– at least in the emotional sense.

This morning, Bill got a video message from his daughter. She looked pretty, wearing pearls… like maybe she had come from church. She was talking about things she did on Easter and for her kids on Easter. Younger daughter is about seven months pregnant right now, so she’s pretty tired. She yawned a lot as she talked about her celebration, which somehow segued into talking about her experiences as an older teen.

Younger daughter says she doesn’t like to camp. She doesn’t find it appealing to pack up stuff, go out to the country, unpack, and sleep in a tent. As someone who worked for two summers at a Presbyterian church camp, I can understand why camping might not be so appealing. I lived in a platform tent for both summers, as I was the cook, and didn’t have camp programs to lead. It was rustic living for sure, although there were aspects of that experience that I really loved.

For one thing, the camp where I worked was in an absolutely stunning area of Virginia. I would love to own property in that place– it was so tiny, unspoiled, and just pristine… We had so much fun there! Some of the fun included staff training, which included a short campout/canoeing experience– one or two nights in a tent, if I recall correctly. The first summer, we canoed on the Shenandoah River. The second summer, we canoed on the Potomac. I remember at another time, outside of our camp sessions, some of us got together and canoed down the Rappahannock River, but that was just a day trip.

I do remember learning how to pitch tents, cook food over a fire, and enjoy nature. But, to be honest, as fun as those experiences were– and as amazing as it was to be PAID to do that– I can admit that camping isn’t for everyone. It’s not always comfortable to sleep under the stars, even though it’s something that people ought to try. Yesterday, I even read about 8th grade kids in Alaska who camp out as part of their science class. It’s a learning project, yes, but it’s also taught because Alaskan kids, more than other American kids, may really have an actual need to use survival skills. But even though I think youngsters should learn outdoor skills, I know that not everyone wants to camp.

Younger daughter says that she went camping as part of her LDS church indoctrination. I wasn’t surprised to hear that. I know, for instance, that part of the LDS church experience for young people includes going to camp. From what I’ve read, those experiences are very “churchy” and religious, and they include a lot of emotional bonding around a campfire, testimony bearing, singing church songs, and discussing passages from the Book of Mormon. I don’t know how skilled the people leading younger daughter’s camping experiences were, but from what I’ve read on RfM, the people who lead the camp experiences in the LDS church aren’t necessarily super well-schooled on camping outdoors. In fact, from what some ex members have said, the camp experience is more about creating meaningful church experiences, in remote places where outside influences are few, than teaching youngsters the joys of camping.

Likewise, I’ve heard and read that a lot of the Boy Scout troops affiliated with the LDS church are not led by people who are very skilled outdoors. I know that wouldn’t apply to every church affiliated Scout troop, but apparently, it did apply to more than a couple. A lot of former members have shared horror stories about their times camping with the LDS church. Of course, since the Scouts are now letting girls in, I think the church is less invested in encouraging boys to be Boy Scouts.

Anyway, younger daughter says that her experiences at LDS Girls Camp led her to realize that she doesn’t enjoy camping. If her experiences were like what I’ve read on RfM, I can understand why camping doesn’t appeal. But what’s really sad is that her perfectly good father, who was not allowed any access to his daughters when they were growing up, knows a whole lot about camping and how to make it enjoyable.

Bill is a retired Soldier, and he’s spent a lot of time in the field. He could have taught his daughters how to camp effectively. Maybe, if they had been allowed to go camping with Bill, those girls would have ended up loving camping. Or maybe younger daughter might not have liked camping, even if Bill had taught her how to do it properly and used good equipment.

One of younger daughter’s complaints, for instance, was that she had to sleep in a leaky tent and didn’t get any rest. I’m not surprised, as people on RfM have written that the tents used at the camps were basically Army surplus variety– circa the Vietnam era. But she would have had a bonding experience that she might not have forgotten. I had a couple of camping experiences with my dad (in a pop top VW van, rather than a tent)… but then, my dad wasn’t as good of a father as Bill is.

I don’t know if Bill would have taken his girls camping if he’d been allowed to raise them. But there would have been the opportunity to camp. Maybe, if they came back after girls’ camp complaining about being outdoors, Bill could have showed them a better way. He was denied that opportunity, though, because his ex wife is a selfish person who is more interested in punishing people than doing the right thing by her children. And so, Bill and younger daughter have a lot of years to make up for. I’m glad they are, at least, getting that time now.

As we’ve learned recently, tomorrow is never guaranteed for anyone. Ex meant for Bill to NEVER see or speak to his children again, all because– over Easter in 2000– Bill didn’t grovel enough. Bill didn’t succumb to her demands that he humiliate himself to an LDS bishop and confess to hating women… which he certainly doesn’t, and never did. Worst of all, in her mind, was that instead of refusing to divorce his abusive ex wife, who used his parents’ home to, once again, emotionally abuse and humiliate Bill, Bill decided to accept Ex’s proposal to split up. She very clearly did not expect Bill to say “yes” when she proposed a divorce; it injured her deeply that he agreed. She had expected him to fight for her, and the fact that he didn’t want to fight anymore deeply disappointed her. She was so aggrieved that she decided to try to destroy Bill’s relationship with his own children.

Now, we’re seeing the result of that decision, and Bill’s choice not to insist on having contact with his kids. In retrospect, he probably should have involved the court system and law enforcement. Or, better yet, he never should have gotten involved with her in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20, I know.

It’s hard for me to understand how a parent can be so hateful, selfish, and misguided that they would deny their children’s access to another loving parent. I mean, yes, if a parent is severely abusive and harmful, it makes sense to limit contact. Bill is not an abusive person. He’s a very kind and loving person, who simply couldn’t tolerate his ex wife’s abuse anymore. Now that younger daughter is an adult, we’re finding out that he was not the only one who could no longer take her shit. It sounds like she simply reached saturation. I relate to that. I am pretty saturated by abusive people, too. I can’t tolerate them like I used to.

As I was listening to younger daughter, living in Utah, and not long from adding her third child to her family, I felt sad that after her parents’ divorce, she never had a chance to go camping with Bill… or eat at a fancy restaurant… or visit a museum. And now, thanks to the way our lives have gone, she may never have that chance. On the other hand, at least they can exchange videos and talk on Skype. And now that the world has reopened, maybe Bill will go back to Las Vegas for TDY and take another side trip to Utah, to see his daughter and her family. Ex had wanted to deny Bill that. Thank God they’re no longer giving her that power to divide and drive wedges.

Every time I think I’ve evolved beyond the mess that is Ex, and the massive damage she’s wrought, I see evidence of more damage that was done. But again, I am grateful that she wasn’t able to permanently destroy Bill’s relationship with his younger child. There remains hope that maybe someday, the older one will wise up and reach out. Even if she doesn’t, though, Bill never thought he’d have what he has with younger daughter. So we can be grateful for that… and the fact that thanks to what happened on Easter 2000, Bill can still enjoy life.

However, I doubt he’ll convince me to go camping. 😉

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mental health, religion, tragedies

Switzerland and Utah have more in common than beautiful mountain views…

This post has to do with mass suicide. If you think you might be triggered, you might want to move on to your next Internet station.

The New York Times‘ headline said “4 Die After Falling From Balcony in Swiss Resort Town”. I was instantly curious, since I’ve heard the Swiss are even more anal retentive about safety and precision than the Germans are. Before I read the article, I said to Bill, “Someone is going to get sued into oblivion for this.” I said that because the headline made it sound like negligence was involved and I just assumed that a lovely family had plunged to their deaths because a balcony gave way. The strange truth was, this tragedy had nothing to do with a builder’s or safety inspector’s negligence. Apparently, these four people died on purpose. A fifth person remains hospitalized in serious condition.

The small group of people who died yesterday in Montreux, a beautiful resort town in western Switzerland near idyllic Lake Geneva, were not publicly identified in the article. However, the police believe they were French nationals and members of the same family, consisting of a 40 year old man, his 41 year old wife, his wife’s twin sister, and their 8 year old daughter. The couple’s 15 year old son somehow managed to survive the plunge from the seventh floor apartment from which they all apparently jumped.

When the article was published, the police were still trying to determine exactly what led up to the circumstances leading to this family’s fall from their balcony. According to the story, two police officers had knocked on the family’s door at about 7am. The officers were there to give the parents a summons involving the homeschooling of one of the children. Homeschooling is legal in Switzerland, but children who are homeschooled are still required to be routinely monitored by officials to determine their educational progress. When parents are out of touch with officials, police officers are tasked with issuing summonses. Evidently, this family was not allowing their homeschooled child to be checked.

After they knocked on the door, the police officers heard a voice from inside the apartment, asking them to identify themselves. Then, there was silence. As the officers were about to leave the building, a witness had called the police to inform them that people had fallen from a seventh floor balcony. A neighbor of the family’s stated that the family was very “discreet”. That makes me think that there was something weird going on, even before the adults apparently decided that suicide en masse was the answer to their problems.

I read some of the comments regarding this piece, and one lady posted that this story reminded her of an incident that happened in Salt Lake City Utah in 1978. Her comment is below.

This sounds like an instance in the 1970s involving a family who came to be known as “The Leaping Longos” after a mother and her seven children all jumped out of their hotel room window. It turned out that the father had killed himself the day before and their mother forced them all to jump in some weird type of suicide pact. They were practicing their own brand of religion based on the Mormon church and the father was also evading the authorities. 

This family likely all jumped to their deaths as well, but only after the authorities showed up. The authorities were only trying to establish what was happening with the children due to them being home schooled but it is very likely that they had something else to hide. Fortunately one son has survived, and once he’s able to talk about what happened I’m sure the full story will unfold.

The poor kid has become an orphan and I hope he’s able to recover because it would be even more tragic if he’s permanently impaired.

I was around in 1978, but I was a young child at the time. Obviously, I had never heard of the “Leaping Longos” before I read the above comment. I decided to look them up to see if there was any information about this family. Sure enough, I found the story after a couple of minutes of looking. Here’s a link to a 1993 era article by Deseret News about the lone survivor of the Utah incident. In that case, the lone survivor was a fifteen year old girl. Like the rest of her family, Longo changed her name; in the Deseret article she is called Rachel David.

On August 3, 1978, the David family (originally identified as the Longo family) made the bizarre decision to leap from an eleventh floor balcony at the International Dune Hotel in Salt Lake City. The family had been living in the hotel for about a year, when the patriarch, 39 year old Immanuel David (originally named Charles Bruce Longo), committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Three days after the suicide, 38 year old Rebecca David and her seven children either jumped or were thrown from the balcony. The lone survivor, Rachel, spent many months in a hospital before she was placed in foster care. She was wheelchair bound in 1993, when she was interviewed by the hosts of the television tabloid show, Inside Edition.

In 1993, Rachel David still believed that her father was God and would be returning to Earth. She also said that she had willingly jumped. She also said that she had been trying to follow the suicide order and, as of 1993, had attempted to kill herself many times. Another article, circa 2000, describes the survivor as “brain damaged”. At the time that article was written, Rachel David was still living with “remnants” of the House of David near Denver, Colorado.

Below is a screenshot of a news article that was written in 1978, just after this event took place.

Freaky story… I wonder if this French family was involved in a similar cult.

And here is a broadcast news item about the 1978 Utah incident…

I can’t even imagine how horrifying this was to witness…

Why do these culty types always gravitate to the name “Immanuel”? Especially when they have ties to Mormonism? According to the news report, David was an excommunicated member of the LDS church. The father was not employed at the time of his death, although according to the video, the bill for the $95 a day was paid on time and in cash, usually with $100 bills. The news story is astonishing, as the physician is very openly talking about the surviving girl’s injuries. We didn’t have HIPAA in those days.

As I listen to this surprisingly lengthy report, I’m confused by the discrepancies in the people’s names. According to the news article, the father’s name was Charles Bruce Longo, but this news report refers to him as Bruce David Longo. And then he changed his name, and all of the names of his wife and children were changed.

As for the French family in Switzerland, slightly more news has emerged about their apparently sudden and bizarre exit from Earth. Apparently, the mother in the French family was a dentist who had worked in Paris. Her sister was an ophthalmologist. The father worked at home. The family had been living in Switzerland for some time, and had residence status. The Daily Mail offers an article with some rather salacious details omitted from the more respectable newspaper articles. Apparently, the family used incense a lot, and ordered many packages. It will be interesting to learn more about why this tragedy occurred, and if this family has anything else in common with the “Leaping Longos” of Salt Lake City.

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