Introduction and Katie Harmon's Background

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's October 16, 2020, and I think we have a very useful and important Mormon stories interfere interview for you today. Today we are interviewing Katie Harmon. And a lot of time lately on Mormon Stories, we've been refocusing on history and truth claims. But part of our bread and butter over the years is to just do stories of people's Mormon journeys, regular people and, and just how they've navigated Mormonism, for better, for worse, throughout their lives. And oftentimes there's a heavy emphasis on what happens when you learn the truth about Mormonism and you start to have a faith crisis. And then how do you work through that and reconcile it? And today I think we have an excellent story planned for you. Today we're interviewing Katie Harmon. Katie was raised Catholic in Laramie, Wyoming. She fell in love with the Mormon boy around age 15. She became what I would call socially and emotionally converted to the LDS Church without having been taught the full truth about the Mormon Church's theology, history, truth claims, and sort of social justice record. And so once she became committed to the church, she was all in. And, you know, she ended up following the Mormon plan, which was even though she was a 4o student, 33, on her ACT, full ride to University of Wyoming scholarship, wanted to become a doctor. She gets married just a few months after graduating from high school. Probably too young by her estimation. Now, probably didn't get to know her future husband like she would have otherwise wanted to, started having a lot of kids and started experiencing difficulties within Mormonism like everybody else, but specifically when she had a child with serious medical conditions, was taught about the power of the priesthood to heal, things didn't work out like she thought. And then as things started becoming even rougher, including bouts of scrupulosity and other sorts of things, Katie started to investigate the Mormon Church truth claims and realized that she was not taught a lot of very important basic and central things, you know, as an investigator. And so when I asked Katie what she wanted the central theme to be for the podcast, she said she wanted it to be about informed consent. In other words, does the Mormon Church do a good job of fully informing its members and most importantly, its investigators, both before they join so that they know exactly what they're joining before they join? And while Katie doesn't regret her decisions, overall, she definitely feels like she would have made very different decisions with very different timing if she had been given all the information as a Mormon Investigator. So that's kind of what today's episode is about. And without any further ado, Katie Harmon, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Katie Harmon [00:03:18] Thanks so much, John. Oh, it's such an honor to be here. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:03:22] Yeah, so let's, you know, we often almost always interview people born in the church with this pioneer heritage, but that's not you.

Katie Harmon [00:03:30] No.

John Dehlin [00:03:31] So tell us how you became a Mormon and what your life was before you became a Mormon.

Katie Harmon [00:03:36] Yeah. So, as you mentioned, I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. Still live here, home of the University of Wyoming. I have a twin sister and an older sister. Really such a great family growing up. My parents were, you know, read to us all the time, big focus on education. We had the opportunity to travel a lot. Just really feel like I, you know, I had a really wonderful childhood growing up. Like I said, we were raised Catholic, but we were like, a lot of Catholics went to church and were kind of active, but my parents didn't necessarily follow. You know, every tenant of the church I went to, like, ccd, though, which I can't. I can never remember what the letters stand for. We'd call it Catechism, but maybe similar to, like, primary in the LDS Church, but, you know, relatively kind of had that faith base there of Catholicism. But. But yeah, I think overall I. I had a wonderful childhood. Really grateful for my incredible family. I hadn't heard. I was always aware of Mormonism kind of peripherally, of course, growing up in Laramie. I'm sure some of your listeners are familiar with, like, the black 14 protest from the University of Wyoming football players.

Growing Up in Wyoming and Family Context

John Dehlin [00:04:57] Tell our listeners just the. The basic background of that.

Katie Harmon [00:05:00] Yeah, so I think it was in 1969. BYU is gearing. Wyoming and BYU were gearing up to play football that season. Obviously, this is kind of following the civil rights movement. There was, like, I think the Black Student association at the university was planning on protesting the game because of the church's ban on black members holding the priesthood. And so there was four black. 14 or 14, four black members of the football team who wanted to participate in some form, kind of show solidarity with the Black Student Alliance. So they approached the coach, Coach Eaton, I think his name was. They, at this point, they. They've made pretty clear in interviews after the fact that they were happy to not protest if he had said no. But they approached him. They put these black armbands on their arms, letting him know that that's what they were thinking of doing, was maybe wearing a black armband during the game. But as soon as they walked into this meeting with him and he saw the black armbands and realized it was about the protest. He immediately dismissed all of them from the team. So not only were they kicked off the team, they also lost any academic scholarships that they had based on their football. So that, you know, it's a pretty huge thing in the University of Wyoming history, I think.

John Dehlin [00:06:18] So is that something you would have grown up hearing about and learning about?

Katie Harmon [00:06:22] It's so my dad was a student at the time. He was getting his master's there. So, yeah, so I, I think that's maybe why I was kind of peripherally aware of it. And it's something that, yeah, I think probably anyone that grows up in Laramie hears about at some point, which I thought was based on just knowing that. I thought, oh, yeah, that's. That sucks that, you know, the Mormon Church does that. Also, though I think my understanding of priesthood was very different growing up Catholic than once I, you know, joined the church. While it seemed, you know, not great that that was their policy, I definitely understood priesthood to be. Oh, that meant they couldn't be like a priest, like in the Catholic Church, the leader of the clergy. I didn't realize how fully, you know, not holding the priesthood in the Mormon Church affects your membership in the church and affects the sort of, you know, really vital ordinances you can partake of. So to me, it didn't, it didn't seem as bad as it really was because I didn't understand the full aspect of the, the priesthood and LDS church until quite a bit later. So.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Okay, and I, I want to follow the timeline, but just so that we can sort of have a point in the timeline. What year were you baptized into the Mormon Church?

Katie Harmon [00:07:32] So I wasn't baptized until, let's see, it was 18. Yeah. So I started going when I was 15, but my parents were pretty adamant that I was wait till I was 18.

John Dehlin [00:07:44] So what year? What? In what year were you 15 years old?

Katie Harmon [00:07:47] That would have been 2009. No, 2008. 2009.

John Dehlin [00:07:50] Okay, so 2008, 2009. You're a 15 year old girl before we jump into this. So. So one thing that's really interesting to me is why anyone in the Internet age would ever join Mormonism. That sounds insulting, but. But, you know, it's one thing pre 2004 where there were no blogs and no websites and no Google and no Yahoo and no podcasts and no south park and no Broadway musical, the Book of Mormon, you know, none of that stuff. But like, once we're in The Internet age. It always just seems like any intelligent person is just a Google away from reading about polyandry and peep stones and masonry and weird stuff and that would basically just prevent anyone from joining Mormonism. And that's absolutely not true.

Katie Harmon [00:08:38] Right.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] And so let me just ask you a little bit more about your upbringing. So you're raised Catholic but not super devout, right?

Katie Harmon [00:08:45] Yeah. So. Oh God.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] And that seems to be a lot of people's dream is like, like a lot of people who leave the church are like, well, I'm just going to raise my kids kind of secular. Like we'll have a Mormon background, but we'll raise them secular and they'll be immune from any, from any religious, any religious temptation, but specific. Certainly from. Immune from any joining any cult. Right, sure. And so I want to understand what was it that made someone who in some ways was living the dream, kind of the secular dream? What made you ripe for being susceptible to, to be pray for the, for the Mormon missionaries and for the Mormon church.

Katie Harmon [00:09:27] So like I said, super great childhood. There was definitely a. Some events in my family right around when I was 15 that I think made. Made me susceptible and really, really ready to kind of join the church. So my twin sister was diagnosed with an eating disorder and it was pretty serious. She was from the time.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] Twin. She's a twin.

Katie Harmon [00:09:50] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:50] An identical twin or fraternal. Okay, okay.

Katie Harmon [00:09:53] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:09:54] So that's serious eating disorders. For those who don't know, eating disorders are deadly. They're, they're the most incurable and the, in the. So that's a serious thing.

Katie Harmon [00:10:03] Yeah, thank you for, for mentioning that because. Right. I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand the severity and hers was particularly difficult for our whole family. She all throughout high school, I guess his junior high and high school was hospitalized frequently, was in, in and out of inpatient and outpatient facilities. So I think that was kind of this turning point from kind of a really idyllic family life to all of a sudden, you know, there's. We were all fighting all the time. Conflict between my parents, conflict between my parents and me, my sister and me just kind of all around, you know. And now having a child with serious health problems. I understand it myself how much, you know, I don't blame certainly any members of my family for this. It just, it's an immense amount of stress. It affects people emotionally, physically, financially, in every way you can imagine. You know, a big serious like illness like this. So that kind of right as this was going right as My sister was diagnosed, and really we were kind of in the thick of my family just trying to navigate this. I felt like there just wasn't a lot of harmony at home. Like I said, lots of. Lots of arguments and just tension and difficulty with relationships. I also kind of felt like I didn't. I wasn't sure of my place in the family. Like, I didn't. I. I guess I felt myself withdrawing a little bit. Like, my parents were so stressed about what was going on with her that I felt like I couldn't talk to them about, you know, anything I was going through, that I should just kind of pull away and, you know, I don't know. I guess I was. I wasn't sure where I fit into this whole. This whole scenario that our family was in right around the same time as when I met my high school boyfriend. And I think this is kind of the key part about how I was able to join the church, despite a lot of the information that was out there is I definitely was kind of socially and emotionally converted before being intellectually converted. So I. Because of what was going on at my own home, I was over at his house quite a bit. And immediately from the first time I was there, he has the most incredible family. So still, I still live in Laramie now. I still know them. They're the greatest people. But there is this kind of different. What I would refer to then as like, spirit in their home of just harmony and happiness. And not that there wasn't conflict, but when there was, people would apologize and say they were sorry and ask for forgiveness. And he was really emotionally close with his parents. There was just this really, really happy, harmonious feeling there that I think because of what was going on in my own home, was really drawn to. It was like, oh, hey, I am noticing something different about this, and I. I want to know more about it. This is kind of what I want in my life. So I think that was kind of the turning point of what got me interested.

John Dehlin [00:12:53] And that's super important. Well, a couple things. One is that, you know, the people that are often prey to missionaries are the most vulnerable. And that usually means the poor immigrants. You know, usually Mormon missionaries target the super poor, the immigrants, but also people whose lives are having a lot of volatility.

Katie Harmon [00:13:15] Right.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] And it sounds like your life is having a lot of volatility. The other thing is, it is so brilliant that the Mormon Church is focused so much on families because, you know, I didn't have a great family life, but I know a lot of people that had an amazing family life and that becomes one when you're contrasting what might, you might be feeling like as a teenager is a very dysfunctional family. When you're contrasting that with like, I mean, the south park episode on Mormonism, if anyone hasn't seen it, does a really good job. You know, there's Cartman and there's Kenny. There's all these little kids who have these really messed up families. And then they meet this Mormon kid who's smiley and blonde and, and all the family sings together and prays together and loves each other. Now obviously there's a dark side to some of these perfect Mormon families, but some of them are just great. And that's gotta be really disorienting or appealing, I should say, to a kid who's, who's coming from a family that's struggling.

Katie Harmon [00:14:13] Right, exactly. So that's all I really. And to their credit, I should mention too, I never, the entire time I was, you know, dating this boy and in their home did I feel like they were actively trying to convert me. They're the best type of Mormons in every way. And that they just, they welcomed me in and loved me. They never, you know, I never felt like there was pressure that, you know, if you really want to keep dating our son, this is what you need to do. I never felt that he put that pressure on me either. It was really intrinsically motivated for me. Like I, I really recognize that there's, there's something happy here that I want also I think is important. Like my parents kind of have maybe a little bit more of an atypical relationship where they're both very, very different from one another, Both very independent, which works fine for them. You know, they get along just fine, but they're not super like lovey dovey or, you know, I don't know, not as close as maybe your, your typical spouses would be, which, you know, we always would like joke growing up that they just like if they kissed or something, we would, you know, try and take a picture of it because it just wasn't something that we saw a lot. So that was something I really noticed too was his parents relationship, this really close marriage, you know, obviously very deeply in love, very emotionally connected. And that was something that kind of spoke to me too, is like, hey, if I ever get married, that's something that I want. Is that kind of really romantic, connected relationship. So yeah, I love it.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] I love it. That's super great. And, and it's, it's really great of you to Be able to talk about your family. And if any of your family ends up watching this, I want to give them my love and gratitude and just my understanding that number one, Mormon families aren't perfect. They're often deeply flawed and oftentimes the ones that seem most perfect are the ones with some of the deepest, darkest secrets. So yes, there's good Mormon families, but yes, there's good Catholic families and yes, there's good atheist families. But, but I just want to give a shout out to your family and say we love you, we're not dissing you. And, and it's natural for a teen to rebel. So.

Katie Harmon [00:16:17] Definitely.

John Dehlin [00:16:18] So even if you raise a kid secular, oftentimes they need to rebel because they need to get out of the home and individuate. And so it's almost unfair that sometimes, even when a kid's being raised with a lot of the right sensibilities, they're going to rebel against that into, in your case, religiosity. Definitely. That's not your parents fault and not your family's fault.

Katie Harmon [00:16:41] Absolutely. Thank you for giving them a shout out because I appreciate that. And I talked to them and asked permission, you know, if it was okay that I come on here and kind of talk about some of the factors in our family life that led up to my conversion. But you know, by no means do I, I blame them for anything that happened. I, what you said is key. I was definitely feeling a little rebellion too, right. That like I, you know, this is what I definitely felt like was right for me and needed to do, no matter what, what they might say. So yeah, I hold, like I said, they're, I have the best family. They're wonderful, supportive, incredible. Just what I was experiencing at the time, you know, I was, I was recognizing there was something in this other family that I wanted.

John Dehlin [00:17:21] So, so, so you fall, you kind of fall in love a little bit.

Katie Harmon [00:17:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:26] And so how does that tell us how a girl, a wyoming girl in 2009, 2010, kind of get sucked into Mormonism by first falling in love? How does that happen?

Katie Harmon [00:17:37] Yeah, so like I said, I think these family factors really drove it. But so my boyfriend actually they, his family lives on the same street as my family. So we kind of had known each other a little bit growing up, but then reconnected as teenagers, just had a lot in common, really got along well, similar in a lot of ways. So I think it just, you know, already having that initial connection, it also was like my first real boyfriend. So those, you know, those first feelings are Always super strong, I think, for anyone. But then kind of feeling like his family loved me so much too. They were always so wonderful, always saying, you know, oh, we can't believe he's dating such a smart, nice, beautiful girl. Just so welcoming, so kind, that I think that sped up this. Kind of my feelings for him too, is that I really felt like, wow, these. It's not just him that loves me, it's like these people that really love me too. So that was huge. So, yeah, I think that I, like I said kind of emotionally at first, maybe being really interested in what made this family different from, you know, what I was seeing or, you know, other families I knew. So I started to go to church just to, like, sacrament, Sacrament meeting every now and then. It wasn't like all the time, but the very first sacrament meeting I went to was a fast and testimony meeting, which is any Mormon knows is kind of risky to bring an investigator to. Right?

John Dehlin [00:18:59] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [00:18:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:00] Anything can happen. Right?

Katie Harmon [00:19:01] Right. Hit or miss, like, you know, some crazy, you know, off topic, you know,

John Dehlin [00:19:06] kind of racist or sexist or homophobic rant.

Katie Harmon [00:19:09] Right.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] You know, or millennialistic, you know, or conservative Republican.

Katie Harmon [00:19:14] Right. And I've, of course, ended up seeing plenty of testimonies like that. But this meeting, I think, as fate would have it, was the opposite. It was so powerful. It was like the feeling that I had felt in his home amplified to like, oh, my gosh, this isn't just this family. This is this whole community that seems to really love one another, to really love their families, their spouses, their children, to really just get along well and, you know, even. And it was clear, like, from testimonies that it's not like these people don't experience trials or hard times. Right. But it seemed like there was this ability to, like, get through that with happiness and with love that really spoke to me as someone who, you know, felt like I was going through a difficult time. Something also that I think was really key, as I've looked back on kind of my conversion at that testimony meeting was the first time I had ever seen a man cry, like, ever in my life. And I don't, certainly not like, you know, blaming my dad or anyone that I knew for not crying. But there was something about seeing, seeing not just women, but men that were really in touch with their emotions and really able to even express those publicly. That just struck something in me that I, you know, I'd never seen that before. So.

John Dehlin [00:20:28] That's beautiful.

Katie Harmon [00:20:29] Yeah.

First Impressions of Mormonism Before Conversion

John Dehlin [00:20:29] Now tell me, tell me quickly again, what were your impressions of Mormonism before you started attending. You. So you knew about the Laramie, you know, black or African American football protest of the late 60s, early 70s. What were your other kind of like stereotypical impressions of Mormonism? Good and bad?

Katie Harmon [00:20:50] Yeah. So I knew that they focused on like families, kind of had this impression that they had a lot of kids because a couple of Mormon families, I didn't have a lot of Mormon friends, but a couple did have pretty large families. I remember hearing that they went to church for a super long time. Like the, the three hour block seemed really long compared to like just like a Catholic going to mass. And I, I don't know how I knew this or like what experience had led to this, but I definitely knew that they didn't like support gay marriage, which was a big, that was definitely my first, biggest shelf item, something that remained a shelf item, you know, my whole life and definitely a key factor in eventually like losing my faith. But I knew that there was some level of homophobia to some degree. But I think other than that I had never, I had maybe heard of polygamy, but didn't know. I didn't know if that was just a rumor. I didn't know if that was totally true, but I think that's it. Like, I didn't, I, I didn't know a lot.

John Dehlin [00:21:53] So you, you had heard about polygamy or not?

Katie Harmon [00:21:56] I think that I had heard about polygamy, but I didn't know if it was true or not. I didn't know if that was just a rumor or if Mormons really did practice polygamy or had practiced polygamy. When I was first going, I think that was something I asked my boyfriend about pretty early on and he explained, you know, in a really a way that I was able to justify, I guess that, oh yeah, we did practice it a long time ago, but haven't practiced it for a really long time. Like it's not, you know, it's not a thing anymore. And I think at 15 years old and kind of already feeling the emotional conversion that I was, that I was able to kind of be okay with that for the time being.

John Dehlin [00:22:34] And, and I'm, I'm curious. Had you heard of Joseph Smith? Had you heard of the Golden Bible? Had you heard of the Book of Mormon? Any other kind of crazy Joseph Smith stuff?

Katie Harmon [00:22:47] I had heard of Joseph Smith. I knew that he was like the founder of the church. I don't think I heard of the gold plates. I had heard of the Book of Mormon. I remember being really surprised when My boyfriend told me that they. He, like pulled by his quad out and there was the Bible or like, I recognized. I was like, wait, you guys, I didn't realize that Mormons, like, drew from the Bible. I thought it was just the Book of Mormon. So I definitely. I had. I did know about the Book of Mormon too, but I don't think I'd ever heard of the gold plates. Recognized Joseph Smith's name, but didn't really know anything about him. So.

John Dehlin [00:23:15] Yeah, okay, so part of, part of the introduction that's so powerful is that, you know, as we mentioned, you were a 4o student, you got a 33 in your act, you wanted to become a doctor. Would you have self identified as a feminist at age 15 or not yet?

Katie Harmon [00:23:33] I would say to. To some degree, my mom. So like I said, my parents are pretty different. My mom's very liberal, my dad's very conservative, and I think I took after my mom in a lot of ways. And yeah, I definitely would have considered myself a feminist. I remember once I. I was very active in the church, but not yet baptized at first having feelings like, oh, I see all these other girls talking about motherhood and, you know, but I. Early on I felt like, no, that's not some. You know, or that maybe I would be a mom someday. But I knew that school was a priority and that maybe I would be a mom, but it would be way down the road. Early on my plans, I definitely would lean more. Say I was sort of a feminist and felt like, you know, education was important to me. That was definitely something I was going to pursue regardless of the church teachings. It wasn't until I was more intellectually converted that I would say that I started to look at the doctrine and feel like, well, if this is the word of God, what does that really mean for the decisions I have to make? So.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] Got it. Okay, so. So tell us about. Did it start with missionaries or did it start just by going to church or by going to youth activities? And I want to talk about at whatever point as you start learning the church's basic, let's just say, whitewashed narrative about Joseph Smith and the Sacred Grove and the angels in the Book of Mormon and the Plates of Moroni. I want to get to the point of, did you ever Google, did you ever look up the CES letter? Did you ever. How did you process this. This fantastic or incredulous historical narrative? But I don't want to go out of order, so.

Katie's Conversion Story

Katie Harmon [00:25:07] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] So tell your story in whatever order you want. Just make sure we we dig in when we get to that point.

Katie Harmon [00:25:14] Will do. Yeah. So like I said, it started. I remember this, that first Sunday attending, and it was a fast and testimony meeting being a key, like an important time. And after that, like I said, kind of attended here and there. But the more I went, the more I was, you know, feeling these great feelings, really wanted to get involved more. So I started attending the full block, started going, you know, Sunday school and young women, started going to mutual activities. And at some point, I should mention, too, the more I got involved, like, the more I loved it. I was meeting all these friends that. So again, not only is it just my boyfriend and his family now, it's this whole community of people that, you know, love me and ask about me. No one knows about my sister. No one talks about what's going on. You know, it kind of felt like this oasis away from what was going on at home. So the more I'm going, the more I'm interested. And at some point, it's like, let's see, it would have been the summer before I turned 16. I decided to read the Book of Mormon. And that was like. That was, as it is for a lot of people, a key moment in my conversion. Read it in, like, I don't know, two months. Probably said a prayer, you know, took Moroni's Promise set a prayer. Had an incredible, you know, spiritual witness. This incredible feeling that, you know, that this was the word of God or this. You know, what I read, it seemed impossible that it could have been written by a man. Everything that was in it seemed so great. So that was key for me. And after that, I was, you know, like I said, I'd been kind of. I had been going to church, but it. Things kind of shifted into high gear. I would go to girls camp. I went to, you know, every, like, Fireside, anything that was going on. I even went on a couple of temple trips even though I wasn't baptized and couldn't go inside. I went and would just, like, walk around the grounds while everyone else was inside. Asked the bishop if I could pay tithing to his credit. He said, no, you know, you're not a baptized member. You can't. I read the Book of Mormon probably five or six more times. I read DNC three times, read the New Testament. I just. I wanted to learn more and get my hands on anything I could. I read. So I'd watch conference. I went to conference a couple times over the course of these. These three years before I was baptized. Read Jesus the Christ, read trying to think the day of Defense. There's a couple, several different like books, Mormon doctrine, several books like outside of the, you know, canonized scriptures. I just felt this hungry, this feeling that I just wanted to learn all that I could. So that's kind of when I started to be intellectually converted as I read the scriptures and I read, you know, like dnc. I loved church history, what I was learning about it. And it seemed, the way it was written seemed to make sense to me and the way that, you know, as I would ask questions to my boyfriend or his family, their answers always seemed to satisfy what I wanted to know. And I'm embarrassed to say and kicking myself that I never, I don't think I ever googled anything though. I remember googling garments because my dad told me he was like, oh well they told you about like their secret Mormon underwear. And I was like, no, I'm sure that's an anti Mormon lie. Like no way. I did google garments and saw oh, that's real. And I asked my boyfriend about it. I don't, I don't remember reading anything about like masonry, you know, or anything like that. But I asked him about it and he was like, yeah, and kind of explained garments as know he was only like 17, so as best he know, he knew having not been endowed. But that, that kind of is I guess how this went. That. Yeah, I just started reading everything I could. One thing, one key moment. I remember. So before I had like read the Pearl of Great Price and like Joseph Smith history myself, I had watched a couple church videos, you know, like the Restoration. And I can't remember what some of the other ones were. And I think that with. I never actually met with the missionaries. I was just, you know, kind of doing this with my boyfriend's family. And I think that we had gone through Preach My Gospel though together. Even though we didn't do it, the missionaries with his family. So, you know, the first lesson, right, is on the restoration. So I remember hearing about, you know, the first vision goes in, you know, preach My Gospel goes through that. What goes what Joseph said he saw. I remember though then reading Joseph Smith history and they don't include and Preach My Gospel. The moment before Joseph says, you know, God the Father and his Son appear, the moment where like Satan came and tried to attack him. That was not in preach. That's not, that's still not in Preach My Gospel, but it is in Joseph Smith history. And that made me mad. I was really taken aback. I felt, um, this, this is important because this is how I end up feeling later. I felt very kind of betrayed and like, you know, wait, why? Why is this not what I was taught originally? Like, all we talk about is, you know, he reads in James about going and asking God. He goes to the grove, kneels down and prays, and he sees God the Father and his son. Now I'm reading the actual history, and they left out this kind of scary, interesting part where this power of darkness kind of descends on him and he feels almost overcome. I don't know how important that is to this, you know, the story, but to me, I remember feeling really like I don't like that what's in this missionary book preach my gospel is different from what actually happened. So I remember asking my boyfriend about it and his family, and they were like, oh, well, you know, that can just be. Seem really scary to converts at first. So it's like, not something that they put in there, you know, right away, but it's something you learn about later. And I was like, first I was okay with that answer, I guess. I remember thinking, and this is so ironic and sad, I remember thinking, well, at least I know the whole picture now about the first vision. At least I know the full thing. Which, of course, I didn't. But, no, I. I don't know why, to be honest. I never Googled. I think that I felt like I. The church seemed to provide so much information, like I said, not only the canonized scriptures. I was going to seminary, too, and I had incredible seminary teachers who are so knowledgeable. There's all these, you know, like, handbooks for each of the, you know, study materials. And there's all these extra books, like Jesus the Christ and all these other things that are written that I felt like. And I remember people would. All my boyfriend's family and other members of the world would always say, you know, if you wanted to learn about Catholicism, you would go talk to a Catholic about it, right? You wouldn't, you know, go on the Internet or look at other outside sources. Like you would go to the source. And that, for whatever reason, resonated with me. And I felt like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, I feel like I have everything here that I need to know. Never once did it occur to me, you know, reading about the first vision, that, oh, I should really Google this and look into it. And maybe there was more than one account. Maybe it was written down like that. I don't know if it was, you know, me being 15 and not thinking that through all the way or if it was because I was also so emotionally converted. But it never even crossed my mind that I should look outside of all the information that the church provided itself to kind of.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] And that's confirmed kind of insidious thing. I don't mean to judge people's motives, but. But it's such bad logic to say, you know, if you want to understand a used car, talk to the person who's selling you the used car. You know, I bought a used car and it had been wrecked and then fraudulently put back together and the person told me it had never been wrecked, that the car had a clean title. Like, sometimes the person selling you something is absolutely the least credible person to ask about the thing they're selling you because either they're uninformed or they're, or they're, they're motivated to have you join. And so they're not telling you the full picture. And so the best thing you can ever do in any situation, if you're buying anything, is to ask former owners, former members, scientists, historians, skeptics, so that you can get the full point of view. But obviously that's not what you were.

Katie Harmon [00:33:15] Totally. I couldn't agree more. And I wish, I wish so much, of course, that I had, I had, I had looked into that more. But I think part of the reason too, was at the time, I really never felt like anyone was trying to convert me. Like I said, I think, and I give all the credit in the world to this family that they were really good about not ever making me feel like, you know, we're really trying to get you to join us. I, it felt like it was coming from me. So I think I never, I never picked up on this sort of like that, that phrase itself. Oh, you know, you shouldn't, like, you should ask Mormons if you want to know. That never felt insidious to me. Right. It, it seemed to make sense. But I, I couldn't agree with you more that, you know, that I should have looked. I should have looked outside it and everyone should, with whatever decisions they're making.

John Dehlin [00:33:59] What I've learned. I read the. You know, I can't recommend highly enough the concepts in the book the Righteous Mind by Jonath, what Jonathan Haidt makes the case for. And I think it's a brilliant point. He says intelligence doesn't, doesn't necessarily lead you to the most accurate conclusions. What he says is, is that we make our decisions emotionally. He calls that the elephant. And then logic and reason come after to justify the position that we arrive at emotionally.

Katie Harmon [00:34:33] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] And in your Case you were emotionally attracted to the church because the boy, his family, the youth program, the story. And so emotionally you wanted it to be true. And so your logic then would not have been harnessed to actually decide if it were true. It would have actually been working overtime to help you justify the decision that emotionally you wanted to make.

Katie Harmon [00:34:59] Absolutely. It was definitely that confirmation bias. If I already. This seems to make sense. This seems like it has this incredibly positive effect in people's lives. It probably is true. And then, and like I said I would, I would have considered myself a pretty intelligent 15 year old. But even that wasn't enough for me to, to be able to logically think outside of that. It was very much, well, look at all this material that they have. I'm studying as much of it as I can and it all continues to affirm that this faith, this new thing that I'm feeling. So it must be true.

Things Katie Wasn't Told Before Baptism

John Dehlin [00:35:31] So let me just. I'm going to go through the laundry list of like 20 things.

Katie Harmon [00:35:35] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:35:35] And you just tell me whether you were taught it or not. Is that okay?

Katie Harmon [00:35:38] Huh?

John Dehlin [00:35:38] Were you taught that Joseph Smith had multiple different accounts, multiple varying accounts of his first vision?

Katie Harmon [00:35:43] No.

John Dehlin [00:35:44] That his story changed over time? Now, were you taught that. That the Book of Mormon had all sorts of anachronisms and problems in it that didn't meet scientific scrutiny, including the fact that Native American DNA didn't match, you know, didn't match a Hebrew narrative, Instead Native American history matches a, a bearing straight kind of Asiatic narrative? Were you taught that?

Katie Harmon [00:36:11] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] Were you taught that the Book of Abraham had been translated by Egyptologists? This, the papyra that Joseph Smith used to translate, translate the Book of Abraham had been translated by modern Egyptologists and was found to have nothing to do with Abraham at all? Were you told that?

Katie Harmon [00:36:29] No. And in fact there was some other. I don't know if this is even a myth, some other story. I was always told that there was some Egyptologist outside the church that translated the Book of Abraham and when he saw that Joseph's translation was correct, you know, ripped up his translation and refused to kind of corroborate some. I was about the opposite, you know, that no modern Egyptologists do actually, or at least there's one out there that agrees that this is true. Like I said, I don't know if that's a Mormon myth or if what. But definitely not. Did I, you know what the gospel topic essays now say about the Book of Abraham? No, I don't.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] Were you taught that Joseph Smith was caught in an adulterous affair with Fanny Alger?

Katie Harmon [00:37:08] No.

John Dehlin [00:37:09] You know, in 1833, read 1835.

Katie Harmon [00:37:13] No.

John Dehlin [00:37:13] Were you taught that Joseph Smith had over 30 wives?

Katie Harmon [00:37:17] No.

John Dehlin [00:37:18] Were you taught that so you couldn't have been taught that he married 20, he was sealed to 22 or 23 of them before he was ever married to Emma and that he lied to Emma and everyone in the church about his polygamy. You weren't taught that then?

Katie Harmon [00:37:31] No. That was devastating, of course, to learn. I knew that Joseph had. I've met a lot of Mormons now who, you know, maybe ex Mormons or post Mormons who've said they didn't even know Joseph was a polygamist. I, I do remember in, when I did DNC in seminary learning that he was a polygamist, but no details were gone into at all. And I don't for the life of me, I don't know why I didn't ask more about it. I was comfortable just knowing he practiced polygamy and not asking questions. Definitely none, none of the, the details of polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:37:59] So as far as you knew Joseph Smith was a monogamist?

Katie Harmon [00:38:02] No. Well, so I did know. I remember them mentioning he was, he did practice polygamy. I never asked any more questions or we never went into in seminary. The details of the polygamy, how many wives, the ages of the wives, polyandry, Nothing like that. I just remember it being said, you know, this is very difficult revelation that came and very unwillingly, you know, Joseph went to Emma and they, they accepted this revelation and he took multiple wives. But I never remember any. There was no discussion of the number, the age, anything like that.

John Dehlin [00:38:32] Were you taught that Joseph Smith, when he translated the Book of Mormon put a stone in a hat and that the plates weren't even anywhere in the building and that those plates and that urimum thummim that he received never actually got used and that instead, you know, he used a stone in a hat.

Katie Harmon [00:38:50] Definitely not every picture of gospel art that anyone has ever seen of Joseph translating by candlelight. That was what I, that was what I taught, was taught and believed.

John Dehlin [00:38:58] Were you taught that Joseph had been a treasure digger, you know, the seven, ten years prior to, to coming out with the Book of Mormon, that he had fraudulently taken people around to try and find buried treasure with the same seer stone and that, and that he never found any treasure and that he admitted to his future father in law that he had been fraud defrauding people the whole time. Were you ever Taught.

Katie Harmon [00:39:20] Never. Never.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] Were you taught that when he was killed, he was killed for, for being thrown in jail for destroying the printing press that revealed publicly his polygamy that he had been denying the whole time we talked about that.

Katie Harmon [00:39:33] No, definitely viewed his death as a martyrdom that people were after him for spreading God's word. Yeah. No.

John Dehlin [00:39:39] Okay. Were you, were you taught about the church's history with, with, with blacks, with African Americans, that the priesthood had been denied until 1978 and were you taught the super racist teachings that Brigham Young and others had taught and the blacks and had been taught for over a century that they were less valiant in the pre existence and that's why they were given the curse of dark skin? Were you taught that?

Katie Harmon [00:40:05] So this was probably maybe one topic. I, I feel like I did know, like I said, obviously I was aware of the priesthood band ban. It wasn't until later though that I was definitely intellectually and emotionally converted that I, when I really started to understand, okay, the endowment ceilings, oh, if you don't have the priesthood, you can't partake in those. So I think I did, you know, I was aware of the ban. I Not though aware of the incredibly racist things that Brigham Young said and that what was taught. I feel like obviously I'd read the Book of Mormon enough times that I knew about the curse on the skin. I don't remember necessarily though being taught about, you know, skin color having been determined based on like how valiant people were in the pre existence. I was never taught that.

John Dehlin [00:40:50] And were you taught that the Mormon Temple ceremony was basically just like ripped out of the Masonic Lodge temple ceremony?

Katie Harmon [00:40:58] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:40:59] No.

Katie Harmon [00:41:00] No. Yeah. So. And I, you know, it might be someone might try and say, oh well it's normal for a convert to not know those things. Right. And maybe put that on me as being a convert that didn't investigate or learn enough. I would say it's not the case at all though. I, by the time I was like, you know, within probably a year of starting going to church, I felt like I know, knew as much or more than my Mormon peers about Mormon history, about the scriptures. I had read, like I said, not just the canonized scriptures, but so much outside of that that it is incredible to me that never in any of that did I come across any of these things. So it wasn't. I, you know, I, I really struggle with that and there's now that, you know, my faith is in a different place. I've struggled with some gaslighting about, oh well, you know, as a convert or, you know, I don't think that was the case. I don't think I was a typical convert. I think that I, I studied so much and knew so much, and, you know, when I'm, when I eventually met my husband, he, he was really surprised that I was a convert based on how much I knew. And he said it seemed like, you know, I'd been a member my whole life. So I think that that's not, not a fair assumption to make for any convert, but especially the situation I was in, I, I definitely, I can't believe I didn't come across these things in all the study that I had, had done.

John Dehlin [00:42:17] And what's, what's really difficult and probably impossible to know for sure. And, and I don't want to give away the ending of the story, but what, what's hard to know is if you had been taught all those things, would you have been so in love with this family, with this church, with this boy, with this community, with the ideas that none of it would have mattered? But I guess because you picked as the theme Informed Consent, you feel like maybe you would have taken a second look or a step back if you had been taught all the truth.

Katie Harmon [00:42:58] I definitely think that I would have. And especially because, like I said, I, Even though I was very much in love with my boyfriend, I never felt like, you know, this was something that I had to do in order to stay with him. I like to think that had I known the full picture, I would have lost interest. But even if I hadn't, even if I had learned all of this and still wanted to be a member of the church, at least I would have known. And I think that's so key and so important is that, you know, that's a good point. You know, at least, at least I would have known. And I could have looked at these decisions I made and known. This is, you know, this is the foundation I'm building on, you know, for better or worse, warts and all. Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think we've. Did you, did, you know, I guess you, you've already said this, but I'm just going to ask it to you in this line of questioning. Did you know that the church had this awful history of denouncing same sex sexuality as a perversion, as evil is filthy, that they had engaged in electroshock therapy with, with gay people in the 70s and that they viewed same sex sexuality is a disgusting, perverted, evil thing, and that they were basically hostile to, to LGBT people?

Katie Harmon [00:44:10] No, not, not really. So I did know even before I started dating this guy that, you know, Mormons like didn't jive with same sex marriage. And like I said, that was. I always felt like I was an ally to some degree, as much as a 15 year old could be at that time, I guess. And that was a big thing for me as even when I was emotionally converted and then intellectually converted, this was kind of a sticking point that I really struggled with that my boyfriend and I would talk about a lot and I talk with his family about, you know, and a lot I guess the answers that they gave me kind of worked, you know, that we don't hate gay people. We love them, we accept them, they can have full membership in the church. It's just this marriage piece, it still didn't sit well with me. But I think I felt like everything else was true, that maybe this is just something I need to wait, that I'll gain an understanding of. Time goes on. One thing that was key in that too, I had the most incredible seminary teacher my junior year. That's the year that we did Doctrine and Covenants. Really great, wonderful, loving, charismatic guy who, one of his sons is gay. And so this is something I was really struggling with. Like I said, felt that the definitely the church was true how to testimony. But I always kind of struggled with this one doctrine of not, not being able to reconcile it in my mind. Um, so then he's my seminary teacher and I was like, oh, this is great. I can hopefully pick his brain about this. And he was able to very much have this incredible testimony of the church and still very much support and love his son. He and his wife are incredibly close with his son. Their family's very close. Um, they, you know, were affirming of, of his, his life and you know, talked about like if he got married, of course they would go to the wedding, of course they would be there. He was involved in all these family activities, even came to church. He was out of the house at this point, but even to church with them. So seeing that and seeing I didn't understand how he was able to hold these two things in his mind. And I was never exactly totally able to do that. But I definitely, I think that's where I was able to get over this hump a little bit of like, well, if it's his son and he is able to live this way, be, be affirming and yet still an active member, I think I can figure out a way to do that too. But I don't think I don't think it's something that ever was fully resolved. Like I said, it was from the beginning a shelf item and continued to be. And I, I wish so much that I had listened to that and, you know, looked into that more and, you know, not kind of pushed it down and said, I'll, you know, I'll figure this out later or I'll figure this out in the next life. Even that I had, I had focused on that as a turning point and, and not let it kind of be silenced. But, you know, regrettably, I did.

John Dehlin [00:46:47] So we have a couple really, really good comments from some of our listeners. We want to thank all our listeners who are joining us on our livestream. Our dear friend, Heidi Nielsen Packard. She's been on Mormon Stories with her husband. She's amazing. She writes, I can really identify with Katie's experience of hearing about Joseph's polygamy in seminary. I've constantly wondered how I would have reacted if I had known about this historical fact when I was younger. It's crazy how something buried in the historical record can have so much impact on an individual's life choices. Heidi, that's a great comment. Love you. And Josh, thanks for sharing that. And Tiffany says something similar. Tiffany writes, even after not believing. Sorry, sorry, I was gonna say Sarah writes, born in the church, four years of seminary and never learned about these things until I Googled Joseph Smith, which my young women's leader said not to do. So it's not just converts who don't know the issues. And that's something that I really wanted to focus on today, is that this issue is of informed consent does not just apply to converts, it applies to people born in the covenant. Because primary Young men's Young Women's seminary does not prepare you and does not give you the information you need. And even though the church is trying to now inoculate people now that Mormon Stories podcast and CES Letter have sort of handed the church their lunch or rear end, so to speak, they're trying to use inoculation to, to lightly educate their, their youth about these issues, that everyone who's read the essays and everybody who understands the church's who's read the book Saints, and everybody who kind of objectively looks at the way the church indoctrinates its youth and its young adults and its adults knows that they're not being honest, that they're gaslighting, they're withholding information. And so I think, I don't think it pretty much improves the situation to share a little bit of the history, but do it in a very gaslighting, manipulative way. And so I just wanted to thank really quickly Heidi and Sarah for, for making this point that this issue of informed consent applies to people born in the covenant as well. And just to also make this point, 8 year olds born in the church. Born in the church.

Informed Consent and Baptism at a Young Age

Katie Harmon [00:49:09] Right.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] They're asked to make a lifelong commitment or people that go to the temple when they're 18 and, and make those covenants of like consecration to consecrate your life to the church. All those people, even when born in the church, even when getting drips of inoculation, do, do not have the opportunity to engage in full consent because they're not given the full, straight, objective scoop about the Mormon church, its history, its doctrine and theology. Did you want to say something?

Katie Harmon [00:49:39] Absolutely. No, I just wanted to add so, you know, I'll get to my husband eventually. I don't want to get too out of order.

John Dehlin [00:49:45] Yeah, let's take it out of the timeline.

Katie Harmon [00:49:46] Yeah. Just that he, you know, ended up experiencing the same. Hadn't heard of all those things you mentioned and he was born and raised in the church. Something else just in what you mentioned that the church is now kind of trying to incorporate this stuff in, in a gaslighting way. Just like a couple nights ago, kind of in preparation, I, I was looking at my husband's copy of Preach My Gospel from his mission. Just, I just wanted to, to verify like I went back to look at the first lesson on the restoration to make sure, you know, I'm not remembering this wrong. Right. Like, I really. There's no mention of, you know, multiple accounts or anything like that. There isn't in his copy. Then I actually got on like the gospel library to look at the, the version that now is published and it now says trying to remember the wording. So Joseph went to pray. There are multiple accounts of what he experienced written by his own hand and by those of his, you know, his contemporaries. And here is one, one version of the experience or something. It says that now. And I was, I was furious when I read that because I felt like I'm happy, I guess, that future converts get a chance to see that before, you know, before they make commitments. But it's infuriating to know that how many people, like you said, both converts and people born in the covenant didn't get that chance? A simple line like that added in, didn't get to hear that. And that's just a drop in the bucket. That's just in regards to the first vision, not to any of the other things you mentioned. And I didn't look through the rest to preach my gospel. Who knows what's been added in now? I don't know. But that was a key thing that I was frustrating. Right.

John Dehlin [00:51:25] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [00:51:26] To see.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] So another comment from a listener, Tiffany writes, I 100 did not understand what I was agreeing to or doing when I chose to be baptized at 8. And this may seem really radical, but I, I think it's fair to question the ethics of baptizing 8 year olds even though I know the Catholic Church baptizes babies. But, but the, there's so much potential harm in, in a high demand religion like Mormonism, so much expectation and so much harm that I, that I believe it's possibly unethical to baptize kids at age of 8 before they're old enough to make an informed choice. I mean, consent, if we're going to be talking about consent, there's no such thing as sexual consent with an 8 year old.

Katie Harmon [00:52:09] Absolutely right. That's for adults. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:11] And there's no such thing as. I don't think there should be anything like religious consent for an eight year old because you're committing to so many things and there's so much potential risk for harm if you're gay, if you're a feminist, if you're an intellectual, if you love science, if you lose your faith, there's so much risk that I think it could be argued that only 18 year olds should be able to consider.

Katie Harmon [00:52:31] I agree.

John Dehlin [00:52:32] Whether or not born in the church.

Katie Harmon [00:52:33] I totally agree. And I think that when I was first being introduced to the church, having been Catholic, I actually loved that idea of, oh, we don't baptize babies because how could they, how could they know? How could they have sinned? Uh, we don't baptize kids till they're eight. I thought, oh, that's great. That seems to make so much sense. Well, now I have, my son is 7 and I view this entirely differently. He is not anywhere near, he's the smartest kid. He's not anywhere near close enough to make a decision like that. The weight that baptism holds. So I, I agree. I think that it, it should be reserved for adults.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] Yeah. Okay. So, so it's hard to know. I guess what you're saying is it's hard to know whether you would have still joined the church with all that information. You think maybe it would have given you pause. But you, you, you made a great point, which is whether or not you would have still Joined. You deserve to know and you didn't know, right? Yep, that's a great point.

Katie Harmon [00:53:24] That's definitely my feeling. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Okay, so let's. Oh, go ahead. Anything else you want to say? And then let's jump into your story. But no, I think finish.

Katie Harmon [00:53:32] Yeah, no, I think that's. I, I think. Yeah. Kind of where we left off. So. So converted now not just emotionally but also intellectually. Loved the scriptures, loved seminary. Felt, you know, memorized all the scripture masteries. Was just, was just so, so into the church at this time. So my boyfriend ends up serving a mission. He's. He was a little older than me, so he was gone and it was. So I guess, let's see a back up a little. He baptized me the day after I turned 18. So this long awaited day, you know, finally came and I was so excited to be baptized. Got my patriarchal blessing not too long after that, which I was. Which normally I don't know if converts would get them that quickly, but since I had really. Everyone kind of considered that I had been a member of the church for like three years, not that it was new, even though in. In name it had just been more recent. Received my patriarchal blessing, which, which I loved and which, you know, meant a lot to me and really kind of that, that helped to I think dictate certain decisions that I made in my life. One thing I want to touch on that.

Patriarchal Blessings and Temple Preparation

John Dehlin [00:54:45] I. Yeah, no, let's talk, let's talk about that. Patriarchal blessings. I remember them so fondly because it was such a special time where like the Lord's communicating with me and I'm being told my blood lineage, that I'm a, you know, I'm a. I'm, I'm of the lineage of Ephraim and I'm, I'm of the royal blood lineage of the twelve tribes of Israel. And I, I'm going to do great things and I'm going to get resurrected in the, you know, in the first morning of the first resurrection with Jesus and go to the celestial kingdom and I'm going to marry in the temple. Like all that stuff as an orthodox Mormon is very affirming and exciting, but there's another way to look at that, right?

Katie Harmon [00:55:27] Yeah. So my blessing was, is incredible. Mine is super long and detailed, like compared to my husband's. His is not. It's kind of more vague, not super still nice. But mine is like really long and really. No, yeah, his was in the town he grew up in. Mine was here in Laramie. So I'm sure. That, you know, contributed to it.

John Dehlin [00:55:47] For those who don't know, most patriarchs just have this template that they follow and they say almost the exact same thing every time. And this is why number one, blessings can be so different and number two, why they tell you not to share your patriarchal blessing with other people.

Katie Harmon [00:56:00] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:56:01] Because if you compare your patriarchal blessing with other people who got the same patriarch, it's going to be virtually identical.

Katie Harmon [00:56:08] Yeah. And I wish that I, I was able to share mine with someone that got theirs from the same patriarch. My, my boyfriend did at the time. But of course we weren't going to share each other's. We felt like that was taboo. So uh, yeah, I have no reference for what anyone else in Laramie's was like, but mine was really felt really beautiful. Went into a lot of detail of like who I was in the pre existence and think, you know, traits that I have that, that were strong traits there that I should try and embody here. Definitely talked about like temple marriage and motherhood, which at this point, the more I'm becoming converted, the more I know that that needs to, you know, this is what God has taught, this is what his prophets have taught. This needs to be part of my plan. So I'm already feeling that push the more I read like old conference talks and even new conference talks, like feeling that. But the what is said, my patriarchal blessing I think definitely contributed to that. Also something else that I realized I hadn't really mentioned yet was the scrupulosity. So as a kid I had always been kind of anxious and had OCD a little bit. It was a lot of like checking is kind of probably how it mostly like manifested. I was always super concerned with things being plugged in, that they would like start a fire somehow. So I would like that's kind of how it was as a kid. When I joined the church though, it, the church seemed to be kind of selling me the cure to a lot of this. Like it was amazing to me, the ability to be able to pray, to be able to, you know, go and, and talk to God and have this strong connection. That was really comforting to me. And actually I think in some ways did help me with some of my anxieties and these compulsive behaviors, being able to feel like I had someone to talk to about it. Cause I didn't really ever feel comfortable talking to my family about it because of all that was going on with my sister. I think I was like, I don't need to worry them with you Know, these things I feel like I'm dealing with. So that was, I felt like the church was very much, you know, giving me something that was helpful to me and all of these anxieties I had. And it wasn't until later that I realized my anxiety didn't go away or the OCD didn't go away. When I joined the church, it just shifted and was focused then on church things. So pretty early on I started to have a real obsession with being honest, like, perfectly honest in what I said and did. Like, also an obsession with like, writing past wrongs. Like I would like text friends from childhood apologizing for like, something that I had done. So I was definitely feeling these really. Like I said, I at first felt like the church was curing this to some degree. I didn't realize that it had just kind of shifted into a different form that was actually more dangerous because all of a sudden it was tied to my eternal, you know, salvation, whether or not I'm living a life that's sin free. So in regards to my patriarchal blessing, though, it talked a lot about that I am someone that can mourn with those that mourn and, you know, comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Um, and that that's something I need to do in this life. So I also kind of, that fueled this kind of obsession with, like, feeling like I, if I had a thought, a prompting, which oftentimes probably wasn't a prompting, just a thought that popped into my head of, oh, I should say something or do something nice to this person. There was this compulsion that I have to follow it, I have to do it no matter how annoying it might seem, no matter how, you know, not appropriate at the time or whatever. I. So I think that, that my patriarchal blessing was amazing in some ways. Later realized it was harmful in some ways, and that it fueled. I took it as the word of God. I took it as when the patriarch laid his hands on my head and gave me this blessing. You know, his voice was God's voice and everything that was in there, it was vitally important that I try to live by that.

John Dehlin [00:59:55] So, yeah, there's something, there's something sweet about it if, if you end up living the life you want to live, right? But if, but, but if, like, you, you want to be a doctor, you, you, you're a feminist, you know, you, you have career ambitions, you have intellectual potential, and he's saying you're going to be a mommy and you're going to raise children in Zion, and that's Your most important calling. And you're going to get married soon, you know, whatever it is. And you need to be as righteous as possible. What, and that's supposedly God's voice. I mean, that's right. There's a second thing that's probably going to be controversial. I, I think it should be illegal for eight year olds to get baptized in any religion. And I think that it should be illegal for anyone to claim they're speaking for God because that's too much power for any human to have, including myself. Anyone. And a patriarch is basically the context of our patriarchal blessing is this is God telling you what God wants from you.

Katie Harmon [01:00:54] Right?

John Dehlin [01:00:54] And so if God tells Katie, get married quick and have lots of babies, there goes whatever aspirations you may have. You're now on the Mormon plan. And so that becomes very manipulative and coercive because you're claiming, because this patriarch is telling you what God wants for you when it may not be what's best for you. And then you add to that, if you're a scrupulous person, if you have high anxiety, if you have high conscientiousness, and we've talked about this in Mormon stories in the past, scrupulosity is religious obsessive compulsive disorder. If you tend to be a highly scrupulous person, then getting all these dictates through a blessing from God amps up the pressure and the intensity of perfectionism, which can be very toxic to somebody who struggles with anxiety disorders and specifically with, with scrupulosity or religious obsessive compulsive disorder.

Katie Harmon [01:01:49] Totally. I completely agree. The speaking for God part, right. Like I, that's how I took this. This wasn't a suggestion. Right? This wasn't just a list of, you know, ways my life could go or things I should, could, could try and do. I took this very seriously. And that's just, you know, because I was so converted and really believed. Yes, this is the word of God. Like I said, I think that the scrupulosity was part of that. Is that like, I can't deviate from this. But, but I agree, you know, in terms of speaking for God, that's, that's a theme that, you know, I think is central to this story, is that because I believed that these men were speaking for God, whether it be in the patriarchal blessing, in the scriptures, in conference talks, any words essentially of the general authorities, those were the key reasons I made incredibly huge decisions in my life was not necessarily because of what I had always wanted or felt in my gut that I wanted it was because I truly believed that this is the word of God. And, you know, if I. If I want myself and my family, my future family, and even my family here, who I, of course, am hoping will convert someday to, you know, to be in the celestial kingdom together, I gotta follow this. It's that important.

John Dehlin [01:03:01] So, yeah. Okay. So as you are. As you're really getting indoctrinated into Mormonism, and as you're really sort of falling for it, are your parents and siblings saying, hey, what are you doing? You're joining a cult. You know, watch out, be careful. We're concerned about you. Were you getting any warnings from those around you and. Or was it driving any wedges between you and your family, your loved ones?

Family Warnings and Marriage Pressure

Katie Harmon [01:03:30] Yeah. So as far as warnings, not really. I think the biggest thing was very early on, as soon as I was, like, interested, they were like, no, we don't want you to get baptized until you're 18. And I think they were. That's kind of mostly where it ended. I think they felt like, you know, if she wants to. I mean, really having your teenager become involved with Mormons doesn't seem like the worst thing. Right. She's all of a sudden not swearing, dressing really modestly, going to church activities instead of, like, you know, parties or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:03:58] Right?

Katie Harmon [01:03:58] Yeah, I don't want that. Right. I think that they. They were maybe a little concerned, like, of how close my boyfriend and I were. Just like, any parent might not want you to get, like, you know, too serious into a teenage relationship where you're, you know, your feelings might end up getting hurt. But I think they were more worried about that than they were about. About the church. I think they actually. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but, yeah, there was never. I think they were okay with me, you know, going to all these things. I never remember it really being brought up or any warnings. I do remember my dad once, of course, like I said, education was huge in our family. Once saying that something he didn't like about the church was, you know, that women, a lot of women don't finish their education and, you know, just be. I don't want to say just a mom because, of course, being a mom is a big job, but choose to pursue motherhood over education. And that was something he was a little worried about. I don't. I don't even remember what I said to him, but that's kind of probably the only warning I had. My. My older sister, you know, of course, being from the University of Wyoming. She. She actually, she went to a different school in the Mountain West. Everyone hates byu, though. That's from Laramie for the most part, just as a rival, like, sports team. She was like, you just better not go to byu. So I remember her saying that. But really, no warnings as far as a wedge, though, Definitely, I think so. The more I got involved with the church, the more, you know, I was at my boyfriend's house or at church activities, the more I did kind of feel like a little bit of a separation from my family, that the church was this thing that was definitely the thing that was most important to me at this time and that, you know, it did put some distance between us to some degree. So.

John Dehlin [01:05:41] And I. And I'm really conflicted about this personally because on the one hand, I. I made it to adulthood without any STIs, without any unwanted pregnancies, without. With a good education, with a, you know, with a great education and with. With the great set of moral values. There's so many good things that came from my Mormon upbringing. The. That's the upside. And I'm sure your parents were seeing that, and they're like, man, if they can. If they can raise my kid for me, I've. We're worrying about her sister. If, if the church can take care of my, you know, our daughter and have her be a moral, healthy, happy, human, more power to it. So that's. I'm torn because that's true. But the cost of that is your life. You're basically handing your life over to the church totally. And that's fine if it works out great, but if it ends up not being what it claims to be and, or taking you in a direction that you perceive as being harmful to you or not where you would have wanted to end up, that's when it gets definitely complicated. Right?

Katie Harmon [01:06:48] And I think that's where. So, like, as I'm in high school and really active in the church, like I said, I don't really remember a lot of pushback from my parents. It was when I met my husband and they knew he was a returned missionary, and they were like, oh, she's. She's probably going to get married to him. That's when I did start to receive pushback, and there was some kind of different disputes because they, you know, thought that I was too young, of course, to get married. And, you know, we're worried that we were going to have kids right away, which of course we did. So I think later on when it's like, oh, wait, this involvement in the church is definitely causing her to make some huge decisions. That's definitely. It came up again then, but in high school. Yeah. I think that, like you said, there's. There was a lot of kind of obvious benefits to. To being involved. So.

John Dehlin [01:07:35] All right, so. So where does your story go from here?

Katie Harmon [01:07:38] Yeah, so. So let's see. Yeah, I'm. Got baptized, got the patriarchal blessing. Shortly after that, my boyfriend left on a mission. And we kind of left it a little ambiguous as to whether or not we would be together. We still felt like we were in love and like, we wanted to wait. But he also had expressed that we'd really. We'd only dated each other, really, in high school, that, you know, he was feeling a little bit like, you know, maybe when I get back, like, maybe it's worth us seeing other people because we only have, you know, dated each other. I don't know that if, like, when I get back, I might want to kind of date around and date you also. And I kind of felt like, well, I don't know, that I want to not date anyone or get serious anyone for two years to wait for you, only to have you, you know, maybe date other people. So we kind of left it in a weird. Like, we'll just kind of see what happens when he left. So then, let's see. It was probably. It was. I was baptized in September. In February, I met my husband. So I was actually. I was still a senior in high school. But a lot of my friends, since I, you know, I had a lot of the same friend group that my older boyfriend had, were in college at this point. So I was at the institute a lot, of course, with the University of Wyoming. There's an Institute of Religion there on campus that had. There's three wards, the student wards that attend, you know, for church. But there's, of course, like, family home evening and all these other activities that I. Is when my boyfriend.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] You don't know. Explain what the Institute is. Like, even people who go to BYU don't necessarily know what the Institute is.

Katie Harmon [01:09:12] Yes. I guess I never thought about that.

John Dehlin [01:09:13] Yeah. So tell us what the Institute is and then why it can be super cool or not.

Katie Harmon [01:09:18] Yeah. So the Institute. So there's a building there that has a chapel in it. And where. Where it's on. It's right across the street from campus.

John Dehlin [01:09:26] From the University of Wyoming campus. Okay.

Katie Harmon [01:09:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] It's a building owned by the church right across the street.

Katie Harmon [01:09:32] Yep. So it has a chapel, has, you know, Relief Society, the Sunday School Rooms. So not only is it this meeting house for like the actual Sunday activity, you know, like actual the block and sacrament meeting and stuff, but like I said, there's all these other activities held there. But also the institute offers classes similar to, you know, I guess at byu. It's built into the curriculum. Curriculum, right. You have to take all these religious courses. So since it's separate from the university, obviously not required, but you can take these classes, you know, Book of Mormon, dnc, you know, family history. There's a million different, you know, class titles that there's. There's two institute teachers there who's so almost like a seminary teacher paid by the church. That's their job is to teach these classes. And yeah, so there's. There's like the church activities, but there's also these classes there which a lot of probably mostly comprised of college students, but there's also lots of people like in the stake that would be there taking these classes. You can earn credit. Like each class is a certain number of credits, and then you can graduate from Institute, you know, as you're like graduating, you know, finishing college, depending on how many classes you take, you can graduate from institute also. So it felt, it was, it was a great sense of community. This kind of incredible, like, ward family that I had had as a teenager felt like it transferred right over to the college level that I had all these young people now that felt like this community that I already known a lot of them from Laramie, but I'm also meeting all these other, you know, from. From around the country that have come to go to school at the University of Wyoming. And it was at like, they would hold these swing dance nights every week, like country swing dance. And that's where I met my husband.

John Dehlin [01:11:13] Okay. And so they have these fun activities like dances and.

Katie Harmon [01:11:17] Yeah, yes. Yeah. They would do like a big $1 lunch every week, which for all these. Plenty of the students are married. A lot of them are single. Lots of them are married students, though, with young families or even just, you know, husband and wife. Everyone would come, even like non members would come to this $1 lunch because it was this big, like buffet lunch thing that only cost a dollar. So. Yeah, just all sorts of different activities they would do. You know, instead of like mutual for, you know, teenagers, they would had their own family home evening every Monday where, you know, there would be a lesson and an activity and everything. So it felt, yeah, just like this really great transition from one loving, supportive church community to another.

John Dehlin [01:12:00] And what's really, what's really confusing about it is it's just good, clean fun at a time in college when kids are known to party, to be super sexually active, to. To drink and experiment in ways that aren't always healthy. It's. It's so good in the sense that it's good, clean fun and it's a healthy environment to socialize and to meet people when you can get really lonely and depressed at college. Like, there's so much good from this institute. The only problem is you're not taught the truth. And the church can harm you in some very serious ways if you're not in the right demographic or if you don't have the right experiences. So again, it's very confusing because on the one hand I'm like, I want to join institute.

Katie Harmon [01:12:49] Right.

John Dehlin [01:12:50] Sounds amazing. And on the other hand, you're not on this podcast because you're glad you were in the institute.

Katie Harmon [01:12:55] Right. Right. Yeah. So it. And I think like coming back to my family too, I remember there was a little hesitation of me go like being at the institute so much because my parents knew. So I'm still a senior in high school. I'm just kind of going there because all my. That's where most of my friends are. There's a little bit of worry of like, well, should you be hanging out with all these college kids? But I was like, I was able, I think to very easily convince them, hey, it's a bunch of college kids that don't drink, don't smoke, there's no parties. We're like, we're doing like country music dancing. Right. I was like, this is like, this is more benign than me probably hanging out with some high school friends that, you know, might be into, you know, stuff that was more rebellious. So I think I was able to kind of convince them in that way. Like you said, not only though is the church also not, you know, at the institute. And I took multiple, I never fully graduated from institute, but I took multiple institute classes that were even, you know, maybe more in depth than seminary because you're. It's kind of geared at like, you know, a college age audience. Still never learned about any of these things in Institute. So not only. Right. Are these the full truth of the history of the church not being taught. I think also maybe not until I like met my husband did my parents realize how much marriage like marriage. Yeah, I guess getting engaged in marriage is like, there's like this. It's a pressure cooker in the institute, at least at the University of Wyoming, one that there's this Constant, like. Like everyone's trying to find their eternal companion. That is like the top of everyone's list, kind of. And I don't know that I think my parents were right to be weary of me hanging out with college kids, but they maybe didn't. I don't know if they realized that. That that was something that was going on was like, like this intense pressure to find a partner. So.

John Dehlin [01:14:35] Yeah. Okay, so the pressure cooker's there and how does it. How does it progress?

Katie Harmon [01:14:40] Yeah, so I, like I said, still in high school, but I met one of these activities. I met my future husband. He is. He's five years older than me, so he was a returned missionary already. Super, like, the most righteous Peter. Peter Priesthood guy I had ever met. Like, and I think that's what I was so, so, so involved and so converted to the church that I really, you know, I knew that I would probably get married young. I don't think I was. I wasn't looking for that, though, since I was still in high school, of course, and I kind of still had this boyfriend on the back of my mind. But I met my husband and, you know, we. We immediately connected over, like, the gospel. He had such a deep love of the gospel, and so did I. And we, you know, we're just kind of not bearing our testimonies to each other, but, like, we talked just a lot about the church and about, like I said, he was so impressed that I was a convert because he was like, oh, you don't seem like a convert. Which, of course, you know, was a huge compliment and really got along quickly. But a lot of what drew me to him was so he. He's from Green River, Wyoming, came to the university for school. He is from this incredible Mormon family. He's their direct descendants of Heber C. Kimball through his wife, his first wife, Elate. So, you know, came across the plains like David, they so Hebrew invalid son David Patton Kimball. That's the son that their line is through. He was one of the saints that helped with, like, the crossing of the Sweetwater. That, like, iconic story where, you know, these young teenage boys came out and helped all these saints across. And some of them, like, you know, their health, supposedly suffered from it. I've heard varying accounts on, like, you know, how many people they really did bring across, but just this incredible. Of pioneer stock, really active family. He is one of eight boys. His dad, you know, had been a bishop. All his brothers served missions. Super active people. Even sometimes called them, like, in town, the Ensign brothers because they were just this really clean cut, handsome, this whole herd of boys together that all were always choosing the right. And he really. He kind of had. He was so held to the rod, I guess throughout his. His whole upbringing, he always had a testimony of the church, always did what he was supposed to. Never really varied from that path at all, even in a lot of, I think, the normative ways that teenagers that even are really active and have testimonies, you know, sometimes might struggle with certain things as teenagers. He even never had. He was one of those, really one of those people who never even had, like, masturbated or looked at pornography. Like, literally. He, you know, he just seemed like this perfect, really righteous, wholesome guy. So I think that was what attracted me. I. I knew from the time I was even first investigating that, like, I wanted that sort of the influence of the church in my family, that this is kind of the life that I wanted to build. So I think looking back, my husband and I have talked a lot about how we really didn't have a ton in common outside of the church. I think we're very lucky that it ended up, you know, that things have worked out, especially, like, post faith transition. But really, I think the church and the fact that we were both worthy, both super active was the thing that's, you know, I can't remember who said it, but if. If you're both worthy, some, you know, some profit or someone, something like, if you're. You're both worthy, then that's probably the right person. Really. Like, there's this idea that it doesn't have to be much deeper than that. Right. If you're both, like, active in the church and you both believe any marriage can work. So I think that was kind of. That was kind of the vibe as things started for us.

John Dehlin [01:18:25] Yeah. And just as someone who counsels people on the other end of this, as I counsel couples whose marriages are falling apart because one or both lose their faith, I think there's some truth to that. Because if. If your entire life is focused on doing whatever the church tells you, then compatibility is kind of less important.

Katie Harmon [01:18:45] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:18:45] Because the guy's always working, the woman's having a. A ton of kids, she's staying home and focusing on the kids. Any of their spare time is either parenting or. Or doing their church callings. And so there's never any time to actually develop a meaningful. Well, not for everyone, but I would say for a lot of people, there just isn't enough time to try and develop emotional intimacy. What? Emotional intimacy? What's that. And so.

Katie Harmon [01:19:10] Right.

John Dehlin [01:19:10] And so, yeah, you can really go 10, 20 years and never really develop a meaningful connection or just be really incompatible. But hyper religiosity just masks all that.

Katie Harmon [01:19:25] Definitely.

John Dehlin [01:19:26] And that's fine if it, if it, if it works out well. But if one of you loses your faith or if one of you hits a mid. One or both of you lose your faith, or if one or both of you hit a midlife crisis where all of a sudden you're like, I'm not happy. This isn't, this isn't meeting my needs. Well, then you're five, 10, 20 years into a marriage with all these kids, and now it's not just you, it's you, your partner. And women are way more vulnerable than men to this because at least the men get their careers right, they can have a livelihood. The woman can get stuck without an education, without a career, without a livelihood. Then she's facing divorce with all these kids and it becomes very serious. So this, this ping pong playing, going to fun dances, benign institute experience that just seems so lovely can have really disastrous consequences and a price 5, 10, 20 years down the road if things don't go well. And I don't mean to foreshadow, but I'm just saying that's. Sometimes Mormonism rushes people into marriage way too fast, way too early without getting to know each other, and then having kids way too fast, and they think it's all virtuous and lovely, but the truth is, it can have really disastrous consequences.

Katie Harmon [01:20:46] Totally. And I feel immensely lucky and immensely proud of Keith and I because like I said, looking back, we recognized.

John Dehlin [01:20:54] Wow.

Katie Harmon [01:20:54] We, we jumped into this with both feet, really not, you know, not knowing each other as well as we should have. I, like I said, lucky and proud that we have worked hard and some luck on the side of that too, that we have. We're incredibly close. Things have worked out incredibly well, thank goodness. But I feel for every couple who. So many, and I know plenty of couples I know, you know, even more who have had that experience where it ended up, you know, making such a hasty decision, a huge decision, who you're going to spend your life with in such a hasty way, you know, isn't a good recipe for happiness. So, yeah, I feel lucky that it worked out for us. But so, yeah, I guess, kind of. So I am. I'm still in high school, but we're. We start dating and probably pretty quickly, we knew that we wanted to get married because like I said, I have this, you know, I've Read. You know, I've listened to General Conference. I know that it's not something to put off, you know, if the time is right and you're both worried, obviously I'm not gonna get married in high school. So we obviously needed to wait. I wanted to wait till after high school to even get engaged because that. I even drew the line there. I was like, I know that I need to do this, but I'm not gonna get engaged in high school. That's. That's extreme and too much. But I knew that, you know, sometime shortly after high school that we would get married. Also, though important. So I had been baptized in, like, in September when I turned 18, met my husband in February. We had to wait at least a year after I'd been baptized, of course, to be married in the temple. So we knew that, like, we couldn't get married until at least September. But we got. We were very serious very quickly and pretty early on knew, yeah, we're going to get married. This is right. Which I told my mom about pretty early on. She said she could kind of sense it. They. My parents love my husband, so they. They were really happy, you know, with this guy. But they definitely expressed many times that, you know, are you sure this is one to do? You're. You're so young. You're still in high school. As we were having these talks, but I felt a great sense of, yeah, you know, like, I. I love him, but also, this is what I've been told, you know, this is the recipe for happiness is to. To get married in the temple to a worthy man and, you know, start your Mormon life. So also around this time, you know, you talked a little bit about academics. I was doing great in school. My senior year, like I said, I had a 4.0, had a 33 on the ACT. I took a ton of, like, AP classes and like, concurrent enrollment classes that. Where you're in the high school, but also enrolled in, like, a college course. So I ended up graduating with like a full year, my full freshman year already completed. So right around this time that I get baptized, I'm like, applying for schools. And like, in the past, I. My sister went to school at San Diego State, and I had loved going out there to visit her. I definitely was interested in applying to schools on the West Coast. I also. All my mom's family is in Boston and kind of the New England area. So I definitely. That was interesting, too. I thought about applying to Harvard or any number of schools kind of on the East Coast. But of course, the More I'm getting involved in the church. There's so much talk about self sufficiency and about, you know, not going to debt and not making the most frugal choice that you can. And I, partially, probably because of the scrupulosity and not being able to separate what anyone said is like a suggestion from being. No, it's definitely the word of God. I felt like I have to take that seriously. Like, I have to look at what is financially the best option for college. Not necessarily, you know, what. What my interest personally would be. So I only ended up applying to BYU and the University of Wyoming. And I had kind of decided that probably whichever, of course, coupled with, like, prayer and seeing what, you know, the spirit told me that kind of whichever one gave me a better financial aid offer is probably the one that I would go with because that seemed the most frugal and prudent thing to do. Um, and I was offered a full ride to the University of Wyoming. So I. The same day, it's interesting, actually, the same day I got the letter saying that I was awarded the fluoride is the same day that evening I met my husband at the institute. And so I kind of took that, too, as a sign.

John Dehlin [01:25:20] Sign.

Katie Harmon [01:25:20] It's a sign I need to stay here in Laramie. Look at this. Like, it's not like I was in love with him on that first date necessarily, but I was. Like, I could see myself marrying a guy like him. This is a sign that I need to stay and Laramie. So without even even really looking into be, I had applied to BYU and been accepted, but without even looking into, like, BYU more financially there, I just decided that I would go to the University of Wyoming. So.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] Okay, so you make that big decision, and that's a pretty big one, right?

Katie Harmon [01:25:50] And, you know, you. I don't want to, you know, give the impression that I was getting a lesser education or something. The University of Wyoming is a great school, right? But I think that I could have not only been somewhere, like, geographically that was different outside of my hometown, you know, somewhere that I was interested in, you know, but even gone to possibly, like, an Ivy League school had I really, you know, put up. Put forth that effort and, like, wanted to, but I very much felt like there's, you know, the institute is here. You know, I've met this guy. It's. It'll all be free. So I won't go into any debt for school. Like, it very much seemed like this is. This is a very sensible thing to do, Right? So.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Okay, so how does it. How does it follow? How does it progress?

Katie Harmon [01:26:34] Yeah, so. So Keith and I, he. We got engaged a week after I graduated from high school. He, we officially, you know, he asked, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and we planned the wedding. We knew from the get go. Despite my family not being members, I knew that I wanted to get sealed in the temple. I didn't want to do like a civil ceremony first and then wait because I, I took what was said very seriously, that this is the Lord's prescribed way for getting married. You know, this is what you need to do to make it to the celestial kingdom. And even like the, you know, the best part of the celestial kingdom that I think I always kind of had this. I worried of course, how my family would feel about that. But I also kind of had this knowledge that I was on the right path and that if I. By making this choice, maybe somehow it would. They would feel like, oh, wow, this really must, this really must be important. Maybe we should learn more about this. Kind of diluted like that. Like I thought, oh, by me setting this example, the Heavenly Father will bless us. And, you know, maybe the hurt that I'm thinking my family will feel will somehow be turned into like a missionary opportunity or experience is kind of what I was thinking.

John Dehlin [01:27:43] So in your mind, you're hoping to convert your family?

Katie Harmon [01:27:45] Definitely. That was from. By the time I was like, fully, emotionally and intellectually converted. Always on my mind was hoping that my family would want to join too someday. Because, of course that idea of them not being in the celestial kingdom with me is horrifying and scary. Um, so I was always kind of an annoying little missionary with them, like giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon and bearing my testimony in little ways that I could. I also, I think, was careful. I could recognize a line that I didn't want to cross of like being too annoying or too forward that. That might put them off even more. So I was kind of always writing the fence of like, how much do I share? But that was always a hope is of course that they, they would join. But yeah, so was engaged in like June. We knew we had to wait till after my baptismal anniversary to be sealed. So we did it like, as soon as possible. We scheduled my endowment for the day after my. The anniversary of my baptism and then the ceiling for the next day. Um, so it was going to be like, it ended up being. We were engaged for like three months before we got married and had known each other for seven months before we got married super fast. But I just, like I said, not only did I firmly believe that what the prophets had said, this was the word of God culturally. Also, like all my. Not all my friends, lots of my friends, though, especially since I was friends with kind of an older subset of kids. We're all getting married. So I think too, it felt like, yeah, this is, you know, it's not just me. This is what all my friends are doing. This is. This is the right path kind of to take. So.

Wedding, Temple Ceremony, and Worthiness

John Dehlin [01:29:21] So you got married. Were you. Were you married civilly before you got sealed, or were you.

Katie Harmon [01:29:27] No, we were sealed first. Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [01:29:30] So kind of that's a big thing is just. Just this idea of loved ones not being able to attend the wedding.

Katie Harmon [01:29:36] Totally. Yeah. And I talk about that. Yeah. So I. I knew that it was kind of. That it was hurtful in some degree to my family also, though they weren't super thrilled that I was getting married young anyway. So I think I. I remember kind of justified in my mind, like, well, do they even really want to. Like, do they even really want to be here? They're not happy about this decision anyway, so is it even a big deal if I do it without them? I think that was just me trying to. Trying to make myself feel less guilty for cutting them out of this. Definitely. I think it was hard for, like, extended family members, you know, grandparents who lived on the east coast, but I'm sure would have traveled, you know, had I been having a wedding that they could attend. I think that was really strange to all of them. They weren't, you know, growing up in Wyoming. You're closer to Utah. Everyone is kind of aware of Mormonism back there. They were maybe very slightly aware of it, but not nearly as much as I had even been growing up. So this was all. They're just watching this from afar, I think, probably horrified. And like, what is Katie doing with her life? This makes no sense. So I think definitely, like, more extended family members thought it was really strange. Something else I wanted to mention. Mention. So as, you know, through the engagement, my. This is when my scrupulosity really. So it had been difficult. I had had, you know, this obsession with being honest and never even telling, like, a white lie. Like, had to say everything. I had this, like, great fear that I would accidentally cheat on a test. So I was like. It was kind of paralyzing in certain academic situations. Like, I couldn't even look away from my paper, things like that. But it kind of reached a fever pitch as the ceiling approached Because I was terrified that I wouldn't be worthy to be endowed and then sealed. And that by me not being worthy, the Holy Spirit of promise, you know, wouldn't be there to sanctify our ceiling. And my husband all of a sudden thinks he's sealed, but really, you know, it's. It doesn't count or something. And I've all of a sudden not just screwed up his eternity, but that of any children we might have and that of his family, this incredibly righteous Mormon family. There's going to be an empty seat. Like, I was. This was, like, all consuming. And it was. It was kind of a horrible summer, honestly, like, because I was just constantly worried about. I kind of ramped up my repentance. Like, I'm constantly thinking about, okay, what have I done? Like, have I done anything in the past? Is there anything I'm forgetting that I've done that I need to repent of? Because I have to be clean, have to be clean and worthy before I make these covenants. I took that really seriously and it caused a lot of, like, anguish for me. I just. I never felt like I was good enough and was very concerned about if I would be worthy because I, you know, I had. I'd had worthiness interview. Like, of course I had the interview with the missionaries before I was baptized, asking kind of the big baptismal questions of like, you haven't murdered someone. You haven't, you know, had an abortion. And then I had gone through the regular temple recommend interview questions before getting like, a limited use recommend for doing, like, baptisms for the dead. But this just felt so much more serious, like, I'm going to be endowed and make these covenants in the ceiling, and I need to. If I'm not worthy for this, it's not just me that's affected anymore. I'm affecting, you know, my husband and all of his family. And it was a huge. There was even some. You know, I was even feeling suicidal at times because this was so horrible. It felt like I just. Maybe I just need to take myself out of the picture and Keith can find someone else. Like, that's how bad it was. Or. And there's even times I considered calling off the wedding. Not because I didn't love him or didn't want to be married to him, but I thought he, you know, maybe he just needs to meet someone else that definitely is worthy, that there's not. This question. And I should clarify too. It's not like there was anything in my past that was nefarious, you know, like There wasn't. The things that I was so worried about and repenting about were like, oh, I was, I was kind of rude to my mom that day. I really need to apologize to her and make sure that she, she really forgives me. Or oh, I had this like, bad, mean thought about someone like, oh gosh, I need to, like, I need to repent for that. So it was, it was very ordinary things that I should not have been concerned about. But because how seriously I took this, because of how firmly I believed, you know, in these truth claims and that this is really the word of God, that I took it very seriously and felt like my eternal well being hung in the, Hung in the balance. So.

John Dehlin [01:33:54] Yeah, because, you know, someone listening to you is thinking, oh my gosh, was she addicted to drugs? Was she having.

Katie Harmon [01:33:59] No.

John Dehlin [01:34:00] Yeah, lots of men, like, what. What is she doing that's so terrible that makes her feel unworthy? And that's again, on the one hand, I'm thinking, oh, high standards. That's good. It's, it's, it's teaching you to be your best self. What's wrong with that? But this is where the rub is with, with a high demand religion like Mormonism for a certain personality type, what teachings can just be helpful in helping you be your best self. Can become toxic. For somebody with, with a personality type like yours, that's very high anxiety, highly conscientious.

Katie Harmon [01:34:32] Totally. And I, I always envied friends of mine that were able to, to not take it so seriously, like lds, friends that were able to tell kind of an offensive joke or whatever and laugh about it. And I, I was like, how I, I couldn't understand in my mind how you could balance that kind of, of like these things. To me that seemed like really grievous sins. The other people, like, no, that's just part of being human. No one's perfect. But to me it was like, no, I have to be as perfect as possible. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:04] What's also hard is that religious religions positively reinforce scrupulosity. And so scrupulosity is an, is an illness. Like, you know, it is obsessive compulsive disorder. So it's a serious illness, like depression, like generalized anxiety. Maybe not as serious as an eating disorder, but it's very serious. And what you have is a religious environment that's actually encouraging and incentivizing the extreme behaviors, which then amplifies the anxiety and the guilt and the distress. Is that right?

Katie Harmon [01:35:40] Totally. Yep. I totally agree. Yep. The more, the more I got involved in the church, it just. Yeah, it just ramped up. Finally. I. I can't even. I think so. This whole time I had never told my husband or certainly my parents what was going on. But I finally opened up to my husband, then fiance, about it, and he. I don't even remember what he said, but the way he was able to talk to me kind of caused me to feel better about this and to relax a little bit and to feel like. Like I said, I still struggled with, like, being hyper honest and stuff, but I was able to somehow realize that I don't have to be totally perfect. I can, like, I'm worthy to be sealed in the temple. There was. I don't remember, like, what. Like I said, I don't remember what exactly was said. But talking to him at least helped get me off this ledge of, okay, I can go through with, you know, the endowment and. And sealing anyway. So.

John Dehlin [01:36:34] Okay.

Katie Harmon [01:36:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:35] Do you want to share what your temple experience was actually like? Did you have it? Did you hate it?

Katie Harmon [01:36:40] I would love to share about it because I think it. Yeah, it's important.

John Dehlin [01:36:44] And if there's anything else about your timeline before the marriage, I don't want

Katie Harmon [01:36:48] to jump to it. I guess there's the one thing is the. The kind of inappropriate repentance experience that I don't want to go too much into detail of most. It's something actually, like, I only just told my husband about it, like in the last year. It's something that I kind of. I think was so difficult and painful and I felt embarrassed and shameful about it in some way that I kind of buried it down and only were very open with each other. But for some reason, even that. And definitely no other friends or family or anyone know about it. But there was an experience I had prior to getting married where I was asked so just very invasive questions about sexual transgressions that had occurred in the past kind of before, um, like when I was just first starting to kind of go to church a little bit like any two teenagers might. There was some, you know, some breaking of the law of chastity a little bit that went on heavy petting.

John Dehlin [01:37:42] Some petting.

Katie Harmon [01:37:43] Right. I know the names that the. That the church has come up with it are so interesting. But yeah, so he. My boyfriend had, you know, gone through the repentance process and obviously was able to go on a mission and stuff. But yeah, there's this experience where after the. It was quite a ways, quite a while, more than a year, maybe even two years after this all had happened. And I wasn't even a member. I wasn't baptized at this point when the things had happened. So I was kind of confused as to why I had to go into so much detail about this, but with who. So it wasn't like I said. I don't want to, like, say too much.

John Dehlin [01:38:20] Okay.

Katie Harmon [01:38:21] No, it's okay. It was so it was as this guy was trying to go on his mission and was kind of, you know, going over some. Some of the things that had happened with us as teenagers in the process of being deemed worthy to serve a mission. It was actually higher than, even then, a stake. I don't even know who this came from. Someone said that they needed to know more details, I guess, about what had happened.

John Dehlin [01:38:49] So there was someone in the church. Was it in the church hierarchy in some way?

Katie Harmon [01:38:54] Yeah, it was someone from Salt Lake. There was. So it actually wasn't asked of me. It was asked of my boyfriend, but I, of course, helped him. That they kind of needed a list, I guess, of, like, really specific things that had happened.

John Dehlin [01:39:08] I mean, oftentimes when boys go on missions, either before or during their mission experience, they're grilled about, have you repented for everything?

Katie Harmon [01:39:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:16] And then sometimes leaders get involved, and that sometimes sucks in the girlfriends or the boyfriends of the people. And that makes it. So there's this awkward, weird leadership grilling young people about.

Katie Harmon [01:39:31] Right.

John Dehlin [01:39:31] The details of their sexual behavior.

Katie Harmon [01:39:33] I think that's what it was. It was at a weird time, too, where the. The way it was described to me like the bar for being a missionary was being raised where they were kind of making different determinations on, you know, are some people disqualified from serving admission based on certain things? They were just kind of making it like a higher standard. If you had done XYZ within this amount of time, you can't serve a mission. I don't know the details of any of it, but it was involved with that that I felt like the questions were too. Too probing, too detailed. I had to go back and think about these experiences that I. We had both repented of that I thought were totally taken care of and apparently weren't. And that was really.

John Dehlin [01:40:14] That was a flavor for the type of questions, if you. If you don't mind

Katie Harmon [01:40:21] trainer. To be honest, John, I think I've. I've blocked a lot of it out because I. It's even something I'm discussing, like, with my therapist now that I. There's a lot of the details I don't necessarily remember totally, but so.

John Dehlin [01:40:33] So not. Not to try and project onto your experience. But the types of questions that people are often answered. These, these are Mormon youth, Mormon children, and Mormon adults. It's things like, where did he touch you? Was it under the clothes or over the clothes? Did it feel good? Did you orgasm? Did you not orgasm? Was it, you know, and. And detailed sexually explicit information that sometimes is being asked by an adult man with a woman alone in a room or, or some. Or with a young man. But it's just very inappropriate in any sane context. It's outrageous and probably borders on abusive. And this is something that goes on daily, totally hourly within the Mormon context.

Katie Harmon [01:41:24] Yeah, right. And I later on in life heard about, you know, Sam Young and his work. And like I said at the time, it. It was. Made me uncomfortable, but I. It didn't register how wildly inappropriate it was. And I more internalized it, put up myself like, oh my gosh, I guess we didn't. I didn't repent of that all the way. I didn't like I had done something wrong rather than, hey, this is inappropriate, what's being asked? And it wasn't till later, like, with the Protect LDS Children movement, that I read other stories and was like, oh my gosh, this, this is wrong. And this is something that happens. And was angry about it then, but at the time I think I was like, well, let's just get that done with. So this is before I'd met my husband or anything. This is when I was still dating this guy and he was getting ready to go on a mission. But that it was just hard because I felt I had this great faith in the atonement in. In repentance. And it was really difficult to feel like that hadn't. What I had done, hadn't I had gone through all the steps and somehow maybe that still wasn't good enough because this still had to be rehashed again. So.

John Dehlin [01:42:29] So was. Do you feel like that was harmful to you? Like, what made you feel like you really wanted to bring that up? Just that it's hypocritical, it's not Christian, or that it's actually harmful or inappropriate or inappropriate?

Katie Harmon [01:42:43] Mostly inappropriate. I think, like, if I told my parents that this was going on, I think they would have been furious and they didn't know. So, you know, it's not like, hey, you know, make sure your parents know what's going on here. There was no, like, mention of that. Hypocritical too, because we talk about the repentance process and that once you've gone through that, Christ himself supposedly remembers your sins no more. Right. But apparently church leadership does and needs to know about the details of it. So I think that was hard. Is like what I was taught about the repentance process and the way that it works. Even after going through it, it seemed like it still. There was still these. It still needed to be talked about in some way.

John Dehlin [01:43:23] Basically, it was kind of unchristlike that you thought there. The atonement gave you guys both a clean slate. Totally here, years later, months later, whatever. It's all being dredged up again in super shameful ways.

Katie Harmon [01:43:36] Definitely.

John Dehlin [01:43:37] And what's the. It's confusing. What's the point of the atonement?

Katie Harmon [01:43:40] Totally. And it felt right.

John Dehlin [01:43:42] Like embarrassing, right?

Katie Harmon [01:43:44] Yeah, it felt embarrassing and shameful for me to have to. To talk about this again when it was something that, like I said, I thought was done. It also was. I felt frustrated for him. He's just trying to go serve a mission. Right. He's trying to for two years, talk positively and share the message of the church on his own bill, like footing the bill. Right. And it was frustrating to feel like, like, why is it so hard to go out and like, do this? You know, why is there this. This such a high standard for someone that. That really, you know, has expressed a change of heart and wants to do it? And in the first place, why does it. Having normative sexual experiences as a teenager disqualify you from doing that?

John Dehlin [01:44:25] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [01:44:26] So I don't know. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:27] Excellent. Yeah. And again, it's the type of thing where for some it's just like, oh, I had an awkward experience. For others, it can, you know, if they get sent home early from their mission, they can get publicly shamed.

Katie Harmon [01:44:39] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:39] Everyone in the ward, home, ward and their leaders can all find out it can even lead to suicidality and even death by suicide.

Katie Harmon [01:44:47] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:48] Depending on the level of conscientiousness of the youth involved and the level of shame and pressure at home.

Katie Harmon [01:44:56] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:44:57] Can actually become deadly. So this can be anything from, I guess, a positive experience to a benign experience to a super harmful experience to a deathly to. To a fatal experience. It can be any sure things.

Katie Harmon [01:45:09] Yep, definitely. So, yeah, I don't. So that's, I guess, backtracking a little bit as to when this happened, but kind of some of these feelings resurfaced then as I'm trying to repent before going to the. Make sure I'm clean before going to the temple. I. Before I had such a firm, like, belief in repentance. In the atonement. And I think that's part of the reason that I struggled with wondering if am I really worthy is because of that experience. Like, it made, it just made me second guess. Am I doing this right? Am I really clean and ready to make these. These promises? So I think that's kind of where it plays into where the story is headed with, you know, being endowed in the ceiling. I guess I can kind of jump into that next.

John Dehlin [01:45:49] Go ahead.

Katie Harmon [01:45:49] Yeah, yeah. So I was really excited to get endowed. Like I said, I was, you know, had read so much and was really active in seminary. And you know, my teachers always talked about how it's such this incredible, such an incredible experience. And I also though, like, had heard like jokes from non members about like, you know, oh, you know, secret Mormon handshakes and stuff. So I kind of. Obviously that's not something members talk about, but I kind of had this like, maybe knowledge of like, okay, I think that there's some, some stuff that goes on in the temple, like, that maybe that I should be ready for. So I think maybe I was actually maybe not as blindsided as some people that grow up in ne are insulated from like rumors like that might be. Um, but I was super excited to be endowed. Um, I, you know, I'd heard it was such an incredible spiritual experience from lots of people. You know, my husband really enjoyed you had a great experience in the temple and attended the temple a lot, you know, before we were married, just as having come home from his mission and stuff. So super excited. The day comes, my future mother in law was the one who escorted me through the temple. And I think that I hadn't really, no one had ever really told me about the initiatory ordinance, what goes on there. So that actually was a huge. That was, that was scary for me because all of a sudden I'm in this like poncho thing. And I'd heard the thing about, from like non members about handshakes. I remember feeling a great sense of dread of like, what if no one had ever talked to me about the initiatory ordinance? I'm like, what is about to happen to me? Like, is there some sort of touching that goes on beyond handshakes? Is there something like sexual that goes on? I re. And this is where that informed consent comes in. I know that, you know, active members heavily believe in the sacred nature of these ordinances and that it's something we should not talk about. But I, looking back, feel I'm frustrated that I went into that with fear all of a sudden, I'm in this poncho, not knowing what's about to happen to my body. Right. Like, no one should be feeling that way. I should have known what was. And I think there's ways the church could go about talking about kind of what's going to happen ahead of you even arriving at the temple. Right. Whether that's. I don't know how they. I don't know how they should go about it. But what I do know is I was sitting there terrified, right before the initiatory, wondering what is about to happen to me. Like, this feel. I know that this is like, I want to go through with this, but I don't know what's about to happen. And. And can I say no? Like, right. Like if something happens, what's. It just was a lot of fear is, I guess, how I would explain that.

John Dehlin [01:48:25] Yeah. And you end up making promises that you'll give your whole life to the church, your money, your time, and it even says, even your own life, if necessary, meaning you'll be willing to die for the church. Those are the types of commitments you should be told ahead of time.

Katie Harmon [01:48:42] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:48:42] These are the commitments you're going to be asked to make. Everyone's going to be staring at you. You know, you'll. You'll feel weird. They'll give you a chance to walk out, but it'll. There'll be a ton of social pressure there.

Katie Harmon [01:48:53] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:48:54] So you should know ahead of time what those promises are. Think about it, consider it, and then go there knowing what those commitments are.

Katie Harmon [01:49:02] I agree.

John Dehlin [01:49:03] The pressure of having to not know what's coming, like you said.

Katie Harmon [01:49:07] Right.

John Dehlin [01:49:07] And then make these severe, lifelong commitments that totally may or may not really want to make.

Katie Harmon [01:49:13] Absolutely. Yeah. So luckily, of course, the initiatory ended up being benign. Actually, after it was done, I was like, oh, okay. That was like, that was fine. And actually beautiful. Some of the things that are said on the initiatory. So then going on to the endowment, like you said, I didn't know beforehand what covenants I would be making during that ceremony. There is that moment where you're told, you know, if you want to leave now, you can. Which is not, in my mind, informed consent either, because, like you said, there's this social pressure of, you know, all my future in laws are here, my husband's here. Am I really going to get up and walk out of this? And even if I had, it's not like I could have gone out and said, hey, I want to know a little more about this before we continue, no one was going to answer that question to me. It's either, you know, get out and I guess you're just not getting endowed or carry on with this and agree.

John Dehlin [01:50:03] And whatever day of your wedding was the actual day, it was the day

Katie Harmon [01:50:06] before, so I was in doubt.

John Dehlin [01:50:07] That's like the day before. All the announcements are sent out. Everybody's told.

Katie Harmon [01:50:11] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:50:12] It's all the things bought.

Katie Harmon [01:50:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:15] Everything's planned. Photographers, like, are you gonna back out?

Katie Harmon [01:50:19] Right. I can't imagine that. That they're, you know, that that ever happens. I don't know. So, yeah, so there's that moment and I like, oh, well, no, I. I'm here. I'm gonna stay. And overall, I. I enjoyed the endowment. There was, like I said, I. Because of some of these rumors I'd heard. I. There were certain things that I think are really shocking to some members that I kind of maybe knew was. Was coming. There were definitely parts, though, that bothered me. And I know this is something that's changed now. I haven't been to the temple since it was changed, but instead of me covenanting to hearken to the Lord, just like my husband did, I covenanted to heart, you know, to listen and follow him. That immediately. I. I don't know. I kind of looked around and I was very surprised that. That. That was the wording of that in it. You know, I still was deeply converted and believed the church was true, but it was a little cognitive dissonance right there of like, wait, what? Like, I. I don't really. That seems weird. So that was one part that I. That I found difficult. And then women veiling their faces, of course, was unexpected and felt a little. Yeah, just, you know, as. As kind of still maybe now at this point, a little bit of a closeted feminist. I still feel. I think those feelings were still in me. Those were two things that kind of stuck out to me that I remember being kind of like, oh, that, you know, makes me a little uncomfortable. But overall, the endowment spirit experience I felt was positive. Like, you mentioned all these incredible covenant. Incredible weight to these in covenant covenants that you make. I felt the weight of that right away. Like, wow, this is some serious stuff. I'm promising to. Luckily, I did feel, based on my knowledge of the church at the time, I did feel like comfortable covenanting to those things. But in retrospect, I, you know, I agree that I should. I should have. Everyone should know beforehand.

John Dehlin [01:52:18] And ironically, it's. It's good that the church has. Has made the temple ceremony Less. Less violent. You know, no more death oaths. Oaths, death penalties, and less sexually inappropriate where you're walking around with these naked ponchos that aren't sewn on the side, which is how I went through. And it did feel creepy and abusive, and it was violent and disturbing. And then, of course, it used to be super, super sexist by having women veil their faces and they covenant to. To their husbands as their husband's covenant to God.

Katie Harmon [01:52:57] Right.

John Dehlin [01:52:57] So it's good that the church has taken all that out. But then you wonder, wait, Joseph Smith taught that the endowment should change.

Katie Harmon [01:53:04] Right.

John Dehlin [01:53:05] And all the members for 100 and almost 200 years were taught this was from God, this was an eternal covenant, and it shouldn't change. And so that speaks to the truth claims of the church. Because if the temple ceremony is from God, and if it's a revelation, why, with social pressure, are they changing it over time? So it's good that they make it less awful. But then that speaks to the. The truth claim.

Katie Harmon [01:53:35] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:53:35] Which is why you would give 10% and the rest of your life to the church because you believe it's actually what it's claiming to be true.

Katie Harmon [01:53:42] 100%. Yep. And at the time, of course, I didn't know that there had been this, you know, pantomiming of, you know, the violent stuff that you had mentioned. So. Right. I had no reference for, oh, this ceremony has changed from what it used to be. So. Right. Yeah. As far as I knew at the time, this is the same endowment ceremony that Joseph Smith had instituted. So.

John Dehlin [01:54:05] Right. So what's wrong with that?

Katie Harmon [01:54:06] Right, right. But, yeah, so go through the endowment, get married the next day. So we. I was endowed in Jordan River Temple. That just, like, happened to be one that was nearby.

John Dehlin [01:54:18] So was I. I was.

Katie Harmon [01:54:19] Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. I don't even know why we chose that one. It just, you know, I don't know if Salt Lake was full, whatever, but that was the one that was available the day before the wedding. And we chose to be married, to be sealed in Salt Lake, mostly because my family was going to be outside, Just my parents, actually. Neither of my sisters came to the ceiling. Um, I'm trying to remember if my twin. I think my twin might have been in recovery, in a recovery center at the time. That's probably why she wasn't there. My older sister, though, lived in Boston at the time, and she just kind of told me, you know, I don't think I'm. She ended up coming out maybe like a week later when we did the reception. She was like, I would rather fly out and be there for that, something I can feel like I'm involved in, than fly out and wait outside this building. And I totally understood that. I was, you know, I thought I understood where she was coming from and was fine with that. But my parents drove to Salt Lake to wait outside the temple while the ceiling went on. The reason we chose Salt Lake was, you know, all the. Like, the visitor center there. It felt like there was a lot of things that they could do and not be as bored waiting outside, as opposed to, like, any other temple where they're, you know, it would just be kind of walking around the grounds. Um, so we felt like we were being more, you know, making it a little bit more bearable of an experience for them by choosing Salt Lake. But, yeah, our ceiling was beautiful. I don't remember a lot of what was said, you know, of course, we didn't know the seal or anything. It was, you know, looking back, strange that someone we didn't even know. You know, I look at couples that I know getting married now who maybe write their own vows or. Or talk to the person that's going to marry them about, you know, what they value and what's important to them. And it was kind of like his chance to say whatever he wanted to say right as we're being sealed. So that's interesting. Looking back, I also didn't know. I think I didn't know this until maybe, like, the day before. I thought I was going to be sealed in my. In my wedding dress. I didn't know that you put on temple robes for. Part of me was like, why did we buy an expensive wedding dress? Essentially just for the pictures outside, I guess. Right. Wasn't even what I was married in. So that was interesting. But otherwise, the ceiling was great. Beautiful. My. We kind of did it in a unique way because. So my husband's family is huge. Of course, like I said, he's one of eight boys, but then each of his parents. Families are really big, so he has a ton of family. And they all. They all wanted to come to my endowment to be there and supportive. And not just his immediate family, but the extended family and all wanted to be part of the wedding. But I had pretty strong feelings that, you know, my parents are there waiting outside. I thought it would be really kind of insulting to them if my husband's, like, second cousin and his family is there, but my own parents aren't inside. So we made a decision. I'm. Yeah, right. Like, this there's like 50 people from Keith's family, but no one from Katie's family. And a lot of the relatives weren't even people he knew, close, knew really well. So we made the decision that I'm really happy with just to have his parents and brothers there and his grandparents and his. Two of his favorite cousins, which was still a lot of people.

John Dehlin [01:57:38] Where.

Katie Harmon [01:57:38] But I, at least where in the ceiling room when we actually were sealed, like the people that came.

John Dehlin [01:57:44] Oh, so you limited who could actually come to the ceiling. Yeah, so that your parents would feel a little bit less bad.

Katie Harmon [01:57:50] That was the goal. So with his. His other brothers. Yeah, they had had like, everyone. And like, all the cousins, all the aunts and uncles were invited, like, anyone. The ceiling room was packed, essentially. I obviously wasn't there with his other brothers when they got married. But we made this decision of no cousins, no aunts and uncles, just brothers, their spouse, his parents and grandparents, and then two of his very closest cousins were there. So.

John Dehlin [01:58:16] And I just want to say that is unacceptable that in the 21st century, the Mormon Church is excluding people from weddings. It's just outrageous that, you know, parenting is a hard thing, and it's a miracle to raise any kid to adulthood. And if they've got a good education and a healthy, happy life, it's like. It's like a real achievement to raise a healthy, happy kid. And then for the parents to have to sit outside their own child's wedding because of some arbitrary religious, kind of almost culty rule is outrageous. And I'll have to say that's something too, that because we beat the church so mercilessly about the inhumanity of that, they've made a slight change now where there's the option of getting married civilly first before the temple ceremony.

Katie Harmon [01:59:08] Right.

John Dehlin [01:59:08] I'm seeing all over Utah that. That that's seen as a less valiant choice. And so, so many Mormon couples, including family members of mine, are choosing to not have that option and to exclude people like me and Margi and my kids and other people from the weddings because it's like, well, that's what the weak, faithless people do. And so in the end, it's an option.

Katie Harmon [01:59:33] But it's the same, right?

John Dehlin [01:59:34] It should never. It should never be allowed that the parents of a child cannot attend their wedding. That should be forbidden. It should be forbidden that parents are ever forbidden from their own child's freaking wedding.

Katie Harmon [01:59:50] I agree. I totally agree. And I feel, looking back, like, immense guilt that that was something I put them through. And I've apologized for it, but there's nothing I can do, obviously, to change it now. And I'm so sad for myself at the time that I felt that I was willing to do that because I truly believed that if I wasn't sealed that, you know, that I wouldn't be with my husband for eternity. But also that there was that pressure, like you just said, this kind of cultural pressure of, well, you can do it civilly, but really the way it was designed was to do the ceiling first. And that's. That's what I was feeling was like, no, this is the way that God intended it to be. Why should I do it in a way that's backwards? That's not. You know, this is the way he's laid out the plan. This is how I should do it. And I feel immense guilt for that, that I. That they missed out on something that, you know, it can't be changed now. It's really heartbreaking to me and heartbreaking to me for every family member anywhere that experiences that and that it's probably, you know, something now my husband and I will experience when his younger brothers, you know, potentially get married. That I'm sure that we will be on the receiving end of that. So. Really awful. I agree.

John Dehlin [02:01:01] Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah.

Katie Harmon [02:01:03] Oh, thanks. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:05] But yeah, for your parents and for you.

Katie Harmon [02:01:08] Right. Well, yeah, mostly sorry for them. I just, you know, and my sis, like, my sisters too. Like, I, you know. Yeah. There was just a lot there that I never even. I was so sure and believed so strongly that this is what I needed to do, that I just feel awful that I put that in front of their feelings and didn't even really stop to talk to them about it. I was just like, I know this is what I have to do, so I'm gonna do it. So. Yeah. Painful. But anyway, yeah, so we got married. And, uh, that was in September. Cause it had been a year from my baptism. Um, quickly started, like it was actually in the middle. Not the middle. It was like the first week of school. We missed a couple days at the university. Um, I was starting my technically fresh, like freshman year, because it was my first year, but sophomore year, like credit wise. Um, and my husband, I can't remember where he was in his program. But anyway, so we're going to school. Super happy. Newlywed life. Um, but pretty quickly. And we had talked about kids, obviously, while we were engaged, and we're actually a little bit like differing opinions. He. My husband wanted to wait, ideally to have kids. Um, he. I give him so much credit for this. He knew that I was smart and had this, you know, have this really bright future. And he was like, I really think that you should finish school before we have kids. I really think that. And like I said, I admire him looking back so much for that because he was raised in a really, really conservative kind of traditional, by the letter of the law, not necessarily spirit of the law household where, you know, like his mom, his mom I think went to BYU for a year and then when she got married and had kids, dropped out, which is fine. And I think a lot of my, most of my sister in laws were like the same. So that really wasn't the background he was coming from. But I love him for that, that he wanted, he really wanted me to pursue school. But I, There was this talk and I wrote it down here, I need to. Sorry, let me just. It was by Elder Anderson, talk entitled Children. I can't even remember what conference it was from. It was, it was one, I think it must have been probably in like 2011 or 2012, around this time where he outlines really explicitly that couples should not wait to have children. There's a million talks like this, right? Like in the past, there's plenty of times older prophets have given talks like this. But this talk I always went into first off, I always went into conference with a prayerful mind, right? Like if, you know, please let me learn the things that I need to learn and please let these talks speak to me, which kind of set myself up especially with some of the anxiety and obsessive tendencies I had, that I would make things very much personally about me, like this prophet or this general authority is speaking to me as he's saying this and I need to heed these words. So when I heard this talk, you know, it talks about that school is not a good reason to wait, money is not a good reason to wait. There's really no good reason to wait to bring spirit children into this world and give them bodies. And I remember reading that talk with my husband and saying like, I, I feel like we're doing something wrong if we're not having, trying to have kids like right away. I just took that very seriously that, you know, I need to follow this exactly. There's always that some like saying of, you know, you could have what you want or you could have something better, which is what God wants for you. So I felt like, you know, yes, I, I know that I'm smart and I would like to finish school also. And that was my plan at the time. Was still to finish school despite having kids. I was like, but I think that we shouldn't put this off. And so I. He was like, oh, you know, sure. Okay, agreed. And I was pregnant within three months of. Of our getting married with our first kiddo. So I was 19. I got married. We got married two days after I turned 19, and I was pregnant just a little bit. So I was like two, two or three months pregnant. I remember when the anniversary of Keith and I having met came around. I was like, oh, we met one year ago and my mom happened to be with us. She was like, isn't that disturbing at all to you that you met him one year ago and now you're pregnant? Like, isn't that seem a bit. A bit quick? I was like, yeah, but like, it's not only from a doctrinal perspective, but also culturally. This was. Even though we're kind of outside the Utah bubble, this was what a lot of my, you know, my friends, my Mormon friends were doing too. So it also didn't feel like culturally shocking so much either, since I had peers that were kind of in a similar boat. So. But yeah, so it was.

Early Marriage, Motherhood, and Mormon Ideals

John Dehlin [02:05:45] So your mom was saying, wow, that's really soon to be having lots of kids. To be having kids.

Katie Harmon [02:05:49] Yeah, they. They. I think they were less worried about getting married. Like, they knew that was a big. A big thing. But my parents had each been divorced once before marrying each other, so I think they probably thought, well, at least, like, it's huge, but, you know, at least marriage, if it doesn't work out, it's not the very end of the world. Children. Right? Not the case. I think that they were much more concerned. I know my dad was. We kind of. We didn't talk a lot after I got pregnant. And not that there was. It was just kind of this unspoken, like. I think I was a little embarrassed because I knew that he was not happy with the decision. I think he just didn't even know what to say because he didn't want to hurt my feelings, but I don't think that he was happy about it. So we kind of just. Just our. That drew of a wedge in our relationship a little bit. And to my family's credit, though, as much as I think they weren't thrilled that I got pregnant so young, were incredibly supportive, really excited to meet the baby, had a baby shower. You know, we're. We're really involved despite, I think, thinking the timing of this doesn't seem right. So I give them all the credit for that.

John Dehlin [02:06:51] Yeah, lots of people want. Lots of. Lots of parents want to be grandparents. Right?

Katie Harmon [02:06:55] Right. Yeah. Well. And interestingly, I joke sometimes my parents were pretty fairly older when my twin and I were born. So my oldest sister's from my mom's first marriage, so she's like nine years older than us. But when my twin and I were born, my mom was 41 and my dad was about to turn 48, so that. That was his first. You know, he was stepdad to my older sister, but that was his first. His first biological kids were born when he was 48. So there also is kind of a generational, like just kind of a gap, I think, there that I think is always my relationship with my dad is interesting because there's. There's so many factors that have played into that. But that was one. I. We joke sometimes that they had children old enough that they're lucky I had kids young because otherwise, you know, they've gotten to now spend a lot of time with their grandkids that if I had waited till I was.

John Dehlin [02:07:44] They wouldn't know 40. Your grandkids would have never known their grandparents. Parents.

Katie Harmon [02:07:49] Right. So we joke about that sometimes, but.

John Dehlin [02:07:51] Well, it's true, right?

Katie Harmon [02:07:52] It is. It definitely is. And I don't know if, you know, I don't know what my sister's plans are for having kids, but that my parents are both incredible grandparents and are so glad, despite the timing of anything, that they. That I have my three kiddos. So they're great in that way. For sure.

John Dehlin [02:08:07] That's great.

Katie Harmon [02:08:08] Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so we get married. I'm pregnant.

John Dehlin [02:08:13] Oh, by the way, by the way, my friend Gerardo makes a really good point. I often make this point that women in the church are encouraged, are discouraged from really pursuing their education or a career and are not necessarily encouraged to have their kids immediately right away. And this is a tricky thing because I think you can find opinions in both ways. I think you can find a million talks that say, get married immediately super young and have as many kids as possible and don't use birth control. But you could also find exceptions to that, where you'll hear a talk here or a talk there or a lesson thing there that says get as much education as possible. Women. Women can do anything in the church. Look, there's a woman who's a doctor. Look, there's a woman who's a lawyer. And, you know, the church doesn't tell you when to have kids. And so there are these mixed messages where apologists or orthodox believers can say that that's Not a thing.

Katie Harmon [02:09:16] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:09:17] You can get married whenever you want and have kids whenever you want and pursue as much of an education or a career as you want. How would you respond if somebody said that to you?

Katie Harmon [02:09:26] Yeah, so I think I've gotten that kind of from people before, right. Like that, that it was my choice and it was, I, I own that of course. But that, you know, there's, that there's things to be said for both sides that prophets have very much encouraged education for women while also focusing on the motherhood. And I think for me it all comes down to this key thing of speaking for God. So like when I, all it took for me was to read even one or two talks that very explicitly said you should not wait to have children. And that was good enough for me that these other things that talk about education, it was like, okay, well I can, I can do education also, but this motherhood piece has to be there too. And I think that's kind of how I took it at first was I definitely was sure that I was going to finish school, but that I was going to be. I was definitely going to wanted to have kids while doing that. So I don't think I ever felt like, oh, I can't go to school, you know, I really have to just have kids and be a stay at home mom. I think I was even kind of that middle ground of like, oh well no, like they talk about that, you know, know education is important but for me like, and I think some of that maybe comes back to the scrupulosity. For me, one phrase like one prophet having said something like that and especially this Elder Anderson talk that was more recent. It wasn't like a super old one I had to dredge up that said, you know, don't wait to have children to me. And especially I think this particular experience since I went to that conference, praying, feeling like this is what I need to like please tell me what I need to do with my life during this conference. Then hearing that talk, I very much took that as this is personal revelation. This, you know, this feeling is God telling me what I need to do for my life. And this leader is telling me. So I think that's, that's the distinction is that and I don't know. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to I guess put my finger on exactly. But that, that men saying they speak directly for God have said those things. And so that's, that's how I took it very literally.

John Dehlin [02:11:31] That's literally everything because, because if they're really speaking for God, then, yeah, we should all do everything they say to the letter. But if, but if the church was based on fraud and lies, and if they're just. And if they're just like any other guy giving their best opinion.

Katie Harmon [02:11:50] Right.

John Dehlin [02:11:51] And if they're no different than a Baptist preacher or a Catholic priest or a secular leader, and the church is really not what it claims to be, then invoking God as the authority becomes abusive and highly damaging. Even though you're making choices as an adult, you weren't given all the information.

Katie Harmon [02:12:14] Totally. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:12:15] And so their counsel has undue weight and influence.

Katie Harmon [02:12:19] Absolutely right. If this had just like I said, I would like to think, looking back at my conversion, that had I known the full story, I don't know that I would have joined, been baptized. I can, I think, say with certainty, looking back, had I not felt that it was God himself saying, do not wait to have children, that I would have waited to have children. I, you know, a lot of Mormons grew up in big families with kids and love little kids. I actually, I didn't have any little kids in my life at all. Didn't really like kids a lot. Didn't really know how to interact with them. Had never held a baby before. I wasn't, it didn't feel like I had a super maternal side to me, but I very much felt like, but this is what, you know, this is what I'm supposed to do. Luckily, I've loved being a mom. I've, you know, that I developed that maternal side. And if there's one thing I would thank the church for at all, it's that I became a mom. Because I don't know if I would have. If, like, the church had never been part of my life. I don't even know if I would have ever wanted to have children. Maybe, I don't know. But if there's one thing I can thank the church for, it's that because I'm so glad that I'm a mom and I've loved motherhood more than I ever, ever thought I would. But you're right, it all swings on that, on the saying, saying that we speak for God. That's what it swung on for me. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So huge decision was made really early on, really young, because of these words, of these words of the prophets that I took very literally. Based on, as you said, it all goes back to, well, if, if Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, it's because Joseph Smith was a prophet, and it's because he's a prophet because he translated the Book of Mormon and because of the first vision like it, the foundation was built on that, of course. So anyway, yeah, so were young, married, pregnant, super active in our little. The family ward. You know, really, we would go to the temple every month, so. Closest temple to Laramie now is Fort Collins. That's more recent, though. It was Denver at the time that we would drive to both held callings. You know, both would have the missionaries over for dinner. Like, just really, just a young, really super active, happy, happy family during that time. It was really only good things to say about that time period. I think that, you know, I definitely still had some, like, anxiety and stuff, but kind of seemed to come in waves and was. It was a good time right after getting married and before my first kiddo was born. So I don't know if I'm leaving anything out. I think that kind of covers that. Okay. Yeah, that area.

John Dehlin [02:15:00] So, I mean, it sounds like you're kind of up until your second kid, which we'll talk about. You're kind of living the Mormon dream and you're loving it and it's super healthy and good for you, right?

Katie Harmon [02:15:12] Absolutely. Yep. So, like I said, I, you know, some negative effects in high school with, like, mental health stuff, but I feel like this was. This was a really good period where the church is only fulfilling in my life. There's no. There's no negative side effects that I could think of at all. Our first kiddo, Sam, is born 2013, so he's seven now. And like I said, motherhood. I loved it. Like, I still love it. It was. It was so unexpected and new and scary in a lot of ways, but I had never felt something so fulfilling and something that I really enjoyed so much. I also will say it was interesting having him. Both the experience of being pregnant and then giving birth itself and breastfeeding kind of sparked this new, like, that feminist thing in me that had kind of maybe been dormant a little bit that I really, you know, I had in high school dressed really modestly and kind of like my body was definitely on the back burner in terms of, like, you know, my spirit and who I am is so important. And I feel like motherhood kind of gave me back some ownership of my body in some way and some like. Like I loved my body and was grateful for it and kind of switched this, like, the shame that I had been feeling into a more positive of light if I was like, hey, I am strong. And, you know, it's incredible that I got really into breastfeeding. It's incredible that I not only created this baby, but can now feed him that he's on the outside of me. I was involved in, like, La Leche League and stuff, and that was probably one of my first. I don't know. So I'd always had, like, the LGBTQ thing on the shelf. But it bothered me that a lot of Mormons view breastfeeding is, like, immodest and want moms to go to the nurse, like, the mother's room, or cover up, preferably cover up and, like, be covered up in the mother's room. That's how most women I knew breastfed. And that. That was, like, something for me. That was kind of this little feminist, like, rage against the machine thing that I had that was like, no, this is how God designed my body is to feed a baby in this way.

John Dehlin [02:17:14] And.

Katie Harmon [02:17:15] And it's not shameful. That's what breasts were designed for. You know, by thinking that it's shameful, you're the one that's sexualizing. It was kind of my feeling. So that was maybe my first, like, ventures outside of, like, mainstream Mormonism was like, I would. I would nurse my kids wherever I needed to without worrying about, like, offending someone else. So I feel that was like, just a turning point of not only me, like, loving. Loving motherhood and just loving being a mom and loving this sweet little kiddo, but also coming into myself more and having some more. More self confidence than I had had and not. Not feeling ashamed about. About my body. So that was. It was a really good time. Still really active in the church and really conventional Mormon in most ways. That was just, like, a little way that maybe I differed from some other mainstream Mormons.

John Dehlin [02:18:03] Okay.

Katie Harmon [02:18:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:04] All right. So you're living the dream.

Katie Harmon [02:18:06] Yeah. So, yeah, super, super happy. Kiddo is growing. Great. So one thing that happened at this point, I guess I had been in school, like, all through my pregnancy after Sam was born, I struggled a lot. I. Looking back, I think I was suffering some postpartum depression that wasn't ever addressed, but also a lot of feelings of guilt, like, when I would be working on schoolwork and my husband would have him, that. That I should be with him as his mom. I should be the one that had him. And that wasn't just, like, from the church. It also was, like, a deep mom thing. Like, I really. I did want to spend as much time with him as I could. There's a combination of that with which. And also thinking, oh, am I being a good Enough, Mom. Because I'm away from him. So I ended up withdrawing from school, and I knew I didn't want to be done, like, forever. I knew that I would go back at some point, but it was kind of just like, well, let's just put this on hold for now with the hope that I'll return someday, which now eventually has happened. But I don't want to get too far ahead. But that break was much longer than I. Than I thought it would be.

John Dehlin [02:19:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie Harmon [02:19:17] Yes. I put school on hold when Sam is, like, he would have been fifth, maybe a year and a half. I don't know. Yeah, it was.

John Dehlin [02:19:26] And I'll just say that's significant because a scholarship is a big deal.

Katie Harmon [02:19:30] Yeah. I had to give up my scholarship.

John Dehlin [02:19:32] And you lose it.

Katie Harmon [02:19:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:33] And then once you have a kid, it's a very different thing to go to school with the kid than when you don't. And so in that moment, you're. You're living the. The Mormon dream and you're having these kids and your parents are excited, but you really are giving up on a big part of you. And this is the thing that I often find is these women who are 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70, and they discover the church isn't true. They're like, I would have gotten that education.

Katie Harmon [02:20:01] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:20:02] I would have pursued a career. And that's. That's why. That's such an important moment.

Katie Harmon [02:20:08] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:20:09] You had the kid, lost the scholarship, dropped out of college. And it's a non. True. It's a. It's a brutally difficult thing, once you have all these kids, to then start saying, well, how do I go back to school now? How do I pursue what I want?

Katie Harmon [02:20:25] Right, Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:20:26] So. So we'll. We'll get to that. But I just wanted to make that.

Katie Harmon [02:20:29] No. Yeah, and I agree, because there is, like you mentioned before. Well, there is. You can find plenty of talks that talk about the importance of women getting their education, but there's just as many or more, of course, that focus on motherhood. And I think there's kind of this. This belief there that a lot of women say, oh, well, if you really want to, you can do both with that, with very much downplaying how difficult that actually is. Right. To that. There's this. They're kind of. Sometimes these talks make it seem like you can have it both ways. You can get your education and be a mom, when the reality is that's plenty of women do it, and props to them so much. But, like, the reality is that's incredibly difficult. And so I think a lot of women do end up dropping out of school. You know, the. The difficulties of that are downplayed, for sure, of being a mom and a student. So anyway, yeah, so when Sam is, like, 15 months old or something, it's like the. April. I think it was April 2015, the Women's General Conference. And there was this talk again. As always, I go into conference with a prayerful, open heart, wanting to know, you know what? Just, you know, if there's anything I need to change in my life or how I should live my life, whatever. And there was a talk by one of the sisters again, like, about parenthood. And I hadn't been feeling like I was ready to have another kid yet. A lot of our friends at this point, and, like, just looking at my family, most of, like, my husband's family, their kids are, like, pretty much two years apart or even closer. Um, so this would have been about the time, you know, that a lot of other women would be getting pregnant again when their. Their kiddo is 15 months old or so. Um, but I really didn't feel ready for that. I really loved the relationship I had with them. Since I was out of school, it was just him and I home all day. Um, we read all the time, did art projects, went to the park. Like, I just felt like I was able to be such a good mom because I just had this one kiddo to focus on, and I loved that. But this talk, again, I took very seriously. I took it as if, you know, if it's. If it's spoken in this general conference, that means it's been. It really is revelation, essentially, or what's. What's being said is true and counts as the word of God. About. I can't remember. I can't remember exactly what the talk or what was said, but it was about families and not delaying families. And I felt like, okay, I think that maybe we're supposed to have another kid is what I think what this means. So I talked to my husband about it. He was excited because he didn't. I. He had so many siblings. I think he was anxious. He was. Not that he wanted a huge family, but he was like, yeah, like, I would love. It would be great for Sam to have a sibling. So I went into it a little like, I don't. I don't love this, but I think that it's what we're supposed to do. So we started trying again and got pregnant with our second kiddo, Max. And things are going Fine. You know, great pregnancy up until the 20 week anatomical ultrasound that is done where, you know, any, any pregnant woman or probably husband that's been with her remembers. Not only do you find out gender, that's usually what most people are excited for. And what we were. All that we were really thinking about was being so excited to find out the gender. But it's also more importantly where, you know, the sonographer will look at from head to toe, every body system of the baby. It's kind of when they're the right size, that they're big enough that you can see these things, but not too big, that it's like too cramped so they can get a really good view of all the organs and make sure that baby's growing the way they should. So we go into this appointment, no concerns at all, just pure excitement. And it changed pretty quickly. She was going through, looking at each part of Max's body. Told us he was a boy. We're so thrilled. A little bro for Sam. And then there was just this point where she got really quiet, like she had been talking and we were laughing. And then she just like the mood. It was like very obvious that things changed. And I started to get, you know, kind of concerned, like, is, is there something wrong? And she said, oh, you know, let me go grab the doctor. I just, I can't get a good look at this one. She kind of wouldn't say like what she saw. The doctor came and he looked also and kind of said this. He was like, you know, he, he didn't give me too many details. And at the time, I'm much different now. I want to know every detail about the medical stuff. But at the time he was like, you know, it looks like there might be something wrong. I'm not really sure what because these, of course, in Laramie were just like regular OB GYNs. There wasn't like perinatologists who do high risk pregnancies. So he was like, I think that we need to refer you to Denver, like for some further testing. So we were devastated, of course. So worried, so terrified of what could be wrong. Maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe it was just because they said that they're like, it could just be positional. Like, it might not be anything. But we think that, you know, to be safe, you should have some further testing done. So super scared and worried, but faithful, you know, all along because. Especially because I felt like that there had been the spiritual prompting to get pregnant with Max. I felt like, you know, no, I was supposed to get Pregnant with him when I did, like, this is all gonna. It's all gonna be okay. However it works out, like, this is gonna be handled. He's gonna be okay, was kind of my feelings. So we went down to Denver for more testing, and Max was diagnosed. So my hope wasn't true. I was hoping that it was just, like, positional and there wasn't anything wrong. Max was diagnosed with a condition called cdh, which stands for congenital diaphragmatic hernia. That I'll describe just. I don't want to get, like, too. Too into medical terms, but I'll describe a little bit just for, like, some reference. So the diaphragm, right, is a muscle underneath the lungs that aids in breathing. But in fetuses, it also plays the really important role of acting as a separation and a barrier between the heart and lungs and the thoracic cavity from stomach, liver, you know, intestines in the abdominal cavity. So it's. It acts as a separation to keep those two separate. And CDH occurs when the fetus's diaphragm doesn't fully form, leaving a hole, or in Max's case, none of his diaphragm formed at all. That allows, first off, that's detrimental to breathing when baby's born. Second, as the fetus continues to grow, these abdominal organs are able to move into the chest cavity and take up the room that the lungs would take to grow. So, like I said, Max had. Max's situation was, I'll get to that in a second, I guess, particularly bad. But that's kind of the basis of what CDH is. So kiddos born can't breathe on their own need a lot of intensive care right away. You know, a breathing tube and a ventilator to get them stabilized until they can have surgery to put the organs back in place and repair the diaphragm and then improve from there. So we kind of. We're told this. We're terrified. And you know what? It's. It's scary. Especially, you know, this is something I'm kind of passionate about. Now. Society doesn't really prepare women for the possibility of things like this. All anyone talks about is, you know, oh, as long as the baby's healthier, right? Like, it doesn't matter if it's a boy or girl, as long as they're healthy. Health is kind of put on a pedestal a little bit. Like, that's definitely what people's expectation is. So I wasn't, you know, at all prepared for the possibility that, you know, we could Have a child that especially being as young and healthy as I was and having a healthy pregnancy and obviously not drinking or doing drugs or anything like that, which, you know, there's plenty of birth defects that occur spontaneously without any sort of, you know, action on the part of the mom or inaction. CDH is one of those that we don't really know why it happens, but happens across like all demographics of people. So anyway, we are heartbroken and so scared, but so full of faith. Also. I definitely especially felt, not only had I had this prompting to have this baby, but I kind of felt this sense of purpose of like this might be the reason, one of the reasons that I was meant to join the church, right? Like God knew that this was maybe going to happen in my life and this is a chance for, for me to show my faith, for, for the power of God to be shown through our baby. For this great healing to happen, like for this to be a faithful experience, not only for me and my family and my husband's family, but even my non member family. Like maybe this, you know, somehow will lead them closer to Christ. This is kind of all what I'm thinking is a super active Mormon, right? That like this is horrible, but we're going to try and find the blessings and the good in it. And I had immense faith. Not even, it was even beyond faith. I was sure that he would be healed. So we're devastated coming home from this appointment. But we're like, you know what we're like we've been promised, right, that like my husband has the power of the priesthood that can heal just as Christ did when he was, you know, he can heal with it just the way Christ healed the sick when he was on the earth. And that this power of prayer, like God, you know, he hears the intents of our heart and answers it if it's, you know, if we have pure intent and good intent and what intent could be better than the healing of our kid, right? So we already were incredibly zealous, active Mormons, but like double down during this time. Usually I would read like the Book of Mormon is my like personal study. But I kind of switched gears and was reading in the New Testament. I wanted to read every and make like kind of record every instance of Christ healing someone. I was like, this is what I'm going to focus on because I have faith in this and I want to just like this is what I want to be thinking about, this is what I want to have in my mind and like make sure that my faith is Strong enough that like, this can happen. So that's what I read was like New Testament and then of course, like summon, Third Nephi and stuff. But like, just any, any instance of healing is what I was focusing on in my scriptures. We were praying all the time that he would be healed because I think this was our hope is that we would go. So we had some more appointments. So at our first appointment, they diagnosed him with cdh. Our next set of appointments, they were going to do like more in depth imaging, like an MRI on me, like a fetal echocardiogram where they look at the baby's heart to give us an idea of how severe Max's case was. Because at the first appointment, all they told us was he has cdh. Sometimes it can be pretty mild, just a little hole in the diaphragm. Sometimes it can be more major. We don't know yet. That will happen next time. So our hope going into this next appointment is we are going to go there and we'll have been so faithful that they will say, they will look at the ultrasound and say, oh my gosh, it's like it's a miracle he. This kid had CDH and he doesn't. Or that it would be an incredibly, incredibly mild case. Was our. Was what we. We believed would happen because we were righteous. We were living the way we were supposed to. We were worthy. I received so many priesthood blessings for my husband during this time. I even something that I remember and think about a lot. You know, you can. So obviously when you're at the temple, you can put names on the temple prayer roll right when you're there. You also can call temples, though, and submit names over the phone to them. So I made this huge, like, chart thing of every temple in the US and called and put Max's name in almost every temple. Some. A lot of temples actually are closed than I realized at any given time for like, maintenance or whatever. And like, had this chart. Like, some temples keep the name on the roll for one week, some keep it on for two, some like three weeks. So I like, had this chart of like, what names, what temple his name was in and my name was in, and when his name would expire and when I needed to call again to get it put back on the roll. So I had this immense. That took hours, by the way, to do. Um, but I had this immense faith that not only am I praying for him in this healing, we have the faith sufficient. All of our family does. All, you know, all these members around the United States are praying for Max in the temple too. And I was just sure that, that this is what was going to happen. This is going to be the outcome. So we went into this, appoint this next set of appointments about a month later. And I almost. I was nervous kind of, but I almost wasn't even because I. I was so sure. I was like, this is. This is what I've been promised. This is what I've been preparing for. This is why I joined this church. Maybe this is why, you know, I've read all that. I've read, like, I know that this healing power can work, and I have such great faith that it will work. So we go through all of the different imaging and then had this, like, big meeting at the end with all the doctors and were blindsided and horrified to hear that not only was Max's CDH not healed, but it was the worst, the most severe case the team had ever seen. And the team at Children's Hospital Colorado is one of the leading CDH teams in the country. So they have seen a lot of cases. His was the worst that they had seen. Like I said before, not only was it just a. It wasn't just a hole in his diaphragm, he had no diaphragm at all. So all of his abdominal organs were in his chest cavity. No room at all for his lungs to grow. What lung there was, was just. There was no left lung that they could see in like a tiny little bud of a right lung. Just incredibly severe. This. They said the chances of surviving were incredibly low. And if we wanted to pursue. So there's a couple options you're given. Of course, we were given the option to terminate the pregnancy in Colorado. I think you can terminate when there's a, like, anomalies of the fetus up to like 22 or 24 weeks. Obviously that wasn't an option to us. We, you know, didn't even consider that being active believing Mormons. Another option is to do something called comfort care, where they would deliver. I would deliver the baby, but they would just like, immediately give him, like, pain or sedation meds and just let him pass away, or to actively try and pursue treatment and survivability as much as we could. That's what we felt like we wanted to do. But because this case was so severe, the regular course of treatment of just like intubating and getting him on a ventilator and waiting for surgery, they didn't think that that would probably work. So they give us these two other options. One was this really kind of New. It's kind of hard to explain, so I'm going to too much depth. But this one medical procedure, the other is this fetal surgery. Two fetal surgeries that are. Were, like, pioneered in Europe, where they operate through me on the fetus. Again, I don't want to get too much into the medical stuff. They would, like, place this little balloon in his throat that would cause this fluid to build up and force lung growth. Is essentially kind of a rough summary of it. So they gave us those two options. And the six. The survival rate of kids that underwent the fetal surgery was like 49%. So we were. We felt like that's what we wanted to do if we could get, you know, he had very low chance of living if we just did the regular course of action, but potentially a little less than 50% chance of surviving if we did these two fetal surgeries. So we. We were like, okay, that's. That's what we want to do.

Prenatal Diagnosis and Difficult Decisions

John Dehlin [02:35:39] But how seriously did you consider the. The terminating the pregnancy option?

Katie Harmon [02:35:45] Not at all. Not even for a second. We looked at each other.

John Dehlin [02:35:48] And why was that? What was the influence there?

Katie Harmon [02:35:51] Yeah. So obviously, I think the biggest one was the church's stance on. On abortion. You know, and I think the church allows a little bit of potential wiggle room.

John Dehlin [02:36:02] Says that the church's policy is if it's rape, incest, or the life of the mother is at stake. And your life wasn't at stake, was it?

Katie Harmon [02:36:10] No, my life wasn't. I was totally fine.

John Dehlin [02:36:12] So you didn't qualify.

Katie Harmon [02:36:13] Wasn't an option.

John Dehlin [02:36:14] Standards.

Katie Harmon [02:36:14] Yeah. So not only. Right. Like by letter of the law, looking at that handbook, would we have not qualified. But I think culturally, we. We felt so. Like that would have been so taboo to even consider. And the pregnant, like, even though I'd been kind of hesitant about getting pregnant at this point, I very much wanted, you know, was connected to Max in this pregnancy. So it also stemmed from us wanting, you know, feeling like he's already our son and we. We do want to fight for him. But a huge part of it also was just not even feeling like because of the church, that that would even be an option at all for us. So, yeah, that was. That was a huge piece of it.

John Dehlin [02:36:55] Yeah. And so even if the church had a policy, like I'm Gerardo's telling me that maybe the church has changed its policy where they allow abortions in the case of severe deformities. I don't know if that was true when you were trying to make these decisions.

Katie Harmon [02:37:10] I don't think so. I think it was just the life of the mother is what I'm pretty sure.

John Dehlin [02:37:14] But then the other thing is there's so much cultural abortion, such a cultural taboo that whatever was in some policy book that may or may not have been on the Internet yet that may or may not have been accessible to you, the overwhelming social pressure of the

Katie Harmon [02:37:28] church wouldn't even let us consider it. Right. Like I said. Yeah. Outside of our own feelings of, like, just not wanting to because we felt, like, already connected to this baby and that he was our son. But, yeah, even if. If that had not. Even if those feelings hadn't been there, I don't even think it was something we would have considered. But, yeah. So we decide to move forward with the fetal surgeries. But are. This was like a turning point for me. Still super faithful. I can't even describe, though, how. How heartbroken I felt and how it shook my faith a little. Like I said, I still believed, but I was so certain that we had been doing everything right. We had had this immense faith to be healed and that none of the priesthood blessings or the. The prayers of the temple patrons around the country or the fasting, like, all of the things that we and our family had done that none of it seemed to help, that was really devastating and made me, like I said, some of it was internalized. Like, oh, my gosh, you know, maybe I. I didn't do it, but part of me also knew I absolutely. I did put a lot of thought and prayer and work and faith into this and was a little bit frustrated, to be honest, that, you know, that this didn't. What we had hoped would happen didn't happen. It was difficult.

John Dehlin [02:38:47] Yeah. And that's something that I don't think I've spent a lot of time thinking, but the teaching that priesthood power can heal is false advertising. There is zero evidence and a gazillion examples of counter evidence that priesthood power doesn't do anything. There might be a slight placebo effect, but. But it is sold to us as having the ability to heal, like Jesus healed, and it does not have that power. And that's false hope and that's false advertising.

Max's Birth, Surgery, and NICU Experience

Katie Harmon [02:39:20] Totally. Radio Free Mormon did. I remember there was an episode he did that I listened to about the faith. This phrase that's used all the time, the faith to not be healed that Mormon leaders have kind of coined and used as a way of twisting this around. Yeah, right. A way of, you know, yes, it takes great faith to be healed, but it takes even greater faith to not be healed and to say I still believe despite not being healed, well, what a kind of sneaky, underhanded way to, you know, to allow people to believe in the priesthood power, but then also willingly accept when they never see the power of it.

John Dehlin [02:39:54] And that way it's a win win. If, if by some accident or coincidence or just biological process someone gets better from something, well, then God miraculously.

Katie Harmon [02:40:08] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:40:09] So that's all to God. And then if, if the person doesn't get healed, well, then it's your job to be more faithful and righteous and to endure and to have the faith to not be healed.

Katie Harmon [02:40:20] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:40:21] So it's all the church's credit if it, if it turns out good and all the shame and burden on you if it doesn't.

Katie Harmon [02:40:27] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:40:28] That feels awful.

Katie Harmon [02:40:30] It does, totally. Right. And that's kind of. We were in the thick of. Is just really struggling with how, like I said, we never questioned the church at this point, but just felt incredibly painful and confused about why this most. The most righteous desire, just that our kid could live, could survive, why that wasn't something that we could. That could happen for us easily. Yeah. So we. Faith's a little shaken, but go forward with this. So Max and I underwent two different fetal surgeries. I was like, had to be down in Denver, like on bed rest in between them because once they've, you know, once you've operated, they don't really want you walking around and stuff because it's pretty easy to go into labor after your uterus has been messed with like that. So I'm down in Denver and they estimated that Max would probably have to be in the NICU for like four to six months. So we're gearing up for this big. Which seemed horrible, by the way. Right? Like that seem four months of being in the hospital, like not being able to leave, not be able to take your baby home. Four months of juggling this, this other, you know, two year old that we have, like, it just, that seemed, that seemed like undoable almost. Little did I know, you know, I don't want to jump too ahead. It was much worse than that. But. So we're kind of gearing up though. Keith decided to take the semester off school. So. Well, so this is during the fall semester that I'm pregnant and have the fetal surgeries. He was still in school during that time, but he decided to take the spring semester off because that would have been like January through May and hopefully Max would be home in April or May. And then there would be the Summer. And so hopefully this gave us kind of some buffer to. To deal with this NICU stay without anything else, you know, going on, and just be down there together as a family. So as soon as the semester finished in, like, December, Keith came down and stayed with Sam, our oldest, at the Ronald McDonald House while I was in the hospital pregnant with Max. And then Max ended up being born New Year's Day, 2016. I went into labor pretty quickly that morning, and it was obvious that he was going to be born, and they kind of had to, like, assemble everyone because it was a huge. This was so importantly. This was the first time this fetal surgery had been performed at Children's Hospital Colorado. Like I said, it was kind of popularized in Europe, and there's some. There was a couple other facilities in the US Doing it, and our fetal surgeon had performed it before somewhere else, but not here. So it was new. While it wasn't new to him, it was new to all, like, the rest of the staff, right. The nurses and stuff that we're. We're going to be helping. So when I was in, like, giving birth, the room was, like, full of. There were so many people, not some of them there to, like, for educational. Right. Like, some had never. You know, this was so new, this fetal surgery, that they kind of wanted to be involved and see some of it, some of the process, and some just. Because it takes a huge team of people to stabilize an infant that's this sick right after birth. So his birth was. My birth of my oldest was, like I said, really empowering. This one was, in some ways, but also incredibly painful. I decided that I gotten an epidural with my first. I decided with Max, I didn't want to because we were pretty certain that he. We were preparing ourselves for the possibility that he wouldn't make it. And I felt like if this might be one of the only experiences I have with him, this giving birth that I don't want to be. I want to feel all of it, even if it's pain. I want to, like, be. Be involved and connected. So it was pretty traumatic just in. Because there was so much sorrow mingled with. It was. It was weird. You know, you're so happy to give birth, but there was also this great fear of, all of a sudden, he's not safe in the womb anymore. He's out in the world, and we're gonna have to see how he does without me protecting him, sort of. So it was a really. Just, like, a huge mix of emotions. Really difficult in terms of as soon as I gave birth. They just held him up literally like this for a second. Like I saw his face, and then immediately went to be stabilized. He had to. So he had the fetal surgery. He still, of course, had to be his lung. And the. I should say the fetal surgery helped a lot, actually. Um, he was. His lungs did grow some because of it. Uh, so he was in a little bit of a better place, but still incredibly sick. So he still, of course, was intubated right away, which is when they put a breathing tube, you know, down your throat and connected to the ventilator. And they immediately were trying to, you know, get his. Get his vitals to be in a safe place. And I didn't want my husband with me. I was like, go. I don't want. I want Max to have someone near him. And they kind of let Keith, like, hover around as they were stabilizing him and just really traumatic. Just sitting there alone after a traumatic birth, you know, just thinking like, oh, my gosh, what's. What's to come. Yeah. So Max is born, they get him stabilized and over to the nicu and we kind of start this. This journey that, like I said, six to four months or four to six months is what they told us. Um, but Max's journey was not at all. And no NICU journey really is for kid kiddos like this, but was not as straightforward as we thought it would be. Um, so he's. He's really sick. On day four of life, he had the. The big surgery to. To build. So since he didn't have a diaphragm to like repair a hole in, they built him a diaphragm out of one of his back muscles. Mate. So huge major surgery on a four day old premature infant. Super terrifying for us. We weren't sure if he would, you know, make it through that surgery. I remember just being so heartbroken. And this is where this. It happened some when I was pregnant, but it happened. It started having a lot. After Max was born, the members would say these incredibly hurtful or unhelpful kind of like platitudes. I remember saying something about. So it was when Max was in surgery, this first surgery, and he was so. He was so unstable that they couldn't even bring him to the. Or. They had to like, transform his NICU room into an operating room and do the surgery in there. And so Keith and I were just like in some random room just crying our eyes out because it's so traumatic and scary. We don't know what's gonna happen. And we're talking to family a little bit and someone said something like, oh, isn't this so amazing that you get to see what it is like to be Heavenly Father watching the Savior suffer. Like, there's this parallel of like you watching your son suffer. That was, which was just like, it wasn't helpful at all. I very much. That offended me. And I felt like, no, you know, Christ suffered so that we didn't have to. My son is not living out some, you know, some parallel story of that where he's suffering so we can learn something or the people around us can learn something. But that was just kind of the start of these really strange experiences and things that people would say, members specifically would say to us, where they would kind of co opt take the pain that we were going, the painful experience we were going through and twist it into something, a spiritual experience. Either trying to make us like, turn this into a spiritual experience or turn it into like a spiritual experience for themselves. That was something that, that was. Went on throughout Max's entire NICU state and still today with his continuing health struggles that, that I've really struggled with that. You know, sometimes Mormons can be some of the most empathetic people that you've ever met and really, you know, really great at understanding and sitting and holding space. But at least with this specific situation we were in, we mostly, most of the, the words of comfort we received from people were actually really painful things. Like, you know, oh, well, you know, if he does die, it's fine because he'll go straight to the celestial kingdom. That's not comforting. Like, I didn't want my baby to. That's. That wasn't what I wanted. I wanted him here with me. It wasn't comforting, really. Comforting that if he died, he would be there because, okay, great, I guess that's. It's good to know he's in a happy place. But he belonged in my arms. That was what I wanted. And there was kind of this common theme of an inability to like, really recognize and validate the pain we were going through. And instead kind of like, well, how can you learn from this when really we just wanted. We just needed someone to hold our hand, right? And to like, empathize with us. So that was, that was something that started early on and has continued as members, kind of not, not knowing what to say. And when they do say things, often turning it into something that makes them feel better. Like, oh, I've just learned, you know, watching Max, I just, you know, I can feel Heavenly Father's love when I see him. And I don't know, like, I don't understand how you seeing my son suffer somehow is a spiritual experience for you. I don't. It's hard to explain. Kind of, no.

John Dehlin [02:49:37] Let's bring in a couple comments from our listeners. So Shiman Chu 2006 says, quote, well, meaning, quote, members can say some of the most insensitive things. Totally times. And then my dear friend Penny. Hey, Penny. Penny writes, our youngest child was born with a cleft lip and had other issues in the nicu. And members can say such hurtful things. This son passed away of another birth defect that we didn't know about until the autopsy when he was five years old in 2008. Again, members would say things like, we have all of our other children. In other words, like, you can't be sad because you've got other children or how wonderful it will be to see him in the next life. So don't. Don't feel pain or sadness. You get to see him in the next life. Isn't the. Is that the gospel Wonderful and that he is our angel? So it's like, oh, this kid's gonna look. Look out for you. And what Penny's saying is, the grief of losing a child cannot be that simplified in the moment. And I think she's saying what you were also saying. Mormons can be really bad at just sitting with discomfort and pain and just being with people.

Katie Harmon [02:50:50] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:50:51] And just like saying, no, this is grief, this is painful, this is sad. These are real emotions. You're hurting. They don't want to deal with the fact that you're having pain. And they certainly don't want to deal with their own pain. And so they automatically, with good intentions, rifle off these platitudes of, you know, gospel platitudes that are experienced as what? From the person grieving. How are they experienced, Katie?

Katie Harmon [02:51:18] Painful. Really. What it was was definitely, certainly not helpful or comforting, which is, I know what the intent was behind it, but not that at all. To me, it was painful and downplayed what we were going through. Kind of like Penny said, oh, well, at least you. I definitely heard that all the time. Well, at least you have, Sam. That's, you know, it's not acknowledging how difficult it is. What parent is okay with one kid dying because they have another? It's not like you at least have, you know, it's like there's a spare kit or something. And just really. I think what bothered me the most was a dehumanized Max in some way and made him kind of this source of, like I said, a spiritual growth for everyone else at the expense of his pain. And that was the thing we heard so many people said a lot is, oh, kept comparing him to the Savior. That was really just bothered me because that's not, you know, that's not what the church even teaches. So I don't even know where people get that from. But that, oh, Max is. We are learning so much. We're learning how to be faithful and how to persevere from him. And that really made me angry that people would basically were taking his suffering and seeing how it would benefit them, what they could learn from it, how they could grow from it, how they could maybe see God's hand and certain things that happened, maybe that, you know, when something kind of good happened, like, oh look, that's evidence of, of God's love for you and never, never acknowledging where we were at and the, the deep pain that we were feeling. So. And I don't want to say sorry real quick, I don't want to say never because we did have some family members that were great about this. But I just think by and large the experience with active members was not. Wasn't helpful at all and hurtful on actually. Whereas like the help. The words we were receiving, like the words of support from my family were really helpful. And that's something my husband. I both noticed right away. Why do we feel really uplifted and supported after talking to the non Mormons and after pretty much many interactions with active believing members, we actually come away feeling like you don't understand what I just said to you at all. Really. You kind of are using this maybe for your own purposes. And I know that's never been anyone's intent, I'm sure, but that's what it kind of ends up being. So.

John Dehlin [02:53:43] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [02:53:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:53:44] So there's other really good comments coming in. Jeff writes, on the day of my infant daughter's funeral, someone brushed my pain aside by saying, quote, oh, you guys are young, you'll have another clothes.

Katie Harmon [02:53:57] So sorry, Jeff. That's something that. So Max, you know, Max didn't pass away though there's multiple times during this NICU stay that things were very dicey and he almost did. And we heard people said things like that all the time too. Oh, don't worry, you can have another if this happens. Not acknowledging, like I said, his dehumanizing him. He is a person. He's our son who we love. We want him. Right. So yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:20] And describes it as toxic positivity Totally. And the reason why it's toxic. As someone with a PhD in psychology, it's unhealthy to bury and push down emotions. If you can lean into your grief, your anger, your sadness, if you can process it, if you can learn from it, if you can express it, then you learn and heal and grow. But if you just push it aside and avoid it and act like it's not there and dismiss it, then it just festers and it can literally be toxic.

Katie Harmon [02:54:52] Definitely.

John Dehlin [02:54:53] You're not. And you're not exaggerating. Sitting with all these suppressed, internalized emotions can become toxic or deadly to your mental health.

Katie Harmon [02:55:04] Definitely.

John Dehlin [02:55:06] And so that's a great point.

Katie Harmon [02:55:07] And yeah, and I think that's. This was another kind of key moment in our lives where, you know, we're so. For one thing, we're down in Denver, living at the Ronald McDonald House, isolated kind of from our. Our ward family, which had given a big. A big group of support kind of, you know, before all this happened. And our support system kind of shifted to the other families that were going through similar things at their own McDonald House. So all of a sudden, from this very, like, homogenized community that we had been part of, now all of a sudden, things are different. So, for one thing, we're in Denver, so just, like, the diversity in general was different than it was in Laramie. We, you know, had friends that were gay couples, like, people of different skin color, like, all sorts of just, like, way more variety of people's life experiences than we had experience than, like, the friendships that we had back home. And like I said, we really realized that these people were able to really. Of course, the parents that were going through it, of course, could be the most empathetic. But we definitely noticed this shift where, like, all these strangers that we didn't even know were able to empathize with us and. And really be that support we needed when these other people who know the gospel of Jesus Christ and in theory, maybe should be the most empathetic because they have this. This one true church, this one truth that, like, no one else has this unique thing that, you know, you would think that maybe they should be the ones that could. Could handle this best, but that the opposite was our case. I was gonna say something else really good.

John Dehlin [02:56:54] As you're thinking about it, I'll just bring in a couple more comments.

Katie Harmon [02:56:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:56:56] Melissa writes, the day my son died, I got a lecture from a ward member on the plan of salvation. It's like, members are mad at you for bringing any Discomfort into their lives by having a death and by having grief. And so they're like, stop it. Stop making me angry. Stop making me uncomfortable or sad. Plan of salvation. Deal with it. You're. You're. You're ruining my day. You're. You're. The death of your loved one is ruining my day. Plan of salvation. And see, speak to the hand. You know what I mean?

Katie Harmon [02:57:30] Totally right. And we. There was one time, I remember a woman from our ward asked me, how are you doing? And I sometimes, like in the beginning, we were. Tried to be really positive, but after a while we were like, we. If we want, there's this support we're seeking in order to get that we need to be honest right about where we're at. And I said, you know, not great. We're like, we're just okay. And she was like, oh, you mean you're doing good? Like, she, she even corrected me. I was like, no, I said, I said we're not doing good. She's like, oh, I don't know how to respond when someone says they're not doing good. She literally said that. And I was like, well, I don't know what to even say to you, but you're right. This kind of. It seemed like when we would want to talk to people or, you know, share about what we're going through, that there always had to be this positive spin on it, this, how can it strengthen faith? How can we look at this in a positive light versus just ever letting us really, you know, have our emotions validated. So that was hard. And that's. It was a turkey. Good turning point though, in the way that, like I said, I think our, our lives became more diversified. We started to, you know, meet people that weren't just Mormon. Obviously as a convert, I had kind of always had that to some degree, but, you know, that I just feel like there was a lot more introduced to our life where we're seeing incredible families whose lives are very different from us, but they're just. Just as happy as us just, you know, are able to deal with this. You know, we thought that the gospel would give us a unique way of dealing with this. And we saw that maybe that wasn't the case, that there's people that don't have this and are figuring out their ways of dealing with this just fine. That was just kind of an eye opening, like a little shift of like, oh, we don't have the monopoly on like, how to deal with hard things in Mormonism.

John Dehlin [02:59:17] No, no, quite the contrary.

Katie Harmon [02:59:18] Right.

John Dehlin [02:59:19] So I'M grateful we have a listener who's clearly an orthodox Mormon. Allen writes, these comments from other people are not comforting. I'm sorry these comments were made, but harmful, harmful comments can come from members of any church or community. What would you say to Allan, who's saying, hey, Mormons are imperfect like everybody else. This doesn't mean the church isn't true. You know what I mean?

Katie Harmon [02:59:42] Yeah. I mean, he's not wrong in that there. I'm sure there's other people that could make comments like that, but I think because of the intense focus put on the plan of salvation, the intense focus put on the resurrection and on what the afterlife is gonna look like, actually allowed people to kind of gave license, I guess, more license for these comments, more ability to say, it's not that big a deal if your kid dies because of specifically the sealing ordinances that have been done that we know will happen in the afterlife. I felt like there was a more willingness. People would talk about Max, Max dying very casually, like, oh, well, when Max dies, blah, blah. Family members would say that sometimes. And that was infuriating to me because it wasn't casual to me. But I think the. The specific things that are taught in Mormonism about the sealing power that binds, you know, families together makes people sometimes downplay death and grief and how. How painful that is for people. So I think it's the. The specific, like, there's not even a shadow of a doubt for Mormons. We know that this is what. Because of what we've been told, we know for sure this is what the afterlife looks like. So you really shouldn't focus on, you know, it gave them license to not focus on the grief of this life as much and to downplay the grief of this life. Because this life is just temporary when I don't think all most other faiths think and absolutes quite as much. Maybe. I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:01:16] Yeah. And you know, another. There's another comment from a listener. Andreal writes, I got hurtful comments from the Methodist church. I left the elders Church about 17 years ago. I don't think our point is that only Mormons are bad people.

Katie Harmon [03:01:32] No, no. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:01:33] I think. I think you're missing our point. I think our point is that there are cultures that do better and worse with certain things. There are cultures that are more LGBT affirming and less LGBT affirming. There are cultures that are more feminist friendly, less feminist friendly. More. More friendly to science and data and intellect and less friendly. And what we're saying, number one, is that the Mormon Church is on the less friendly side to dealing with families with disabilities and with. With death and grieving. And that's something that we're just calling out and saying we need to do better. We're not saying Mormons are worthless, evil people and they're the only ones that are bad. That's a straw man. But also I think we're saying something else, which is that this is the church that claims to be God's one true church on the earth. This is the church that claims that their leaders literally speak to God unlike anybody else. So we're not asking for perfection here, but we are saying, why aren't we leading in treatment of LGBT people, leading in the treatment and advancement of women, leading in the treatment of people of color, leading in the treatment of disabled kids? Why are we leading in how we grieve instead of being in the 10th or 20th percentile?

Katie Harmon [03:02:54] Totally. Thank you for clarifying that, because I agree that's not my point at all. Isn't that that this is unique to only Mormonism? There's lots of people that don't know how to hold space and don't know how to say the right things. What was surprising to us is because of the truth claims, because of this monopoly on, you know, people that are a church that's led by Christ and a people that should be as Christ like as they can be. We were very surprised, just. Just surprised at some of the reactions that felt actually very far from that compared to the truth that these people claim to have. Yeah, I definitely think it happens outside of more. Not definitely. I know I've. I've heard it from the same comments from plenty of people. Even people of no faith sometimes say, think like it's, you know. Yeah. Not just Mormonism. Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [03:03:45] Well, that's super hard. And there's a lot of listeners that are. That have had similar experiences and. And we're getting a lot of validating comments that.

Katie Harmon [03:03:54] Oh, great.

John Dehlin [03:03:55] Number one, Katie, people are super grateful that you're willing to share such hard and vulnerable things. It's very validating. And two, you're not alone. There's a lot of people who feel this way. So this notion of ableism, this notion of grieving, we just don't. We don't do it well. And we need to do better. If we're Christ Church. If we're Christ Church.

Katie Harmon [03:04:16] Right. It all ties back to that claim.

John Dehlin [03:04:18] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [03:04:19] Right. That. That specific claim. Yeah. So, no, I can't wait to read the comments. Thank you. To anyone who Any support, I appreciate it, but yeah. So this, these kind of platitudes that remains a theme and like I said, still is today with Max and his current health struggles. But it's difficult to kind of like boil down, distill like what this whole NICU experience. So I don't know how much detail I'll go into. But the, the short of it was Max ended up being in the NICU for 11 months, which like I said in the beginning, thinking about four months in the hospital, living in the hospital seemed unbearable. I can't even explain how difficult this year was. We one thing to recognize too is a lot of NICU stays are what they call feeder grower, which is, you know, a baby that's born a little premature and just needs to get a little bigger and you know, a little bit healthier before going home. Max's NICU stay was not that at all. It was incredibly traumatic. There was emergencies almost, almost weekly, practically. He ended up having to undergo nine more surgeries while we were down there. So, you know, the diaphragm repair was done. But then unfortunately it's. When a kid is this sick, things easily can snowball. You know, you fix one problem, but it causes something else. And that's kind of, kind of what happened to him that they're just kept. Nothing seemed like was going right. One complication would be solved but then lead to another. So it was this really traumatic up and down, his health constantly in the balance, constantly not sure if we're ever going to get to bring him home. And it's. It's difficult to express how traumatic that is unless you've. You've gone through it 11 months straight. You know, I didn't even get to hold Max until he was a month on, like his month birthday. I was able to finally hold my baby for the first time and it was only for like two hours and then he had to go back in the bassinet and it was as heartbreaking. And so throughout this, as he got more stable, we were able to like hold him more. But then he would have a big surgery and be really unstable and again and you know, we wouldn't be able to hold him. And like I said, it's. Unless you've gone through it, it's. It's difficult to explain how, how traumatizing that is when all you want is for your kid to be safe and instead you're, you're seeing them constantly in danger and constantly really suffering. It was, it was really difficult. And then that's not Only that's like kind of just the Max side of it. We made a commitment when Max was born. I felt very strongly that I never wanted him to be alone in the NICU ever, even, like overnight. So Keith, one of us would stay at the Ronald McDonald House with Sam, and one would stay at the NICU with Max. And every evening, like seven, we would switch and the other would then spend the night and next day with the other kiddo because we never wanted either of them to be without us. We. We felt strongly that it's hard. And then nicu, you feel so powerless, right? Because you're not a doctor, there's not a lot that you can do except watch. But I did feel like one thing we could do was be there with him, have our presence there, talk to him, sing to him, read to him. I felt really strongly that that could be healing in its own way. So we made that commitment. So not only is this incredibly hard on Max most of all because he's the one going through the physical, physically going through it, but it was weird for our two year old, right? He's really not seeing mom and dad together super often. It's usually one or the other of us because the NICU visiting, so siblings can only at the time, can only come in like once a week is how it was. I think during the summer months when there's not like the risk of RSV and flu and all these respiratory viruses, visiting is more lax. But when Max was born in January, that's how it was. So Sam really never saw us together in the beginning until it kind of hit summer and Keith and I were really never together. We were going through all of the. I mean, we were all constantly talking on the phone and texting, of course, in an. In close contact. But it was really difficult to go through all of this and not have your spouse by your side for most of it. We were usually one of us was with one kid and one with the other. So the toll that that takes on a relationship in so many different ways was really rough too. Luckily, we. A NICU nurse told us some statistic that I can't remember now of divorces after long NICU stays. We happen to be one of the lucky couples that came out stronger on the other side that this, like, bonded us together and we really grew closer because of it. But it can ruin plenty of marriages, as you can imagine. The, the, you know, stress, emotional, financial, sexual, even, like we, like I said, we weren't together a lot. So that, like the intimate side of our Relationship. There was a million things that this affected. We were lucky to have family. My mom especially came to visit all the time. His parents also, as they were able to. So there were times that, like, you know, someone else could watch Sam and we could, like, be together with Max. So it wasn't like 11 months straight of. Of not being together, but it was just. It was traumatic in every way that. That long NICU stay. So.

Eleven Months in the NICU and Community Response

John Dehlin [03:09:31] So a couple questions. First of all, one of our listeners, Melissa, writes, PTSD is a real thing for parents of NICU babies.

Katie Harmon [03:09:42] Definitely. There's.

John Dehlin [03:09:43] You want to talk about that?

Katie Harmon [03:09:45] Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So they're actually. And I. I don't have the reference for it or anything. There was a researcher in San Diego, though, who was doing some work on PTSD of parents with long NICU stays especially. And as evidence was showing that it was really the effects they were seeing in parents were very similar to what they see even in, like, veterans who have ptsd, because it's. It's different, but it's similar in that you're. You're constantly. It's not your own life that you're worried about. It's your baby's life, though. There's constantly these emergencies going on. This, this constant. This constant trauma that really is damaging. And that's. That's absolutely something that I still deal with. There's have, you know, flashbacks sometimes or nightmares. Certain noises like when we're back at the. Because Max. This is down the road a little bit, but Max still now is admitted to the hospital often. And there's certain, like, noises like pumps or the. The alarm that goes off when there's a code on the floor, which is when, you know, a kid's heart is stopped and they need to start emergency. They're going to start CPR and try and resuscitate them. Max coded. I don't probably like four or five times in the nicu. So that sound is incredibly triggering to me. So I. Yeah, PTSD for NICU stays is. Is very real, for sure. Oh, sorry, John, I can't hear you.

John Dehlin [03:11:10] Sorry, I was on mute.

Katie Harmon [03:11:11] Oh, you're worried. No worries.

John Dehlin [03:11:12] How did you guys afford 11 or however many months of ICU? Because that's. Yeah, how could anyone. How could any young couple afford that?

Katie Harmon [03:11:19] Yeah, so that's something that I'll definitely get to when I talk about some of the disability stuff, too. No, but we were on Medicaid, Max. We were fortunate that, you know, had kids young. Keith was still in school. He had a job but not one that provided insurance. So we were, you know, below the income threshold that we qualified for Medicaid, which was really difficult for me to even accept getting on Medicaid for this. Because, like, I love the interviews you've been doing with Dr. Matthew Harris. Like his stuff with autism.

John Dehlin [03:11:52] Right, Communism.

Katie Harmon [03:11:53] Yes. I had read there was some talk coming back to maybe my scrupulosity a little bit. I had read some talk from President Benson that specifically said members of the church should not be on social welfare. And I think he even, he named like food stamps by name and he might have. I can't remember exactly what he said. I had an incredible amount of guilt. We never were on food stamps because of that. Because he said that, you know, explicitly. I had a lot of guilt as to whether or not it was okay for us to, to even have Medicaid as insurance. I give all the credit, though, to our bishop, who I talked to about it because I was so worried about it. Is this something we can do? And he, you know, you kind of have this leadership relay, right. How are they going to react? He was amazing and said that he felt like what President Benson was getting at is if being on some of these social programs is allowing you to maintain a lifestyle like it, because your health insurance is covered, you can, you know, I don't know, spend your money more in like a frivolous way that that's frowned upon. But if it's life sustaining, that it is, it is. Okay. I think that's unique because I think a lot of people don't have. I think a lot of people would say before you go on food stamps, you know, you should be really scrimping and saving and make like you shouldn't maybe accept food stamps until your family is literally like maybe almost starving and really in a food insecure position. So I'm so grateful for that Bishop, for having that view on it because that kind of put my mind at ease and like, well, this, this is life saving. This is what needs to happen. Because the cost of that, of nicu, like any medical intervention like this is astronomical. Like even a super wealthy person couldn't ever pay for it out of pocket. So we're grateful that that safety net was there for us.

John Dehlin [03:13:43] Yeah. And that that should be the culture, should be. Isn't it great that the government has this support and take advantage of it because that's what it's there for. But instead in Mormonism, we've got this problematic, you know, John Bircher remnant, anti government conservative sort of thing. That, and not, not to get political, but like that speaks very ill of socialism and communism. But the truth is you were on a social program that, that transformed your life.

Katie Harmon [03:14:16] Right? Saved our son's life.

John Dehlin [03:14:18] Yeah, I saved your son's life. And it, it kept your family from going bankrupt.

Katie Harmon [03:14:22] Totally.

John Dehlin [03:14:23] So there, there are, there is value to social programs. I'm not advocating socialism per se, but that's kind of what we're talking about are social programs that are safety nets for people that, that otherwise need it.

Katie Harmon [03:14:36] Totally. Well, and this is something that I have a big kind of beef with. So the church of course encourages families to have children young. This wasn't just us. With Max's NICU stay every. There's only one couple I can think of who decided to do home birds so they could, the midwife charged much less and they could pay her out of pocket. There's not another single young couple I know in our stake that wasn't on Medicaid. As college students having children in order to pay for the births and you know, the health care of their kids, that was the only one family to that exception. So it's this interesting, the church encourages you to have children young, but we now live in a world where, you know, medical costs are incredibly, incredibly high. Families can't manage that. Even if it's not something like what Max went through, even just a typical vaginal birth is incredibly expensive. Families can't manage that without this sort of health insurance. So like I said, every student family that I know that had kids while they were in school and didn't have a full time job was also on Medicaid. I remember reading something once too about the percentage of BYU students, young married students that were on Medicaid. And it was super high. So it's like there's this stigma that like we have to be self sufficient and you shouldn't accept this help, but kind of this underlying like turn, turn a blind eye to the fact that that's the way these young families can continue to grow is because that safety net is there. If that didn't exist, families would have to use birth control and wait until they had jobs with insurance that would allow them to afford these kids. So it's, that's, yeah, kind of hypocritical to me. I've struggled with that.

John Dehlin [03:16:12] And I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm neutral, I'm nonpartisan. I vote Democrat, I vote Republican. Like I, I'm not an advocate for one party or another, but it's Weird that Mormons are so Republican and they talk the rhetoric of hating socialism, and yet so many Mormons are taking advantage of social programs. That's not intellectually consistent.

Katie Harmon [03:16:40] It isn't. Right. And that's something I. Yeah. As I then got married and had kids and saw this didn't totally make sense to me. Right. I noticed, like, well, how can you. As soon as you, like, when you vote, most of them do vote for, you know, conservative candidates and don't. Don't support things like Medicaid expansion, things that would allow some of these programs to help more people, but also simultaneously are taking advantage of these programs. It's a really strange dynamic there that I be honest, I don't understand. But I think that it's hypocritical, I think, is the way I would describe it, and hard for families like mine who took that very seriously. And I was very concerned as to whether I was doing something wrong by being on a program, you know, taking advantage of a program like this. So.

John Dehlin [03:17:26] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [03:17:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:17:28] Okay. Well, there's so much, you know, everything you're talking about is so intense. So this is. This could be its own episode, is just dealing with medical issues with the child and intensive care and. And the effects of all that. But there's. There's so much to your story because there's. That you're a convert and the truth claims.

Katie Harmon [03:17:51] Right.

John Dehlin [03:17:52] Letting go of your education and. And your career and having the kids, when you're told, like, this is building. But there's a lot to this. It's an intense.

Katie Harmon [03:18:00] It is.

John Dehlin [03:18:01] It's a very intense story, and I'm feeling it. And I think a lot of listeners are feeling. I don't mean to say the heaviness of it, but, like, sure, there is a weight.

Katie Harmon [03:18:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:18:10] There's a. There's a weight to your story that I'm sure you. You. You know more than anybody.

Katie Harmon [03:18:14] Yeah, no, no, I totally get what you're saying. Yeah. I think for anyone who makes the decision to get married young and have kids young, it's a big decision. It ended up being even more pivotal for us because Max's health problems totally changed our lives in ways that, like, a healthy, typical child we wouldn't have even seen. So, yeah, the. It all builds and it is. It's heavy. I get it for sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:18:42] So, anyway, so where does your story take us next?

Katie Harmon [03:18:45] Yeah, so we're in the NICU still being super faithful. One of us. We take turns taking Sam to church on Sundays. Feel kind of this even pressure Sometimes to, like, share the gospel with people, you know, that we know, they're like, well, maybe this is part of why this is happening, is a chance for us to be good missionaries, just. Just constantly trying to be with all our hearts the best Mormons that we can be, right? But then around, it's probably like, month eight in the nicu. I. So every time Max, like, hit turned one month old, I would make this, like, sign, like, a little cute poster to hang on the wall. And I say cute, but it actually was incredibly depressing and heartbreaking to see them add up, right, that, like, the months keep ticking by and we're still here and there's no end in sight. I think about month eight is when I'd been so faithful and we still aren't seeing progress. He's still having so many challenges and suffering so much. And like I said, no end in sight. Really difficult. I think that is. That was a turning point for me that I kind of maybe did start to question a little bit. I still believed overall, but I started to wonder, like, does. Can the power of the priesthood heal? Does, like, Heavenly Father hear my prayers? Because it just felt like. Felt like I was saying my prayers and they were hitting the ceiling and falling back down, right? Like, no, it felt like, you know, this immense love that Heavenly Father is supposed to have for us. I was having a very difficult time feeling that in my life because of what was going on. So that was just a little turning point where I'm like, just little cracks more in the shelf of, like, you know, I don't. I still believe the church is true for sure, and never, you know, never was questioning the history of Joseph Smith or anything, but just kind of like, struggling with some of the claims because I'm just not seeing the evidence of them in my life, but still. So maybe lost my zeal a little bit, but still totally active and believing. And then there was another important kind of milestone in the nicu. So Max has a diagnosis called tracheomalasia, where our trachea, you know, windpipe leading down to the lungs is usually like cartilage, very firm and doesn't collapse or anything. But with trachea Malaysia, it does. He had a really floppy airway that would close part of that. I guess I won't get into all the medical. I'm trying to explain it without, like, getting too. Too detailed, because that's not super important to the story. But this would cause. Cause so many problems. He couldn't come off the ventilator because of this. He had. He was intubated, had the ventilator breathing for him. They would try and take him off and he would do okay for a little bit and then need it again. So we're trying to figure out how to move forward with this. And one option, and probably the most common option, is to move forward with a tracheostomy, which is a surgery little incision right here in a permanent little breathing tube that goes in. And he would still be ventilator dependent, but that's even though still really on life support. That's something kids can actually come home with. But that was something we didn't want at the time because it felt like, you know, our whole goal at this time, too, had been bring home as healthy and typical a baby as possible. Because that was just what, you know. Now I look at that a little differently. But at the time, that's what we expected, that's what we hoped. We wanted our lives to be as easy as possible, and more importantly, we wanted his life to be as easy as possible. So we wanted as few, you know, extra, like, equipment and stuff, coming home as was possible. Um, so we really were like, hoping to avoid moving forward with the trach if we could. Um, but it really kind of looked like that's the way things were going to go. But we were really praying, like at this point too, I should say we'd abandoned praying for healing like a long. Probably like in month two or something. this point, we're playing. We're praying for stuff like this. Well, okay. It doesn't seem like he's going to be healed of this. So, you know, as as little suffering as possible and if it can at least be, you know, easier. Easier than harder kind of is more the way that our prayers have changed. We weren't really looking for, oh, God's going to heal his tracheomalacia. I don't even know if we believed that that could happen anymore. It was more just like, please let him not suffer is kind of where the, the direction our prayers had taken.

Max's Ongoing Medical Challenges and Diagnoses

John Dehlin [03:23:02] So you're lowering and lowering and lowering the bar of your expectations.

Katie Harmon [03:23:05] Yep. Right.

John Dehlin [03:23:06] Because you're finding the priesthood isn't helping.

Katie Harmon [03:23:08] It's not. Yeah. Yep. The prayers aren't.

John Dehlin [03:23:10] But you want to keep praying. You want to keep praying and fasting and submitting names to the temple, but totally.

Katie Harmon [03:23:16] Well, because in my mind. Right.

John Dehlin [03:23:18] What.

Katie Harmon [03:23:18] And I had, at some point, I'd stopped with the temple names. I kept his name in, like, the Denver temple because it was the one closest to us. But I. I was like, I don't have the energy to keep doing this anymore. But I also. There was this huge fear of, well, what if we, like, you know, we weren't seeing the fruits of these prayers and fasting and everything? There's also this huge fear, well, what's going to happen if we stop doing that stuff? Like, is this all that's keeping him even here with us? There's just this great. I'm so sad for my former self because I. We felt this such responsibility of, like, we have to be doing the very best we can if we want the best to happen to our son. Very much felt like, after all we can do, then we will see God's hand in this. So that was a lot of pressure to have on ourselves. Um, but, yeah, so there's this point. So Max is dealing with the trachea collapse, his trachea collapsing. Um, we really don't want to move forward with the trach. So we're praying, please, if there is another way, if there's a way that this doesn't have to happen, please let that. Let that come to pass. And we ended up with some research we did, finding out that there was this, like, surgeon in Boston who was doing this really new, innovative surgery to pop open the trachea. And I was having incredible, incredible success. We're like, oh, my gosh. So all I mentioned before, all my. A lot of my family's in Boston, so we're like, oh, my gosh. This sounds like it could be a great solution for Max and we can stay with family while we're there. Like, this just seems to really make sense. So we're super nervous we're going to bring it up to the doctors. But, you know, it's. It's hard sometimes for doctors to hear parents, like, suggest things like that. Right. And we're nervous to do it because we don't want to step on toes or act like we're the. We had a really great relationship with the nurses and doctors because we're, you know, super nice, wonderful parents. Um, so we didn't want to step on toes and feel like we're saying what the course of treatment should be. So we're kind of cautious as we're going about wanting to bring this up and as fate, as it happened to be this day and rounds that morning, that we're going to bring this up to his surgeon. He says, guys, I'm so excited about this thing. I want to tell you about this friend of mine who I went to medical School with is this surgeon in Boston who is doing this incredible new procedure where he's able to pop the trachea open. So, small world. Our surgeon was, like, really good friends with this surgeon we had read about that's pioneering this. This treatment. And he's like, I've already been emailing with him. He wants to accept Max as a patient. He really wants you guys to come out there. He really thinks you're great candidates for this and that this will work. So we. This felt like a sign, like, after months. This is, I think, month nine in the nicu, eight or nine, after months of feeling like our prayers weren't answered. And it was like disaster after disaster, struggle after struggle. It's finally like, oh, like, this is. Especially since I just around this time, was kind of feeling so downtrodden and like, I don't know if this works. I don't know if prayer works. This felt like an answer to our prayers. Like, Heavenly Father saw that, saw our suffering and was like, here's a. A little something to let you know that I'm aware of you. So we're super excited about this.

John Dehlin [03:26:15] And I just. I just have to say, not to take care of your story, but now the church is getting credit for the innovations of medicine.

Katie Harmon [03:26:23] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:26:24] So. So, like, there's humans who have worked really hard to advance medicine, to get medical careers. And. And somehow, because you find out about it in this coincidental way, in the only context you're. You have that somehow Heavenly Father is blessing you, and the church's promises are coming totally right. When it's really the science, the advancement of medicine, and a lot of people's hard work.

Katie Harmon [03:26:50] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:26:51] That are really at the core of why something good might be happening.

Katie Harmon [03:26:54] Right. And that's something I definitely later, like, end up coming to terms with. But right at the time, I think we were both kind of feeling these little doubts and stuff, and I think we didn't want to have that. We didn't want to feel that way because it felt not right to feel like we were doubting. So it was a way. I think it was a way of two for us, validating. Oh, okay. No, the church is true like this. The priesthood is real. Prayer is real. We just, like, everything happens in God's own timing. Like, we were definitely using it as a way, I think, to bolster our own faith. For sure. Yeah. So they start getting. Working on getting Max transferred to Boston, and then all of a sudden, we're told that the transfer has been denied, that Wyoming Medicaid wouldn't cover it, that they just decided. They decided they weren't going to work with Boston. And that was like, that was the end of it, which was just so difficult. Like, it finally felt like this glimmer of hope, things are finally going the right way, and then to have it taken away. That for me was a huge hit to my faith because it felt like this was supposed to be right. This, this answer, this. Finally we feel like we're being seen and we're being loved, and now it's gone. And that was really. That was difficult. And this is a lot when people. So this was said a lot to us, the whole NICU stay. But this, the faith not to be healed. There's that. I think it's called Wrong Roads. A story Elder Holland told about an rfm, talks about it in that, that podcast I mentioned about the faith to not be healed. That he and his son are out in the desert driving or something, and they're headed home and it's getting dark and they come to a fork in the road and they can't rem which way to go. They pray about it, have a distinct impression to go down the right. This right side. They do. And after, you know, 200ft, it's a dead end. So, okay, turn around and go back and go down the left side. And Elder Holland son asked him, dad, why would we. Why when we prayed about it, were we told to go on the down this road and it ended up being a dead end instead of the other one? And he says, you know, sometimes you get the wrong answer. So confusing and doesn't really make sense, but sometimes you get the wrong answer to confirm that the path you're going on is the right one. So that was. That video was shared with us. We were told a lot that, you know, faith to not be healed. Oh, you were just told you were allowed this glimmer of hope of going to Boston just so you would know for sure that Boston wasn't an option and that moving forward with a trach was the only way to go. That was really difficult because I felt I didn't. I was feeling like I didn't sign up for a gospel where this is what happens. I, I, you know, joined a church of miracles where there are prophets on the earth. The power of the priest is on the earth. You know, this healing happens. I was really devastated that this didn't work out and that it was kind of being twisted in that, oh, you just, just have to have more faith. We had been having. We had faith we had really strong faith for a really long time, and it was really just devastating to feel like. Like, once again, it just didn't pan out. So that was just one experience out of many.

John Dehlin [03:30:04] And I just have to say that's kind of gaslighting. Just.

Katie Harmon [03:30:08] Yeah, it is.

John Dehlin [03:30:10] Again, this talk with Elder Holland, it seems benign and inspirational from an orthodox point of view, but from a thoughtful, critical, analytical point of view, it's basically saying the church wins no matter what.

Katie Harmon [03:30:24] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:30:25] The church has no accountability. None of its promises have to come true, and the church is still awesome and good, even if you're left disappointed and destitute and sad and heartbroken.

Katie Harmon [03:30:37] Right.

John Dehlin [03:30:38] Even if any of the good that comes comes from totally external sources, God is still awesome and the church is still true no matter what.

Katie Harmon [03:30:46] Absolutely. Right. So, yeah, definitely the gaslighting there and the. Right. We're taught that we, you know, we. We pray and get answers to the prayers. Right. It was really difficult to be told. Well, what is. Why did I have these strong impressions then to look into Boston, to talk to our doctors about Boston? It was really difficult to be told. No. This was just some very strange, painful exercise in faith. And as you said, no matter what, the church comes out on top is the way it was. So that was. That was rough. And also, I think, like, this, like, it kind of comes back to, like, dehumanizing Max a little bit, using that. That video from Elder Holland. You know, it's so much easier in the context of going on one road or the other. We're talking about my kid's life. Right. And his health and his happiness and what his future is going to look like so much. It's so much more. It's major when you put it in terms of that versus this kind of happy little story. Right. So, yeah. But, yeah, so that was definitely. I'd already felt like there was kind of a hit to my faith. That was another major one, that still believing, but at this point, just. Yeah. Just also having struggles and feeling like I don't know how to. I don't know how to move forward. I'm going to try and do it with faith, but it was. It was hard. Oh, go ahead.

John Dehlin [03:32:04] I was just gonna say that. And this. You know, there's the. The things we're not told at the beginning. I'm kind of being repetitive here, but there's the things we're not told at the beginning that we should have been told that bind us to the church against our consent.

Katie Harmon [03:32:20] Sure.

John Dehlin [03:32:21] And then there's the Things we're told throughout on an ongoing basis as things don't turn out like we were promised, that perpetuates and continues the deception. You know, we can call it gaslighting, we can call it manipulation. The hard part is it's probably always done in a sincere way by.

Katie Harmon [03:32:43] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:32:44] By true believers. But the effect is these gaslighting things that happen instead of waking us up to like, wow, God isn't there, the church isn't gonna. Priesthood isn't gonna save me. Now we've got to really figure it out for ourselves. We're still paying our money, the church still giving our time to the Church, still being committed to the Church, still believing that it's true when all the evidence is pointing contrary. But it's the apologetics and the gaslighting that keep us bound in addition to what misled us to become bound in the first place.

Katie Harmon [03:33:17] Absolutely. So true. Also, at this point, we're feeling. So in addition to everything you just mentioned, like, we don't know what Max's life is going to look like. So very bound to these beliefs despite not seeing the fruits of them in our lives. Because how do we. If we break covenants or decide not to believe, what if he dies and we're not sealed to him, Right? Like, what if we do something that invalidates that. That ceiling? So that was. That was an incredibly tight. It was pulling on us, right, that, like, we have to keep persevering because we don't know what is going to happen. And, you know, we have to have Max sealed to us. We have to be with Max in heaven. So that was. I feel like that was always hovering above us as, like, why we have to keep living this way. For sure.

John Dehlin [03:34:03] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [03:34:04] So, yeah. Yeah. So little. We ended up moving forward. Then since we couldn't go to Boston, Max was trached and ventilator, so, you know, had the surgery. Ventilator dependent. Not as scary as we thought it was. We were so worried about that because it's terrifying to think of bringing a child home on life support. Um, but after it happened and we got more used to it, we realized that we were smart. We. So during his NICU's day too, we were incredibly involved with his care. We wanted to learn how to do everything, you know, take care for himself as much as we could. So we jumped right in with both feet in terms of learning about the ventilator, learning about the trach. And he had a lot of some other complications and like extra things too. But. So finally, after 11 months Max got to come home, which was incredible to bring him home for the first time, almost a year old. It was strange too, you know, to think that we, that we lived through all that, that we survived. Grateful, so grateful that he survived and. But he came home. So the trach ventilator dependent, he also at this point was an intestinal failure and was totally dependent on IV nutrition. So he has something called a central line which is like a catheter that runs from the outside of his body to the right to his heart that we prepare these bags of IV fluids and hang them and attach them and that, that infuses throughout the day and that's how he gets his nutrition. So we came home. I mean it's hard bringing home like even a typical newborn, right? Like it's a huge adjustment. We brought home essentially a little ICU with us. That and something unique here too. Most families that have a kid that's trached and ventilator dependent are sent home with 24 hour nursing assistance. So in home nurses that, that are there like you know, have 10 or 12 hour shifts, whatever, eight hour shifts switching off. So there's always someone there to help you. But there's no pediatric and home nursing in Laramie. And we felt really confident and really wanted to do his care ourselves because we were capable and had been trained well. So we were sent home without any nursing care. So we, we were doing it all ourselves, which is 100% a full time job. And this plays into later the inability, just kind of some financial instability. Max needs constant monitoring and so, so much care. In addition to our older kiddo, in addition to my husband back in school and working and it just, it was, it was incredible to be home. But it was also this new normal that was incredibly intensive, incredibly. Just busy, just so much, so much to do all the time. And an important thing in regards to the church coming home. We were so excited to come back to our ward because we were really, for one thing, we were really surprised by the lack of support from our ward while we were in the nicu. We never heard from a member of the bishopric once while we were in the nicu. I think the relief, sorry president reached out to me once and there was some members that kind of stayed in contact but for the most part it was kind of like, I don't know, kind of like an out of sight, out of mind thing. I don't know how to describe it besides that, but that was, that wasn't so much hard for my husband. I think it was Hard for me because that kind of had been my first, you know, reasons I was involved in the church was this really tight sense of community. And it was really hard for me to feel like. Like that kind of fell away just because we were in Denver and not in Wyoming anymore. I. It came kind of obvious, became obvious that things like, you know, you're assigned administering teacher or, you know, a visiting teacher and you become really close friends. But then as soon as the assignment shifts, sometimes that friendship ends and you're like, oh, wow. Was that really just based off of, you know, the specific assignment that was given and not really a real friendship, whereas sometimes friendships endure through changes like that. But that was. I was really. It was difficult during the NICU state. It kind of feel like people I felt like were my. My family almost maybe weren't super involved or super interested to know how we were doing and how Max was doing. And that's not everyone. There definitely were individuals that were. It was more just like the feeling as a whole was not a ton of support from our ward, but we were excited to come home and sure that once people saw all the care that, you know, maximum Max required that, that that would change and that we would be really, really welcomed in again and, you know, people would be excited to. To be our friends and to support us and help us and in any way. Like, it's not like we needed help with Max because no one could help with that. We were. It took a lot of training for us to be able to do that more just like moral support and help and friendship and love and fellowship is I think, what we were looking for. But even that was kind of disappointing coming home. And I think it's because kind of what I mentioned before, this not a great ability to empathize and to really sit with people. I think coming home Max still had so much going on that people, I think still sometimes were scared or awkward, didn't know what to say when they did say things. It wasn't always the right thing. And so we actually kind of struggled coming home, not feeling like. Just feeling like we really missed a lot of friendships that seemed like they weren't the same now. So that. That was hard too. I think that. And this, you know, I'll talk about in a little bit, but I think the church doesn't prepare people to know how to talk about disability and how to approach people with disability is anything other than, like I mentioned before, kind of co opting that experience and turning it into something spiritual. It's hard to look at like just the person as a person, you know, outside of their condition.

John Dehlin [03:39:45] So, sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And to be fair, I have heard of wards really rallying around definitely when there are some serious medical issues. So I guess. I guess let's just say it's hit and miss for sure.

Katie Harmon [03:39:59] And there was actually. So while we were down in Denver with Max, our stake president's son was actually diagnosed with cancer and was down. We would see them sometimes when we were down at children's. That was kind of interesting. I don't know if it's because he was more well known. Obviously, he's a stake president. The whole stake really rallied around them. Everyone was constantly. There was a fast for him, praying for him, everyone. People would go meet up and sing hymns outside their house. There was like this huge show of support. So I know definitely that it happens. And I've met a lot of people who've had great experience with their ward family, really becoming their family. So it is hit or miss, and I don't really know why, to be honest. It was miss for us and we. I don't. I can't answer that. But I agree that some Mormons can be incredible at kind of forming a community around people that are going through something like this. Um, that wasn't really our experience. My husband's family was great and there was a couple ward members that were great. But like, as a whole group, we kind of felt like still on the outskirts, kind of like. Yeah. Not really welcomed back in the way we thought we might be. So.

John Dehlin [03:41:06] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry you didn't get the support.

Katie Harmon [03:41:10] Yeah, thanks. No. And it's like, I'm lucky my family's here in Laramie. So they were an incredible help to us.

John Dehlin [03:41:15] But I think for non member family,

Katie Harmon [03:41:17] yes, they were incredible. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the theme throughout the ones

John Dehlin [03:41:21] who couldn't come to your wedding, right?

Katie Harmon [03:41:23] Yep. Yeah, that was a theme throughout. This is how incredibly supportive my parents are. And they would ask me a lot, like, why. So if you heard from anyone from your ward, have you heard from anyone from church? Especially once we got home, my mom was like, why hasn't anyone, like, come to visit you? Or like. So this is interesting too. They set up. So the standard in the ward when we, before we went down with Max, was if you'd had a vaginal delivery, they would like set up a week's worth of meals from different sisters. You know, different sister would have each night. And if you'd had like a C section, two Weeks worth of meals. It was a really great system that was going. I loved participating in it, like making meals for other sisters and going to see them in their newborn and just checking in. So when we got home, no one really said anything about, like, if, you know, if someone might bring us meals or something. So I actually called and they were kind of. Kind of thought, like, oh, you really need that. Like, really. Well, I guess it kind of was like a weird, like, not validating maybe, like, that we were actually. What we were going through, the stress we were under trying to, like, get our new medical home set up, get fall into these routines was actually probably a lot harder than bringing home a typical newborn. Um, there was kind of not maybe just an understanding, I think, of how. How really difficult it was for us coming home with Max.

John Dehlin [03:42:45] So it's. It's incredibly difficult.

Katie Harmon [03:42:47] Yeah. Um, so anyway, that's kind of the NICU story. Max's health problems, unfortunately didn't end there. He was only home for, like, three months. He had another planned surgery that we knew was happening that wasn't supposed to be, like, a big deal. That was like that next March that we. So three months later, we went down. It went horribly. There was a ton of complications, and he was in the hospital for another four and a half months because of that. So it was just. At this point, my faith is like, I still believe, but I also. I don't know, I was some sort of nuanced believer, I guess, because I. I believed that the Book of Mormon was true, and I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, But I don't know how much I believed that, like, prayers were answered, because I just felt like, how can these horrible things keep happening to us when we're living the way we're supposed to and we're praying? I was still praying despite not seeing it. I just. So my faith was struggling in terms of that. And if, like, does God really, like, love me? I don't know, because I. I feel like I can't feel it. I feel like every. You know, what I value most in my life? My children. And, you know, Max in particular at this time, continue. He keeps being put at risk. Horrible things keep happening to him. I keep having to see him suffer. And it was just. It was exhausting to. To go. To be back down there again, this nightmare that we thought was finally over, to be back at the Ronald McDonald House, back at the hospital all the time. It was, like, so traumatizing to, like, have to be thrown back into that life again. And I should Mention importantly, during this time, I got pregnant with our third kiddo. We were not trying for that by any stretch of the imagination. We. We knew Max's needs were going to be so severe and we're going to be really all encompassing for years. We were either done with children or definitely we're gonna wait, like, potentially like 10 years even to have another. So I actually had an IUD but got pregnant despite having the iud. So that was. I have to preface this by saying we. Our third kiddo, Bridget loves so much and are so glad that she's here. Wouldn't change a thing about that, but I can't imagine worse timing. I found out I was pregnant with her and that little brief period where Max is home between the end of the NICU stay and the start of the other long hospital stay, and it was just like we. We just got home from a year in the nicu. Almost dear in the nicu. And then Max is having. Right as I'm newly pregnant with her, Max is down there again. It just felt like, how. How can I handle this? Why is this the hand I was dealt? Why, you know, still believing that to some degree at least, God's hand is in these things? It was really frustrating to feel like, like, and that's another platitude people say, like, oh, he gives his strongest, hardest battles to his strongest soldiers. And like, I hated that. I was like, no, like, I'm. I'm not stronger than anyone else. I am exhausted here and don't know. Don't know how to keep going and how to keep dealing with the punches that it felt like were being thrown at us. So, yeah, so her. That pregnancy was rough, healthy. She's fine, but rough just because the timing of it was so difficult. And like, another piece in that is, you know, we're really worried she might have CDH too. They don't really know exactly how it works, but it is more common once you've had one. There's some families that have two kiddos with CDH So terrified this whole time, what if. What if we're in for like, this round two with another kid? I was just horrified and at this. At this point, didn't really know if I had the faith that I could believe that that wouldn't happen because it just seemed like. Like we had all the. All the bad luck. So.

John Dehlin [03:46:31] Yeah, well, nobody who hasn't been through what you've been through could ever understand the heroics and the pain and the discomfort and the difficult difficulties of what you and your family have been through.

Katie Harmon [03:46:45] Thanks. Yeah, no, it's. It's indescribable, really. Yeah. How painful this was to. Just to see him suffering and the stress that it put on all of us. Like I said, I feel so lucky that we all came out on the other side of it closer as a family. But that was. That took a lot of hard work and it was. It was just a really difficult time. So. Yeah. So Max eventually gets to come home from this PICU stay. My faith is definitely not what it had been before. It's a little shaken in certain ways. My husband, amazingly, just the type of person he is. He's this. Did that stuff didn't shake his faith as much. I don't know, maybe just being raised in the church, just being. I don't know, just how he is. I was really impressed that, like, we could keep going through these things and it didn't seem to shake his faith in anything. But I was struggling a little bit, but still. Still fully believing. And so Max's kind of fast forward over the. So Max is almost four and a half. He'll be five on New Year's Day now. So the last from this time of this stay to now, lots of ups and downs. Max continues to. He goes. He's admitted to the hospital often when he even just so being, you know, ventilator depend. Trachten ventilator dependent. When he gets even just like a common cold. It's a lot harder, of course, on him than it would be on us. His lungs are already really compromised. Uh, so we're down in Denver all the time for appointments, for admissions. He's had to have other surgeries for different things. He. He had a stroke at one point that, you know, really changed our lives too, in the sense that he had been like, developmentally delayed some, but was in physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and making really great strides. The stroke, of course, set that back. He lost movement on his right side that he has regained somewhat, but somewhat in his leg. Not a lot in his arm, though, so that it's just kind of like it kept happening and still happening to this day, you know, that like, we never know when something is going to kind of go south and we have to like, head to Denver. So that's just kind of like the. Just to kind of set the stage for. For where we're at in our lives. When kind of the. The faith crisis happens, I guess. Yeah, there's just. Yeah, I think that's kind of. Sorry, I'm just kind of looking at that. That outline I sent you, I think that's kind of where I'm at now, is that we're going through these two or three years of just really in and out of the hospital super stressed all the time because we're trying to juggle the three kids. Max, with his special, you know, extra needs that he has. Keith, finishing school work, even to this day, is hard because Max requires so much care. That Keith. It's not something I can do, like, all on my own. I need a lot of help from him, too. So his employment has even been affected, and that, like, the jobs that we have, you know, the jobs that he's looked for have to be things that, like, jive with this really unique lifestyle. So that's. That's just difficult and just an added difficulty. So that's kind of where we're at. Also, though important, I kind of mentioned before, I was all, sorry, had, you know, on my shelf kind of these issues with the. The church's stance on LGBTQ members. And so that's something I'm kind of continually grappling with. That became amplified during our stay in the NICU because we had multiple nurses and doctors who were LGBTQ and were incredible people. And it just reaffirmed to me my gut feelings that I had had of, like, yeah, this doesn't. I don't. I don't like this. I don't like that this is where the church stands on that, because these are incredible people, and they deserve to be able to, you know, enjoy marriages and enjoy typical, you know, normative sexual relationships. And so that was, like, kind of became more of a big thing for me. Another thing that kind of made us start to come maybe, like, more nuanced members. I can't tell you how many friends of ours, children, died while we were down there during this first 11 months, and then this, like, four and a half month extra stay. So many. So many families that we know whose babies passed away, who we were, lots of them, we were there. You know, some of them, we were there in the room with them when it happened because they, you know, wanted some support. And not only is that traumatizing and really difficult to see for them mostly, but even just us as, like, observers, I started to think more about the plan of salvation and about the reality that the church's doctrine says, you know, as much as you might be given a chance in the next life, the reality is you will not be with your family forever unless you accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. Right? Unless you accept that Joseph Smith was a prophet, accept, you know, the whole plan. And that warned me because I started to realize these people could be and were. They're incredible people, these friends of ours. But they could in theory be perfect people throughout their whole life, right? Literally not even sin once, not, not do anything wrong, ever live a perfectly clean life according to the church. But if they don't accept this, this church is the true church, whether in this life or the next life, they won't be with their family forever. That reality started to weigh on me and I felt like, is that the way a heaven loving heavenly father would set things up? Right? That, like, that our, our families are held like in the balance of this, this decision as to whether or not we're going to pledge loyalty to the church. And that's something I've been super gaslit about. Like now that we've left, they're like, people say no, like you just don't understand. Like, those families, they probably will be together, like good people will accept the gospel next life. Like, they just probably will. But that's not. Like I said, it's gaslighting. That's not what the church. That's like some nuanced view. That's really not what the church teaches. The church teaches that if these people don't accept the gospel and you know, have these specific baptismal, you know, baptism, confirmation, endowment and sealing, if these specific things do not happen, it doesn't matter how good and kind and wonderful a family is, they won't be together. And that started to really, to really weigh on me. The more just my friends groups became diverse, the more I'm, you know, coming into contact with more and more people who aren't Mormon, who have different life experiences than us that I'm kind of, I'm kind of losing, I don't know, just my zeal about that. Like, you know what, that doesn't make sense.

Faith Crisis Begins and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [03:53:29] So, yeah, for sure. Around what year is that where you're starting to have those types of questions

Katie Harmon [03:53:35] that probably would have been in like 2017, 2018.

John Dehlin [03:53:40] Okay, so we're talking about two or three years ago. You start to wonder about that. And that's another thing is that, is that on the one hand we're like, this is the one true church and you have to have the Mormon ordinances and you have to go on your mission to get married in the temple or you want to have an eternal family. And there's like all this pressure because it's all true and real and literal and, and we're all like Obeying and paying and praying and following because of all that pressure of having to do it. All. Right, right. And then, yeah, like you said, there's this like, oh, oh, if someone doesn't join the church in this life, that's what's great about the gospel. Well, then why did we go to all this stress and pain in this life and then say, well, then you'll be more advanced, you'll be ahead of the curve in the next life. Right. But if eternity is long, like, was it worth all the stress and the sacrifice if we're all going to end up in the same place anyway?

Katie Harmon [03:54:35] Right.

John Dehlin [03:54:35] So again, they're speaking out of both sides of their mouths, trying to not look bigoted to the non members, but still trying to use all that to be coercive and manipulative to the members. I think.

Katie Harmon [03:54:47] Absolutely. No, I totally agree. And right. Like you said, the, you know, kind of trying to play both sides of it was just really frustrating to me because. And I think that's kind of the, the Mormon I became was one that could have this nuanced view of, oh, well, yeah, probably, you know, probably these people, these good people will accept the gospel. But in reality, now that I look at that, that's not what the church teaches. That's me or anyone who kind of has that nuanced view, really kind of creating their own religion. Because, you know, very clearly it's said that these things have to be accepted. And there's the possibility that no matter how good a person was here, that they don't want to accept that in the next life. And so they deserve to not be with their family forever because they wouldn't accept that like, that, you know, that I think that was my thing is like, well, even if they get to the next life and have that choice, what if they just choose not to? Right. Like we're just saying they choose. They're still an incredible person, but won't accept that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that just that that on its own is what could separate someone from their family. Yeah, was really, you know, I was like, you know, I don't, I'm so. I think I kind of adopted and my husband a little bit too, some of kind of more nuanced views of like, I don't know if that's really how it's going to be, but kind of this like, you know, I still believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and this is still, you know, a good way to raise our family. So we're going to keep with it, even if we're kind of struggling, like, on the side with some of these. Some of these things.

John Dehlin [03:56:16] And that's an important shift because you join thinking it's true totally and necessary and the only true. And the ordinances are critical. And then it doesn't. And you're misled into it, and so you're joining on false pretenses without informed consent. Then. Then you give it everything, and then it fails to meet up to all the expectations, it doesn't deliver on the promises, and then you find out it's probably not even true. But then you're in it. You're so far in it at that point, there's the sunk cost fallacy, which is. Which is a. A logical fallacy, which is I've spent so much time in the car showroom looking at cars, I'm really frustrated, but I may as well buy a car because I've just been here so long.

Katie Harmon [03:57:05] Definitely.

John Dehlin [03:57:06] And people do that, Mormonism, they're like, well, I've had all these kids, now I'm married to this Mormon. I've already freaked out my whole family and alienated from them. I don't want to embarrass myself by backtracking. And, you know, it's a good place to raise your kids. And so we even gaslight ourselves and kind of lower the bar and say, well, I won't stand it because it's true. I'll stay at it because it's good.

Katie Harmon [03:57:31] Right.

John Dehlin [03:57:31] And that's. That's a big difference between true and good.

Katie Harmon [03:57:34] It is.

John Dehlin [03:57:35] Let alone whether or not is it really good.

Katie Harmon [03:57:37] Right.

John Dehlin [03:57:37] But there's a huge difference between true and just good.

Katie Harmon [03:57:41] Absolutely. Yeah. And so, like, at this point, I think somehow I did still believe the church was true despite, like, kind of not, you know, maybe totally jiving with certain bits of it. But that definitely. I remember thinking, well, you know, you know, it served my whole husband's family well. It seems to kind of be serving us well. Like, I have. I remember thinking, look at the decisions I've made because of this. And I oftentimes my testimony would come back to the Book of Mormon that as much as I'm struggling with all this other stuff, I remember the witness I received the first time I read it. And to be honest, every time I read it after that, I would take Moroni's promise and pray about it and received that multiple times. I really, during the last couple years, that was my anchor is like, I'm really struggling with these other things that I, you know, I Don't know how to reconcile. And I'm trying to reconcile faithfully and trying to find the good where I can, but it all hung. Came back to, I know the Book of Mormon is true. So somehow this is all, you know, gonna work itself out. Maybe I'm just in a rough patch. I. There was a lot of mental gymnastics of me trying to figure out how do I make this. How do I make this work? And I was able to, for, you know, like I said, probably the last two or three years, I was able to feel like I can be, you know, I can still be part of this and still kind of have these doubts. And that's okay because I know, you know, I know at its very core that there's truth here. So definitely just kind of in ways that don't make sense to me now, was able to hold these kind of differing views in my mind. So then kind of coming up on the faith crisis, it was actually just so. Just this past February, February, March, I was online. I. For the life of me, I can't remember how I even clicked on this. I don't know if I was looking up something for a talk at church or looking up, I don't know, honestly, what I found myself on the ex Mormon Reddit page. Just for a second, I was like, dangerous.

John Dehlin [03:59:40] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [03:59:41] So I'd never even really heard of Reddit. I didn't know what it was, but I followed some link to this and I was like, I saw Xmore at the top. I was like, immediately thought, oh gosh, I better be careful. Like, I don't think I really want to look at this, but immediately saw something about Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger, something, something affair. And I was. It just kind of piqued my interest. I had never heard of a woman named Fanny by any means. So even though I knew I'm treading in dangerous water in theory by. Because I even just saw that this page with. Even with the title Ex Mormon New. I don't know if I should be here according to what the. You know, I've been told always that, you know, there's all this anti literature out there that distorts things and will seek to lead you away. I saw that, that piece about Joseph and Fanny and was like, I. I just want to see what that is. I just want to read it. So I did. It was like the start of the rabbit hole. I had never, like I said, never heard of her. Reading about this account, reading about Emma's response to it, reading about Oliver's response to it, like I said, it was just the start of like, oh my gosh, Whoa. The first crack of I've never heard about this. And I'm angry that I've never heard about this. And how could this be real? How could this have happened? But I've never heard about it because I feel like I'm this really well read, you know, for a convert anyway. Well read, well studied, really knew, felt like I knew the gospel, knew the teachings, knew even the history. I thought I did. How could I not have heard about this? And I kind of. I didn't want to. Like, at this point, I'm. I don't know how much I want to tell my husband because he's still like very believing. But I did ask him, like, have you ever heard of a woman named Fanny Alger? And he said he had it. So I was like, okay, it's not just me as a convert this life, you know, lifelong, really devote, devout member, hasn't heard of her either. And that's kind of where it started. I started. I spent a lot of time on the ex Mormon Reddit, just reading all sorts of things. Heard about the CES letter from there, read the CES letter and that was kind of. That was dev. I can't explain how devastating it was. So I'm already kind of have this. In this nuanced spot where I think that I'm like, I'm holding it together pretty well. Like I said, though, everything kept coming back for me to the Book of Mormon, that Joseph was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is real. All of a sudden to read the CES letter and have the translation process of the Book of Mormon, the ties to treasure digging, the ties to, you know, Captain Kidd, like Moroni and Kimora, all these things. And then to see greater insight into Joseph's character. I remember, I think I read it all in one night. I came across it, read it, was up late reading it and was just crying in bed next to my husband. Kids are all asleep, he's asleep. I just felt this immense weight of how much I had been misled and just all of a sudden realizing all the decisions that I had made because of this and that I didn't get to know any of this beforehand. And just thinking, what would I have done differently had I known this and how angry I was that the church that I, I think especially struggling with, like so with scrupulosity, honesty was probably what it centered on. Mostly I felt furious that the church that had made me feel so guilty about even like not telling a white lie. Look at. Not only have they covered this up, but they knew they were. It's not like they just learned about this. They knew. They've been actively attempting to cover it up for a long time and then reading, like, the gospel topic essays and feeling like, okay, then they kind of came out about it. But it's not like those are widely published or taught about. Right. Like, as a member who was doing a lot of reading and has a husband that was doing always a lot of reading and not ever coming across those on our own is. I felt so devastated. It was heartbreaking.

John Dehlin [04:03:40] They're intentionally hid. I mean, they're put on the website.

Katie Harmon [04:03:45] Right.

John Dehlin [04:03:46] But. But they. We've. We've heard Elder Snow, church historian, admit that it was intentional that members not read those and that they only find them when necessary. And the result of that strategy is the overwhelming number of Mormons and, you know, and leaders not only have never read the essays, but don't even know still to this day that they exist.

Katie Harmon [04:04:11] Totally. And that's what I kind of looked at it as in that moment. So pretty much for me, it came crashing down the minute I finished the CES letter. I was heartbroken.

John Dehlin [04:04:19] I don't want to rush through that, so.

Katie Harmon [04:04:21] No, it's okay.

Investigating Church Truth Claims

John Dehlin [04:04:21] What were the big issues? So at the beginning, I was careful to start with all the things you weren't told.

Katie Harmon [04:04:27] Right, right.

John Dehlin [04:04:28] What were the big things that you're like, I should have been told this. Tell us the top five or ten. Like, I should have been told this. What. What were they? What were they?

Katie Harmon [04:04:39] So one thing that really bothered me was the fudging of the timeline both for. For several things. The first vision when the ceiling keys restored and like the restoration of the priesthood. Because to me, after seeing that, you know, the first vision wasn't taught until years, two years after the church, I think 1832 or something. Two years after the church was organized and the Book of Mormon was published. But it wasn't even something Joseph was talking about after it happened, which is

John Dehlin [04:05:10] definitely the way didn't even mention it to his own family.

Katie Harmon [04:05:12] Right.

John Dehlin [04:05:13] So I think it begs the question, did it really happen or did he invent that later?

Katie Harmon [04:05:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:05:19] To then answer the question, why. Why did. Why were you able to start this church?

Katie Harmon [04:05:24] Right. Some sort of origin story. Yeah. So that for me, was seeing these timelines fudged very much, made it feel like this was a going back and trying to give legitimacy to these things that supposedly happened. So that was that timeline stuff really Bothered me the way the Book of Mormon was translated, because that was never mentioned. Like I mentioned before, how many pieces of gospel art have we all seen that depict the translation process? To know that the church has known that that is not how. That is not how it happened at all, but that they still have had these, you know, this gospel art done and that that's still what is taught to people. That I went through a year, you know, seminary, like the whole year of seminary of dnc, where we're really getting into church history, and none of that ever came up, but the church knew about it. That was. That was super hard again, because my. My testimony kind of with this point was an. In the beginning was anchored and even through kind of ups and downs, continued to be anchored on the Book of Mormon. So the translation of it being sketchy and also the anachronisms and, like, questions about.

John Dehlin [04:06:30] Tell us what you mean by that for those who don't know.

Katie Harmon [04:06:32] Yeah. So things that. That the Book of Mormon includes, that would not have been, like, historically accurate for the time. So talking about horses being on, you know, the American continent during this time period of the Book of Mormon, when that wouldn't have been the case, I think. I don't remember some of the specifics, but things like some of the metal

John Dehlin [04:06:54] that they steal, steel swords, shields, helmet.

Katie Harmon [04:06:58] And then there's no evidence.

John Dehlin [04:06:59] It's almost like Native Americans were Roman soldiers riding on horses with. With helmets and. And swords and shields, totally eating wheat. You know, when we know there was no wheat, there was only corn. You know, corn and tomatoes. There was no helmets, no shields, no swords, no horses. It's like Joseph Smith looked around or thought about biblical, what it might be

Katie Harmon [04:07:23] like and, like, replicated.

John Dehlin [04:07:25] It stuck biblical artifacts into to a Native American history that was, as you said, anachronistic and totally scientifically impossible. It would be like Joseph Smith claiming that in, you know, 600 BC, Nephi pulled out an iPhone and started talking to his dad. It's that ridiculous to think that swords and shields and helmets and wheels and horses and wheat and barley were things that existed in The Americas from 600 BC to 400 AD just didn't exist.

Katie Harmon [04:08:01] Yep.

John Dehlin [04:08:01] So.

Katie Harmon [04:08:01] So that was huge to have these kind of holes blown in the Book of Mormon, which was my key thing, one of my favorite ones. And I even thought this was weird before my faith transition. I think it's in Jacob. He, at the end of his. He's about to, like, hand the plates off to Enos, says, like, my brethren, I bid you Adieu. And I was like, why, why is there French? Why is he speaking French? Even I, as a convert reading the book Mormon for the first time was like, why is that word in there that seems strange? Wish that I would have investigated that more. But I didn't. And looking back, yeah, so just the anachronisms, that was huge. The Book of Abraham. Because I also, I took Joseph's translation abilities very seriously and I took the term translate to mean what, what anyone else thinks it means, not what I know some apologists now have kind of tried to twist, you know, that process to mean. I took it very literally. So to. To see what actual Egyptologists have said about, you know, the book of, like the, the Pearl of great price stuff like, and those similes that, that was like earth shattering for sure. And then the extent of, of Joseph Smith's polygamy was huge. Like I said, I had known he was a polygamist. I didn't know the extent of it. I. There's that movie that I think it's Emma Smith, My Story. I actually loved that it was, you know, kind of one of these church produced movies that focused on Emma rather than on Joseph. And it focuses on this incredible relationship that they had, this incredible love story. So to hear that she was, what, the 22nd or 23rd woman sealed to him, to hear that all these ceilings were done without her knowledge, to know that, you know, women that were pregnant, women that were married to living men, women that were sisters, women that were mothers were all like, sealed to, like the polyandry, all of that was devastating. I, I had always been taught that polygamy existed as a way to, you know, care for. Especially like when the trek was made west to care for women maybe whose husbands had died. And even this kind of idea of like dynastic ceilings where, like people wanted to be sealed to the prophet just to be sealed to him so they're connected to him, which of course doesn't hold up when you look at. Why do a sister, sister pair or a mother daughter pair need to be sealed to him?

John Dehlin [04:10:26] That's a great point.

Katie Harmon [04:10:27] Yeah, that doesn't. Right. That doesn't, doesn't hold any weight. Was he gonna say, oh, and then. Very devastating. Helen Marr Kimball. This is important because as I mentioned before, my husband is a direct descendant of Heber and Vilate through their son, David Patton Kimball. And that they love that they're so proud of that family, that incredible family history. Right. That they can trace their line back to him and all these from him all the way down. All these incredible faith promoting stories that he was this, you know, pioneer in the family, a friend of Joseph's. There's a story that, you know, they, they tell a lot about Joseph coming to Heber and saying that he needed to take Vilate as his wife. And Heber, you know, being so distressed and them talking about it and crying and praying, but deciding if this is God's will, we'll do it. Going to Joseph and saying, yes, I'm in love, I'm deeply in love with the late, but if this is what needs to happen, you can. And Joseph breaking down crying, saying, oh, this was like your Abrahamic test and you passed it. And that his family loves that story and talks about it a lot as like just, just really faith promoting for them and really admirable that he was. That he had that sort of intense faith that he would give almost anything right. For the gospel. Even our daughter's middle name is Valet. That's how like much this meant my husband, like he really loved that story. It always creeped me out a little bit. I don't know. Not creeped me out, but I wasn't ever as much a fan of that story. It kind of bothered me that like he would be asked to show his faith in that way. Just like to be honest, Abraham and Isaac always bothered me a little bit. Right. Like is that the extremes we have to go to to prove how like why can it be something on a lesser level?

John Dehlin [04:12:09] It's actually if you, if you learn about Jim Jones and his cult with Guyana and the tragedy where everybody drank the Kool Aid and died. It's the mark of a cult leader to give those sorts of Abrahamic tests as a way to measure.

Katie Harmon [04:12:23] I never heard that. Interesting. Okay, it makes sense.

John Dehlin [04:12:26] He would, Jim Jones would have people drink cups of Kool Aid that he said were poisoned and then when they weren't poisoned, he'd say okay, you passed the test. But those sorts of loyalty tests are, are the mark of a cult leader interest.

Katie Harmon [04:12:42] That I mean that's totally makes sense that you say it. So yeah, that I never loved that but my husband's family thought was incredible. But it's important to know that that's where the story stopped. Was this incredible? Oh no. Keep Vlate as your wife. You're amazing, Heber. I love you. I had never. And my husband had never heard the rest of the story, which is that, you know, Joseph then went on to ask for Helen Mar, their 14 year old daughter to be his wife. And that they agreed that was, that was devastating. Like on so many levels. Her age. How inappropriate, of course. And then just like because it connects to my husband's family, it felt, I felt some sort of personal connection for it that it felt extra, extra skeevy and inappropriate and disgusting. So that, that was incredibly difficult for me to read and to, to try and come to terms with that this man that I have, I've thought so highly of and that I've built my life on his, his claims as a, as a prophet and a man of God to find out the reason, the true, what was truly going on. It was really, I can't explain. And anyone who's gone through a faith crisis knows what that feels like when all of a sudden your world is crashing down. And not even that it's just not true. Like it'd be one thing if like Joseph just like wasn't a prophet, but that there was so many like nefarious, yucky things going on is just really so difficult.

John Dehlin [04:14:09] Part of what's so hard for, for people going through this is we're taught that Joseph is next to Jesus in righteousness. And in reality we talk about Joseph more than Jesus, far more than Jesus in Mormonism, totally. Now Russell M. Nelson is trying to change that, but that's how it's always been. Joseph is the real hero and Jesus is kind of like his assistant. And, and at least that's been my experience in these tens of thousands I've talked to. The truth is that it's not, it's not just that Joseph Smith wasn't perfect, that he made some mistakes.

Katie Harmon [04:14:44] Right.

John Dehlin [04:14:45] Oops. He made some mistakes. His behavior was the behavior of a sexual predator.

Katie Harmon [04:14:50] Absolutely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:14:51] There's, there's no way to, you know, you read In Sacred Loneliness alone, read that book and there's no way to explain Joseph's misbehavior. And it wasn't, it wasn't just having 30 plus wives, other men's wives, 14 year olds, that's awful enough. But it's like pulling the 16 year old alone into a room and saying you've got like 24 hours. Either you and your family are all going to be saved if you agree, or they're all going to be damned if you don't agree. That level of like pressure.

Katie Harmon [04:15:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:15:26] And then, and then the women, if, if he propositioned a woman and she declined his advances and then spoke publicly about it, he would call her a whore in the press to defame her and to slander her, you know, that sort of behavior. Plus he would tell 16 year old girls, don't tell your parents that I'm propositioning you. All of that is grooming behavior of a sexual predator and there's no other way to explain it. There's no effing way any God that I would ever respect would be down with that.

Katie Harmon [04:16:00] I agree. And that was huge for me that I'm sure you're kind of referencing like Nancy Rigdon reading that go. I listened to one of, I can't remember what podcast it was. They really broke all of that down. And that it turned from not just disappointment to disgust to I, I can't believe that this is what I was involved in, that this is the reality of this man and that the church managed to keep it so well hidden. How could I have gotten to this point and not heard of any of this? That's so, so dark and so disgusting. And like you said, you know, grooming sexual predator. Like the threats of, you know, like you said, the threats of salvation of the family, the, the secrecy of it, all of it was just so. I couldn't believe it. It was, it was really incredible to read that in the worst way. Yeah, yeah. So that's, those are probably the top things. Sorry, I'm trying to think through the CES letter. If there's anything else that I think those are the things that really, really stood out.

John Dehlin [04:17:02] There's Book of Abraham.

Katie Harmon [04:17:03] Yeah, Book of Abraham. Kinderhook Plates kind of went along with that. Basically I'm like, wow, just losing faith in the whole translation. His ability to translate.

John Dehlin [04:17:11] Basically nothing, nothing that Joseph Smith translated turns out to be legitimate. The Book of Mormon is fiction. There's no historical evidence that any of that happened. And instead there's a mountain of evidence that shows where he got, you know, Old Testament stuff. The evangelical sermons become alma and Helaman, his own personal narrative. The King James Version of the Bible, like the Book of Mormon is plagiarism. It's not in any way a history. But then there's the Book of Abraham, which is a fraudulent translation. And then there's the King James Version. The King, the Joseph translation of the Bible which now we've got been shown is literally a plagiarism from the, from the, the biblical commentaries of, of the time period. And then the kindergarten plates shows that he even found fake plates that were made to fool him.

Katie Harmon [04:18:02] Right.

John Dehlin [04:18:03] Translates them. So like he's 0 for 4 in his, in his, you know, attempts at translation.

Katie Harmon [04:18:09] Totally. Yeah. That just devastating. And there's something else. I was going to mention in line with that, that I'm not thinking of. But anyway, yeah, so since I think since my testimony had. Had really been anchored in the Book of Mormon, when that came crashing down, that was it. And I, and I wish sooner I had been able to listen to, like I said, the, the lgbtq, all these kind of other doubts that I had. But those social justice issues too, all of a sudden I was like, you know, I can't believe that I put those maybe on the back burner in some way to like follow this. Oh, that's what I was going to say. The similarities to View of the Hebrews and like the late war, those. But like stuff like that. And then you, of course you mentioned just the, the contemporary sources that he could have pulled from, from his time that, that you're not taught about certainly, but you're also taught the opposite. How he was so illiterate and had done, you know, had so little schooling and how there's no way when the church, you know, knew about these things. The level of deception that's kind of compounded all. So there's all these issues. Like the cherry on top was the fact that the church has known about it and has been actively trying to hide it. That was practically as harmful as knowing just finding all the facts out themselves was that I'd been lied to. It's not like this was something the Church didn't know about until now either. So that was one of the most

John Dehlin [04:19:35] important interviews I've done ever has been the series with Shannon Caldwell Montez.

Katie Harmon [04:19:40] Yeah, I've watched some of that, but not all yet.

John Dehlin [04:19:41] So yeah, that BH Roberts knew that the View of the Hebrews, which was a book that Oliver Cowdery had access to, basically lays out the entire structure of the Book of Mormon.

Katie Harmon [04:19:55] Right.

John Dehlin [04:19:55] And Joseph Smith knew about that. And the parallels were undeniable. You know, dark, dark skinned, light skinned Israel, you know, Native Americans or Israelites wars, the, the dark skinned kills, all that stuff was in the view of the Hebrews seven years before Joseph Smith ever came out in the Book of Mormon.

Katie Harmon [04:20:17] Right.

John Dehlin [04:20:18] The church knew all this back in 2000 and in 1922 with B H Roberts, all the general authorities were put on record. The apostles and the Church chose to call B H Roberts on a mission to hide that he ever existed to, to, to scuttle any biography of B H Roberts and to do all that it could to make sure members never knew that there were totally reasonable explanations for where Joseph Smith got his, his. The story of the Book of Mormon, right.

Katie Harmon [04:20:47] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [04:20:48] I'm just for listeners who don't know, check out that series with Shannon Caldwell, Montesquieu. It'll change your life for the good definite no.

Katie Harmon [04:20:55] I can't wait to finish it for sure. And that's even so jumping ahead a little, as we've told family, my husband's family about leaving. There's one brother of his in particular who's incredible and who has read. He actually had read the CS letter. He's been able to find faithful answers to this, but he even agrees that like just the, you know, the deception, like, why not just lay it out there, warts and all. And people can, you know, choose whether or not to believe. We know why they don't do that. But even that is something that I've, even now I've heard some active members saying, yeah, we. I kind of get it that that is frustrating. Where I would say much more often the reaction is to Gaslight and to put up walls and defend their, trying to defend their worldview in any way they can. But I've even, I know that there's even some active members who were bothered by that just the deception. Like we. Why didn't we know about this sooner? So.

John Dehlin [04:21:51] Yeah. And part of what's so frustrating in 2020 is that the members will now say, oh, oh, no, John. There's the Joseph Smith Papers project and there's the, you know, rough stone rolling and there's the Gospel topics essays.

Katie Harmon [04:22:08] The Saints book is the one people always tell. Sorry, go ahead.

John Dehlin [04:22:11] Yeah, yeah, go. No, please, please.

Katie Harmon [04:22:13] Yeah, people always. I, I think maybe what you're getting at is the church is making huge leaps and bounds to share this stuff. The Saints book is the one my husband's family talks about a lot. But it's not good enough. Like you said from, you know, they Knew in the 20th century about some of this stuff. Like, it's not for it to be coming to light now. It's because their hand is being forced because of things like Mormon Stories Podcast, because of the CES letter, because of Radio Free Mormon. These things are forcing their hands. It's not. They're finally bringing it to light. But it's not for the right reasons. It's not with the right, you know, motivations. It's because we kind, you know, their hand is being forced. That's. That's not right for a church that, that puts such a high price on or the, you know, that puts emphasis on honesty. That, that's one of the temple recommend question, you know, interviews that's something I struggled with a lot. And like I said, especially because I struggled with scrupulosity related to honesty and still do in some ways, I felt incredibly angry and betrayed that the church isn't even living up to its own, its own standards that it expects of its members.

John Dehlin [04:23:15] Yeah, exactly. The church was forced. The church was forced to come clean after almost two centuries of deception. And even now, they're not really coming clean. They're still gaslighting and contextualize everything in a way that is deceptive and not really painting an accurate, true picture.

Katie Harmon [04:23:36] Yep, totally. So. Yeah. Right. So I'm, I'm devastated. I, after I read the CS letter still on ex Mormon, read it a lot and reading all sorts of things I ordered no man knows my history. You know, Fawn Brody's book. Just really diving into this because I, I just have to know more. Like I, you know, I, I want to uncover every stone now that I feel like I've been lied to for so long. But throughout all this, I, my husband didn't know. I was super conflicted on what I should. When I should tell him what I should say, how much I should say. Of course my marriage is and my kids are my priority, but I'm starting to get pretty, you know, angry about what I'm finding and feel like I can't, I can't really keep it to myself because it's, it's hurting me to see that he still has faith in these things and doesn't yet know like the true, the full. He doesn't know the history that I have now learned about. So I kind of started in small little ways. You know, I would tell him. I just hadn't told him about the CES letter or anything yet. But just that, you know, I'm, I told. Let him know I was on this ex Mormon Reddit because. And he's known that I've always been kind of or not always, but for the last several years like a. More like nuanced. And he was that same way in certain ways too. So I'm like, you know, it's, it's really helpful for me to see the experiences of like LGBTQ Mormons who have left or post Mormons to see. You know, I like reading these different stories from people and, you know, I'm, I like what I'm learning. It's interesting. I didn't like what I'm learning, but it was interesting what I was learning. And he didn't care that I was on this ex Mormon Reddit, but he Was like, I. I still believe, just so you know. And I was kind of slowly letting him know that, you know, I. I'm not sure what I believe anymore. And he was okay with that until we started to. And I heard conflicting things on from like, this exworm, Reddit, the different people. Some people were like, don't tell your spouse the specifics, because I did. And that just. That was horrible. And that was. That caused walls to be put up and it ended my marriage. And some people were like, no, be open with them because maybe, maybe they'll see the light too, or at least understand where you're coming from.

John Dehlin [04:25:53] They can, they can tell. They can feel betrayed. It's like, hey, yeah, these things for me, totally. So a marriage that doesn't need any more stress, you know, we think about all this hospital stuff, a special needs kid, all the stress your marriage has had, and marriage just in and of itself is hard right now. You're, like, adding this whole nother, like, is he gonna leave me? Is he gonna divorce me? Are we gonna be on the same page? Why is he believing all this crazy culty stuff? And he won't listen to me. I just imagine it's adding all sorts of stress and pressure. Totally stress and pressure that you didn't need.

Katie Harmon [04:26:29] Right. And this is also. So this isn't like March. So it's right as like, the pandemic is kicking up too, which has, I think, compounded stress in everyone's lives, ours especially, because Max is especially susceptible to, you know, complications from COVID If he were to catch it, or one of us were to catch it, probably could kill him. And even if it put one of us, you know, out as a caretaker for a while, that would be devastating. So we're having to, like, be probably even extra careful, more careful than the average family in terms of really isolating ourselves and just being ultra careful about our interactions. So. Right. It was like, definitely stress levels were high. So I kind of would start to tell him certain things. Like, you know, I don't. I don't know if I believe in the Book of Mormon anymore. And I think when I finally, when I said that to him, we kind of did. We had a kind of a big blowout of like, he. He couldn't believe it and wanted to know why and felt like, how is that possible? This is what we've built our lives on. This is what, you know, this is my whole family. Like, what we've built our lives on. What you and I as a couple and our kids, like, this Is everything like how and I, and I had said, you know, I don't know that I believe Joseph is a prophet anymore. So he actually wanted, he, he was so taken aback that I felt this way and actually kind of wanted to know why I felt this way. And I told, I explained what the CS letter was. I was like I don't want to ask you to read it if you think, you know. I was like I don't want anything to come between us. He was still very much believing but definitely curious about how I'd come to these conclusions. But that was my fear was what if, what if he reads it and you know, it makes him really angry or he still does believe and I still really don't and what if that, what if our marriage can't continue? There's all these what ifs. But he really wanted to. Luckily I feel lucky that for both of us our marriage and family was the priority even over the church in some degrees and I know in some families that dynamics different. But he definitely felt like even if I wanted to leave and not believe that that didn't mean that he wanted to leave me. Like he, it was going to be hard. But we both expressed early on like we still want to be married to each other and we still want to raise our kids together. I was nervous though about the idea of like a mixed faith marriage and what that, the problems that might bring up especially with our kids because like especially what you mentioned with Joseph Smith and like the grooming and like sexual, you know, preying on people. Like I was very adamant that I did not want my kids to have any part in this at all. You know, like I, as far away from it as possible. So I was scared about what this would mean. But he oh, go ahead.

John Dehlin [04:29:10] No, no, no, I, I, well I was just going to say I'll bring in a comment from Carl. Yeah, I was just gonna say you're super lucky because I, I counsel couples in mixed faith marriages and there are orthodox women and men, orthodox Mormon women and men that literally say if you're, if, if you leave the church, I'm leaving you and I'm taking the kids totally. And oftentimes if the, if the parents of the non believing spouse are orthodox Mormons, they'll side with the in laws over there and they'll say yeah, you should leave our own kid because they're not living up to their covenants. They're covenant breakers is the term. And so, and so Carl says that's me and my wife. Are we going to Stay married. Do we have anything other than our kids in the church? It's a horrible time.

Katie Harmon [04:29:59] So sorry, Carl.

John Dehlin [04:30:00] Yeah, we're sorry, Carl. And it's tens of thousands of couples within Mormonism right now are, are facing the possibility of the ruining of their marriage, the fracturing of the family, the alienation of children from their parents. So you kind of dodged a bullet with your husband.

Katie Harmon [04:30:21] Totally. Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:30:22] And I feel lucky. And kudos to you.

Katie Harmon [04:30:24] Absolutely. I agree. I give him so much credit, right. For especially having been raised in such a traditional household that he put me and our kids first. And I think a lot of that too has to do with the way we bonded because of all that Max went through. Like I said, we, we were lucky and it took a lot of hard work too. But the bond that we have now is really, really unique and I think that contributed to this, that like we've been through. It feels like we've been through hell and back together. So I, yeah, I feel really fortunate that, that we were in a position where we both felt like, no, this is our priority. We're going to make this work regardless of what happens with our faith. But so he said, yeah, I would like to read the CS letter. So we read it together and he, similar to me, was devastated. He. So the kid, active his whole life, incredibly active family, served a mission of the mission. He served in Thailand and that, that's something they do there sometimes. And there's not enough like, you know, priesthood holders to, or worthy priesthood holders to serve as leadership in the wards and branches they'll call missionaries. So he, you know, I guess I say that, to just say that he was this incredible missionary that was, you know, working really hard at every step in his life, was making the right decisions, was, was super active, involved in the faith. Read as, you know, as much as anyone could. Knew so much about the history. He also. It wasn't just, again, it wasn't just me. The convert, this born in the covenant guy hadn't heard any of any of this before and it was just as devastating to him as it was to me. But even actually more so because he felt like, oh my gosh, you know, none of my family knows this. My whole. There's generations from Heber Sea on that, including my husband's family that have made these decisions, have been born in the church and none of them knew any of this. How many lives have been, you know, changed and gone on certain, gone, taken certain trajectories because of this. It was, it was devastating to him too. So But I feel fortunate that he, after reading the CES letter, came to the same conclusion that he didn't believe anymore also. And so we were, we were on the same page, which was awesome.

John Dehlin [04:32:37] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [04:32:38] Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of, that's. So we read the CS letter that's in like March. We both feel like we're done. No idea how to tell family because it just. My family, we actually told my family within the next several months because they, they were easier. They're not members. Asked them to keep it private, you know, because we didn't want his family to find out quite yet, but told them they were super. You know, it speaks, it speaks to the dynamic that the church creates because though my family wasn't thrilled, you know, about me joining the church and getting married and having kids young, they were supportive through all of it. They were surprised when we said that we were leaving or done, you know, but still supportive, like, well, we love you anyway. Yeah. Oh, sorry, John, I can't. Looks like it's breaking up a little. Can you hear me?

John Dehlin [04:33:33] I. Sorry, I think we just had an Internet disruption. Can you hear me okay?

Katie Harmon [04:33:37] I can now. Yeah, it's all good. So, yeah, that was my, my non member family who reacted just in a. In a steady. Like love was always the theme for them. Like we love you and support you even if we don't totally understand these different life choices that you're making, whether it's joining the church or now, you know, losing faith. And I think that's an important to mention because for a church that preaches about love, charity, you know, being as empathetic and a church where they claim that love is the center of all of it. It's telling the Mormon family that has the most fallout. Right. For most people like the really active members that in theory should be the most Christ like the most loving, the most understanding, the most. My love will never change for you, no matter what. It's those families that actually, you see, you know, shunning or cutting out of lives or just the relationship changed drastically and that we actually told my husband's family not too long ago, kind of mixed bag of reactions. They were all really surprised, you know, said they still love us. But I. There's definitely a. There's been a chance I can notice with certain. It depends on the brother. Like I said, he's one of eight. So there's been different reactions among different of them. But it's been really rough, you know, to. We can tell how disappointed they are and how worried they are, because they certainly believe that by breaking the covenant or not living up to the covenants now that we made, that this is. This has caused eternal changes and what eternity is going to look like. And they're so heartbreak broken. And it's hard to. Part of us wants to, like, share what we know, and we have a little bit, but it hasn't. When we have, it doesn't go over well. There's a lot of gaslighting and tensions get high, and it's just really hard to map a way forward. And I hate that that's the position people find themselves in, that the church creates that dynamic where all of a sudden it's supposed to be so focused on family, and all of a sudden families are being, you know, facing difficulties, are being torn apart because of this.

John Dehlin [04:35:48] So, yeah, there's a, there's a. There's a question from a listener that really strikes to the heart of why I think you wanted to do this episode. When I said covenant breakers, I put it in air quotes.

Family Fallout and Navigating Post-Mormon Life

Katie Harmon [04:36:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:36:04] And John Cannon writes, they really are covenant breakers. Why are you making the air quotes around it?

Katie Harmon [04:36:10] Yeah, I'd love to answer that.

John Dehlin [04:36:12] Answer that question in the context of informed consent.

Katie Harmon [04:36:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [04:36:16] Katie.

Katie Harmon [04:36:16] So I. This is what my husband and I. Husband and I talk about this a lot. I don't believe that I've broken any covenants because I went into making those covenants without that informed consent. Not only, as we discussed earlier, did I not know what I'd even be promising before I went into it. I made the promises that I made based on the truth as it was told to me, which was that Joseph Smith had literally translated the Book of Mormon from the gold plates, that he had the power of translation and, you know, translated the Book of Abraham that way that he really had seen, you know, God the Father and his Son as the way it was described in Joseph Smith history and not in any other way that, you know, that the Book of, like I said Book of Mormon was translated from these plates and that it was the word of God, that this actually happened and occurred in the Americas, you know, thousands of years ago. And none of that, when none of that held up, I felt like it's like it was null and void. Like I didn't make this. These covenants with incorporate informed consent. So I don't feel like I've broken them is the way that I look at it. I didn't know the whole picture. I was. I made covenants with a different church, you know, than what the church really is. So that's the way that we look at it is it wasn't what it was said to be.

John Dehlin [04:37:39] Exactly. I think of it as I want to buy a car or I want to buy a house. And so I go to buy the house and the people selling the house sign all these papers saying there's never been any floods, the roof is new, you know, the house is in tip top condition, there's no problems. This is going to be the best house ever. And then when you sign the contract and you buy the house and you move in, you find out the foundation is cracked and they knew about it totally. The basement's had a ton of floods and they hit it and they covered it up. There's asbestos in the walls and you're gonna die if you stay at it too long. But you made the commitment to buy the house because you.

Katie Harmon [04:38:28] That's a great analogy.

John Dehlin [04:38:29] You signed the contract and it's like, yeah, but there was fraud.

Katie Harmon [04:38:34] Totally. That's a great way to explain it, John. And I'm gonna have to use that when it comes up with my husband's family, because that's the best way to describe it is that I feel the church was not what I was signing on to was not what I thought it was. And it wasn't just that the church also was misled. That's so important. They knowingly hid these things. They knowingly weren't telling the truth about what I was getting into when I got myself into it. So in my mind, I don't feel like I've even broken covenants. Yeah, so that's definitely the way that I look at it. But yeah, that's, you know, his family and, you know, any active member doesn't see it that way. And it's sad that that ends up affecting relationships.

John Dehlin [04:39:20] Yeah, it does. It separates husband from wife, it separates parents from children. It fractures families. It separates parents from, you know, adult parents from adult children. It separates in laws from. In laws of their own children, siblings from each other.

Katie Harmon [04:39:41] Right.

John Dehlin [04:39:41] Like this church that is claiming to be all about families like you said, that is claiming that it's helping families become united, is literally dividing, tearing families apart, tearing marriages apart. And that's the most severe examples. And then there's the shunning and there's the hard shunning, which is like family members of mine that literally will leave the house if I come in their house, they won't talk to me and they haven't for years. There's the hard shunning, but then there's the soft shunning where you're not included in the texts, where you're not invited to the activities, where you're, you don't want, you know, they don't want their kids to be around you because you're a dangerous apostate. So as an aunt or an uncle or as a parent or as a grandparent, they move away or they distance themselves or their children from you.

Katie Harmon [04:40:32] Right.

John Dehlin [04:40:32] That's all like corrosive and toxic to family systems instead of being strengthening of families like the church claims.

Katie Harmon [04:40:42] Totally. Right. And I feel, I feel lucky so far in that while there's been some, some conflict and heartache and difficulties so far, everyone still loves each other and things are on decent terms, but we have yet to see, I think as things continue, you know, how, how this will play out. But what's so heartbreaking to me is that, that I know how worried they are for us and how, how they think that this probably means we won't be with them in, in eternity. So. Yeah, I just can't imagine what his parents feel. I, I can't imagine actually, because I remember totally believing that and thinking it would be the worst thing in the world if one of my kids, you know, fell away from the church. So it's just. I hate, I hate that we've put them in so much pain by living our truth. It's really hard.

John Dehlin [04:41:30] Even if the parents or the in laws react perfectly and everybody's kind to each other, the church is still putting the burden on the believing members that now they're a failure. They were a bad mother, they were a bad dad, now what are their kids? The empty, empty chairs at the table, empty seats, and now their disappointment and their family's not going to be together when life is short and difficult enough. Why would a religion want to either divide families, ruin families, or make parents or grandparents sad and disappointed and miserable for the rest of their lives, thinking that now they're not going to be with their children in the afterlife. It's, it's horrible.

Katie Harmon [04:42:18] Totally.

John Dehlin [04:42:19] Amount of useless. It's one thing for there to be pain and pain in life, the useless suffering, that's all based on fiction and fraud. All that disappointment and sadness, it's not like it's dealing with a real disability or a really difficult marriage or health problems that are legitimate. It's suffering born out of fiction and false fraud.

Katie Harmon [04:42:44] Right. And I think that's, that's where we're struggling the most right now is my, my husband feels immensely guilty for, for putting them through This. I feel guilty sometimes that, you know, maybe if he had married someone else that this never would have. He's. He would rather know the truth, of course. But there's all these feelings. It brings up in everyone that. Right. We come back to the same thing. It was all, it was all founded on lies. All of the sin, contention and sadness and heartache that. That's what it all stemmed from is just even more infuriating. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. Um, yeah, so that's, that's kind of where that. So that was actually pretty recently that we finally have talked to his family. So I feel like I said that's pretty new. We're just kind of figuring out what, how we're going to move forward with that and what those relationships will look like. Of course, we have the greatest hope that, that things will be as unchanged as possible. But. Yeah. So throughout that was in like March ish that we really, you know, are on the same page. I just wanted to mention a couple things that have like solidified that for us. So when George Floyd was murdered, we like the response from the church I. We felt like was really lacking as has been their response to racist, you know, all the racist doctrine in the past. No. And I know you don't want to like, I don't want to get too political either. And I know that's like this podcast isn't the place for that, but just struggling with the church not taking a stronger stand against, I guess, white supremacy feelings like that. You know, there's like these Deseret Nation groups that are preaching some scary stuff in Utah now and that that's something they have to know is going on, that there's nothing that's been said about that. So kind of this like, resurgence of like social justice issues since the pandemic, it's hard to see again the church not taking the lead and you know, decrying police brutality when it happens and really decrying racism in a stronger way and apologizing for their own racism. That was hard for us to see for sure. And then.

John Dehlin [04:45:01] And members and members will say, oh wait, in this last general conference, President Nelson said something good about, you know, bad about racism. But like that's now in 2020 after fighting the civil rights movement, calling Martin Luther King a communist, like, you know, discouraging interracial marriage, claiming his doctrine that blacks were black because their skin was made dark because of a curse as doctrine for over 150 years. Like it's way late to the game and way behind what we would expect from men who claim to be God's prophet series.

Katie Harmon [04:45:41] Absolutely right. And that's the same feeling we got with kind of the, the George Floyd.

John Dehlin [04:45:46] And still no apology for every of that past racism.

Katie Harmon [04:45:49] No. Right.

John Dehlin [04:45:50] Only like, oh, well, those guys were wrong. Don't. Don't listen to those past prophet seers and revelators, but still believe the current prophet seers and revelators, even though they were wrong. We're right now. Right.

Katie Harmon [04:46:02] Totally. Very difficult to try and come to terms with how that any of that makes sense. But yeah, so this. That was something that was important for us that we felt like, you know, wasn't being talked about enough in the church where again, a church led by Christ, the Christ, as I was, you know, taught about, should be at the front of these movements, not lagging decades behind. And then Covid, too, having a child who's medically fragile and extra susceptible to this. Really frustrated that so many people were talking about, oh, it's so wonderful to have a former surgeon as the prophet during this time who's a doctor who can understand some of this stuff. To have to kind of be lukewarm and never, you know, I think there was that letter from like, I don't live in Utah. Of course, some, like area presidencies in Utah saying members should wear masks. But lots of people were like, no, until it comes from the prop. Like, that's just social pressure. Until it comes from the prophet, it's not revelation. It was frustrating to see how quick is the church to, you know, to decry abortion, to cut, to be happy, to cut off, you know, maybe women's rights to certain health care, to. In the. Under the guise of like, protecting life. Right. But lots of measures that could have been taken to protect lives during the pandemic. That you would think that a prophet who has communication with God and receives revelation and maybe even could have known about this before it happened. I don't know. Right. That this. The response would have been different than what it was, you know, still sending, still sending missionaries out, not closing the temple soon enough, because I think I remember there was like some cases that were traced back to some temple that some people had been there for an endowment ceremony or something. And I think one of the temple workers even passed away. I don't quote me on that because I don't remember it exactly. But basically that there's, you know, you would also think just like the church would hopefully be leading in terms of like, civil rights, that things like agreeing with science not being anti intellectual like that. If our scientists are supporting wearing masks that, you know, the evidence points to, this is helpful that that's something that you know, that you would think the church would be in line with. But so that was, it was really hard for us to feel a lot of our. And unfortunately like the pandemic thing has gotten really tied up in politics in an unfortunate way because I don't think it should be. I think it, you know, it should be a matter of science, not politics. But it's been hard to see people who we really love going about their lives as if there's not a pandemic. You know, it shows a blatant disregard I think for our son's health and for the health of anyone, you know, that might be compromised. And let's remember, not just compromise people, anyone of course can get Covid and have complications. So that has been hard to see. Like on the one hand with abortion, life is so precious and on this other hand, let's focus on our political rights when that's the exact opposite of what happens with their reasoning around abortion. So it's just been been difficult for our family in particular because of our circumstances with Max, I want to ask

John Dehlin [04:49:19] you about abortion in a second, but I got it on the COVID thing. I got a text yesterday from a friend. The friend writes, I got a text from a family member telling me that another family member who is serving in a Southern states mission has COVID 19 after going to an area conference with 70 plus missionaries.

Katie Harmon [04:49:42] Oh my gosh.

John Dehlin [04:49:43] As of two days ago, over 20 missionaries have tested positive. You know, they were at a zone conference. So right now terrifying missionaries are meeting in zone conferences and infecting each other in mass.

Katie Harmon [04:49:58] And that's. Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:49:59] And they may not, maybe they won't get hurt, but who knows who they're going to bring the diseases to as super spreaders as they're going out knocking on door to door at COVID infected, you know, so I mean hopefully we haven't seen as many deaths as we maybe thought we were going to. But this fall looks awful and the church continues to not show leadership in its wisdom.

Katie Harmon [04:50:27] Definitely that's what's frustrating to me is right in, in other ways, like I said, abortion. They're not afraid at all to come down heavy and to say no matter who it might offend, this is where we stand on this. And it's been difficult to see a lack of leadership with something that is also, you know, killing people is causing, you know, pain and suffering. So yeah, that's been. That's been rough for us. Yeah. Did you say you wanted to ask about abortion?

Reproductive Rights, Disability, and Ableism in the Church

John Dehlin [04:50:54] Well, I guess I, I don't want to take you away from other final points you want to make, but I do want to ask you about your son. And I mean, I guess let's ask it now. So. So here's one thing that is really. I do not have a child who special needs. I don't have a child with down syndrome. I don't have a child with severe medical defects. When you hear someone talk about having a special needs child, an autistic kid, a severely autistic kid, a kid with down syndrome, other special needs kids, it's almost always common to hear their parents say, he's our favorite child. He lights up our life. I would never trade, you know, any of the adversity that I've experienced. It's all been worth it. It's the best blessing. It's the best thing that's ever happened to us. Like, those are all the types of things you hear. And then when I'm looking at it, having never experienced it, I'm like, there are a lot of children born that are so difficult, so, so challenging. Now that I don't necessarily believe a four week or even an eight week, you know, termination of pregnancy is really murder. It's, it's. If the, you know, we can go into that, but, but now that I don't necessarily believe that, that every single inseminated egg is a life of a spirit that came from the previous world, that won't have a body, all that Jimmy Flinders, you know, Saturday's warrior narrative. Now that I don't believe that, I'm like, whoa, if I, if Margi and I were to get pregnant now and to find out in the first few weeks of life that we were going to have a kid with severe disabilities, maybe we, maybe we'd terminate just. Just because. Why put everyone through that much pain and difficulty? Now I'm saying that knowing that, it's probably ridiculously offensive to a lot of people. But that's. That those. That's one set of thoughts that I have. But then I'm also. Because I have some dear friends who are dealing with this. I'm aware of these children that are being conceived that have massive major birth defects, but because of people's preconceived notions about murder and abortion and all that being evil that I know of, mothers that are carrying their babies to term at great risk to the mother's life, even to the point of mothers either having significant illnesses, long term illnesses because they carried the child to term, or even mothers dying where I'm like, how is abortion not the best outcome for everyone involved? And then if the kid even lives and oftentimes these kids die right after birth. The, the, the quality of life is so low, not for the, not just for the kid, but for everyone around them. I'm just like, you know, as someone who thinks life is sacred, who's always sort of like, because I've been a Mormon, has always been against abortion, I'm starting to look at all this very differently and wonder whether sometimes abortion isn't the most humane out the, the most humane choice for everyone, including the child in some cases. Now I'm sure I just hurt and offended a lot of people, but can you share your views on all of this and take as much time as you want? Because I think this is a really important topic.

Katie Harmon [04:54:38] Yeah, it's a lot to unpack for sure. So for me, I think abortion comes back to choice that each family knows or woman or family, you know, knows their own situation, their own abilities, their own, the details of the pregnancy, of their own health better than I do or than anyone does. So I think, you know, for me that's kind of what it turns on. But that's something that's discussed in the world of like disability advocacy. How do you, how do you weigh that with a woman's right to choose? So I don't know, it's, it's hard like for me too. I think you mentioned like quality of life. One thing, and I'll get into that when I talk about like ableism in the church and disability. I think that our society is such that disabled people are kind of hidden. We don't, they're not out in the forefront. We don't see disabled people as much. So it can be easy to think that, you know, someone that has certain disabilities might have a really poor quality of life when in reality they actually do have a great quality of life. It's just different from what, what we might expect. And like that's the case with Max. You know, we were so scared of him getting, having a trach and being ventilator dependent. He has an incredible quality of life. It's, it's different from what, like his knees are different from our other kids. But he, you know, his capacity to, to experience joy, to be happy and to have fun, to access his world is limited by more, I would say the world's view of what his life should look like rather than what it actually is like. So I don't know. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get into. Another thing that is talked about a lot in the disability community is, you know, we look at a lot of disabilities as something someone's born with, but most disabilities are actually acquired later on because of an accident or illness. So I guess I would, you know, pose the question if one of your children or someone's child was to be in a car accident and, you know, sustain a traumatic. Have a traumatic brain injury and that altered the course of their life. You know, it's. Does that, you know, make someone feel differently about. Would they rather just have that, not have that child, not, you know, have them die? Probably not. Or, you know, a child gets cancer and the complications from that result in some sort of disability. So it's not, you know, it's definitely not always, of course, something someone's born with. Most disability is acquired. So I think that's one way to look at that. To look at it is, you know, would you pursue treatments any less if it was your child that was already healthy and then you're going to, you know, either choose to pursue treatments or to not to do some sort of comfort care thing? Probably not. Most parents would say that they would actively and aggressively pursue any sort of treatment with that they could. So. And I. It's hard. I, you know, I like to think of myself as like a disability advocate, but I'm certainly not an expert and don't have, you know, someone. That's mostly because I don't have disability myself. I'm, you know, from the view, of course, of just the mother. There's some really great disability advocates out there, though, that probably have more eloquent things to say and could probably answer your questions better than I could. But for me, it comes down to, you know, for any woman out there, her choice and what in her and her, you know, she has a family. They know what they can handle and what they can't handle and their financial position, their, like I said, the details of the diagnosis, all things that none of us are privy to. But then also looking at through the lens of, you know, Max happened to be born with these difficulties, but that difficulties of all sorts can strike all of us at any time in life. Not just kids, adults too, like spouse. You know, if. If Keith were to. Something horrible were to happen to him where he was, you know, injured and required a lot of care, would that mean that I would want to, you know, not have a relationship with him anymore? Just because it was hard is kind of one way of looking at it. But, yeah, I don't, I don't feel like I can. It's hard to answer, sure. But I get, I, I understand what you're saying and I respect, I am glad that I made the choice that I did because I'm glad that Max is part of our lives and Max loves his life and he, you know, he's happy, we're happy. Even though it's hard. That's okay. But I also respect parents who maybe get a diagnosis like CDH and look at the possibilities of what that could mean and feel like, I don't know that this is, this is something, this is right for my family. I, you know, I, I think for me, it comes back to, and so many Mormons really don't understand what pro choice even means. They think that someone's pro choice is pro abortion. Right. Like, they really, they really want abortions to, like, happen. I don't know a single person like that. I've never met someone like that. Pro choice simply means, you know, that, that we don't know someone's situation better than they do, so we shouldn't, or the government, rather shouldn't, you know, be a part of that decision, that it should be between a family and their healthcare provider. So I hope that makes sense.

John Dehlin [05:00:05] Sure, sure, sure.

Katie Harmon [05:00:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:00:06] And I, you know, and you say that you're, and I believe you, you say you're super happy with Max and, and, and, and I, I, I don't know what it's like to raise a kid with special needs, but I also think that how could any parent ever, once they've had a kid, I guess it'd be really hard for a parent to ever say, I wish I hadn't have had that kid. Like, once you have the kid, you really can't say that, right?

Katie Harmon [05:00:34] Probably. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I guess that

John Dehlin [05:00:37] makes, I'm not doubting, I'm not doubting that your sincerity. I'm just trying to acknowledge the complexity.

Katie Harmon [05:00:43] It is complex, for sure. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, no, I mean, I, I, yeah, I'm trying to think if there's a different way to explain my feelings, but that's what it is, is that Max, from very early on, like I said, when I was pregnant with him even, and this is putting aside, like, you know, ideas of when life truly starts, I felt like he was my son already. So we, we felt like we wanted to, you know, do what we could to help him live the best life he could, regardless. Just like I said, you know, a child who might have cancer, their parents are, would want to, you know, pursue the treatment that they could. And of course, you have to know. And there's been times in Max's life where there was one stay in particular where he was really sick and we were having to talk about what might quality of life look like after this, if it goes this way or this way. And at what point might we feel more comfortable not continuing, you know, saying, I think that it's time that we have put him through enough that it's. And he's gone through enough that maybe it's time to let him pass. And we had to have talks like that and just had to let's, you know, follow our gut, follow what we've, what we felt and, and do our very best.

John Dehlin [05:01:55] So, so if you're comfortable, share with us what is ableism, how is it relevant in a Mormon or a post Mormon context?

Katie Harmon [05:02:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:02:08] And any, anything else you want to share as the, as the mother of a special needs kid and as someone who's tried to navigate the world, but also the Mormon world with it, with a child with special needs.

Katie Harmon [05:02:20] Yeah. So ableism would be like, you know, any of the other isms out there, sexism, racism, treating someone different because of their abilities. So, you know, discriminating against or, or treating someone as less because they have a disability is ableism in a nutshell. So to kind of, kind of start off that conversation, there's kind of two ways of looking at disability. And one is called the medical model of disability, which says that there's a typical human body, a healthy human body, how maybe the majority of people what the body that they have. And then there's variations from that. There's diagnoses or conditions or, you know, an accident happens, whatever it might be. And that medical happening is what causes someone to be disabled. So it kind of focuses on the difference, the differences that the disabled person has as what causes the disability. And then there's this. So that's the way it's been looked at for years. And probably honestly the way most people look at disability is a difference in ability between two bodies. Then there's something that's more progressive in that disability advocates are hoping becomes more incorporated in society, which is the social model of disability, which says that it's not. Yes, there are bodies of all sorts of different, you know, abilities, some with illnesses, some without. Some people have glasses, some don't. Different sexual orientations. Right. There's like, you know, different races, different sex, like there's all sorts of differences that bodies have in a bunch of different ways. But that disability is a factor of our society and our environment, not the person. That a person becomes disabled because their society is not able to adapt to meet their needs, rather than because there's something, you know, wrong with this person. So, like an example of that, let's say there's a building that someone's going to go into. If the building, and there's two people, one can walk and one is a wheelchair user. If the building just has stairs, this person in a wheelchair has now been disabled by their environment because they can't access that building. But if the building has stairs and a ramp, this person really is no longer disabled because they can access the building the same way that anyone could. So that's kind of. I hope that makes sense. That's kind of.

John Dehlin [05:04:48] That's a great explanation.

Katie Harmon [05:04:50] Yeah. Kind of what it means is that, right, A society that's unwilling to change and adapt and, you know, put more. More things that are accessible in place is what causes people to have disabilities. Not necessarily these differences. And of course the medical differences exist. No one's like, trying to deny that, but that. That's not really what's disabling. It's this kind of outlook. Another good example of this is like, glasses. No one today would consider someone that wears glasses to be disabled. But that's because it's something our society has adapted to. You know, optometrists and ophthalmologists are pretty widespread. It's not taboo, it's not uncommon. That's something that's often covered by health insurance. You're able to go get an eye exam, catch problems early, get glasses. No one really looks at you, thinks of you differently or as disabled if you have glasses, because society has adapted to meet your needs, to allow you to act. While some people's vision might be bad enough that they might kind of be disabled in some way if they didn't have glasses and maybe couldn't drive because they couldn't see well enough, couldn't write well, or it affected their ability to learn to read as a kid, whatever the situation might be. That's just one example of a way that society did quickly come, like, meet people where they were in terms of making the world accessible to them, where this all ties into the church. So as you can guess, the church definitely kind of more subscribes to that, like, medical model that. Because there is a great emphasis put on bodies in the church. Right. Like from all levels, from the pre Existence to now, to eternity, to what, you know, like the resurrection. There's a great emphasis put on bodies. And you know, not all the activities and things that are necessary for full church membership are things that all bodies are able to do. So of course there's great emphasis put on childbearing. Well, not all, you know, women can bear children. Even things like baptism for immersion, you know, Max being ventilator dependent can't be. He couldn't go like be immersed in water. And even things like the certain things in the temple ceremony, right. Like there's certain physical things that we do that someone with a disabled body might not be able to. And I've definitely heard plenty of stories of the church adapting things like that to meet people and to, you know, like, oh, okay, well you can't do this exactly like everyone else does. That's fine. That doesn't, you know, that doesn't mean that it doesn't, it doesn't count for you or something. And then even issues like not all church buildings are even have like a handicap placard to push like to open doors. You know, in Laramie there's three buildings only the institute building has one of those. The other two buildings don't even have a door pusher, which is pretty significant. That's like a, that's a pretty minor alteration that can be made, you know, to a building to make it accessible to more members. But churches aren't held to the, to the American Disabilities act, so they don't technically like have to accommodate in that way, but kind of like with the civil rights and like LGBTQ equal rights, like, it's one of those things that the church is lagging behind that you would think the Church of Christ would, would not be. But kind of regardless of how accommodating the church could be to people with disabilities and make, make things more accessible. It's hard to, to not to be totally accessible when ableism is so really inherent in the doctrine of the church. And what I mean by that is, so let's like start at the pre existence, for example. There's so much focus put on what you did or didn't do, maybe in the pre existence that affects your body today. And this is one of the things we heard a lot with Max, like, oh, he was so valiant. He was so valiant in the pre existence and strong enough that, that he was willing to take a body like this, which is kind of a little insulting, right? Like, oh, like you would have to be so strong to deal with this crappy body that you got that's. It's ableist. It's kind of insulting the other thing. And I have to read this quote because I don't. This is something I read on that ex Mormon Reddit during my faith crisis that blew me away. So there's this thing I think most members probably what I just said, like, oh, you know, kids that are disabled, they were maybe special spirits. But Harold B. Lee said this privilege of obtaining a mortal body on this earth is seemingly so priceless that those in the spirit world, even though unfaithful or not valiant, were undoubtedly permitted to take mortal bodies, although under penalty of racial or physical or nationalistic limitations. So disgusted when I read that I had kind of like already started to hear some of the things on race, right? Like maybe not being, which was equally disgusting. But he's implying there that disability is a punishment for something that not being as valiant in the pre existent. Which of course is wildly ableist and inappropriate and hurtful to people who, to amazing people out there who might feel some sense of shame now, right? That maybe they did something wrong. When in reality there's a million ways that human bodies can be more than a million and everyone's body is different and that's okay. And that's really what the place I hope that the church could get to is to be affirming, you know, of bodies and of different experiences instead of trying to place all this meaning on them, whether good or bad like this, you know, it's because you did something in the pre existence or you didn't do something that you're this way more just acceptance and love of your body's, you know, that's, that's fine, you're fine the way you are then kind of in this life, like I said, it's not just me. There's lots of, you know, people that experience this kind of comments from people, you know, implying that, you know, oh, Max is just so strong for which he is strong, that's not untrue. But just these things that are trying to be compliments that are actually kind of put downs in a way and you know, saying oh, or like I look at Max and I'm just so grateful that my kids are healthy, which I get that I don't, I don't necessarily find fault in that. But what also you're essentially saying is you look at Max and you're like, wow, I'm so glad that my life isn't horrible in that way. When that isn't the case. Like I don't, I Don't count our lives as horrible at all. So kind of comments like that are definitely ableist. And then certainly the whole idea of the resurrection, that this thing we have to look forward to after we die is that we will all have these perfect bodies. You kind of had to get involved in the disability advocacy community to understand this. But people, lots, most people with disabilities, and I shouldn't say this for Mormons because they've been fed a different narrative their whole life. They might not feel this way, but probably people outside of Mormonism and the disability advocacy community don't want their bodies to change. They're happy with their bodies. Not. Not every person like we look at. We might look at someone in a wheelchair and think, oh, I bet they just wish they could walk. Most people with disabilities don't feel that way. They're happy with the bodies that they're in. Just like, you know, we wouldn't look at a straight or someone that was LGBTQ and say, oh, I just wish. I bet they wish they were straight. They don't think about it that way. This is who they are. And people with disabilities, there's. There's kind of, since the 1960s, has been a movement to. To own your disability as being part of who you are and not something to be ashamed of. It's something that society maybe makes you feel ashamed of and tells you is something that's, you know, wrong with you, but just kind of an ownership of, no, this is who I am, and I'm happy with who I am. There's even a good example of it is in deaf communities, like cochlear plants. Yeah. There's lots of people in the deaf community who have resisted cochlear implants because sign language is. It would be like us coming in or, you know, like white people coming in and wanting to, you know, make Native Americans assimilate and stop speaking their native language and start speaking English. It's almost similar. And that's hard unless you've. Unless you've been. This is something I wasn't aware of at all until Max was born and until I got more involved that people. There are lots of people, many people, maybe even the majority of people with disabilities that own their disabilities and don't look at it as a negative thing. Even though society does and are happy with their bodies, they're not looking for some. And I don't want to speak for anyone, of course, but there's lots of people who aren't looking for, who are offended by the idea of, oh, won't be in, you know, people say, won't it be so amazing one day when you can walk? There's people that are very happy in their wheelchair and want the world to become more accessible, to meet them where they're at rather than their body to change. And like I said, that can be a hard idea to, to understand and seem radical when we're so used to, especially Mormons, so used to thinking of a perfect, healed, typical body is what the goal is. When in reality, people, there needs to be more acceptance for you are worthy the way you are, you're loved the way you are, you're great the way you are. And you know, we shouldn't have this great agenda to change you is I guess, kind of the, the crux of that.

John Dehlin [05:14:30] This is great. We're getting. There are a lot of people that are really grateful that you're willing to talk about this. We haven't talked about ableism a lot on Mormon Stories podcast, and it's a super important topic. There are a couple comments that are giving different viewpoints. You know, Janet writes, differences should be celebrated, which I think we all agree with. I would just say that the, the population that I've heard of say something very similar is the LGBT population. They're like, I don't want to believe that I'm going to be cured of this in the next life and be made straight. I want to be who I am in the next life. It's part of what makes me great. So that's. If people can't understand that with the disabled population, maybe they can.

Katie Harmon [05:15:14] Right?

John Dehlin [05:15:15] Understand it through the lens of LGBT people.

Katie Harmon [05:15:19] That's a perfect analogy. And it, like I said it, I've noticed, at least people I've talked to, it's harder to take that next step to disability because not only in Mormonism, but in society in general, it's so ingrained of, well, why wouldn't you want to walk? It's really hard for people to understand that or why wouldn't you want to be able to hear if you couldn't? It's really hard for people to not understand why someone wouldn't want a typical, typical body. But that's, you know, we need to, I think, be affirming and supportive of people wherever they're at, self determine, you know, self determination rules the day too. Like, there's certainly some people, you know, that maybe would love and welcome medical advances that would help them learn to walk. That's fine. Of course, whatever someone wants for their own lives. But we need to be In a place of, you know, supporting people in whatever it is that they feel is most affirming for them.

John Dehlin [05:16:08] And in that spirit, we have a comment from Amy that writes, not me. I wish I had a new body. I have disabilities and lots of health illnesses, and I want my body repaired. But that's my humble opinion. So that. And that's a very valid, important opinion.

Katie Harmon [05:16:23] Totally right. And like with Max, there's certain medical things he has that I, you know, I. Of course, he could speak. He will speak for himself when he's older, but that I, you know, maybe wish he didn't have because it's. They're, you know, they're especially hard or whatever it is. Um, but there's other parts of him that I wouldn't. That I wouldn't change, that I think that when he gets older, he won't want to change. It's part of who he is now, and that's. That's fine. So, Amy, I totally agree, and anyone out there who's listening to this and this. This idea doesn't jive with them, I don't want to say that you're wrong by any stretch of the imagination, however you feel is, of course, valid. I just want to bring to light that there are a lot of people who feel more progressive about this and feel like it's society that should be coming to meet them, where they're at, rather than an expectation that they overcome their disability, which is an ableist term. People really don't like that, that you overcome a disability, just like you want to overcome your sexual orientation, as you said, and that those people, I think, can feel very out of place in Mormonism because it doesn't really cater to them. And I know, just as the parent of a child with a disability, I felt like all the focus was on, you know, oh, won't it be so great when he has a resurrected body, Essentially saying, won't it be so great when he's dead? That's what that boils down to, you know. No, no. Max has a wonderful life now, and is it different? And do we need some equipment to help us? Yep. But, you know, lots of people need medications or eyeglasses or whatever it may be. And, you know, we. We're good where we're at, and lots of people are, and those are the people that. Right. That need affirming. So, Amy. Yeah. I don't. I hope that that wasn't offensive.

John Dehlin [05:18:06] No, no.

Katie Harmon [05:18:06] To her, because I hope she under. I hope she understands where I'm coming from.

John Dehlin [05:18:09] No, we have to create a space where we could talk about this stuff.

Katie Harmon [05:18:12] Right.

John Dehlin [05:18:12] And even make mistakes. But it's better to do that than to just ignore it, not talk about it.

Katie Harmon [05:18:17] Right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:18:18] Akeem writes, we are all disabled one way or the other, emotionally in our social interactions or physically. That's a great perspective. Thank you for sharing that. Akim. This is an interesting comment. Andreal writes, I was born with cerebral palsy. I have no idea what it's like to not have it. I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. It's just as much a part of me as having brown eyes.

Katie Harmon [05:18:45] Thank you. That's a great comment. Something I kind of did do want to like emphasize like for it's outside forces, I think that tell disabled people that, you know, there's something wrong with you or whether good like oh, you're so special because of all this or negative things. That's usually outside forces. Like she said, most people with disabilities, this is, this is what they're used to or become used to. This is their life and they, you know, it's just part of who they are, part of their identity. Kind of taking that back and owning it and you know. Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:19:24] So a couple other interesting comments. I really love these comments coming in. Nicole writes, both my siblings were born with birth defects and as the normal one being raised with that teaching that those born with disabilities were extra strong or valiant made me feel weak and like I must not been as good as them in the pre existence. I remember being insecure about that my whole childhood.

Katie Harmon [05:19:45] Interesting. Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:19:46] And it's, you know, it's not. It's tricky because we don't want to. If we're not disabled now, we're the victim somehow. Like I can.

Katie Harmon [05:19:54] Right. It's hard to draw. Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:19:55] Tricky thing. But that's. Nicole is real experience and yeah.

Katie Harmon [05:19:59] You know, and we've been careful with our kids to. We try and treat Max just like the other two. You know, like we try and have just. Just equal in the way that we speak to and love obviously. But things like that we make sure to not like yes, Max has had these health challenges but you know, not. It's just part of life for us. We try to not put too much emphasis on it one way or the other. It's just what. It's what it is. So.

John Dehlin [05:20:24] Yeah. Laura writes, ableism is a huge issue for my family. Myself and my oldest son are nd. What does she mean by nd?

Katie Harmon [05:20:33] I think neurodivergent is what I guess

John Dehlin [05:20:37] or neurodiverse maybe Neurodiverse and with chronic issues. And my younger son is 2E. Do you know what 2E is?

Katie Harmon [05:20:44] I'm not sure what 2E is.

John Dehlin [05:20:45] And uncomfortable being himself at church. Both have experienced exclusion and ostracization and even punishment. Sorry, Laura, that we don't know some of these terms. Neurodivergent, as I understand it, is a term, an umbrella term that encompasses, you know, people on the autism spectrum, but probably includes other. Other things as well. Other conditions.

Katie Harmon [05:21:14] Yeah, and that's like, like she said, there's a lot of, you know, even the way oftentimes youth activities are planned. Lots of things in church are very much built around the idea of a typical. A typical body and not. I can definitely see where, you know, a kiddo might feel ostracized or not fit in because things are planned often in the church and thought about and everything's kind of structured with a typical body in mind.

John Dehlin [05:21:40] And then Amy follows up and says, I love your interview. Please don't think I don't understand your perspective.

Katie Harmon [05:21:45] Oh, good. Thanks, Amy. I'm glad I didn't. I. Yeah, it's. It's hard to. I want to make sure I'm coming off the right way. That. Yeah, your experience, Amy, of course, is totally valid and I'm glad we can both recognize similar situations and people. Two people can, you know, view similar situations in different ways. And that's. That's so valid and that's what we need is this acceptance and dialogue about it. And like I said, self determination and respecting whatever the conclusion is that someone else comes to.

John Dehlin [05:22:15] Another comment. David writes, I'm a person with an acquired disability due to a stroke. I hate my body in this condition. I would give anything to be healed from this. Something about Christ wasting his time going around healing people. Not sure.

Katie Harmon [05:22:36] Yeah. And I under, like, like I said, Max had a stroke. And it was. At first it was. And I didn't have kind of some of the disability advocacy perspective that I have now. It felt devastating to see him lose loss of his right side. And now it's incredible. He uses his left toe. He can cut, he does like scissors. He can hold paper, color with it. He has adapted incredibly and it doesn't slow him down at all. It's totally normal to him. We try and in therapy, work on regainings as he's not really interested because he likes using his foot now. It's who he is. It's fine, like, you know, so. But I also respect his perspective that as an adult living your life with atypical body. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to then, you know, suffer a stroke and. Right. His feelings are valid too, Laura.

John Dehlin [05:23:27] It's not your job to teach us, but we're grateful that you're willing. Two E stands for twice exceptional. I'm guessing that means more than one condition.

Katie Harmon [05:23:36] I guess I'm actually not sure what. Twice.

John Dehlin [05:23:37] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [05:23:38] Sorry. Sorry, Laura.

John Dehlin [05:23:40] She clarifies that any does.

Katie Harmon [05:23:41] Great. I'm glad we were right on that one.

John Dehlin [05:23:43] Divergent. Yeah. So I, I think we could talk a lot more. I'm, I, I'm. I'm at the. I sort of need to wrap up today.

Katie Harmon [05:23:56] Sure.

John Dehlin [05:23:57] But tell it, tell. Let's make sure we include anything else that you definitely wanted to get across.

Katie Harmon [05:24:02] No, I think really sorry, I'm just peeking at my little outline to see if there's, if there's anything else.

John Dehlin [05:24:09] Go ahead and peek while you're, while you're peeking.

Katie Harmon [05:24:11] Yep.

John Dehlin [05:24:12] Frenchie writes, diversity is the spice of life. Thank you, Frenchie.

Katie Harmon [05:24:16] Totally.

John Dehlin [05:24:16] Frenchie Gayla writes. This is such an awesome interview.

Katie Harmon [05:24:20] Oh, thanks.

John Dehlin [05:24:21] We have had a lot of people ask for a focus on ableism and disabilities in the church.

Katie Harmon [05:24:30] Awesome. That's great to hear. I'm not alone because it's like I said in Laramie, I feel like I might be one of the only voices that kind of feels that way. So that's awesome.

John Dehlin [05:24:40] And then Brenda writes that means gifted plus disabled. So I guess someone could be gifted and disabled at the same time.

Katie Harmon [05:24:48] Sure. Yeah. I think one, I think, John, we really covered almost everything. One just last thing I kind of wanted to touch on in regards to like ableism in the church, and I mentioned this a little earlier in regards of like self sufficiency. I think that can harm people with disabilities in the church. This intense focus on needing to be self sufficient. As we discussed, like the Ezra Taft Benson stuff, not relying on any sort of government help, you know, any sort of support services like that, which is difficult for disabled people because the way our society is set up, a lot of disabled people aren't able to partake in the workforce like a typical person might. And again, that's not necessarily because of their medical conditions. A lot of that is because just workplaces aren't accessible. We're seeing even with COVID that all of a sudden a lot of jobs are being done, you know, be like via the computer. That is making. It's actually opening up a lot of opportunities for people with disabilities who maybe couldn't do a job before, but now can so anyway, hopefully we see advancements in employment opportunities and stuff like that, but a lot of disabled people aren't able to necessarily hold typical jobs, have typical insurance. So they do rely on programs like Medicaid, you know, Social Security, things like that in order to, to survive. So that's just something else I wanted to touch on. I think that can be harmful is this kind of stigma against these programs that really are necessary for some people. But people can feel a lot of shame around using them or accessing them when they, they shouldn't at all. But yeah, other than that, I think we really covered a lot of what I wanted to.

Final Reflections and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [05:26:31] There is one final question I want to ask you.

Katie Harmon [05:26:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:26:35] That I, maybe I should have asked it earlier, but I think it's a good place to end. So. So Katie, if somebody says to you, Just coming back to the informed consent question. If somebody says to you, look, Katie, you've got a great husband. Well, you, you had a tough family situation, you had a great final few years of high school, you married a great guy, you've got three kids, you've got loving in laws, you've got the dream life. Like what are you crying about? The church has been only a blessing to you. It's been this incredible asset. And now like, how have you been harmed and why are you, why are you taking the time to now bash the church when you've got so many great things? Like you should be thanking the church, not, you know, criticizing the church and, or being angry at the church. Where's the harm? When you're living the dream, where's the harm?

Katie Harmon [05:27:42] Yeah, so I would answer that in a couple different ways. One is, while I am so grateful for my husband and family, I think that had I waited longer to have children, to finish my education, to be in a better financial position when we made that decision, and then just to be able to, to maybe travel or experience certain things that would make me just enrich my life. I think it's dismissive when people act like that. The missed experiences don't matter. We can mourn missed experiences and be so grateful for the experiences we did have. I can be, I can love my family and not regret them one bit. And that's where I'm at. I also can recognize that it would have been great to get to Enjoy young, my twenties, right. As a typical 20 year old might. But more importantly than that, it's true, like as a straight white woman, certainly as a woman in certain ways, maybe I was, you know, had bad things or negative experiences in the church, but I am probably not one of the more marginalized groups. What I would say to that, I think, is I have. I'm glad that I have the ability to look outside of myself and look at the groups that are actively harmed by this LGBTQ TQ Youth is where I would start. The incredibly high suicide rates and the shame and the self harm and the, you know, self hatred that a lot of these people experience because of the teachings of the church. And to look outside, not just my experience of missing out on going to school, I wanted to add, too. I am back in school now as a student, so that's. That's great and something I'm proud of myself for, but I'm able to look outside of just my experience and recognize that it's. It's not just me. There's thousands of women who, you know, haven't. Haven't gone maybe to school or pursued a career that could have changed not only their lives, but the world potentially. I think that's how I look at it is, even if it's true, I have a lot of incredible. A lot of incredible parts of my life came in certain ways from the church, but I have the ability to look outside of just my experience, just what's good for me and my family, and recognize that there are people that it is hurting in big, major, important ways that we can't stay quiet about. That my story could have gone a very different way where, you know, maybe the scrupulosity was more serious and clinical and I, you know, experienced even worse side effects of it, or, you know, maybe my husband and I did get divorced, and I'm now a single mom to three kiddos. There's a lot of ways my story could have gone. I'm glad that it went the way that it did, but I had to put as much good as I have from. Have received from the church and as much good as I can still recognize in it. I feel a moral obligation to put what's good for me and my family. I can't put that above all the suffering of these people. Right. Like, I have to acknowledge that while the church has some good, it also does incredible harm, and we can't ignore that. I think it's irresponsible to ignore that and to try and brush it off with, you know, there's some good stuff. So let's just try and hold on to it. Because of that. I ignored it for a long time, John. I had those inklings of. I don't understand why the church's Stance on LGBTQ people is the way it did. I ignored it for long enough and, and I'm in a position now where, you know, I feel like I can't do that. Have to speak out, have to stand firm in where I am so that, you know, more people don't suffer in that way. Hopefully not that, you know, my story alone will do anything, but it's a drop in the bucket of so many people who have spoken out in our, you know, hopefully someday some change will be made that we can't ignore these marginalized groups that are really being harmed. Even if it did good for me. That's too selfish. I can't look at it that way.

John Dehlin [05:31:36] Yeah. And Andrea writes, that is a common manipulation tactic that abusers use. How, you know, after all they did for you. Sure.

Katie Harmon [05:31:44] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [05:31:46] Do you feel. Do you feel like it harmed you in some ways?

Katie Harmon [05:31:52] So mostly missed experiences. I would say that like, like some of the sexual repentance stuff. Like I definitely for some amount of years felt like shame and, you know, was ashamed of my body, was ashamed of normative sexual things in thing ways like that. But I think in major ways I wasn't. When I compare it to other people's experience, I don't necessarily say, oh, I was super hurt by the church. I more look at it is that I was very misled by the church and maybe I missed out on. I could have had this beautiful family that I have maybe 10 years later and have gotten to just do a lot in my life. So, no, I don't. I am lucky, I guess, in the way that I wasn't directly hurt. I guess. I don't know. I mostly just feel very deceived.

John Dehlin [05:32:42] Well, I mean, so if I can just speak on behalf of all the people that I meet, there's.

Katie Harmon [05:32:46] Sure.

John Dehlin [05:32:47] There's people that get married where they're significant sexual or libido differences, where they're locked into a marriage now where one spouse has a normal, healthy, active sex life, the other doesn't want any sex at all. And some may say, well, that's too bad, but like you, you try living without sex when you're a normal libido person for years and years and years. That's a serious thing. There's the gay or lesbian person that was promised that if they got married, it would go away.

Katie Harmon [05:33:18] And that's who I think of most. Yeah.

John Dehlin [05:33:19] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [05:33:20] And.

John Dehlin [05:33:20] And then they get married and have kids. And that's hard on the gay. Gay or lesbian person. It's also really hard on the Straight spouse. And it's brutal on all the kids when they get married, have the kids, and it doesn't go away. And then they find themselves, like, literally wanting to die because they don't want to be sexually intimate with their spouse.

Katie Harmon [05:33:40] Right.

John Dehlin [05:33:40] But they were promised it would go away, and it didn't. Or the woman who, as you said, who's 65. And, you know, I talked to a woman just this week who. Who, when she joined the church, was estranged from her family. And it was a good family. It wasn't like it was this evil, wicked family.

Katie Harmon [05:34:00] Sure.

John Dehlin [05:34:01] It were these good parents who loved her and said, you're joining a cult. Don't do this. And she cut herself off from her own family. Family. Because she felt like they were not supporting her decision and because they were worried that she was joining a cult.

Katie Harmon [05:34:18] Sure.

John Dehlin [05:34:19] Now she's, you know, 45 years later, her parents died. She was ostracized from her family. She ostracized herself. And now she's saying, why did I cut myself off for decades from my family when they were actually right.

Katie Harmon [05:34:33] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [05:34:35] And then there's the women that didn't pursue education, didn't pursue graduate work, who found out that they didn't love parenting. There are lots of women that just find out I don't enjoy being a mom. And having four kids turns out to be really bad for me.

Katie Harmon [05:34:48] Sure.

John Dehlin [05:34:49] And bad for the kids and bad for everyone. But now I'm stuck, and I. What do I do? Not not take care of my kids, you know, or. Or the really bright people that could have. Maybe they could have cured cancer. Maybe they could have written novels. Maybe they could have. And there was some really snarky person at the beginning that wrote where. Where. Oh, you have to. You're forced to now do the most sacred calling, which is be a mother when you could have been a corporate slave. You know, he was trying to basically say, mother, motherhood is everything, and nothing else matters in comparison. But, like. But. But when you think about the way that entrepreneurs or scientists or doctors can really transform lives in the human experience, it's kind of minimizing to say that everything pales in comparison with motherhood. I mean, what would you, Katie, do without the scientists and medical doctors that helped save your son and helped improve the quality of your family's life? Like, Right.

Katie Harmon [05:35:52] I'm so, of course, incredibly grateful. And now really, you know, for so long was focused on how the church was made. How is Heavenly Father helping us with this? And probably sounds blasphemous. To some of my active, believing family. But I'm so grateful for these scientific advancements, for these doctors that, you know, went to years of school to be where they were at, to, to save Max's life and to have him have the quality of life that he has now. That's priceless to me. Yeah. So there was something I was going to say.

John Dehlin [05:36:26] Now think, think about it for a second. I'll just, I'll just also add that there are, you know, there are people of color that are told you're not, you're not a descendant of these beautiful tribes that came from Asia. You're a dark skinned person because your ancestors got a curse. And so they spend their whole lives thinking their dark skin is bad.

Katie Harmon [05:36:50] Right.

John Dehlin [05:36:50] Thinking that dark skin means you're cursed. Thinking that you're of a lineage of these weird, this weird family that came out of Jerusalem, 600 BC. They're literally taught to have a false lineage.

Katie Harmon [05:37:03] Right?

John Dehlin [05:37:03] Like that's evil. It's almost like. It's almost like some parents that steal a baby from the hospital, take it away from their real parents, and then raise the kid as their own. And then, yeah, maybe they gave the kids some good things, but when the kid grows up, the kid found out that they were stolen from their original parents, were raised by frauds, and then the parent, the fraud. Your parents are like, well, aren't you grateful I raised you? And it's like, yeah, but you raised me. You took me away from my real parents and you raised me under a total fraud. There's nothing noble about that. Because at the end of the day, Benjamin Franklin said that time, life is time, because time is the stuff life is made of. And if a church takes your time, takes your identity, takes your reputation, takes your money, takes decades of your life under false pretenses, even if you have the best life you could pos, Even if you're a millionaire, everybody's healthy and your marriage is happy, you were still seduced into a fraud. Yeah, and I, that's still, that's still wrong. Even then it's wrong. Even if you're a millionaire with a happy marriage and healthy kids, it's still profoundly immoral to betray and mislead someone into a fraud.

Katie Harmon [05:38:31] I agree. And every day I think I'm grateful. That timepiece that I, I discovered this when I did because like I said, I. I know that there's things I maybe missed out on, but I feel I'm very happy with my life. I don't know that if I found out when I was 65 that I would feel that way, right? That I would. I can only imagine how compounded the hurt, the regret, the all of the bad feelings would be to find out then. So I feel very lucky that I'm 27 now that, that I'm finding out now.

John Dehlin [05:39:00] So for sure, a couple other quick comments that I know we're going long. Got to give a shout out to my dear friend John Ewell. John writes, I love this interview. I went through so many of the same things when we lost our son. Thank you for sharing your story with us, Katie. Awesome, Cecile. And I hope I got that right. Cecile Shellman we love Cecile. She's been on Mormon stories and we want to have her back. Cecile writes, what about people who don't get married at all because they don't find partners in the church? What about all these single women and men that don't find a worthy Mormon to marry? And so they, and they even sometimes give up high school or college romances that were really meaningful, loving relationships, but they give them up because they believe the church is true, only to find out when they're 40 or 50 the church wasn't true and they could have had a very different life, but they, but they were following the church under false pretenses. Thank you, Cecile. That's a wonderful another example. There's just so many examples. We could go on forever. I just want to say, Katie, I adore you. Our listeners adore you. I was feeling down because I, I was notified of two deaths just a couple days ago. It was really bringing me down. I was not looking forward to doing a six hour interview this week. But you are an exceptional human. You are smart, you are thoughtful, you are kind, you are wonderful. I'm sure your husband is also amazing. I'm sure your kids are amazing. But on behalf of my listeners, I can tell you how profoundly grateful I am that you reached out, that you're willing to be courageous not just to share your story about Mormonism, but share your story and experiences about disabilities and how hard that has been and that you're making something so difficult, so meaningful and healing for so many people. I just, I just want to say thank you.

Katie Harmon [05:40:59] Oh, thank you for having me. It's been amazing to get to talk so many things. I feel like I wanted to say, you know, and express and have people know, but don't have the forum to do it. So thank you for giving, for talking with me and giving me the chance to talk about things that are so important and for all the work you do. You know, like I said, I'm a drop in the bucket of so many stories that you've shared that need to be heard. So thank you. It's been so great.

John Dehlin [05:41:25] Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. Lots of people expressing their thanks as well. TNW Sun Don't Shine says thank you for all your contributions to open dialogue about these important issues and being an arm of strength to those of us seeking truth and freedom. These interviews are powerful. Thank you. TNW Sun Don't Shine. Amy writes, thank you, John and Katie for this interview. Susan writes Katie with hearts.

Katie Harmon [05:41:57] Thanks.

John Dehlin [05:41:59] Cecile writes, beautiful story, beautifully told. Thanks for sharing. Johan says thank you for an amazing discussion.

Katie Harmon [05:42:06] I can't wait to go read all these. I. It's really neat. I feel like. Like a little, you know, this community of supporters where that was something we were lacking. This is really wonderful to just hear. Yeah, I. It's been a pleasure and an honor to talk about this stuff.

John Dehlin [05:42:20] Yeah, it's. It's. It's been great. And also, I'll just. I'll just close by, not only thanking you, Katie, but also thanking our listeners. And finally, I just want to thank all the donors to the Open Stories Foundation. Your donations make all of this possible. We couldn't do this without you. I literally exist because of the donations to the Open Stories foundation. This podcast, this equipment, the. The broadband, the marketing, the. The accounting. Everything exists because of people donate. Unfortunately, less than 1% of listeners. So out of 100 listeners, less than 1 actually donates to the Open Stories Foundation.

Katie Harmon [05:43:03] Wow.

John Dehlin [05:43:03] And that even means a dollar. And so I. I am just calling on you. If you love this show, if you value the programming, if you don't want to see us end every year, we're like, are we going to be able to go another year? I'm not sure. So far, we have been. But if you want to see this continue, please go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. Whatever you can afford. We're tax deductible in the US we're transparent in our finances.

Katie Harmon [05:43:31] We.

John Dehlin [05:43:32] Every dollar you spend goes to the programming. No money is spent on any other thing. It's either on helping me do what I do or paying for the equipment or lights or health insurance for my family, whatever it is. But please consider becoming a donor if you can. 10 bucks a month. Whatever you can afford. It'll make all the difference. And please spread the word. Please share this episode if you value this episode, share it with Anyone you can email us, make comments, share it on social media. All those things can really help.

Katie Harmon [05:44:06] Awesome. Yeah. For any, you know, all these people not paying tithing anymore. I've, I've heard a lot talked about in the Mormon community. Uh, if you want. Right. Find something else. Another great way of your choice to, to spend that money. Mormon stories is a great, great option for that for sure.

John Dehlin [05:44:22] Yeah. And there are probably a lot of good charities for people with disabilities. Right.

Katie Harmon [05:44:26] Yeah. Let's make a quick plug. I'm also. So Max recently went on a Make a Wish trip and I'm now a Make a Wish granter. Make a Wish incredible organization. Allows kids that have gone through some really hard stuff to, to get the chance to have an incredibly wonderful experience in contrast to some really difficult ones. That's a great one. Also always have to give a shout out to Ronald McDonald House. We have lived over like 19 or 20 months altogether at the Ronald McDonald House through these different hospital stays. Couldn't do that without. I don't know what we would have done had we had to trans, you know, move to Denver without a place to stay. There's Ronald McDonald houses all over the country and I think even all over the world that are life changing for families that are in crisis. So a couple other ideas. But yeah, I love it.

John Dehlin [05:45:12] A couple other quick comments. I love this. Let's see, let's see, where do I start? Kim writes awesome interview. Thank you, Katie. You are young. Go forward and do those things you want to do.

Katie Harmon [05:45:28] Yeah, thanks, Kim. That's great. I, like I said I'm in school now and it's hard with kids, but it's, it's great. I'm so glad.

John Dehlin [05:45:34] What are you gonna do? Do you know what you want to become?

Katie Harmon [05:45:37] Yeah. So my undergrad degree is history. I love writing. That's always been my what I loved most. So I'm doing history that actually had just been what I was doing before. So it was kind of the quickest thing to pick up and finish, but involves a lot of writing too. And I'm not. I don't know what I want to do. But to be honest, after feeling like I had. Everything was so plotted out for me. It's kind of nice to have some ambiguity. I don't know what's going to happen, but I love the, I love the freedom of, you know, anything can happen.

John Dehlin [05:46:04] So I love that Akeem says thank you. Lots of people are saying thank you. One important thing, Fred Smith writes, just got here. Please start over, Fred. As soon as we're done, you'll be able to go to the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page or the YouTube channel on Mormon Stories and you'll be able to watch this. And of course we're going to share this as a podcast and so it'll be available on any of your podcast apps. Chris writes, what a wonderful lesson on the language of ableism. I think that was a major goal of yours, Katie. It was.

Katie Harmon [05:46:36] So I'm glad that got across.

John Dehlin [05:46:38] Mission accomplished, Katie.

Katie Harmon [05:46:39] Great.

John Dehlin [05:46:40] Gina writes, thank you, Katie. And John Gala writes, this is life saving information.

Katie Harmon [05:46:48] I hope so. I hope that if there's. I didn't do enough Googling as a young convert. I hope that other peop. Young people are more engaged in, in, in their investigation of the church and don't just look at what the church has provided, that there's so many, there's so many resources now and I hope that people can take advantage of them and at least know if you still want to join. Great. But you at least know what you're getting into.

John Dehlin [05:47:11] Know what you're getting into.

Katie Harmon [05:47:12] Yep.

John Dehlin [05:47:13] Fred Smith says you can hit the like button. That's true. You can follow. You can like us on Facebook, you can like us or follow us on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button. That all helps. Sherry writes, what a wonderful way to spend my afternoon. Thank you so much. Tiffany writes, The Ronald McDonald House is absolutely amazing.

Katie Harmon [05:47:32] Totally.

John Dehlin [05:47:33] Melissa writes, I was going to listen. I wasn't going to listen the whole time, but I just had to stay because you are so incredible, but so kind. Yeah. And then TNW writes, I would pay 10% to any organization that is doing so much good. Spreading the word. Love, John Dehlin. Getting addicted to hearing truth and having a voice.

Katie Harmon [05:47:53] Yep.

John Dehlin [05:47:53] All right, that's it. We're done.

Katie Harmon [05:47:56] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [05:47:56] I owe you one. Whenever you're in Utah, will you and your husband reach out and I'll take.

Katie Harmon [05:48:01] I would love to meet in person. Yep.

John Dehlin [05:48:03] Yeah. And I. Will you stay in touch because I, I want to because I think you've got. But you've done amazing things and I think you're going to do more amazing things.

Katie Harmon [05:48:11] Thanks so much. That means the world to me.

John Dehlin [05:48:13] Yeah.

Katie Harmon [05:48:13] So thank you for having me on. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [05:48:15] Let us for sure do a favor.

Katie Harmon [05:48:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [05:48:17] All right, Katie, thanks so much. Thanks, listeners. You guys are awesome. And please join us again soon for another episode of Mormon Stories podcast.

Katie Harmon [05:48:24] Thanks, John. Bye. Bye.

John Dehlin [05:48:25] Take care. Bye, everybody.

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