Witt's End

 This way may be a struggle for some people. I don't think it's going to be on "either side" of the issue. It's just me placing words to my very tumultuous thoughts. I've been ruminating on too many night shifts on this one.  There has been an AP article  exposing horrific sexual abuse over the course of years. Sexual abuse that occurred after a bishop reached out to the church's hotline. The article was then rebutted by the church . They call into question some of the timeline and reporting. The day of the church's rebuttal an Arizona judge ruled clerical privilege would not apply in the case and no records could be withheld. Also there was a podcast  released with more information with the author of the original article. For many members of the church the response from the church was enough to assuage any fears. It increased their confidence. Why question anymore? Why feel uneasy? Why doubt?  I wasn't one of them. This has been gnawing at me for

 You ever have a night where you just feel like crying? Out of the blue, for no reason, the tears just start piling up behind the eyes? Now I'm not talking about depression. I've been there, I have t-shirt. That's more pervasive than what I'm talking about. It's in more facets of your life.  No I'm talking about a sudden cloudburst of emotion. A wave out of nowhere. For a moment, a few hours tops.  This happens to me every once in a while. Sometimes the tears come unbidden, other times I can hold them back for a day.  Tonight I could hold them back. It's weird, this isn't nostalgia. It's not mourning for someone lost. It's not an acute sadness. It's not listening to the song or watching a movie that triggers it. No this hits faster and harder. As best I can tell, it's the powder keg blowing it's lid. It's a oxygen cylinder with too much pressure. It's the dam breaking.  We all have stress in life. We all have ups and downs. An

 If abuse can be prevented and isn't, that's a tragedy. Period. I worry that is what has been lost in some of the conversation surrounding clerical privilege, reporting, hotlines, abuse, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Now I'm not writing here to go into details of this specific issue. I'm not here to look around at other similar situations like Spotlight, Camp Kanakuk or others. I'm not here to talk about the military abuse. No I'm here to talk about something different. The various responses to abuse and trauma. And how it's been lost. There are two main reactions I keep seeing two main reactions to this. One that the church did nothing wrong and just followed their legal obligations and this set of revelations is an attack against it. Or the opposite response, that the church is only about self preservation of the institution, all else be damned. Both are not talking about victims of abuse. And how to help them.  See when someone exp

Today is my anniversary. Wedding anniversary. And I've never missed my old facebook page more. Years and years of photos and memories are gone. So I'm putting these memories in some places more permanent. Where they can matter even more.   See Emma and I have been through a lot. We've shared a lot of photos, a lot of trials. And a lot of laughs. No one makes me laugh more. Makes me more sure of myself than her. From the moment I met her. To Now. I'm in Awe.   No one I know is more compassionate, capable, or motivated than my wife. And I get to call her that.  Four kids (and a crazy cat in the middle) later and I'm amazed at where all we've been. How far we've come. We've survived a military enlistment, multiple moves, multiple job changes, a pandemic, and we're here. Emma racked up a bachelor's degree summa cum laude while managing a house of four kids and working at school with the older two. Now she works in Health Information Management and i

 I've said this before. Politics requires compromise of one moral values. Whether religious, spiritual, humanistic you have to compromise. It doesn't matter if you're left or right politically. You're compromising.  I come to this from a religious background. One of faith and both spiritual and religious. And it's a struggle.  Most of us religious will at some point struggle with dogma, have a faith crisis, struggle with rectifying a doctrine. Religion isn't cookie cutter make to fit. Politics aren't either. They're bigger than us and that requires a compromise. Let's own it and talk about it a little bit more. It's not a bad thing.  We all have a set of morals. For many of us it's developed through our religious practices, cultural norms, or human experience. We know for ourselves what's right and what's wrong and we have drawn our ethics around how best to observe that. From person to person it varies.  I can't write about this

  "Now I have to live with the knowledge of what could be and the disappointment and frustration of letting myself get to where I am. There’s a lot of factors to this. Medications, health concerns, night shift, diet complications. But I have to face reality. I wasn’t fat then. But by medical definition I am now. And my body is struggling because of it. I have to address this now. But how do I do that in a way that’s healthy to my psyche. This is where I’m going to break from a lot of medium articles. I don’t have the answer. I’m trying to figure it out. Because the lack of answer is actively harming me. That’s why I wrote this." https://medium.com/@witt.case/ive-hated-my-body-so-often-549193daddac