I was born in 1999 in Ogden, Utah. My mom passed away when I was five, and we moved around a lot for the next few years before settling back in northern Utah when I was fourteen.

We were a tight, close-knit Mormon family of eight when my mom was alive. My stepmom was stricter even than the church. She was incredibly suppressive, controlling, and abusive.

While the church said we couldn’t wear anything revealing, tight, or sheer, my stepmom took it to the next level. She said our pants couldn’t show any shape of our leg whatsoever. So ten-year-old me was forced to wear size sixteen pants when I was a super-skinny, double zero. I felt we were living in a spinoff from Mormonism.

Once when I was ten I stood up for my sister who was getting abused at home and my stepmom came over and slapped my face. “You’re unworthy to take the sacrament tomorrow—you’re banned from church for two months,” she said, knowing all my friends were from church. That was devastating because taking the sacrament to atone for our sins was the main point of church.

My love of Jesus anchored me through all of this. I was very devout; I would read Scriptures by myself, sing psalms alone in my room. I’d wake up an hour early to pray and sing and read my Scriptures every day before school. I would sing and journal every night.  It gave me a sense of control over all the abuse I was experiencing.

Politics was pounded into my brain growing up. We had Fox News on all the time. I absolutely believed all their delusions. I believed the church’s teaching that African Americans were way less human than whites. That’s one of the very first teachings in The Book of Mormon and it is a very fundamental doctrine. God cursed the unrighteous, the sinners, with black skin and left the righteous white-skinned.

In fifth grade, we had to solve an issue in the world. I chose how to stop illegal immigrants from coming into the country since I knew my dad would pay attention to me if I chose that topic, rather than something I would’ve actually enjoyed (like reduce, reuse, recycle). My dad had a Master’s in homeland security, so I interviewed him. He was very harsh, very dark, not welcoming at all, especially in that interview. My dad believed all Muslims were terrorists because they believe in the Quran, and he said it taught them to hunt Christians like us.

My stepmom would say things like, “I can smell the Mexican off of them. They reek of diapers and cheap perfume.” Of course, homosexuality and transgenderism were major sins. I believed everything they said, because I would be abused if I had my own opinion.

Donald Trump ran for president the first time when I was in high school, and I became solidly MAGA. One of the only times I bonded with my dad was when we stayed up late watching the 2016 election returns together. I was crying and jumping for joy when he won; I thought Trump was going to save us, make us great again, unite us. I felt God had blessed him. My parents believed that, too.

As a Mormon and MAGA follower, I felt very scared of anything that wasn’t Mormon, “worldly” they called it. The church taught us so much about the second coming of Jesus Christ, how it was getting closer, and how we would burn in the great fire on earth if we weren’t active in the faith. Everything that was not Mormon, including other Christian religions, were of Satan trying to tempt us away from the truth. They taught that the world is becoming more wicked every year and we had to be active in the church (pay our tithing the most) in order to not be burned alive.

Besides Fox News, our sources of information were Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, and the Deseret News — the Mormon paper.

After I graduated from high school in 2018, my stepmother forced me to leave a week before graduation. She said I would have to pay her $200 every day I stayed in my home. So I packed up and moved to Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone because I quickly found a job there that offered housing. That’s where I met Jorge (not his real name). A devout Roman Catholic, he proposed six days after we met. He only had a three-month visa, so he had to return to Spain. I went to college but dropped out after a couple of months. I felt obligated to be with him. I went to Spain and stayed with his mom. Jorge was studying for his Master’s in Poland. Then Covid hit. I lived with his mom for nearly a year in Spain. It was absolute hell; she was insanely abusive. Then I moved to Poland to join Jorge, and he turned out to be a not very nice man who told me women are only good for cooking and sex and unfortunately I believed him. I felt like I could never speak out because of my horrid upbringing. 

We watched the George Floyd protests from Poland together; I believed the Fox narrative that the crowds were all violent, and that Floyd was a drug addict with nothing to live for. 

I was in Poland for the 2020 election. I believed Trump when he claimed it was stolen. I thought the media blew January 6th way out of proportion, that the protestors fighting in the Capitol were the truest patriots.

I moved to Washington state after living in Europe; I broke up with Jorge in the beginning of 2021. After that, I lived with a Mormon family from my church. They said I had to go on a Mormon mission. But I felt like there was something else out there for me. I drank coffee for the first time (such a big sin in the church), I sipped on my first alcohol, I had sex for the first time, I had a fake nose piercing. I’d never felt so alive before. I ended up moving around a lot. One night in Seattle in the fall of 2021 I came across a vegan activist group that was showing a film about slaughterhouses.

Cows are my very favorite animals, and seeing them getting shot in the head with a bolt stunner was so excruciating. I became a vegan that night, and by the next week I was a vegan activist.

Here I was, this sheltered, brainwashed Mormon girl, suddenly an animal rights activist. I still considered myself MAGA, even though everyone around me was wildly liberal. Our animal rights leader was polyamorous and queer. I was so judgmental at first, thinking he was such a sinner. But over time I saw his love for the earth, for animals, and for people. He was so soft and kind and genuine.

I flourished as an activist. I was taking a bus two hours each way from my apartment in Everett to go to protests in Seattle every Friday night. Since I moved to Seattle, my mind began to open further.

But I was still MAGA. I never talked politics outside of animal rights issues with my fellow activists. I figured if I showed my true colors, they wouldn’t invite me back to work with them.

I got mugged in April 2022, and I packed up and left the next day to move to Boise, Idaho. I eventually met Austin, an incredible human. We had an on-and-off romantic relationship that ended a few months ago, but he taught me that I matter; he showed me love, forgiveness, and patience for the very first time. Austin and his mom, who’s a therapist, helped me so much. I was still MAGA, and very, very religious, and quite scared I wasn’t going to receive blessings in the afterlife.

I kept up my animal rights activism. In 2024, a group of us went to Denver to try to shut down Superior Farms, which runs the biggest lamb slaughterhouse in the U.S. We were sitting around one night strategizing, and someone mentioned the CEO, Rick Stott. I realized he was my church leader in my church in Boise. I had gone to his massive house for barbecues, where he would serve “mystery meat.” That hit me hard. I was really torn, because I respected him but now I was actively fighting against him because of how cruel he is towards animals.

That started my personal journey out of the church. In August 2025, Austin and I watched a documentary on the history of the church. I got way too triggered at first and had to stop watching. But I watched it again a couple weeks later, and I realized the truth: Joseph Smith was a sex trafficker of minors, he married many girls under the age of 16, and had many other wives. I saw he was just a really brilliant con artist, a treasure hunter. There were no Golden Plates. Womp womp.

At the same time, I saw parallels with Trump. He’s alleged to be a pedophile, has no respect for women, and he’s trying to be a dictator. After a couple months of soul searching, I left the church in November 2025. I was finished with MAGA, too. 

I became a human rights activist, along with my work for animals. I went to see Rich Logis speak in Boise on January 6, 2026. He struck me as someone I wanted to look up to; a good man who wants to help people.

Over the past couple of months I’ve gone through a lot of changes as I’ve stepped out of the Mormon community and MAGA mindset. It’s been the most transformative, fulfilling, yet painfully excruciating process. 

The number one thing for me is the Epstein files. Seeing Trump in the files, and knowing that Joseph Smith was a child predator, was incredibly painful. My default had always been, that’s all fake media, just Satan wanting to take our godly president out. Now I just feel betrayed.

Trump’s mass deportation campaign has sparked insane amounts of guilt in me. I feel so much shame and remorse that I was dumb enough to believe that illegal immigrants were taking over America, that brown people were taking our taxes and freeloading. If you’re an immigrant committing crimes and are violent, then ICE can deport you. But that’s not what’s happening at all. They’re just targeting anybody with brown skin. It’s a modern day holocaust. Devastating to say the least.

I protested Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela, and I’m opposed to his war in Iran, too. The war is illegal; he says he wants to wipe out the government, but he’s killing innocent children, mothers, fathers, civilians just so he can take their oil.

I’m so thankful to be out of MAGA and able to think for myself now, given my insanely abusive childhood and Mormon trauma. Hopefully I can help others struggling with identity loss and grief and doubts.

                                                                                                                                                                     —March 2026