Join Margi, John, and Gerardo for our next episode of Thrive Stories this coming Tuesday at noon (MST). Come listen and participate in the conversation as we talk to Jake Bellenfant. Find out how Jake has processed the damaging experiences of his youth and young adulthood growing up gay in the church and how he has reclaimed his own mental health. In addition, listen to how Jake has navigated grief and loss in witnessing both the death of his mother and the loss of his community. Jake is now a mental health advocate, studying at the #1 ranked Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at Vanderbilt University. He aspires to improve the mental health of populations across the lifespan and in marginalized groups that are struggling with mental illness– particularly those who have suffered the mental health effects of undue influence, high demand belief systems, abusive family dynamics, and religious trauma.

If you would like to nominate someone you know who would be a great candidate for a THRIVE interview, please nominate them (or yourself) here:
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Prop 8: https://www.courts.ca.gov/6464.htm
Podcast (Icarly) Jennette McCurdy – https://www.podchaser.com/creators/jennette-mccurdy-107ZzsBeWe
Empty Inside Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empty-inside/id1524250628
Kolby Sorensen MS Episode: https://mormonstories.org/podcast/mormon-missionary-reads-the-ces-letter-kolby-sorensen/
Combating Cult Mind control: https://amzn.to/3txx3QS
Steven Hassan website: https://freedomofmind.com/
Mind Over Mood: https://amzn.to/3txbdNs
University of Utah Crisis lines: https://bit.ly/3wufBi6
Mindfulness Meditation: https://nyti.ms/3NenI8q
Steven Hassan – Influence Continuum Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3fy5dEPagR2T8MPeS7ieAM
Recovering agency: https://amzn.to/3D7Tyit
Documentaries on cult control and mental control:
Bad Vegan
Wild Wild Country
The Matrix
Pleasantvile
Tangled
Holy Hell
The Invention of Lying
Smallfoot
The Vow

Time codes:
00:00:00 Introduction and Announcements
00:04:26 Jake’s introduction
00:05:40 Mental Health Nurse at UofU Mental Health Hospital
00:07:29 Mental Health growing up gay
00:11:55 Thinking I was inherently bad
00:13:25 Split sense of self and suffering
00:14:15 Deacon age realizations
00:15:05 Worried for his life and scared all the time
00:16:28 Relationships growing up
00:19:11 How he truly embraces himself now
00:20:25 Adolescence stories
00:21:20 Distrust in LDS leaders
00:23:28 Public shaming and wanting to end his life
00:25:30 Leader showing pornographic meme
00:26:20 More worried about the community
00:29:05 Leader threw cards in the fire
00:32:50 Interviews for mission – Had to go to LDS Family Services because he was gay
00:34:06 LDS Therapy Sessions – Control Thoughts and Actions
00:34:43 Questions asked before his mission by LDS family services
00:37:55 LDS Program he was asked to take to build healthy male relationships
00:42:25 Mission time – feelings before he left and trying “not to be gay”
00:44:00 Mission in Jamaica
00:45:25 Gerardo reading a very disturbing comment
00:47:40 Why are the explicit questions so devastating
00:50:00 Mission and living with a roommate for the first time
00:51:15 Coming home from his mission
00:53:00 Telling family
00:55:00 Finding a good therapists and moving forward
00:56:35 Eternal families and how does that look
00:57:30 Marriage and what that looks like
01:01:43 Good therapist
01:04:50 Feeling safe
01:05:15 Be the change you want – Be an advocate for youth
01:06:08 Grief and loss
01:09:15 Mother passing away
01:10:55 Agnostic views
01:15:15 Grief without the answers
01:19:10 How do you connect with your Mom now that she is passed
01:21:00 Delayed grief
01:21:50 Navigating father remarrying
01:25:50 Internal rewriting
01:29:20 Reprogramming your brain
01:33:20 Joys in rebuilding
01:36:40 Meeting his husband
01:38:55 Resources
01:43:40 How to stick to your healing goals
01:47:43 Undue Influence and how that helped in healing
01:49:50 Family and relationship systems
01:51:16 Life now
01:54:10 Being equal
01:59:40 Jake’s words of encouragement
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