A Conversation with Mette Ivie

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here with the unflappable Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I was, uh, I was flapping until you said that, but I feel I'm totally invincible at unflapping, so I'm not gonna flap at all through this conversation.

You know, Tom Forrest, the ward mission leader in Ayr, Scotland, used to call me Elder Flap because I was always stressed out that I was breaking rules or I was doing something wrong. And he's like, calm down, Elder Flap. And his kids called me that too, so it was lovely.

I know Tom, I remember Tom.

We have got— I can't tell you how excited I am to introduce today's guest because I am just such a huge fan of our guest. She is a bestselling author. She is one of the most brilliant essayists and politicians I have ever read. She's— I mean, she can ride anything and she's been through all kinds of amazing things. She's won— I don't know how many Ironman competitions she's competed in, but it's more than one. And she's just an impressive human being by every possible stretch, by any possible definition. So I am thrilled to welcome to Inside Out, Mehdi Ivey. Mehdi, how are you?

Hi, I am doing well. Good to be here with both of you. I'm excited because I'm a huge fan of this podcast.

Oh, I can't tell you how much it thrilled me when you said that in one of the Facebook chats. And you've talked to us and you've commented, commented on several of the, of our episodes and steered us in the right direction, commented on some of the things we've said right, some of the things we've said wrong. But I, I think you are probably best known for your your sort of Mormon mystery novel series, The Bishop's Wife series. Would you, would you say that that's probably your most well-known piece of work?

Yes. I mean, I had the most success with that. The initial book in the series, The Bishop's Wife, in 2014 came out, was a national bestseller, was in a lot of the major newspapers with reviews. It was very flattering. Um, my kids tell me that, uh, it's that people nationally were only interested in it as a kind of rubbernecking, that they— people wanted to peer into Mormonism and watch how weird we are. Um, but I don't know if that's true or not. I have had people say nice things about my ability to make Mormons seem like real people outside of Mormonism in the national space. The religion feels very insular and people don't think well of us in general. So I really had a goal to try to make us feel like just regular folks that had a religion that we believed in, that people argued sometimes gently with each other about what their beliefs were, what the doctrine was. And yeah, I mean, I used murder mystery as my way inside of the community. So you may be surprised, but murder mysteries, especially a long series, are a chance for a writer to develop a character and, and the community around them and are less about the specifics of a murder and more about the community and the relationships.

Yeah, interesting because, because one of the things that I so love about your writing I've always imagined that you are the model for Linda Walheim, but you say that that's not necessarily the case.

Is that right? There are some things that Linda Walheim thinks that are me, but I did actually have a specific friend in mind, and she is the person that I dedicated the book to. And I think of her often when I think of Linda. There are many things that are not very much like me in Linda. And every once in a while my editor would write comments on the side and say, I think this is you, Maddie, not Linda.

Oh, interesting.

I had to take that out because yes, she was right. That was me and not Linda.

Well, the thing that's so appealing about it is that your ear for dialogue, I think, is flawless. And one of the biggest problems— I don't engage in this as much as I used to. I was a theater major once upon a time, and I imagined making great Mormon art. And I no longer really have any kind of desire to do that, let alone, you know, any kind of anything on the stove that's going to do that. But I would read, you know, Mormon fiction, and it was all so cookie-cutter and all so bland and all such pablum. And Mormons were so, at least Mormon writers, back in the day were just so terrified of any kind of conflict or any kind of anything that would make any of their characters look bad, that everything comes out so bland. And there is nothing about your writing, I think, that is bland. You have fully realized characters. These are people that you recognize as actual human beings. I mean, have you run up against that? I mean, have you—

Well, thank you. Um, I know a lot of Mormon writers. Um, I, I originally started writing and publishing in the young adult field. I wrote a number of young adult, um, contemporary books and also fantasy, and then I shifted after about 15 years into the murder mystery market for adults. So I know— if, if you know a Mormon writer I probably know them personally and have probably been in groups with them or sat on panels with them. Um, and I would say that in general my experience has been that the best Mormon writers move to selling nationally. And, and there are a number of reasons for that, um, but the primary one is just financial. If you want to make money and want to make a living as a writer, it is very difficult to do that with a much smaller audience. So a lot of the best writers that you know of, Brandon Sanderson, Ali Condie, Shannon Hale, they all write for a national audience. And, you know, some, some people may know that they're Mormon writers, but their national audience doesn't really think of them that way. They don't write specifically for a Mormon audience. And that's what I did for those 15 years when I was writing for young adults. And I, I had a— I don't know if the right word is faith crisis. I might say a faith dissolution. Some people call it your shelf breaking, but I don't— for me, it wasn't my shelf breaking. I broke. I broke in 2005. And as a result of that, I ended up wanting to write things that were more personal and more substantial. That, that's the wrong way to put it because that makes it sound like my young adult books weren't substantial, but I wanted to write something different. Um, and so I, I, I had a publisher who I had become friends with, and she happened to work at, um, at the mystery publisher Soho, and she kept saying, oh, it'd be so interesting if you would write some Mormon you know, mystery fiction. And after 3 or 4 years, I finally sent her the very first The Bishop's Wife book, and she was like, wow, this is great. Soho only publishes mystery novels that are set in different countries. Oh, and I kept asking her, like, how can you publish this book? And she would say that it was like Mormons were a different country and I spoke the language, so I was like the translator. For these books. So that's, that's sort of the short version of how they came to be. Um, one of the parts of Linda's backstory is very much mine, and that is Linda has lost, um, a child at birth. And that, that's what happened to me in 2005. I lost my youngest daughter at birth, and, um, it just changed my life forever. I, I guess I'd watched the same thing happen to other people? You know, you, you see tragedy from the other end, but I had no idea how it would shake me and how I would just really slowly lose everything in my life because nothing made sense anymore. I just didn't believe. Um, when, when my daughter died, I remember a lot of people told me various stories about what would happen in the next life and, and how that would— was supposed to comfort me that she was waiting for me and that she would— that I would have a chance to raise her in the other life. But every day when I, when I was sitting with my other children, I just kept thinking, me raising her in heaven will not— I cannot see how that can make up for every moment that she misses here, either for her or for the other kids or for me. And I just— it didn't make any sense to me that that was somehow going to fix things. And, and I also got frustrated because I heard a lot of people saying that, that God had chosen for this to happen to me and that there was some lesson I was supposed to learn. In, in the experience. And I kept trying to learn a lesson, let me tell you. I just, I tried really hard to learn some lesson about it. But the problem with that was that I could not understand how I could worship a God who would decide that the way for me to learn— that I was such a bad person that I had to have a child die at birth in order for me to learn a lesson. Like, I, I just— I felt like I was such a horrible human being if that was what was true. And also, I just felt like that was a horrible God who thought that the only way to teach me a lesson was for a child to die. Um, so I just slowly lost faith in everything, in not just the church but just in God. In, in any kind of afterlife spirituality or anything. Um, I tried to stay Mormon. I kept attending church every week for another 10 years, uh, but I didn't believe in God. I, I believed that the church was a good place, and I couldn't see how I could leave it. It was my heritage, my family. Um, but it was hollow at that point.

Well, he wrote a poem that you posted online, and I can't remember all the words of the poem, but it was in reference to Christ's instruction that we should pray because if your Heavenly Father loves you, who, what parent would give their child a stone when they're praying?

Oh, yeah.

And the last line has haunted me and what kind of God would give a stone? And I mean, I don't know if that's— those are the exact words, but that was the concept. And you talked about all the wonderful kinds of bread that you wanted, that you were praying for, and God gave you a stone instead. And I sort of felt a connection to you. I haven't lost a child, but we had a child that suffered a devastating injury, our oldest. Was a skiing accident when she was 14 years old and tumbled down the side of the mountain and had a burst fracture in her spine that left her paralyzed from the waist down, partially paralyzed. She has some movement. It's sort of as her legs go down, the movement and sensation gets less and less until you get to her feet and she's got nothing down there. And, and It wasn't until that moment that I realized just how transactional my own faith had been up to that point. The idea that if I live righteously, if I'm a good person, if I'm keeping all the commandments, if I'm paying my tithing, if I'm doing my home teaching, blah, blah, blah, if I check off all the boxes, then I'm in God's good graces and nothing that terrible would ever happen to me. I mean, I don't think I ever consciously believed that, but when this all hit, I realized that's really how I'm engaging with the church and the kinds of things that people said to you, you know, you have to learn a lesson, or this is all for the best, or this is— we got all of that too. And I came to believe that part of that comes from— well, it comes from two places. One, it comes from an awkwardness where people just don't know what to say. They don't have any idea how to be of comfort, how to be helpful, and so they say things that are sometimes inappropriate. But I also think it comes from a place of fear, place of terror. Yeah, because I think so many members of the church live their lives transactionally, that believe, okay, if this could happen to the Bennetts, this could happen to me. Obviously there's some kind of grand plan for why it's happened to the Bennetts or why it's happened to Mehdi or why it's happened to anybody, why anything terrible would happen, because obviously this can't happen to me. And I think that was my mindset until this hit. But, you know, it's just really interesting to hear you talk about that you stayed in the church for 10 years after you essentially lost your faith. And what were those 10 years like? That must have been extraordinarily painful and difficult. Or maybe it wasn't.

I don't know if I can adequately explain why I stayed for so long, except that I also was afraid of leaving. I was afraid of losing everything, which I did eventually do. I Um, in 2020, my husband started divorce proceedings. Um, uh, just announced one day. I, I really— it took me by surprise. Um, I had to leave the family home. I had to find a new job. I'm not sure I think of myself as a writer anymore. I, I work for a financial institution. Um, I answer phones all day, really, on customer service. I talk a lot about tax issues. So sometimes it's weird for me to be like, oh yeah, I had another life once upon a time. So I think that there was a lot of fear. I didn't want to have to remake everything about myself. Um, I've reached a point now where I think, you know, there are a lot of— I don't know if I should call myself ex-Mormon. I don't attend church very often. I do sometimes go for Easter or Christmas. Because I love singing hymns.

Yeah, I remember once you posted, you said, I, I went to church because I wanted to sing hymns.

Yeah.

And I thought, good for you, go sing hymns.

Yeah. Um, so I, I don't know if that means I'm ex-Mormon or not ex-Mormon. Um, I didn't have a very good experience in my brief couple of years within the formal ex-Mormon community. Um, so now I feel like I'm in kind of a no man's land. Uh, which this kind of suits me, I guess. I've always been in kind of a no man's land. But when I see other ex-Mormons trying to convince Mormons to leave the church because it's a cult, I always think, I am— I never want to be the cause of anyone leaving because, um, they may have very good reasons for not being ready to leave or not wanting to leave. Um, it it costs a lot to try to step away, uh, especially for women who have been stay-at-home moms for 30 years. It's, it's not a good— it's not an experience I would wish on anyone.

So is that similar to your experience, Ian?

First, I think it's just a great honor, Mary, to have you on here, and to— your courage to open up and share your story and your experiences is, uh, gonna resonate with a lot of our listeners. I, I, I, you say you don't feel part of any community. We've got a wonderful group of listeners that for the most part are very kind and very thoughtful and very accepting and nonjudgmental. And I hope this conversation we have with you, you'll feel part of the Inside Out community. You mentioned at the beginning of the conversation that the feedback you've had from your extraordinary writing that you make Mormons look real, real people. And that really resonated with me. I remember serving a mission. Jim Bennett served in Scotland many, many years ago, and I remember the first few weeks, first few months, actually the entire mission actually was a real challenge for me. And I think one of the biggest challenges that I really struggled with was in, in, uh, Scotland, uh, we'd— as missionaries, we were tracked and we would GQ on the streets and we would talk to strangers. And, and I remember getting on the back of a double-decker bus. Um, you've seen those big double-decker buses in the UK. And every time I got on the bus, uh, and this happened all the time in the streets, you know, in the community, we used to get these very odd looks like I was a complete alien. I hated it. We'd get these stares and people would look down and when our eyes connected, they would look away like I'm some alien, some odd strange person, like I'm a member of a cult. It really bothered me. And I remember feeling one time at the back of downstairs on the back of this double-decker bus thinking I felt like I had to shout or scream or say something like I'm normal. I have feelings, I'm a real person, and I'm not that different. Sure, I'm part of this different religion, but I'm actually not that different at all. And Mormons are not really that different in many ways. They struggle with all kinds of stuff, right? Financial, health, we lose children, we lose loved ones. And I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I really am. We lose our faith. I'd lost a part of my faith. Or my Mormon take on faith, if you like. And so, as Mormons and non-Mormons, we go through all kinds of experiences, which sometimes makes us stronger, but sometimes it makes us weaker. Some things don't make us stronger, they make us weaker. We feel more vulnerable and we feel pain and we suffer sometimes in silence. Um, and so your, your, your, your, your story is extraordinary. And, and my, uh, thoughts lead to some questions. And I— you said that you, you, you went through this, uh, not just your shelf broke, but you broke. You've gone through this, um, perhaps it's appropriate to describe it as traumatic experiences which have shaped you who you are, and you formed these perspective and opinions on life and your perspective on life. You said that you— I think you said you don't believe in God, or at least the version of God that Margaret teaches. Two questions come to mind, if you're comfortable sharing it, is where do you find your strength? I mean, you're a prolific writer. I've not read The Bishop's Wife, but I read a review of it and it sounds extraordinary, and your material sounds absolutely wonderful. I'm really interested in reading more about you and your material, but where do you find your strength? Where do you find your solace? And, um, that, I guess that's a, that's a question I, I'm intrigued to, uh, get your, your thoughts on. So if that's okay, I don't know.

My initial response to that is I don't know what you're talking about. I have no strength. I, I just lie on the floor a lot and am totally hopeless. Um, uh, I think one of, one of the things I try to explain to people, uh, some— I try to post on the anniversary of my daughter's birth/death, um, and talk about her because, as is often the case when someone dies, the people who are left, um, feel an obligation to make sure that the world knows the person who died. And my daughter didn't live long enough for me to like know her at all, but somehow I feel like this burden of carrying her legacy. Um, so maybe that is one of the things that happens. But it's also true that when I tell this, when I talk about her dying, people will often tell me— and this is true for Mormons and non-Mormons alike— uh, that that she, she's out there somewhere for me. And whenever they tell me that, I have to very sharply stop them and say, you must understand, one of the reasons I had to stop believing in God and in an afterlife is because I would have killed myself if I continued to believe in that. The temptation to leave this earth and to go and be with my daughter was extremely strong for like a couple of years. And it came back when the divorce hit. I wanted nothing more than to not be here, to be somewhere else in heaven with her. And I can't— I still struggle sometimes to think of a reason why I should stay alive. I have to wake up. I work a job. So that I can pay for my health insurance, so that I can pay for my house, so that I can buy food. But what if I just didn't do any of those things and just gave up? It's, it's a very tempting thing. So, um, I, I have to not allow myself to believe in an afterlife. I have had very recently an experience where I felt like Mercy spoke to me in spirit form, but it was nothing like Mormonism, and there was no— there was no way for me to reach her, like to die and go and be with her. So it was a safe experience where I did not have extreme suicidal ideation. Um, and I don't know why other people don't experience that. From what I can tell, 90% of people don't have any idea what it's like. To carry the desire to be dead with them everywhere. So, but that, that is what my life is like most of the time. Um, I do Ironman competitions largely because when I am in that Zen focus, I don't think about anything else. It is the— it's one of the few experiences I have in life where I don't think about wanting to be dead because I'm so just focused and intent. My heart is beating, and all I can think about is, you know, the next step. And I purposely sought out that experience because I signed up for my first Ironman race 9 days after Mercy died. Um, and it was something where every day I could wake up and, and think about something other than what I had lost, and I had something to look forward to. And then the race itself was this I don't know how to describe it. Like, maybe it's like how some people experience the temple, where it was like I felt washed, washed, every— all the sins were washed away, and I was just this body moving. And I wasn't a mom, I wasn't a person, I wasn't me. I was just an athlete on the course. And after having that one experience, I sought it out over and over again. Um, there's a lot of pain afterwards. So you can't do an Ironman every day. They take, you know, 15 to 18 hours, and then the recovery is like 3 months of recovery afterwards. But yeah, it's very tempting to do one of those as often as I possibly can. I injure myself too often, and right now I'm not allowed to run at all. So it's very sad because that's one of the ways that I find relief from the difficulty of being alive.

Why aren't you allowed to run? Have you— you've had an injury recently?

Yeah, I have an Achilles. It's a, it's a long-term Achilles injury that I just kept ignoring for about 7 years. And finally, um, I was signed up to do a marathon in April, and I was limping around so badly that my kids were like, nope, Mom, give me your phone. And they got on my phone and like took me out of the race. So I am doing physical therapy. But let me tell you, the pain from physical therapy is not as pleasant as the pain from running, which I really like.

I am married to a physical therapist and I broke my arm at one point. And rather than go get therapy from— through, through our insurance, she just helped me at home. And she said I was the absolute worst patient she has ever had.

Okay, so I undoubtedly say the same about me, mostly because they keep telling me to stop doing whatever they think is bad. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna keep walking 5 to 10 miles a day. I, I can most of the time prevent myself from running, but I'm gonna be walking. I, I gotta get outside.

Well, I want to introduce you to my son, who we've been trying to get on this podcast, because he was diagnosed with scrupulosity when he was on his mission and had a really awful experience on his mission. And but he has found solace in running and he runs. There's a series of trails runs in the summertime. Are you familiar with this? Like they run up at Alta, they run like 5 or 6 miles. And he has done this and this is his second year doing this and he wins every single one of them. And he just— and he describes the experience the way you have that. It's like He, it clears his mind. He doesn't have anything to focus on except the one step after the other. And I think that's been very helpful to him. And I think you're describing an experience that he would recognize. But I want to get back into this idea. I mean, you had this sort of connection. I mean, I don't want to prod you into saying anything you wouldn't want to talk about, but this idea that Mercy reached out to you it sounds like there is some kind of, if not faith in a God, there is sort of this allowance for the idea of some, of something beyond mortality, whether it's like a full-on afterlife or anything else. But there's some, I mean, can you speak to that a little bit?

Well, I have spent you know, a good 10 to 15 years as a pretty firm atheist. But I, I reject any idea of certainty. So even there is no God is a kind of certainty. So I reject that. I did just have this experience a couple of months ago. It, it happened. It could have been something that I wanted to happen. I am somebody who tells stories for a living, so maybe I made it up. I just don't know what to make of it. It happened. She came and spoke to me briefly and told me that, um, she doesn't blame me for her death. She doesn't even think that she did die. She doesn't really understand why I think of the difference between life and death the way that I do. Um, she has an existence with other um, creatures, children probably, who died and never, never were alive in the sense that we think of them as alive. And they find each other, and she doesn't feel like— again, if this is her and not just my imagination— she didn't feel like she missed out on anything. So she's not angry at me, and that was a great relief because Um, carrying the guilt of feeling like God caused this to happen because I somehow needed to learn a lesson, that there was some flaw in me— that was so awful to carry for so long. Um, that again, it could just be that I made this up because I desperately needed to believe that she wasn't angry with me. I couldn't imagine going to heaven and having to face her and tell her, I'm sorry, I ruined everything. So this, it was a comforting experience, whatever it meant.

But a few weeks ago, Mary, and we've discussed this on a podcast, I had a, I'm not sure how to describe it really. It was a physical near-death experience. Physically, technically, that was correct. I had a, um, collapsed from a saddle, uh, pulmonary embolism while I was out hiking. Um, blacked out, collapsed, um, went to hospital, recovered fortunately. Um, but during those moments when I, um, everything went dark, um, I had a pretty interesting experience that I, I, I still trying to, I'm still trying to figure out, trying to understand. It's on a podcast we did a few weeks ago. I go to quite a bit of detail and I, I won't go into too much detail here, but something happened. I saw something. I don't know if it was chemicals in my brain or my imagination or, or if it was a real spiritual experience, but regardless, it's left me with an impression that there is, although I don't have very few answers to, you know, what happens in the next life, I, came away from that experience that was, uh, quite frightening actually, uh, in one way and enlightening in another way. I came from that experience, uh, knowing that there was something afterwards. I, I, I didn't— I don't know exactly what it is, but this— I felt there's some power, some influence, some energy, some force that exists, that, um, some purpose that I don't fully understand yet. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's given me a different perspective on life. I'm, I'm not saying my entire life has, has changed entirely because of it, but it certainly helped me appreciate things that I think I took for granted in this life. And again, I don't know what happened or why it happened or if it's something physiological or spiritual, but it impacted me in a very deep and a very profound way. And I got this inner message in me, this thought or feeling that there is definitely something after this life, that there is a purpose. I don't know what it is entirely. I don't believe in the modern version of God and all of the different kingdoms. I don't accept that anymore. I believe there are many paths up the mountain and we all have to traverse our own path to find that peace and solace. But for me, me personally, and I'm not sharing this to convince anyone, you know, if people are entitled to their own thoughts and beliefs, I respect that. But for me personally, it's enabled me to probably take things less for granted, that life is very fragile and we have this limited time, and we just hopefully can do the best we can. I think also, as well, as I listen to you, and I can relate, if I understand it correctly, I I, I got from what you were saying earlier that— and correct me if I'm wrong and forgive me if I'm wrong— but that there's some elements or aspects of your life that perhaps you don't feel, um, joy anymore in those things. Perhaps there's things that you've done in your life, and maybe you as well, Jim, that you don't— maybe you don't find as much joy as you, uh, as you have, you know, in the past. And maybe you've rediscovered that as I have. That comment is very much designed for me, where I took certain things for granted and didn't appreciate or find as much joy in the things that I used to find joy in. And now this experience I've had has helped me rediscover that joy, which I think I'd lost. I don't know if that's some form of depression, you know, where I'd lost that joy in certain things. Like, I used to— I love sailing. I've grown up as a Sea Cadet in the UK, But in our town, we were the only in the country, we were one of the few Sea Cadet groups that didn't have any access to the sea, by the way. People laugh about that. We were Sea Cadets, like landlocked Sea Cadets with no sea. But so at Sea Cadet, we used to sail. I got trained as a sailing instructor and I've had this passion for sailing and we've got the sailboat. And there was a time when I just, I mean, it's something I just love to do. I love hiking and sailing and cycling. And adventure, and I was always been a bit of an explorer. But the sailing thing has been just wonderful to me because I teach sailing and I know how to sail. We've got our own boat. But I lost the desire in the sailing. And there was a time I was losing interest in things that I used to find joy in. And that meaning in my life for that period of time seemed to have, for some reason, disappeared. I think maybe I got into a rut, maybe I lost my way. And Maybe it was a little bit of depression or some form of depression, but I certainly lost my weight. But this experience I had recently has, it's not fixed everything. I'm not saying it's a, you know, it's been a, it's resolved everything in, you know, my perspective on life, but it's certainly given me a different perspective and that life is fragile and it's very precious. I think one of the common, I would add is that I, and I'm not sure, I didn't share this, Jim, on the podcast. I don't think I covered this, but sure. I think the most profound experience I had when I had that very traumatic physical experience about 6, 7 weeks ago now, I saw, uh, for the first time in a very unique way the impact on the lives of my family and close friends and their worry that I saw in their lives, in their eyes, that I wasn't going to make it. Um, the comments, the words, the notes, the messages was extraordinary. And I have always felt, um, that maybe because of my upbringing, maybe I don't know why, but maybe I didn't mean as much to people as I would like to, you know, to feel like. Um, you know, that doubt, that second-guessing, maybe I'm not as valuable or important to people, or maybe don't mean as much as as I hope I would, or I think I would or should. But the reaction from my farm family and my friends with the prospect of losing me was quite profound. It's like that movie, The Wonderful Life, where he gets the chance to see his life, you know, what his life would be like and the impact on his loved ones would be like if he wasn't around. And for me, that experience I had a few weeks ago kind of was a little bit of a glimpse into what that might look like. So I'm kind of in the process right now rediscovering myself and trying to find joy in some of those things that I perhaps take it for granted. So again, I'm sharing this not to convert anyone or to have all the answers. I don't by any means, but for me, that was, that's been a an interesting experience and helped me give it a new and fresh perspective on my life, at least.

I remember listening to that podcast, um, shortly after I had my experience with Mercy and feeling like that was— I, I don't know, I don't use the word true anymore. I don't really believe in truth. Um, I don't think there's any objective truth in the world, but a true experience in the sense that it was meaningful. And I really appreciated you sharing it, um, with as much detail as you did. I don't know that that's my experience. Like, you're right that part of my desire to be dead is a belief that my children would be better off without me alive. That's a persistent problem that I've had for, you know, 15 years, since— 20 years, really, since Mercy died. I don't know how you convince people that that's not true. Sometimes my kids try to convince me that they'd like me to hang around, but it's a lot of work. I have one kid who's been really, really depressed for most of her life since she, since she was 10 or 11. And she and I talk sometimes about like, why is it that we, that she and I got cursed with this depression that just lingers and some people never have it? Like, how? Why? That's not fair. They're just like happy. They just happy normally. And she and I have to work so hard to find like tiny little happiness. I think I finally concluded after seriously years of trying to figure out what happiness is, how do you get it? I've just figured out that it's mostly tiny things. It's just, um, I don't know, the kids coming over and having a birthday party, or, uh, sometimes just seeing a goose flying over the water, that it's just these moments. That's all there is. That's all the happiness that you get. You don't get— at least I don't get like long-term happiness. I just get the brief moments kind of popping out.

Well, so talk to me a little bit about your relationship with your kids. I mean, how many of them are still in the church? Does the church figure into some of this and Does it make it more difficult?

All of my kids have left the church. Um, my ex-husband remains a faithful member of the church, um, and for that reason, um, a lot of family and friends have kind of rallied onto his side, and that has felt very painful to me. But the kids haven't. The kids are all out of the church. They don't— if anything, they are much more anti-Mormon than I am. Uh, so that's not it. It's just that they're all adults, they have their own lives, and the divorce happened at the same time that the last kid went off to college. So it was empty nesting kind of smashed into divorce and me having to figure out a new job and a new life. Um, all of those things together were really hard to figure out at the same time. So I don't think it's my kids. My kids are not mean to me, really, although sometimes, sometimes I have a problem in my head where I interpret what they're doing as them saying, "You are a disgusting human being, you should not be alive." They never say anything like that, and I don't think they intend for me to interpret their actions that way. But when you're a depressed person— and I spent my time in Mormonism, I don't know if I would say I was scrup— I had scrupulosity, but Definitely. I've had friends tell me that I have scrupulosity. I was the kind of Mormon who had checklists, like daily checklists, and I had a lot of satisfaction from being a Mormon. Um, I was very good at it. Give me a checklist and I will achieve everything on that checklist. I'm very good at accomplishments and, um, self-discipline. Obviously, like, the Ironman is evidence of that. So I, I did everything pretty close to perfectly within Mormonism, and I felt good about it. I thought like God loved me and I would be protected, but then I wasn't. So then I, I have spent time since then trying to figure out what, what's wrong with me. Like, why, why has my life gone so terribly? What did I do wrong? And what am I missing? There's got to be something disgusting about me, um, that cause these things to happen, but I can't figure out what it is, so I can't change it. So am I just too proud to figure out, like, what— God is trying to tell me to repent, but I don't know what to repent of. I just— I'm at a loss. There's just something disgusting inside of me, and I keep trying to figure out what it is to fix it.

So you still believe that? You still believe there's something disgusting inside of you?

Um, definitely is in the back of my mind most of the time. Uh, you know, there are good days. I have good days where I don't worry about that as much. Um, I worry every day about being fired from my job. Um, I don't know if that's because I think I'm disgusting, or when you get kicked out of your house, when you wake up one morning and your husband says, you need to leave the house now, I think you may have a fear after that, that people will kick you out. Of their lives. So I don't know if I'll ever be healed from that kind of trauma where, like, I somehow— I was bad and I didn't deserve anything anymore. So I fear that all the time. I just walk around afraid that I'll be kicked out of my job, kicked out of my house. Who knows?

As I listen to you, Mary, there's so much that I can relate to more than what I've shared on previous podcasts, and certainly more than what we shared here in the conversation. But one example is that, you know, when I was investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the missionaries came around and I started showing interest, and eventually, you know, I joined the church and my mother threw me out. I was homeless, sleeping on park benches for a few nights. It was a very awful experience. But growing up in a working-class coal mining community where we just couldn't afford even the basics. And we were often receiving notifications for eviction, and we weren't— as kids, we weren't always shielded from that. And so we went through all that financial hardship where kids really shouldn't know about that, actually. But that had also had a very profound and continues to have a profound experience on me. And this is going to sound really odd, but financially, um, you know, with the business that I've been involved in, we're in a, a pretty okay position. And there's absolutely no reason, uh, that anyone would come and take a home away, or, you know, a roof over a head, nothing like that. Yet, uh, strangely, I think about that a lot because growing up where there was always that threat of the home, you know, being evicted as a family, even though I was my own family evicted me, but the threat of being homeless as a family and going through that trauma and being times where I've experienced financial hardship and been at times before the mission, Jim Bennett, probably not aware of this, but being very, going through some serious financial hardships even before the mission and having that worry, that sick with worry that maybe I'm gonna be homeless, I'm gonna be in the streets and I'm not gonna survive. Even now today, I got this strange idea that maybe all this is gonna be taken away. But I think the difference is now is that if that would happen, I'm confident if I could rebuild or maybe not necessarily get back to where we are, but I would survive. I think that I've gone beyond that survival thing, which is good. But for many years I thought, you know, I just look at the carpet on the floor thinking, my goodness, you know, is that my carpet? Did I, you know, the whole house, I mean, where's this come from. And so, and the worry that it was going to be taken away, or even in a job, or wherever, jobs historically in the past where I thought, though, this is not, you know, I worried that I was going to lose the job. And I'm not doing anything wrong at work, I'm doing pretty good at the job. And, you know, when I was younger, again, this is pre-mission, I think that the mission, Jim Bennett, really built, really made me actually in many ways, that serving a mission full-time for the church built my confidence, um, where my self-esteem and self-worth was so low, that the mission had a, a, a very positive, uh, influence on me. But, but even now I have those moments where I think maybe all this is just going to be taken away. There's no reason to think like that whatsoever. The government's not going to come and take my house away. But, um, yeah, it just, it's just those moments of doubt and, and fear. Um, I've been, you know, so fearful over so many things in life. But this last experience I had, um, you know, the fear of dying, it was so close. I mean, you know, nothing else really matters other than your loved ones and your friends and health. Obviously mental health is a big factor. But, um, yeah, for me personally at least, it just, it changed the whole perspective. And so I, you know, I just don't take, uh, a lot of things for granted anymore. Again, but this is my experience. I'm not trying to convince anyone to think like I do or believe what I do.

I think one of the problems for me growing up Mormon is— I don't know if you, Jim Bennett, would call this transactional, but I believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. And so I still have this belief in the back of my mind that I deserve the bad things that have happened to me, and therefore I deserve more bad things. I— and I try to fight against it, but it's still there. I, I also have to say, just in case my older brother is listening, um, my older brother worked really, really hard to make sure that I was not ever close to homelessness. And if I had let him, he would certainly have helped me more. He tries to remind me of this. That I kept telling him no, even though he kept trying to help me more. So many— I have had many family members and many friends who are no longer interested in a relationship with me. But I've also had some wonderful people who have stepped up and really made sure that they did everything they could to, to make me safe and to feel loved. So thank you to all of them.

Well, when you talk about you know, you wake up every morning and you try to find a reason to stay alive on a daily basis. Uh, has, has that reached a point where there, there's an opportunity for ambition? I mean, do you ever think about, okay, well, I'm a little more stable now. Maybe I want to start writing again. I mean, is that something that's, that's of interest to you or is it just, I, I, you know, I'm just going to take satisfaction in whatever little things I can find. I'm reminded my sister interacted with you on Twitter. Oh, yes, Heather.

Yes.

Heather, yes. You were her German teacher at the University of Newton.

That was a wonderful experience, yes.

And we've talked about it offline and she said, oh, she was such a firebrand. She was just so amazing. She was this tiny, tiny little thing.

I am tiny.

I, my wife is 5 foot 2 inches tall, so I, my kids are all— You're 5'2" as well?

I'm 5'2", yeah.

Yeah. And but she says, but she, she's just had so much fire. And Ian, what happened was somebody had said something about, I mean, this was a German class, so I don't know why the church came up, but Mette said something along the lines of, well, you know, you can find truth outside the church too.

Oh yes.

And apparently this was whoever you were talking to, whatever kid you were talking to, was just devastated by this news. And Heather just thought it was so amazing.

Angry and very defensive.

Angry and defensive.

Yeah, they did not— they were not going to accept me telling them that. And I believe that they reported me to the department chair about saying that. This was in the '90s at BYU.

Oh, is it BYU? I thought it was BYU. Oh, okay. Okay, well then that makes a little more sense that the church would have come up. You know, I spent a year at the University of Utah after my mission and absolutely hated it. Just because everything was— every classroom discussion, wherever you would discuss something substantive, the room would just sort of start to divide and the Mormons would kind of be on one side of the argument and the non-Mormons would be on the other side of the argument. And I just found that so exhausting. And I went back down to the University of Southern California over spring break and saw all my old friends in the theater department down there who couldn't have cared less if I were a Mormon or not. And it just didn't come up as part of the discussion. And I ended up finishing my degree down there and leaving Utah altogether. So how long did you teach at the Y?

Okay, so I mean, it's a weird story. I finished BYU in 2 years. I finished a bachelor's and a master's and then went off and got a PhD at Princeton starting at age 19. I didn't think of myself as a wunderkind, but probably other people thought of me as some kind of prodigy. And then I came back to BYU, and in that class that your sister was in, There were two people that I went to high school with. They literally graduated from high school the same year as me. And then after having gone on missions, came back to BYU, and there I was teaching their class. I was Dr. Ivy at that point, and that made the whole classroom situation very difficult. It was hard for me to be in a position of authority when people knew that I was 24. I was super young and I looked tiny. And, you know, women are not always treated the best at BYU and Mormonism. So there were a lot of problems in that class. But yeah, I taught at BYU for 3 years before I decided to be a full-time writer.

Well, so what was the issue that got this guy so angry? Was it just you told him there's truth outside the church?

Oh yeah.

First of all, he thought I was an apostate. And second of all, women aren't allowed to speak. Like, I had many multiple male students who would complain to me, to the administration. One complained because in the middle of winter I wasn't able to find childcare for my daughter, so I brought her to class and taught. She was 9 months old and he was appalled. He was like, you should be at home with your child. You shouldn't be teaching at the university. Anyway, I did have a lot of male students who told me that I had no business being there, that I should be at home with my kids.

You know, I think that's gotten better or worse. What has that gotten better or worse, or has it stayed the same? Is that still—

I mean, I don't know. I don't go to BYU, right?

Well, I have a cousin who, who was planning on being a doctor. She is a doctor now. My oldest daughter, who was in the skiing accident, is actually in Milwaukee, Wisconsin right now, where the Republican National Convention is taking place. But she's doing her residency. She started her residency in physical medicine and rehab. She is now— she graduated from the University of Utah Medical School and is a doctor. And my cousin, who's the doctor, went to BYU for her undergrad. And was in this program that was a specific pre-med program. And one of the men who was running the program said, you really shouldn't be here because you're taking up a slot that could be taken by a man who has to support a family and you don't because you're a woman. And this was, this was 5 years ago. I mean, this is not that long ago. And so I, I, in the '90s, I'm thinking it was probably worse, or maybe it's just not changed. But I mean, did you get that kind of reaction from other faculty as well?

Yes. Yes, I did get people telling me that— faculty, other faculty telling me that I should be home with my kids. And eventually I did quit. So maybe I agreed with them. I don't know. I mean, I became a writer. And a slash, uh, stay-at-home mom. I, I continue to write. Writing is a meditation practice of sorts for me.

It's not something you can turn off.

No, I don't think so. I've written every day, you know, probably for the last 30 years. But, um, I'm afraid of publishing. That it's, it's different because publishing The Bishop's Wife brought such a storm of controversy to my door and arguably directly caused my divorce. Um, it— I'm not sure I'm eager to go back to that. Uh, you, you think sometimes I'd be like, oh, you don't have anything left to lose, right? I, I don't know. I don't feel safe that I don't have anything left to lose. So whether I'll publish again is another question. I I do have a book at a publisher right now, like the final Linda Wollheim mystery book. Um, I don't know if they'll want to publish it because I'm no longer— like, they used to be able to publish on, say, on the back cover that I was a practicing Mormon, right? That was one of the appeals of the books, was that I was writing about Mormonism as a practicing Mormon, and they can't say that anymore. Um, so I, I don't know what will happen. And I don't really know what I want to have happen, so I'm content to live in uncertainty at the moment.

Well, two things. One, we had a Facebook exchange where you promised me that you were going to make a villain named Jim Bennett who was going to do all kinds of despicable things.

He is in one of the Linda Wollheim books, but I don't know if it'll ever get published.

Oh, shoot. I'm so excited. The second thing is Linda Wallheim— what's that?

That means the hour is up. I don't know.

No, no, it's not. The hour is—

sorry, for those listening, just saw you release some balloons in the, in the room.

Some balloons appeared. I don't know. I didn't even touch anything. No, the thing, the second question is, I wondered, does Linda Wallheim leave the church? I mean, you say she's not based on you. So is she still in your final— in your final book, is Linda Wallheim still a member of the Church? Yes, she is.

I don't want to reveal too much about the final book because I want people to buy it.

Okay, sorry.

But, but she stays in. Yes.

Is that different to write her now that you're out and she's in?

It is very painful, which is why I'm not sure that I can finish the series the way that I had originally planned. I had originally planned 9 books. I had them all charted out and they're all written, but I just don't know if I can. The process of publishing and editing books is, you know, a year long for each book, and it's an intense— you have to look at every sentence. And I don't know if I can do that for 4 more books in the series. So I'm like, one more book I can probably manage just to give readers closure. But it's— it is— it can be painful to go back into her world. And you have to realize Linda's still married to her husband, and that's also really painful for me to go back and write about this happy marriage that she has, which I thought I had. And then it turned out that no, I did not have a happy marriage, uh, and it, it is over for me. It's not over for Linda, but yeah, it's It's tricky.

Well, as a would-be writer who struggled through a number of these different things, I remember talking to another writer who said, writing's easy. All you have to do is get a piece of paper and open a vein.

Yes.

You know, you just sit there. I mean, that's kind of how it feels. It's like trying to draw blood from a stone. And, you know, I've written, you know, I wrote my young adult fantasy novel that hasn't gone anywhere. I took it to, I took it to Deseret Book. So do you know Emily Watts?

Yes.

Does that name mean anything to you?

I mean, not close, but I know her vaguely, yes.

Emily is my cousin. She's my first cousin. And she's just a wonderful human being. She's since retired from Deseret Book. But I took my, this was right after I think Brandon Moll is his name.

Oh yes.

That published the Fablehaven series. And they were trying very hard to find some more young adult stuff. And my friend was working over there and he said, well, let's take your book over there and see what they think. And we won't tell Emily. And so they read it and they said they loved it and they said they wanted to publish it. And I had a meeting in there with, um, I can't even remember anybody's name. I, uh, Heidi Taylor was, was there, but she wasn't the bigwig. And Emily ended up walking into the room. Was Chris Taylor there at the time? Yes. Yes. That was, that was the guy I met with.

Okay.

And, and Emily walked into the room and it's like, oh, what are you doing here? And I was like, oh, this isn't gonna go well. And, and they read it and they finally came back to me and they said kind of what you have said. Which is, you know, this is something that would be better off with a national publisher. And we know an agent that would be very helpful to you. So we're going to give this book to the agent and we'll let him run with it. And the agent read it and said, this is crap. I hate it. Forget it. And just dropped it. And I took it back to Deseret Book and they just kind of shrugged. And so I've never done anything with it since. But, you know, I still have this sort of niggling thing and Part of my thing is that if I were to write and even if I were to get a book finished, I wouldn't have the first idea how to go about publishing it. And I was like, who would want a 55-year-old guy who's never published anything? You know, so, so if I write something, can I come to you and say, yes, if you don't want to publish it?

I mean, people hire me to help them edit their books all the time. But also, I will say that just like with any other profession, um, there is a process, and you can go to conferences and learn, or there are classes at universities where they lay out the process. It's, it's not magic, it's not mystical. You— it's true, you probably have to write more than one book. You probably have to write, you know, 10 in order to get published, but it— there's a very clear process of what to do next, each step along the way.

So, all right, well, after we're done, maybe we can talk a little bit more about that. Ian, what books have you written lately?

Myself?

Yes.

Uh, none, but I would love to. If there was a book about a villain called Jim Bennett, I would definitely buy that book. Lovely. Um, just if I may, uh, Mary, I just want to just, just change tack a little bit. Um, just go back, uh, to something, uh, listen to part of the conversation earlier. Um, I'm intrigued. I'm interested in getting your— I'll just come out and ask, ask it. What do you think about the Mormon Church now, and what do you think about the leadership the church, in through the perspective of where you are right now in your life. What do you think about the Mormon church?

Um, I mean, I specifically left after Russell M. Nelson became the prophet. I do not like him on a very personal level. I just, um, he's not a friend to artists of any kind. He doesn't like Mormon art, and as far as I can tell, is set on driving every artistic individual out of the church. Um, uh, I love Dieter Uchtdorf. I have a PhD in German literature. I loved hearing his German accent. He's awesome. Um, what do I think of the church and on the leadership in general?

But you've commented on some of the leadership. Yeah. Do you think— and the, the male perspective as well. What's your thoughts about dominated by male. And I always felt comfortable. I was a bishop and one of the best counselors I had was my Relief Society president. I had my two male counselors who were great, but I got so much perspective and insight from this wonderful sister who was our Relief Society president. She was so wise and kind of bounced ideas from me, and I was always comfortable with having women as leaders. I've had no issues with that. So I was just interested to get your perspective on, you know, women in leadership in the church and where you think the church is going on that. Or do you think the church is going to continue with this, you know, male patriarchy? Or do you have a perspective on that, on women in leadership in the church?

I think one of the weirdest things about Mormonism is the way in which men and women are divided constantly, um, in the temple, in, uh, Relief Society, uh, I've been out for so long I can't remember the names, High Priests and, um, Elders Quorum. I guess they're combined now into Elders Quorum, but, uh, I think it's very bad I think it's bad for the men, although I think the effects on them are different in a lot of ways than they are on the women. Um, I think that the idea that women should stay home with children, um, makes them dependent on husbands, and I think that's a disaster not only for the women, although it is like I have a very personal problem with that, but I think it's not good for marriage. I just, I don't think that the church has a good model of marriage. Um, I think what they do is they have a great, uh, PR and they convince members often to pretend that they have perfect marriages, but I actually don't think they do a good job of modeling egalitarian marriage and, um, I just think there are a lot of problems in the models that you see at church. Um, if I think that the church is going to change, I, I think the church will do kind of Band-Aid stuff for a long time. Um, I think they'll trot out women and pretend that they are leaders, but they don't have any power to do anything, um, that the men don't agree to or essentially come up with themselves. The women just rubber stamp stuff. Um, I think that's not great for the women. Um, but the reality is that men tend to leave the church in greater numbers than women do. That's a weird phenomenon but is real. I will say that one of my major problems with ex-Mormonism is that the sexism that I experienced within Mormonism and found so toxic and damaging is at least as bad in ex-Mormonism and possibly worse. And just my experience in Mormonism was bad and damaging, but the trauma that I experienced at the hands of ex-Mormon men was at least as bad. And I— that's one reason why I've stepped back from that space and don't think of myself as ex-Mormon, because that, that, uh, moniker to me means people that I don't want to have anything to do with. And who've hurt me personally. So, um, I— again, I think that in comparison Mormonism is less bad than ex-Mormonism, but I don't really see a reason to associate myself in great extent to either of them. Like, I have many Mormon friends, and I in general believe that Mormons are some of the best people on the planet, and I think that the organization abuses them may make them worse. I don't think it helps them to be better people. If they've become better people, which many of them have— Jim Bennett is one of them, my brother is another— um, I think if they do it on their own, almost against the wishes of the church. Anyway, that's, that's as much bad things as I want to say about the church, probably.

Well, you've said— I, I've heard you talk about that before. I remember listening to listening to you on Salt Lake Tribune's Mormonland podcast. And I wanted to— oh, you say, oh yeah, did you get some blowback from that?

That happened, that podcast happened 2 weeks before the divorce started.

Oh.

And was one of the most difficult times in my life. Um, I had just been excommunicated from this group of ex-Mormon friends that I thought I went and met with them every Sunday, and they were so vicious about that article that I wrote for the Tribune that I had to drive away to a private parking lot and cry by myself. And then I had to go home and not talk about it with my husband because he thought that I deserved to be treated badly by everybody. Oh gosh, that was— I don't ever link to that essay. Because the essay was titled, um, The Five Doctrines of Ex-Mormonism, and I thought it was funny. I intended— I thought it was funny too, um, but I was so viciously pilloried online and in person that that was the moment— should have been the moment that I realized I had to walk away from ex-Mormonism. But I actually continued to, uh, do things with other ex-Mormon groups for another year afterwards before I learned my lesson. So yeah, stay away, friends, from that group. It's dangerous.

I did not catch all of that in that podcast. I thought you acquitted yourself very well. The thing that I remember that I just thought you were just so delightful is when you said, look, everybody has these expectations of ex-Mormonism, and like alcohol, it's like, I can't stand alcohol, it tastes like furniture polish. Is that still your attitude?

I drink, I drink very, very rarely. Um, I, I feel like it's a bit of a social thing to be able to have a sip of alcohol now and then. Um, I'm not a big drinker. Um, I have gotten used to coffee though, and very much enjoy a morning cup of coffee, mostly because the caffeine is delivered in a very, very good way. I, I don't I, I will tell my kids I don't like the flavor of coffee, it's very bitter, but I do drink coffee every day because it gives me a nice hit. And I feel like in my new life, um, I have to be at work by 8 AM and I need to be 100% on top of my game. I do not have time to waste around waiting until noon till I hit my peak of being able to be a good writer. I, I've got to be ready immediately. So yeah, I drink coffee. I feel like it's a necessary part of my new life.

It's a fair view.

Well, that is wonderful. I'm just so delighted that you were willing to join us and that you're willing to share so much of this and so much insight into your experience in and out of the church and just your experience as a human being. I hope I hope you wake up every morning and realize that if you don't feel like the world would be better without you, that there are a host of people that you've probably never met who would strive to disagree with them. And I would be at the front of the line there. I just think a world without Mehdi Ivey would be a much poorer and sadder world. So I hope you stick around selfishly for my sake. But I just, I'm just so grateful for you and for all that you do. And I think you have a broader impact than you realize. I mean, Ian, you talk about that your experience taught you what kind of an impact you have if you were not around. And I think you also as well bless more lives than you know. But I just wanted to say, say thank you. And if you enjoyed it, maybe we could lure you back again, uh, for, for some other discussion.

Well, we'll see. Let's see what the comments are on this.

Yeah, I hope it's not as vicious as your— as your— as your Tribune podcast. But, uh, but, uh, Ian, any final words of wisdom?

I, I've enjoyed this so much, Mary. It's been an honor. It really has. Uh, I, I hope to get to know you further. And, uh, whether you believe it or not, I think you're very important to this world and those that, uh, love you in their lives. And I, I hope you feel that more often. I mean that.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, and to all of you listening, we're grateful for your spending this time with us, and we hope to see you next time on Inside out.