What happens when your last name is on a building at BYU-Idaho… and you’re gay?In this raw, unfiltered episode of Blame It on Mel, Jamison Manwaring opens up about growing up in a prominent LDS family, serving a mission, and silently battling the belief that being gay was something he could fix, pray away, or outgrow.Did he bargain with God?Did the mission help—or make the internal conflict worse?What happens when you realize you’re still gay… after doing everything the LDS church teaches is “right”?We talk about:    •    Mission culture and internalized shame    •    Suicidal thoughts and silent suffering    •    Dating women while trying to suppress your true feelings    •    The fear of betraying family and legacy    •    The moment honesty became louder than fearThis isn’t a church-bashing episode. It’s a human one.It’s about identity, pressure, love, survival, and what it costs to finally face the truth.If you’ve ever felt like coming out would detonate your entire world… this conversation is for you.🎧 Listen. Share. Tag someone who needs to hear it.Because no one should have to choose between their faith, their family, and themselves.

What happens when your last name is on a building at BYU-Idaho… and you’re gay?

In this raw, unfiltered episode of Blame It on Mel, Jamison Manwaring opens up about growing up in a prominent LDS family, serving a mission, and silently battling the belief that being gay was something he could fix, pray away, or outgrow.

Did he bargain with God?

Did the mission help—or make the internal conflict worse?

What happens when you realize you’re still gay… after doing everything the LDS church teaches is “right”?

We talk about:

    •    Mission culture and internalized shame

    •    Suicidal thoughts and silent suffering

    •    Dating women while trying to suppress your true feelings

    •    The fear of betraying family and legacy

    •    The moment honesty became louder than fear

This isn’t a church-bashing episode. It’s a human one.

It’s about identity, pressure, love, survival, and what it costs to finally face the truth.

If you’ve ever felt like coming out would detonate your entire world… this conversation is for you.

🎧 Listen. Share. Tag someone who needs to hear it.

Because no one should have to choose between their faith, their family, and themselves.

Michelle Dunn grew up in a deeply religious Mormon family where abuse was protected and silence was expected. For years, she carried a secret that was never hers to hold. As a child, she was abused by her grandfather — a respected bishop in the LDS church — who had also abused his own daughters, granddaughters, and countless others. He never faced jail time.

The family kept it quiet.Until Michelle didn’t.In a moment of unimaginable courage, she exposed the truth at Thanksgiving as an adult, knowing he was still harming others.

This episode is about what happens when one woman refuses to protect the system that protected her abuser.

We also talk about:

– Purity culture and the damage of invasive bishop interviews

– Being 12 years old and asked sexually explicit questions by a church leader

– Religious shame, victim-blaming, and institutional silence

– Surviving betrayal in marriage

— including a husband who brought his mistress to the birth of her child

– Escaping another traumatic relationship

– And finally finding a love story that proves healing is possibleThis episode is about breaking cycles. It’s about naming the truth. It’s about understanding that silence doesn’t heal trauma — it deepens it. And survivors should never have to carry pain that was never theirs.

Trigger warning: sexual abuse, religious trauma, infidelity.

Michelle Dunn grew up in a deeply religious Mormon family where abuse was protected and silence was expected. For years, she carried a secret that was never hers to hold. As a child, she was abused by her grandfather — a respected bishop in the LDS church — who had also abused his own daughters, granddaughters, and countless others. He never faced jail time. The family kept it quiet.

Until Michelle didn’t.

In a moment of unimaginable courage, she exposed the truth at Thanksgiving as an adult, knowing he was still harming others. This episode is about what happens when one woman refuses to protect the system that protected her abuser.

We also talk about:

– Purity culture and the damage of invasive bishop interviews

– Being 12 years old and asked sexually explicit questions by a church leader

– Religious shame, victim-blaming, and institutional silence

– Surviving betrayal in marriage — including a husband who brought his mistress to the birth of her child

– Escaping another traumatic relationship

– And finally finding a love story that proves healing is possible

This episode is about breaking cycles. It’s about naming the truth. It’s about understanding that silence doesn’t heal trauma — it deepens it. And survivors should never have to carry pain that was never theirs.

Trigger warning: sexual abuse, religious trauma, infidelity.

Trigger warning: This episode speaks about self harm and suicidal ideation.

What happens when the life you were promised starts hurting your body?

In this episode, Braadyn — creator, photographer, wife, mother, and survivor of religious conditioning — shares her story of growing up Mormon, internalizing the “temple dream,” and realizing that worth, happiness, and belonging were tied to obedience instead of choice.

Her husband Bryce joins the conversation to share his perspective as a convert — entering the church without the lifelong conditioning she carried — and what it was like to witness the imbalance of expectation, freedom, and shame inside their marriage.

Together, they unpack mental health, self-harm, the temple experience, perfectionism, motherhood, parenting, and healing outside rigid rules — through joy, creativity, and learning to trust the body again.

If you’ve ever felt broken for questioning, anxious in obedience, or silenced by faith, this episode is for you.

You didn’t fail.

Your body isn’t betraying you.

You’re allowed to choose for yourself.

Hot Topics💋

Religious conditioning

Leaving Mormonism

Ex-Mormon stories

Faith deconstruction

Religious trauma syndrome

Mental health and religion

Purity culture and shame

Mormon temple experience

Women and religious control

Trusting your body and intuition

National 988 Crisis Line - call or text 988, or chat 988lifeline.org

Crisis Textline: text TALK to 741741

Trigger warning: This episode speaks about self harm and suicidal ideation.

What happens when the life you were promised starts hurting your body?

In this episode, Braadyn — creator, photographer, wife, mother, and survivor of religious conditioning — shares her story of growing up Mormon, internalizing the “temple dream,” and realizing that worth, happiness, and belonging were tied to obedience instead of choice.

Her husband Bryce joins the conversation to share his perspective as a convert — entering the church without the lifelong conditioning she carried — and what it was like to witness the imbalance of expectation, freedom, and shame inside their marriage.

Together, they unpack mental health, self-harm, the temple experience, perfectionism, motherhood, parenting, and healing outside rigid rules — through joy, creativity, and learning to trust the body again.

If you’ve ever felt broken for questioning, anxious in obedience, or silenced by faith, this episode is for you.

You didn’t fail.

Your body isn’t betraying you.

You’re allowed to choose for yourself.

Hot Topics💋

Religious conditioning

Leaving Mormonism

Ex-Mormon stories

Faith deconstruction

Religious trauma syndrome

Mental health and religion

Purity culture and shame

Mormon temple experience

Women and religious control

Trusting your body and intuition

National 988 Crisis Line - call or text 988, or chat 988lifeline.org

Crisis Textline: text TALK to 741741

After surviving an arranged marriage orchestrated by her bishop, Suzanne Hobbs refused to let that chapter define the rest of her life.

Suzanne served a mission, returned home, and began pursuing her education and a career in broadcasting—only to be told by her bishop that she was setting a poor example for young women by choosing ambition over marriage and motherhood. He informed her that a man in the ward would be picking her up twice a week and that she would be married in the temple on Valentine’s Day. No consent. No discussion. Just obedience.

But Suzanne’s story didn’t end there.

She went on to reclaim her agency, her voice, and her future—eventually sharing her story with the world, including an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and later starring in major films, including the Superman movies. Her life is living proof that indoctrination and control don’t get the final word.

This episode is about spiritual authority used as coercion—and what it looks like when a woman breaks free, rebuilds, and thrives anyway.

⚠️ Heavy, empowering, and unforgettable.

🎙️ If you’ve ever been told your dreams were dangerous or selfish—Suzanne’s journey will hit deep.

Amanda grew up inside a modern polygamist group rooted in early Mormon fundamentalism — where obedience meant survival, purity culture controlled bodies, and questioning authority came at a devastating cost.In Part 1 of this raw and unfiltered conversation, Amanda exposes what life was really like inside polygamy and a high-control religious system. She shares the truth about her family structure, including discovering that her father was married to his own half-sister — and that she was being pressured to marry her first cousin as part of the order’s expectations.This episode covers:• Polygamy and its roots in early LDS / Mormon fundamentalism• Life inside the modern polygamist group called the Kensington Order• Discovering her father was married to his half-sister• Being required to marry her first cousin to keep her bloodline pure• Purity culture and control of women and children• Identity erasure and fear-based obedience• Why marital rape “doesn’t exist” in the order• Children pushed into marriage to enforce compliance• Cutting off outsiders and ex-members• Living in constant survival modeListener discretion advised.This episode discusses religious trauma, abuse, and high-control belief systems.🎙️ Blame It on Mel — shots of truth, no chaser.

https://holdingouthelp.org/

Amanda grew up inside a modern polygamist group rooted in early Mormon fundamentalism — where obedience meant survival, purity culture controlled bodies, and questioning authority came at a devastating cost.

In Part 1 of this raw and unfiltered conversation, Amanda exposes what life was really like inside polygamy and a high-control religious system. She shares the truth about her family structure, including discovering that her father was married to his own half-sister — and that she was being pressured to marry her first cousin as part of the order’s expectations.

This episode covers:

• Polygamy and its roots in early LDS / Mormon fundamentalism

• Life inside the modern polygamist group called the Kensington Order

• Discovering her father was married to his half-sister

• Being required to marry her first cousin to keep her bloodline pure

• Purity culture and control of women and children

• Identity erasure and fear-based obedience

• Why marital rape “doesn’t exist” in the order

• Children pushed into marriage to enforce compliance

• Cutting off outsiders and ex-members

• Living in constant survival mode

Listener discretion advised.

This episode discusses religious trauma, abuse, and high-control belief systems.

🎙️ Blame It on Mel — shots of truth, no chaser.

Heather did everything right… according to the Mormon (LDS) church.

She grew up Mormon, followed all the rules, attended BYU-Idaho, internalized purity culture, and married at just 19 years old—partly because waiting to have sex wasn’t an option she could survive in that system. The night before her temple sealing, she cried and begged God to stop the marriage. He didn’t.

Heather went on to have four kids with a man she wasn’t sexually attracted to, stayed faithful to the rules she was taught, and slowly realized that obedience wasn’t the same as happiness.

In this episode, Heather opens up about:

• Growing up Mormon and the pressure to marry young

• How purity culture shapes choices around sex and marriage

• Marrying for righteousness instead of sexual compatibility

• The emotional cost of staying when your body and soul are screaming no

• Leaving the LDS church—and what happened to her marriage, her kids, and her faith afterward

This is an honest, raw conversation about religious deconstruction, desire, shame, and what it really means to choose yourself when you were taught never to.

If you’ve ever wondered:

Did I choose this life… or was it chosen for me?

This episode is for you.