My Relief Society Presidency Nightmare - Lori Young | Ep. 1892

What happens when a faithful Mormon woman accepts a high-profile church calling and ends up in a psychiatric hospital? This is the question Lori Young confronts in her recent Mormon Stories Podcast interview, a raw account of serving in a Relief Society stake presidency that reveals the sharp dissonance between the church's public celebration of female leadership and the rigid control mechanisms that often govern it. Young's story is not simply about personal conflict. It documents how institutional pressure to conform, combined with arbitrary exercises of priesthood authority, can devastate mental health even among the most committed members.

Background: Orthodoxy and Early Cracks

Young grew up in what she describes as a "picture perfect Mormon home" in Utah. Her father served as bishop three times. The family attended every activity, held weekly family home evenings, and lived Mormonism "to a tee." Yet cracks formed early. During her college years at Utah State University, a church history lesson on Joseph Smith's plural marriage triggered her first major crisis of faith