What if you left the church only to find hell next door?

Whit Missildine (0:00)

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And now on to today's episode. What if you left the church only to find hell next door?

Jessica Wheeler (1:17)

I can't even walk outside without my heart pounding. What is it going to be today? Is there going to be something new? I'm just this constant fear that something's going to go wrong.

And I don't know how far she'll go.

Whit Missildine (1:38)

From Audible Originals, I'm Whit Missildine. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening.

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SPEAKER_4 (2:32)

I'm Lauren Malloy, the host of the podcast, My Mom's Murder. For 30 years, I thought my mom died of natural causes.

That's what I believed.

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Jessica Wheeler (3:49)

My husband loves to say that I had a Disneyland childhood, and I really did. I was born into the Mormon Church. My earliest memories are of being at church. It was so ingrained in me that church is number one, and that church is all about family. It's everything to the Mormon Church, and that is something that I still carry with me.

My mom was the oldest of five kids. When my mom was 11, I think it was a drunk driver, hit my grandpa while he was jogging, and so he died. And I think that that really had a huge effect on her beliefs growing up. She believed that she would see her dad again in the Celestial Kingdom. And so that's what we were raised on, was that we get to see grandpa when we die, and that was still such a huge foundation for her.

When my grandpa died, she kind of became the punching bag. I don't think my grandma actually punched her, but I know she did become very violent with her and was very emotionally abusive to my mom, and my mom is still dealing with that to this day. But I give my grandma grace because I can't even imagine losing my husband at this age and still having to raise five kids. So I can't say I would be a great mom either. But my mom was an amazing mom because of it.

I'm the oldest of three brothers. I was always like the little mother hen. When the third brother was born, I was eight years old and in every picture, I'm carrying him around like he's a baby doll. I was ready to be a mom. That was my life goal was to be a mom and have a family and get married. That's very common in the Mormon Church. You get married young, you have babies, you get married in the temple, and you go to the temple all the time and you raise these perfect little members to go on missions and get married in the temple and just continue the cycle. So that was my goal.