Turn It Off: Missionaries, Mental Health & Cheerfulness | Hello Mormonism

Описание: This episode of Hello Mormonism looks at missionary mental health within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and asks how faith and mental health actually interact when cheerfulness collapses. The Book of Mormon musical, the song “Turn It Off”, jokes about emotional suppression — smile, testify, keep going. The joke works because it names something real.

But when you place that joke next to what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints actually teaches about mental health, suffering, grief, and missionary life, the picture is more complicated — and more serious — than either critics or defenders often admit.

This episode of Hello Mormonism isn’t an attack, and it isn’t apologetics.
It’s a careful comparison between official LDS teaching and lived religious culture — especially in missionary settings — and an attempt to locate where the real tension actually lives.

Not between Mormonism and mental health.
But between theology and performance.

This episode may be especially relevant for returned missionaries, questioning or former Latter-day Saints, mental-health professionals working with LDS clients, and anyone interested in how religious traditions handle suffering when cheerfulness collapses.

Chapters

0:00 — Intro: “Turn It Off” and Why the Joke Works
4:07 — Missionary Life Is Not Presented as Easy
6:05 — Mental Illness Is Not Moralised
8:22 — Christ Enters Suffering
9:35 — Healing Is Often Slow, Partial, or Deferred
10:45 — Suffering Is Multifactorial, Not Moral
11:36 — The Nineteenth Century
15:48 — Grief Is Not Treated as Failure
17:01 — The Pressure Is Very Real (Especially for Missionaries)
21:21 — Becoming, Not Performing
23:40 — Where “Turn It Off” Fits
25:21 — The Elder Whose Sister Died
27:06 — What Is the Actual Teaching?
28:03 — Where the Real Tension Lives
31:20 — Closing: What Religions Are Judged By