- Kristjana Hillberg got married in the Mormon church when she was 21, then divorced at 24.
- Her religious upbringing made her feel unworthy and grateful someone wanted to marry her, she said.
Kristjana Hillberg dealt with feelings of unworthiness since she was a teenager.
It wasn't until she married at 21 in the Mormon church that Hillberg realized the religious values she long held as her own were making her feel bad.
"In such a strict religion where everything is off-limits and you don't question anything, you just have blind faith, if you have 'bad' thoughts, you just pray them away," Hillberg, who is now 32 and married to a non-Mormon, told Insider.
Six months into her marriage, Hillberg began to see how religion pushed her to settle for a life as a housewife that wasn't aligned with her beliefs in women's empowerment and curiosity. In grade school, for example, Hillberg remembers being told it was a woman's duty to "replenish the earth." She sang songs that reinforced gender stereotypes of women as homemakers and men as breadwinners, and learned that partaking in alcohol, marijuana, and pre-marital sex made someone a sinner.
Getting a divorce four years later, leaving the church, and healing through therapy helped Hillberg find shame-free sources of love and joy, she said.
She opened herself to trying things that didn't involve being a mother or wife, like dance, and later co-created Step Into Your Magic, a course to help people figure out who they are and what they want out of life.
She felt she had to prove herself a 'good Mormon' to marry the man she loved
Hillberg said internalizing the teaching that pre-marital sex is a serious sin that made her feel unlovable following a sexual assault in college. Since she was sexually assaulted while drunk, she assumed at the time she deserved it and needed to repent.
Following the assault, Hillberg said she was in a shame spiral where she'd party to escape her negative thoughts. When she met a fellow student and Mormon two years later, it "changed that belief in me that no one would ever love me," Hillberg said. They married after a nine-month period of sexual abstinence.
When Hillberg dated her now-ex-husband, she was struck by how he accepted her despite her rule-breaking around alcohol, drugs, and sex, especially since he was the son of a Mormon bishop, a high-up role in the church.
But as Hillberg spent more time alone and with their baby while her husband traveled for work, she became introspective about her new family dynamic. She had everything she was taught to want, but she wasn't happy, she said.
"I was fighting all of these inner feelings of, 'You're being extremely selfish. You just need to like have faith and not and be quiet and do your job, Kris,'" she said. For awhile, she didn't understand why she couldn't feel thankful for her role as a mom, the role she'd been raised to play.
Eventually, she couldn't shake the feeling of being trapped in a life fueled by shame, low self-worth, and obedience. Right before Hillberg turned 25, she and her then-husband filed for divorce.
Therapy and looking for joy outside of religion helped heal feelings of unworthiness
Hillberg now co-parents her 10-year-old daughter with her ex-husband. She said he's a "fabulous" dad, but she doesn't regret ending their marriage.
She's now remarried to someone who makes her feel secure outside the confines of religion. In searching for and finding her own passions, Hillberg said she's come into her true self.
"It was a lot of experimenting and even still, I'm shifting and unlearning and figuring it out. But I'm just more me now. I go strictly off of my intuition and what feels good," she said.
"It's so different than when I was in my early twenties being like, 'Oh my God, God hates me.'"