u/raygunsally

So without getting into too much detail, I was disfellowshipped at age 16 and kicked out not long after. I’ve made my way through life and had my ups and downs since then. I’m now 36. I’m in my second marriage, I’ve traveled and done a lot of things, I’ve graduated college and have a solid career path. Until fairly recently I had just accepted that I was estranged from most of my family and that was just the way it was going to be. My husband and I had been together for close to a decade and he’d never met my parents. I hadn’t seen either of them in years. And he was ok with it and I was… idk not ok with it but it is what it is right? I feel so far removed from all of this that it bothers me not having my family sure but I’m not always looking at it through the lens of religion if that makes sense. Anyway in the last year or so I’ve come back into contact with my parents and older sister due to extenuating family circumstances. It was surprising to me that they seemed so open to contact. I try to make it clear that I respect their right to believe what they want as long as they respect my right to disagree. So recently I had a conversation with my dad and he told me that there had been changes in the religion and that they were basically admitting they had been wrong in the past to remove minors from the congregation. And that if I was open to it an elder wanted to talk to me, no pressure and no expectations, but almost like if I talked to them they’d say they messed up and the disfellowshipping didn’t count or something? At this point I told my dad, look if this makes things easier for you because I’m disfellowshipped, I’m willing to have a conversation but no more than that. I don’t want to give you false hope because I have no intention of ever coming back. He said “we don’t call it that any more, we say you were removed from the congregation”. Weird af to me, like you can just say you’re gonna call it something else and it somehow erases the fact that I haven’t had my family in my life for the last 20 years. But whatever honestly like I said I’m so removed from it at this point that I don’t care and if I really just need to have some clarification with these people it’s whatever. So now this elder is reaching out to me. He’s someone I actually knew as a child and is connected with my family. But I’m starting to get a little weirded out, like is this actually a thing or are they just trying to manipulate me into listening to some nonsense? Has anyone else experienced something like this? Or for people who are still involved, is this actually a thing? Like the way my dad explained it was kind of like it would be like I’d never been baptized. But I’m wondering if he misunderstood. Sorry this is so long. Really just looking for clarification before I have any kind of conversation with anyone. Thanks for reading if you actually read this whole thing.