I was a young adult when I joined the church.. fast forward and I made a friendship with an older man in the church who helped teach me, guide me, study etc.. he ended up touching me inappropriately in his home and I ran away in the middle of the night and later gathered the courage to let the bishop know.. The bishop told me he would talk with him, apologized for him and then told the man to “take a break” from the Church a few weeks and that was all.. he suggested that I keep this to myself and that he is not perfect and deserve forgiveness. You can imagine how confused and scared I was when seeing this man and knowing that I shouldn’t talk to anyone else about what happened.
Another time when a missionary was inappropriate with me came over at night and kissed me and it got back to the bishop. The bishop called me a week later and urged me to call him back and then told me he needed to see me as soon as possible. I did the walk of shame to his car where he drove me to church (his wife was in the building)
He then asked me to tell him all details of the night the missionary came over.. I was so ashamed even though I knew I wasn’t at fault.. I started crying and it’s as if he wanted me to have done things even though I had not. He kept pressing, asked me if we “dry humped” , where the other missionary was and if he joined, if we touched and where..etc etc.. I didn’t understand why I had to be so embarrassed, why I had to answer disgusting questions.
Later on in life, I’m getting married and the bishop wanted to talk with me before we did (not to go to the temple) but just needed to talk. He made me cry a week before my wedding because he told me “we all know you have not been living the law of chastity” I wanted to crawl into a hole.. I felt like grown men were watching me , discussing me.. I felt dirty and ashamed.. I walked into his office a happy, excited young lady on her way to be newly married and I walked out wanting to hide.