On many more than one occasion, I was subjected to inappropriate interviewing that effected me even into my adulthood. From around the age of 12 to about age 19, I tried to correct what I was told were my immoral actions. First was masturbation. At the age of 12, I clued my current bishop at…
I should start with a little bit of history before going into detail about what happened to me between my years as a young child through to adulthood. I was the first born child of an active addict. Her addiction was severe, and as a result she used throughout her pregnancy and when I was…
As a child, I wish I had known about the grooming processes that sexual predators use. The way they gain a child’s trust, maybe even their parents’ trust, before attempting anything inappropriate. Instead, the church indoctrinated me to believe that men have the absolute authority and the power to act in God’s name. I was…
When I was a 12 year old I went to my father full of shame and confessed I had masturbated. His reaction led me down a path of intense self-loathing that lasted well into adulthood. Because what he didn’t say was “Literally everyone, especially kids your age, masturbates sometimes.” What he did do was make…
I became pregnant as a teen. The father is LDS and made great efforts to not be involved. He sent church members to my home to harass me into giving up my child. I was advised to talk to a Bishop that told me i was unworthy of being a parent. The harassment and abuse…
This is an odd story but it took me a while to connect the dots as to why I felt so passionate about signing the petition and wanting to march. My dad was a Bishop when I was 12. He is an introvert by nature and we suddenly rose to fame and popularity because of…
The following isn’t an experience about a Bishop interview, but an Honor Code Office interview on the BYU-I campus. This is an LDS owned private university. These meetings should be treated the same as the bishop interviews. About 3 weeks before my graduation at BYU-I, I was called in to the Honor Code Office on…
I went through those highly emotional and impactive teen years, in the 70s. This was when our LGBTQ brothers and sisters were still in the closet. A time when much that we now understand about our sexuality was misunderstood and frankly the LGBTQ community was demonized. (I regret that my opinions and likely comments as…
My nazi-TBM parents never gave me the birds and the bees talk. I was raised in an information vacuum that only included the church and nothing else. I knew nothing about sex and if the subject ever came up in any respect, it was quickly quashed in our household. The “masturbation” word had come up…
Innocence Taken I grew up going to the Sugar Land wards of the Houston Texas South Stake. I was going in for my first temple interview to do baptisms for the dead. I was very naive and at the time didn’t know what self pleasure or masturbation were or what sexually active meant. I was…