Around my eighth birthday I was excited to be baptized. The plan was my father would baptize me. Both he and my grandfather would be there on Sunday for confirmation. Since I was born in April, it felt good to be joining the ranks of my older classmates. I don’t remember exactly which day the…
I joined the church as a 21-year-old woman who had been sexually active prior to joining. After my baptism I struggled with masturbation. I went to my YSA branch president after each time crying and repenting. Lots of self-loathing, shame and mostly guilt. Fast forward a few years and I was married. My husband was…
When I was 13 or 14 years old, I was asked by my bishop if I had ever masturbated. I felt a terrible sense of shame, because I had masturbated. I felt like I had committed a terrible, disgusting act; something that I was ashamed of. I admitted to my bishop that I had masturbated.…
I am a convert. I was born and raised into a catholic family on both sides. I was introduced to the church at 15 and soon desired to be affiliated and grow in my testimony of the gospel. I was interviewed at 15 and asked several questions that made me feel entirely dirty. I felt…
My story is difficult for many to believe, but I have spent many years healing and finding evidence to validate to myself that it is true and many of my family member have started speaking about abuse they remembered years after I held onto the hope that my experiences were to crazy to be true.…
I was abused by my stepdad during my teen years. Im not sure of the callings at the time but he had been Elders QP, on the branch presidency etc. Of course i was manipulated into keeping it quiet. It came out when I was 18 and soon to go on my mission. I was…
I was 15. I had just moved across the country and had been struggling to adjust. I turned to the gospel with faith for support during this challenging time. I was doing my best to be a righteous daughter of god. My new bishop scheduled an interview with me, I assumed to get to know…
When I was 23 I was a recent BYU grad, still living in BYU housing (thus in a BYU ward), and in graduate school (not BYU). I also had a boyfriend—my first really serious boyfriend. One time we were making out and he pulled down my underwear and penetrated me with his finger. I didn’t…
I remember sitting in my bishops office at the age of 16. I had lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart. We decided to stop having sex so that we could try to be temple worthy because we thought we wanted to get married one day. My bishop didn’t ask me any sexually explicit…
I admitted to premarital sex as a teenage girl. I did this willingly because I was told it was the right thing to do and I believed it. The whole process was quite traumatizing, but I had already been shamed enough to have suicidal ideation prior to admitting to the sin in the interview. He…