The following is my personal story of childhood abuse and how church leadership concealed and diminished its significance. It is long. I come from a large Mormon family. I was born-in-the-covenant and raised “knowing” that it was all true. There was no choice in attending church, seminary, or serving a mission. Those choices were made…
My stepfather sexually abused my sisters and I when we were younger. I hid the fact, until 5 years later. I wanted to heal from the abuse, and for the first time told my YSA bishop about what happened. He was very supportive and helpful in my recovery. However, one day my parents and I…
Mine is a story of abuse. Not from a bishop but from a mormon dad who rose in the levels of mormon leadership because he did things like eloquently pray. He was, also,to put it bluntly a suck-up and as we all know this is a feature that helps you get far in mormonism (or…
I was 12 years old and recently found out that something I had been doing for years was called masturbation. My bishop happened to be my uncle, and I had my “biannual interview” when he asked if I had had sex, or if I masturbated. Immediately I felt ashamed of what I had done, and…
I was roughly six or seven when I was molested by an older cousin during a family vacation. (Everyone was Mormon, and all the men mentioned below are Melchizedek priesthood holders.) I remember freezing, thinking that if I just held still, it would all be over. I had zero idea what was happening, and thanks…
My story happened not because of a Bishop with inappropriate intentions, but because the several men I dealt with were trying their best with very little guidance and only very confused cultural teachings to work with. My parents did NOT speak with us about sex. I learned from a medical textbook my mom gave me…
My 17 year old daughter has been sexually active for a bit. Her mom and I knew about it and mostly talked about safe sex. Daughter felt she needed to repent, went to the bishop—who is a really decent guy—and he pulled out a sheet of paper and said “I’ve been instructed to ask you…
I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It started when I was a teenager, originally manifesting behaviorally as excessive confessing of sins to my bishop. I was a textbook case of a subtype of OCD sometimes called “scrupulosity”. My story provides a good example of a bishop not having the training necessary to deal with certain situations.…
My brother, recently served as a bishop, never fully disclosed the extent of how he showed himself to me completely nude and erect in his bedroom while I was 12 and he was 16. He would have liked everyone (his bishop and my dad) to still think it was an “accident”. I was told by…
When I was 18 years old I confessed to my bishop that my boyfriend and I had been having sex. It was terrifying to be a teenage girl, fresh out of high school, alone with a man I hardly knew, talking about sex. My own parents never even talked to me about sex After confessing,…