When I was 8, just after I was baptized, I would look up pictures on the internet. I started finding “dirty” ones and found myself always wanting to look at pictures of women.
I knew it was wrong and that I, being a woman too, was sinning deeply. I was always hiding it and when one day my sister basically caught me (she never mentioned it but she knew) I told my mom in tears and so much shame about my sins. I begged her not to tell my dad. I remember for weeks feeling so much shame. I remember sitting on the playground not being able to play because I felt i didn’t deserve it. I was so upset because it was after my baptism and I wished I could have done it before. All day every day I would pray in my head for forgiveness and to please not send me to hell. I never told any bishop in my interviews as I hadn’t touched myself or looked at anything since.
It has brought me so much shame in my life, I left the church when I was 16 and immediately became sexually active. I to this day have a hard time feeling sexual without feeling shame and often I ask to be degraded sexually to be turned on. I have a fiancée who helps me overcome this to feel love and belonging when I have sex.