My 15 year old son has been crippled with guilt and shame about masturbation. He has talked to our LDS bishop about it and feels worse afterward. My son is predisposed to depression and anxiety. His therapist thought he was experiencing a level of religious scrupulosity.
I spoke to the bishop about this and asked him to please settle down about whatever they had been discussing. I asked him to steer the conversations toward being Christlike. My son got worse. He started writing in his journal about feeling worthless and dirty. He wrote about thinking of ways to punish himself.
At this point I went to the bishop and said, “I formally and officially forbid you to bring my minor child into your closed office and talk to him about whether or not he is touching his own genitals.”
I started attending with him. He kept the question to, “do you keep the law of chastity?”. Come to find out, the bishop didn’t think my concerns applied to writing private emails to my son. I found an email where my son said, “I haven’t masturbated in 2 months, but I’ve started cutting.” The Bishop’s response was, “Glad to hear you haven’t masturbated. Don’t tell your mom.”
If he is willing to put this stuff in writing, I am terrified of what he says in person.
I am keeping this anonymous solely out of respect to my minor child. Heaven knows what he would do if this got out.