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 my brother to keep it a secret twice (the moment it happened and a few years later while he was on his mission) and to sweep it under the rug of forgiveness, so I did.
I was left alone to deal with the trauma for 15 years until I was married for 3 years and strong enough to feel like I could tell someone. I told my husband, confronted my brother (a bishop at the time) and was subsequently reprimanded by my family that I was overreacting and that he was forgiven long ago. I was told by my father, 1st counselor in the bishopric at the time, that I was “single handedly tearing apart the family”. Both parents also blamed my husband for making me supposedly blow it out of proportion.
Consequently, I had to protect myself from their abuse by cutting ties until they agreed to go see a professional counselor about it. Because of my non-LDS counselor, they were able to come to the understanding that it was sexual abuse of a child, it was not “normal” (as my family said) for him to do that, he should have never told me to keep it a secret, I should have been given help, and it did impact me more than they will ever know. If my brother had talked to a bishop about it being an “accident” like he said he did, and if, “the Church has long had a highly effective approach for preventing and responding to abuse,” that bishop should have made sure I was not harmed by it and he should have reported it, which is required by law. Well, too late for that.