#880 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Other: Victim shaming

I had a boyfriend in high school and we were both very active LDS. We’d been dating for about 6 months when he told me he would kill himself in I didn’t have sex with him. I did because I knew him and I knew he would follow through with his threat. I did not…

#879 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8

I didn’t realize until I was at college that masturbation and strong sexual desire is a normal attribute of nearly every healthy person. My high school years were spent thinking that I was a deviant freak. Those years were counted in weeks that followed the shame cycle; dreading the coming of Sunday when I’d have…

#874 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,7

I wasn’t born into a “mormon” household. I was born into a “wordly” household, as I was often told as a 9 year old little girl trying to navigate my way through life in the LDS church, while having two addicts for parents. It was often hard for me when my grandmother would take me…

#872 Jenna B. CS: 1,3,7,8,9. Other: Afraid of going to the bishop

It was October of 2007, and I had just turned 8. I was told I had to meet the bishop, to see if I was worthy enough, so I could get baptized. I went in nervous as all hell, and wondered what he was going to ask me. He started off with the standard questions…

#869 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,4,5,7,8

My father, Stan ______, held one on one “priesthood” interviews with his children when I was growing up. He set this up to feel much like a Bishop interview, and often compared the Bishop’s stewardship over the ward with Stan’s stewardship over his family. When I was 15, Stan began “Sex Ed” in which he…

#868 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,7

My children will not be interviewed by bishops because of what I faced as a teenager. When counseling about my “sins,” my bishop, a man who lived on the next street and was the same age as my dad, asked me a very specific sexual questions. These were things I wouldn’t/couldn’t discuss with my closest…

#865 Joseph P. CS: 1,2,7. Other: belief that I was somehow bad or wrong for going through the natural process of becoming an adult.

As a teenager, I was repeatedly interrogated by my bishop about masturbation. I lied and felt horrible about it. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I would be looked down on if anyone knew the truth. the guilt was always weighing down on me. I thought I was a horrible person…

#864 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,7

When I was 14 I went to my bishop to confess to looking at pornography and masturbation. I remember the shame more than anything. My bishop at the time was my next door neighbor and father of one of my best friends. I remember confessing to him alone that I had looked at pornography, and…