Dear Sam: Thank you for fighting to protect LDS children. They need all the protectors they can get. It has taken me all week to write this letter; I have never told anyone else my story. Who would I have told? Who could I possibly trust with these details? My story goes back 50 years…
Growing up in the church, I first learned of masturbation from a bishopric member asking if I did it. I was young and being interviewed to go to the temple to do baptisms. I said “no,” as it sounded horrible, and then went home to look up the definition in the dictionary. (Thank goodness I…
My story is too long so I’m writing a book. To offer some insight I can tell you that my father was taking religious classes at BYU from 1959 -1967 and during that time he was taught secret doctrine that fed his narcissism and he began sexually abusing me when I was three. He would…
When I was 12 years old, I had a meeting with my Bishop. He asked me about the law of chastity. I told him that I sometimes masturbated. He became visibly upset. A few days later, there was a game of capture the flag going on down the street from my house. When I showed…
My mother went to the bishop when we were young and my fathers abuse escalated. She was threatened with excommunication for attacking the priesthood and warned not to continue in that attack on the church. Because the church was more interested in protecting the image of the priesthood they chose to silence my family by…
In the year 1991, when I was 16, in Portland, OR…..I was date raped. I said NO. Several times. It was not consensual. At the time, I didn’t even understand what that was and that it was rape. Call me naive at that age, but I didn’t. Those topics just weren’t discussed in my family…
When I was about 11 or 12, I had just started in the Young Women’s program. I was ahead a year in school so I was kept with my class and not my age group. This was way back when the youth met on a different night. One night we were doing what they called…
My church upbringing taught me that sex was something to feel guilt and shame for. Starting around age 12 My Bishops regularly asked sexually explicit questions regarding my sins. I was sexually abused from the ages of 8 to 11 by a family member who was also a member of my ward. The perpetrator’s father…
My bishop was not a pleasant man. At 12 years old, my parents drove me to his home for my first temple recommend interview. My parents made themselves comfortable in his living room while I was led into a dark, cramped, hoaders-esque home office. I remember he had a dog, a border collie, and I…
When I was fifteen years old I had a boyfriend who was manipulative, coercive, and abusive. I was confused because he told me he loved me and he bought me flowers. He made me feel special. Behind a closed door, he started to force me to do sexual things that I didn’t want to do.…