#588 Name Hidden. CS: 1,3,4,7,8,9

One experience I had with being asked completely inappropriate questions in a worthiness interview was just after I had started attending singles ward. I had very recently come to understand, with the help of a friend, that what I had experienced through my high school years was not premarital “sex” but actually rape, in the…

#585 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Sam, there was a discussion on the RFM board the other day about whether sexual abuse always leaves you broken. I felt compelled to finally tell my story but did it anonymously. And even though I know it was easy to tell that I was writing my own story, I had to tell it in…

#583 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,4. Other: self-mutilation ideation

I experienced incredible shame over masturbation. Barely a teenager, the scripture in Matthew 5:29-30 became constant in my mind: 29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should…

#582 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

I grew up as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints in the UK. I remember the Bishop’s interviews very intrusive and embarrassing and also I felt violated looking back now as an adult. I grew up in a ward that there were many leaders men who were very egotistical and…

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

I never was asked explicit sexual questions in bishop’s interviews, but I feel such pain and anguish with every story shared here, and with the experiences of my loved ones. The constant barrage of chastity lessons in Mutual taught me that sexual feelings were evil, that we needed to be pure in thought at all…

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

I received heavy doses of shaming at the hands of leaders. I was made to feel ashamed of my body, and my natural urges. I got asked numerous times behind closed doors with leaders if I masturbated. I usually lied. Before my mission, a leader at the MTC wanted to hear all the details of…

#579 Bryan A. CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8

When I was a young man, I couldn’t stop masturbating. It was just too hard, and I was too weak. Guilt destroyed me. I sinning in a way that was so bad it was “second only to murder”. I considered suicide after I had been clean for a while, but I was too scared that…