#270 Amanda W. CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8

I was in my teens when I started masturbating. My bishop at the time was very much interested in emphasizing how sinful masturbation was. He regularly visited my Young Women’s classes and instructed us on the importance of seeing a priesthood leadership should we ever do it. I felt immense guilt and shame and avoided…

#269 Lauren S. CS: 1,2,3,4,6,7. Other: Silenced about sexual abuse. Blamed for my own sexual abuse.

I was 11 when a cousin 4 years older than me began sexually abusing me. It went on every summer for 3 years, worsening each year as he viewed stronger porn and got braver about his demands for me. He began to threaten me with physical pain if I wouldn’t comply. He was an “upstanding…

#268 Duncan S. CS: 1,2,7,8. Other: Perpetuated addiction.

I’ve always been interested in love. My whole life has been spent loving love, and naturally that love, as a child, was placed in God. As I grew older, I began to become interested with the sexual parts of my life, as a natural process of discovering myself. So, I slowly brought myself into the…

#267 Name Withheld CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8

When I was a child, I considered suicide as an alternative route to admitting to a bishop a “sexual sin” I had committed a few years prior. I remember the shame was so great that I would often cry myself to sleep with fear of the eternal damnation I was constantly told would be my…

#266 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,4,6,7,8,9

I am in the process of writing my story about the sexual issues and shaming that happened within the church. It’s really hard to do. I’ve been in therapy for years, and it still sucks. I still feel lost with it. There are so many facets to it. Like old neighbor men asking about my…

#264 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8,9

I didn’t know what masturbation was at 11 when I went in for my “are you ready for the priesthood?” interview with the bishop. Little did I know when I walked into that office with my best Sunday clothes and celebratory new set of scriptures that this would be the beginning of years of group…

#263 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,7,8,9

I’m one of the lucky ones who had only good men as bishops throughout my life and yet I still did not escape unscathed. I discovered masturbation by about age 4 or 5. My parents caught me and I then got the entire penis-vagina sex talk with a heaping side of the impending fires of…

#261 James H. CS: 1,2,3,4,7,8

I could say so much but I’ll keep it simple. I was indoctrinated into Mormonism as a child, I believed it because it was the only perception of reality offers to me. The LDS church taught me to hate myself when I was about 13 years old. I was lucky to get good kind bishops,…