#280 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9. Other: lost friends

My worthiness interview story only scratches the surface of how the Mormon Church destroyed my life. The details of exactly how my life was destroyed I left out because the memory is too painful to revisit but basically, I lost my one and only true friend as a result of the first interview described here…

#279 Name Hidden. CS: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8. Other: Self harm/cutting

When I was 15, I was living in California and in a relationship with a non-LDS boy. One day, he forced himself on me. He was very manipulative and convinced me that I had been asking for it and that I needed him. I was heart broken and felt broken myself. I felt that my…

#278 Carrie B. CS: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

I grew up in an abusive home. I was raped for the first time when I was 7. I spent decades trying to convince my “leaders” that it wasn’t my fault. They insisted that I must have done something and I needed to repent (after all, what’s the point of a worthiness interview if you…

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

My experience with interviews has been all over the map. It ranges from mildly intrusive to absolutely inappropriate. At one point the proceedings of a church disciplinary council made me consider ending my life. I grew up in Utah as a member of the church. I remember first being asked questions of a sexual nature…

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

I was born into and grew up in a very strict Mormon family. My mom had this view of the world that the less you knew about sinful, harmful stuff, the better. So when I was 11 and I got “the talk”, it lasted about 4 minutes. I knew what sex organs were, and roughly…

#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…

#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…