One of my first interviews that I can remember happened when I was 12. I felt fine about meeting the bishop. He asked me if I obeyed the law of chastity. Fully believing I had, I answered in the affirmative. He questioned back with ‘are you sure?’ still fully believing in myself, I said Yep!…
This practice destroyed my self-esteem, caused me to experience nearly relentless anxiety from age 8 on and led me to take desperate actions to “fix” myself of normal adolescent behavior deemed to be amoral. This extreme and relentless psychological distress eventually royally messed up the trajectory of my life as I took desperate measures to…
I want to start by saying I am an active member of the church. I debated about sharing this, because all of the people involved with one exception are good people who just made understandable mistakes. The current status quo and puts people in a position where bad things can happen. That is why I support…
At twenty, I was depressed and hadn’t taken the sacrament since moving out of my dad and stepmom’s house 2 years earlier. I was sexually abused by my stepdad when I was 9, mom found out he’d done it to another kid and started asking me questions. The police got involved, I had to testify…
I grew up very active in the church and quite believing. I tried to do everything right. To the outside I was a model member, seemingly obeying the commandments, being an excellent student and also excelling in athletics. But starting at puberty there was one habit that I struggled with: masturbation. I loathed myself for…
Ugh, this is hard. I’m not really used to telling my story. But if I can help one child… I was born into an extremely devout Mormon family. Extremely devout. We were never talked to about sex, nor about avoiding or reporting sexual abuse. Unfortunately, my older brothers and sisters were the victims of sexual…
I hesitated to write my story because I wasn’t sexually abused. I decided to write it though, because my experience around these interviews has been a big contributor to my depression and constant feelings of shame. I remember my first orgasm at 12 years old. I was downstairs watching TV and I was flipping through…
The mission and stories of this website have validated my pain and my experience. This validation has brought about so much healing in my heart. This validation has empowered me to finally stand up to my shame and to stand up to the beliefs, people, and experiences which generated and nurtured my shame and say…
I was a young woman in college when a young, LDS man forcibly groped me, kissed me and exposed himself to me. Afterwards I didn’t process that it wasn’t my fault, in fact I felt guilt and shame and told no one of what happened until 8 years later, just a few months ago. This…
Bishop and church GA’s shaming over masturbation caused me such self loathing over my inability to remain “pure” that I suffered from deep depression and frequent contemplation of suicide for most of my teen years. I blamed my depression on my wickedness (as the church taught), but could not stop the vicious cycle. It was…