I was a new missionary at the MTC. The MTC President groomed the sister missionaries by constantly praising and complementing us as if he had us on a pedestal. At the same time he was very controlling over our behavior. He wouldn’t allow us to talk much to the Elders and we couldn’t laugh. He…
I was a very good child always trying to please God and took everything to heart that church leaders said! The guilt and shame of the interviews still even though I had done nothing wrong carried into my adult years reflecting sex as gross and disgusting. I got married at age 25 (which was old…
I’ve faced mental illness for as long as I can remember. Depression, social anxiety/phobia disorder, auditory hallucinations, etc. And on top of everything, I’m a bisexual male who was raised Mormon. I had a hard time coming out to my family because they’re Mormon, and I knew the kind of response I’d receive, but after…
When I was very young, my parents discovered I had been sexually abused by a female babysitter in our LDS ward. When they reported this to their bishop, he advised them to not report the abuse to law enforcement because the family was a reactivation project and these allegations would hurt his efforts in bringing them back to…
I am so thankful that people are finally speaking out about this problem. And it is a problem, a big one. I became inactive in the church during my early teens, but due to a VERY inappropriate interview conducted by the bishop behind closed doors, I was driven to never return. Even after telling the…
My bishop touched me inappropriately during a private, closed-door, one-one-one interview in his office at a church stake center in Provo, Utah while I was a teenager. He got a pass on his behavior and went on to ruin the lives of others. To this day he has not been held fully accountable. My bishop…
Although it isn’t quick or easy to deal with, I’ll make this story brief as if it were. So, read it in two minutes and don’t ever think about it again. But know that for me, it is my life, a daily hell placed there by the church and people who decide to do wrong…
My story is not as bad as many others’ because I was lucky enough to have friends who told me what happened to them when they confessed to sexual “sins” and abuse. Growing up it was an open secret that if you told your bishop you did anything sexual, he would interrogate you with questions…
I grew up in a Mormon household. We were considered religious by my family friends outside of Utah, but moving back when I was 12 changed everything. My relationship with my bishops before we moved to Utah were very respectful and considerate of social boundaries. However, when I was 8 and before I was baptized,…
I had to confess to my older white male bishop that I had watched porn at age 13 without anyone else present. I left church early crying in shame. Went home loathing myself only to find my mother who mocked me and shamed me because obviously I did something wrong since I left the bishop…