My first bishop interview about masturbation happened when I was 14 in 1984. I did not know what that was at the time. I had 3 more interviews about masturbation between the ages of 14-17 years old. I felt uncomfortable about his interest in that subject. It was creepy. He seemed so pleased to bring…
I am currently a member of the LDS church. Growing up I had many great leaders in the church that taught me a lot of good. I can’t imagine how difficult the calling of a bishop would be. I know there are a lot of sacrifices made in this calling. I do, however, feel very…
I was sexualized when I was 14 by an adult female, “Helen”. She was in her mid-20s. At the same time I was also given drugs——not a soft drug, like marijuana, but “acid”, or LSD. (This is a long story and I won’t go into it here, only to say that this is what basically…
My mother was inactive LDS growing up. My dad was of another faith. I didn’t go to church often, but would at times go play basketball with neighborhood friends who were LDS. At one of these shootarounds when I was thirteen, I was pulled into the bishop’s office without either of my parent’s consent or…
I’ve written about a hundred pages worth of material trying to figure out what I want to say and get it down to something less than a thousand words. This is around two thousand. My difficulty in being succinct is perhaps evidence of the severity of the trauma and my need to talk about it.…
As a young 13 year old girl, this was a very uncomfortable, if not traumatizing situation for me speaking to an older man about my sexual “transgressions.” This, in combination with the church’s many lessons about chastity and comparing me to a chewed piece of gum for losing my virginity shattered me as a person.…
There was a time a little girl was happy, at least she tried to pretend she was, because she did not know what was going on.
I was in Junior High, and struggling. I already didn’t believe in the church. Which put me at odds with my Dad. My sibling had an illegitimate baby, which brought major shame to the family, back then. Another sibling got into drugs, which eventually took his life, a little later down the road. This sibling…
I was a hyper-sexual child who didn’t know the word masturbating until five or six years after I’d started having regular orgasms. I started cutting myself as I learned about the church’s stances on everything outside of standard married intercourse and that my value had been diminished as a result. I felt so out of…
My stake president wanted to meet with me in advance of going to the temple for baptisms for the dead. I’d known him my entire life and lived around the corner from me. It began with the usual questions. These interviews always made me nervous. I was a very good kid, but I felt like…