Stumbling Around

JR did not want to go into too much detail about the abuses I suffered as a child at the hands of my family and members of my “monogamous” church, but I would like to share some of my stories to illustrate the horrors of my “monogamous” upbringing.

It started when I was very young, my parents were very active in their church callings and in their worldly pursuits so I was often left alone to take care of myself. Even though we lived in a big fancy house, this house was located in a lower class neighbourhood. Our next door neighbours had a little girl my age (I was around 6 at the time) and I was often sent over there to play with her. Unfortunately, they also had several sons, two of which were 12 and 14 years old. These two boys would take their sister and me into the nearby woods and have sex with us. I knew what they were doing was wrong but I was scared of them. I was scared to tell anyone for fear of what they would do to me. I would beg my mother to let me stay home but she just kept sending me over there to get me out of her hair. It got to the point where I felt so bad that I could not sleep at night, I would just lay there and cry. I finally got up the courage to tell my mother about it and all she did was say “there, there” and sent me back to bed. She didn’t even tell my father about it, so much for their perfect “monogamous” relationship. Finally the little neighbour girl burned down the house and they moved away, but not until after my parents invited the whole family to live in our house for 2 weeks while they found a new place to live. My “monogamous” parents put their appearance of charity above the safety of their own daughters! They traded their daughter’s chastity for the “payment” of looking good in front of their church.

Many other sexual abuses took place right in our church buildings and at church activities. One time, after the meetings were finished, I was left alone while my parents took care of their church responsibilities. One of my older brother’s friends took me into an empty classroom and molested me. This boy was supposedly an honorable priesthood holder. My own brother, who was also supposedly an honorable priesthood holder, invited this same boy over to out house to molest me. He pimped me out to his friend. This boy sat me on his lap in our own living room and molested me right in front of my family, my own father just sat there and allowed it to happen right in front of his eyes! And nobody stopped him when he took me into the bathroom alone to continue what he was doing. I finally got away from him but who was I supposed to tell, my parents? They were right there watching it happen! The church leaders? This boy’s father was one of them! I was even molested by a temple going member of this “monogamous” church, during church sponsored activities. And I found out I was not the only one that this was happening to.

I began to believe that this was normal and that since my “monogamous” church was telling me that they were better than everyone else, (especially better than those fundamentalists, who supposedly had strayed from the true gospel and were all cultists), that everyone else must be much worse. I was taught by my “monogamous” church not to question and that everything that happened to me was according to the will of God. I was supposed to believe that God wanted to molest me, that he enjoyed seeing his monogamous priesthood holders have sex with me and the other little girls. I was not sure that I wanted to follow this God, but I tried to be a good girl and do what the leaders told me to do.