I had my sister and her husband over one time and somehow the discussion uncovered a memory from when I was 10 or 11 years old, back in the 80's.

My baby brother, maybe 2 or 3 at the time, had a habit of biting. One evening, my brother bit another sibling and it really set off my dad. He went nuts and hit this child over and over in the face, yelling at him to stop biting. The child fell down, dad stood him back up again to land another blow to knock him back down. Me and the other kids were crying and pleading with my father for him to stop but he kept doing it.

My dad was the ward Bishop at the time...

As a result of this beating, my brother's face was peppered with bruises. My parents kept him home for over a month to prevent anyone from seeing him. No church, no pre-k, nothing. The line was that he was sick.

Somehow this memory came back so strong and so vivid that I didn't really believe it was true. My sister didn't remember it happening. I called my older brother, he didn't remember either. So I called my mother and told her about the memory and she confirmed that it happened exactly as I remembered. Mom told me that dad confessed to the Stake President several months after the incident. The SP didn't reprimand him or remove him from the Bishopric, he just said not to do it again. My mom also asked me not to talk about the memory with dad or any of my siblings. She said that some things are best forgotten.

The reason I bring this up now is, after reading the new handbooks, I learned that any instance of physical child abuse is grounds for automatic excommunication. I suppose it just adds to the resentment that I feel for the church and the distrust that I always held for its leaders. Growing up, I never really trusted adults with any problems I had, and especially not my parents.

Some things are better swept under the rug and forgotten...

Ugh, that's awful. :-(

That is so SO sad. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this.



"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt 18:6).

It's horrible............for the brother & all of you kids.

I'm sickened.

So sorry....terrible.

KJ/AnonyMs

What a terrible story. Was your mom present at the time? How could she ever let your father back in the house after he had beaten her baby?

My mom was there. She was pleading for him to stop as well. When I spoke with her she gave me the excuse that they were protecting the church by not exposing this incident, especially since he was the bishop. We lived on the east coast at time so the church wasn't as big as it is now, a bishop abusing his kids would have been fodder for the local news.

This is what really makes me sick.

It has always been about appearances to my parents. "How will the people at church see us if this gets out?" Growing up, my dad told me he would kick me out if I ever got a girl pregnant. It was all about fear, I hated that. Fear of abandonment if I ever went against their wishes. That's why it's taken so long for me to find my way to the truth.

I remember one particularly horrible Christmas when my son was about 5. His father had insisted on buying him a fancy, expensive watch. I had objected, saying that our son was too little to understand the concept of telling time, so why not get something more age-appropriate?

My now-ex told me that I was stupid, and that children need challenges in order to grow.

As predicted, my son was unable to grasp the concept of telling time. Then his father worked himself up into a rage about trying to teach the child how to use the watch as a compass, depending on how shadows fall as the day progresses. That was TOTALLY over my son's head.

Mine, too. Many years later, while seeing survivalist-type shows with Bear Grylls or Les Stroud or Cody Lundin, where they explain this watch-as-a-compass thing, I can't sit still. It is too triggering.

Husband ranted and raged and screamed at the helpless, frightened little boy. I begged him to stop, but he raised his hand and screamed at me to shut up, and said that it was MY fault that the entire day was ruined because I was a terrible excuse for a mother. His face was distorted with such rage that I was terrified too. He was much bigger than I am, and I knew I wouldn't have a chance in a physical confrontation. I didn't dare call the police. My husband was very highly regarded in the community and he would just put on his nice-guy face and the police wouldn't believe me. I was sure of that. And then, once they were gone. . .God only knew.

My son said that he lost the watch. To this day, I have no idea what he did with it (and at this point, 33 years later, he doesn't, either) but he NEVER wore it.

I am ashamed of my cowardice, but I truly didn't know what to do. And my son and I both suffered for it.

Some years later, we escaped.

So sorry for all involved. My mother used the same line with me. She said, "What good is bringing up the past?"

Well, I dared to answer her because at this point in time I had been to counseling and was not as easily pushed around. So I naively started to tell her what good it could accomplish. and her response was to just refuse to listen. I tried one more time. Same response. She was 96 when she died, and never waivered from this attitude. My dad died from alchoholism, and I so thought at first that I could be the giver-of-wonderful-news and change my family. The counselor told me that is often what his clients want to do and it just does not work.

I couldn't help but feeling the pain from this story. My father beat my mother and my younger brother. Mainly my mother but one time he beat my little brother to the point of where he had welts and bruises all over his body when he was about 5 and I was 7. I know this affected him for life and mentally scared him to his dieing day. He committed suicide last January. I will never forget that look on his face when this happened. I'm 47 now and he was 42when he died. This abuse has affected me and my mother to this day, it's a horrific and totally unacceptable for any man to lay a hand on his wife or small children!

My parents deny it all to this day.

If they had ever hit one of my children like they did their own kids I would have had them arrested.

We covered for him, too, but shouldn't have.

I'm sorry you had to live through that terrible experience, and your poor little brother. How sickening.

I would not be silent. I think silence and covering up abuse is most harmful. Recovery from abuse and memories of abuse can only come about with revelations and discussions. Your father still owes your brother an apology. Until that apology is given, you have no obligation to keep silent.

Children have no choice but to follow the guidance or mis-guidance of parents. However, as an adult, you can make your own choices. It is hard to speak up, and speaking up can cause much embarassment and shame for the wrong-doer, but healing can only be accomplished through openness and sharing of these memories and facts. If they are ashamed now, then they should not have engaged in abusive acts and should have apologized years ago. I see no remorse with trying to keep these acts secret. The hurtful acts are as much a part of the family lore as the happy, fun memories.

I was silent until I could no longer keep that silence. I wrote out on paper the male parental unit's and step parental units' abuses before i left the family. It was cathartic. the MPU tried to deny the abuse, but others corroborated my written words. My healing process began the day I sent that 10 page letter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2013 08:19PM by evergreen.

My brother remembers the two of us watching our father beat up our mother. I have completely blacked that one out, but I do remember muffled screams and shattering noises from another room. Plus my brother and I were frequently beaten by both parents, and I remember those terrible nightmarish times.

I know of other instances of savage parenting and grandparenting within local and not-so-local church leadership.

I think that every high school student should be required to take a life skills course that involves parenting as a topic -- because most of them will be parents.

If your father had learned that biting is not that unusual, along with appropriate disciplinary options, he would have had some tools to draw on.

What about spousal abuse? Or elder abuse? (And I don't mean the LDS kind of elders.)

Do the new manuals say anything about this?

My mom beat my younger brother with wooden spoons and fly swatters.

He's dead at 48.

Yay Mormons!

Those damned wooden spoons. My childhood neighbor gave me a big set at my bridal shower because she knew "my family liked big wooden spoons."
She had no idea that my tears were because those spoons were used for punishment, not just stirring spaghetti.

I'm sorry for all of you who know abuse, too. The feigned holiness from the church element only makes it sting more.

You can't sweep something rotten under a rug. It still smells. You'll still trip over it.

That's true, but for some rug sweepers, they become nose blind to how rotten the thing really is. It's like how people don't notice that the diaper pail in the mother's lounge hasn't been emptied in weeks.

I've known mormon women who carry wooden spoons in the diaper bag.

The worst thing we can do is to be silent. If someone is doing this, it needs to be talked and talked and talked about some more. How dare the abusers demand our silence.

I have no wooden spoons. I just can't have them. When my kids were little I grabbed one to spank one of my boys. Just the horror that I went to that was enough for me.

I have an issue with leather belts too, my son snapped one a few months ago just messing around and I jumped so high. It's amazing how those memories stick with us.

I am glad my kids won't have those memories.

I am sorry you had to endure that. It must have been terrifying. You are fortunate that someone could verify and therefore validate your experience. That goes a long way in keeping you from feeling like you are crazy.

Years ago, when my healing journey had just begun, I went to my mother for verification of some things I recalled from my youth that were not related to her directly. She was agitated, and attempted to minimize the events and brush them off as misunderstandings on my behalf. I believe they refer to this as 'gaslighting'. As my healing journey continued, she became very critical of the whole healing process, and anything to do with it. She would declare with scorn how she didn't understand why anybody had to heal, and why couldn't people just get over it and move on with their lives. She would almost work herself into a rage over this point.

In the end it turned out that she was the one with the most to hide. Go figure.

Hey mom, "Thou doth protest too much!"

Don't know if this relates much to the OP ...but it felt like a good place to share it. What a journey this has been. Oh, the memories ...NOT! :)

That's not a "repressed" memory. It's something you just hadn't thought about for a long time until something else reminded you of it.

The difference is important, because there are a lot of quacks out there pushing the idea of "repressed" traumatic memories, even though we know that the memory simply does not work that way. The research indicates that traumatic memories are actually stronger and clearer than ordinary memories, which is exactly what you would expect natural selection to favor -- the better your memories of the bad things that happen to you, the more likely you are to be able to avoid similar situations in the future.

I am sincerely wondering, has there been mutant behavior from this child?

Please don't listen to your mother's counsel. You should tell your dad that you remember and the effect that it had on you when the time is right. He should have gone to jail and been excommunicated. Was your mom protecting your brother? No. She was protecting her family's and her reputation. If my husband did anything resembling that, I'd be the first to call the cops. Brushing this under the rug isn't healthy for anyone. All it does is avoid shame and embarrassment all these years later. It's for your dad and your mom's benefit, certainly not yours. I would talk to him.

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I've been through something similar to this as well. I wanted to respond to you sooner, but wasn't sure exactly what to say. When church "authority" gets involved in abuse it becomes a constant stream of invalidation for victims.

The man who brutalized me and repeatedly raped my sister for years (beginning when her age was in single-digits) is currently serving as a bishop - and that's just the latest in a long line of leadership positions for him.

We informed the church. They gave us the line of "we're pursuing it" and then did nothing.

Here's what I've learned:

1) Part of the trauma is that I still believed in church authorities being called by God. Logically, I knew better, but still believed it on an emotional level. Once I let go of that, and realized that the church is a "morally challenged" organization, I found a little, tiny bit of peace.

2) Telling victims to "forgive," and enforcing the teaching of "the greater sin being on those who don't forgive" is one of most damaging lies ever told. Doing this puts the burden of resolution onto the victim, causing them to feel even less control over what happened to them. Letting go is important, but only once you've processed the emotions. Also, letting go does NOT imply holding the perpetrator blameless.

3) The church is WRONG. They are wrong about how they handle abuse. They are wrong about authorities being called by God. They are wrong to tell you to "let it go." They are wrong to not have reported your father to the authorities. They are wrong to ask you to be silent. They are wrong in caring more about their public image than in doing what is right.

4) I needed validation. I was desperate for someone, anyone to believe what had happened to us. I knew it. My sisters knew it. Any yet, it seemed like the rest of the universe didn't care, mostly because the church treated it as a "non-issue." I realize you don't know me, but having been through something so incredibly similar, let me say, "I BELIEVE YOU!!!!" Because I've seen it happen over and over again in the church.

5) Get help! Find a good, non-LDS therapist who specializes in abuse recovery. I can't stress this enough. You need help dealing with happened to you and your siblings on an emotional level.

I hope this helps in some way, shape, or form.