I never even read this damned book while I was active, yet it permeated my family life. It's evil thinking - that victims are to blame for their rapes & sexual abuse is still haunting me to this day. I have tried for years to come to terms with what happened to me, but I still feel guilty & that it's my fault. I feel like it's my fault not only for what happened, but for not being able to instantly heal bad feelings associated with what happened. I feel absolutely horrible.

I understand what you mean. I have had many bad relationships because of that mindset. If someone tries to make me do something I don't want to do, I figure it's my fault, or I'm wrong. Even now, after over 25 years of being out. And it's so strong that I don't even realize it's happened unless my therapist points it out.

My wife and sister were/are in the same situations. Both victims of sexual abuse and told not to say anything their whole teenage lives and be good girls. Both situations were with lds men. They both hate that book too.

That's the worst piece of trash I ever started to read.

It's the perpetrator of an entire religion being mentally and emotionally sick.

To think of the people who read that and took in every word like it was from God's mouth, makes me ill.

I'm guessing that book has put more LDS women on Prozac than anything else.

How could you not be depressed if you thought that book had a grain of hope in it?

It's sexual abuse of an entire religion.

the other 'teachings' of the book Far Outweigh any thoughts of actually Forgiving others.

the LDS NEVER seem to get/appreciate the Irony of their sayings/policies-practices tho, do they?

just sayin'

Perpetrators work hard to make their victims assume the guilt for what happened. Perpetrators outright blame the victim..."they were asking for it...they were too sexy....blah blah" and those who enable the perpetrator also blame the victim.

That should tell you in a nut shell what the prophets of the LDS church is made of...either perpetrators or those who enable that kind of monster ....

Don't assume the guilt of those responsible. The guilt is not yours and you need to talk yourselves through it and consciously put the blame back where it belongs...even if you have to do that 1000 times a day...then 999 times a day and then 900 times a day. Eventually you will be free of the guilt when you refuse to accept it.

SExual abuse is bad horrendous and evil...BUT that belongs to the predators who abuse, not their victims. It is especially hard to deal with it when it comes from a religious elder or an another authority figure we were taught to trust.

There are many books written out there dealing with the sexual predator and sexual abuser in the religious scene. I would go to amazon.com and search for some. google for internet sites that you can read on line.

My bishop made me read that book when I was 15 after I got caught messing around with a boy. No wonder I was such a mess.

Have you tried counselling, hypnosis, meditation? The sickness of Mormonism affects us deeply in ways that can be beyond our understanding or perception. With desire and effort we can begin to heal.

I have an aunt who is just two years older than me. She was raped when she was 18 and a senior in highschool. She read miracle of forgiveness after that. I honestly believe that reading that book made her problems EVEN WORSE. She blames herself for EVERYTHING. She blames herself for her husband's behaviors now. I remember her talking about how "inspired" the book was and I tried reading it thinking it was going to be some amazing book about healing and I was horrified. HORRIFIED. And I was just 16!

I was enduring the abuse right about the time that book came out. I remember clearly hearing SWK telling me what a worthless whore I was in Conference.

It's hard to let go of. Sometimes I still struggle with remembering that the idea that I'm damaged goods somehow is BS. How I've worked through it:

www.rainn.org

Therapy

Support from Postmo and RfM.

Taking Women's Studies classes in college

Perpetrators use blame to keep their victims SILENT.

Silent so that they are not exposed by the light of day. Silent so that the perpetrators can keep abusing and get away with it. Silent so that perpetrators don't have to answer for their actions.

Blame/guilt goes a long way in keeping the victims in SILENCE which is golden to perpetrators.

What you have said here is incredibly important. You have hit the heart of it all I think and why that book is so dangerous. IT all boils down to 'blame yourself'.

safetyforthesoul:

You highlighted a deep, systematic problem.


sexual activity with yr bf/gf in a consenual way is RANK DIFFERENT than being a predator!

However, Mormonism ranks them both as 'Sexual Sins' and doesn't or at least Didn't differentiate. That's a gross mistake, it shows a TOTAL lack of understanding & compassion.

The book is vile. The author and every G.A. who approved it should rot in hell if there was one. For the so called prophets to be giving that book to their innocent victims claiming it to be of God is on a similar level as Jim Jones serving Kool Aid to children. It is nearly impossible for a bic youth or adult to see it as the controlling life distorting propaganda that it is.

It preys on the innocent.

I read one chapter of the book, Crime Against Nature, and was so horrified that I left the church immediately. For me it's lies were a defining moment that allowed me to see through the brainwashing. I consider myself so lucky for that.

I cannot even imagine what my life would have been like if I had bought into that dangerous controlling propaganda. The suppression he is espousing has the potential to cause long lasting harm to the heart, mind, and soul.

I am horrified for those that had no reason not to accept its message given the brainwashing from the church and our TBM parents. The G.A.s have blood on their hands as far as I'm concerned and my heart aches when I read the damage it has caused to those that are here.

The sickness of the authors mind is hard to fathom. He set a new standard for the evilly arrogant to aspire to. Fred PHelps comes to mind as only a wannabe.

Everyone who has read it--you must always remember that you are beautiful and your body is beautiful. It is the key to your connection with others and to your own mind. What are we without that. Without a touch.

THe church is wrong. There is no sin. There is only a consequence to each action we take.

Enjoy your beautiful body, take pleasure in it. Do it intelligently, but do it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 12:00PM by blueorchid.

I don't think anyone here would endorse beastiality (spelling?).

I had a bike ripped off a while ago; I've participated in a few things I shouldn't have; So, knowing that people who hurt others don't always receive the consequences of their wrongful acts.... I would Disagree with blueorchard:

Sins include wrongful acts (or omissions) that harm others. Get drunk, drive and are responsible for a collision: That's a SIN, regardless of the religious terminalogy.

Perhaps b.orchard Wasn't trying to water down the effects of wrongful acts /sins.... But: gotta call 'em as we see 'em.

People who hurt others should make things right with those harmed, even if doing so is Called "repentance" by religionists... (got a "Better" word for it?)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 11:43AM by guynoirprivateeye.

I would like to explain because I use that phase often regarding sin. For me sin is a religious word and I have little use for it except in a literary sense or in regards to the ecclesiastical.

There is hurt, there is harm, there is wrong, and there is crime and atrocity in this world. These things are the result of someone's actions.

Our actions bring a result, or a consequence. Sometimes good sometimes bad. Sometimes the consequence of an action we take affects another person or a lot of people. Part of the consequence is then that we are responsible for any wrong doing and damage and should make restitution if we are decent or should pay a price if we are not.

I see the word consequence as a very complex term that includes what you would have liked to have done to the bicycle theif.

I actually agree with what you said. Thank you for letting me explain why I put things the way I did. I will end now as I am feeling very tangled up in semantics at the moment.

"Get drunk, drive and are responsible for a collision: That's a SIN, regardless of the religious terminalogy."

That's not a 'sin', that's a malum prohibitum act. An act which is wrong within itself, without legislation making it wrong.

"Sin" is an abstract concept created as you go along. It is so vague as to be meaningless; although it is, usually, used in a religious context (except when it isn't). And to 'sin' is against god, not against another human.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2012 05:37PM by John_Lyle.

saying 'there aren't any sins' is Fulfilling an LDS 'prophecy', 2nd Nephi 2:13.

not Exactly what Id like to do, at least on that account...

Anon-for-this Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I never even read this damned book while I was
> active, yet it permeated my family life. It's evil
> thinking - that victims are to blame for their
> rapes & sexual abuse is still haunting me to this
> day. I have tried for years to come to terms with
> what happened to me, but I still feel guilty &
> that it's my fault. I feel like it's my fault not
> only for what happened, but for not being able to
> instantly heal bad feelings associated with what
> happened. I feel absolutely horrible.

This is a universal experience for vitcims, I am so sorry you are going through this right now. It is one thing to know logically it wasn't your fault, and a whole different thing to know in your heart that it wasn't your fault. The second thing takes a lot of time to accomplish. You are doing exactly as well as you can. Someone did this to you and eventually you'll be able to get angry at the people who caused you so much trouble.
Things get better, really.

I went to church, a RC Church a few weeks ago. Their bulletin that they hand out had an advertisement it in for anyone abused/sexual abused by a RC person or priest. It talked about the devastating effects of abuse and gave a contact number to their agency. What a long way that church has come in not covering up anymore but having that type of organization advertise.

I had a duh moment. I see the book, The Miracle of Forgiveness, to be just the opposite with an opposite mind frame. LDS INC isn't stupid, they know what has been going on...sexual abuse happens across the board in all churches. I once got into a heated debate with Bob Lonesbery about this on his radio show, I was a call in. He pretended to believe that sexual abuse ONLY happened in the Roman Catholic Church and none other.

Anyway, back to the duh moment. I see the book, be writted by and endorsed by GA's as a singular act to guard against people coming forward with their stories of abuse concerning those in charge and/or in leadership positions. It was an covert attempt to silence people and to keep others from believing those who were abuse. It was an attempt to keep what is/was happening to the RC church and other churches from happening to LDS INC.

In order to protect themselves...they threw everyone who has ever suffered at the hands of a sexual abuser in the LDS church under the proverbial bus.

Think about it, reallly think about it. What does that book do best of all?????????

Silence those who were abused via guilt and shame. Make those who could have been supporters of those abused turn their backs on the victims and blame them instead.

Talk about evil. LDS INC evil. The victims are not evil nor to blame.

Your post is a really great take on the MoF. I had never thought of it like that. Well, I never used to give the brethren that much credit for being devious AND clever, but your slant makes a lot of sense.

This is very insightful IMO:

"I see the book,[to be written by] and endorsed by GA's as a singular act to guard against people coming forward with their stories of abuse concerning those in charge and/or in leadership positions."

Anonforthis, it's not your fault. Don't EVER feel that way. You're letting a sick sob off the hook when you do that. I don't know when the assault happened to you, but it happened to me when I was a teen and it took years, and a lot of counseling, to come to terms with it.

I was such a big fan of SWK's back in the day. I remember the day he died--I cried buckets. Now I see him as a sick old man who knew zero about the hardships of others outside his narrow frame of reference. How he could dare talk about girls and women as having any part in their own assaults--or that they should die rather than give up something so precious?

The truth is, we didn't "give it up." It was taken from us violently and, in some cases (mine as well), at the threat of death. It changes our sense of the world for a very long time. I defy anybody to go through it and come out of it unchanged. Or judgmental of something we had absolutely NO control over. What SWK wrote is garbage. The fact is, there was probably a great deal of it going on in the church right under his nose--rape, incest, molestation--and there was NOTHING being done to help victims at that time. The book sickens me. So does the author.

I don't know your age, but if you feel this strongly, please go and get some counseling. It will help you immensely. I'm really pissed off for you right now that you're being made to feel this way and am very sorry that it happened to you. Don't ever let anybody make you feel less of yourself about it. Blaming the victim is always wrong. Sick, really.

You cannot get over this overnight. It is impossible to do so, and you're putting more pressure on yourself to think it's possible. And if someone told you it is possible, tell him or her to fuck off. It's a violation that will come back to haunt you over and over--this is where my therapist was really, really good, in helping me see how the brain finds connections all through life that will mirror, or feel like the same kind of violation I (and you) have been through. You can't make it go away, and please don't make yourself think it's possible. If there's a God, would he want you to feel guilty? Of course he wouldn't.

One of the sickest things I ever heard anyone say about rape was here in Utah: Women need to get over it; it's just sex, after all. The person who said it is absolutely fucked up in the head.

Maybe we should have a big book-burning of all the harmful literature put out there by TSCC. If so, I'd be there with bells on.

Please take care of yourself physically and emotionally--and spiritually in whatever way you feel comfortable. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. Just don't beat yourself up; life has already done that for you in a nifty way (insert sarcasm here). All the best.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 07:12PM by ducky333.

Therapy? Tear it up, or shred it page by page. It's great therapy! You won't have to deal with it anymore! It's just someone's opinion anyhow.

Now you go get r done!! :-)

Thank you blueorchid and I am very glad you saw the point I was making. A book like that being written and published in the type of church like the Mormon church where they control what you drink, what underwear you wear, your time and so forth would not let a book like that slip by unnoticed unless it profited them some how.

The profit was it was a big blanket thrown out for damage control against any fall out that may arise against any who spoke out against sexual abuse. First it is a hard thing to do, to admit it. Then to admit it to a church full of people who have been programmed to blame the victim??????

It was LDS smut dresssed up in scripture to cover their own ugly fat butts from litigation and exposure.

Thanks to everyone for trying to help. Unfortunately, I'm feeling much worse regarding everything. The cult & society has made me hate myself to the point where I want to hurt myself, & I wouldn't be surprised if I end up institutionalized within the next year.

Anon-for-this. Please read ducky333 post again. It is very wise and has a lot of heart. She knows. Others know and can help. Please find them.

Whatever there is that is beautiful about you is still there. No one has taken it. No one could because it is only yours. Keep your hope. That is how you will unlock it.

I am sending you every good wish.

Hold on sweetheart. I have been where you are now. There is a place for you, there always has been. You are innocent, and you always have been. Lean on us, here is a soft place to rest for a while. It will be of tremendous help to you to see a therapist who can help you make sense of all that is going through your mind.

I am wrapping my arms around you in a giant hug, dear friend.
Hold on, it will come clean in the end.
There is a place of peace and healing just ahead.
Much love to you,
A.E.