Posted by:
Anon for this One
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Date: November 13, 2017 08:17PM
Many years ago, when our youngest daughter was 13, she was raped by an adult non-member. She had already been acting rebellious for a couple of years, but suddenly, she went completely off the rails. We had no idea why.
One of her school friends called us, in a scared little voice, to tell us that DD was smoking pot. DH got angry and told the little girl not to ever call back. As it turned out, not only was she telling the truth, but DD continues to smoke weed nearly two decades later.
DD was very clever and we didn't know about a lot of her behavior until years later, but she DEMANDED birth control pills due to alleged PMS (I realized that this was BS, but didn't want to wind up as a grandmother, so I caved. DH did not know for quite some time.)
After years of very rebellious (and dangerous) misbehavior, DD finally told us that she had been "touched inappropriately" (which she later changed to "raped") and had reported it to the bishop. She was afraid to tell her father, for fear that he would attempt to kill the rapist. And this was NOT an unrealistic fear. She didn't want her Dad in jail.
Mind you, SHE was the underage victim of sexual violence by a 40-something male. She told this to the bishop. Even then, there was a law in our state requiring ANY adult who learns about a minor being sexually victimized to report it to the proper authorities. He never did.
What he did was to tell her not to take the Sacrament for a couple of weeks, and then come in to see him again. She then refused to go to church at all, which caused huge fights in our family. She would not explain why she did not want to go to church, and her father exerted considerable pressure to force her to go. (I was not her bio mom, so I stayed a step back.)
This whole mess spiraled way out of control. She went into a period of sneaking out at night, having sex with innumerable guys, (she has since told me that some of the guys, she only knew by a nick-name, such as "Sparky.")
So there were massive fights about church every week until she was 18 and could resign (at the same time as I did.) Her life was very much messed up, and nearly two decades later, while it is better, she still isn't on course completely.
When DD finally told her father what had happened, he went ballistic because the bishop 1)treated her as a "sinner," 2) failed to report this sexual abuse to either her parents or the state authorities, and 3) reamed the hell out of the bishop, demanding to know why the man thought himself above state law. (The bishop claimed confidentiality of clergy, but that one didn't fly on way too many levels.)
If the bishop had reported the incident as he should have, we might have been able to obtain appropriate counseling for our daughter at the time. Once we found out, we forced her to go to a counselor, but she refused to say a word during two sessions, and the counselor told us not to bring her back. So over the years, DD has come to terms with this entirely on her own.
I have never understood why Mormon clergy fails to realize that the rules SO apply to them, at least, in some cases. (In our state, he didn't have to report because he was a "clergyman," but because ANY adult who learns about the molestation of a child is required to report. And he did not.)