I get close to feeling like I can move on and start to forgive the bishop whose enlightened decisions drove me to attempt suicide in my early 20's, then something happens, and I sink back down again. I was sexually abused by an older, female, family member, starting when I was ten, and she was 15. This went on for almost 2 years, until she got caught. This bishop told me that this was my fault, since I was the guy. He put off my getting the priesthood until I was almost 13, and would not let me say prayers in classes, or take the sacrament. Basically, he disfellowshipped an 11 1/2 year old boy for putting up with 2 years of threats, abuse, and intimidation. He then shared this story with his family, including his daughter who was a year younger than me. He then assigned different member youth to be my "friend". I was looking on the internet last night, and found that this ex-bishop is now a Professor, and Associate Dean at BYU. I am close to hating this man and I can't let go.

OMG

Please be gentle to yourself. A child has NO control over a situation like that. It is OK to feel angry about this.

Forgive yourself, love yourself. You KNOW the truth. It WAS wrong what he did to you. You are NOT to blame

Time takes time.... One day you realize that you have moved it to the past, but time time

Hug

by forgive yourself, I mean not because you were at fault, but the mind works funny. Sometimes we keep punishing ourselves unnecessarily. Nothing you should beat yourself over

You were victimized at least twice, first by the original abuser and again by the bishop. What does moving on look like to you and does it have to include forgiveness or forgiveness right now? You have good reason to be angry with this guy.

I think the person you need to forgive is yourself.
You did nothing wrong.

The dipsh1t Bishop matters not one jot and what goes around comes around, he will get his one way or another.

If I were you, I could not let this just stand unresolved for one more second. I would, at the very least, write a letter to the bishop telling him what he's done to you, and the effect it's had on your life. I would probaby confront him in person also, but I understand that that might be too difficult. It's not right that he continues on his merry, super-righteous way through life after leaving your life devasted by his sick, unforgivable actions. No wonder you can't recover! No one would be able to! Confront this guy and let him know what he did. Do not mince words!
Also, consider a non-mo psychologist to help you get through this. This makes me so angry.

But when I was ten, especially thirteen I always wanted to be alone with the girls. Getting abused by a girls takes alots of (any adjective you can put here) that I can hardly begin to understand, even @ ten years sold Kids are fairly good to defend themselves.
What I don't understand is why didn't you go back to Bishop to tell him how you felt or sue the church because of his role?
You don't need to quit hating, but do not use these events as crutch for your future failures.
You need to get on with life, whatever it takes.

15-year old girls are much bigger and stronger than ten-year old boys. But there are also all kinds of other ways to verbally coerce young kids. For example, "I will tell your mom and dad you were ____________ if you say anything about ___________." Or being curious and led into something by an older kid.

I am really surprised you don't get it, since you are a medical professional (right?) and likely a mandated reporter. If you are a mandated reporter, you need to update your education on this topic. The first thing you should learn about is "blaming the victim."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2012 10:39AM by robertb.

+1

+1

Very ignorant of you to blame the child.

Why kids might go along with being sexual with others.

Kids and sexual thing done by other kids/siblings. It can take many forms.

Outright force. Sexual compliance is gained by using fear or force.

Manipulation of allegiance. Compliance is gained by using fear of withholding friendship etc.

Manipulation of wants. Giving you things that you can’t get for yourself, but that you badly want. Candy, gifts, etc. Poor kids who have gone without compared to what their friends have are susceptible.

Manipulation of sexual desire. Sex is often fun for children. And children sometimes have sexual experimentation with each other that is not abusive at all. It many times takes the form of, I’ll let you touch mine, if I can touch yours type of things. Sometimes it can be manipulative when a more cunning person will give a little of what one child wants, but they have to give a lot of what the other child wants in return, making it a manipulation.

And sometimes kids just have harmless sexual experimentation with each other. That is when no manipulation happens. No fear is used, they’re just curious and want to experiment.

Often times in those innocent sexual times, and adult finds out and turns it into a horrible nightmare of trauma for the child. And that trauma is real and lasting, and is linked to the sex. Then the child feels guilty for enjoying it. Guilty for getting caught etc. etc. etc. Kind of like the guilt the church puts on kids for masturbating.

If kids do have innocent, non-manipulative sexual experimenting with each other, it’s appropriate for adults to calmly let them know not to do that anymore. Kind of the same way a wise parent will tell a kid that touching themselves sexually is not a good thing to do unless they are in the bathroom, or their bedroom with the door closed. It should be done privately, and we don’t talk about it with others. It’s private. You don’t want a kid that goes to school and raises his hand and tells the teacher that he plays with his pee pee, and it feels good.

Teaching them that it is private, will help protect them from getting in trouble for having non manipulative experimenting with other kids. Even though the sex might not be harmful necessarily, being cast as the neighborhood weird kid would be. Being labeled as the kid who perverted someone else’s little angel of a kid would be. Thinking that they could do it at school during recess with another equally curious kid and getting in trouble would be a problem. Etc. etc.

So catching two kids touching each other’s private parts is no cause for alarm and humiliation. Teaching them not to do it again is wise.

As a child of 5-years I showed the neighbor girl mine, and she showed me hers. It was awesome, we both thought it was wonderful, and we didn’t get caught. Had we been caught, it may have been the most humiliating thing that happened in my childhood. And likely it would have been, knowing my parents. And it would have been so needless to humiliate.

No harm was done to either of us.

He holds ZERO responsibility for this.

quinlansolo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But when I was ten, especially thirteen I always
> wanted to be alone with the girls. Getting abused
> by a girls takes alots of (any adjective you can
> put here) that I can hardly begin to understand,
> even @ ten years sold Kids are fairly good to
> defend themselves.
============================================
BULL$Ħ!†!!!

Q, you haven't a clue.
You ARE correct when you admit that you "can hardly begin to understand"- there are other ways to intimidate a child besides brute force!


> What I don't understand is why didn't you go back
> to Bishop to tell him how you felt or sue the
> church because of his role?
=================================================
He was a child, Q. A CHILD!!!!


> You don't need to quit hating, but do not use
> these events as crutch for your future failures.
> You need to get on with life, whatever it takes.
=====================================================
I don't know which makes me madder- your blaming the VICTIM or your "Just get over it" ideation. He never said he was "us[ing]
these events as crutch for future failures"! YOU did!

You have all the understanding and compassion of a kumquat.
Are you sure you ain't a Mo-mole in here?

You are going to encounter good, understanding folks, and silly clueless folks. Sometimes the only way to let go of the hatred, at least for a while, is to just shove it out of your mind.

If you are a believer, there is a prayer for when you simply cannot forgive... in it, you just shove the creeps at Deity, however you perceive he/she/it to be, and say, "Here, *you* take 'em, they're stinking up my mind too much."

Sometimes humans have crap happen to them, and because it never gets fully sorted out in their minds, it just stays an uneasy dark pile of pain. We can push it back down, and it will lay low for a while. But then as you found out, something can trigger it and up it all comes again until you push it back down.

There is an exercise that you could do with yourself that may help to fully sort this all out. Think generally towards specific on that whole episode in your life as it relates to him, then ask yourself why does it hurt? Do it even though it seems like, well duh!

So for example say to yourself, what was that all about? Your answer would be something like, the bishop screwed me over. Then say, why did that hurt? Answer, something like, because it was embarrassing, or because I thought he would treat me better, or because I believed him and thought it was my fault, etc. etc.

Whatever the answer you come up with is, again say why does that hurt? Then follow that one down further asking why does that hurt? Do that till you can’t go further and you’ll be down to what the core pain was all about.

Then usually, as you were going through the exercise you had things that could have branched out another direction, but you went the other way with your questioning. Go back and start there and chase them all the way down again the other direction. Think upside down family tree.

Do it till there is nothing left to chase down, and you will have very clearly and distinctly know why exactly this was all so painful for you. Usually even people who think they have a pretty good handle on why something bothers them will be surprised what it all was really about specifically.

Doing all of that takes time and emotional energy. But in the end, rather than a dark recess in your memories that is a churning cauldron of hurt and crap that pops up every now and then. It will be a very specific, categorized and filed away memory.

When it comes up again in the future, because it was all so neatly filed away, it won’t be the sickening dark dread that washes over you. It will be more like a brightly lit file room full of rows of file cabinets that one happens to be labeled the bishop sucks and here’s why file. Nothing in it will be a surprise. Nothing will be waiting to be thought out and filed. It’s all in their sitting in its correctly labeled file.

Years later when you see a retirement announcement, or obituary, that darkness won’t wash over you. That brightly lit file room will just be walked into once again, and the file will be updated with, and the bastard’s dead now file.

It's so much easier to explain in person. But an upside down family tree is a good visual of how it all branches, and how all the branches will eventually reach a terminus. Follow each of them asking, "Why does that hurt?"

I've known it to help many people.

Hypothetically, in a completely different manner than in this thread, a person might have a co-worker who borrowed bus fare and never paid them back. They find that it's a bigger deal to them than it seems like it should be. It really bothers them a lot and makes work difficult with that person.

After chasing it all down in this same manner, they may find that what is actually bothering them is that it reminds them of being a child and their brother always taking things from them, and not giving it back. Perhaps the brother would lie and the parents would believe him and do nothing to the brother. Etc.

Then they would know that the co-worker thing was bothering them because of how it felt as a child to be victimized, and having parent’s that never believed them.

Once they know why losing $3 to a co-worker is feeling like such a big deal as a 40-year-old. It most likely won't keep bothering them as bad. They will be able to see it for what it really is. The co-worker is not their brother, and nobody at work is their mom and dad. But it all felt like it before they knew what was bothering them so badly about it.

DNA, that's a wonderful phrase. Very appropriate.

Only it's one stinky smelly pile too!

It would be good to go public with something like this, because it would expose how differently Mormons take care of this serious, serious problem, and how their doctrine exposes members to this treatment. All it takes is a bishop to seriously read something like Miracle of Forgiveness and take it to heart. I mean, people gotta know.

I so agree. Go public with it. People have to know what kind of sick stuff passes for normal in TSCC.

Publicity needed here. Plenty of precedent from the various Catholic church scandals as to the methods. Bott got the axe for merely rehearsing accurate mormon doctrine concerning Blacks. How long do you think the Dean would last with this publicity?

You should confront him. Preferably in an embarassing, public way, like in a fast and testimony meeting in his home ward, but at least in the form of cathartic letter that tells him exactly what you think of him and his incompentence.

Great idea. That forum would be ideal.

I understand the desire to publically confront the former bishop and the Church with this incident. There are positives to doing it. There are also potential negative consequences to the OP as well, such as unwanted publicity, the emotional upheavel, hearing from people who are critical or unbelieving, etc. I think the decision of whether to confront and how to confront is a very personal decision that only the OP can make as part of working through this experience.

robertb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I understand the desire to publically confront the
> former bishop and the Church with this incident.
> There are positives to doing it. There are also
> potential negative consequences to the OP as well..


I agree with Robert.

And another pitfall of the strategy is the person saying, “You’re lying, I never did any such thing to you!” Or some other similar minimization. And then he’d have the pain of the original abuse at the hands of the Bishop, compounded by the later lies about it. Not much cathartic about that scenario if it were to happen.

Might not happen, but it’s a very realistic risk.

I think that an angry letter would be cathartic. Whether the OP decides to send it or burn it, at least he would get a chance to let his fully mature adult self respond with the righteous indignation that this betrayal deserves.

Truckerexmo, I'm so sorry. You deserved far better treatment than that.

My Dad denied he was a child molester even days before he died.
Convicted, registered, serial pedophile.

I had envisioned him saying how sorry he was. Never happened.

Now, as I have grown, it is no longer necessary.

Do it at your own pace.... days...months...years

It does get better