People in my ward (adults and kids alike) were just CRUEL to eachother. A lot of people say our Ward was one of the worst in the area.

I was bullied by other people my age from primary all the way through my teenaged years because I was an awkward nerd. I didn't have it the worst, though. There was a deaf boy and an autistic girl in my ward that they treated pretty terribly. And the adults do it to eachother based off of how other people dress, how active their spouses are, etc.

It was unbearable.

Yes, it's been about 40 years now, but the bullying in church was probably worse than in school. I was a shy bookwork type and turned out to be gay, though I didn't know it at the time.

The boys in church were pretty ruthless.

Yup. I was bullied. Left at age 14 and did not return until 19. And now, not related to bullying I have left for good at 51.

I was and my youngest sister. She was gay and never tried to hide it. As I got older and bigger a lot of it stopped. After I got in to a fight and put the bishops son in the hospital, I was invited not to return. After I got out of jail, dad said he was proud of me.

Yes, and as previously pointed out, the bullying, similar to school settings, seemed to always be directed toward the marginalized, unpopular folks of the ward that were deemed defective in some manner -- the folks that the ward would secretly wish would go away. The adults were just as bad, if not worse, than kids. All the while the ward leadership, which inevitably included some of these bullies, would pretend like nothing ever happened.

I had long hair when I was fifteen. A bully grabbed me in the hall of the chapel and pulled a buck knife on me. He said he was going to cut off my hippie hair. He had both the size and the intellect of a haystack. I wrestled free of him, and he shoved me up against the wall as I broke away. Good Mormon boy, that one.

Those are the ones you NEVER forgive.

RB

"He had both the size and the intellect of a haystack."

What a great, descriptive line.

I was smaller and a bit awkward. Step father was very controlling and I wasn't allowed do the things the other kids did like go hang out at the mall or go to movies without my parents. Started lifting weights my freshman year. Then my true self came out and I literally beat the living hell out of one of them. 10 years of pent up rage. Got left alone after that. Surprised no one told any parents. They just said he fell or some bullshit story. Didn't care, got left alone. Then I moved to live with my father.

The girls in my ward treated me pretty horribly. They would never include me or anything. I have so many stories of them bullying me. This one sticks out the most to me though. One year at girls camp the leaders got this bright idea to do an iron rod scenario. They had a rope going through trees and rocks; and they blind folded us. They told us to hold onto the rope and not let go. We would also have a YCL to guide us. I didn't feel comfortable with it at all because I didn't trust my YCL to keep me safe. I told the leaders I wasn't comfortable doing it; yet, they made me do it anyway. Well the YCL in charge of me purposely ran me into a tree which resulted in me getting a head injury. I got a concussion and had to return home. The YCL didn't even get punished for it. She claimed it was an accident. I told the leaders that she did it on purpose. Leaders didn't believe me saying the girl is an innocent angel and would never do any harm upon me.

The Mormons pick on the helpless, too.

There were three of us divorced single mothers in the ward, and our fatherless children were fair game to bullies. I'm talking about ADULT bullies! We knew that they would never have assaulted our children, if we had had a MAN around to help protect us. Bullies are cowards.

These Priesthood and Scout leaders were parents, themselves. One put his son in the empty bathtub and beat him bloody, with two other kids watching in horror. This dad was promoted up the ranks to mission president.

Mormon males run in packs of at least two, sometimes three. They broke into my house when my children were still asleep, and I had gone to church early for my calling. They pulled my boys out of bed and onto the floor, and rolled them around on the floor with their feet, shoved them around the room, and forced them to get dressed without showering or even combing their hair, and then literally butt-kicked them down the stairs and into the car. At church, the boys and girls ridiculed my sons, because they looked rumpled, and it was obvious that they had slept too late. This happened quite a few times, as my boys were threatened not to tell. One morning, I asked my kids why they hated church, and they finally told me all of it! My daughter (who is honest) told us that the bishop's ugly oldest boy tried to molest her when she was only 11, at a church campout. She screamed, and many witnesses saw what was happening, but the bishop also threatened the kids to never tell, or there would be no more activities, and the tattler would be to blame. My daughter was afraid to tell me, until years later. It was at that instant that all of us resigned from the cult, together.

Mormon bullies always get away with it. Those horrible men worked their way up the Mormon ranks to bishop, stake president, mission president. The former Bishop became a temple president, then a Seventy! His creepy son went on a mission and got married, had two little girls, then mysteriously got divorced. No one spoke of it.

Mormons ignore, deny, and enable abuse of all kinds.

I've had a couple of experiences of church leaders bullying the membership. NormaRae and I remember a district leader who led our military district on Okinawa. He bullied the members and mission president alike. (The MP was none other than extreme Caspar Milquetoast, Goro Yamada, who lent himself to being bullied.) One of the most memorable things that the district president did was not allow males to enter the building anymore without a white shirt and tie. We had inactive Marines coming back to church all the time, coming in jeans and regular shirts, and we were glad to have them. But when a couple of guys went TDY to Korea, he had them buy a rack of white shirts in different sizes and a bunch of ties, and when someone would show up wearing "inappropriate" dress, we were supposed to explain that they could not come in unless they changed into one of the shirts and wore a tie. who was responsible for the shirts? The Relief Society.

He made all the guys shave off moustaches and sideburns, holding their temple recommends hostage.He lectured us unceasingly on rape, and made the women all wear long skirts or dresses. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he lived in Short Creek now.

The good news is that he was disliked at work and did not make major and had to leave the Air Force. Also, when he left Okinawa, we gave a wheels-up party, and everyone grew their sideburns and moustaches back. But not before he made the RS and elders quorum come over and clean his family quarters. (I didn't. I told people openly he was a shit. I was on his list, anyway, for wearing a Philippine dress shirt to some event.)

And it wasn't even a mormon church building that he controlled the dress in. It was the base chapel that housed a number of different denominations.

I actually missed his reign and only got the aftermath (couldn't breastfeed anywhere in the building). I think it took awhile for enough people to filter through, and it got better when they combined the military wards.

That sounds like the MP stake.... :/

And yes, it was awful....

I think that the Mormon ward system helps bullying flourish. In other religions, you would just leave. If people in a particular Catholic parish are mean or you don't like the priest, you attend another church. People go to church in other cities, where they grew up or whatever. But Mormon's have to go to their assigned ward and put up with whatever behavior they face. They could also just stop going, but they can't see it.

I left the church from life experiences. The history was icing. It has only been in the last year really that I've reexamined how I was treated and how my whole family was treated. Doesn't matter if you have mormon pioneer relatives.

I have oh so many experiences. I had a friend in elementary school in our ward whose parents were not active. Without her, i don't know what I would have done. I found out 2 years ago that she had committed suicide. I now keep in touch with her mother and she treats me so well. She and her husband always treated me well when I'd go to their home, unlike a lot of mormons. They were much wealthier than my family and yet they always treated me equally.

The rest of the girls always left me out. I remembered last year going to youth conference. There were 3 of us and I had to have my own room. I spent the entire time by myself. I never went again. Why did i stay mormon?

Hell, I had horrible treatment in the singles ward. These people (I've been married/separated for over 30 years) still think it is my fault my ex is gay. They think they can save him.

Oh, the ladies in YW when I was a leader was horrible, so I asked to be released.

As my older sister (who still attends SM) said, we were the fringe and still are. She says when she moves into wards, they think she and her husband are mormon royalty and it doesn't take them long to realize she is the fringe and he is royalty and she is treated accordingly.

Mormons are extremely cliquish. I still can't believe I stayed so damn long and took that kind of treatment.

My oldest son was bullied by a threesome: the SP's son; the bishop's son and the EPQ's son. Now he wont set foot in a Mormon church. I am sorry he had to go through that, but I can live with the final outcome.

I lived in a central state and our ward was very nice from all I can tell. I don't think any bullying went on when I was there. But that kind of thing can change instantly depending on the neighborhoods or just individuals in your ward and the leadership.

Does the LDS church approve of such behavior? No. But does it do things that could encourage a climate of bullying? Yes, I think you could say it does, in that it is very hierarchical and judgmental. The early church leaders, themselves, were the worst sort of bullies.

families. I thought church should be a refuge from the real world. When I saw it was as bad or worse, I took a hike,

I was 6' tall by the time I was 12 and was always the tallest kid so nobody fucked with me at church. Other kids at school rode me pretty hard because I was a fat kid until I bent a locker door with one of them. My Catholic wife grew up in the Mormon cesspool of Raymond, Ab and was bullied by Mormon kids.

RB