I've had three big moments when a bishop or a bishopric member has "counseled" me on things I should have seen a professional therapist for.

--The first time, when I was severely depressed as a teenager, my bishopric 2nd counselor (a hardcore fanatical TBM) told me it was because I was sinning in private. I confessed to masturbating, like any normal teenager, and I was punished. I was told the devil had taken a hold of my soul, and that made me terrified to sleep alone in my room in the dark... Two months after that, a proper therapist diagnosed me with manic depression and I found a way to manage my depression, no guilt trip prescribed.

--The second time, when I was nineteen and had been brutally raped and attacked with a knife by my former boss, my newly called bishop (also hardcore fanatical TBM and future stake president) told me I must have provoked him in some way, and that I should repent for sexually attracting a priesthood holder and returned missionary. I insisted I was innocent, and he proceeded to tell me that perhaps the Lord had given my rapist a vision, that I was to be his wife in the next life and this was his way of "marking his territory."...Once again, I saw a professional sexual assault counselor who reiterated over and over that it was not my fault, and lo and behold! I healed.

--The third time was when I became pregnant out of wedlock with my high school sweetheart. This same bishop stared me down coldly as I told him the news about my burgeoning belly, and these are the words he said. "You know, if you look at statistics, you may see a correlation between sexual sinners in the church and their children being born with birth defects and Downs Syndrome." ...This time, I literally said, "What the f*ck are you implying?" He didn't answer, just looked at me knowingly, so I walked away and refused to speak to him.

What stories can you tell of brilliant church leaders attempting to meddle in areas they are not professionally trained to advise on? Perhaps one of you was once in this position of having to "counsel" someone you didn't feel adequate to handle.

My most infamous encounter was when our Bishop at the time, a real asshat, informed my wife and I that we could not get our temple recommends renewed because we obviously had sinned.

Turns out the reason for his opinion was because we had a new baby daughter who had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome and according to him, that was proof of our wickedness, so until we repented and got corrective therapy from him for our greivous sins, that he in good conscience had to refuse us temple access.

This really devasted my wife, who went in to her interview first and came out crying. I nearly decked the asshat when he told me this during my interview. What a frickin monster! Who in these modern times holds such an ignorant opinion? Who with those opinions is allowed a leadership or influential church position offering counseling to well anyone? The LDS church really needs to be held accountable for the actions of "clergy" who are ignorant, uneducated, inexperienced and unfit to do these jobs. They do a tremendous amount of damage.

My wife had to have therapy because of this encounter because deep down she had repressed that she had probably been too old when she had our daughter and was somehow responsible. I've never wanted so much to do harm to a person in my life! Fortunately, I had good friends able to help support me.

I'm so glad we left the morg a decade ago and that my wife and our daughter are much better now. My daughter is doing fantastic and my wife now recognizes the crap the church leadership was flinging at us.

The LDS church is about destroying you, your family and everything it touches through guilt if they can't control you.

See what happens when you spend all your time studing 2000 year old text. You learn nothing new.

Wow, what a horrible thing you both went through. I feel so very bad for your wife, and you too.


My very very TBM daughter found out last year she was going to give birth to a baby with many heart and therefore lung defects. It was her 6th and they thought they were done and had told friends that, so it was a shock and she cried a lot in private when she first got pregnant.

Then she found out about the birth defects. She said it was just so very hard to tell people ( everyone she knows is LDS) about the fact that her baby was not perfect. I did not really get that. Now I think I do. I think she felt others would think God was punishing her for not wanting the child in the first place, and probably even believed that herself. It was awful.

Even though the Drs. told her the baby would not live a long life, she insisted that her baby would live.
She was very mad at me, an RN, for believing the Drs. I believe that she truly believed that God expected her to suffer for the rest of her life through having to care for a very sick child.

The baby died at 4 months, and she will now not speak to me ever. I know she blames me for the death of her child, because I did not have enough "mormon faith", when it was actually a huge blessing, or whatever you want to call it, to be relieved of such a huge burden when she already has so much on her plate. That child would have been on a ventilator her entire life. I was grateful when she died, it was all for the best ,she was so very ill, it was just heartbreaking , the entire thing, watching her fight so hard for life when there really was never a chance.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2010 11:22AM by think4u.

@thin4u

This is the horrible side of mormonism that few see.

It is terrible that mormons shun a member because they have a child with disabilities.

I can only imagine what would happen to mormon parent whose child was born a hermanphordite, especially giving the pervailing attitudes of the leadership. I know somebody who had exactly that happen about 25 years ago and the Stake High Council "voted" yes "voted" what the sex of the child should be.
Talk about arrogance. They prayed and bla bla bla, but in the end 14 or so ordinary men decided a child's sexual orientation.
It didn't even get decided by an Apostle or GA, even though that's really not much different, by still. Can you imagine??
A Mormon's absolute blind faith in other member's priestood authority is frightening and head-shaking. It's truly scary.

I'm not saying this happens everywhere, but there is definitely a prevailing attitude in the mormon church that if your child isn't born "normal," then something is wrong with the parents. As you stated, its a "challenge" or a "punishment or some other crazy idea.

There was a lot of pressure applied by leadership. In fact we were "encouraged" not to bless our baby in sacrament because of her "problems." They wanted it done on a Saturday separately.

This is just so unchristian an attitude coming from a church. Doesn't God love all his children?

Its just another form of discrimination and homophobia, which the mormons are really good at...