an autobiographical treatise on the relationship between the patriarchal system, sexual and spiritual/ecclesiastical abuse in my life by Charlotte J. Rickett (e-mail: CharLittle@aol.com)
Recovery from incest is a life long journey. I am not there but I strive to be there. I know that no one "arrives" until death and then it is only hope for me. I don't know that it is a fact that one attains full health, peace and joy after death. All I can do is hope. I do believe that incest has far reaching effects which probably last throughout eternity but then perhaps, this spiral of eternal non-progression began in the preexistence because of my own behavior and decisions. Perhaps I was not worthy of entering a mortal body with a normal, happy, healthy family should such a family exist. I know many who claim to have been raised in such families, especially in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many try to present the image of a normal, happy, healthy family. My family did the same.
PART 1 - The Personal History
I was born in 1935, a time during which the psychiatric community still considered Sigmund Freud supreme, the one who rejected his own work in regard to "the aetiology of hysteria" in which he claimed that theoretically the origins of hysteria in women had to do with sexually perverted acts committed against them as children. Freud was unable to believe his own theory because it was beyond credibility or so he thought. Dr. Freud refused to continue listening to his female patients and so did every other MD since thereby giving complete license to the patriarchal perpetrators of sexual abuse against women and children. How perfect for them that there was no professional acknowledgement of the overwhelming psychological damage done by these criminal acts against defenseless, innocent children since the beginning of time and which period would be prolonged almost 100 more years into the 1980's.
It was in 1983 at the age of 48 when I first learned from a counselor at Parents United in San Francisco, Ca. that what happened to me as a child was considered incest. (1) This came to me as a surprise and also at a time when I was in recovery from the disease of alcoholism and under the care of a qualified Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Werboff of Hartsdale, NY, the second Freudian devotee who was unable to help me with a variety of emotional problems. This second psychiatrist suggested that I "let go of the past since the incest was not impacting my life", his comment, not mine. Not only was I in recovery from alcoholism in 1983 but I was being divorced by my husband of 27 years and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was preparing to excommunicate me. My own general compliance in trying to please all men and my trust in the doctor delayed my sexual recovery from incest for another five years.
My mother, Lois Little Rickett, converted to Mormonism before I was born and remained active in the church until she died in 1981. My father, Stanton B. Rickett, who came from an incestuous family of origin, never joined the church. I have a sister, Julie Rickett, who is eight years younger than myself and a brother, S. Bryant Rickett, who is 10 years older. After I was born in 1935 my father focused on me and I became his designated "Daddy's little girl." I went everywhere with him, slept with him and bathed with him. I ate dinner on his lap every night, fed by his hand until I was about seven years old. He took me ice-skating, roller-skating, to the movies at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. He took me to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade every year and to the NYC beaches in the summer. He carried me everywhere. I was his and he was mine. I became his surrogate spouse. (2)
Now I know that my mother was jealous of me: however, she tried very hard to do a good job as my mother. With my father's permission, I was blessed, baptized and raised in the Mormon church and totally indoctrinated since birth. I was taught that the church was perfect, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the priesthood governed the church and that God who was once as man, was in charge of the world and everything in it. I learned early on that powerful men were governing this world and that women were weak and powerless like my mother who was very passive and dependent.
My father was also in charge and very powerful, just like God or so I thought. To a small child any father can seem omnipotent and when that father abuses his power in any way, the child who is unable to reason as an adult, who cannot survive without her parents' care and protection, must believe her parents are good and great as I thought mine were. Since my parents were always right and good then I must have been bad and caused the trouble in my family. My father was my god and there was no one as powerful as he was. Since God or Heavenly Father is male, He must be just like Daddy. My spiritual development became skewed and I now know that childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by one's father is always spiritually abusive as well as emotionally and physically harmful.
When I was nine years old my father disappeared. I do not remember his departure or whether he even said good-bye. One day I woke up and he wasn't there. I remember that later my mother told me that he had to go to work in Washington state and I remember he sent letters and packages. I believed that he was gone for three years but about seven years ago I read in my mother's journals which I read after her death, that he had been gone only for six months. I do not remember his return or have any memories of his presence for three years.
I do remember a man being in my bedroom once when I was about ten years old. It was after I had gone to bed and it was dark. I remember being paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move. My tongue was frozen. I couldn't speak or scream for help. Someone was there in the dark and I was totally helpless. (3)
I remember nothing more about that night but that was about the same time frame in which my hysterical symptoms began. At about the age of nine I started to experience frequent panic attacks and depression (two of the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.) I became a very lonely and isolated little girl unable to leave home because of my fears. When I was 11 years old I read in my father's diary, "I wonder why I prefer to sleep with a child as opposed to a woman." On some level, I knew what he did with me was abnormal and at that time I told my mother I never wanted to sleep with him again. She finally put a stop to it. (4)
However, episodes of depression and panic attacks plagued me for many years to come. I remember one time I had been hospitalized with a possible ectopic pregnancy and I became so dissociated and hysterical that the staff cleared the room of other patients. My arms became numb and were temporarily paralyzed. My hands cramped up and I thought I was going to die. Such episodes were always followed by long periods of depression.
In 1954 when I was 19 I married John Monaco who was not LDS. John joined the church five years later and we raised four sons together and were active in the church as a young and growing family. I always hid my depressions from the church because I learned that many members believe that if one lived the gospel and kept God's commandments one would never have psychological problems. I was ashamed of my emotional problems even though I knew I had kept all of the commandments to the best of my ability and had served the church in various capacities as Ward and Stake Relief Society worker, YW President and Gospel Doctrine teacher for many years. I was intelligent, capable and always willing to share my gifts with the church. No one except my husband knew of my depressions and panic attacks until in 1973 when I broke down and became unable to function normally except for the most mundane tasks of child care. Our sons were ages 13, 11, 9, and 3. The facades and denial were over. I clearly needed help.
I went to my first Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Ira Kishner of Great Neck, NY, who prescribed Tofranil, Valium and Biphetamines which I proceeded to ingest all together for two and one half years. Although none of the drugs helped me the doctor continued this RX regimen and I saw him in therapy once or twice a week until 1975. During this time my family fell apart. The two older boys began to use alcohol and marijuana and got into trouble with the police.
My husband changed jobs at this time, left the church and began to drink. And the church? I didn't attend church anymore. I just suddenly stopped going to meetings. The leaders as well as the members assumed we had become inactive and they didn't bother with us even though we lived around the corner from the ward in Uniondale, Long Island, NY.
When I withdrew from the prescribed drugs against psychiatric advice, I began to feel a little better but I realized that there was beer and wine in my home and I was angry. As long as I was in a drug induced, altered state of consciousness I could accept what was going on around me.....my children in trouble, my drinking husband being at work late or out on his boat, the non-caring church leaders/members but when I started to "feel" again I saw the alcohol in the fridge and I wanted revenge so I decided to hurt myself. I began to drink for the first time in my life at the age of 40.
I also wanted out of my current circumstances and I reasoned that leaving my husband would be the solution. I felt emotionally abandoned by him and realized that he hadn't given me much support while I had been sick so I left him twice, in 1976 and 1979. I wanted to end the marriage. My alcoholism had progressed by 1980 to the point where I was drinking around the clock. Eventually my second Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Werboff, suggested that I enter an alcohol rehab because I was drinking and using valium at the same time. I began to smoke. I wanted to die. I was still very sick.
I entered the alcoholic rehab in April of 1981 and my recovery began. I learned about the disease of alcoholism and I began to realize what terrible things had happened to me during the past eight years and what a bad situation I was in. The staff at St. Vincent's Hospital in Harrison, NY was very helpful, supportive and non-judgemental. They told me I needed to reach out and ask for help. I was undecided about leaving my husband, John Monaco, but unfortunately, he was unable to give me any support while I was hospitalized. He came to visit me a couple of times and because he was raising his voice in angry tones the nurses would open the door and ask if I was all right. He refused to attend family sessions or see my psychiatrist or case manager while I was in treatment. When he picked me up to bring me home he screamed at me during the whole trip blaming me for the horrible things that had happened to our family. When I got home I found that there was still alcohol in the house. My husband and the children were still drinking. It took me a month to find an apartment and leave with my youngest son during which time my husband would scream at me every day telling me how all of our problems were my fault, that I was an unfit mother and a bad wife. I believed him.
When I left the hospital I was determined to return to full activity in the church. I was going to reach out and ask for help, not only at Alcoholics Anonymous but I wanted to straighten out my relationship with God as well. I called the Relief Society President, Linda Jones, and asked her to visit with me. She sat in my living room for two hours and listened primly to my story as far as I knew it at that time. I thought I had made a friend but she never called me and hardly spoke to me in church for five months during which time I attended church meetings regularly.
I was angry with my husband for so many reasons. I think what hurt me the most though was that he started dating other women while we were still living together as man and wife before I went into rehab. However, I would have stayed with him in the marriage if he had supported me emotionally and if he had only been able to show love and understanding when I came out of the hospital. I met many single men in AA after we were legally separated and I began to date.
During the summer of 1981 I went to visit my parents still unaware that I was a victim of incest perpetrated by my father. I tried to explain my alcoholism to my mother but she couldn't understand and denied that alcoholism ran in the family. My father was indifferent to my situation. After all, he was a drinker himself and probably an alcoholic which condition manifested after his retirement.
In the fall of 1981 my mother died of old age and natural causes; my youngest son decided to return to live with his father and I was devastated. I stopped going to church. I asked my boyfriend to move in with me and we lived together for several months. In the meantime, John Monaco became so upset that although he was inactive in the church he went to priesthood leaders and told them what I had done. They invited me to visit with them in the Bishop's home and I agreed. John Monaco attended this meeting with me in the presence of High Councilman Robert Webber, Bishop Kent Fitzgerald and his counselors. I confessed my sin of adultery to these men who represented the Mormon church.
Eventually, Bishop Kent Fitzgerald decided to counsel with me once a week for several months before he convened a church court to bring charges against me. In 1983 John Monaco decided to divorce me, I discovered I was an incest survivor and the church excommunicated me for committing adultery. (5) I was still seeing the second Freudian psychiatrist and during my sessions with the Bishop I asked him to confer with my doctor. The bishop refused.
In 1984 my health began to fail (beginning with Graves' Disease and progressing to heart disease) and the same year I was asked by my brother if I would take care of our father since he was too much trouble for my brother and his wife with whom my father had been living since the death of my mother. I left my job, moved to Arizona and my sister, father and I proceeded to live together for several months. I was told by my medical doctor that I could no longer care for my father, that I was physically unable and my father who was drinking around the clock was removed and put into a group home where he died in 1989.
In 1988 my recovery from incest began due to the astute observations and good work of a female psychiatric social worker in my behalf and I began the long and arduous journey of recovering from sexual abuse. I went back to college and earned a degree in chemical dependency counseling, was hired by Sierra Tuscon and worked there until 1992.
In 1988 I joined an LDS group in Mesa, Az. called the "Good Shepherd" program which was organized to give support to excommunicated former LDS people who wished to repent and be baptized once again. It was because of this program and the ADAM (which means Alcoholics, Drug Addicts, Anonymous Mormons) program, also in Mesa, that I was able to reintegrate and return to the church. I was rebaptized into the church in 1989 and moved from Mesa to Tuscon in 1990. In 1992 I met and fell in love with a wonderful man whom I later married in 1993.
PART 2 - The Spiritual/Ecclesiastical Abuse
Perhaps the most serious spiritual abuse of all are the lies we tell our children, the hypocrisy, the games we play and the facades we create for them to prove to the church and community that we are normal, healthy functional families, typically American as so often portrayed in the world of television in the early 50's and 60's. Televison programming has become more realistic since then but the dysfunction in the American family persists.
It also disables children when we teach them to obey authority, even parents, without question. (Over 90% of all childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by trusted family members and friends. I contend that the incidence of childhood sexual abuse in the Mormon church is as high as in the secular community.)
When I was a child in the 40's I thought my family was like every other family. It never occurred to me that other little girls did not sleep and bathe with their fathers but I knew on some level not to discuss it with other children or adults. I never talked about what went on in our home. My mother especially, did all she could to preserve the "image" of normalcy but when we were alone she would talk about my father. She knew that there was something wrong with him and yet, in spite of his death threats towards her and his beatings of my brother and myself, she deferred to him as the head of the household, she obeyed him even though he was not a member of the church. She was afraid of him and also submissive to her husband as a good Mormon wife is taught to be.
When the authoritarian, patriarchal father in the home is revered as such a godlike being and the activities of the family revolve around him as the center there is great potential for spiritual abuse as in my case. As previously discussed I learned what Heavenly Father, the God of all, was like by observing my own mortal father. When my biological father was physically and emotionally abusive towards me, when he abused me sexually, when he deserted the family and when he could not be exemplary as in worshipping Heavenly Father himself and treating his family with dignity and respect, my small growing spirit was wounded. John Bradshaw, a renowned and popular expert in the field of family systems therapy, calls this "soul murder."
The first case of ecclesiastical abuse occurred when in 1950 I suddenly dropped from a straight "A" high school student to barely passing. I played hookey with my friends and went to NYC to see various live shows at the Paramount, such as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Johnnie Ray, Billy Eckstein et al. I thought I was a bad kid and nothing mattered to me anymore. I would try to confide in my mother but she was unable to help me because she was self-involved and I always ended up counseling her. (I had been her main advisor since the age of nine.) However, she did try to help me by asking the Branch President of Brooklyn Branch, NY Stake who was then Carl Petterson, to counsel with me. She told him that I needed help. He refused because he felt unqualified.
Everyone was unqualified in those days. No one understood anything about the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse. Even if there had been a psychiatrist that our impovershed family could afford he wouldn't have been able to help me. All of the medical doctors at the time and up until the early 80s felt that I was emotional and high strung. Later on it was recognized that I was depressed but none of them could explain the panic attacks. I felt crazy and there was no one to talk to in or out of the church. Before the 80s I had very little understanding of my own problems. I felt hurt that no one seemed to care about me.
As a child I had been taught that the church was perfect. I was never taught that the men who ran the church were not perfect. God was of course, perfect. I still have no doubt about that and I have a strong faith that God lives and that Jesus Christ is His Son but I certainly do not understand Them. I was taught that God is a man and since the church is governed by men I always believed that the "church is a man," although, intellectually, I can see the irrationality of these childlike beliefs, they plague me to this day.
When I married John Monaco in 1954 I was ill-prepared to be a wife and mother; however, I believed I would be able to do a good job since I always kept God's commandments and obeyed church leaders, including my own husband, who served in various callings one of which was counselor to Bishop John Wendt in Uniondale Ward, NY Stake (about 1970 for two years.) There was very little definition of child abuse (or wife battering) then and once again in my life it never occurred to me that John was emotionally abusive or that I was being covertly abused.
The emotional abuse consisted of ridicule, put-downs and jokes at my expense with no praising or admiration. At the time I had no idea that the pattern of belittling was damaging to me. I deferred to John as the head of the household and since he held the priesthood I thought he "was always right" and I must have been at fault. I rarely challenged him for the first 19 years of our marriage. I remember praying every day to Heavenly Father and actually asking Him to "please forgive me of my sins because I know I am a bad person." I also mistakenly believed feeling inferior was proof of and the same as humility.
During that marriage I always felt like a "child" and that John would take care of me. Now as I look back I know that he had his own emotional problems as well and was very insecure, also lacking confidence and feeling inferior. His need to belittle others including myself and our children, served his own emotional needs and he was then able to feel better about himself. The truth is that both of us were full of facades, trying to present to the church and community the image of a normal, happy, healthy family. The spiritual abuse was perpetrated innocently by virtue of the patriarchal family system which we sustained as obedient members of the Mormon church. I obeyed John simply because he held the priesthood and was head of the household, not because he was right, another instance when questioning authority would have been appropriate.
During the later years after he became inactive in the church, as I became weaker and more unstable John became more aggressive. The pattern of belittling other family members escalated into screaming, swearing, threatening episodes of family feuding and I was surely the main object of his emotional abuse. He never could understand why I was unable to "pull myself up by my own bootstraps."
Another occasion of ecclesiastical abuse in my life was perpetrated by a woman, Sister Linda Jones, who was the Relief Society President in the Yorktown Ward, NY Stake in 1981. After leaving the alcohol rehab that Spring I called her to ask for help and as previously stated she listened to my story for about two hours and she left, never to be heard from again, not even a phone call. I think as I look back upon it she probably felt more than inadequate to help me in any way, but she certainly was capable of being my friend. She was able to pick up the telephone and talk to me to see how I was doing. She knew I lived alone with a small young son. She could have "assigned" me to someone who might have pretended to care. This Relief Society President couldn't even pretend to care. I don't advocate pretense and hypocrisy in a relationship but sometimes one can learn alot by extending a helping hand as an assignment or by feeling an obligation to be a Good Samaritan and to treat all as brothers and sisters. Sometimes when one extends oneself as a result of duty one makes wonderful friends and learns so much from them which has certainly been my own experience. I never called Linda to ask her to come to see me again but rather I felt the stigma of my disease of alcoholism. I felt bad, dirty and unwanted.....abandoned is a suitable word. However, I attended meetings for five months without her or anyone else's support or friendship in that ward.
Before I discuss the excommunication there is another area of ecclesiastical abuse which I would like to cover and it is in regard to my youngest son, Daniel Monaco. He was born in 1970, over six years after my third son and he was essentially raised alone. His older brothers were involved in activities which were totally out of his realm of experience and of course, they were not in his age group. Jeff, Mitch and Jamie had been baptized into the church and all had been born under the covenant but Dan had been neglected spiritually because John Monaco and I had been inactive in the church since 1973. There were two times I asked the church, specifically Bishop Kent Fitzgerald who was our home teacher, to help me with Dan. The first time was when I had left home to live alone in 1979 and the second time was when I left NY in 1984 to take care of my father in Arizona. Both times I requested that the Bishop take an interest in my child and perhaps pick him up for church meetings since the Monaco's and the Fitzgerald's were close neighbors in Somers, NY. There was no response. Dan was never approached by the Bishop or anyone else who could have been assigned to become involved with him. This hurt me a great deal when no one from the ward took an interest in Dan and I consider this ecclesiastical abuse against a child.
I know that many who have been excommunicated have felt the love and righteousness of the judgements of church courts (now referred to as disciplinary councils.) However, I was not one of those people. In 1983 while being counseled by Bishop Fitzgerald as well as my second Freudian psychiatrist, I took some time out to visit my nephew and his wife, Chris and Sandra Rickett, who lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since she knew of my problems Sandra was particularly interested in helping me to see a General authority while I was there and one day we went over to the Church Office Building where I was able to visit with Sterling W. Sill GA emeritus, who was 80 years old at that time. I had read his books and was very glad to be able to see him and discuss my situation of imminent excommunication. He ministered to me for almost two hours. I spoke to him during the first 20 minutes to tell him my story as I understood it then and he spoke the remainder of the time.
Following are some excerpts from my notes made on Saturday, April 30, 1983 which was the day after our meeting.
"It was interesting. He (Sill) told me that, of course, I could be forgiven of adultery. Jesus suffered for all of the sins of mankind and if I truly repented I would not have to suffer the buffetings of Satan in the life hereafter. He told me that 'repentance is fun' and I shouldn't be concerned about Kimball's hard-line attitudes in "The Miracle of Forgiveness." Sterling W. Sill said that some authorities feel that a person who has committed a serious sin should suffer and be punished by the church. And he disagrees with that. He feels that a "sinner" should be "loved" back in to the church with open arms, with kindness and compassion. He said that seven Bishops would handle my case in seven different ways.
Brother Sill was very open and honest, candid and even graphic. I have not experienced that with any member of the church before. Only in AA have I heard such honesty. Sill said that masturbation was a better choice than adultery if one needed relief. He didn't say it was OK to masturbate, just that it was not such a grievous sin. He recognized human needs and appetites. He did not ignore them and even brought up the subject himself by asking me how many orgasms I required in a given period of time. The man was amazing.
He said that the most serious disease in society today was that of the 'inferiority complex.' He implied that God wants us to feel good about ourselves and we should forgive ourselves of our own sins as God forgives us.
He discussed sex freely and frankly, a real surprise to me. He said sex was wonderful when performed between a man and woman in the right situation under the right conditions.
He was an intriguing character. He often used hand gestures to describe the sex act. And his language was descriptive, using the words, "putting the penis in a woman" and "fondling a woman's breasts" as being most enjoyable and wonderful when done in the right context."
At the time I was involved with a man, Bjorn Norgrenn, whom I had met in AA back in 1981. I truly loved Bjorn but unfortunately, he began to drink again, was not able to work and we couldn't marry since my alimony would stop when I married again. I was deeply enmeshed with Bjorn and was unable to give him up. I just wasn't strong enough. My relationship with him lasted until 1989 when he died of alcoholism. In the meantime, in 1983, John Monaco decided to file for divorce which became final in November. On December 15, 1983 I was excommunicated because I was not ready to repent of my sins. (6)
There was one more incident of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse that I wish to mention which occurred in 1992 long after the excommunication in 1983. After Bjorn Norgrenn died I decided to refrain from dating and establishing romantic relationships with men until 1992 when I was working at Sierra Tucson Treatment Center. Working in that particular therapeutic environment was a great experience and I will cherish the friends I made there all of my life but as counselors we were very prone to seeing each other differently than people did in the outside world (including the church.) There was little hypocrisy, few facades and lots of honesty. One day a friend at work pointed out to me that withdrawing from relationships with the opposite sex was not the healthiest behavior for a counselor to be modeling. I thought about that for a long time and since I had rejoined the church in 1989 I concluded that it may be safe to date LDS men who were single. I was very active in the church in Tuscon, Az. and there were a few good men around, one of whom was my Home Teacher who was in the process of a divorce. (7) This man and I became close friends, began dating and before long the relationship became sexual including everything short of penile penetration. I realize that there are countless instances of this going on in the church among singles and that many single priesthood holders have the same attitude towards sexual activity before marriage but I will say that what made this situation different to me is the fact that this man was a High Priest Group Leader in his Ward. Although I acknowledge my own responsibility in this and I am sorry for my actions this man was a priesthood holder who was my age, with a responsible position in the church. What hurt me the most was that he was able to repent every night and continue to preach, pray, teach and attend temple ceremonies in Mesa while I was very disturbed by our behavior; I tried to repent, realized our behavior was out of control, finally stopped going to the temple and eventually refused sacrament. How differently we approached the same problem! Later I learned that this man was not seriously interested in me because he considered me "damaged goods" which name he called his own daughter because she had had a baby out of wedlock.
PART 3 - Summary
I want to make it perfectly clear that I accept and own the responsibility for committing sexual sin. I am making no excuses for my behavior and I am sorry for what I have done. I know that God has forgiven me but I am not quite sure that I have forgiven myself. When I try to make sense out of my life and realize the unfortunate choices I have made my heart grieves. I could have done so much better with the talents and gifts that God has given me. What I am trying to do is arrive at a fair and reasonable assessment of my own conduct, finding a balance between unrealistic guilt and denial of all moral responsibility.
Trying to make sense out of it all has been my objective in writing this paper. I do not have a strong testimony today. My faith is weak but when I look at the past I begin to comprehend. If indeed, the spiritual and ecclesiastical experiences previously related herein, have been abuses then it is easy to understand why after repeated spiritual trauma my heart and soul have been so shattered. All I have left is hope that God, the Heavenly Father will understand.
Whether the reader agrees that I have experienced various types of abuse or not, the most important aspect of my case is how I felt about it. As a child I could hardly endure experiences of physical, sexual and emotional abuse without tremendous ego damage. I learned early on that I was "damaged goods", worthless as indicated by the treatment received in my family of origin. It was only in 1988 that I began to realize that God loved me no matter what, when I began serious sexual recovery work. Now I believe that I am a good person with a lot to offer others and I have dedicated the remainder of my years to service in the recovering community. I want to reassure the reader that today I am in an advanced healing position and experiencing many of the gifts of such healing.
However, as a small traumatized child, my sense of safety or basic trust in the world was negatively affected, including relationships with others and with God, for the remainder of my life. I felt utterly alone, cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life. I have felt alienated, disconnected and isolated from every relationship I have had including familial bonds to the most abstract affiliations of community and religion. I had lost my sense of self and have been prone to shame and doubt all of my life, feeling guilty and inferior. I have been in a crisis of faith since I was born. I have experienced chronic grief, disrupted relationships, chronic depression and many self-destructive behaviors. Until recent years I have been functioning without trust in myself, other people and in God.
All of my life I have been paralyzed in the face of danger and isolated by my terror. Fear has propelled me. I remember the night of my excommunication and how I entered that room full of male priesthood authorities all by myself, the only female present. No one ever told me I could have a friend there, someone to give me support, loving and nurturing, someone who understood, during this frightening event. I was alone as always and full of fear. What I did was put on a facade of courage. I never shed a tear. I dissociated.
No one there knew my story, not even myself, and I have often wondered what the outcome would have been had we all known. Would the Bishop's Court then have done as James E. Talmage suggests in "Jesus the Christ" where it is stated "In the judgment with which we shall be judged, all the conditions and circumstances of our lives shall be considered. The inborn tendencies due to heredity, the effect of environment whether conducive to good or evil, the wholesome teachings of youth, or the absence of good instruction - these and all other contributory elements must be taken in to account in the rendering of a just verdict as to the soul's guilt or innocence." (8)
Personally, in the tradition of keeping it simple I would have preferred that the Bishop would have put his arms around me and loved me with the Spirit of Christ back into the Church. Apparently, that is what Sterling W. Sill would have done and my belief is that Jesus would have done the same as evidenced by His general treatment of women in the New Testament. Of course, Jesus would have known all of the conditions, the heredity, the environment and whether a person had received proper instruction as a child.
What my excommunication did to me was experienced as abuse. A supportive response from the priesthood may have mitigated the pain of the experiences life had brought to me. Instead, by excommunicating me the Bishop did exactly what other men had done to me throughout my life, abuse and abandon me. How could I have possibly experienced excommunication in any other way? The church was not there for me and neither had been any other man I had known.
As a result of an attempt to understand what the patriarchal system of the Church of Jesus Christ has done to me, I have come to believe that all excommunications are spiritually as well as eccliastically abusive. Apparently, the General Authorities have modified their previous policy of excommunicating women and children indiscriminately but it was certainly too late for application in my case because this policy of flexibility and less rigidity was established after 1983. I would like to suggest that these authorities stop excommunicating members altogether for the following reasons: it appears that they are unaware of the lifelong circumstances of heredity and environment of the individuals that they throw out of the church, they are damaging not only the individuals excommunicated but whole families as well, and last is the bad press received when the LDS church commits these inquisitional acts.
In conclusion, to say that there is astonishing anti-female bias deeply rooted and perpetuated by the patriarchal system which exists within the Mormon church should be unnecessary. Female members know it and experience the consequences every day since patriarchy rules constantly throughout one's life regardless of time spent in church meetings.
Since church authorities recognize male supremacy whether the husband and father in a home is LDS or not, as in my case, the nonmember father is respected as head of the household. Also, my own authoritarian father was born in a generation (1900) when the church was not unique in its position that women should be subservient to and are inferior to men.
In the LDS patriarchal system women are treated as inferior and are encouraged to develop personal characteristics that are pleasing to men, eg, submissiveness, passivity, dependency, femininity and other childlike features. If women assume the designated role, then they are praised, complimented and loved (patronized.) Women buy it because there are payoffs. They are cared for and treated as children, receiving all of the benefits of those unable to care for themselves. Perhaps this, above all other reasons, is why mothers of sexually molested children are unable to protect them and remove them from harm's way. They simply do not have any power and control within a patriarchal system which honors the male abuser as a dictatorial ruler. Oppression becomes complete. The mother and the children are all held captive.
I posit that the patriarchal system enables the sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse of our children. Until the General Authorities understand this and act upon it our children will continue to be vulnerable. It is my belief that church leaders need to take aggressive action against the perpetrators of child abuse. Mere mention in a General conference talk occasionally has not been effective in counteracting this criminal behavior. Priesthood leaders should not protect priesthood offenders. Sex offenders should be reported to the law and brought to court. This is a serious evil which needs to be addressed openly and honestly. We must protect our own LDS babies from this horror.
Let us hope and pray that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will find the courage to heal before it is too late. If the church will act now they may be able to save the lives of countless numbers of LDS children and I mean by "saving lives," such children will not have to grow up and endure the negative consequences of child abuse as I have.
"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were. I have not seen as others saw."
Edgar Allen Poe
Footnotes
1. According to the General Handbook of Instructions, March, 1989, 10-3, "....incest refers to sexual relations between a parent and a natural, adopted, or foster child or stepchild." ........ "A grandparent is considered the same as a parent." Although this definition is accurate it is also incomplete and should include all relatives where "the child's natural dependence and powerlessness are used against her." ("Secret Survivors" by E. Sue Blume, P. 6. Although similar definitions of incest are found in many sources this is the book from which I am quoting.) "Incest can be seen as the imposition of sexually inappropriate acts, or acts with sexual overtones, by - or any use of a minor child to meet the sexual or sexual/emotional/needs of - one or more persons who derive authority through ongoing emotional bonding with that child." Ibid, P.4 "In this framework, we can understand that incest is not necessarily intercourse." Ibid, P.5 "If a child is forced into an experience that is sexual in content or overtones, that is abuse." Ibid, P.5 "Certainly our attitude, for both children and adults, is that forced intercourse is a more serious crime than fondling. However, this distinction often makes no difference to the child; once touch has moved from safe, nondemanding affection to confusing, inappropriate sexuality the damage is done." Ibid, P.5
2. "In some cases, the parent elevates the child to spouse-confidant." Ibid, P. 5 "The child then, becomes a companion for one parent while she must suffer through repeated litanies of the failings, including sexual, of the other parent. This type of incest which is often nonphysical, sometimes is called, 'covert' or emotional incest or seduction." Ibid, P.6
3. In my case, a constrictive process occurred to keep traumatic memories out of normal consciousness, allowing only a fragment of the memory to emerge as an intrusive symptom. ("Recovery and Trauma" by Judith Herman, P. 45.)
4. "In 1985, Dr. Arthur Green, director of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center's Family Center, was quoted in a United States Government public affairs pamphlet on incest as saying that the hospital was 'horror struck' by the number of babies and preschool children brought in with genital injuries, gonorrheal infections of the throat, venereal warts, and syphilis." "Secret Survivors", P.10. Incest "often begins when she (the child) does not yet have the verbal or cognitive capacities to describe to herself or others what she is experiencing." Ibid, P.11
Although I do not remember having sexual intercourse with my father there was much fondling, cuddling and constant physical contact with him, not only as we slept and bathed together but also whenever we were together each day. I remember physical beatings and I do remember preverbal abuse which consisted of my father entering my mouth with his penis. These memories appeared to me as "pictures in my mind" during an intense and very painful period in my recovery and at a time when my therapist was helping me with dream work which was prompted by a series of nightmares I was having. Also, I became my father's surrogate spouse and the victim of emotional incest as discussed in Footnote #2. My father also used hypnotism in my management and care which he probably learned from the Rosecrusions (sp.) He was a member and very often took me to their meetings. ( An example would be his use of hypnotism which he claimed helped me to stop wetting the bed at the age of six.)
5. Hopeful of fair play and justice for all, I told the Bishop about John Monaco's sexual affairs, but John never confessed his sins; therefore, he was never disciplined. John asked to be excommunicated of his own accord several years later.
6. In remembrance of my court, I entered a room full of men, many more than four members of the Bishopric. I immediately dissociated (which means I was only present physically. My mind went into an altered state of consciousness. Dissociation is a defense mechanism which protects against pain and is used by children when they are being sexually abused. Very often memory of the event is lost. It is a primary symptom in the adult survivor. (A complete discussion of dissociation appears in Judith Herman's book, "Trauma and Recovery.") I remember little about the court but there are a few things which I will never forget. There was one man present who looked at me with such condemnation and as if he despised me. I remember that the Bishop asked me if I would repent to which I replied "I cannot at this time." I remember sitting in the hall alone while the "court" deliberated. Then after being summoned back into this room the Bishop announced that I had been excommunicated. I felt nothing.
7. This is the only name I am withholding. All other names are actual.
8. "Jesus the Christ," by James E. Talmage, Chap. 3, P. 29, Note 2.