The healing processes of childhood sexual abuse survivors within the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: a qualitative analysis

The experiences of sexual abuse survivors have been well documented; however, many complications arise for adult survivors who are religious. There have been no previous studies regarding sexual abuse survivors who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). This qualitative research project sought to explore the questions, "What are the gendered messages that LDS childhood sexual abuse survivors have received, and how have these messages impacted their healing from sexual abuse?" and "What are the healing processes of LDS survivors of childhood sexual abuse?" Twenty-five participants were interviewed as part of a qualitative investigation in a semistructured format with open-ended questions from an emergent grounded theory design. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed to establish themes, which fit under three categories: gendered messages, the spectrum of church experiences, and the spectrum of internalized or rejected shame. A theoretical model illustrating the interaction between church experiences and level of internalized shame is presented along with a description of the four different theorized healing paths. These results are presented, along with the implications for counselors working with LDS sexual abuse survivors, future research directions, and implications for LDS church policies.

THE HEALING PROCESSES OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVORS WITHIN THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS by Amber Choruby Whiteley A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Educational Psychology The University of Utah August 2019 Copyright © Amber Choruby Whiteley 2019 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Amber Choruby Whiteley has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Susan L. Morrow , Chair December 6 2018 Date Approved Steven A. Smith , Member December 6 2018 Date Approved Donna May Hawxhurst , Member December 6 2018 Date Approved Karen W. Tao , Member December 6 2018 Uma Parameswaran Dorn , Member December 6 2018 Date Approved Amy Jo Metz and by the Department/College/School of , Member Anne E. Cook December 6 2018 , Chair/Dean of Educational Psychology and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT The experiences of sexual abuse survivors have been well documented; however, many complications arise for adult survivors who are religious. There have been no previous studies regarding sexual abuse survivors who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). This qualitative research project sought to explore the questions, “What are the gendered messages that LDS childhood sexual abuse survivors have received, and how have these messages impacted their healing from sexual abuse?” and “What are the healing processes of LDS survivors of childhood sexual abuse?” Twenty-five participants were interviewed as part of a qualitative investigation in a semistructured format with open-ended questions from an emergent grounded theory design. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed to establish themes, which fit under three categories: gendered messages, the spectrum of church experiences, and the spectrum of internalized or rejected shame. A theoretical model illustrating the interaction between church experiences and level of internalized shame is presented along with a description of the four different theorized healing paths. These results are presented, along with the implications for counselors working with LDS sexual abuse survivors, future research directions, and implications for LDS church policies. This is dedicated to my family. Thank you. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ vii Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ....................................... 1 Review of Literature .................................................................................................. 2 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 29 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................ 30 2. METHOD ..................................................................................................................... 31 Paradigms Underpinning the Research .................................................................... 31 Researcher as Instrument and Horizons of Understanding ...................................... 37 Research Design....................................................................................................... 48 Participants ............................................................................................................... 50 Sources of Data ........................................................................................................ 56 Data Analysis and Writing ....................................................................................... 62 3. RESULTS ..................................................................................................................... 68 Lessons of Gender.................................................................................................... 68 Spectrum of Church Experiences............................................................................. 88 The Internalization or Rejection of Shame ............................................................ 103 Theoretical Model of Healing for LDS Sexual Abuse Survivors: How Church Experiences Intersect With Internalization or Rejection of Shame ....................... 111 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 124 4. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................. 126 Lessons of Gender.................................................................................................. 127 Spectrum of Church Experiences and Spectrum of Shame ................................... 133 Research Strengths, Limitations, and Future Directions ....................................... 136 Implications............................................................................................................ 139 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 144 Appendices A. RECRUITMENT FLYER 1....................................................................................... 146 B. RECRUITMENT FLYER 2 ....................................................................................... 148 C. DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ......................................................................... 150 C. INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT .................................................................... 152 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 155 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish I could acknowledge everyone who made not just this dissertation possible, but my PhD degree possible. However, the list would be far too long to count. To Sue, an advisor who saw my naïve passion and potential and has mentored me to become the clinician, researcher, and human being I am proud to be. Thank you for your example of radical feminism, and thank you for helping me to become an even more radical womyn myself. To the various incredible women who have supervised me and encouraged me along this path: Frances, Lauren, Donna, Kristy, Susan, and particularly Karen Tao and Uma Dorn, two women and mothers from whom I have had the honor to learn from through conducting meaningful research with. Thank you. To Analisa, Clarke, Cinthya, Charlotte, and in particular, Cheryl and James: the saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child. This has certainly been true as it has taken you all being Maddie’s adoptive family to help raise her as I have been working towards this degree. I cannot thank you all enough for being friends who have become family. To my parents: I know that I chose a career that is a world away from the careers that you both have had, and yet you always believed in my ability to accomplish what has often felt impossible. Thank you for your endless encouragement, belief, and support. To my unborn child: you grew as this dissertation grew. You have likely heard my fingers tapping away on my laptop more than you have heard any other sound. Your existence has given me the strength and motivation to finish my degree. To Maddie: becoming a mother to you gave me the motivation and inner strength to pursue my PhD to give you the life I know you deserve. Without you, I may never have pursued my doctoral degree. You will never know how much you have motivated me to finish this for you. I will always remember you drawing pictures of me graduating, you eagerly visiting me on campus to eat dinner with me, and you wishing me “good duck” before I took my exams. I look forward to attempting to be even a fraction of the cheerleader that you have been for me for the rest of your life. Most of all, thank you to Jeff. We started our marriage far too young at a time when neither of us knew ourselves. It could have been far too easy for both of us to have followed a different path, but I am so glad that we did not. Thank you for the amount of support and sacrificing you have done to make this degree possible. Thank you for being a father that I could trust to care for Maddie in all of her needs as I spent numerous days and nights working on campus. They say behind every great man is a great woman – thank you for being willing to break this stereotype and be behind me in my accomplishments these past years. Most of all, thank you for always believing in me. I am not sure that I would ever had pursued my PhD if it had not been for your unwavering faith in my abilities. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The subject of helping clients heal from childhood sexual abuse has been discussed in great detail, but the topic of how religion interacts with the healing process is a topic that has only begun to be investigated. Much of the literature is contradictory about whether religion helps or impedes a person’s healing from their past abuse, and there is no research regarding the Latter-day Saint population. Due to the sensitive nature of both one’s religious identity and one’s sexual abuse past—and sexuality in general-the purpose of this research is to develop an understanding of sexual abuse survivors within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon)1. Multicultural scholars have emphasized the need for more research on specific cultures and religious groups (Pargment, Exline, Jones, & Shafranske, 2013; Sue & Sue, 2012; Vienten et al., 2013). The American Psychological Association (APA) recognized religion as a multicultural identity in 1992 (American Psychological Association, 1992); however, the APA did not include religion in their guidelines for multicultural training until 2002 1 In October of 2018, the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russel M. Nelson, spoke about the importance of avoiding nicknames for the church such as “Mormon” or “LDS.” The majority of this manuscript was written before this revelation was released; and, therefore, this manuscript follows the preferred style guide that was released by the church prior to this revelation (Style Guide, 2010). Therefore, the acronym “LDS,” and the word “Mormon,” will continue to be used throughout this manuscript. 2 (American Psychological Association, 2002). Since then, there have been many research articles that have been published regarding religion (Aten, McMinn, & Worthington, 2011; Fukuyama, Puig, Baggs, & Wolf, 2014); however, the majority of these articles have looked at “religious” and “nonreligious” subjects, which categorizes people of various faiths as “religious” and ignores the varying differences of thoughts and beliefs. There has since been a call for more research that looks at specific religions including the LDS religion (Bergin, 1991; Fukuyama et al., 2014), to specifically understand the variable effects of these cultures’ religions on individuals. Furthermore, religious individuals report a “religiosity gap” (Mayers et al., 2007), where religious populations are less likely to seek help from mental health professionals because they perceive counselors as unlikely to understand the importance of their religion. Review of Literature Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors Although exact conclusions about the number of sexual abuse survivors living in the United States are hard to pinpoint due to the number of cases that continue to go unreported, estimates indicate that anywhere from 24-32% of adult women (Douglas & Finklehor, 2002) and approximately 3-17% of men experience childhood sexual abuse (Collin-Vezina, Daigneault, & Herbert, 2013). The true prevalence of childhood sexual abuse is difficult for researchers to calculate due to the number of cases that are underreported. In one meta-analysis conducted by Stoltenborgh et al. (2011), comparing the data of 217 studies, it was found the rates of childhood sexual abuse to be more than 30 times greater in studies on self-reports compared to data from official reports from 3 agencies like child protective services and the police. There is no demographic information available about the prevalence of sexual abuse among religious people or specific religious groups. Prevalence studies about the rates of sexual abuse among Mormons have not been conducted; however, the state of Utah is predominantly LDS and is ranked as the eighth highest in the United States for childhood abuse and ranks first as the state with the highest reports of sexual abuse (Utah Department of Health, 2011). This makes the study of sexual abuse in Utah and within the LDS church particularly important. Although trauma responses to sexual abuse have been described in detail in the literature (Arias & Johnson, 2013; Banyard, Williams, & Siegel, 2001; Douglas & Finklehor, 2005), it is of further importance to describe these effects here. Physiological Responses to Trauma How one heals from sexual abuse is connected to the autonomic ways in which the body responds to the trauma. In past years, stress neuropathology researchers spoke about the two ways in which humans respond to a traumatic event: fight or flight; however, in the past few decades, a third response – freeze – has been added to explain the three ways in which one may respond to trauma (Briere, 1992; McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996; Van der Kolk, 2014). While fight and flight are well-known and acceptable responses to the general public, freeze, which involves an involuntary response to trauma wherein the body’s response is to not move, carries a stigma for survivors, as they were not physically able to prevent the trauma from happening in the first place by either fighting against their perpetrator or attempting to run away from the situation. Furthermore, Levine’s (1997) Waking the Tiger: Healing from Trauma, which 4 was one of the first books to detail the differences between humans’ and animals’ responses to trauma, speaks to the complexity of the human brain’s response to trauma. Levine explains how it becomes impossible to utilize logical thinking during a traumatic event as the brain suspends many complex operations to move into fight/flight/freeze modes for survival. Furthermore, unlike animals, humans do not discharge fear or trauma, but rather retain the memories of the traumatic events, which results in later psychological problems (Levine, 1997). Rothschild’s (2000) The Body Remembers further details these delayed psychological issues in her explanation of implicit memories, in which she argues the body becomes a site for reading traumatic memories because of the neurochemical processes involved in trauma. Similarly in his book, The Body Keeps the Score (2014), Van der Kolk makes the case that one’s body stores the physical memory of a traumatic event, which explains how many physical senses, such as smell or sight, can trigger the traumatic memory that may have been forgotten by the mind for self-preserving, survival purposes. Van der Kolk argues that survivors may experience the same physical traumatic responses in their bodies as they are triggered as they did when they first experienced the trauma. Levine (1997) details the different areas of the nervous system involved and activated when experiencing a traumatic event or when reprocessing a traumatic event at a later time: (a) the enteric nervous system (ENS), which is described as being a “second brain” (p. 121) that is involved in the freeze response; (b) the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is responsible for the fight and flight responses and rapid heartrate response; and (c), the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which has been called the 5 more recently evolved aspect of the nervous system (Helsel, 2015), and is responsible for regulating stress response, consolidating memories, and remembering concepts. Each area of the nervous system performs essential functions that serve to protect someone experiencing trauma, serving both physical survival functions as well as protecting one from psychological harm. As Helsel (2015) so aptly put it, “Each aspect of the nervous system evolved to protect people from the injury of violation and thus should be valued as maintaining and communicating certain survival skills” (p. 685). The freeze response, comparable to an animal “playing dead” to survive, happens in an attempt to help one survive a physical threat but also helps people to dissociate from the traumatic experience in order to not fully experience the trauma (Levine, 2010). The fight-or-flight response similarly is visible when threatened animals become immobile and fall on the ground, enter shallow breathing, and seem to “space out,” not only fooling predators, but possibly even protecting animals from the psychic effects of fear (Levine 2010). The “fight-or-flight” response is evidently helpful in warding off danger as it puts a great deal of bodily energy at a person’s disposal in a short period of time. Effects of Childhood Sexual Assault in Childhood and Adolescence The effects of childhood sexual abuse can begin to be seen in childhood with additional mental health complications arising into adulthood. How a child responds to trauma may contribute to the ways in which a childhood sexual abuse survivor is victimblamed, or blamed for their own sexual abuse. Victim-blaming is a common term used when discussing rape culture or rape myths (Brownmiller, 1975; Burt, 1980; Wakelin & Long, 2003). Rape culture refers to the ways in which rape and sexual assault have been 6 normalized in the patriarchal culture of the United States (as well as throughout much of the world) through making jokes about rape or sexual assault, or even accepting or defending sexual assault. A significant public example of this happened in the 2016 United States presidential election when presidential candidate Donald J. Trump referred to a statement about sexual assault as “locker room talk” (Pennington, 2016). As rape culture is predominant and pervasive in the United States, children who experience sexual abuse will likely internalize messages throughout their childhood that their own sexual abuse was “no big deal” and was their fault. When sexual abuse occurs in one’s childhood, most often the child goes through a process of self-blame (Vallie & Silovsky, 2002), where the child blames themselves2 for the sexual abuse. Often the child believes that they are truly at fault, or that there could have been some way for them to have prevented the assault. The child may even believe that they wanted the sexual abuse, since their body may have felt pleasurable sexual stimulation or even orgasm from the sexual abuse as a natural bodily response, which could further complicate their feelings of self-blame (Sexual Assault/Abuse, 2017). Rarely is a child or adolescent able to blame the perpetrator or family member (Zinzow et al., 2010). Another common coping strategy for dealing with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse is dissociation, including forgetting the abuse happened at all (Ghetti et al., 2006). Jennifer Freyd (1996) refers to the coping strategy of either blaming oneself or forgetting that one has been abused as “Betrayal Trauma Theory,” in which a sexual abuse victim Throughout this dissertation, I have chosen to use the pronouns “they, them, and their” in place of the binary pronouns “he/ him/ his” or “she/ her/ hers” in order to honor the gender identities of trans- and nonbinary-identified people and in an effort to use more gender-inclusive language. 2 7 experiences violation of an explicit trust. If a sexual abuse victim were to continue living with conscious awareness that their trust had been betrayed by a caregiver and they had not been protected, it would be impossible to feel safe within their home. When a relational or attachment trauma occurs (Schore, 2003), a child often experiences insecurity or personal shame and may then struggle to trust others. Forgetting the event or blaming oneself for the abuse allows the victim to feel as though there is something they can do to control the abuse, thereby allowing them to still trust the caregiver and feel safe; both are instinctual survival techniques. Further, for a child whose basic survival depends on an abuser to come to grips with such powerlessness violates some deep core ordering process (Mahoney, 1991), making it necessary for the child to adopt sometimes extreme strategies. Judith Herman (1992) refers to the same phenomenon as “doublethink”: “Unable to escape or alter the unbearable reality in fact, the child alters it in her mind” (p.102). Childhood sexual abuse typically occurs within the context of dysfunctional families. Often children who experience sexual abuse also experience other adverse childhood experiences such as neglect or other forms of abuse such as emotional abuse (Dong et al., 2004); or they may witness discord in their families, such as domestic violence (Swanson et al., 2003) or may live with family members who are mentally ill, abuse substances, or are engaged in criminal behaviors (Walker, Holman, & Busby, 2009). Often, childhood sexual abuse victims experience rejection from one or both of their parents (Vogeltanz et al., 1999), parents who demonstrate unavailable parenting styles (Paradise, Rose, Sleeper, & Nathanson, 1994), or a family that is patriarchal in nature (Fossel, 1995). It is important to note that some of these characteristics are similar 8 to characteristics of conservative religious values that praise and encourage families to live according to patriarchal values. In the United States, 83.9% of all Americans reported as belonging to some kind of religion; and, of those, 78.4% reported being Christian (Pew Research Center, 2014). Religion often has a profound impact on one’s lifestyle both as a child and as an adult; thus, it is important to take a closer look at how one’s religious identity plays a role during the healing process from childhood sexual abuse. Effects of Childhood Sexual Assault During Adulthood Childhood sexual abuse has been researched so much that it has been called its own “vast body of research” (Walker, Homan, & Busby, 2009). Understanding the effects that childhood sexual abuse may have on adults is complex, as the symptoms and impact of childhood sexual abuse varies greatly among adult survivors (Berliner & Elliott, 2002). Research has shown that adults who have survived sexual abuse during their childhood are more likely to have mental health symptoms and be diagnosed with a mental health disorder than adults who did not experience sexual abuse (Brodsky et al., 2001; Fergusson & Mullen, 1999; Joiner et al., 2007; Nurcombe, 2000). The trauma that one experiences from childhood sexual abuse is profound and can include “disruption in one’s ability to hope, trust, or care about oneself or others” (Briere & Scott, 2006, p. 32). Therefore, the way in which a sexual abuse survivor experiences trauma will vary depending on the individual, but the most common diagnostic responses include: depression, traumatic grief, anxiety, panic, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, somatoform responses, drug and alcohol abuse, and borderline personality 9 disorder (BPD; Briere & Scott, 2006). Adult trauma survivors report in qualitative studies that they have a “hard time focusing” and often have intrusive memories of their trauma interrupt their daily thoughts, leading to impaired concentration (Holmes et al., 2017). These intrusive memories are such a common experience among trauma survivors that experiencing intrusive memories about one’s trauma is part of the diagnostic criteria for PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Regardless if one meets the criteria to be diagnosed with PTSD, studies find that mere exposure to trauma leads to reduced working memory function (Blanchette, 2016). While much of the current research related to trauma and memory focuses on the survivor’s memories of their traumatic experiences, more researchers are moving towards exploring the ways in which trauma exposure impacts memory systems as a whole (Nursey & Phelps, 2016). The levels one may dissociate, that is, how one knowingly or unknowingly disconnects from their body at times that feel overwhelming, may explain the reason why working memory becomes compromised (Schimmenti & Caretti, 2016). It is estimated that approximately 70% of the population in the United States has been exposed to some kind of traumatic event. An estimated 7.8% of all Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their life, and currently an estimated 3.6% of the population is diagnosed with PTSD (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters, 2005). One of the ways in which memory is compromised after trauma involves dissociating from these memories entirely, or repressing memories. Repressed memories are inaccessible to recall for certain time periods as a protective factor for childhood sexual abuse survivors (Pope & Brown, 1996; Terr 1991; Van der Kolk, 1994) and are 10 often later reaccessed during adulthood. It is important to note that although there are occurrences of adults who recall “false” memories of childhood sexual abuse after being exposed to suggestive psychotherapy or even being exposed to suggestive media about repressed memories (Heaton & Wilson, 1998; Ofshe & Watters, 1994), research shows that recovered memories are common as well. Another area of research with adult childhood sexual abuse survivors involves the link between experiencing childhood sexual abuse and relational difficulties later in life. In general, childhood sexual abuse survivors report having difficulty in interpersonal relationships in adulthood, which has been attributed to difficulty with issues of forgiveness and trust in adulthood (Banyard et al., 2001) In adulthood, childhood sexual abuse survivors may face complications when engaging specifically in romantic relationships with others. Sexual abuse has been found to be the only one of multiple childhood stressors that impacts marital outcomes (Edwards & Alexander, 1992). Researchers suggest that survivors of childhood sexual abuse may experience emotional flooding during couple conflict, which may in turn have an impact on the relationship they are in (Walker, Holman, & Busby, 2009). Furthermore, childhood sexual survivors are more likely to experience domestic violence as adults, with 75.9% of participants in a longitudinal study reporting experiencing domestic violence (n = 174; Banyard et al, 2001). The trauma literature abounds with perspectives on healing from the effects of childhood sexual abuse (e.g., Arias & Johnson, 2013; Draucker et al., 2011; Paxton, 1991). However, the literature on the place of religion and spirituality is sparse. Given the centrality of religion and spirituality in the lives of many people, it is important to 11 understand the ways that religion and spirituality can help or hinder the healing process from sexual abuse. Religion and Spirituality Can Help the Healing Process Current research is dichotomous about whether any religious perspective can help a survivor of child sexual abuse heal from past traumatic experiences. This seems to suggest that one’s experiences with religion and healing are neither good nor bad, but vary with each survivor’s experience, and that there are various factors that contribute to a spectrum of one’s experience with religion and spirituality. A considerable amount of research has found religion and spirituality to have helped the healing process among sexual abuse survivors. Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse turn towards religion and spirituality as a coping strategy to find positivity and strength. Religious spaces often function as a support system for survivors as they heal from past trauma (Collins et al., 2014). Belonging to a congregation can actually be a protective factor from mental health problems (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990), as a religious community may serve as a therapeutic environment in which one can safely share traumatic experiences and find inner strength among supportive individuals. A religion can provide an outline in directing a path for posttraumatic growth (Bryant-Davis & Wong, 2013), as it provides structure and guidelines that often include self-awareness and self-reflection while striving for self-growth. Many survivors describe their experiences of support from spirituality as being especially healing (Guido, 2008). Believing in a higher power, such as a benevolent God or something beyond or greater than oneself, can help the healing process; it connects 12 participants to prayer, meditation, journaling, and nature, which are all activities that encourage the healing process (Arias & Johnson, 2013). Not only does believing in a higher power connect participants to beneficial activities, it also has helped survivors endure significant trauma over time, reclaim a sense of meaning in their lives, and reclaim a sense of agency, in spite of abuse (Williams, Lindsey, Kurtz, & Jarvis, 2001). Having a religious social support network can help survivors to process their abusive experiences and free feelings of blame and guilt (Valentine & Feinauer, 1993). Additionally, research specifically shows that believing in a benevolent God can help survivors let go of feelings of anger or resentment towards their abusers (Bogar & HulseKillacky, 2006). Mothers of child abuse survivors who are religious often report having feelings of forgiveness for their children’s abusers and feel that the forgiveness process is an essential part of their religious experience (Alaggia, 2001). Van Deusen and Courtois (2015) use homelessness as a metaphor for the effects of childhood trauma: [Trauma] challenges [childhood trauma survivors’] identities and self-worth, causes a disconnection from primary support systems and community, and often results in despair… homelessness, an apt metaphor that conveys some of the disconnection and dis-identification experiences by survivors of complex trauma. (p. 29) These authors make the case that religion may provide these trauma survivors a spiritual identity or “home” that was lost through trauma, reconnecting them to a sense of safety and helping survivors to make meaning of their trauma. There is much literature that shows how many aspects about the structure and beliefs of multiple religious organizations can guide trauma survivors towards making meaning of their trauma in healing ways. As previously mentioned, there is also 13 additional research that show that aspects of religion may also be harmful to trauma survivors. Religion Can Also Impede the Healing Process While having a religious identity can help many develop their sense of self-worth and find comfort, there are those who may question religion and spirituality as a result of experiencing trauma: “Is there a God… If so, where is He or She?... Why was this allowed to happen?... Is God punishing me?... Has God abandoned me?” (Van Deusen & Courtois, 2015, p. 29). Whether or not a sexual abuse survivor experiences a positive or negative relationship with religion or spirituality during the healing process largely depends on the experiences survivors face from their religious communities during their healing process, as well as the gendered messages children are taught in regards to sexuality and sexual abuse. Reflecting and contributing to overall societal norms, many Christians tend to view acts of sexual violence as acts of sex and not acts of violence, erring in the direction of victim blaming (Smith, 1995). This can become especially problematic if survivors encounter religious leaders who hinder the healing process by suggesting the victim is at fault in any way. Some religious leaders have even suggested that the child sexual abuse survivor repent for having been abused, which furthered the shame felt by the victim (Cox, 2016). Some sexual abuse victims report that their abusers used their religion against them as a way to coerce them not to report what happened to them (e.g., one survivor reported that her father told her that she would “go to Hell and God would hate her” if 14 she ever told anyone of the abuse; Walker et al., 2010, p. 174). This becomes especially problematic when sexual abuse survivors are encouraged by their religious communities or leaders not to report for fear of what damage may happen to the family or religious community (Fontes & Plummer, 2010). Many religious leaders have been found to have inadequate counseling training when helping sexual abuse survivors and to ascribe to victim-blaming myths (Sheldon & Parent, 2002). Some survivors turn away from their religious organization as a result of their abuse having a negative impact on their relationship with a higher being and religion or spirituality (Guido, 2008). Sexual abuse by clergy leads to a distrust in church leadership and God (Fater & Mullaney, 2000), with many leaving their religious faith (Mart, 2004). Van Deusen and Coutois (2015) write about how some Christian concepts have negative impacts on trauma survivors: The implication that a survivor’s profound disconnection and distrust is about a “hardening heart” is a Christian reference to rebelliousness and dishonoring of God that unfortunately does not take into account the defenses that are mounted to protect a damaged heart and spirit. Often, disparaging labels have come out of other biblical references used out of the appropriate context, for example, asking a woman in a domestic violence situation to “turn the other cheek” or challenging a person to repent for a set of behaviors that allowed him or her to survive the deprivation and overstimulation of complex trauma. These create yet another betrayal or secondary trauma because they are other reminders of misunderstanding, and they lack empathy and validation of the injustice or abuse. ( p. 31) Indeed, many Christian concepts such as forgiveness of those who sin against you, or “turning the other cheek” are not always applicable to trauma survivors. As some trauma survivors turn towards religion, they may find teachings that are not only not applicable to them, but the lessons themselves may be harmful and may even cause secondary trauma. 15 The messages that are sent to sexual abuse trauma survivors, both in the context of religion and in the larger society, are part of the constellation of beliefs that make up rape myths underlying a rape culture. In particular, messages about gender form an important network for understanding the impact of sexual abuse in our society and in religious cultures as well. Lessons of Gender and Sexual Assault in Society As someone who has taught courses in the Gender Studies Department at the University of Utah, I am aware that there are no interactions that are not steeped in gender (Brown, 2009). I will not be able to adequately describe all of the interactions of gender that are present for sexual abuse survivors; however, in this section I hope to express some of the key interactions of gender that affect sexual abuse victims and survivors. First, it is important to note that gender has been theorized to be a social construction, where people are either rewarded or punished based upon how well they perform their gender according to stereotypes set by society (Lorber, 1991; Shaw & Lee, 2015). Gender is presented as binary, meaning that the two most widely accepted genders are male and female; however, there are many other forms of gender expression, such as transgender, intersex, or gender non-binary, to name a few examples. Traits that were once considered to be “hardwired” psychological traits between cisgender men and cisgender women may not be as “hardwired” as they have been thought to be in the past (Lips, 2008); and psychological research suggests that there are more similarities than differences between genders (Fine, 2010; Lips, 2008). Lessons of gender have been so 16 pervasive that even basic emotions that all people experience have been labeled as masculine or feminine. Many argue that the inability for people to express basic human emotions based upon their gender expression is harmful to a person’s mental health (Lips, 2008). Lessons of Masculinity Men are perhaps taught the strictest gender roles and are often policed from a young age by peers and older family members to ensure that they conform to these gender roles (Lips, 2008; Shaw & Lee, 2015). Boys are taught that violence is synonymous with masculinity (Shaw & Lee, 2015) and are taught that “To be a man is to not be a woman…weakness, softness, and vulnerability are to be avoided at all costs” (p.125). Boys and men who do not meet the standards of masculinity are met with derision and contempt from their peers (Plummer, 2001). Men are especially taught that their gender is connected to their sexuality. A man’s masculinity is often correlated with his sexuality, or, more specifically, his heterosexuality. Same-gender attraction is seen as a violation of gender roles (Whiteley, 2002), and homophobic slurs are most often used as insults to a man’s masculinity. Sexual conquests of women are viewed as a way for men to prove their masculinity (Shaw & Lee, 2015). It should be no surprise, then, that the most common messages male childhood sexual abuse survivors receive are around their sexuality and masculinity. Due to the messages that men receive around the norms of valuing invulnerability, boys and men experience difficulty talking about their experiences of childhood sexual abuse (Shaw & 17 Lee, 2015), which may be because boys and men worry about how others will perceive their masculinity after hearing about sexual abuse. Men are more likely to be in denial of their experiences of sexual abuse as a result, and many men and boys may avoid the weaknesses associated with being a “victim” of sexual abuse (Shaw & Lee, 2015). Lessons of Femininity. Women have more flexibility in their gender expression than men do; however, women face the complexity of being taught that their expressions of femininity are valued and at the same time viewed as expressions of weakness. The qualities that have been labeled as feminine, such as soft, nurturing, sensitive, and delicate, are the very qualities that encourage women to be subordinate to men and to serve the domestic and emotional work in their families and in greater society. Women receive the message that much of their value to society lies in their appearance (Shaw & Lee, 2015). In feminine expressions of sexuality, women fall into an impossible dichotomy where they are expected to appear both sexy and pure in their daily appearance (Valenti, 2009). This idea extends to a woman’s sexual activities – women must not have too much or too little sex. This balance is almost nearly impossible to achieve, and the majority of women will be labeled with a slur such as “prude” or “whore” to convey their failure in achieving a sexual balance defined by others (Shaw & Lee, 2015). Virginity is a concept that is closely tied to a woman’s worth. Valenti (2009) writes about the concept of virginity and the myth of purity in The Cult of Virginity: “Virginity is… being used to now punish women and roll back their rights” ( p.1). A 18 woman’s virginity is often described as an object to be given away, such as a present, or stolen, never to be returned. Valenti documents how difficult it is to define virginity, and yet how something that is so hard to define has been correlated with morality and purity in modern society. Female sexual abuse survivors are more likely to internalize the message that they are impure, and therefore less feminine (Shaw & Lee, 2015). Women may be more willing to blame themselves for their experiences of sexual abuse, as they have been socialized to be subservient and responsive to the needs of others (Wellman, 1993). Religious institutions often reflect the larger society in which they have developed. As a uniquely American religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reflects many of the gendered beliefs of the larger U.S. culture, stemming from Puritanical influences from our country’s earliest settlements. What Is Specific to the LDS Faith? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has over 15 million members worldwide (LDS Statistics, 2015). The LDS religion, having been founded in 1830 in Fayette, New York, by Joseph Smith, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), is unique compared to many other religions, because the culture of the church is reflective of American cultural values, having been founded in America. This being the case, it draws from Puritan values regarding sexuality, rape myths that remain prevalent in the United States, and victim-blaming regarding sexual abuse (Jones & Aronson, 1973; McCaul et al., 1990). Because of its fundamentalist values, the LDS church may be seen as a somewhat extreme case of prevalent U.S. values surrounding sexuality and sexual 19 abuse. LDS members adhere to rules and commandments set forth by the church and spend time daily praying to God and reading from both the Bible and the Book of Mormon, a scripture unique to the LDS religion. Members refrain from drinking alcohol, coffee, or tea (Doctrine and Covenants 89), donate 10% of their income to the church in a process known as tithing, and attend weekly sacrament services in order to obtain a temple recommend, which permits them to attend services in the LDS temple and grants them a status of good standing within the LDS church. They are encouraged to marry within an LDS temple and to attend the temple regularly as a reminder of sacred temple covenants and promises that members make to God there. Most will agree that the faith is as much a lifestyle and an identity as it is a religion; and so, being LDS has many implications for how one spends their daily life. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fastest-growing church in the United States (Public Religion Research Institute, 2012), is the fifth largest religion in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2014), and has as many members nationally as the Jewish religion (Pew Research Center, 2014). The LDS church has grown rapidly as a result of missionary efforts put forth by the church. Men are strongly encouraged to serve a 2-year mission when they turn 18, and women are allowed to serve an 18-month mission when they turn 19. There are approximately over 85,000 missionaries serving currently (LDS Statistics, 2015). The growing membership of the LDS church is reflective of the growing impact that the church and its teachings has on U.S. society. Mormons view gender as an essential part of one’s salvation, as detailed in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” document, a document which has not been 20 officially canonized within the church but is readily accepted by members of the church as modern-day revelation for how members should structure their families (Finnigan & Ross, 2015). The document itself asserts the importance of family and details how marriage and having children within the bonds of marriage are central to eternal salvation. Men are to “preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families” (para 7). Women are “primarily responsible for the nurture of their children” (para 7). It is also stated that men and women are “equal partners” in marriage: “In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995). From birth to age 12, children in the LDS church attend the same classes together with groups of peers where children are not separated by gender. These classes are called “Nursery” for children ages 2-4 and “Primary” from ages 4-12. At the age of 12, girls are separated into Young Women’s, and boys are organized into Young Men’s classes. In these classes, adults of the same gender will give lessons to these children ages 12-17. There are titles given to each age group based on gender: Young Women ages 12-13 are called Beehives; Young Women ages 14-15 are called Mia Maids; and Young Women ages 16-17 are named Laurels. Young Men are given offices of the Aaronic Priesthood at different ages, and the titles of these offices bestowed to them reflect the different levels of priesthood authority given to them (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2011). Young Men ages 12 and 13 are called Deacons. At age 12, young men are ordained to the office of Deacon. Deacons serve in special roles within the church, such as passing sacrament to the members of the church. Young men ages 14 and 15 are 21 called Teachers. Young Men ages 16-17 are called Priests and at this time can perform important saving ordinances such as baptizing members and blessing the sacrament. In the past, the Young Men’s program of the church engaged with the Boy Scouts of America. More recently, the LDS church has severed the ties with the Boy Scouts program and instead developed their own program for boys ages 14-18 to prepare young men “to fulfill their divine roles” (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2017). There are four main themes in this program: spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual. The intellectual activities in this program highlight the gendered expectations placed upon young men as they grow up, specifically the expectation for men to provide for their family. Many of these activities help young men to prepare for college and a career and to develop money management skills. Girls in the Young Women program at their church recite weekly the Young Women’s theme, which is reflective of values that these girls are taught to strive for: We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are: faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, and virtue. We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation. (Young Women Theme, 2017, p. 1) This theme highlights the importance for Young Women to develop certain values that relate to both religious concepts (e.g., faith, divine nature, and virtue) as well as concepts of empowerment and becoming a valuable member of society (e.g., knowledge, choice and accountability, and individual worth). These are presented with the statement highlighting important milestones for Young Women to meet in adulthood: strengthening their home and their family, and being endowed in the temple. 22 The LDS church structure is unique from many religious organizations. The structure of every ward is made up of unpaid volunteer “callings,” where members of the ward are all called to serve in certain positions. This structure of unpaid callings extended to members with no formal training creates a wide variety in the kinds of lessons that are taught in the Young Women and Young Men’s programs across different wards; however, many members share similar messages. These shared messages are in part due to church manuals that are published by the church to ensure some levels of similarities in teaching among wards. Church lessons are created from these manuals. It should be noted that changing one’s gender identity can come with severe consequences for those who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth. Gender is stated to be “an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose” (The Family Proclamation, 1995; para 2). This implies that one’s gender assigned at birth is one that has existed in the premortal life and will continue to be their gender in the afterlife. The Church Handbook of Instructions (Handbook, 2012), an instructive manual for LDS bishops to administer to the congregation, includes instructions for bishops to encourage members questioning their gender to not receive surgery. Those who have undergone surgery must face disciplinary action where church leaders may decide to disfellowship or excommunicate them. Limited literature has been put forth by the LDS church regarding how to assist in the healing process from sexual abuse. Members understand that, should sexual abuse occur, they should seek to speak with their bishop to “begin the healing process” (Abuse, 2014). Although many bishops, like other religious leaders, have good intentions, this is a limitation in itself due to the unregulated and limited training bishops have in helping 23 survivors through the healing process. The requirement to be a bishop is to be a worthy Melchizedek priesthood holder, which is a responsibility and privilege bestowed only upon LDS men. For this reason, it can be very triggering and uncomfortable for sexual abuse survivors to have to tell their experiences to men, particularly if their perpetrator was another man. One popular book published by the 12th prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball (The Miracle of Forgiveness, 1968), and commonly recommended by church leaders today says this regarding rape and chastity: Also far-reaching is the effect of loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is absolutely no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle. (Kimball, 1969, p. 196) The message that it is better to die than to have lost one’s virginity sends hurtful, damaging messages to survivors of sexual abuse and reinforces the victim-blaming perspective that sexual abuse survivors are responsible to prevent sexual abuse from happening. The idea that one needs to have “no voluntary participation” raises issues when discussing whether one may need to repent for being sexually abused, particularly when the natural response may be to have frozen and not fought the abuser away (Brewin, 2001) or when a child is coerced by an otherwise loving parent or relative into sexual activity. Messages from the official church website, LDS.org, are more positive in nature. When one searches for “sexual abuse,” an article appears that says the following: Victims of abuse should be assured that they are not to blame for the harmful behavior of others. They do not need to feel guilt. If they have been a victim of rape or other sexual abuse, whether they have been abused by an acquaintance, a 24 stranger, or even a family member, victims of sexual abuse are not guilty of sexual sin. (LDS.org, 2014) This is a much different message from the aforementioned publication and shows a more enlightened perspective as well as a clear message of positive healing for child sexual abuse survivors. It is important to note that, when one searches for “sexual abuse” on the LDS.org website, articles regarding the importance of sexual purity and the importance of virginity are recommended. This can be a conflicting message for someone who is trying to heal from sexual abuse. Recently the church released a website, www.lds.org/get-help/abuse in October, 2018, which provides trauma-informed messages for survivors of abuse, family members, friends, and church leaders. The website has five sections: “I Have Been or Am Being Abused,” “Stories of Hope,” “How Can I Help Victims of Abuse?” “Prevention and Protection,” and “Resources for Church Leaders” (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, 2018). This website provides information about why abuse is never the survivor’s fault, links to community articles and resources for survivors to read to understand why they may be blaming themselves for their abuse. This has been called “arguably the most comprehensive resource made by the church” (Bhagwat, 2018). The website has been met with some criticism; one of the critiques being that some of the quotes included on the website originate from church talks that later include victimblaming behavior. In 2015, sexual abuse became a widely talked-about topic within the LDS church after several rape survivors from the church-owned university, Brigham Young University (BYU), came forward and told their stories about having been suspended or expelled from BYU after reporting their sexual assault. (The Salt Lake Tribune, 2016). 25 The LDS church released a press statement in 2015 to specifically address childhood abuse, titled “Effectiveness of Church Approach to Preventing Child Abuse.” The statement was self-congratulatory in tone, with quotes from the statement about how “no religious organization has done more” to prevent and respond to childhood abuse and how the LDS church’s “approach is the gold standard” upon which other religions could learn. One quote specifically said, “While clergy-abuse cases continue to grab headlines, the church has had almost no child abuse problems with its clergy (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016). This statement was later replaced with a new statement title “How the Church Approaches Abuse.” The tone and language of the new statement is much different and contains trauma-informed statements such as “victims are innocent.” The LDS Church and Healing From Sexual Abuse Very little is known about the impact of the LDS church on healing from sexual abuse. Despite the large membership of the LDS church, the literature available regarding the counseling implications for sexual abuse is severely limited, and there has been no prior research regarding LDS sexual abuse survivors. The last article written about Mormon sexual abuse was published in 1998 (Pritt, 1998); and, at the time of this writing, a search for an academic article regarding “LDS trauma” or “Mormon trauma” produced no results. It is important to note that there are multiple sexual abuse and trauma studies related to other faiths in the United States, even religions that have fewer members living in the United States than Mormons do. This is evidence of a gross underrepresentation of academic literature available to represent the experiences of 26 Mormons. Although there is no way to understand why there is a lack of literature available to represent the experiences of Mormon childhood sexual abuse survivors, it is important to explore a few of the historical and contextual reasons why this may be. In 1993, six LDS scholars were given official church disciplinary action for their feminist writings (Fletcher-Stack, 2013). Five of the six were excommunicated for their writings 4 months after prominent Apostle, Boyd K. Packer, warned church membership that the LDS church faced dangers from “so-called scholars or intellectuals” (Packer, 1993; as cited in Johnson, 1993). Janice Allred, who wrote primarily about Heavenly Mother (Brooks, Steenblik, & Wheelwright, 2015), also wrote about and openly discussed childhood sexual abuse of LDS women. She was found guilty of apostasy and excommunicated in 1995. Some LDS women academics have stated that they fear church discipline given this history of scholars being excommunicated. Regardless if the threat of excommunication that many female LDS academics feel is perceived or real, these historical experiences may be important contextual information in analyzing the reasons why there is such a lack of academic literature available. Regardless, the lack of research in this area serves to harm rather than help LDS populations, as there is a gap of academic research available to assist non-LDS and LDS populations alike in understanding the unique cultural concerns and considerations that LDS populations may face. In 2016, I conducted a qualitative study with LDS women who were childhood sexual abuse survivors to explore what was significant about women’s experiences of healing after childhood sexual abuse (Choruby-Whiteley & Morrow, 2016). Prior to the 27 current study at hand, this unpublished manuscript contained the only available existing data about childhood sexual abuse that is specific to the Mormon experience. This was a grounded theory qualitative study. Twelve cisgender women were interviewed utilizing a semistructured interview format with open-ended questions (Charmaz). Out of the data came seven significant themes. Many of the themes reported by participants reflected what past literature has shown about sexual abuse survivors in general; however, many of the themes reported were unique to the LDS religion. Participants reported themes directly related to their healing process, such as Church Leadership Impacts the Healing Process, Internalized Guilt and Shame, and Turning Towards Religion for Healing. Other themes were less directly related to healing and reflected more of the unique experiences that the participants had experienced within the Mormon church, such as the following: Encouraged Not to Speak out, Women’s Sexuality is Never Talked About, and Readjusting her Mormon Identity. Some of the themes that emerged were specific to women’s unique experiences of their gender in the church. Although this was an important finding in the study, a weakness of the study was that it did not give the perspective of other gender identities and what unique messages individuals might receive around their gender and healing from sexual abuse. Currently, there is no available academic literature about male LDS sexual abuse. A search on the online academic research database, EBSCO produced no results regarding LDS male sexual abuse survivors. There have been recent reports from news organizations about lawsuits that have been emerging where boys have been sexually abused in LDS church settings (Silverstein, 2017). Given the statistics of the prevalence 28 of sexual abuse among boys in the United States and worldwide (4-6% United States, 317% worldwide; Barth et al., 2013), it is clear that there are many LDS male adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse; however, their experiences have not been represented in the literature. These survivors’ experiences have been erased, and exploratory research is needed to help these survivors’ experiences be more visible. Although research regarding the experiences of LDS male sexual abuse survivors does not currently exist, there is a limited amount of research that has been conducted about male sexual abuse survivors in general. The majority of this research conveys that male sexual abuse survivors are often uniquely disadvantaged compared to female sexual abuse survivors due to the stigma and disbelief that exists in society. A commonly held misconception, steeped in patriarchal assumptions about masculinity, postulates that a boy could not experience sexual abuse as a victim because boys are so sexually charged (Facts and Myths, 2017). For example, psychologists are less likely to consider whether a male client has experienced childhood sexual abuse, even when they are given an identical case write-up where the stated gender of the client has been changed (Holmes & Offen, 1996). Furthermore, mental health professionals are more likely to assign blame to a male sexual abuse survivor when he is “older” (specifically, 15-18 years old) at the time of the abuse (Spencer & Tan, 1999). Although statistics show that girls are more likely than boys to be sexually abused, many researchers have pointed out that boys are often sexually abused more frequently and over longer periods of time (O’ Leary & Barber, 2008). Boys are the least likely to report their sexual abuse, and the rate of nondisclosure increases with age, which researchers theorize may be due to “factors related to male socialization, such as an 29 overemphasis on self-reliance, contempt for victims and homosexuals, sexual prowess, and masculine obsession with heterosexuality and independence (O’Leary & Barber, 2008, p. 135). Researchers theorize that, because boys who experience childhood sexual abuse are less likely to report their abuse to anyone, many sexual abuse perpetrators may take advantage of this and continue to abuse young boys for longer periods of time (O’ Leary & Barber, 2008). Additionally, male survivors of childhood sexual abuse are more likely to experience higher rates of PTSD symptoms and may have higher rates of emotional dysregulation (Chaplo, Kerig, Modrowski, & Bennett, 2017). It is likely that LDS boys may have a complicated healing process due to the strong emphasis on strict gender norms within the LDS doctrine and culture. Conclusion The impact of childhood sexual abuse can be incredibly disrupting to one’s mental health, as previously stated. The need to identify preventative measures and therapeutic treatments for survivors is great. What is often not discussed is how sexual abuse impacts one’s existential and spiritual identity, or how religion and spirituality affect the recovery and healing process of sexual abuse survivors. It is also unclear why some survivors turn toward religion for healing and to assign meaning to their traumatic experiences, whereas others leave their religious contexts. The study described above captures some important themes for Mormon women who are survivors of sexual abuse; however, the study was conducted with only women. Given the church’s emphasis on gender being an essential characteristic of one’s premortal and eternal life, many of the themes above may only be applicable to the experience of being a cisgender Mormon 30 woman. These themes do not begin to describe the experiences of LDS cisgender men or of Mormons whose gender identity is trans or does not fit within the gender binary. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was to identify the unique ways in which LDS adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse heal from their sexual abuse experiences and to specifically look at how messages of gender have interacted with the healing processes. The LDS faith is unique in that it holds such a large membership and yet has very little literature available to church leaders to address issues of sexual abuse or to psychologists and counselors addressing cultural competency when counseling an abuse survivor of the LDS faith. There is a need for (1) more literature available to counselors about the nature of counseling a member of the LDS faith and (2) more literature available for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take into consideration when conducting training among church leadership so that members of the mental health community can work together with the religious community of the church to help provide accurate information, training, and referrals when necessary to Latter-day Saints. CHAPTER 2 METHOD Paradigms Underpinning the Research In 2005, Ponterotto called for more counseling psychologists to explore their own research paradigms to intentionally name the approach underpinning the research and the assumptions of the researcher through their paradigm. As I intentionally reflect upon the assumptions I naturally carry as a researcher, and as I acknowledge the complexity of various intersecting structures of power and oppression at play for my participants, I have purposefully chosen to approach my research within a feminist constructivist paradigm. Additionally, I approached this research with various theoretical approaches at different stages of data collection and analysis. From a feminist research paradigm, I will explain in further detail the ontology, epistemology, axiology, and rhetorical structure, and how they relate to the present study. Theoretical Positions Qualitative methodologists encourage researchers to not only name the paradigms that underpin the research, but to also state the underlying assumptions that influence the qualitative analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Morrow & Smith, 200). The current study is positioned in Intersectionality Theory (Crenshaw, 1989). As a researcher, I recognize the 32 importance of identities and lived experiences and assume that the intersections of gender, social class, race, sexual identity, and others have an impact upon one’s lived experience. As my research is positioned under a feminist paradigm and I reflect on the history of the feminist movement that has often ignored the intersections of identities, I find it important to approach this particular research through the lens of intersectionality so as to understand the complexities of my participants’ identities so as not to ignore the participants’ lived experiences as they intersect with sexual abuse. I believe that the ways in which one’s identities intersect and interact with one another have an impact on how one perceives and interacts with the counseling or research experience as an extension of one’s life experiences. I integrated this perspective by applying an intersectional lens during the coding phase of analysis (Cole, 2009) and asking three questions to guide the research process through research design and conceptualization as outlined by Cole: “ (1) who is included in this category?”, which is a question aimed to direct psychologists to consider the diversity within any category; (2) “what role does inequality play?”, which is a question intended to draw attention to the role that inequality plays and how “multiple [identities] position[s] individuals and groups in relation to one another, affecting their perceptions, experiences, and outcomes”; and (3) “where are there similarities?”, which helps researchers to examine any assumptions being made about participants’ identities and to look for commonality across differences. I also acknowledge the values and assumptions of Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is an important theory to include in a study focused on experiences of power and oppression, as it helps to “deconstruct the ways that research has been embedded in racism, sexism, and heterosexism while also acknowledging how identities like race, 33 sexual orientation, gender, social class, and others are at the forefront of the research process” (Nadal et al., 2015). Further, the act of sexual abuse can be more accurately described as an act of asserting power than as an act of sex, (Robinson, 2004); as such, each participant in this study has a unique and complex experience of power abuse and oppression merely from their experience of abuse. These experiences of oppression are deepened and complicated for participants when further marginalized identities intersect with their experience of surviving sexual abuse. Utilizing these theoretical positions has been essential throughout multiple stages of the study to not only evaluate how these systems of privilege, power, and oppression are impacting the participants included in this study, but also to conduct the study in a way that centers experiences of marginalization and oppression while avoiding recreating an abuse of power within the research study itself. Paradigms I approached this study from a feminist constructivist approach. Although the two paradigms are individual and separate paradigms, they share many similarities. For the purposes of this study, it has been essential to utilize both paradigms to approach this study from a critical lens concerned with social justice. The field of Counseling Psychology has called for more qualitative research specifically from a feminist or constructivist approach, as these approaches address issues of social justice (Morrow, 2007). A feminist constructivist paradigm is concerned with relationality and addressing issues of diversity and power dynamics. Although traditional research may ignore power dynamics (Morrow, 1993), a feminist paradigm insists that these topics are of utmost 34 importance to the participants’ experiences and influence the data as well. Using a feminist constructivist paradigm in this qualitative study is natural given the topic and complexities of the backgrounds of the participants. Each participant, having been a survivor of sexual abuse, experienced a complex power dynamic that needed attention in order to adequately and fully interpret their experience. A feminist paradigm is a critical paradigm that views research through the lens of power and oppression and attempts to bring marginalized identities to the forefront (Morrow & Smith, 2000). Focusing the study on experiences of LDS sexual abuse survivors instead of on church leaders or even therapists who work with LDS sexual abuse survivors is consistent with a feminist paradigm, which values centering marginalized perspectives in the research (Creswell, 2007). This is an important consideration to remember, as the participants in this study have interacted with various levels of power, oppression, and marginalization by the nature of having experienced sexual abuse. I approached data analysis specifically from a constructivist paradigm. Constructivism has roots in a hermeneutical approach and postulates that meaning is often hidden and must be brought forth through deep reflection and contemplation (Ponterotto, 2005; Schandt, 2000; Sciarra, 1999). An essential part of how I approached the data was to consider the various experiences and identities of my participants while contemplating the meaning of the data. This is reflective of a central tenet of constructivism: it is impossible to separate an objective reality from the research participants’ experiences (Sciarra, 1999). It then becomes important and necessary to understand the “lived experiences,” or Erlebnis (Herman, 1997), of the research participants to ensure that the researcher is capturing the complexities of the experiences 35 through the lens of the context in which the research participant exists. This became an important concept to understand as I was immersed in the data specifically around how one’s experiences with the LDS church could be separated from how participants experienced guilt and shame around their sexual abuse. It became important to remember that these complexities could not be separated from one another, and that my role as a constructivist researcher was to understand the complexities of these lived experiences. A feminist constructivist paradigm approach holds the ontological assumption that research findings are subjective instead of objective (Harrison, MacGibbon, & Morton, 2001). This approach encourages the researcher to understand the reality of their participants, while at the same time accepting these subjective experiences as the reality of the participants. Accepting the subjective experiences of participants who are sexual abuse survivors is an approach that is trauma-informed; as many of the participants have experienced some form of being silenced from telling their stories, it is essential to accept participants’ stories as truth so as to not silence their stories again. Additionally, as an LDS sexual abuse survivor myself, it was essential to be able to state the subjectivity and biases I hold through my lived experiences in order to recognize the lens through which I viewed this study. I explore more of my own biases and subjective experiences in the section titled, Researcher as Instrument. The epistemology of a paradigm refers to how knowledge is believed to be created. A feminist researcher refers to the feminist principle that the personal is political even in the process of creating knowledge (Gottfried, 1996); therefore, knowledge in research must be cocreated between researcher and participant. In this creation of knowledge, it was be important for me as the researcher to attend to the power I held as 36 the researcher; as Banister et al. (1994) pointed out, a researcher who does not recognize or address their own power may recreate oppressive dynamics with their participants (1994). The axiology of one’s research refers to the values the researcher holds and the role the researcher takes within the research (Creswell, 2007). A feminist axiology is concerned with naming the values the researcher holds. Although some paradigms assert that research is value-free, a feminist paradigm intentionally states the biases and values the researcher holds. Richardson and St. Pierre (2005) stated, researchers “do not have to try to play God, writing as disembodied omniscient narrators, claiming universal and atemporal general knowledge” (p. 961). Therefore, I felt it essential to communicate my biases and limitations, as I could not approach qualitative research without conducting research through the lens of the values I hold. I intentionally stated my values and biases in an effort to be transparent and honest through my research (Olesen, 2005). The rhetorical structure, or the language, I used throughout this study is an “Overall Rhetorical Structure” as detailed by Wollcott (1994). In this larger structure, three components are utilized: (1) a description of the cultural experiences of research participants to answer the question, “What is going on here?”; (2) an analysis of the data provided by the researcher, as displayed in an analytical framework; and (3) an interpretation provided by the researcher, connecting findings in the data to relevant theories in the larger body of scholarly research on the topic. Stating one’s paradigm is not only an important aspect of qualitative research, selecting a paradigm helps to guide the research with stated principles. Utilizing a feminist constructivist approach for this study is particularly appropriate as a feminist 37 constructivist approach helps to ground the research in social justice principles (Morrow, 2007) throughout the various phases of meaning-making within the study. Researcher as Instrument and Horizons of Understanding As aforementioned, qualitative research strives to recognize and embrace subjectivity with the goal to bring awareness of the researcher’s world experiences and biases. Reflexivity may be defined as “the constant movement between being in the phenomenon and stepping outside of it,” (Enosh & Ben-Ari, 2015, p. 422). The process of being reflexive in qualitative research requires researchers to reflect upon and state their world views and experiences to expose their subjectivity and biases on the topic they are studying (Oleson, 2005). In doing so, the researcher strives to communicate to the reader what lens through which the research was conducted and analyzed. A feminist constructivist paradigm not only encourages the researcher to explore their subjectivity, but also embraces the researcher’s perspective as the coconstructor of meaning (Morrow, 2005). Allowing for reflexivity in the research allows for the researcher to be engaged with the research process while also distinguishing the researcher’s personal experiences and biases from the data (Fine, 1992; Marshall & Rossman, 2011). Therefore, the researcher is tasked with constantly working towards self-awareness and self-reflection necessary in the process of reflexivity (Morrow, 2005). Salient Identities In the process of engaging in reflexivity, I found it important to reflect on my own salient identities that are relevant to this research. I am an adult survivor of childhood 38 sexual abuse as well as an active Latter-day Saint (LDS, or Mormon). These identity statuses make me a “complete member” (Adler & Adler, 1987) of the population I interviewed: LDS adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. However, I recognize that many of my identities and life experiences make my own experience unique from the experiences of my participants. I hold many identities in varying levels of privilege and oppression, all of which influence my work as a researcher in this study. I am a White, cisgender woman; I identify as queer and am married in a heterosexual marriage to a man. I am a mother with a daughter who is school-aged. I currently belong to the middleclass, though I grew up in a working-class family. I am within months of holding a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, thus placing me at the higher end of the educational ladder. These identities and experiences provide insight to the biases and worldviews I hold, which not only contribute to my subjectivity but speak to the level of privilege I hold as a White, able-bodied, middle-class, cisgender, doctoral candidate. These identities also convey the power I hold as a researcher with a considerable amount of privilege. Making these identities explicit in the process of striving for reflexivity has assisted in helping me to remember both the similarities and differences of experiences, power, and privilege I have with my research participants, even as an insider to the population I am working with. Experiences as a Mormon I am unique in my faith story from the standard Mormon experience in that I was not born to LDS parents, but instead converted in my youth. I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was 16. My faith story is also unique as I joined by 39 myself, that is, none of my other family members joined with me when I was baptized. No one in my family of origin identifies as actively religious, and my experiences in my family of origin and childhood are much different from the experiences many Mormon youth have growing up in a religious household. My parents encouraged free thinking and allowed me to choose my own faith for myself. Although they had household rules created for my general safety, those rules were not based in religious beliefs or ideas. I chose to attend Brigham Young University for college after joining the LDS church. I looked forward to attending the school to learn more about my religious community and to be surrounded by a community of Mormons who could help me grow in my faith. During my freshman year in college, I met and married my current husband in a Mormon temple ceremony known as a sealing. At the time of writing this, I am currently an active Mormon member of the church with a temple recommend. In order to receive a temple recommend, one must live their life according to a number of church guidelines and beliefs. In order to receive a temple recommend, I was interviewed by multiple church leaders to ensure that I followed these church guidelines and commandments and had been deemed by these leaders as “temple worthy.” Having a temple recommend not only means that I am living my life in accordance to LDS beliefs, but I am also able to attend LDS temples to participate in sacred temple ceremonies. Having a temple recommend can be considered to be a symbol of my faithful devotion to the church, and, as such, may convey a certain connotation or meaning to other members. As a feminist, I have been confronted by experiences with my religious community that have not always been positive, yet I still feel an important connection 40 with the LDS church; it has provided me with healing faith at a time when I really needed it in my youth. I have grown up and subsequently formed my current family within the LDS church, and so I will always think of the church with fondness: it is my home, my culture, and my community. As an active, temple-recommend-carrying Mormon, I believe I am seen as an insider into the population I am studying (Adler & Adler, 1987). However, my status as an insider changes depending on the person with whom I am speaking. In the LDS faith there is an insider/outsider culture that is polarized depending upon which group you belong to. Among active Mormons, there is considerable distrust for Mormons who have gone inactive. In an LDS church setting, these people may be referred to as “apostates.” Similarly, among Mormons who have left the church, there is a similar distrust of active Mormons. I am currently an active Mormon; however, I was recently inactive from the church for 2 years. I believe this experience has helped me to have an understanding of the various reasons why many members leave the church. In addition, my feminist values sometimes conflict with the teachings of the church. I have been criticized as a woman who has chosen to prioritize higher education and a career. I see these experiences and perspectives as strengths in my role as a researcher for this study, as I believe I can understand the various perspectives of participants no matter where they may be in their faith identity. In doing this, I endeavored to maintain my role as an insider with many of my participants, while recognizing that I can never fully be an insider in the cultural polarized dichotomy that exists among Mormons and ex-Mormons or among progressives and those with more traditional values. 41 Experiences as a Sexual Abuse Survivor It is hard to separate my experiences as a sexual abuse survivor from my faith, as these two identities have been so intertwined. I joined the LDS church at a time in my life when I was seeking for religion to make meaning of the sexual abuse I had endured as a child. I found comfort from church leaders in my home ward in Oregon who helped to assure me that my abuse was not my fault. These leaders likely did not have official training in trauma counseling, yet they approached me in a way that I now identify as being trauma-informed: they never engaged in victim-blaming rhetoric, and they worked with me to feel more empowered within myself and my choices as I sought to heal. I do not remember the specific words that my leaders said to me, but I remember the way they made me feel: loved and whole. When I attended Brigham Young University for my undergraduate degree I found many different, often harmful, perspectives from my LDS friends and church leaders. Some of the men I had dated in college would not continue to date me after I had disclosed to them that I was a survivor. One time in a religious studies course I had taken, a professor polled all the men in the class if they would even consider marrying a woman who was nog a virgin. I internalized this lesson with shame: I felt ashamed that I was not a virgin and felt as if no one would want to date or marry me. These instances hurt me and delayed my healing process from sexual abuse. I remember that, during these times, I felt broken and unwanted. My sophomore year of college I sought counseling services from the BYU counseling center to continue healing from my sexual abuse. I was fortunate enough to have a talented counselor who understood the cultural experiences I was having as a 42 Mormon woman, but who was also trauma-informed and was able to help me continue to heal and adopt healthier coping strategies. I was grateful to have a counselor who could understand my unique perspective as a Mormon woman, who understood my experiences of both healing through faith and being shamed through culture. After college I began being more vocal about my experiences as a sexual abuse survivor as I felt more empowered to speak out about them. It was at this time that I was asked to write an article for the website, www.youngmormonfeminists.com, detailing my experiences and encouraging others to seek support and counseling (Whiteley, 2013). After my article was published, many sexual abuse survivors reached out to me and told me about their shared experiences. I recognized that there was a real need for LDS survivors to be able to tell their stories. For me, the importance of conducting this research was to publish information about an unspoken topic to raise awareness, help LDS sexual abuse survivors heal, and provide better information for LDS church leaders to provide support and healing. I feel impassioned to conduct this research to not only tell the stories of other LDS survivors of sexual abuse, but to also help other survivors have access to resources they need. I feel fortunate to have seen a counselor who understood the LDS faith and was able to understand the intersections of my lived experiences as both a Mormon and a sexual abuse survivor. My hope in conducting this research is that I will be able to help other Mormon survivors receive the services they need by shedding light on a topic that has not been addressed in the literature. 43 Managing and Utilizing Subjectivity I believe that my connection to the LDS community has helped me to connect with my participants and have a greater understanding of their experiences than an outsider would. Often I found myself hearing a cultural phrase or reference during participant interviews and instantaneously understanding what the participant was trying to convey. I also recognize that, although my complete membership (Adler & Adler, 1987) is a strength to connecting with and understanding my participants, my experiences also have also led to biases into which I have put energy and time, monitoring to address the issue of subjectivity in the data. In an effort to ensure that I am keeping my biases from interfering with data analysis and to ensure that I have accurately represented my participants’ experiences (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), I placed several procedures to engage in self-reflection and checks for accuracy in the data. First, I engaged with my biases through a self-reflective journal, which is recommended in qualitative research to keep a record of “experiences, reactions, and emerging awareness of any assumptions of biases that come to the fore” (Morrow, 2005). I journaled after every interview I conducted about the initial thoughts, reactions, and assumptions I had during and after the interview while focusing on my own experiences of the interviews. I returned to this journal often during data gathering and data analysis to make my own assumptions explicitly conscious to myself. I periodically met with peers and mentors to explore and analyze my biases and assumptions and to manage my subjectivity. Consultations took place as needed, with more frequent, weekly consultations occurring during data collection. I also met biweekly with a peer research group of other qualitative researchers as recommended by Lincoln 44 and Guba (1985). During these meetings, I reported on areas of biases and subjectivity I was exploring and asked for support when necessary to help me explore these biases. My advisor, Sue Morrow, who is also the chair of my dissertation committee, was present during these meetings. I often scheduled in-person meetings, held phone calls, and emailed her specifically to explore my biases. Dr. Morrow is someone who knows my experiences as a Mormon and as a sexual abuse survivor and was able to point out assumptions and biases I held that might be interfering with my ability to represent my participants’ experiences accurately. Additionally, I engaged in monthly conversations with associates of mine who are LDS to ensure that I am accurately representing the LDS faith. I also held participant checks (Morrow, 2005), a process during which I contacted my participants about my findings and gathered feedback from them about emerging themes in the data. During this time, I was receptive to feedback and made changes accordingly to assure that participants felt that they were being fairly represented in the data. These participant checks allowed me to ensure that my subjectivity was not misrepresenting the data; they also allowed me to share power with my participants by actively involving them in data accuracy checks. Engaging with my subjectivity became an essential part of the study to ensure that I was not allowing my biases to go unexamined, interfering with the data in harmful ways. While naming my perspectives and biases does not remove them entirely, engaging in constant self-reflection helps to manage them and bring necessary awareness to my own subjectivity. 45 Researcher Roles and Relationships With Participants Ortlipp (2008) described the process of using reflective journaling as a way to engage in critical self-reflection in qualitative research: “Critical self-reflection is a way of considering the ethics of the power-knowledge relationship with participants. Recording my reflections throughout the study [in reflective journals] allowed me to do this” (p. 702). Engaging with reflective journaling became particularly important as I began to notice different gender dynamics in how my participants were interacting with me as the researcher. I began to notice these dynamics in a journal entry from April 28, 2018 after beginning the recruitment process, when I had one person in particular reach out to me to express that he did not trust my methodology. After engaging with him further, it became clear that he did not understand that I was conducting a qualitative research project, which differed from his own quantitative training and which he saw as superior to the approach I was taking. I journaled about this interaction: I had a man mansplain to me why my methodology for my dissertation is wrong. It felt clear that he didn’t understand that my study was qualitative and not quantitative, but I’m still amazed at his confidence in questioning and challenging me… it reminds me that regardless of the power I hold as a researcher, I may not be taken seriously because of my identity as a woman. I’m not sure how to balance holding both power as a researcher and doctoral candidate while also acknowledge the potential marginalization I face existing as a woman who may not be taken seriously in a patriarchal community. This theme continued throughout many of my interviews with cisgender men. In a journal entry on May 9, 2018, I wrote, “I find myself allowing for men to correct or question me during interviews. This seems to help some of them feel at ease. I am not sure what to make of this quite yet.” My confusion around these interactions continued as I had one participant who reached out to me after our interview. He provided a written document 46 that detailed the ways in which he was sexually aroused by the interview I had conducted with him. This became a clear ethical dilemma, and within an hour of having received this email, I consulted with my advisor and dissertation chair, about how to proceed. I detailed this process in my journaling: [Participant name excluded here] sent me an email that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. He emailed me today with an attached word document about the ways in which he wanted to masturbate because of our interview. Some of it feels culturally normal…Maybe [name excluded] is just so desensitized about talking about masturbating that he didn’t think about the impact it would have on me. But I feel just awful, genuinely shitty. I am angry that he would do this without recognizing how uncomfortable he would make me feel. Does he assume that because of my role as a researcher that I would just view this as necessary data, as if his sexual arousal as a result of his interaction with me would be “data,” as if it wouldn’t impact me somehow? Two weeks later, after continuing to process with my advisor, I wrote about how I decided to proceed with this participant’s data: After consulting with Sue, I’ve decided to include him in the data. Throughout my interviews with men, there has been a clear gender dynamic of men asserting their power over me that has only been highlighted with this most recent [interaction]. There’s something going on here that feels significant, and I want to find a way to make more sense of this and make meaning of the pain I’ve been feeling from all this. As I faced more confusion about what I was experiencing as I was interviewing with men, I turned to consulting with peers and mentors to process this dynamic. As I did so, I journaled more. On June 12 I wrote the following: I’m feeling terribly used, as if these men needed someone to tell their stories to, but it doesn’t matter who I am. As I was talking on the phone with [a peer in my research team], I reflected on how I didn’t encounter this with any of my female participants or the trans/gender-nonbinary folks. I remember them checking in on me and caretaking for me, being concerned about my own well-being as I was hearing their trauma. I think I went into this study with the assumption that, because men’s sexual abuse is often ignored, these male participants would somehow be more marginalized – and I believe they are in a way – but I forgot about the level of power that these men still hold, particularly in LDS communities. I find both myself and my male participants being more used to the 47 dynamics that exist at church, which makes my status positioned as a researcher with power unfamiliar to us both. This process of reflecting upon the power dynamics at play became an important vehicle of understanding for myself as I continued to conduct interviews. As I was able to name my own theory of what could potentially be happening with participants, I was also able to conduct interviews with an understanding of how male participants may have been experiencing discomfort with me having power as a researcher, and then find additional ways to share power with my participants. As I continued to reflect upon my unique position of power as a researcher and how this impacted my male participants, I was also able to reflect upon on how male participants may experience uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability as they are disclosing their sexual abuse and how their interactions with me may be reflective of the difficulty men experience in avoiding the weakness associated with discussing their role as a “victim” of sexual violence (Shaw & Lee, 2015). This dynamic also clued me into potential gender dynamics to examine during data analysis. I detailed this in a journal entry where I wrote, “Participants were raised and socialized within a gender binary in the church. . . . They seem to have internalized similar messages.” Utilizing reflective journaling allowed me to make sense of the gender dynamics I was experiencing and to reflect upon my own position as a researcher, and it cued me to look at gender dynamics during data analysis. I now believe that the gender dynamics I experienced were a reflection of the data itself, and this critical reflection helped me to be open and aware to the gendered messages that participants had internalized and how these gendered messages differed across different gender identities. 48 Research Design This study utilized grounded theory methods (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), which focus on creating a theory from the data themselves, “thus researchers construct a theory ‘grounded’ in their data” (Charmaz, 2015; p.7). Glaser and Strauss, two sociologists, laid the foundation for grounded theory methods in 1967 at a time when previously qualitative inquiry was used only in field work (Charmaz, 2015). They developed qualitative analysis methods that are systematic and methodological to legitimize qualitative research. The purpose of research that is grounded in the data is to build a working empirically-based theoretical model of a phenomenon (Fassinger, 2005). The purpose of this study, using grounded theory methods, is to build a working theory about the experiences of LDS sexual abuse survivors that is grounded in the data collected about their complex, lived experiences. Prior to the articulation of grounded theory, deductive reasoning, where researchers would deduce testable hypotheses from existing theories, was the standard for research (Charmaz, 2006). Grounded theory uses inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning to create theories, intending to create an analysis from the data rather than from any preexisting theories. Glaser and Strauss (1967) highlighted the importance of waiting to conduct a literature review until after analysis to prevent researchers from coding the data through previous theories and to ensure the results from the data are thoroughly grounded in the participants’ experiences. Although this study was guided by a thorough review of the literature, the literature was used not to develop testable hypotheses, but to engage in an informed perspective that would broadly guide the research. Given the unexplored nature of this phenomenon and the fact that the 49 participants’ experiences were quite sensitive, grounding the results in the participants’ experiences was an important step to prevent misrepresenting participants’ experiences and to avoid closing out possibilities that might arise from the research that were not identified in the literature. Selecting a grounded theory approach helped to ensure that the results that emerged from the data represented the participants’ own lived experiences. Grounded theory utilizes an emergent design, allowing the researcher to be simultaneously immersed in both data collection and analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). An emergent design also allows researchers to make changes in their study as data are being collected and analyzed, to ensure that their data are accurately capturing their participants’ experiences (Haverkamp & Young, 2007). This flexibility in emergent design allows the researcher to return to the participants when appropriate to gather more refined data to further the analysis (Charmaz, 2014). This flexibility in design became a strength as I was able to return to participants with emerging themes to ensure for accuracy and gather additional data, as well as to make changes in the method based on where the data led me. Grounded theory was an appropriate design for this study, particularly as the design is not only a trusted methodology in qualitative research, but because of its particular approach that allows for creating an emerging theory from inductive knowledge. I will expand on the details of this process in the upcoming section, Data Analysis. 50 Participants Selection Procedures A qualitative study does not analyze numerical data, but rather the unit of analysis is experience (Polkinghorne, 2005), and thus participants much be selected purposefully to ensure that the experiences being analyzed deepen the larger phenomenon being studied. The selection process for participants was purposeful as well as criterion-based, as is all qualitative research, as researchers select their participants who have similar experiences to answer their given research question (Morrow, 2005). Purposeful sampling allows researchers to select participants to ensure the data collected are information-rich. I also paid special attention during data analysis to ensure that the data I had collected from the participants I had selected reached theoretical saturation (Charmaz, 2006; Polkinghorne, 2005). Ultimately, I interviewed 25 participants, which is considered to be a larger sample set in qualitative grounded theory research. This ensures sufficient data collection for themes to have emerged (Morrow, 1993; Polkinghorne, 2005). The criteria I used during purposeful sampling were as follows: participants were adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse who were LDS at the time of their sexual abuse. I included the criterion that the participants needed to have been LDS at the time of the sexual abuse to ensure that the participants grew up in the LDS church after their sexual abuse, which further assured that the participants had shared experiences through their childhood healing process. I utilized snowball sampling in an effort to achieve maximum variation among participants. Maximum variation among participants, as detailed by Patton (1990), aims 51 to pinpoint the shared experience among participants when participants’ other demographic identities are different. As stated previously, I specifically made efforts to select participants with a wide variety of identities outside of the criterion-specific identities and experiences necessary for this study. Snowball sampling allowed for information to be passed along by word of mouth, as many LDS sexual abuse survivors may not be open about their status as sexual abuse survivors. Many participants disclosed to me that close friends or partners specifically sent them information about the study knowing about their status as childhood sexual abuse survivors and knowing that they might be interested in participating in the study. I utilized theoretical sampling towards the end of data analysis to ensure that the data I collected reached saturation. Fassinger advises the use of theoretical sampling as a part of the cyclical data collection and data analysis phase, turning to additional data collection when there are “gaps, unanswered questions, and underdeveloped ideas in the emerging theory” (Fassinger, 2005, p. 162). Participants A total of 25 participants were interviewed for this study. These participants were recruited in two phases of collection. Twelve participants were recruited in the spring of 2016, and 13 participants were recruited in the summer of 2018. The participants who were collected in 2016 solely identified as women, and the participants collected in 2018 had a variety of gender identities. At the time of proposal of this research study, I had planned not to include the past data from 2016; however, as I began to conduct interviews in 2018, it became clear that repeating themes were emerging in the data being collected 52 from women and that the 2-year difference in data collection did not change participants experiences, particularly since so many of the questions asked about participants’ experiences with healing throughout their lifespan. After consulting with research peers and my dissertation chair, the decision was made to include the interviews conducted with the women in 2016 and to focus my efforts on collecting data from participants with diverse gender identities in the spring and summer of 2018. This decision illustrates the emergent design nature of grounded theory. Special efforts were made to integrate the data from the earlier interviews with those conducted in 2018. In particular, to assure that I approached all of the data with the same perspective, I purposefully chose not to look at the codes I had previously created for the past data and recoded all of the interviews together in the same period of time during the fall of 2018. Furthermore, I also made special efforts to include participants from both phases of data collection in participant checks. In phase I of data collection, 56 potential participants contacted me who expressed interest in participating in the study. In phase II of data collection, 72 potential participants contacted me who were willing to participate in the study. Ultimately, 25 participants were selected and interviewed for the study: 12 from phase one of data collection and 13 from phase two. These participants were selected purposefully to ensure that there were a wide range of participants based on various demographics including gender identity, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic identity, location of which the abuse took place, and current activity level in the church. Participants were not excluded on the basis of whether their abuser identified as LDS at the time of their abuse or not since this study chose to focus on the healing process of survivors. Thirteen of the 53 participants identified as cisgender female, nine of the participants identified as cisgender male, and three of the participants did not identify within the gender binary; their specific gender identities were transgender and gender nonbinary. The majority of participants identified as straight/heterosexual (n=20), while five participants identified as identified as gay, bisexual, lesbian, or pansexual. Out of the 25 participants recruited, 18 identified as LDS at the time of being interviewed. Of those 18, 16 reported actively attending church services. The majority of participants identified as White, despite efforts during the selection process to include a variety of ethnic identities; however, ultimately, this representation is a reflection of members of the LDS church, the majority of whom are White (Pew Research Center, 2015). Four of the participants were women of color, identified as Asian, Native American, and Hispanic. All of the male participants identified as White/Caucasian, and all of the participants who identified as transgender or nonbinary also identified as White. Ages ranged from 18-69, with a mean age of 41.2. Participants ranged in political affiliation from “extremely conservative” to “extremely liberal.” Social class also ranged from participants identifying as working class to uppermiddle class, with the majority of the participants identifying with the middle class. While there are certainly limitations to the demographics collected, which will be later discussed in the Discussion chapter, overall, the participants selected varied in many important identities. Having a larger selection of participants served to reach triangulation and saturation in the data. 54 Recruitment Once I received approval from the University of Utah Institutional Review Board, I began recruitment in several areas. An IRB-approved flyer was used to disperse information about the study (Appendices A and B). To accomplish the goal of recruiting participants with diverse demographics, I posted information about the study on a variety of social media pages and websites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit) to reach Mormons with various demographic identities, including a variety in activity levels in the LDS faith. In addition to these efforts, I contacted the university counseling center, Brigham Young University (owned by the LDS church), where fliers were distributed among staff psychologists to pass along to potentially interested clients. However, I primarily focused my recruitment efforts on social media to ensure not to recruit a majority of participants that were college-aged. Participants who initially expressed interest in participating in the study were asked to fill out an IRB-approved demographic information form (Appendix C), answering a number of questions to ensure they met the selection criterion and to ask further questions about their demographics and identities. These questions asked about a participant’s name or pseudonym, current country or state of residence, gender identity, racial identity, sexual orientation identity, age, current religious/spiritual affiliation or nonaffiliation, if a participant currently identified as LDS, and how often they attended church services. All of these items were write-in options, allowing for participants to have freedom in how they chose to identify for any question, with the exception for criterion questions of which the answer options were “yes” or “no.” After potential participants filled out this form, I contacted those who met 55 selection criteria as well and purposeful sampling criteria (Polkinghorne, 2005), to select a time for an interview. During this point of contact, I included information about the study and what being a participant would entail, along with the informed consent document (Appendix D). I did not disclose my own identity in the written informed consent document; however, I did disclose my identity as an LDS sexual abuse survivor as I reviewed this document with each participant, and I would invite questions from participants before asking them to sign the informed consent document. During this recruitment process, which ultimately resulted in recruiting over 100 potential participants, I made special efforts to recruit participants with various diverse identities and life experiences. The efforts that were put into gathering these potential participants ensured that the participants were as diverse as possible. Taking Leave As part of a continued effort to pay attention to issues of power dynamics, I made intentional efforts to show respect to my participants as my time with them ended. After interviewing them, I thanked each participant for their time and informed them that they could contact me at any time via email if they had any future questions for me. I also provided participants with the option of being notified about updates with the study. Those who expressed interest in continuing to be updated on the emerging data analysis were contacted for participant checks. At the conclusion of this study, I will provide each of my participants with a copy of the final product. 56 Sources of Data Multiple sources of data were collected in an effort to ensure that the data corpus was complete and that the data were rich in content. The data collected included individual interviews, participant journals/diaries, physical data, analytic memos and journals, field notes, and participant checks. Collecting these various forms of data helped to achieve triangulation, a process of “capturing and respecting multiple perspectives” (Patton, 2002; p. 546). Triangulation helps to ensure the quality of the data being collected and that the analysis captures the essence of the participants’ experiences. Individual Interviews The individual interviews were conducted in a semistructured format, allowing for additional questions to be asked for clarification to collect an accurate portrayal of each participant’s individual experience. Charmaz (2015) recommended utilizing semistructured interviews with open-ended questions, as the format of these interviews fits well with the emergent design of grounded theory. In practice, this meant that I had the same written questions that I asked each participant. As participants answered these questions, I was able to ask clarifying questions to deepen the responses, which also deepened the data. As themes began to emerge in the preliminary analysis, the semistructured format of questions allowed for me to ask follow-up questions to explore themes with participants. Given the sensitive nature of discussing one’s experiences of sexual abuse, I approached individual interviews around Kvale’s (1996) recommendations to create a sense of safety and trust for my participants to be able to freely discuss their experiences 57 with me. My experience and training in trauma-informed therapy assisted in this process. I put extra time and care into creating a caring relationship with each of my participants, based on feminist multicultural therapy principles (Brown, 2009), often using purposeful personal disclosure to lessen power dynamics and convey my perspective as a cocreator of meaning, rather than an outside observer. I also utilized stabilization and grounding exercises that are based in trauma research (Herman, 1992) for participants who began to experience overwhelming dissociative symptoms as they related their experiences of trauma to me. As a feminist researcher, it was important to me to be aware of the power I held as a researcher. This became particularly important to be aware of and to track during the interview process. My goal was to engage my participants in the process of cocreating meaning with them as much as possible and to allow my participants to be able correct my understanding of their experiences (Kvale, 1996). An important part of this process involved efforts to make participants feel listened to by engaging in active listening techniques such as providing minimal encouragers and offering empathic responses as a participant was sharing with me (Kvale, 1996). This also assisted in helping to build rapport with my participants and to help create a sense of safety for them. These efforts are important in conducting feminist research to ensure that my participants felt respected, informed, and accurately represented in the data. Individual interviews were conducted in person when possible in a private room. For participants who lived too far away for me to travel, interviews were then conducted via a phone or Skype interview. I followed Polkinghorne’s (2005) recommended format for interviews in grounded theory research; three interviews were conducted with each 58 participant. In the first interview (30 minutes), the study was explained, as well as the informed consent process. There was no recording during this interview, and this interview focused on building rapport with the participant while allowing the participant time to ask me any questions they may have had about the study. This initial interview, while time-consuming, was necessary given the sensitive nature of the topic. The second interview was a semistructured interview with questions to guide the participant and was audio-recorded. The average length of interviews was between 90-120 minutes, with the longest interview lasting over 3 hours. Overall, over 50 hours of audio recording data were collected. The length of interviews was mostly participant-led. I would explain to participants at the beginning of the interview that they could go into as much or as little detail when answering each question as they felt comfortable. The third interview was a participant check, the focus of which was to check for accuracy (Polkinghorne, 2005). Not every participant engaged in a participant check, as not every participant was available for follow-up questions. Seven participants took part in participant checks. This did not prevent a participant’s interview from being included in the study. The following set of questions is the interview protocol I used. These questions were purposefully open-ended to allow the participant to be prompted about the topic, rather than gathering specific information from closed-ended questions (Charmaz, 2015). Thus, interview questions were approximate and might change at times in order to accommodate emerging themes. Introductory Prompt: The questions I would like to ask you will help me understand about you as an LDS [insert appropriate gender identity here], your experiences with being sexually abused, and how being LDS affected your abuse and 59 healing experience. • Would you please tell me about your experiences and identity as an LDS [insert appropriate gender identity here]? • Next, would you share with me as much as you are comfortable sharing right now about your sexual abuse and healing process? • What messages have you learned about being an LDS [insert appropriate gender identity here]? • What messages have you learned about sexual abuse and healing from abuse, from the LDS church, its leaders, and church members? • How do you feel these messages affected your healing process, both positively and negatively? • Are there any other questions that you might ask if you were doing this study? (If so, I would ask them to respond to the question.) Participant Journals, Diaries, and Other Physical Data Often participants would refer to their childhood diaries or journals as evidence for what they were experiencing as children through their healing process. Whenever possible, I would ask participants if they would be comfortable showing me their journals or diaries for my use as part of the data analysis. Three participants allowed me to have access to their diaries or journals with me. Having access to participants’ written inner child voices helped to deepen my understanding of their healing process and how they experienced the abuse as a child, and how this may be different from how they now present themselves as adults. 60 Many participants also referenced church written materials such as publications, magazine articles, or published speeches from General Authority church leaders. Whenever a participant referenced any material that was relevant to them in their healing experience, I would ask clarifying questions about what the participant remembered about who the author or speaker was and what the general date was so that I could include this information in my data analysis. Reading through these materials helped my understanding of what messages were significant to participants in their healing process. Participant Observations I purposefully positioned myself as a participant-observer in this study. While I hold insider status and am therefore also a participant as someone who is both LDS and a survivor of sexual abuse, I felt that it was important to position myself as primarily an observer in an effort to center my participants’ experiences as the main form of data. However, it was equally important to me not to position myself as a voyeur of my participants’ stories, which is why, in the process of interviewing participants, I was actively involved in cocreating meaning with my participants while also using observation as an additional source of data. After an interview concluded, I made observational notes in my field note journal about what I observed about the participants during the interview, as recommended by Polkinghorne (2005). This journal consisted of participant nonverbal behaviors, appearance, and/or general affect during the interview. I also recorded my own experiences, impressions, thoughts, and feelings I had after the interview was over as part of my effort to add meaning to the data (Ortlipp, 2008). This became increasingly 61 important as I began to notice a gendered difference between how many of the male participants would interact with me in comparison to how female and transgender or nonbinary participants interacted with me. Having this journal, which cued me into my awareness of this difference in interactions, led to significant discoveries in the data analysis. Analytic Memos and Research Journals In addition to the data collection from participants, I collected data in the form of field notes and analytic memos. These field notes were comprised of observations made after interviews were conducted. The analytic memos were specific to emerging questions I had about the data, as recommended by Charmaz (2007), and assisted me in organizing the themes that emerged during the data collection process. The analytic memos and journals not only differed in content from my reflective journal, but also differed in functionality, as these notes specifically served to aid me in the analytic process of developing categorization and building theory. Participant Checks Participant checks were utilized as a part of the cyclical process of being immersed in data collection and analysis. After I collected all of the data, I began making notes of any questions I had during the analysis phase. With any questions I had that I was unable to answer through data analysis, I would reach back out to participants to ask them these questions to further deepen and understand the data. My analysis led to a theoretical model, including an accompanying image, about 62 the healing cycle for LDS sexual abuse survivors. This image felt particularly important to verify with my participants; therefore, I utilized participant checks with several participants to gather more information about whether they felt that the image fit their own healing experiences and to ask further questions about how they would describe and label various parts of the image. This reiterative process served as an extra step to help share the power I held as a researcher with my participants. In particular, going back to participants to ask them to help me refine and define the theoretical image of healing became an important opportunity for me to show my participants that I valued their opinions and their positions as cocreators of meaning with me. Data Analysis and Writing Data Management As I collected the data, I applied the framework method for the management of my analysis (Gale et al., 2013). This particular method assisted with thematic coding, which I explain in the following subsection of data analysis. After I collected audio recordings of my interviews with participants, I transcribed the audio recordings of interviews with as much accuracy as is possible into Word documents. These documents were saved in an encrypted folder on my password-protected computer along with the audio recordings of the interviews. Copies of these files were also stored using Ubox, the University of Utah’s online cloud storage tool. This website encrypts all files that have been uploaded, and the University has stated that the site has been approved for the storage of HIPAA and FERPA data and is in accordance with federal and local privacy 63 laws. I believe that engaging in the transcription process helped to assist in my immersion in the data and thus helped to ensure that interpretation of the data was adequate (Morrow, 2005). To assist in the data analysis process, I utilized the data analysis software, Atlas.ti, which has been well-established for thematic coding procedures and is frequently used in data analysis by healthcare researchers in North America (Woods, Paulus, Atkins, & Macklin, 2016). Atlas.ti helped to assist in the process of labeling specific codes and the themes that arose from this process. Using computer software greatly assisted in the task of sorting through the large amount of data that had been collected. The software assisted in the process of labeling and categorizing the themes I identified. Data Analysis As previously stated, the purpose for using grounded theory methods in this study was to create a working theory grounded in the very data that were collected. Rather than creating a theory derived from existing literature, the theory created in this study came from the data collected from participants’ accounts of their experiences. In order to create a working theory or model reflective of this data, it is important for the researcher to be adequately immersed in the data and to balance the researcher’s experience and knowledge while remaining open to the knowledge that emerges during data analysis (Charmaz, 2015). A thematic analysis, which is arguably a foundational method for qualitative analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), was utilized to explore and analyze the data. Braun and Clarke (2006), qualitative researchers in psychology, have written about and legitimized the practice of using a thematic analysis. I utilized the six phases of thematic 64 data analysis that were developed by Braun and Clarke; I describe these phases in the following subsections. Phase One: Becoming Familiar With the Data Becoming familiar with the data begins the process of immersing oneself in the data. This phase is described as the “bedrock for the rest of the analysis” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 17). In this stage, I became familiar with the data by listening to the interviews I conducted while taking notes before rushing to assigning themes (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). This process helped me to accurately identify themes after I had become familiar with the data and ensured that the themes I identified were accurate. Braun and Clarke recommended researchers to be engaged in the transcription process during this phase (2006). Phase Two: Generating Initial Codes The first step of the coding process is to begin to label initial codes in the data. These codes are “the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon” (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 67). During this stage, I utilized the Atlas.ti software program to begin coding the data to begin the process of identifying initial patterns I saw in the transcripts. Braun and Clarke advised during this phase to code as much as possible and not to worry about separating codes into specific themes (2006), which is similarly reflective of Charmaz’s (2006) advice for initial coding. To ensure that I did not lose any of the meaning from my data during the coding process (Bryman, 2001), I used coding labels from the participants’ 65 own words, known as in vivo codes, whenever possible. Phase Three: Searching for Themes During this process, I was fully immersed in the individual codes that I had identified, through a process of coding transcripts while listening to audio recordings daily. As codes began to appear more frequently, I began the task of assigning these codes to themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The process of data analysis is an active one, where the researcher must be actively engaged in identifying themes. The process is cyclical and reflective as described here: “If themes ‘reside’ anywhere, they reside in our heads from our thinking about our data and creating links as we understand them” (Ely, Vinz, Downing, & Anzul, 1997; p. 206). I utilized several methods to sort codes into themes, such as writing out potential themes on a whiteboard to engage in a more visual process of putting codes on Post-it notes and arranging the codes under themes I wrote on a whiteboard. I also engaged with members of my research team to discuss out loud my thought process about emerging themes, which was a process of utilizing a social dialogue to help me further deepen my understanding of the data. As I continued to analyze the codes and assign themes, I was able to identify main overarching themes and subthemes within these main themes. Phase Four: Reviewing Themes This process involved looking at the themes that I had identified and considering which themes needed to be reorganized or eliminated (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For this stage, I utilized Patton’s dual criteria on internal and external homogeneity (1990) to 66 assist me in deciding whether a theme should be included or not. I also followed Braun and Clarke’s levels of reviewing and refining my themes: (1) reviewing the coded data extracts to ensure that the codes for each theme form a coherent pattern, and (2) reviewing the individual themes that had been extracted to ensure that the thematic map that evolved was an accurate representation of the data corpus as a whole. Phase Five: Defining and Naming Themes Whereas phase four involved accuracy checks and refinement, phase five involved taking a step back to accurately label and define each theme. During this phase, I tried to capture the “essence” of what each theme was about (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and identify what aspect of the data the theme represented. I began this process by writing about each theme in a separate Word document in order to conduct a detailed analysis as well as to identify the “story” that was being told within the theme and to consider what kind of story was being told across all of the themes. It was also during this phase that I engaged in the process of theoretical coding, where I was able to more fully form the emerging theoretical model and accompanying image about the healing process for LDS sexual abuse survivors, which was based upon the themes that had been identified, (Charmaz, 2006; Fassinger, 2005). Phase Six: Producing a Report During this final phase, I wrote the final analysis and write-up of the results section. I made efforts to include adequate data excerpts within themes to show the validity of the analysis. I also present the theoretical model that was developed through 67 the analysis and used preexisting publications from the literature to show support for the themes that emerged when appropriate. In my Discussion, I provide a commentary on broader analytic ideas about the overall story told by the identified themes. CHAPTER 3 RESULTS The purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of the experiences of childhood sexual abuse survivors who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time of their abuse to understand what some of the unique experiences were of this specific population of sexual abuse survivors and to understand the unique healing processes. Questions were asked of the participants that revolved around their healing processes, both explicitly and implicitly. This chapter provides a description of participants’ shared and differing experiences among three different areas: (1) Lessons of Gender, (2) Spectrum of Church Experiences, and (3) Spectrum of Internalization and/or Rejection of Guilt and Shame. Each of these themes is explored in depth with the unique themes and subthemes participants experienced under each. Then a theoretical model is presented, The Healing Path of LDS Sexual Abuse Survivors, to provide a theoretical image for what the healing process may look like for LDS sexual abuse survivors. Lessons of Gender Lessons of gender were reported by every participant, regardless of gender identity. It is important to note the cultural context surrounding gender, in that all of the 69 participants attended the LDS church through their childhood and sexual abuse, and the LDS church teaches religious and spiritual concepts through the lens of gender. Gender identity was specifically asked about in the interview questions; however, themes of gender were often discussed throughout the interviews, regardless of a participant’s gender identity. Lessons of Femininity Multiple participants described how the lessons they learned about womanhood and femininity came from what they were being taught in the Young Women’s programs. Bonnie stated how her own mother was a leader in Boy Scouts and how she grew up envying what she saw her mother getting to do with the young men in comparison to what she was growing up doing in Young Women’s: “My mom was a scout leader, and she would be off trekking with the boys a lot doing this really cool stuff, and I’m doing cross-stitch and learning how to make bread, and I’m just like… it never really fit.” In this quote, we can see how Bonnie grew up with activities in Young Women’s that were related to women developing skills in the area of homemaking, while the young men in Boy Scouts were doing more outdoor activities. Bonnie had the unique experience of seeing her own mother leading the activities for the boys, which in turn, allowed for Bonnie to question whether she enjoyed the homemaking activities for the young women. “It’s a Girl, Should I Send Her Back?” Participants reported experiences of gender where they had heard messages communicated to them about how, because they were women, they were seen as less than 70 their male counterparts. Bonnie specifically tells the story of how she was born and the doctor made a joke: “Then I emerged and [the doctor] said, ‘It’s a girl. Should I send her back?” Bonnie later goes on to explain the significance of this, stating that she knew she disappointed her mother because she was not a boy: “I know I disappointed [my mother] as not only a child, but as a female child… it wasn’t as though I was a bad kid, I was just very strong-willed.” This was a common message among participants who spoke about the ways in which they often felt inadequate as women in comparison with their male peers, both within and outside the church. The Role of Women Within the Church Some of the messages that female participants internalized about their gender being less than ideal came from lessons given at church. Rosemary recalls a lesson she listened to in her primary class about the role of the priesthood, where she felt uncomfortable. She recalls that when the teacher asked her what was wrong, one of the boys in her class exclaimed, “She doesn’t want to hear this because she’ll never have the priesthood!” Rosemary recalls this being an important memory about her discomfort with learning about how her male peers would have the power of the priesthood and she would not, which led her to be unsure of her role as a woman within the church. Brittany similarly spoke about how she has struggled with the concept of polygamy and the role that women are positioned with in polygamy: I can’t, like, accept the concept of polygamy. Just like little aspects of it that just, like… I, like, haven’t figured out yet... But with my, like, knowledge and understanding of it right now, I just can’t see how that was anything [laughs] useful. Or anything, like, there’s no way in my mind today to spin it in any way that’s not derogatory towards women. 71 Bonnie referenced an idea that exists within the LDS church about how women will be polygamous wives unto their husband who will serve as God for a different planet, and how, in this role, women are responsible for creating the spirit children for the new planet: Um, I don't get where females fit in Mormon theology. I am not an eternal baby maker. I am not, I'm not going to be one of multiple wives popping out [babies]. And I love being a mother, I love being pregnant, I love breast feeding, I relish it. But, being told that your reproductive capabilities are what you're for, for eternity, you know, it's just like, oh, my gosh. Um, and so I, you know, if I go to the temple… , I've been telling people lately, I go with… [questions], um, okay, where do women fit in all this? Where are we? Where are we in the temple ceremony? What place do we have? Because I have to be, I have to have some agent control, you know, um, it's not just submission to men for the rest of eternity. I can't do that. And, and, I do not believe God is an asshole; you can quote me on that. In this quote, we see Bonnie not only struggling with the concept of polygamy in Heaven, but feeling conflict as she is trying to understand what women’s roles will be in heaven. Bonnie appears to be struggling with her own beliefs that differ from the church’s concepts, and yet she settles on a humorous yet comforting idea – that “God is [not] an asshole.” Other women similarly shared that they struggled with concepts like women not having the priesthood or polygamy. It is important to note that these women were not asked about specific religious concepts, but chose to raise their concerns after being asked about what their experiences were as a Mormon woman. This suggests that there may be a common experience for Mormon women navigating their role in religious concepts that either do not include them or that place them in roles with less power than male counterparts within the church. 72 Lessons of Femininity From Mothers Many participants reported what they learned about being a Mormon woman from their mothers, either in direct lessons that their mothers would teach to them as young girls about how Mormon women are supposed to behave or in more indirect ways as participants recalled learning these lessons from their mothers’ own behaviors or values. Many participants identified how they were taught that Mormon women were supposed to communicate in indirect ways. Heather particularly highlights how she learned this from watching her mother’s own style of communicating: “My mom wasn’t… she was very passive-aggressive in that she didn’t do what she wanted. Rather than make her own decision, she would try to get someone else to make [the decisions] for her.” Here, Heather describes how her mother not only was passive-aggressive in her communication style, but also pushed for other people to make decisions for her. Jordan, a male participant, also commented on his mother’s need to appear perfect: “My mom is one of the Mormon women who likes to pretend like everything’s perfect.” This comment highlights not only a value on perfection, but that there are multiple Mormon women who value perfection and need to appear as if their lives are perfect. Perfectionism Perfectionism was a theme that arose for several participants regardless of gender identity, but there were very specific lessons of perfectionism for women. This reported pressure is likely connected to the pressure that Mormon women reported feeling to be a ”good Mormon woman.” 73 Brittany talked about how she felt the pressure not to make any mistakes from a young age in her Young Women’s program. She specifically talked about how she would watch her church leaders praising her peers, which would lead her to feel inadequate: With the personal progress program, it’s awesome, but it’s like, well, if I didn’t read my scriptures for a full 30 minutes today but somebody else did, so I’m less of a good member of the church because I didn’t make time for that today. But Miss Perfect over there did, so we’re gonna, like, praise her most of all, you know, for being a perfect person. And stuff like that. Brittany went on to discuss how, as she internalized these perfectionistic ideas, she would perpetuate this idea of not measuring up to expectations, which would lead to an internalization of how she is failing: And any time… any point where I feel like I’m not measuring up to something, that’s where Satan gets in and is like, “Oh, well, yeah, the reason you’re not measuring up is because you’re a shitty person.” And then, um, because of this thing that happened to you as a kid, so you’re broke, you’re broken. In the above quote, Brittany not only speaks to the pressure she feels when she is not measuring up, but also to how she feels that her status as a sexual abuse survivor intersects with her thoughts that she is a “shitty person.” Brittany’s report highlights the experience how a cultural perfectionistic pressure uniquely intersects with the experience of experiencing sexual abuse. This perfectionistic pressure seems to be connected specifically to a feeling of guilt that women feel when they inevitably are unable to obtain perfection. Chrysallis reflects on this pressure they felt being raised as a girl in the church, stating “I didn’t know… that there could be anything more than being the perfect little girl that [I was] pulled to be”. This seems to highlight both the pressure that girls face under this perfectionistic cultural expectation, as well as the potential guilt and shame that women may internalize when perfectionism is not attained. 74 “Women’s Sexuality Is Never Talked About” Women in the study discussed how their sexuality was impacted by their sexual abuse, which is common among sexual abuse survivors. However, participants uniquely expressed how they felt their sexuality was ignored within church settings, including family settings. Participants reported frustration that men’s sexuality is frequently discussed within the LDS church, specifically referring to how talks are given within church and General Conference about men’s use of masturbation and pornography. Women stated that this focus resulted in women’s sexuality being ignored by church members, both in topics for discussion at church as well as responses from church leaders when discussing women’s sexuality. Amanda stated that, when she discussed her masturbation with her bishop, he responded with surprise and denial, saying, “No, women don’t masturbate. I don’t think this is possible.” This quote demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of women’s sexuality and women’s bodies from a male church leader. Rosemary specifically stated that “women’s sexuality is ignored at church. Lessons on chastity--women don’t need those. That’s about men and pornography, right?” Rosemary said the last part of her quote with a tone of sarcasm to make a point – that women are ignored in conversations about the principle of chastity and that in doing so, men’s sexuality is prioritized while women are forgotten. Brittany named a specific lesson that was taught to her in the Young Women’s program about modesty and goes on to explain how her own personal definition of modesty does not fit with what she learned at church: So, like, in Young Women’s they teach, you know, modesty… and [they don’t teach that] modesty means you’re acting with moderation, which is what I think it 75 should mean. But it’s like, modesty means, you’re at least wearing a cap sleeve. Or modesty means that your shorts go to your fingertips. Also, modesty means that you’re not wearing bikinis. Or, you know, stuff like that. And it’s just very arbitrary, I think, and doesn’t really get to the root of the issue that, we’re, you know, we’re all in this together, you know, it’s not our fault if a guy comes onto us because of what we’re wearing. But we should be modest because it’s what we wanna do and because we want to help all of us be the way we should be. Brittany’s description above of the concept of modesty fits what other participants reported being taught at church: the idea that women should dress in a way that covers themselves in order to prevent men from having impure thoughts. This message continues to ignore women’s sexuality and makes women responsible for men’s sexuality. Sheila expands on the concept of modesty and how she believes the way in which sexuality is discussed at church is harmful: “We’re doing sexual damage in our church on a systemic level… I can love the church all day long, but this is not good.” Sheila went on to explain that she believed part of the damage that was being done was ignoring women’s sexuality, which in turn leads to “internalized shame” for women. Brittany spoke specifically to how her parents’ avoidance of having “the sex talk” with her led to some significant impacts: “My parents being as conservative as they are, they, they waited a really long time to like have the sex talk with me. So I had no idea, um, that what was going on [the sexual abuse] was, like, bad, or not normal.” Some female participants spoke to how they learned lessons about their specific role in sex. Bonnie stated that, when she asked her mom questions about sex, her mom responded in a way she did not understand at the time: “I asked, ‘Does it (sex) feel good?’ and she’s like, ‘Sometimes,’ and, you know, explained this whole idea that sex is more of a necessary inconvenience.” This highlights a potentially cultural phenomenon 76 of women being taught that their role in sex is not necessarily for their own pleasure. Bonnie goes on to describe a story in which she learned that, not only were women not supposed to have pleasure from sex, but women were not supposed to be sexual at all: I remember one day, my sister and I had stuffed our shirts with socks to make it look like we had breasts [laughs], and [my dad] got really angry and I remember being spanked for that… it was like you are not allowed to be sexual at all, or even have sexual traits. Heather described a story that explains how the focus on women’s sexual purity keeps women and young girls in the church from being able to even acknowledge that they are sexual beings. Later in her interview, she went on to describe a time when her uncle communicated to her how her value as a woman was connected to her virginity: My uncle took me aside and said, “You know, kid, you got to try and be nice. You got to try to be more pleasant and don’t go out at night after dark. That’s really dangerous. Something terrible could happen to you and you’d be ruined for life.” Well, I’m sure he meant something sexual, and that had already happened. Heather’s experience with her uncle highlights how women’s sexuality and potential sexual abuse are correlated with sexual purity. This is later explored in more detail about the specific religious lessons that women received around chastity and sexual purity in the section, Spectrum of Church Experiences. Lessons of Masculinity “Male Is the Default, Right?” Male participants often initially had difficulty describing their experiences with masculinity. Although many participants were able to describe what these lessons were when I began to ask them specifically about their experiences in the Young Men’s and 77 Scouting programs, some participants stated outright that they had not thought about their masculinity before. After being asked “Can you tell me about your experiences growing up in the Mormon church, particularly as it pertains to your experience growing up as boy and man in the Mormon church?” Tad stated, “That’s a really big question! And I think it’s hard to [answer that question], because I’m a male, and gender identity… is… I mean… male is the default, right? And so, I’ve never really felt like [I have] a gender identity because [laughs], because I am who I am.” In contrast, when Bonnie was asked the same question but about her experiences as a Mormon woman, she did not express any confusion about being asked to explain her experiences in relation to her gender; Bonnie said, “As a Mormon woman? [deep sigh] that’s loaded! Okay, well, to begin, I was born into the covenant….” The majority of cisgender male participants expressed similar hesitation at first about answering this question but were able to later identify some of the messages they received about what it meant to be a “good Mormon man” that appeared to more clearly describe messages of masculinity. It is important to note that the participants who expressed confusion or resistance to answering this particular interview question were most often heterosexual, cisgender men. None of the participants who were gender nonbinary, transgender, cisgender women, or who had identified as a sexual minority expressed confusion about or resistance to this question, which suggests that Tad’s statement, “Male is the default,” suggests that there may be a larger phenomenon of cisgender heterosexual men not exploring what their identity means to them because of their multiple privileged identities. 78 The Good Mormon Man: “Being a Protector for Other People” Men described masculinity in many ways, and often in ways that highlighted how the specific lessons of masculinity they had learned intersected with their status as sexual abuse survivors. Lancelot described how specific messages he had learned within church contexts of being the “provider of the family” meant that he had learned it was not acceptable as a man to have problems or talk about problems: Being a protector for other people, being the provider for the family. Yeah, someone who can be strong and powerful. That was kind of one of the big takeaways I got from like what a man’s supposed to be like from the church. You got those messages directly around, like, being a provider and being strong even. And definitely like the, just like, you’re not supposed to have problems…. [Being a sexual abuse survivor], I mostly just felt like a fake, because I felt like I’d put on a pretty good face of pretending to be what I was supposed to be; but I felt like that was all just a façade, and I was just this completely different person on the inside…. I just kind of stuffed everything into a hole, and I’d keep pretending like everything’s great. You know, I’d make up fake spiritual experiences that I’d had to seem more spiritual. I’m just trying to fit, like, those expectations. Lancelot’s description of masculinity highlights multiple common experiences that men reported during interviews: feeling as if they could not talk about their sexual abuse and feelings of being an imposter in their spirituality. Mark continues to describe how he notices that men in particular do not talk about their sexual abuse: “I’ve learned that not just men, but especially men, tend to, they tend to keep it to themselves and just deal.” Mark goes on later to talk about the complexities of how there is a culture of people not wanting to hear about sexual abuse within the church, but how this also intersects with his gender: It is an uncomfortable thing to talk about. People don’t want to hear about that, you know, but also people will see me differently if I bring it up…. I’m not overly concerned with masculinity, but at the same time, I’m still a pretty closed-off person emotionally. Like, I don’t, I don’t like opening up to people; and I think a big part of that is I think just protecting myself and protecting them, too. You know, they don’t want to hear about the nitty gritty of my life. 79 Mark’s statement about people not wanting to hear about the “nitty gritty” of his life highlights the potential messages that Mark may have internalized about wanting to protect others, even from the details of his own life. This may also be a commentary on a greater cultural phenomenon of both LDS communities and society at large not wanting to hear about men being sexual abuse survivors. Leading a “Double Life” Perhaps in connection to the phenomenon of men being unable to disclose their sexual abuse to others, multiple male participants named times at which they felt that they were living a “double life,” or experienced a perceived imposterism of how they presented to others while feeling inadequate or unworthy internally. Jacob described a process of hiding parts of himself and the cognitive dissonance he experienced from appearing to be a “model Mormon”: I have a progressive, what I label, severe sexual addiction, um, that led to a pretty severe double life that, one that I kept fervently hidden. But, you know, on the outside, BYU grad, I had been elders’ quorum president, served a mission, like, did a lot of great things; and from everyone else’s perspective… I was, like, this model Mormon, I guess. Multiple men, when describing how they felt they had a double life, simultaneously named the church leadership roles they held in positions of power, which suggests that they believed these positions put them in public roles of appearing to be more righteous than perhaps they felt. Mark also named the titles that he held: “I was a deacon, home teacher, assistant to the bishop growing up… I was, I, I, I knew how to be good. I just kind of quit trying and felt like, I couldn’t… felt like I was unworthy.” In this interview, Mark explained that, while he was serving in this roles of power within the 80 church, he felt unworthy due to his habit of masturbating, which was a common area of guilt reported among male participants. Masturbation, the “Dirty Habit” Participants who were socialized as men frequently commented about their masturbation habits as children and teens and had different ways of making sense about the messages they received at church about masturbation being a sin. CB commented on this, stating that his dad “taught me that masturbation was this… dirty habit,” but later explained how masturbation was more complicated than this to him, because “masturbation had not only an association with the religious implications, but with the abuse as well.” This mirrored other participants’ experiences, who often would report their masturbation habits to me right after disclosing their stories of their abuse, implying that often their abuse was connected to their masturbation. Similarly, Mark discussed how he frequently believed that any lesson about the law of chastity was specifically applicable to masturbation and his own habits around masturbating: Once you sort of associate masturbation with breaking the law of chastity, then, you know, any conference talk, that sort of talk about breaking the law of chastity, then I would associate that with any carnal thoughts or any unpure thoughts or anything like that. Mark went on to explain how this impacted him, stating, “I thought that I was the only one [who was masturbating]. I was a bad kid. None of the other kids were bad.” Mark stated that later on he told his older brother about his masturbation habits, and that his brother told him “that it was natural and it was really okay… that was the first time I really heard that I wasn’t the only one and that masturbation was natural.” Very few male 81 participants had an experience of being taught that masturbation was natural; and, therefore, many participants reported experiences of feeling as if they were the only teenage boys who were masturbating. Lancelot was another participant who named that he thought he was the only teenage boy who was masturbating: “In secret, I’m masturbating; and, you know, and then I would pretend to be all spiritual. Yeah, I think that’s what more teenage boys in the church were doing.” In this quote, we can see how the intersection of the stigma of masturbating for men impacts another common experience for men of feeling as if they are living a double life. “I Have a Sexual Addiction” Many male participants stated that they believed they had a sexual addiction that stemmed from their sexual abuse. Jacob specifically stated that he believes he has a “severe sexual addiction” and went on to explain how he believes this emerged from his experiences of childhood abuse: “Through the process of going through and analyzing trauma, I started learning about how the addiction had been rooted in some pretty significant childhood trauma.” Male participants, including Jacob, who identified themselves as having a sexual addiction, often reported attending treatment groups for their addiction. Jacob went on to explain how one of the things he had learned through this program was how a sexual addiction can often be connected to childhood sexual trauma. Mark, who did not label himself as having an addiction, did state that he believed he had been an overly sexual kid; however, his description of sexually explorative 82 behavior could be labeled as typical child curiosity about differing body parts: As a kid, I was pretty sexual. Like, I remember, even at a young age, I’m, like, really being curious about my sister’s Barbie dolls and, um, and just really a sexually curious and sexually explorative kid… but I knew it was sort of wrong. One of my earliest memories is,… I must’ve been five or six… was playing with my sister’s Barbie doll in a bathroom; and, um, someone that was knocking on the door, like, “What are you doing in there?” and I was, like, “Oh, I’m not supposed to be doing this.” So one of my earliest memories is, like, sort of this sexual exploration and knowing that it was kind of naughty. Mark’s description of “overly sexual” behavior raises the question whether LDS members may be labeling developmentally appropriate childhood curiosity as being “naughty” or “wrong.” “If You’re Abused by a Man, It’ll Turn You Gay” LDS men continued to question their masculinity and their sexuality in ways that showed that men have internalized many messages about how their abuse could potentially turn them gay. One participant in particular cited the popular Mormon book, The Miracle of Forgiveness (Kimball, 1969) as one of the reasons he had concerns about whether he was going to be “made gay” from his sexual abuse: I felt like that I could have been made gay or that I was made gay by that experience. And reading later on in The Miracle of Forgiveness, as you do as a Mormon, reading that masturbation leads to homosexuality, you know, I don’t know if that’s [exactly] what it says in that book, but [that idea] was gleaned out and repeated in church lessons and at Scouts’ camp and my peers and the social part, you know, my friends, that was the social implication… and then it was bad enough, the fact that [my abuser] was a man. Jordan similarly described how he had read The Miracle of Forgiveness. Jordan, who identifies as a gay man, talked about the deeper implications of how some of the messages within the book about being gay impacted him specifically: I’ve come to very much dislike that book. It’s been given to me multiple times, 83 like, in a context of healing from my sexual abuse. Yeah, and so many people in the church love that book. I’m sure Kimball wasn’t intending to do the hurt and damage that he did with that book, but, like, there are just some really hurtful, damaging things there… the one that sticks out is if I accepted my sexual orientation [as a gay man], I was giving up my faith. Just that orientation can change – that was definitely a very damaging belief in my opinion. Totally…One of the quotes that I have forever remembered is the idea that being attracted to members of the same gender is a result of sexual abuse or pornography and masturbation, or people who are gay are perverts and pedophiles, which is not explicitly stated, but I really dislike when LGBT individuals are compared to pedophiles, maniacs, drug addicts. That just happened last month in an institute class I was in… Jordan relates throughout his interview how he continues to be confronted with stereotypes and microaggressions within the church and how this continues to impact him: You go back more than 20 years and, like, it’s a lot of bullshit. In 1967, one of the members of the first presidency called for gay people to be rounded up and shot as a solution… that was fun to read. There’s a transcript of that, but it’s been deleted. But it’s been floating around online. I mean, even in 2008 when Elder Oaks said that if he were to have a family member who is living in a gay lifestyle that they will be treated cordially… but not taking them out in public. I think the phrase was, “Don’t expect us to take you out to dinner in public, or do anything to indicate that we approve of your partnership….” It’s a lot of misunderstandings about how sexual orientation can change, for sure. And I think that give it 20, 30 years and it will be in a much different place, but it will only change as much as the members do. In an interview with another participant [name excluded purposefully to protect participant’s identity], the myth of how sexual abuse is connected to one’s sexuality was continuing to be perpetuated, this time by a male sexual abuse survivor who identifies as heterosexual: “You know, there’s a connection between male sexual abuse survivors who become gay because of their abuse – more so than that community is willing to admit. But it’s true.” This comment is an example of the way in which myths like this continue to be perpetuated within the LDS church. In contrast to this participant, another participant, Mark, explains how he felt he met several stereotypes and myths of what 84 would make a man gay and how despite fitting all of these stereotypes, he did not experience sexual attraction towards men: It used to be that, you know, used to be the thought that if you masturbate, you, that’ll turn you gay. If you look at pornography, eventually you’ll look at gay pornography, and that’ll make you gay. If your father is distant, or your mother is controlling, which my mother is… and um, if you were abused… [especially] if you’re abused by a man, it can turn you gay. And I check every single box… and I just never felt romantically or sexually felt any sort of draw towards men. Mark goes on to describe how he did face concerns about how others would view him if they knew the gender of his abuser and whether they would question his sexual orientation: I think if [my abuser] had been a woman that maybe I would’ve felt like, hey, there’s this inappropriate thing with this woman and that wasn’t okay, versus, like, ‘Well, you’ve been with a man, you know….” I’d like to think that even as a kid, even with my parents’ sort of upbringing about the abomination of homosexuality, I didn’t really care, you know, so it wasn’t as much so that, like, I had a problem with people being gay as it was just that, like, I wasn’t, I didn’t feel gay and I didn’t want people to think that I was, you know. Jordan similarly names how he fears that his brother, who is also the person who abused him, will think that the reason Jordan is now gay as an adult is as a result of his sexual abuse: “I’m scared my brother will blame himself [for my sexual orientation] even if I tell him that’s not how it works. I know on some level he will.” This reflects not only the stereotype and myth that exists within the church and outside of the church about abuse changing one’s sexual orientation, but also reflects a greater complication for men who are sexual abuse survivors who identify with a minoritized sexual orientation identity in having to navigate with friends and family as they seek to legitimize their sexual orientation. 85 Lessons of Masculinity From Fathers Cisgender men often connected lessons of masculinity that they had internalized by describing what they had learned from their fathers. CB spoke to those lessons: “My dad was not, like, a communicator… he grew up on a ship… and I’d give him lip (laughs) and he was a little bit violent… by 1970’s standards, ehh… he was averageviolent.” CB went on to describe how the messages of masculinity he had experienced intersected with his experience of being unable to tell his father about his abuse. CB believes his parents “had a hunch” that he had experienced sexual abuse after it became public information that his abuser had abused other boys in the area. His dad approached him, saying, “My dad, you know, he’s a terrible communicator, just, like, ‘You know, do you need any help or anything [said in a gruff voice]?’ and my brain was screaming, ‘Yes!’ You know, I’m… I’m building walls around me, but I’m being a man, you know, so I said ‘No, no, I’m fine’ [said in a gruff voice].” Lancelot reported similar messages of how his dad was not a communicator and how this impacted Lancelot’s inability to talk about his sexual abuse: Just talking about emotions wasn’t something we did [as a family], because my dad was bad at it. He was raised in an earlier time; that’s just kinda how a lot of people were, right? You just suck it up and do what you have to do kind of thing… just that kind of attitude of you just kind of keep to yourself and do what you need to do. So we didn’t really develop relationships with each other very much so there wasn’t any emotional support in the house. Lancelot not only described how his father’s mentality around communication impacted lessons he learned about masculinity, but specifically how this impacted him in not having emotional support as a childhood sexual abuse survivor. Lancelot’s father’s mentality about not talking about emotions is reflective of the gendered theme other male participants reported about not talking about hard things due to the lessons they had 86 internalized about the need to protect others from even hearing about hard things. “I’m Not a Victim” Some male participants voiced a hesitancy to use the word victim or to accept that the sexual abuse was abuse. Jacob specifically speaks to this process for him, about how it was not until recently in his adult life that he accepted that he had experienced abuse, and how he still finds himself arguing with himself about whether what he experienced was out of his control or not: I hadn’t considered it abuse before… because it’s not like I was forced to do anything. Um, it’s not like anything I would have chosen to do, but it was like, “Okay, I guess I’ll go along with this.” It was more like you said, that power imbalance… Afterwards I realized, oh, I guess that was abuse. And I started realizing how the addiction had been--Oh, I guess this experience was pretty traumatic for me, and I guess it could be labeled as abuse.... Before that point, I had never really thought about it before. I had just suppressed it for so long, and then I realized, it wasn’t just me choosing to do this with a bunch of boys, you know, I was a victim, and it’s still weird to say that, and I’m still not sure I’ve fully accepted that, but it’s something I’m working on. Jacob later went on to explain how he believes that the church had primed him to not view himself as a victim, but rather as a potential perpetrator, which made it harder for him to identify himself as a victim of sexual abuse: I don’t think being a victim was ever something I was ever taught or exposed to in my adolescence. It was more being a perpetrator. Right? It was more “Don’t do this, don’t do that, if you do this, you’re a sinner, you’re breaking the law of chastity.” Never was there any messaging about being a victim of anything. CB described how at church he remembers hearing messages about abuse survivors, “but if there were any messages, they tended to be geared towards women, nothing towards men… They talked about men abusing women… I just never identified as a victim in that way.” 87 When the Binary Does Not Fit Participants who have a gender identity outside of the gender binary were easily able to describe the ways in which their experience of gender within the church did not fit their own experiences of gender. Frank, who identifies as a transwoman, describe how she never connected with the lessons that she grew up with in Young Men’s or scouting and how she admired the lessons that Young Women in the LDS church grew up with from a young age: But even in Young Men’s and scouting… I was never really interested in all the posturing and proving how manly you are, how much you can survive on your own… I was certainly much more attracted to the Young Women’s program, where it was about more about self-improvement and getting to know who you were. Their accomplishments seem [to be] of much more worth to me than Scouts was. Much more focus on self-improvement and finding out who they were and how the gospel related to them. There wasn’t this thing about “Oh, you’ll be a priesthood holder, and this will define who you are.” it was, “You don’t have anything defining you, and so you can be whoever the heck you want to be.” Frank’s experience growing up being socialized as a boy while identifying as a girl is an important perspective; her position as someone who spent time exploring her gender identity allows her to name both the negative aspects she experienced being in Young Men’s and what she came to appreciate in Young Women’s. In the quote above, Frank comments on the pressure that she experienced having the priesthood defining who she was, and how what she admired most about the Young Women’s was the path towards self-discovery and self-enlightenment. Chrysalis, who identifies as nonbinary and was socialized as a girl growing up, describes the confusion that they faced growing up around the separation of gender roles within the church: Growing up it was just like, okay, I want to go and do those things because the boys are doing that and that’s much more fun. Yeah, I want to go and build 88 whatever they’re building and being with the scouts, but no, you can’t, because you’re a girl. And it was really confusing, because it’s like, “Well, what difference does it make?” In this quote above, Chrysalis names how they did not understand the gender separation of roles. Chrysalis goes on later during the interview to name how their confusion about the gender separation was a common theme for them throughout their childhood. Chrysalis’s identity as nonbinary is another important perspective that helps to highlight the rigid gendered messages within the LDS church, both within gendered religious roles, and also within cultural gendered messages. Spectrum of Church Experiences Participants named a wide variety of church experiences that contributed to their healing process in either positive or negative ways. This theme seeks to explore what specific church experiences were seen as positive or negative and also seeks to explore what the common experiences were among LDS abuse survivors. It should be noted that the majority of participants were able to name both positive and negative experiences. Positive Church Experiences “I Can’t Do Any of This Without Jesus Christ” Many participants reported turning toward religious practices as a part of their healing process. Most participants reported participating in activities that were spiritual in nature, such as prayer, developing a relationship with Heavenly Parents and/or Jesus Christ, or utilizing the Atonement, which is a practice in the LDS church that involves reflection and prayer specifically with Jesus Christ in mind. Rosemary described her 89 utilization of the Atonement during her healing process: “I remember feeling healed from the Atonement in a way…[I] related to this man who died for me.” This process often involved pondering about the life of Jesus Christ and the ideology held by the LDS church as well as other Christian churches that Jesus Christ died and suffered for the sins of humanity. Sexual abuse survivors are often told Jesus Christ has suffered the pain of all, including the emotional pain that abuse survivors have experienced. Diana additionally discussed how the lessons her mother taught her about the Atonement were especially healing for her as a child as a way to learn about concepts of justice: “Even us growing up… [I was taught] the Atonement, too, and, um, my mom would be even bring up the scriptures … she said that, you know, ‘Just, just remember that whatever [the abuser] gets away with [in this life] he has to pay for double [in the afterlife].” Many sexual abuse survivors referenced the Atonement as being particularly important to them in their healing process. Often this was simultaneously in reference to their relationship in Jesus Christ and how their belief in the Atonement brought them comfort in their healing process. Bonnie named the importance of the Atonement to her and how she found comfort and healing through her faith: I can't do any of this without Jesus Christ. I can't do anything. I cannot breathe, I cannot talk to you. Moment to moment, just the whole concept of grace and the Atonement, not just, not just from the moment of, yes, I'm moving forward, but infinite Atonement. I, I wish we could talk more about that, and what it does, and the balance of justice and mercy… I think the Atonement is mercy and I think it's that compassion and that empathy and that “let me hold you, let me, let me offer myself to fill up all of your broken parts, let us do this together,” because the Atonement is very much an infusion of, of Christ in each of ourselves. Mark similarly described how he had internalized shame from repeatedly masturbating and how he found comfort in the idea that, because of the Atonement, he had been “washed clean again”: 90 I remember, you know, some of the teachings about that your sins will be, they’ll be red as scarlet – they can be washed clean and also that, you know, “the Lord remember them no more.” Those were very comforting to me that, like, I had all this stuff, that I had sort of, you know, the abuse… I sort of knew wasn’t my fault, but still had a lot of shame about, and then just all the years of struggling with masturbating… you know, I finally broke down and told [my wife] about what had happened, and she was very comforting, and said “you know, you’ve been to the temple, so you’ve been washed, you know, you’ve been washed clean again.” Prayer and connecting with Heavenly Parents were frequently reported together, with the connection that prayer is the vessel with which to connect to God. Carly stated her need for prayer, sharing with me a prayer she would say during her healing process: “Shit is hard. ‘God help me. God help me. Please, God help me. I’m sad, help me.’ Like, every day.” Carly went on to describe the importance of this to her healing, stating that “prayer was a huge coping skill” that she relied on, particularly through her teenage years. “You’re Going To Be Okay”: When Church Leaders Support Sexual Abuse Survivors A common theme that was reported by participants was how impactful the decision was to choose to disclose to church leaders about one’s sexual abuse experience. Participants discussed their thought processes in choosing to tell their church leaders about this experience. Subsequently, participants who were met with support and understanding from church leadership appeared to maintain mostly positive connections with the church. Annaka, who received fairly positive reactions from her church leaders, stated, “But I know [my feeling about the church] was because I was abused, so I don’t want to write it off, so I want to relearn it all with a clear mind.” Annaka demonstrated 91 being open to remaining a member of the LDS church. She continued to discuss the issues that she saw among church leadership’s responses to women she knew who were also sexual abuse survivors, “I think the only thing that bishops should say is ‘I care about you, I believe you, I want to help you get some professional help because I’m not trained.’” Similarly, Dianna described how the support that she and her family received through her abuse contributed to her positive feelings about the church today: “ [Church leaders said], ‘Well, we need to support this family because they’ve got a lot going on.’ So, um, I was really grateful for that.” Dianna, like other participants who had positive experiences with their church leaders, continues to have a positive relationship with the LDS church today. She continues to actively attend LDS church services and, during the interview, spoke positively of the church and the ways it has helped her to heal from her sexual abuse experiences. Alexander had a very positive experience when he decided to trust his mission president with some of the details of what he had endured during his childhood: I didn’t want to tell my mission president about the sexual abuse because I didn’t want to be sent home, because I still blamed myself for it… When my mission president heard about the physical abuse, he was like, “[What your dad did] is absolutely wrong, absolutely evil.” And he was just, like, “You know now that what you went through was wrong, and you’re safe here now… we’ll make sure that when your mission is over that you don’t go back into that environment.” Alexander went on to describe how important it was to him to be met with empathy and understanding from his mission president. Alexander’s experience is not only exemplary in how his mission president took a firm stance against Alexander’s abuser, but also in how his mission president positioned himself as an advocate to ensure that Alexander did not continue to experience future abuse. 92 Brittany had a similar experience of having a positive experience with a church leader showing her empathy and understanding as she disclosed her abuse to him. Brittany explicitly names the importance of having an authority figure respond in this way: So I just went in, in to my bishop and I was, like, 18. Um, and I was, like, “Ok, I’m not really sure how this is supposed to go [laughs] but this is, there’s a thing that I need to tell you about.” And I just kind of like told him. I mean… just the basics of what happened. And he like, just started crying, and was, like, “I can’t believe you’ve been living with this for so long… you need to know that everything’s okay, like, that you’re going to be okay.” Um, yeah, it was awesome, ‘cause I had never, I mean, I had kind of logistically worked that out, but I, I still wasn’t sure, because, like, I didn’t have anyone with any kind of authority telling me that I was in the clear… so that was really awesome… and then, um, I kind of was just like, “Okay, everything’s gonna be alright.” In the quote above, Brittany is referencing how she had concerns about whether she needed to be forgiven through the Atonement for her sexual abuse and how she had “logistically worked that out,” but how ultimately having a church leader in a position of authority allowed her to trust that she didn’t need to repent for her sexual abuse. This speaks to the positive role that church leaders can have in reassuring sexual abuse survivors that they do not have anything to repent of in their sexual abuse. When Members Openly Talk About What They’ve Endured: The Healing That Takes Place When No Longer Suffering in Silence Alexander described how impactful it was for him to hear from another missionary on his mission openly talking about how he had healed from his own experience of sexual abuse: He [the other missionary] had been molested by his uncle… and he bore his testimony about the healing process he went through to a recent convert… and he meant that testimony for the recent convert, who had endured some abuse as well, 93 but it ended up being meant for me. And I just broke down crying for 2 hours. Alexander’s description of this reflected that this was a positive experience for him to not feel alone as a sexual abuse survivor. Alexander also emphasized that it was impactful for him to hear how another abuse survivor was able to utilize his faith in healing from his abuse. Frank, who did not feel that she had a safe space to disclose her sexual abuse to others, hopes in the future that there will be more openness in talking about sex in the church: To have that openness will certainly help to curb some of the instances of sexual abuse that do happen. Because when you’re a kid and a teenager, you figure if you participated in it at all, it’s your fault, and it’s so big, you can’t tell anybody because you don’t even know how to talk about it.” Similar to the healing that took place for survivors when they were able to talk about their sexual abuse openly, many survivors were able to name specific moments of hearing church talks or reading church talks given at General Conference that addressed the topic of abuse in a way that was particularly healing for them. Alexander specifically recalls reading an Ensign article about unrighteous dominion and abuse (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989): “There was a random article in a really old Ensign I found in our church building… I remember reading about that and being, like, “Oh, this has a word [said in a singing voice]! This is abuse!” This highlights the healing power of being able to define and name what abuse is for abuse survivors to know they are not alone and the abuse was not their fault. 94 Negative Church Experiences “You Need to Repent of All This”: When Church Leaders Respond in Negative Ways to Sexual Abuse Survivors Alternatively, those who were met with negative reactions from church leaders were more likely to report having a more negative relationship with the LDS church today. Participants who reported having a negative experience with church leaders-particularly participants whose church leaders engaged in victim blaming--appeared not only to have negative experiences within the LDS church, but also seemed to be more critical of the church. Brittany describe the impact that her church leaders had on her, stating that “the few church members I did talk to were… overwhelmingly supportive.” However, she continues to describe an impactful experience with a bishop she met with as a college student at BYU, who suggested that her feelings of guilt meant that she needed to repent for her sexual abuse. [He said,] “Like, if you’re feeling that way, that means you have work to do. So, I’m, I can’t give you a temple recommend, and it’s gonna take a very, very long time for you to be forgiven.”…I [said,] ‘How dare you take the most traumatizing and horrendous experience that I’ve ever been through, and a lot of other people have ever been through [laughs], and, like, use it … to have power … [I] said, like, “I don’t believe you have the spirit with you as my leader … you’re never gonna see me in this ward again.” Brittany went on the explain how eventually this experience led her to make the decision not to attend church while she was assigned to that ward: “Yeah, I mean, that really, like, hurt a lot. And so I just like stopped going to that ward, and that’s kind of around the time where I was just, like, ‘Well, screw it,’ you know?” Jordan explained how, when he met with his bishop, he could see and sense how 95 uncomfortable his bishop felt talking to him about sexual abuse, which led to an uncomfortable experience for Jordan as a child trying to sort through his experiences: So with the bishop, he looked uncomfortable, felt uncomfortable, and that made me incredibly uncomfortable. It was, uh… it was an experience that if I were ever put in that situation, I would want to do differently…. I’m pretty sure he did say messages of support and like trying to express love, but the only thing I remember is when I tried to talk or say stuff, he would cut me off if I started saying too much, too many details, details he didn’t want to know… I don’t blame that bishop for being uncomfortable in that situation. Because I doubt he’d had very many situations like that, and he definitely had no training on how to, um, how to interact in that situation. Church leaders not having enough training is a common theme that sexual abuse survivors reported when discussing their interactions with church leaders. Additionally, there were participants who thoughtfully and intentionally chose not to tell any of their church leaders about their sexual abuse, out of fear of potential consequences if they did. Rosemary described her experience choosing not to disclose any of her sexual activities to her bishop: “I mean, there’s still those quotes out there about how you should repent if you’ve been sexually abused. I mean, I’ve never heard about this from a leader, because I refuse to talk to a bishop about sexual sins.” Other participants were able to name experiences that they had where they felt that their church leaders likely had good intentions but inadvertently taught lessons that had a negative impact on them. Heather names one experience she had where she learned about repentance: I remember this lesson in Junior Sunday School about repentance and how every time you took the sacrament, it could be like you’re baptized and you were forgiven for all of your sins if you prayed hard enough and didn’t do it again. Well the next week I focused so much on forgiveness during the sacrament and praying that the president of Junior Sunday School said, “I like how much more reverent everyone had been today. Especially Heather, she’s been the most reverent person in the whole room.” And what I was praying for was what I thought was my very salvation from my sexual abuse… Isn’t that heartbreaking? I 96 think back and I’m so sad for that little girl. This example shows how Heather’s church leader in that class likely did not understand why Heather had been so quiet and reverent during that class, and yet his encouragement of Heather’s behavior had a negative impact on how Heather internalized her need to repent of her sexual abuse. LDS Family Services The church has a unique connection to an organization called LDS Family Services, which is an organization of certified and licensed mental health counselors and social workers. Bishops can make referrals for members of the ward to attend LDS family services and even authorize for the church to pay for therapy through LDS family services; however, often this allows for bishops to be in direct communication with the church member’s therapist. Mark, a participant who was abused by a youth church leader in a church setting, was one of multiple young men who was abused by this church leader. Mark ended up being involved in a lawsuit against his abuser along with the other survivors. In the following quote, Mark details how his mother communicated to him some of the conditions that the church agreed to meet: My mom told me that the church would pay for my therapy if I ever needed to go back for therapy [since my abuser was a church youth leader]… but I didn’t want to sign the paperwork to, to make it so he [my therapist] could talk to my bishop…. So I ended up having to pay for it out of pocket for therapy. And, that way, I mean, that it’s still sort of frustrating. It got pretty expensive before I finally switched therapists…. But what happened was my therapist ended up calling my bishop anyway and telling him that he was just really worried about me. I don’t know what else he said, but my bishop called me into his office and said, “Hey, I got a call from your therapist. He’s really worried about you.” I knew that was unethical and goes against client privileges, because I filled out the paperwork saying that us, he could not contact anyone anyway. so that was a bit of a retraumatizing factor that, like, there’s no one safe that I can talk to, you 97 know? Chrysallis identified a similar experience they had where a different bishop chose not to pay for their therapy, despite past bishops being able to see how therapy was a necessity for her to be able to function: “My new bishop decided that, because I had already been to therapy for a couple of years, that I had already been way longer than I needed.” Chrysallis goes on to explain how this impacted their mental health: “I was to the point where I was so shut down… I’m suicidal, I’m screwed up, and I’m having problems. I need help, and you’re telling me you don’t need it… but he said he would still be willing to pay for therapy if I would have a calling.” A calling is the term for voluntarily serving within the church ward. Chrysallis goes on to explain how this was a negative experience for them and reported feeling “blackmailed” into attending church. “Probably Abuse Makes People Uncomfortable” Many participants described a culture of discomfort around the topic of abuse that made it hard to have open conversations for sexual abuse survivors to open up about their experiences to receive support. Brittany named how the ward and larger community she grew up in “was, like, super conservative. We just didn’t really talk about this sort of thing. We talked about the mechanics of sex, but not really any of the emotional stuff.” Jordan identified how he believes that the church in general is unique in the way that taboo topics are avoided: We [as Mormons] don’t always interact with or, like, orient ourselves to problems like most other groups of people. In fact, I feel like we have a very unique approach to a lot of things, and this is one area that is definitely very taboo; and people don’t deal with very well in the church. Jordan went on to explain how this theme extended into his family dynamics as well: 98 In my family the whole subject is taboo. We don’t really, except for, like, if it’s absolutely necessary, we just kind of refer to it as, like, what happened when we were little, but that’s pretty much it… so the subject is kind of taboo in my family, and it has been since I was, like, since basically it happened. My mom is one of the Mormons who likes to pretend like everything’s perfect. I think that has a lot to do with it. Other participants were similarly able to describe how their family dynamics reflected the church dynamics of treating sexual abuse as a taboo subject. This, in turn, impacted sexual abuse survivors’ ability to be able to process and heal from their sexual abuse at home. Mark described a dynamic at home that was very similar to what Jordan experienced: I think we had maybe two family therapy sessions. It was very unfortunate that we didn’t continue. At the time, I felt like, “I’m fine, I’ve already processed this.” I, um, didn’t talk to my mom… she didn’t really ask, Well, maybe she asked and I just sort of shut her down, but we didn’t ever really talk about what was going on for me, how this made me feel, or anything like that… She would talk about the logistics of the case and share some things from the police reports, but we never really talked about how it affected me, or, at least, I never really opened up about it. Jordan had clearly spent a considerable amount of time thinking about why it was that sexual abuse was a taboo topic, both within his family as well as at church, and was able to identify his own thoughts and theories about why this was: “Probably abuse makes people uncomfortable. Kids having sex makes people uncomfortable. I’m talking about the ways that [the abuse happened] made people uncomfortable… My bishop was uncomfortable and my bishop definitely had no training on how to handle that situation.” Ultimately, Jordan emphasized what several participants identified – the importance of more training for church leaders to better know how to respond and support sexual abuse survivors, as this could potentially set the tone for other ward members to know how to respond and support survivors. 99 When the Abuser Is LDS For survivors whose abuser was LDS, there was often a correlation of feeling negatively towards the church, particularly in cases when the abuser was placed in a position of power within the church. For many participants, this became hard to rationalize or understand and had implications for how these participants later experienced the church. Heather explained: “My step-father, who was one of my abusers, was on the high council… and… I just couldn’t ever reconcile that. I could not.” Heather later explained how this influenced her decision to leave the church, stating “I couldn’t reconcile this, so it took a long, long time to leave.” Chrysalis, who was abused by multiple LDS men within their ward, spoke to how this impacted their own healing process as they continued to attend church growing up: But you know, the [men who have the priesthood]… you have to listen to them, to everything they say, but if they’re [abusing] you… there’s just this lack of congruence, see? And it’s just so confusing, because you can’t have it both ways. How are you supposed to heal? How are you supposed to get better? How are you supposed to do anything, right? Bonnie shared a similar idea to Chrysalis’s experience of men in her life who held the priesthood and yet used their power as a means of control. Bonnie specifically described how her father used to refer to the power of the priesthood in a way that would demand for her to listen to him: “[My father] tended to rely on the priesthood, sort of this crutch of control over everything that is going on… I heard, on a weekly basis, “My way is the way it is because I have the priesthood.’ Those were his words, ‘I am the priesthood.’” 100 “The Wrath and Judgement of the Almighty God” Other participants shared how, when they felt fear of God’s judgement, they struggled to heal or to move past the idea that they needed to repent of their sexual abuse. This appears to be in contrast to participants who were taught about a forgiving, benevolent God, who were able to move towards healing knowing that their God did not judge them for their sexual abuse. Participants who received lessons at church about a punitive God struggled with feelings about God judging them for their sexual sins. Heather spoke about how these feelings of shame came to a head during a pivotal moment during a temple ceremony known as the Endowment. Key details about this ceremony have been excluded out of respect for the sacred nature of this ceremony. Heather speaks about being told that if she breaks the vows of the Endowment that she will face the “wrath and judgment of the almighty God” and how, in that moment, she wanted to leave the Endowment ceremony out of fear for how God would judge her sexual activity, and yet how in that moment she felt as if she could not leave the ceremony: I remember the part about “you’re about to take upon yourself vows, the violation of which will bring about you the wrath and judgement of the almighty God,” and I didn’t know what those were. I thought, “I can’t do this!,” but there wasn’t a thing I could do. Heather went on to explain how, during the ceremony, she kept thinking about how God was going to condemn her: “God is going to say, ‘I know what you’ve been up to. You have sex, you repent, you have sex, you repent.’ I remember thinking, ‘I knew I wasn’t worthy of being Mormon all this time and now I really know.’” This was a common experience among sexual abuse survivors, feeling as if they were not worthy to be members of the LDS church; and these feelings seem to have been exacerbated by 101 lessons about needing to repent to a vengeful God, which suggests to sexual abuse survivors that they need to blame themselves for their abuse. Object Lessons and Purity One church experience that was unique to young women in the church was utilizing object lessons to teach about the value of a woman’s virginity. Several female participants recalled sitting through object lessons as a sexual abuse survivor and the negative impact that these metaphorical lessons often had on them. The unique aspect of what these participants reported was their experience internalizing guilt and shame through specific lessons they received at church. Participants reported being taught an object lesson where their virginity was compared either to used chewing gum or a licked cupcake. Carly discussed the lesson that she was taught specifically about a licked cupcake: “Um, so, if, like, your, your cupcake is your virginity, right? … If somebody else licks the cupcake, nobody else wants it. It’s, it’s a bad cupcake. It’s a gross cupcake. It’s a tainted cupcake.” Brittany discussed the way in which she distanced herself from the lesson about being a chewed piece of gum, “You don’t want to be a chewed piece of gum, like that one bishop, um, that I talked to was, like, blaming me as the victim, like … just any impurity is bad impurity … I [felt] horrible, because, like, I’m impure and the worst.” Many participants referenced a press interview given by Elizabeth Smart, who is a kidnapping and sexual abuse survivor, where Elizabeth recalls having been taught an object lesson as well. Participants seemed to reference her as a way to legitimize their own experiences of having experienced shame in these object lessons: “When Elizabeth 102 Smart was quoted in an interview saying one of her school teachers [had taught an object lesson], I knew that wasn’t her school teacher, she was just being protective [of the church].” Heather spent time during her interview going into detail about a specific object lesson she sat in about being compared to a piece of chewing gum: The object lesson was basically [that] the teacher passed around a plate with pieces of gum on it. There was one piece that had been chewed up and was stuck in the middle and the others were sticks in their wrappers. Everyone took the gum in the wrappers. Then she asked us, she said, “Nobody took this one in the middle,” and then pointed to it and said, “And why not?” And people said, “Well, because it’s already been chewed.” And she said, “Exactly, and that’s how you will look to the person you would like to be your future husband if you don’t keep yourself pure.” Heather went on during her interview to describe how she had sat through object lessons but also was taught about general lessons of purity and how these lessons contributed to her feelings of guilt and shame about her sexual abuse: I remember during a [youth meeting], a young woman had recently married and just sat on a stool in front of us in her wedding dress and blushed the whole time while this church leader talked to us about how we should never ever let anyone touch our private parts…. And that you could never be as pure and beautiful as this young woman if you let those things or participated in any of those things. It was pretty toxic… and I remember lessons about purity, where we were told that if you engage in immoral practices, you may not think anyone knows. But your countenance will no longer shine, and you will look like you don't have the spirit with you … I mean, there was nothing positive about those lessons, because, in my eyes it was already too late. I just felt horribly, horribly guilty…. [I was] sure, somehow, it was my fault… I just felt guilty and unworthy. I think [the lesson] was just keep your virginity at all costs. One cisgender male participant explained the gendered differences between how Young Men and Young Women were being taught about the law of chastity: “I know that we (the Young Men) weren’t being taught about the object lessons the way the Young Women were, but there was such a focus on masturbation at church that there was a lot of 103 shame in that, too, and, uh, I think sometimes that gets ignored.” This participant identified the common experience, regardless of gender, of experiencing shame as a sexual abuse survivor when the lesson focused on sexual purity. The Internalization or Rejection of Shame Just as how there is a spectrum of church experiences that participants reported through their lifetime, participants also reported a spectrum of either internalizing shame and guilt or rejecting shame and guilt about their sexual abuse and named this as a common process throughout their healing. This theme revealed two different directions that survivors might take in dealing with shame: to either reject shame or to internalize it. Rejection of Shame Reclaiming Sexuality For many participants, being able to reclaim their sexuality was a part of their healing process. For some participants, this meant needing to reject the LDS value of chastity. Bonnie described how she felt she was doing some “real healing” as she began to reclaim her sexuality: I think the real healing came when I went, when I took that back, when I kind of reclaimed my sexuality… Um, I did not heal in the LDS ways, I reclaimed my sexuality and was very promiscuous through my late teens and early twenties um, just to gain the power back sexually. Rob, who spent many decades feeling guilty over his masturbating, reported having in recent years deciding to no longer believe that masturbation is a sin. In the following quote, Rob specifically reveals that allowing himself to let go of some of the guilt he felt around masturbation helped him to grow his faith: 104 I think that the church’s teaching on masturbation – condemning it… gave me such horrible guilt for so many years, until just a few years ago when the spirit told me He [God] is working on it… I think it [healing from sexual abuse] would have been easier to deal with if I didn’t have such horrible guilt about masturbation… I don’t think it’s a big deal, I don’t think God cares, and I know there’s a lot of Mormons who would condemn me for that. Mark had a different path from some participants, where he commented on how he, as a faithful LDS man who struggled with masturbation, looked forward to getting married as a way to be able to reclaim his sexuality in a way that would be in compliance with the law of chastity: I felt like I was unworthy. But I was like, if I got married, I could have sex with my wife. [Masturbation was] this thing that kind of ties into my unworthiness, so I could, you know, get married and we could have sex, and everything else is easy… so I thought, you know, I can do all that stuff. Mark specifically described how he felt unworthy and looked forward to marriage as a way for him to be able to be sexual and no longer feel unworthy. Carly reported having multiple negative interactions with church leadership, including an incident when she disclosed her to bishop about her sexual abuse experience and how it has related to her sexual development and being encouraged by this bishop to evaluate all of the sexual acts she had done to repent of them. [The bishop asked me to] write, like, every sexual thing that I had done or experienced, in, in the, in terms of, like, you need to repent of all of this… But, I mean, I think it was like, really hard for me to really accept [that these were sins]. And I’m trying to, like, enjoy my body and enjoy sex and feel good about it. Carly continued to discuss her frustration with attending church now as an adult. Accessing Survival Techniques Many participants described different ways in which they found ways to exert power; specifically, participants named times in which they would find ways to exert 105 choice, which would lead them to feel more empowered. Heather related how she experienced ongoing abuse from her stepfather and how she would find small ways to stand up to him: I would stand up to him. I couldn’t say no sexually, but I stood up to him in other ways. And when he would say something really unreasonable... and he would get really mad and start yelling, I would stand up for myself and yell back. And he ended up choking me until I blacked out. That happened several times. But still, I would confront him, I wouldn’t back down. In this example, Heather exerts her power in the only way she felt she was able to. She recounts this experience as an intentional decision and by choosing to stand up for herself in the only way she was able to, she describes feeling proud of herself for finding a way to stand up for herself. Jordan similarly recounted his process of consciously reminding himself of his innocence from his sexual abuse as he faces triggers: One of the things that I had to develop later in life, later in my teen years and postmission, was just like a way of pulling myself out of that dark place of feeling completely responsible for my [sexual abuse]. Sometimes that will send me back to a dark place with flashbacks and thinking about all the negative impacts that it’s had on anybody else’s life…. I had to develop a mental thought process to pull myself out of that, reminding myself that I was a 7-year-old kid and I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t hold responsible any 7-year-old kid… I’m reminded of that in order to pull myself out. In this example, we see how Jordan chooses to purposefully remind himself of his innocence in order not to sink back into a place of feeling as if the abuse was his own fault. This is similar to Heather’s experience in that both of these participants intentionally created survival a survival technique in order to cope in moments of distress. 106 Repressing Memories The majority of participants reported some level of repressing their memories. Sometimes this was implicit, when participants would have difficulty naming the timeline of the abuse or having difficulty recalling details of the abuse. Brittany described the process she went through to bury her memories of the sexual abuse: “So I literally just like… I buried it. And I convinced myself that it didn’t happen, that I had imagined the whole thing.” Although repressing memories may not always be a conscious choice made by participants, it is reflective of the body’s natural trauma response and natural process of rejecting painful memories. Reconciling Mormonism Participants additionally discussed their flexibility to be a Mormon in a less traditional way in order to find a way of worship that fit for them. Many stated that they often felt as if they did not fit in the Mormon church culture or could not fit the “Mormon ideal.” For some, this appeared to be connected with how their healing process allowed them to be critical of the LDS church or aspects of church culture that had affected them negatively. Many participants reported trying to maintain their Mormon identity in nontraditional ways. Brittany spoke about this: I’m to a point where [I don’t believe] I’m less of a person if I just skip [church] … as long as my relationship with God is where it should be … I’m very dedicated to maintaining that relationship, and I pray a lot, … [but] I don’t wanna be led blindly into something that I don’t want to be a part of. Bonnie spoke about how she believed that she could never truly fit in with her peers because she struggled to conform: I had a hard time in Young Women’s because I wasn’t one of those kids that 107 would ever end up on the cover of the New Era… conformity is an issue for me. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. Feeling like it was okay for me to be who I was has always been an issue. Bonnie referenced the New Era, a church-owned magazine that is produced for youth in the church, which infers that this publication featured a number of young men and young women from whom Bonnie felt disconnected. Rosemary speaks about how, as she has gotten older, her identity as a feminist has begun to be more valuable to her than her identity as a Mormon: I identify as a feminist. Lately that value has moved up above my identity as a Mormon. It had always been secondary, and I always have been a Mormon feminist… but recently I think I’m more of, I want feminist to be my first story and Mormon to be the second story. Rosemary specifically names how she is wanting her identity as a feminist to take precedence over her identity as a Mormon, which is a fairly significant statement to make, as many Mormons consider it important to maintain their identity as a Mormon as the most important identity to center in their lives. Rosemary continues to speak about why she feels connected to the idea of centering her identity as a feminist: I’ve been grounding in trying to be more authentic. Like I said, my feminist identity was below my Mormon identity, and so in Mormon settings, [what I wanted to say] would bubble up – what I want to really say – but now I always make sure I say stuff and be more authentic and say what’s on my mind more. In this quote, Rosemary explains how, as she is moved towards centering her identity as a feminist as more important, she also centers being more authentic and speaking up in various LDS settings. Many participants described either needing to take a temporary break from church or leaving the church completely. These decisions were complex and multifaceted, but often had direct correlations to whether participants had positive or negative experiences 108 at church related to their sexual abuse, with more negative experiences leading to an increased likelihood in leaving. Often participants reflected on how their path to taking a break or leaving permanently was in a quest to reject shameful messages they had learned and move towards healing. Carly speaks to her negative experiences and choice to stop attending services: “Like, why go to church if you’re just going to cry in the bathroom the whole time?” Carly reported finding healing outside of the church now. Amanda spoke about how, as a sexual abuse survivor, she did not feel welcomed or in place at church: “At church, I felt like if I was going to be my authentic self… I wasn’t truly welcomed. I got to a place where I was, like, ‘Why keep going to this place where these people don’t even want me – the real me - here?’” Heather described a fight between her sister and her mother about why the two girls in the family, including Heather, were not active anymore: You know, you’re proud of [our brother], because he’s totally active in the church, but neither of us are. Have you ever thought about that, mom? Have you ever wondered what happened to us between living with [abuser] and us becoming adults? Have you ever wondered what happened that neither one of us could tolerate being Mormon anymore? Heather described how she and her sister were not able to continue to go to church specifically because of what they had experienced in their sexual abuse. Internalization of Shame Nearly every participant identified a process of internalizing guilt and shame about their sexual abuse. Although this often looked uniquely different for each participant, it always coincided with negative experiences and moving away from healing. 109 In the following statement, Mark acknowledges how the circumstances of his abuse allows for him not to internalize as much shame as perhaps other abuse survivors would and yet how ultimately, he still struggles with shame: I think I knew that, like, um, I feel like my parents or at church somehow I had the understanding that, like, that you’re responsible for your choices. And that um, I um, as a victim, I’m responsible. You know, there’s a talk where, where one of the general authorities says that, you know, “You need to evaluate how you’re part of the abuse and see if you need to repent”… I was asleep [during the abuse], so I think that helped a lot… I knew that I was a victim and had not done anything wrong, even though I still felt intense shame for it. Mark’s quote highlights the pervasiveness of shame for sexual abuse survivors, particularly since he knows he did not do anything wrong, and yet still feels intense shame by the nature of being an abuse survivor. Brittany’s feelings of shame are evident in the way that Brittany describes a process of hating herself. In the following quote, Brittany speaks to the recurrent cycle that many participants described of moving back and forth between internalizing shame and trying to reject shame: Like, forgiving yourself is really hard, and, like, shaking those feelings of selfhatred is just really, like, difficult. And so there would be times where I would just be, like, “Okay, Heavenly Father’s over it, why am I not over it?” and, um, like, I’ll be honest, I still, like, I still struggle with it sometimes. Like, that’s my weak spot. Um, and so, I started having panic attacks, and, I don’t know, just like the idea that I would never be fully past it started manifesting itself really physiologically. And I would, yeah, just like, have these panic attacks. Brittany speaks to her own experience of how the fear that she would never fully heal from her feelings of self-hatred and shame has begun to manifest itself in panic attacks, which was a common symptom reported by participants. Brittany continued throughout her interview to explain further how she had internalized some of her feelings of shame, citing a time when her parents had explained what sex was to her and, during this talk, 110 mentioned to her a common LDS scripture from the Book of Mormon about the gravity of sexual sin: My parents had sat, sat me down and, you know, like, been like, “So these are the dos and don’ts, and, oh, by the way, sexual sin is second to murder in the sight of God. And so…to my 8-year old brain, it was like, “Oh, okay, so what I’ve done is almost as bad as murder. I mean, like, at that age, you just kind of simplify things… and so, from that point on, I just, like, despised myself. And I was like, “I, I just got baptized; and now, because I participated in this, I… have just completely taken, um, like, Heavenly Father’s sacrifice, and just stomped all over it… and I’m like the worst human alive…and yeah, so I lived with that for a really long time… And I was in a very, like dark place. It was, like, my coping strategy, like my coping mechanisms were just like broken. Like, I would just, like, break down and cry all the time. Many participants referred to the scripture about sexual sin being comparable to murder either in direct reference to their sexual abuse or indirectly, as they discussed the shame they experienced as they became more sexually active into adulthood. Brittany’s statement above not only highlights how she felt responsible for her sexual abuse, but how this led to her believing she was as bad as a murderer, and furthermore, how this meant that she had disrespected her God. Lancelot speaks to a similar level of negative feelings he had internalized about himself, calling himself “horrible and evil”: Every time I did something, every time I acted out (masturbated)… but yeah, of course, in the church, that’s how you feel like you’re doing something really horrible and evil, you know… that’s really what led to all those feelings of worthlessness… it was a bad combination. Lancelot’s description of feeling worthless speaks to the level of despair and negativity that LDS sexual abuse survivors may feel, and the unique ways in which these feelings can be connected to lessons of sexual sin within the church. 111 “You Need to Take Responsibility for What You Did” Similar to what Brittany disclosed above, several participants referenced feeling a level of responsibility for their sexual abuse. The amount of responsibility an abuse survivor felt seems to be connected to the level of shame they had internalized about their abuse. Many participants, including Bonnie, spoke about direct messages they received about the need to feel responsible for their abuse. Bonnie specifically had an interaction with her stepdad where he urged her to heal through taking responsibility for whatever she did to cause the abuse: “My stepdad actually cornered me one day and he said, ‘So, you’re abused, you have to take responsibility for what you did… you need to sit here, part of your healing process is you need to take responsibility for what you did. You must have done something.’” Bonnie also explained during her interview about how this direct message from her stepdad led her to internalize more responsibility and shame for her abuse. Heather spoke about how she struggled to attend church specifically because of the guilt she would feel when sitting in lessons about the law of chastity: “I remember sitting through those lessons… I just felt horribly, horribly guilty. Just sure somehow it was my fault. And I just felt guilty and unworthy.” Theoretical Model of Healing for LDS Sexual Abuse Survivors: How Church Experiences Intersect With Internalization or Rejection of Shame Previous larger themes have been described and defined above: Gendered Messages, the Spectrum of Church experiences, and the Spectrum of Rejecting and Internalizing Shame. These themes serve to outline what the common cultural phenomena are for sexual abuse survivors and describes some of the experiences that 112 LDS sexual abuse survivors may encounter. This section now seeks to explore how some of the common themes intersect with one another, resulting in a theoretical model of healing for LDS sexual abuse survivors. Throughout interviews, research participants described how they moved through the internalized shame they felt as children into a place of either continuing to internalize this shame or shift the blame towards their perpetrator. There was also a seemingly parallel process for whether participants who experienced negative church messages internalized these negative messages or were able to move to a place of recognizing negative messages and rejecting them. Participants also reported that this process changed for them at different areas of time in their life and continues to oscillate back and forth between internalized shame or rejection of shame, which reflects the continuous healing cycle for many trauma survivors. Mark described this process for himself in a way that succinctly summarizes this process of oscillating back and forth between different paths of healing: Growing up I blamed myself a lot for the abuse that happened. Then, as I got older, you know, when the abuse finally came to light… I was sort of able to move past that. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I think I still, um, harbored a lot of shame and guilt for that. So, as a young adult and into adulthood, I just kind of blamed my abuser and did not hold the church responsible at all. Now you know, given my sort of change in perspective about the church – it’s not that I want to blame the church for my abuser’s actions, but I certainly, I… I see things a little different, and I’m a little upset at times about the way I was raised and the messages that I received, and that kind of thing that made things worse for me. Although there are many paths on the healing cycle, from the data provide by the participants in this study, I have identified four paths regarding how survivors heal into adulthood. Similarly to what Mark described, these paths describe what happens when survivors either blame themselves and internalize their shame, or when they reject 113 messages of shame, and how these internalized or rejected messages of shame interact with a wide spectrum of church experiences. A theoretical model (see Figure 1) was created to reflect these experiences and the different unique experiences that happen between each interaction of either rejected or internalized shame and either positive or negative church experiences. The model gives a visual representation of the spectrum of both church experiences and internalized/rejected shame. Each quadrant in this image represents a healing path. The overall image was created to show where any participant may be at a given point and time and speaks more to individual experiences that survivors have along their healing path. Prevention of Pain: Positive Church Experiences and Rejection of Shame Dianna was able to identify many positive experiences she had within the church that involved her mother and her father working together with church leaders to create positive healing experiences both within and outside of church. Dianna described how her church leaders knew about the abuse she had gone through and responded in a way that she appreciates now as an adult: They [the bishop, and the primary teacher, as well as other members of the ward], I think was really powerful where I grew up in my beginning years, was that, um… they kind of still had that sense of hope; and there was also this sense of compassion, but they didn’t baby me, either. They didn’t try to overcompensate, which I really appreciated. Because it’s like, “I don’t need someone to feel sorry for me, like, I do enough of that on my own. I need someone to make this normal for me. And so I really appreciated that there was, like, that attempt to normalize…. I think that this community [the ward] that my parents really tried hard to establish around us was a huge factor in why… I ended up being so… I don’t want to say resilient because that feels almost weird to me… because there’s some days that I’m not resilient. But, um, why that I turned out as okay as I did. 114 Figure 1. Theoretical Model of Four Different Healing Paths 115 Dianna went on to explain how her mother used specific doctrine to keep Dianna from internalizing guilt and shame for her sexual abuse: I remember my mom talking about, like, how guilty Peter felt after he denied Christ three times… but when [Christ] saw [Peter] for the first time after his resurrection, that wasn’t the first thing [Christ] brought up…[Christ] just loved [Peter] unconditionally. Um, so she’d be like, “So, you don’t need to feel guilt because he’s not gonna make you feel guilty. So, um, when you do feel guilt, remember where it comes from. . . . I think that was really big. I mean, I still struggle with guilt, that’s always going to be there, but… but I think because I had so many people that loved me so much and flocked around me and had this strong community of family and close friends who fought tooth and nail to make sure that we had the best opportunity to be okay… and I know that’s really not normal for a lot of people to have such an overwhelming force of love and devotion. Um, to go above and beyond, to give us anything we needed and more. And tried to really help us find that healing while going through it, without diminishing our experiences…. I think it was, it’s definitely, I feel like I’m the rare exception… there was never any shame placed within my family unit. I think that was huge, too, was that my mom and my dad made sure there was no guilt and no shame, and same with my [extended family], there was just like “you didn’t ask for this, you didn’t deserve this, you didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t need to feel shame because you didn’t do anything wrong.” Dianna’s experience is one that feels especially important to highlight. Dianna views herself as being rare, recognizing that she has not encountered many survivors who had the amount and level of support that she had; and while she still encountered internalized shame and guilt, as arguably all survivors do, Dianna describes her healing experience as being overwhelmingly positive. Thus, the elements of Dianna’s experience can be looked to as an example of the healing potential that is possible within the LDS church structure when parents and church leaders approach survivors with a focus on support and specifically teaching religious lessons focused on reducing internalized shame and guilt. 116 Perfectionism, Blaming Self: Positive Church Experiences and Internalization of Shame Participants who experienced positive church experiences as well as internalization of shame and guilt experienced internal conflict of having support from their church leaders and experiencing positive church lessons, yet still internalizing the sexual abuse as their fault. Many participants described this path as one they were on when they felt more pressure to meet perfectionistic standards. Perfectionism is not isolated to this specific path, as perfectionism is identified as a larger cultural theme for LDS communities regardless of sexual abuse experience; however, participants on this path were able to explain how they moved more towards perfectionism because they were continuing to move towards a place of blaming themselves for their sexual abuse. Heather explained how her feelings of perfectionism, a theme that many women identified with, connected with her feelings of blaming herself: I was trying to be perfect. Growing up, the worst thing you could do was make a mistake… but just being wrong, was not okay. I’ve had to work on that in therapy as an adult... It was very terrible to be involved in anything that I knew was wrong… I had a lot of self-blaming and, oh, a lot of guilt. And a lot of shame…Breaks my heart for that little person. Heather explained the interaction between the need for perfectionism then leading to blaming herself for the abuse, as not being perfect meant that mistakes were being made; therefore, Heather was involved in something she must have known was wrong. This was interesting, in that it illustrates the potential connection between perfectionism and selfblame and self-shame that other sexual abuse survivors may have experienced. Brittany’s specific experiences around having multiple positive experiences at church and yet blaming herself for her abuse speaks to the struggle on this path to move 117 away from internalized shame: Like, forgiving yourself is really hard; and, like, shaking those feelings of selfhatred is just really, like, difficult. And so, there would be times where I would just be like, ‘Ok, God’s over it, why am I not over it?’ and, um, like I’ll be honest, I still, like, I still struggle with it sometimes. When asked about the different paths, Dianna specifically clarified that she believes she was mainly on the first path, with both positive church experiences and rejection of shame, but also says that she recognizes times when she fluctuated onto this path. She said this during a participant check: “I internalized shame during paths of my recovery, but the shame was more of a result of the abuser and his family and not particularly from anyone in the church or the church generally.” Dianna went on to explain about how she continues to believe that her experience was unique in having overwhelmingly positive experiences at church: “I wish everyone could have had the experience I had, but I know that, unfortunately, I’m the exception, not the rule.” Hiding in Shame: Negative Church Experiences and Internalized Shame Path three may be accurately described as the path where the greatest amount of pain was experienced by participants. This pain was complicated by the evidence that there is a connection between having negative church experiences that then leads to an increased internalization of shame, because these negative church experiences are often victim-blaming in nature. Lancelot helped during a participant check to define this path, as he strongly resonated with having been on this path as he was younger: “Personally, I’d label [that path] as ‘hiding,’ with a lot of buried emotions, self-loathing, and a strong sense of imposter syndrome.” Lancelot’s description of this path matches the experience many participants reported of having a double life, feeling alone in their experiences, or experiencing 118 imposterism. In his initial interview, Lancelot indirectly described what this path looked like for him: [being a sexual abuse survivor], I mostly just felt like a fake, because I felt like I’d put on a pretty good face of pretending to be what I was supposed to be, but I felt like that was all just a façade, and I was just this completely different person on the inside… I just kind of stuffed everything into a hole, and I’d keep pretending like everything’s great. Other participants reflected on their experiences of imposterism as it related to being called to a leadership calling, and the shame they would feel as they questioned whether they were worthy enough to serve in their calling in the church. This appeared to intersect with the perfectionistic pressure members felt to present their best selves on the outside, which leads to an increase of guilt as members know how they present outwardly does not match their internal perceived worthiness. Leaving Pain, Reconciling Beliefs: Negative Church Experiences and Rejection of Shame Path four of healing involves participants who have had negative church experiences, or who continue to have negative church experiences, and yet are able to move to a place of rejecting shame. This path involves participants who moved into a place of being willing to adjust their Mormon identity through several ways that were previously explored. Some of the reported ways in which participants were able to move toward a place of rejecting shame included rejecting or interpreting church lessons in a different way, reconciling and adjusting their own values and beliefs about what it means to be a “good Mormon,” or, at times, leaving the church or taking a temporary break from the church. 119 Intersecting Healing Paths Different participants had different experiences along each path and may even have found themselves on multiple paths. Lancelot also commented on the nature of the healing path being a spiral and how he often is surprised when he moves back to a path of negativity: “It’s interesting. Especially now, there are a lot of times where it feels like there’s so much bubbling under the surface, and it still shocks me sometimes when some of it gets let out.” This is reflective of the intersecting and naturally reflexive process of healing from trauma. As Mark described above, different survivors move into different spaces of internalizing or rejecting shame through different periods of their life. Despite having four distinctive healing paths, the healing process is not linear. Participants in this study may experience all four of these healing paths or may more strongly identify with one healing path. Alternatively, a participant may move though different paths throughout the course of their life, which may depend on differing life circumstances. A second theoretical model was created out of these descriptions of the ways in which participants moved through different paths throughout their lifespan, and even continue to move through different paths. This theoretical model is cyclical in nature, reflecting the fluid movement of how survivors may continue to move between paths of healing and paths of shame. This process represents a spiral, showing the four different healing paths and how they intersect in various ways (see Figure 2). Alexander was asked about the different healing paths during a participant check. Alexander identified with all four of the healing paths and was able to name the ways in which he moved from different paths throughout his life and through his personal healing experience: 120 Figure 2. The Theoretical Model of Intersecting Healing Paths 121 I had a combination of both negative and positive church experiences… I mean, I had initial incredible experiences [in the church with church leaders responding positively], and then afterwards, incredibly awful experiences with [other church leaders], so it was like bouncing between those two extremes constantly. Then, after that, it was learning and finding the places that had brought me spiritual nourishment, and, in a sense, abandoning much of my paradigm involving leadership. So it wound up being a rejection of church authority… it was a break with the invalidating experiences at church and a desperate endeavor to construct meaning from the ashes of my experience… it was like I took the embers from my past church experiences and divorced those from the negative ones, and constructed very firm boundaries with the [church] so I couldn’t be harmed anymore by it when it really felt hell-bent on destroying me. In Alexander’s description above, we can see how he describes different paths at different times – moving back and forth between negative and positive church experiences as well as moving back and forth between different levels of internalized shame, consciously moving towards rejecting shame while remaining within the church and making efforts to seek out more positive church experiences and to continue to reject shame on his healing path. Healing Beyond Many participants were able to illustrate ways in which they had moved past their healing spiral and made greater meaning of their sexual abuse. These perspectives were often from a place of empowerment and often took place for survivors in adulthood. Desire for Change As past research has shown, part of a sexual abuse survivor’s healing process may involve reframing their sexual abuse to give their experiences meaning. Many participants thanked the me for conducting this research, stating that they had hoped that sharing their stories would make a difference. Many participants had spontaneously 122 discussed the ways in which they wished either church culture or church policies would change, often stating that, in connection to their participation in the research, they hoped sharing their stories through this research would help to create change in the church. Some participants went as far as to say that they hoped the leaders of the church, meaning the Prophet and the Apostles of the church, would be able to read this study directly to understand the ways in which policies could change to help sexual abuse survivors in the future. Guidre stated, “I hope [this research] … goes to parents, bishops, Young Women leaders, visiting teachers. Our culture needs this, desperately needs this … it’s just a huge problem, you know? It’s a huge problem.” Guidre reflected a desire for more awareness to come about as a result of this study; and many participants echoed this desire, reporting that they hoped that the pain they had gone through would be shared with many within the church to bring about change within their community. Although many participants spoke about how they felt like their church leaders did not understand what the healing process looks like for trauma survivors, some participants explicitly stated that they wanted bishops to become more familiar with how survivors of trauma cope. Sheila spoke specifically about how she wished that her bishop had a more trauma-informed perspective and hopes in the future that all bishops will understand the healing processes for sexual assault survivors: “My bishop never asked if I wanted to speak to a counselor… he never understood that maybe I was sexually active as a teenager because I went through my sexual abuse thing.” Sheila described how she later discovered in therapy that many sexual abuse survivors become sexually active, and she expressed her wish that her bishop could have had an understanding of this connection and see how this was an issue of mental health instead of a sin that needed to 123 be atoned for. Jordan had some very specific ideas about how the church could apply training to bishops that would be trauma-informed for a variety of trauma survivors: If there’s one thing that I wish the church would do is provide some modules to bishops who get into these situations where people are reporting things like rape, sexual assault, abuse, domestic violence… all of these very difficult issues, and there is no perfect way to handle any of them necessarily, but I kind of wish the LDS church would create some type of a training program, uh, and not make them licensed or anything, but just give them something more than just resource hotlines. Other participants were able to describe how they wanted the larger church culture to change and to see social perspectives, myths, and stereotypes about sexual abuse survivors change. Jordan stated that he hopes “members will read [this study] and that it changes their perspective; and that as the church members’ perspectives change, the church changes.” Brittany was able to identify a similar hope and desire while also commenting on the change that she has already been able to see of increased awareness of sexual abuse: “I think now that sexual abuse awareness is becoming like a really big thing… like the [increase of] support has, for the most part been really awesome.” Parenting Participants who were parents often commented on specific parenting decisions they were making as a result of their sexual abuse. Often, these parenting strategies appeared to have a lot of thought and consideration put in by the participants. These decisions appeared to be very important to many participants, with several tearing up as they reported what it was that they were doing now to ensure that their children felt supported and loved in case they do experience sexual abuse. 124 Mark spoke about some very specific conversations he and his wife have had to ensure that their children know that they have control over their own bodies and feel supported to tell them if they ever do experience sexual abuse: My wife and I, we talk to our kids about, just, you know, being safe and what’s, you know, what people are and not allowed to… the control they are allowed over their own body. That autonomy. And, we tell them, “If there’s anything that you want to tell us, you know, when you’re ready, you can tell us, like, we’re not going to… to tell you that you should have told us right away. When you’re ready, you can tell us… if something happens to you, if someone hurts you, or does something that you don’t like, um, you can tell us how you want us to handle it.” It’s like, just make sure that they know they can still be in control… “You know, listen, it something, if there is any kind of problem, um, where you, if you come to me, I will just be so grateful that you felt like you could [come talk to me], not like “Why didn’t you come to me a week ago, or a year ago or whatever?” Conclusion This study began with the question, “What are the healing processes of LDS adult survivors of sexual abuse?” To summarize the findings, this research found major themes about (1) the Gendered Messages that participants received by nature of growing up within the binary system of the LDS church where gender is considered to be an essential characteristic of one’s eternal soul; (2) the wide Spectrum of Church Experiences, where participants were able to name various positive and negative experiences they had in both formal and informal church settings, which was often connected to (3) a wide spectrum of Rejection or Internalization of Shame: a theme that explored a wide variety of ways in which participants either were able to reject their shame or internalized that the sexual abuse was their fault and further internalized shame. These three main themes were further explored in the theoretical model exploring The Winding Paths of Healing for LDS Sexual Abuse Survivors, a model which seeks to 125 explore and explain the changing, intersecting, and often oscillating nature of healing, while also looking at the unique ways in which positive and negative church experiences interacted with one’s level of internalized shame around their sexual abuse. Finally, (4) Healing Beyond, a theme about how participants sought to make meaning of their sexual abuse and their hopes for future directions in the church was presented to show the ways in which participants continue to find healing into adulthood. CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION Many of the themes reported by participants reflected what past literature has shown about sexual abuse survivors in general; however, many of the themes reported were unique to sexual abuse survivors who were LDS. Themes that were reported in the area of Lessons of Gender helped to explain both the unique and familiar lessons of gender that sexual abuse survivors experience within the LDS church, which are, in many ways, reflective of the lessons of gender taught by greater society. Themes that were reported in the Spectrum of Church Experiences and Spectrum of Internalization and/or Rejection of Guilt and Shame speak more directly to the healing process. The theoretical model is a reflection of the unique relationship between church experiences and levels of internalized shame. Finally, the theme Healing Beyond provides information about some of the meaningful healing that takes place past the theoretical model of this interaction between church experiences and shame. It is important to highlight my role and positionality in this section as the author and researcher. Although this study is on a religious group, I do not seek to analyze the linguistics of the language being used, or to criticize or comment on the legitimacy of any religious concept, as I am not a religious scholar, historian, or linguistics expert. I am in the field of psychology, and my scope of expertise is to comment on how the current 127 cultural phenomenon impacts human experiences of healing from sexual abuse. This section, in particular, focuses on these human experiences and the implications for healing from trauma. In this chapter, I explore how the reported themes relate to the preexisting literature, present limitations and implications for future research, and explore implications for clinical practice and for LDS church policy. Lessons of Gender Many of the themes reported under the area of gender are reflective of gendered messages present in the greater Western society. This is likely a reflection of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being uniquely reflective of American cultural values, being the largest religion to be founded in America (Pew Research Center, 2014); and, therefore, many of the gendered lessons reported by participants reflect much of the previously existing literature about the unique gendered experiences sexual abuse survivors face. Lessons of Femininity Participants reported lessons of feeling devalued or unsure of their roles, both within and outside of the church, in the themes It’s a Girl, Should I Send her Back? and The Role of Women Within the Church. In both of these themes, participants reported direct and indirect messages they had received that led them to feel inadequate or devalued as women. Many women referenced to polygamy, a practice which was practiced in the past by the LDS church and yet has multiple connections to modern-day practices of polygamy, such as the ability for men, after a spouse has passed away, to be 128 able to be sealed to another woman within the temple, ensuring that he would be sealed to multiple women in the afterlife. This dissatisfaction is reflective of the Mormon Feminist Movement within the church in the past few years (Shepherd, Fielding-Anderson, & Shepherd, 2015). Given that sexual abuse survivors have already experienced an abuse of power by the nature of sexual abuse itself, it may be natural for women who are sexual abuse survivors to be more cognizant and aware of their own lack of power in certain aspects of LDS church theology. Several women reported being unsatisfied with the way that women’s sexuality is ignored in the church, which in turn privileges men’s sexuality and places women as responsible for men’s sexual purity. Part of this phenomenon is connected to the lessons that women receive about modesty, where women are asked to dress in a way that covers the body to prevent men from having impure thoughts. This is reflective of current feminist literature about the impossible dichotomy women face in the greater American society to find and maintain a sexual balance in both their appearance and their sexual activities (Shaw & Lee, 2015; Valenti, 2009). Participants’ stated experiences around their sexuality being ignored is connected to how a woman’s sexuality is seen as synonymous with her sexual purity and virginity. This was reflected both in the theme Women’s Sexuality is Never Talked About, as well as later in the results under Object Lessons, where women’s sexual purity and virginity were compared to objects such as chewing gum or cupcakes to teach young women about how they would no longer be seen as desirable to potential future husbands if they did not maintain their virginity. This is a reflection of Valenti’s (2009) purity myth, where they discuss how difficult it is to define virginity, and yet how something that is so hard to 129 define has been correlated with morality and purity in modern society. The complication for sexual abuse survivors who sit through these object lessons is that they are more likely to internalize the message that they are impure, and therefore less feminine (Shaw & Lee, 2015; Wellman, 1993); this was reflected by participants who reported increased feelings of guilt and shame particularly as they sat through object lessons. Many participants referred to Elizabeth Smart’s media interview in which she disclosed how she also had been taught about sexual purity through object lessons. Elizabeth Smart became a public figure after being kidnapped and subjected to sexual slavery at the age of 11. Smart recalls thinking back to the lessons she had been taught after having been raped for the first time: "You're like this stick of gum, and if you have sex before you're married, it's like someone chews up that piece of gum, and then when you're done, who wants a piece of gum that's already chewed up? No one." Even after Elizabeth was rescued, she was still made to sit through these lessons a few times a year, as a high-schooler in religious seminary classes: You're like this beautiful fence… And you hammer these nails in, and then every time you have sex with someone else, it's like you're hammering in another nail. And you can take them out, you can repent of them, but the holes are still there… I just remember thinking, “This is terrible. Do they not realize I'm sitting in class? Do they not realize that I'm listening to what they're saying?” Those are terrible analogies. No one should use them, period, especially for someone who's been raped, they've already felt these feelings of worthlessness, of filth, of just—of just being so crushed, and then to hear a teacher come back and say, “Nobody wants you now”... You just think, I should just die right now. (Oswalks, 2016, para. 9). In this interview, Smart’s experience reflects the participants’ experiences of being taught that their self-worth is connected to their sexual purity, and how sitting through the object lessons taught within church settings led to feelings of worthlessness, shame, and guilt. These various lessons have several common themes of comparing how one’s value is lost 130 when their virginity is lost. Additionally, using an object compares a person to an object. In the cupcake and the chewing gum metaphor, the underlying message is that a woman is an object to be devoured. Comparing a person to an object dehumanizes women and enforces the idea that women are objects to be devoured; their self-worth is connected to not only their virginity but also in their ability to be sexually desirable. This harmful message leaves no room for the idea that one can valuable and loved in a complex, multifaceted way. Particularly for sexual abuse survivors who may not consider themselves virgins due to their abuse, the lesson may have increased negative messages and leave survivors questioning their inherent self-worth. Lessons of Masculinity The theme, Being a Protector for Other People was a lesson of masculinity that almost directly quotes The Family: A Proclamation to the World: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families” (1995, para. 7). Male participants reported how the pressure they felt to protect others extended into feeling as if they needed to protect others from hearing about their sexual abuse. This may be reflective of the larger societal phenomenon of not allowing boys or men to show vulnerability, shown in the following quote: “Weakness, softness, and vulnerability are to be avoided at all costs” (Shaw & Lee, 2015; p. 125). Sexual abuse may be seen as the ultimate vulnerability, which may not only lead male participants not to disclose that they are sexual abuse survivors, but may even lead abuse survivors to question whether they are even victims in the first place. 131 This is reflective of the theme, I’m Not a Victim, where male participants talk about how they still struggle into adulthood to identify with the idea that they are victims of sexual abuse. This is reflective of the more general sexual abuse literature that theorizes that the reason reporting rates for childhood sexual abuse is lower for boys is due to the messages that men receive around the norms of valuing invulnerability, leading boys and men to experience difficulty talking about their experiences of childhood sexual abuse (Shaw & Lee, 2015). Men are more likely to be in denial of their experiences of sexual abuse as a result, and many men and boys may avoid the appearance of weaknesses associated with being a “victim” of sexual abuse (Shaw & Lee, 2015). Studies involving male Catholic survivors of sexual abuse reflect this finding, as Catholic survivors report questioning their masculine identity and feeling ashamed or not “masculine enough” (Fitzgibbons & O’Leary, 2011). As men move away from the weakness that is associated with being a “victim,” they move into the privilege that they hold as men in a patriarchal society. This simultaneous positionality of holding both power and marginalization as male sexual abuse survivors may be connected to the theme Leading a Double Life, as men described the imposterism they experienced holding powerful callings in their wards while feeling inwardly inadequate. Moving towards blaming oneself is also a protective factor, one that is a survival technique to maintain a sense of safety (Freyd, 1996; Herman, 1992). Therefore, it makes sense that multiple participants struggle with blaming themselves for their sexual abuse. For participants who were socialized as boys, however, there was a unique cultural phenomenon of not only blaming themselves for their sexual abuse, but also seeing themselves as sex addicts, which is described in the themes, I Have a Sexual Addiction 132 and Masturbation, the ‘Dirty Habit.’ Participants described feeling shame for sexual feelings – this was a common experience for participants regardless of gender; however, for male participants there was a unique experience of lessons at church that were hyperfocused on preventing boys and men from masturbating, which led to feelings of shame for participants who inevitably did masturbate. Some participants went so far as to describe their seemingly natural childhood curiosity as being “overly sexual.” This may also be connected to why participants who were socialized as men also described a process of Leading a Double Life, where they described feeling ashamed of their masturbation habits in secret, yet also serving in important, high-ranking callings within the church, leading them to feel like imposters in their lives. It feels important to note that what many sexual abuse survivors appeared to experience is an oft-reported process of increased sexual behavior after being sexually abused (Noll, Trickett, & Putnam, 2003). This can happen for multiple reasons and serves multiple purposes. Theories for why this happens ranges from children being more aware of their developing sexual bodies, which leads to increased sexual behavior (Browning & Laumann, 1997), or recreating traumatic memories as a way to process their own abuse (e.g., Brown, Kessel, Lourie, Ford, & Lipsitt, 1997; Herman, 1992). Although many participants had different experiences with masturbation and sexuality through their healing process, there is a common path that LDS sexual abuse survivors reported: (1) experiencing sexual abuse, which led to (2) a heightened awareness of their own sexuality and/or increased sexual behavior (which often led to masturbation or being more sexually active than they previously were), (3) being taught about the law of chastity in church settings, which led to (4) an inner conflict about how to reconcile one’s 133 sexual habits with living the law of chastity. For LDS members regardless of gender, there does not appear to be an understanding or an integration of this being a natural response to sexual trauma, therefore sexual abuse survivors felt ashamed of their increased sexual behavior, blaming this on themselves. Spectrum of Church Experiences and Spectrum of Shame Similar to the preexisting literature about sexual abuse survivors from other religions, survivors reported a wide variety of church experiences ranging from positive to negative, which suggests that the LDS church has the potential for assisting survivors in their healing process, as well as to do harm. In this section, I will outline what is significant about the themes that were identified in this area to help identify and define what makes a church experience helpful or hurtful for Mormon sexual abuse survivors. This section will also explore how church experiences connected to themes identified around internalized and/or rejected shame. Church Leaders Participants reported both positive and negative experiences with church leaders. Church leaders in higher positions, such as bishops or stake presidents, were clearly looked up to by participants, and what they had to say carried a lot of weight. In the theme, “You’re Going to Be Okay”: When Church Leaders Support Sexual Abuse Survivors, leaders who empathized with participants and reassured participants that they had not sinned and did not have a reason to repent from their sexual abuse helped participants to move towards healing. Participants were particularly impacted positively 134 when these leaders sat with their participants in their pain. Tara Westover’s (2018) bestselling memoir, Educated, documents her experiences growing up in a Mormon survivalist family and her healing process from abuse she experienced in her childhood. One particular part of her memoir describes the healing power that church leaders have in simply being there for members of the congregation: “I talked and he [the Bishop] listened, drawing the shame from me like a healer draws infection from a wound” (Westover, 2018). This excerpt from her memoir reflects a similar experience that some participants experienced when they went to their bishops and church leaders. Participants who described negative experiences with church leaders described nearly the opposite of this. Participants with negative experiences in the theme You Need to Repent of All of This described church leaders who would suggest that participants they had reason to feel guilty or that the sexual abuse was somehow their fault. A significant finding from these two themes is the reported impact that these experiences with church leaders ended up having on participants and on whether participants would stay within the church or leave the church, either temporarily or permanently. It is important to note that, for many female participants, the act of disclosing their experiences to a man felt invasive in itself, and some stated that they wished they had been able to confide in a female leader instead. Currently, church policy states that only men who hold the priesthood can serve as bishops, and Mormons are encouraged to disclose all sexual activity outside of marriage, which often includes sexual abuse. In particular, participants spoke about how, when their leaders did not appear to be comfortable as they talked about sexual abuse, participants began to feel as if it was not okay for them to talk openly. This also seemed to be connected to the theme, 135 Probably Abuse Makes People Uncomfortable, in which participants described a larger LDS cultural perspective where they felt that “taboo” topics, including sexual abuse, were not allowed to be brought up and discussed at church. This is a significant finding given the preexisting literature that suggests that one of the strengths for sexual abuse survivors turning to religion for healing is the support that comes from belonging to a congregation and speaking about their healing within supportive community (Collins et al., 2014; Matsen, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). This has significant implications for LDS sexual abuse survivors who may need to seek outside communities in order to receive this support. The theme, Probably Abuse Makes People Uncomfortable may be connected to the theme, Reconciling Mormonism, where participants reported a need to readjust their Mormon identity or how they practiced Mormonism in a way that helped their healing process. In this theme, several participants described feeling as if they would never be fully accepted within their LDS wards for their authentic selves as sexual abuse survivors and how this led them to adjust how they practiced Mormonism in various ways. This is reflective of past research, particularly Guido’s study (2008), which suggests that a common experience among religious sexual abuse survivors is to move away from their religion as a result of their abuse. View of Heavenly Parents A number of participants spoke about their relationship with Heavenly Parents, particularly Heavenly Father. Specifically, participants were able to articulate the importance of their perspective of God as benevolent and who felt love and care for the 136 participants in their suffering. Participants spoke to how the Atonement became a powerful tool for them in their healing process and that having a structure for healing helped them in this process. This is reflective of Bryant-Davis and Wong’s study (2013), showing that one of the advantages of healing within a church setting is the structure that religious settings can provide, including ceremonies that encourage self-reflection while striving for self-growth. Past research also demonstrates that abuse survivors may have more positive healing experiences specifically when they believe in a benevolent God as opposed to a punitive God (Guido, 2008). Alternatively, participants reported experiences of feeling fearful of God and feeling the need to utilize the Atonement to repent for the sins of having been sexually abused in several themes. This was highlighted in the theme, The Wrath and Judgment of the Almighty God. Overall, the takeaway connection of whether a church experience was described as either positive or negative is whether what was being taught led a sexual abuse survivor to feel either more or less shame for their abuse. Supportive church leaders who were able to reassure survivors that they were not at fault or to blame for their sexual abuse and a belief in a benevolent God led LDS survivors away from feeling fault for their abuse and helped move them toward healing. Research Strengths, Limitations, and Future Directions The theoretical model is the first model created specific to LDS sexual abuse survivors. There was a clear connection reported by participants between church experiences and internalization of shame; and, thus, this is the first model created that 137 attempts to describe this relationship. However, this does not mean that this is an exhaustive model or is it one that explains the other factors that likely impact the healing process. For future studies, it may be important to develop a quantitative study that explores the correlation between church experiences and internalized shame. It would also be important to continue to explore other factors that impact one’s level of internalized shame or rejected shame. Furthermore, there currently are no data regarding the rates of sexual abuse that occurs for Mormons. Understanding the prevalence of abuse that occurs in the LDS population would lead to greater ability to assist survivors in their healing journeys. Participants Despite efforts to recruit participants with diverse identities, the demographics of the participants have some limitations. Although there was a wide variety of varied identities such as range of activity level in the church, range of ages, and range of socioeconomic status, there were limitations in that the majority of participants identify as White and cisgender. However, it should also be noted that these participants were recruited over two periods of recruitment, and were selected from over 150 potential participants. Therefore, these efforts ensured that the participant pool was as diverse as it is. It should also be noted that, ultimately, these demographics are reflective of the current demographics of members of the LDS church (Pew Research Center Research Center, 2014). Future studies may want to focus on participants with more marginalized identities to further deepen the literature exploring the unique experiences of LDS sexual 138 abuse survivors. Race and Sexual Abuse Themes of race did not emerge in the data, which may be reflective of the majority of participants identifying as White. This does not mean that there are not complex intersections of racial experiences for LDS sexual abuse survivors; however, this may be reflective of greater systemic experiences of race within the LDS church. Mormonism, having been uniquely founded in America, reflects a racist structure that systemically privileges White people (Mueller, 2017). Black members of the church were banned from receiving the priesthood or performing in temple rituals until 1978, and many Black Mormons continue to feel the impacts of this ban today (Graham-Russell, 2016). There is an overwhelming White narrative throughout church scripture, literature and leadership, which may also lead to a majority White LDS membership. As White members exist in privilege, they may not be aware of their racial identity to divulge details of how their race impacts their experiences of healing from sexual abuse. Racially minoritized members may have experienced a lack of safety in LDS culture to openly explore their racial identity as it intersects with Mormonism, as LDS people of color report being “referred to in demeaning terms, our children mistreated, and callings withheld,” (Fletcher-Stack, 2016). This highlights the important need for additional research to be continue exploring the intersections of race and sexual abuse among LDS members. 139 Strengths The number of participants (n=25) is a strength of this study, as it was possible to reach theoretical saturation with this number. It is important to note that, although the specific percentages of differing demographics may be small, each participant had at least one unique demographic identity and was selected for the purpose of adding unique perspectives and lived experiences to expand the data findings. Thus, the participants represented a good number of diverse identities, perspectives, and lived experiences. It is important to highlight that this is the first known study to explore the healing processes of LDS sexual abuse survivors. The detailed gender analysis of this study lays a foundation for outsiders who may be seeking to understand what unique messages LDS participants may receive, based on their sex assigned at birth. As such, this study has multiple strengths: it highlights the importance of this topic, seeks to explain in-depth what is unique to Mormons, and is a foundational starting point in raising awareness for the unique experiences of marginalization that LDS sexual abuse survivors face on their healing path. Implications Implications for Counseling Practice Counselors who work with LDS clients who have survived sexual abuse should be aware of the unique experiences that these clients may have had. Given the varying levels of experiences in the church, it would be important for a counselor to assess with the client what their experiences have been with their bishops and their ward around disclosing their sexual abuse and whether these experiences may be impacting their 140 clients’ internalized sense of shame, guilt, or self-blame for their sexual abuse. Particularly for counselors who are men, it would be important to assess whether the client has experienced an abuse of power with their bishop, because these experiences could impact the client’s experience with a male counselor. Counselors should also be aware of the unique messages that their LDS clients have experienced surrounding their sexuality and virginity. For sexual abuse survivors, this contributes to their internalized guilt and shame; however, it should be noted that this may be a matter of discussion for many LDS clients, regardless of if they have experienced abuse, because of the extreme messages that members of the LDS church are taught about the importance of virginity. It may be relevant for counselors to discuss the ways in which clients were taught about their sexuality and virginity and how they have internalized these messages, particularly if the clients were taught the popular LDS virginity object lessons of being compared to a licked cupcake or a used piece of chewing gum. Additionally, it may be important for counselors and therapists to provide some psychoeducation about human sexuality and how sexual behaviors may be increased as a result of sexual abuse. Providing this information from a counselor or therapist, who can be viewed as a trusted authority figure, may be a powerful intervention in normalizing human sexuality for LDS sexual abuse survivors who may be experiencing increased sexual feelings or behaviors and have felt shame for this process. Transitioning out of one’s Mormon identity can be a distressing time. In recent years, some Mormon counselors have begun specializing in counseling for “faith crises” (The Mormon Mental Health Association, 2016). As many participants stated that they 141 had gone through a period of reconciling their LDS identity and redefining what their identity meant to them, or even completely leaving the LDS church, it could be important for counselors who are working with LDS sexual abuse survivors to be aware of the importance of one’s LDS identity and to be aware of the distress their clients may experience should they choose to readjust or change their faith identity. Both counselors and church leaders should be aware of the aspects of the LDS church that were healing for sexual abuse survivors: positive interactions with church leaders, developing a relationship with a benevolent God, and utilizing the Atonement. It could be important for counselors to allow LDS abuse survivors to discuss the ways in which these spiritual activities are healing for them and to understand and welcome the importance of the client’s LDS identity in a therapeutic setting. For church leaders, it could be important to guide survivors specifically towards these spiritual experiences as healing activities, as well as other lessons that reassure a survivor that the sexual abuse was not their fault. Additionally, the LDS church is unique in the belief of a Heavenly Mother. While discussions about Heavenly Mother have been rare in the past, new publications have been released that discuss the role of Heavenly Mother. One such publication is a book of poems from an LDS feminist scholar who studied Heavenly Mother at Brigham Young University. This text explores the healing that can come from a belief in a divine feminine being. One such poem explores the unconditional love of Heavenly Mother: “After creation,/the Mother needed/to rest. But,/ before She slept,/She held the world/to her skin and/ sighed, You are good.” (Steenblik, 2019). Helping sexual abuse survivors connect to this belief of Heavenly Mother, which is unconditionally benevolent in nature, may be helpful to others in their healing process. 142 Implications for Church Policy and Social Justice The reported interactions that participants had with their bishops varied in levels of support. This is a reflection of the differing levels of awareness that bishops have around sexual abuse, indicating that the training that bishops receive is neither adequate nor uniform within the church. Bishops and other church leaders need more training than they are currently receiving regarding sexual abuse, healing from trauma, and victim blaming. It is important to highlight that bishops are lay clergy, who may not have any previous exposure to trauma literature or understand of the natural response to trauma. These individuals, while often well-intentioned, without any formal training, are left to rely on their own personal perspectives on trauma and are likely informed by larger societal systems of victim-blaming and rape myths. The National Advocate Credentialing Program (NACP) is an organization that offers standardized 40-hour training for volunteers who work with sexual abuse and sexual assault survivors (NACP, 2018). Currently, there are programs available in each state in the United States; and, furthermore, the NACP provides information about how organizations may develop their own curricula in order to be approved by the NACP. This could be one potential direction for the LDS church to investigate. The program put forth by the NACP operates under the assumption that anyone who works with sexual abuse or sexual assault survivors needs to go through a process of unlearning rape myths and understanding the basics of trauma response. This would be valuable training and support to provide to bishops to ensure they have the support they need, as they are in the difficult position of learning how to support survivors of various traumas. The LDS church utilizes handbooks for teachers within the church to develop 143 their lessons each Sunday. Due to the current messages that are being taught about virginity and the law of chastity, these lessons create a culture of victim-blaming of sexual abuse survivors. Furthermore, there is no exception or understanding of how a sexual abuse survivor may need to be taught about the law of chastity in a different way. Church handbooks should be reevaluated, and object lessons regarding virginity should be discouraged within the church handbook. Furthermore, it may be important in the lessons taught to the youth of the ward about the law of chastity to have explicit messages about what abuse is, how abuse is never the survivor’s fault, and how there is no need to repent of being a victim of abuse. The majority of the participants were not abused by church leaders; however, despite this fact, many discussed the ways in which they were troubled by current church policy for bishops to interview members under the age of 18 alone, behind a closed door, about their sexual purity. Participants expressed either unease for their own experiences meeting with their bishop after experiencing their sexual abuse or discomfort in allowing their own children to meet with the bishop alone. Some participants stated that, despite having trust in their own bishop, they had hoped this policy would change and that parents would be required to attend these meetings in the future or that these meetings would stop being a requirement. Women participants expressed their discomfort in having to meet with a man, particularly if their own abuser was a man. They expressed their desire for there to be a woman with whom they could meet instead of their male bishops. A future direction for church leaders to consider may include allowing women to speak with their relief society president as an alternative to speaking with their bishop. 144 Conclusion This study began with the question, “What are the healing processes of LDS Survivors of Sexual Abuse?” This research found that, like many sexual abuse survivors, Mormons internalize guilt and shame, but they also are given unique gendered messages about their sexuality, virginity, purity, and the law of chastity that exacerbate this guilt and shame. LDS survivors are impacted by their religion in both positive and negative ways: they turn towards spirituality, God, prayer, and church leaders for healing; but they are also negatively impacted by church experiences and negatively impacted by church leaders at times. LDS survivors are taught both indirectly and directly that it is not culturally appropriate for them to speak out; and yet, one of the powerful aspects of this study is that they still chose to openly discuss the ways in which they hoped the church will change. The theoretical model created through this study seeks to explain the reported interaction between church experiences and the amount of internalized shame one feels. The four different identified healing paths seek to explain some of the different healing processes that participants may experience through their lifetime as they move through different paths. This is one of the very first studies to be conducted about LDS sexual abuse survivors and their healing processes. The experiences of these participants may be unique in some aspects; however, it is important to note that these participants’ experiences are not unique from a global perspective. Sexual abuse survivors around the globe may struggle with their intersecting identities as sexual abuse survivors in their religious contexts. It is also important to highlight that Mormonism is a uniquely 145 American religion, having been founded in America and run in America. Therefore, the findings of this study likely represent greater American values and messages about gender and sexuality. The messages Mormon survivors of abuse receive may be different in the specifics; however, their experiences healing from abuse within a strong religious identity is similar to the experiences that many abuse survivors experience globally. It is important to continue research of religious sexual abuse experiences to continue to give these survivors a voice. APPENDIX A RECRUITMENT FLYER 1 147 APPENDIX B RECRUITMENT FLYER 2 149 APPENDIX C DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION 151 Demographic Information If you are interested in being a potential participant in this study, please use the following form to pass along your information to the researcher. Not all participants will be selected to participate; this is to ensure that there is a wide range of participants who are diverse in gender, ethnicity, age, location as well as experiences to represent the diversity of experiences of sexual abuse survivors. The purpose of the study is to gather qualitative data from LDS adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse regarding the healing process within the religious culture. Currently, there is very little literature available about the LDS population and limited information about the experiences of sexual abuse survivors. The goal of this study is to develop a better understanding about the experiences and healing process of LDS sexual abuse survivors with the intention to help educate others about these experiences. All of the information you pass along is confidential, records about you will be kept on computers protected with passwords. Only those who work directly with this study (the principal investigator, her advisor, and research assistants trained in confidentiality) will be allowed access to your information. If you have any questions or concerns, you may instead contact the primary investigator, Amber Whiteley, by e-mailing her at [e-mail]. The information posted on this site is consistent with the research reviewed and approved by the University of Utah Institutional Review Board (IRB). Contact the IRB if you have questions regarding your rights as a research participant. Also contact the IRB if you have questions, complaint, or concerns which you do not feel you can discuss with the investigator. The University of Utah IRB may be reached by phone at [phone] or by e-mail at [e-mail]. Name: Gender Identity: Racial Identity: Sexual Orientation identity: State/Country that you currently live in: Age: Did your experience of sexual abuse occur before the age of 18? Were you LDS at the time of your abuse? How would you describe your current participation in the LDS church (if any)? APPENDIX D INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT 153 154 REFERENCES Abuse. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/topics/abuse?lang=eng Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (1987). Membership roles in field research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Alaggia, R. (2001). Cultural and religious influences in maternal response to intrafamilial child sexual abuse: Charting new territory for research and treatment. 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