Worst LDS Sexual Abuse Ever Told!

[_Smokestoomuch]

In the mid 1980's, there was a diabolical mental hospital in Provo called Charter House. It was built right next to the weed-sprouting parking lot of the long ago vacated Donnie and Marie Studios. What made Charter House so particularly evil was its business model. Charter House would open feeder offices and those feeder offices were expected to send a certain percentage of patients back to the Provo hospital. Just like a missionary would like to convert every prospect, Charter House wanted to send every patient it got from the feeder clinics back to the hospital... and like missionaries, there were minimum numbers of patients that each office was expected to "convert" into hospital in-patients.

About this same time, I started coming down with non-stop chronic headaches. It was not a mental problem at all... it was a physical problem but at the time, I didn't know that. So out in rural Nevada, Charter House opened a feeder office in my little town of less than 10,000. I walked into the office and started talking to a missionary looking guy that called himself "counselor". Naturally, my problem can only be helped by admitting myself into the Provo hospital.

Once Charter House got someone to admit themselves, all the services were ala cart, in addition to the $500/day inpatient fee. A person could easily rack up an extra $1000 per day in ala cart fees. To talk with a doctor was $200 (15 min), to talk with a psychologist was $150 (15 min), group therapy with two counselors was $200 per patient (1 hr). On top of that, one of the staff doctors wanted to needlessly set my sprained ankle in a cast just to earn another fee. The way Charter House saw it, checking into Charter House was like someone landing on Boardwalk... with hotels.

Where's the story of the worst LDS sexual abuse ever told? It came from the group therapy meeting that Charter House insisted I attend. We were all going around in a circle introducing ourselves and telling why we were at Charter House. "My name's Charles and I have a sta sta sta sut stuttering problem", said one. "My name's Molly and I'm too afraid to leave my house", said another. And so it went until it came around to Ezmerelda who had a story so graphic she spent the next hour telling it all.

In her late 40's, Ezmerelda's immediate problem was the rope burns on her neck. Her grandchildren had recently found grandma swinging from the high rafters of the family garage. They had trouble removing her neck from the ligature. Ezmerelda was feeling guilt, guilt so intense that she had decided she needed strangle herself to ease the pain. It was do-it-yourself. She knew all about do-it-yourself.

I suppose Ezmerelda's problems began at age 5, at which time her mother passed away. Her father became a working single man supporting a large family with no time to date and, especially, no money to date. So, from age 5 through 12, Ezmerelda was made to satisfy her father. At sexual maturity, her father felt it too risky to continue using his daughter in such manner. Her life was finally improving until a year later when her 18 year-old brother started having her at age 13.

At some point later, Ezmerelda became pregnant. She concluded it was her problem and she would be the one to deal with it. Fashioning a tool out of a wire coat hanger, she successfully performed on herself a self abortion. More than 20 years afterwards, Ezmerelda could no longer bear the knowledge of having been the one who had murdered her brother's baby.

Suddenly, whatever problems I thought I had didn't seem very significant. Several hours later, I checked myself out into the darkness of early morning.

[_subgenius]

...
Where's the story of the worst LDS sexual abuse ever told?...

i get the horrible nature of the sexual abuse.....but i seemed to have missed the LDS part?
how are you supporting the implication that this is an "LDS" related abuse?

[_Smokestoomuch]

I never stated it was an LDS famly but it was. The abuse from the father began, in part, because the father was trying to follow church rules. At least, that was my impression. To hear her tell it, the father was out of options.

[_asbestosman]

I never stated it was an LDS famly but it was. The abuse from the father began, in part, because the father was trying to follow church rules. At least, that was my impression. To hear her tell it, the father was out of options.

One of the rules from the LDS church is to molest your children? I must been asleep when they mentioned that one.

The father was a very sick man. Most normal people aren't sexually attracted to children. Most people who don't get enough action in real life find a way to satisfy it without resorting to abusing others.

What happened to that woman was horrible. I really don't know how to express it further than that.

If you need to put some kind of blame on the LDS church, I might recommend something about the shame around anything sexual. You might be tempted to blame the church for having the father work hard to take care of his kids, but that could backfire since most people think it's good for parents to work hard to care for their children's needs. You might score some rhetorical points by saying that LDS church callings left the father with too little time for dating. Of course, that too could backfire since it shifts blame from the perp. instead of having him be accountable for his own depravity. Your best bet is really to persue a line of attack where the LDS church is bad because it prolonged and intensified the victim's pain--somehow.

[_Smokestoomuch]

Not blaming anyone. I'm just telling the tale as I recall hearing it in 1986. For me, it was what the subject line says it was. She had strung her self up over guilt of being a victim. What else can I say?

[_moksha]

Not blaming anyone. I'm just telling the tale as I recall hearing it in 1986. For me, it was what the subject line says it was. She had strung her self up over guilt of being a victim. What else can I say?

When I read the headline, I pick up of the phrase "LDS Sexual Abuse". To me, this means that the sexual abuse was particular to LDS people or it had been perpetrated by the LDS Church. A much more accurate, but longer, headline might be Sex Abuse Story Discussed in Hospital Staffed by Mormons!!!

Language purists like Dr. Shades might leave out the triple exclamation points, but I think it punches up the shocking nature of this story and shows that stories like this can only occur in hospitals staffed by Mormons!!!

.

[_Ceeboo]

What else can I say?

Nothing?



Peace,
Ceeboo