I Am a Child of Abuse

I have been told that when a child is molested they tend to get stuck in their emotional development at the age they were molested. For me being the age I was it meant that I see everything as black and white, right or wrong, good or evil, there is nothing gray in my world, nothing in between the extremes. I have worked very hard for many years to change my view of myself and my world, at times I see that I have progressed and yet it is an issue I still struggle with, others can make mistakes, but if I do I cannot forgive myself, I fall apart and want desperately to hide myself, to cease existing, it is not enough to die because I believed that I would live in my shame for eternity.

 Mormons believe that after our life here and after the second coming of Jesus Christ we will be assigned to one of three kingdoms of Heaven based on how good of a person we were here, grace is also involved because no matter how good we are here without the sacrifice of the Savior we still would fall short of even the lowest kingdom. Being a child of abuse and believing myself to be evil I was/am convinced that no amount of my being a "good" Mormon is going to make up for who I am, for my fallen state. Somehow I think if I can "save" everyone around me then just maybe I might be allowed to be in the lowest levels of heaven. There is a part of me that realizes this is faulty thinking but I still go around in a state of anxiety because I still have a bigger part that believes it to be true.

I was still in many ways a typical child and teenager, I had my rebellious moments, I drank alcohol a couple of times, stayed out too late, dated before I was sixteen, smoked pot once and took pain meds I wasn't prescribed. I had friends but wasn't overly outgoing, I attended church meetings, got bullied, I still cried easily though not as much as I had as a younger child. I both loved and hated school, the perfection thing invaded here, if I couldn't do it perfect then I just didn't do it at all, so my grades often suffered.

When I was thirteen I was given a pamphlet by my church leaders called simply "Chastity" in its pages were the words of a talk given by a General Authority of my church, in it I read words that cemented my belief that I was evil. While I hope these words were not meant the way I took them, what I remember went something like this, "it would be better for you to die than to allow anyone to steal your virtue", I interpreted them to mean that I should have fought to the death rather than let my virtue be taken. Not only was I evil, I was without virtue, I had let a man steal my virtue and should have died at eight but even Jesus hadn't wanted me.