Ex-Mormon who was RAPED the first time she got drunk reveals her family punished her for the abuse, telling her she had 'sinned' and needed to 'repent' because she was no longer 'pure'

A Mormon woman who was raped has revealed how her family blamed her for the attack and punished her for 'sinning'.

Kristjana Hillberg, whose family practiced mainstream Mormonism, appeared on a recent episode of the Cults for consciousness podcast to discuss her harrowing ordeal.

The now 33-year-old laid bare the details of a sexual assault that left 'blood everywhere' and revealed how her mother became 'sick'.

In the aftermath, she was forced to 'repent' her sins to the bishop and was eventually expelled from the religion.

Kristjana began telling host Shelise Ann Sola what it was like growing up in a religion obsessed with purity culture in a small town of about 1,200 people.

'I certainly remember, chastity is talked about all the time. It was never just something mentioned once or twice, it was an ongoing conversation,” she said.

Kristjana said that breaking the purity rule was the “sin next to murder,” adding, “I remember even being taught like, “You don't want to be horizontal with someone because that will immediately lead to sexual acts, which is horrible.”

“I really took all these lessons to heart because I wanted to that feeling that I always want to be a good girl, despite my rebellious nature.'

She explained that at the age of 18, she decided to go against the “Word of Wisdom,” which warned followers against consuming alcohol, among other things.

“Basically, to summarize, I decided to go to a party and clearly had no idea about alcohol and the way it changed your body,” Kristjana said.

'I got to the point where I was drunk – I couldn't even get up or open my eyes – and I woke up with water being poured over my vagina. It was just terrible.

'I woke up the next morning and had hickeys on my neck and blood everywhere.'

Kristjana said: 'I was speechless. I didn't really know how to take care of myself. I think I just went into it survival mode. I was still drunk, so I had a friend drive me home.

'I lived with a girl who… was about 12 years older than me at the time.

“She was also from that small Mormon town and she had left the church and had been doing drugs and alcohol, and the way her mother had suggested I live with her was so that I could be a good example and bring her back could bring to church. crease.

“I walked through the door and I remember it straight away she opened her mouth and told her what happened and she said, “Oh honey, when you get drunk something like this happens.”

“And I was like, 'oh okay,' so I immediately think because of that experience I was just like okay if I choose to drink, sexual assault is just going to happen.”

Kristjana continued, “That was the first person I told and that was the first reaction.

'So I ran upstairs, saw these hickeys on my neck and grabbed my curling iron and burned the s*** out of my neck so I could tell my mom that I was curling my hair and burning my neck.'

Kristjana said her vagina was “numb” and in the aftermath her whole outlook changed.

“I thought at that moment, 'Well, basically I'm bad.' I've been waiting all my life for you to lose my virginity and now it's taken, so what's the point of even trying to save myself or trying to get payback or trying to do that to have remorse.

“My mentality just completely shifted to 'nothing at all matters to me.'”

But she finally decided to tell her mother and was shocked by her reaction.

'Finally I told her and instead of hugging me and loving me, I did it It actually made her sick,” Kristjana said.

“She didn't talk to me for three days and the first thing she said was, 'You have to go tell the bishop.'

Kristjana argued with her mother that she did not have to confess because she “did not sin.”

To which, in reference to drinking alcohol, she reportedly said, “WYou ultimately chose to break the Word of Wisdom that led to this.”

After finally talking to the bishop, who had known her since childhood, Kristjana said he was “very cold and very robotic.”

'I just can't imagine knowing and loving it someone who has been watching someone grow up for over a decade and then has them come to me and tell me something so horrible, and I just say, 'well, we're going to have to have a church court over this,'” she said. .

She explained that she had to tell the story to a group of men she had known all her life.

“They said: don't leave out any details, because that's very important,” Kristjana remembers.

“So basically I just had to relive it and after I finished telling them what happened, they said, 'Okay, you have to leave the room and we're praying now until we get an answer from God about what the next step is.' '

Kristjana was brought back into the room 20 minutes later and given a series of steps before returning in 60 days.

She was presented with a book called Miracle of Forgiveness, which “really makes you feel like a piece of shit.”

'IIt was normal really very heavy. I already felt heavyd down. It didn't feel encouraging,” she said.

Kristjana was eventually told to be 'excluded' – meaning she would still have her baptismal certificates within the religion, but would 'lose everything' ability to pray, to fulfill a calling, to give a talk,” adding “you can't really do anything.”

'I honestly don't remember how I felt. I probably it was just f*** off. “I don't remember feeling really sad, I even felt ashamed,” she said.

“Just like whatever I did has been so bad that now I'm no it is no longer allowed to do anything within the church.'

Kristjana stopped going to church and officially left the religion at the age of 25 when she began her “deconditioning journey.”

Speaking about her life since then she said: 'I've done a lot of work figuring out what that does spirituality seems to me.

“It ebbs and flows and it changes and it's really prominent at certain times in my life and then I might go back a little bit.

“But I think for me that was really something that was fun – making it fun and exciting and new, and not something like 'you do this every day, you do this every Sunday for four hours and on Wednesday'.

“It just felt really nice to be able to make my own rules for once.”

She concluded: “It's really interesting, the longer it's been since I've been away, the more that I'm more myself than I've probably ever been.

Kristjana added, “MeWhen your feelings and your inner knowing feel like something is there wrong or not right, listen, for it will never lead you astray.'