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

• Kristjana Hillberg recently appeared on the Cults To Consciousness podcast
• She laid bare the details of a sexual assault that left ‘blood everywhere’
• The 33-year-old was forced to ‘repent’ her sins to the bishop in the aftermath 

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 To 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 it made her mom ‘sick.’

She was forced to ‘repent’ her sins to the bishop in the aftermath and she was eventually disfellowshipped from the religion. 

Kristjana Hillberg, whose family practiced mainstream Mormonism, appeared on a recent episode of the Cults To 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 it made her mom ‘sick’

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

‘I definitely remember chastity being talked about all the time. It was never just something that was 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 getting lessons like, “You don’t want to lay horizontal with somebody because that will immediately lead to sex actions, which is awful.”

‘I really did take all of these lessons to heart because I wanted that feeling of always wanting to be a good girl even with my rebellious nature.’

She explained that by 18 she decided to go against the ‘word of wisdom,’ which warned followers against consuming alcohol – among other things.

‘Essentially, just to sum it up, I decided to go to a party and obviously had no idea about alcohol and the way that it altered your body,’ Kristjana said.

‘I got to a point where I was blackout drunk – couldn’t even stand up or open my eyes – and I was woken up with water being poured on my vagina. It was just awful. 

‘I woke up the next morning and I had hickeys on my neck and there was blood everywhere.’

Kristjana stopped attending church and officially left the religion aged 25 as she began her ‘deconditioning journey’

Kristjana (left) told host Shelise Ann Sola (right) that she was forced to ‘repent’ her sins to the bishop in the aftermath of the attack

Kristjana said: ‘I was speechless. I didn’t really know how to care for myself. I think I just went into survival mode. I was still drunk so I had to have a friend drive me home.

‘I was living with a girl who was about 12 years older than me at the time. 

‘She also came from that tiny little Mormon town and she had left the church and had been into drugs and alcohol and so the way her mother had presented me living with her was that I could be a good example and bring her back in to the fold.

‘I walked in the door and I remember immediately opening up and telling her what had happened and she was like, “Oh honey, when you get drunk s*** like that happens.”

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

Kristjana continued: ‘That was my first person that I had told and that was the first response.

‘So I ran upstairs saw these hickeys on my neck and I took my curling iron and I just burnt the s*** out of my neck so that I could tell my mom that I was curling my hair and had burnt my neck.’

Kristjana said her vagina was ‘numb’ and in the aftermath her entire outlook changed.

‘I was thinking “well essentially I’m bad” at this point. I’ve waited my whole life to you know lose my virginity and now it’s been taken so what’s the point of even trying to save myself or trying to recoup or trying to repent.

‘My mindset just completely shifted to “nothing’s important to me at all.”‘

But she eventually decided to tell her mother and was horrified at her response.

‘I ended up telling her and instead of embracing me and loving me, it basically made her sick,’ Kristjana said.

‘She didn’t speak to me for three days and her first thing that she said was “you need to go and tell the bishop.”‘

Kristjana argued with her mom that she should not have to confess because she ‘wasn’t sinning.’

To which, in reference to drinking alcohol, she reportedly said: ‘Well you chose to break the word of wisdom which led to this.’

Having ultimately gone to speak to the bishop, who had known her since childhood, Kristjana said he was ‘very cold and very robotic.’

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‘I just can’t imagine knowing and loving someone for over a decade, watching them grow up and then having them come to me and tell me such a horrific thing and then me just being like, “well we’re gonna have to have a church court about this,”‘ she said.

She explained that she had to recount the story to a group of men who she had known her whole life.

‘They were like don’t leave out any details because that’s very important,’ Kristjana recalled.

‘So essentially I just had to relive it again and after I had finished telling what had happened they were like “okay you need to leave the room and we now pray until we get an answer from God as to what the next step is.”‘

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

She was handed a book titled Miracle of Forgiveness which ‘really makes you feel like you are a piece of s***.’

‘It was just really, really heavy. I was already feeling weighted down. It didn’t feel encouraging,’ she said.  

Kristjana was ultimately told that she needed to be ‘disfellowshipped’ – which means she would still have her baptismal records within the religion but would ‘lose all ability to pray, hold a calling, give a talk,’ adding ‘you can’t really do anything.’

‘I honestly don’t remember how I felt. I probably was just like f*** off. I don’t remember necessarily feeling really sad – if anything I was embarrassed,’ she said.

‘Like whatever I have done has been so bad that I’m now no longer allowed to do anything inside of the church.’

Kristjana stopped attending church and officially left the religion aged 25 as she began her ‘deconditioning journey.’ 

Speaking about her life since, she said: ‘I did a lot of work figuring out what does spirituality look like to me.

‘It has ebbed and flowed and it changes and it is really prominent at certain times in my life and then I maybe back off a little bit.

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

‘It just felt very nice to be able to make my own rules for once.’

She concluded: ‘It’s really interesting, the longer that it has been that I’m away, the more that I’m like I am more me than I have probably ever been.

Kristjana added: ‘If your gut and your inner knowing feels like something is off or not right, listen because it never leads you astray ever.’ 

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