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In Reply to: What triggered my reaction posted by Donny on September 12, 2003 at 22:11:58:
I don't agree with you here. Isn't that a healthy thing, to have different perspectives? I DO believe that the majority of FGs were very naieve and that Berg used incredibly abusive techniques to have us believe that to resist those things was to be of the devil, weak, evil, half-hearted, unworthy of God, etc. AND these things were subtlely introduced over time and with great threats connected to that God who is a sniper looking for anyone who is considering stepping out of line..
I DO NOT subscribe to collective guilt at all. Many things done in the family were outright "crime" but in the family mindset were justified away as being "God's laws are above Man's law's" and "We ought to follow God, not men" yadda yadda. I believe the road to recovery means looking at anything that we have done in hindsight that we hate about ourselves while in that mindset, whether we hated it or liked it. And examining it in the frame of reference we were in while in the family. Then forgive ourselves for what we hate that we did.
Part of that recovery, imo, is to recognize the dynamics of just what we were a part of.
And of course, people are free not to do any of the above.
I think this issue comes up alot because it is something many people are actually feeling about themselves (guilty of horrific crimes committed in a powerless setting). People commit suicide over this stuff. So I take it very seriously. I really do feel like shame shoveling is counter-productive. I also feel that some anger is fronted in a collective manner and is mis-directed.
I am sure that I am not the only one that feels this way. This message is not meant to discount anyone, it is meant to count everyone in that has had enough of shame-shoveling. We were all vics/survivors of Berg's Holocaust. Some were kapos in either generation. Some were not in either generation. Undoubtedly as time went on, moreso with the FGs. But those who were, were operating in survival mode. I don't shovel shame on Patty Hearst for joining the SLA. She did some prison time for that, but little was known then regarding the "Stockholm Syndrome".
Actually I am glad we are discussing this topic. Although it has been discussed in the past it has not been laid to rest and never will as long as there is only one valid way to see it. So we can look and the archives and see what? That the majority was very uncomfortable with the topic and some waffled regarding their feelings on it, probably due to peer pressure? I felt totally alienated here when I first spoke what I was really feeling inside on this whole issue. Much of that may have been my own over-sensitivity, but I am not so over-sensitive now. Thank God or Buddha or the universe or whatever!
