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In Reply to: Taking our share of blame, but not all of it posted by Donny on August 04, 2002 at 16:33:45:
I am sorry for what you are going thru/ have been going thru with regards to your daughter. IMO, Berg preyed on the vulnerable, hitting the streets and universities in the early days. I do not feel responsible for joining or having had kids in the family, or taking a long time to get out. Not any more than I would take the blame for my part in being raped,(ie) because I was out at night late without someone with me. But I would validate my kids(and have done so)feelings about the family and their perspectives. This has included not being defensive or denying their reality even when I felt I took blame for what I know I did not do. If it got too overwhelming, I would sometimes have to say that I couldn't continue the conversation at the time, but that was because of me. And we would continue it later. I have worked thru that now. My kids got out young, but much of what I had to apologize was the result of being poor and not having support upon leaving. So I was functioning as a mother with three kids and no real social skills after such a long time in the family. I was quite young with three boys who could really tear it up after all that 24 hr. control. And they did! I apologized at first for everything. Then I sorted some stuff out with them. We (except for the oldest one and I)are not real close due to so much separation in the family, and lack of extended family as well. I will blame Berg for that. And myself for things I did and do after learning about my choices and exercising them. I wouldn't blame a battered wife for not escaping the abuser and allowing things to happen to their family because of lack of self-esteem and a sense of no way out. To me, taking the blame comes after having choices, exercising them, and then going back to old behaviors. I think I first have to realize that I have choices, and then start exercising them. That, I have been doing. And I try to make things right as I go along in daily life, as far as my side of the street. Sometimes, I don't want to, and so, I don't! Oh well. But I understand anxiety attacks. I suffered greatly from them about a year before leaving the family and for years after that. While I was in the family, I got to a point that I had them (panic attacks) day and night. I thought I was dying. I had to get a break from that. In stages, I have recovered from that. (Full blown panic attacks).I think that the family provides such an all encompassing society, with a belief system that is totalitarian. Kids growing up in this and learning all that shit and magical thinking, etc. leave and then EVERYTHING they have been taught and lived for ALL their lives, whether they disagreed with it or not, is so opposite. There is such a fear basis to the control aspect of things. I am sorry for what your daughter is going thru,and you, too. I still have reactions on top of reactions (i.e. Sept. 11th) due to F. programming!! Thinking back on what I just wrote, I have apologized and do still for things that I did in the family. I would always be willing to if someone brought up something I did that was hurtful to them whether I was "under the influence" (of the family) or not. That is the time that I would not discount them by blaming it all on Berg.
