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In Reply to: Thank you Mom...... posted by Holon on December 13, 2002 at 07:33:37:
Please forgive me, as I feel almost like an intruder for saying anything, although your very touching conversation is posted on a public board. But I did want to encourage you both if I could.
Holon, it's heartbreaking for me to go to MovingOn and read what so many of your generation went through in the Family and it's not something you just let go of an walk away from. You are so fortunate that your mom is so genuinely sorry for what happened to you in the group (when other people's parents are either indifferent to their pain or worse yet, are in denial) but as you say, you still have to recover from the damage of being raised in an abusive group. And like Jules pointed out, the suicides of SGAs haven't stopped and everyone feels the pain fresh every time another life is driven beyond bearing the pain.
Mom, I understand what you feel and what you're saying. Sometimes it does seem like the pain of having failed your children is so intense that it can seem what's the use of living. So many of us feel that pain. I know other parents who still beat themselves up every day. I just wanted to mention one thing which you already know, but maybe it will help to hear it from someone else. Although your daughter has forgiven you, like all of her generation, she still has a need to vent about what happened in the group. It doesn't mean that she hasn't forgiven you. All it means is that recovering wholeness is a work in progress, and forgiving one's parents is only one very big, important step in the overall picture of coming to terms with being raised in a cult.
I wish my daughter was out of the cult and was in my life to vent at me. But I don't even have the privilege of feeling her anger and trying to ease her pain with my apologies and tears.
