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In Reply to: Re: what can you tell us? posted by anovagrrl on October 29, 2003 at 13:11:33:
It's quite possible that she wasn't physically or sexually abused (someone here did say, at one time, that she was a virgin when she joined), but perhaps emotionally and spiritually abused, neglected, and abandoned as in a, "Please stay Mommy and Daddy" type of situation. I mean, if her parents were overly busy with ministry (to her neglect), that could easily set up the love hunger she sought to fill by joining the Family. And if they were in any way overbearing and/or legalistic, always being told what to do, that could certainly set the stage for her to rebell and wind up marrying a father figure in Berg who was very good at telling people what to do.
In the world of psychology, it has been proven that we will seek the familiar. For her to marry an extremely controlling, alcoholic pervert kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?
My daughter, like Karen, married an older "father figure" type of a guy. She hadn't been abused sexually, or even physically (other than a few tune ups) as a kid while in the Fam, but she certainly spent the first 16 years of her life being ruled and controlled, told what to do, etc. I was pretty tough and failed pretty good at teaching her to think for herself. This father figure that she married was more than willing to rescue her and tell her what to do too. Not only that, circumstance forced abandonment issues onto her, during her teen life, when I up and dissappeared out of her life emotionally, financially, spiritually, etc... due to the extreme stress and personal problems I was having in coming to terms with coming out of the Family. (She had a dream one night where, while the two of us were out icefishing on a lake, I fell through the ice and dissapeared. There is no doubt that that is what happened, literally, in her life.) Those kinda things do tend to make the kids vulenerable and send them spinning, seeking answers.
Why did I marry into the Family? Why didn't I see the red flags and flee from them? Why was there such a love hunger in me? Why was it so easy for me to jump into the boat? I wasn't abused sexually. -- I think, if anything, my parent's religious and marrital disunity, their mid life career decisions and moves, my birth order, and just the simple fact that we struggle to live under a curse and have a personal sin nature, were enough to pretty much leave me underparented, fending for myself, and VERY vulnerable to a surrogate parent such as Berg.
Perhaps, some day, Karen will break with the denials that we have had to break through for ourselves, lift Berg from the pedastal that she has him on, and learn to think for herself too.
