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In Reply to: Re: insanity, empathy, character pathology & sin posted by Jules (Julia McNeil) on November 03, 2003 at 17:18:13:
Being cloaked in darkness really does deprive you of having that empathy and down right natural feeling of protecting your children.
I know for myself, that I surrendered a big part of my instinctive protectivness of my kids when I was in the family. It was fear really, that God, leadership, brothers or sisters, might dare presume that I was not totally equal in my feelings to all kids(remember One Wife?) So I would often go to the extreme of not going to bat for my kids so that I could not be construed as unrevolutionary.
It wasn't until after we were forced away because of sickness that I realised just how much I was missing. My husband and I realised that our kids were not the monsters that leadership was trying to make them out to be. That we were missing out on raising our own kids. We were blamed for how they were turning out (they were supposedly a reflection of us) when we were only allowed to spend one hour a day between the six of them! I don't know why the penny dropped, but I'm glad it did. (one of my boys at the age of 9 was speaking of suicide, I think that woke me up the most, when I told the leadership, they thought it odd that my son had confided only in me about it!)
When we left, I was still pretty much in family mode, running my home like a minature family camp. It wasn't until much later that I realised how off I had been in the family and it wasn't till I had confessed to the kids how wrong I had been and how sorry I was for what they had suffered that the stories started to come.(I had no idea just how much they had gone through)
I couldn't believe what my poor kids had endured. I really thought I had looked after them as much as possible. But they shocked me. Their courage to keep going inspite of the physical and sexual abuse astonded and broke my heart. I didn't need to ask them why they never had told me, I knew what my answer probably would have been, some crap like 'all things working together for good' or some other filthy rhetoric that would have broken their hearts.
I wish I could shake your parents and scream at them that they are losing or lost the most important thing in life that is worth having. The love and respect and honour from your children is the most important thing in the world.
I'm truly grateful that my kids have survived and have overcome and that I can be an active part of their lives, supporting them in their endeavors. They feel their home is a safe haven, where they can talk to me and not feel judged.(how the hell can I condemn them for anything after what I have been?)
I wish we could turn back time and have outed Berg like AG outed that false pastor. But the sad fact is some people enjoy the blindness. They want to be led even if it's into darkness.
