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In Reply to: Re: Reframing Family-think: I did not "join" the family! posted by Jules on December 08, 2003 at 16:39:36:
First of all, no amount of words can explain or make up for the horrors you had to go through, and I am very sorry about your experiences.
I have never advocated against self-responsibility. In fact, if you read all my posts i advocate strongly for it. What i am talking about is the actual ways people participated in things or "stood by". First of all, regarding myself, I have nothing to turn myself into any authorities for. By the same token, for most I do not feel like this would be the right route to go. Kinda like when an addict quits using and gets clean. They don't go turn themselves into the law and start taking responsibility for all the using, stealing, lying, or whatever else they were involved in. They make amends usually after getting their act together so they can go about it in the right way, but some amends they do in the form of life changes. There are some very creative ways to do that. I think this sort of mercy and compassion is needed and deserved by those getting their lives together. And so is the self-responsibility.
Jules, I am very sorry for what you experienced in your life in the family and after leaving it. What comes to mind for me is that even when an abused person chooses something, they will usually do so out of survival and or the lesser of the available options that are realized. For a person to truly have healthy options, they first need to know that they are there! This is common for battered women. What you have experienced, no child should have ever had to endure.
When I mentioned someone forced to sleep with children, Watchman came to mind. From the story that I read he had been in a retraining camp in a foreign country and been dealt with severely not to mention other life wrenching events prior to that. He struck me as someone that would never have, in his original character, ever been capable of that! Having experienced some forced or coerced horrors with adults in the family, I can understand how that group did strongly use coercion tactics with all. How horrific for ALL. And yes, so terribly traumatic and awful for those kids. I never intended to discount any childs experience of that. I watched a cold case files program the other day about a woman who had jumped out a window with her child. She killed her child in the process but her own death was unsucessful. One thing that the social worker/perp had told her was that no one would believe her, she was damaged goods, and basically he was going to come back and abuse them and she would not know when. The mother had been incested and severely abused as a child. In her mind, she could not live with the knowlege that the sexual abuse would continue via the social worker and she saw no way out because she did not see any safe OPTIONS. The sad thing is that there were two distinct victims here: The mother and the child. The mother in this case did not hate her kid or choose to kill her kid. She, in a twisted and tragic way, was trying to protect her kid in the only way she knew how.
God it is so terribly SAD. SO DAMN SAD the mass destruction reeked by some whose INTENT is bad.
I was not around for the combos, and in the situations of abuse that I saw, I spoke up and got severely dealt with for it. But I got out when my kids were small and before the worst of it started on a broad basis. I am sure many FGS have similar stories. But it does not diminish self responsibility. Jules, I don't know about your mother, but you clearly have some very great losses. I am also glad that you do have the MovingOn board and the Safe Passage foundation going.
I am hoping you will keep speaking to my posts. And that you will be specific with what comes across offensive or feels wrong to you and why.
