|
In Reply to: Memories posted by Passing By on May 12, 2004 at 17:04:38:
Yes! There was always "change" and there was always a worry about whether I picked the "right" option or not. Choices were not really choices because when choices were given like being 10% and getting GP lit for your tithe, something horrific like IRFer's Beware might come out. The family was LOADED with FEAR tactics. FEAR of persecution, FEAR of death from GOD for disobedience, or horrible consequences for things that were just simple mistakes or accidents. For me, I never knew when someone might want sex, might send me to some unknown destination for some unknown resistance or doubt, or for saying the wrong thing. I never knew when separated from kids if I would see them again. When I was with them, I never knew when they might be taken again. That is because my life was completely out of control via being under the control of an oppressive leader with grandiose and god-complex issues. The longer a person is around and the situations they encounter and how strong their personal psyche is determines how long a person stays before the crack. I was on that precipice when I left. I even felt wrong for leaving. But I was so burned out I thought I would die and that would be better.
It took awhile to realize that bad weather, accidents, things occuring to people I knew were just part of life and had nothing to do with me leaving the family.
The "system" is so much more loving and forgiving at times. I can make mistakes and they are learning experiences not condemnations now.
YES...I had LOTS of knots, even for YEARS after leaving. But time is a great healer. That and sticking it out through times of being triggered by life events. Like my kids' adolescent years (thankfully NOT experienced in the family). They got into so much trouble!! There was that Family indoctrination that to leave and return to America was to destroy your kids. So during those VERY troubled years I battled at times with that indoctrination. But I stuck it OUT. What I found our is that chances were that I could have lost a child but I did not. What happened was we all survived and they are all educated and successful in life now. Even though it looked like their lives might kill them! In reality, the REAL damage happened to the poor kids that stayed in the family to go on to Victor camps, to be sexually used, abused and trained, to be separated from parents, to be raised in an institution that was quite insane and barbaric to put it mildly.
So YES! I know about the knots and the feeling that my psyche was stretched like a rubber band where you can see the little cracks just before it POPS...
One time it did while in the family, briefly, and I went thru so many dealings-with after that. Many of us were always on edge. Especially single mothers. Responsibilities were so great and resources were often so meager.
