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In Reply to: I guess it's different for everyone. posted by Mr. Don on May 31, 2004 at 14:24:36:
Being a Christian myself, I can identify with so much of what you say. I smiled when you mentioned Joyce Meyer as her real-life, from the gut teaching has helped my own wife over so many hurdles.
I wonder about something you said: "We found that if we rejected TF and all it stood for ... that we have no regrets or feelings of loss. We can only look at all the years that we spent in a cult as not years wasted but as years we have an incredible story about. It's become part of our testimony."
I understand what you're saying and see your point and more power to you! I feel the same about my wasted years in the Family as well, at least to a degree. But the difference is that I acknowledge those years as being very much wasted. It was a horrible letdown and left a big gaping hole in me for some time which God and lots of reading of other (non-Family) material has been able to heal. But it really was an ordeal and most of us go through it.
I just wanted to caution you that it almost appears as if you haven't yet truly faced the horror of what the cult was about the the depravity to which it sunk. Facing that may shake you, so don't be surprised if it happens. I'm glad you're still mercifully on a high, making the best of your lost years, and enjoy that while the feeling lasts, but I just wanted to caution you that you may still be in for a real let-down when you begin to see how badly you were robbed of so many years of your life. Reading the testimony of SGs who were sexually abused or nearly destroyed with discipline can really make you grieve for how bad things were. It wasn't just a misled missionary adventure, even though we all learned languages while out there. Real incredible shit happened, maybe not to you or your children peronally, but to others.
Don't be surprised if you go through that letdown phase sometime in the future. Enjoy the ride as long as your surfboard is high on the waves and it may be that you will be an exception to the rule and will always stay up on the waves. I hoep you will. But if the pain and sense of deep loss and comes, don't feel surprised. If you find yourself dealing with outrage and emotions you never even knew you had bottled up inside you, don't worry. We've been there.
But if it never hits you, wow, good for you. I'm glad some of us escaped relatively unscathed.
