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In Reply to: Across Generations posted by Kinda Gentler on August 06, 2004 at 19:21:26:
That pretty much sums up how I see and feel about it all too. We've all been victimized, and you're right about the anger having to be directed at the source. I have found in my own personal healing experience in coming out of the Fam that my anger had to find several targets:
1. Berg: For his sins and shortcomings in reparenting me and deceiving me in the ways that you mentioned above. That was a toughy and it 'only took me ten years' - ha ha.
2. Myself, for being so naively dumb and blind. I have had to own that, make peace with that and forgive myself, and then I've had to forgive Berg (for my own health's sake) and pick up the pieces and that was difficult - manageable, but very difficult.
3. My parents for their sins and shortcomings.
4. Myself, again, for my sins and shortcomings - mainly for acting out the way I did prior to joining the Fam which played a huge part in why I even joined the Fam.
No matter how I slice it, in my case it all came down to anger mismanagement, but what did I know back then? God, it's enough now to manage even daily present stress and present trauma, let alone to have to be carrying unforgiven and unresolved past stress and past trauma on top of it like I used to. Nevertheless, the emotional tangles, for me, have been unravelled and the quality of my life has been dramatically improved (and I'm still a believer. Imagine that - I never took it out on God.)
Fran, in her recovery, said just the other day that she felt cheated for having to spend so much of her life having to recover from so many things including Berg's abuse piled up on top of pre fam abuse, and that she was having to forgive herself, too, for being just as naively dumb and blind as me for joining the Fam. I like what Deb quoted in the intro to her book:
"The first thing to do in examing the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated."
