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In Reply to: My open letter to current and former FGA's posted by John La Mattery Jr. on February 23, 2005 at 18:21:57:
I must say that bar one all my attempts to communicate with SGA's have been met with the most gutterage hate filled abuse I have ever experienced. No amount of reasoning or common sense made any difference so why bother? Not that any of them knew me, which made it all the worse, and non of the sexual abuse occurred in any of the homes I was ever in that I know of. (I know there’s a whole issue of corporate responsibility but that’s another subject and since everyone has his or her differing experience I’m not going into that here)
I have also seen other posts by FGA’s on Movingon which have been met with the same torrent of verbal diarrhoea So, while sympathising with the hurt of many SGA's who frequent the ex-Family web sites its been very difficult to start a dialog or offer support. I think perhaps the site has users who are in different phases of ‘moving on’ but it is those who are the most angry that are the most vocal. Basically the only way you’ll get an intelligent reply is to grovel and apologise for all the abuses every committed in TF. There is an obvious wall between ex-FGA’s & ex-SGA’s and perhaps some FGA’s feel if they offered help it would be thrown back in their faces.
What is needed is someone who has the time, energy, know-how and money to galvanise the SGA’s into legal action against named individuals who they suffered abuse from. Only then can the healing process of those abused progress beyond griping about their life and it looks like you have started that process, well done!
TF must be more transparent and accountable which is hoped will improve the quality of information to those who are still ‘in’ so they can make more informed decisions about their life. I think TF could over time become more responsible, democratic and live in the ‘real world’ but those that are responsible for the current deception must be exposed and brought down and there are those of us who are working to that end.
Specifically about FGA’s stepping up and helping practically I think if you take a head count you’ll find that there are actually very few FGA’s who frequent the sites especially compared to the amount of SGA’s. Put that together with the fear of help being thrown back in their faces I can see that it could easily dissuade FGA’s from communicating thus generating a feeling of; ‘The FGA’s abused us in TF and don’t want to help now, we’re on our own’… There’s that wall again.
While I can see where you’re coming from I feel your post lacks clarity on who its directed at (or maybe I’m to dumb) it also assumes much and marginalizes and stereotypes FGA’s and indeed to some extent SGA’s. Perhaps a more open armed welcoming approach might be successful, you’ll never be able to force people to do things through guilt, we’ve all fallen for that before.
After reading over this perhaps the root cause of not getting enough support is the ‘us & them’ syndrome. Just the fact that there are separate web sites for SGA’s & FGA’s highlights this, although I support the idea that there is a need especially for those just coming out to meet with ‘their own kind’. Perhaps a third web site for both generations might help or a place on one of the existing web sites where both generations feel welcome and safe from abuse for healing, intelligent debate and reconciliation. From this could come the kind of joined up thinking and working that could help to progress the overall situation.
Fred
