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In Reply to: Re: From the mother's perspective posted by Jim LaMattery on December 09, 2005 at 16:42:07:
Jim, my main problem with my memory of you was that it was a very unpleasant one in the context of the FAMILY though more indirect in that you were an aloof sort of leader with that piercing stare through people...
The second problem is your evasiveness and denial about it. You refuse to answer questions people have asked you. I have no need to ask you what I already know. I know you were there when I was sent out to Orebro and I know you were there when my son had been taken away.
Regarding this "harsh discipline"/abuse in question, and this particular memory, it is one that is fuzzier in it's completeness. It has been in my mind but stored there. Never forgotten, but not in mind until we began to talk about this further. You would never talk to me in private e-mail about this to the extent you are talking here and still you are extremely evasive.
Do you not remember the people you were leaders with in Stockholm?
I don't remember whose kids were being disciplined. I can't even fully picture them. The memory in this instance is of being adjacent to the room and you being there in the adjacent room, a large room, that I was in. What I can't remember is the time of day though as I think about it more it seems like it was a time when things were pretty much in motion. Like when people are starting to head out for either litnessing or going places, like maybe after a meal or something. I can't remember that part clearly. It was a woman that was doing the beating. I think it was L. I remember the impact it had on me. Much the same as the impact of having seen a toddler beaten on the butt by a brush at a provisioner's home in Houston around 1971. That particular mother was a harsh disciplinarian. What would be called clearly abusive today.
Another thing I remember is I have no memory of any of the four of you going out litnessing or having personal quotas. Did you?
Memory is not all cut and dried as in remembering whole chapters in detail but paragraphs and pages can be burnt into memory and remembered in detail.
I think one reason I was appalled but said nothing was while in the family I was not in any authoritarian position. Also I was very young and came from a home where I was violently physically abused. As an abuse survivor, I would feel like I deserved the abuse. Even when I hated the person doling it out.
My parents both worked in law and in high positions and I felt like I was the one that was wrong even though outwardly I was very angry. Still, the harshness and bruising on the butt that I saw in Stockholm on that one occasion bothered me. Even more I think it bothered me that these kids were praying what they were. How sad that little kids would pray not to be foolish or play. I am sure other SG's can remember things like this happening to them. (Meaning other SGs than these kids I remember from back then.)
Not all people I was around in the family were like this. Your brother and sister in law were not. However there was a harsh disciplinarian at Arhus who did not last long there. He spanked kids on the butt bare handed but he was a huge man and spanked very hard. I am glad he did not make it to Skillingsfors. I can't remember, but the guy's bible name was ARGOB and I think he was possibly reported by someone? That memory is very fuzzy. Except for his name and size. That I remember clearly.
Jim, I really think YOU need to go through domestic violence classes regarding your time as a disconnected leader who did not intervene or can't even remember what was clearly going on around you. Also as a person that dealt with people under your authority. Have you done that?- attended these classes yourself that is?
I have been through lots of therapy for the domestic violence I went through. My kids grew up largely outside of the family and I did get them out at a time when everything was together and as CB so aptly put it, when the pain of staying was greater than the threat that the plane we would leave on could likely crash and kill us all.
