The leader being arrested ... now more people coming out

It seemed so random that a leader from my former church had contacted me a couple of months ago to ask forgiveness. That opened the floodgates of my buried feelings and thoughts about my time in the group. Then, as I'd mentioned, the 'pastor' of my church was arrested with some of the top guys for a bar brawl and attempted murder. I've been really paying attention to the articles and any mentions of my pastor on the web and suddenly, on many different sites, I see so many people 'coming out' and sharing their memories, anger and true stories of what happened in the group. Just seeing that others are speaking up has, in small degree, strengthened me. And, I think they are coming out and talking about it because they see others, like me, now speaking about the corruption of the group. If there weren't fear that each other could be posing as a 'former' member we'd probably trust each other enough to make contact. You see how devious it is? Even when I see people make disparaging comments about the group or the leadership I still don't contact them for fear that they are in fact one of the group fishing for 'fallen' or 'backslidden' people. And this group can be openly hostile and even violent (as seen by the arrests and news stories).