I have just reread my entries and see that I commented on the time issue twice - odd that i did not realise. Perhaps time really has stood still for me!! (or maybe early dementia)... Clearly it is preoccupying me and as I watch my mother's time coming to an end and for her time is nothing but confusion now maybe it has become an important aspect of life for me - a real existential issue.
I want to say something about authenticity but will listen to the recording again too. I am curious though that time and authenticity should come into my thoughts and at the same time I get a job teaching on a counselling psychology programme that takes an existential perspective.
10 comments:
No i think for some ex cult members time does often feel like it kind of stands still.For me it sometimes seem like doing a jail sentence that never seem to end.Of course i know im free,but not really free to live life like most people get to do.
Dont know about you but many memories for me are so vivid in my mind.Vivid as if only yesterday.I get older and older but memories never sem to fade much.Its almost like the mind grabs at anything it can grab,and holds on real tight.Even if holding on tight causes so much pain.
This is interesting - I wonder what others think. It's a pity no one else is commenting on this.
Oddly though you speak about memories - mine are largely missing and that is a source of distress to me sometimes. But I also have some memories I wish I could move on from - let them go so that they no longer take centre stage. To some extent I have gained a lot from therapy in this respect. Many things that used to cause incredible pain no longer have that power - and that feels great.
Maybe we have to learn to accept that we like many other 'disabled' people are not really free and maybe never will be but perhaps we can learn to live with that and survive.
Jill sorry i didnt explain that very well, its not that i was meaning to suggest i have many memories.But that the ones i do have seem forever vivid.I find this very distressing too,and i was wondering if maybe the vivid memory part i experience was just a way my brain tried to find another way to compensate counterbalance.I too only wish i could move on so they dont continue to take center stage exactly like you discribe,its to much like that film ground hog day.Im sure you are correct its about learning to accept but like everything maybe some people are better at the accepting bit than others are.
Im finding reading about your studys interesting,and agree it would be good to hear what others think.I wonder if many ex ebs know how to search for peoples blogs.
Ah now I get it I think. Those vivid memories that return and return in such vivid fashion - they sound a bit like the kind of memories people have after a trauma when they are so vivid it is almost like reliving them again. I have one such memory but it is a memory that is pure emotion, no story, I cant see anything but I know i am about 3 or sometimes about 8. In my opinion the long stress of being in the EB is like a trauma in that it is continual stress and we were also often threatened with eternal hell - to a child I believe that is abusive and can cause traumatic symptoms such as persistent memories that kind of intrude in our minds often when we dont want them to.
Does that sound familiar? Or maybe again I am talking about something else
I used to have many of these memories and what I found helpful was in fact working through them with a therapist. But therapy is not for everyone.
Yes Jill that does sound so very familiar.My vivid memories started when i would have been little more than one year old.Sounds unbelievable maybe but its true,around that time my father was on his death bed and i guess the sadness within the family insilled memories deep within my mind.Add to that the fact around the same time he was in a little trouble possibly i think with regards to him questioning the matters around James Taylor Jr and issues of the drinking and blasphemy etc.There was lots going down within the family and some how maybe? it fired up a type of hypo responce in my memory bank or what ever it is im trying to discribe.
And from that stage on things seemed to really continue onwards down hill.Dad died and mum was left owning no home and with little money while trying to manage six kids rangeing in age of a year and a half up to about age twenty i suppose.There was horrific fighting that got violent and many tears is what i remember very well,and by the time i was about three or four one family member i loved, was already withdrawn from and excommunicated and disappeared forever out of our lives.And it wasnt much longer before others were done away with too.Im not sure of my exact age but id say by the time i was ten or eleven there was only three of us left.It was like some uncurable desease had decended upon us all.Uncles and Aunts and cousins dissappeared too.And meanwhile other troubles happened too such as some sexual abuse by a eb member, and there was no thought of us ever having any professional counseling for these things.
A type of wild nature decended upon me and i became uncontrollable and kind of angry,which was blamed on mum.When shut up the priests would decend on us and have mum beside herself and in many tears.I couldnt handle seeing anymore of this sadness and pain so ran away about six months before i was sixteen.And my elder excomunicated ex eb family outside coulnt handle my presence either, as by this time i was messed up and wild like some dog who had been running wild in a ghetto.Naturally even though i was outside the EB i still didnt get any counceling as things that had happened were not really things i was inclined to share with any sisters or brothers or people.So they never knew why i was like i was,they just thought i was somebody who was bad that they couldnt really handle having around.So i finally left to try to face the world totally on my own, about a week or two after my sixtenth birthday.
And to cut a long story short much else happened along the way from there on.Bosses abused me, as my thoughts often wandered off my work,but then they never knew i wasnt sleeping as vivid dreams haunted me each and every night.They never realized i battled thoughts of guilt and shame and fear that wore me down.The bosses abused me for not making the grade,so other workers laughed and poured scorn upon me too.Most everthing through life was learned by trial and error with all the pitfalls that are always waiting to trip the unsuspecting up along the way.
Broken relationships always seemed hard to handle.They reminded me far too much of the strange desease i felt id experienced within the EB, that seemed to kill everyone off.I had some children of my own but one thing led to another and seemed to make it so hard it seemed it was impossible for me to get close and build a good relationship with anybody.And as time went on i think maybe? my subconsciousness built up a attitude of an diversion to ever daring even trying building relationships, out of fear it now seemed to me they would never ever things that ever had any likelyhood of lasting value.
So im picking maybe? the subconscious part of my mind made many of the memories very vivid as a way to try and hang on for grim death to something of the past because humans need to feel they came from somewhere.But ahh to be honest,i feel im really still non the wiser.Life seems like a blurr and a real big mystery.Whats worse to the doctors or psychologists etc it seems,to them i must seem mostly kind of ok on the outside to them,and so they just sent me away telling me all i really needed to do was try to pull me socks up.And this led me further and further into a deep darkness i now doubt ill ever get to return from.It didnt do much for my self esteme trying hard to pull my socks up time and time again.But no matter how hard i tried it seemed i was only ever going to be a failure.
So i think it very important you do study these things Jill,because to be honest i dont see that most of the prefessional even properly understand yet, how faith cult abuse actually ends up affecting many people
This is a tragic story, but also a valuable one. From studying accounts like this we begin to learn how emotional traumas in childhood can cast a life-long shadow. And maybe some misguided advisors will begin to learn how damaging it can be to tell someone in your state to pull their socks up, or to get over it, or to get a life, etc. And maybe some legislators will begin to learn that oppressive cults do not qualify for the protections and tax exemptions that they now enjoy. They ruin innumerable lives, sometimes beyond repair.
My own emotional traumas, less severe than yours, but arising from similar circumstances, never really found effective relief until I got into the company of people who had been through the same experiences in the same cult. Then I began to talk about it all, and found that they all understood, in some ways much better than a professional counselor who had not personally experienced anything like it.
There are some internet forums and facebook groups of people from the same background as you. If you don’t know where to find them, we could point you in the right direction. I don’t know where they all are, but I do know one or two of them. Would that be of interest to you?
This is indeed interesting and tragic. I wonder if the age of the EB victim has something to do with the after-effects. I left of my own accord with my wife and two young daughters who were about 3 and 7 years old, in 1965. Although we left with a clear statement of what we thought and that made it clear we would not be back, we aere harrassed by 'elders' for some time. They staked out our house, knocked on our door and tried to talk to our kids on their way home from school.
It is our daughters (now with kids of their own) who have the a problems in later years, still sometimes afraid to answer the door when an unexpected visitor comes. Still nervous passing a parked car with occupants.
My wife and I have few serious issues. My only strange memories come in dreams -- mostly of old 3-day mtg.scenarios. Strangely the dreams are often of known friends who have never been EBs in an EB conference setting. Bizarre, I know. But that is what happens. They are not bad dreams -- just strange.
I completely agree with Ian's comments about finding people who've lived the EB life, with whom to share experiences and coping strategies. When you begin to realise there are loads of other people out there who are running around with varying degrees of historical crap inside their heads, but trying daily to live a decent life in spite of that, it REALLY helps you be more accepting of your own stuff... and as Jill said, accepting those memories (and gaps) is KEY to the mind gradually beginning to relax its grasp on them a little, to a more healthy level.
Warren, I left the EB 20+ years ago as a 20y/o, and just like you I still have those 3dm-type dreams, populated with a bizarre mix of long-left EB characters and people from our current worlds. There are some funny combinations of the two groups at times, eh!
I do get a bit fed up with still dreaming about the EB, but from trying hard with self-acceptance (and talking to other exEB for reassurance, comfort and empathy), I have come to understand that spending the first 20 years of one's life in a closed culture such as EB, means it permeates one's being. Of COURSE it does, silly me! Although I've chosen another path to the EB, those first 20yrs still are part of who I am. They contribute to the unique person that is me. Uniquely damaged, yes, but uniquely heartened to share and love other people for who they are.
All encouragement to you Anonymous, on a daily basis. And do keep reaching out to others who have had SOME share in your experiences... whether that be the EB life, or family dysfunction, or whatever.
PS: I like to add a bit of literal thinking to those useless "pull your socks up" comments from people who are supposed to be helping... so inside my head I say something like, "Yes, my dear legs ARE feeling a bit cold and they DO help to keep me upright after all, so they deserve to be kept nice and warm with socks pulled up." Just sort of give yourself an internal hug and think how useful your legs are inside those socks... and move on from the moment. Don't EVER let those legs get too cold, Anonymous - come and talk to us instead!
Thanks for the kind suggestion of the internet forums Ian.I am sure many people do find them very helpful,i must be real weird or something but i find these places remind me of far too much and end up leaving me feeling even more frustrated and angry.
Funny seeing that dreams are a common theme a number of ex ebs experience.I also experience the bizarre factor Warren and dawnz mention where both the past and the present are mixed in together.
Over the years now ive seen a number of psychiatrists which doctors have reffered me to.Their pills never work im guessing most likely because it not about any chemical imbalance.I was referred to yet another one for assessment the other day.During this assessment what became most obvious to me, was my assessor was grappling to understand the fact i had absolutely no support network around me.He asked me this question a number of times, obviously to make sure i understood the question and also that he had actually heard my answer correctly.This is not the first time ive found these professionals not seeming to understand the lack of support network that as a ex cult member can be missing.Neither do they seem to realize that the further depression sets in the less likely it is that people receive help from others.
Ive had a real guts full of feeling like im trying to educate those employed as health providers.When psychiatrists pills dont work and the psychologists talks are not helping either.They do stuff like cut you off the books which in turn takes you off the list that makes practical help available.
So when i went for key hole surgery on my knee which intailed a ride on a bus to hospital and back next day and then a need to walk three blocks on crutches with a pack on my back to my car which i wasnt supposed to drive home on my own but ended up having to.To return to my home where i live alone and need to do my best to cook myself tea while hobbling around on crutches in pain.
This is all just part of the price we must pay on top of being sexually abused in our past in abusive religious cults, and for then becoming a misfit of society.
All because society allows abusive religious cults in the first place, and then paid professionals dont yet quite cotton on to understanding the types of (practical) problems it causes some people.
All these things are why i see it as so important we have people like Jill who can hopefully help educate these professionals better in the effects cults can have on some peoples lives.
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