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In Reply to: Re: Barry's (Peter Riddell) alias ..... posted by Jewlz on February 15, 2007 at 19:56:55:
I do agree with you there. When I first came around the ex member sites I remembered the Family from the time I left and at that time my children who were born in the beginning of the seventies had spent a lot of time away from the Family even when we had not yet left.
at the ex-member sites, nearly two decades after leaving, I first read about FG that had died that I had known, either by suicide or breakdown and was floored. I had a lot of anger about what happened to our generation because I had stuffed it on a shelf after leaving and eventually if you don't deal with the past it comes around and deals with you. And it did.
I did not realize how much worse it had gotten in TF until after reading the stories about Victor camps and such, though it didn't surprise me. I was also reading the accounts of the SG who survived horrors in the house of Berg or around mini-bergs, male and female. And I did know that it began with "Davidito" because shortly before leaving I saw the book. The single letter probably came out earlier than that and it was a huge shock that piggy backed other shocks, like Berg turning women out to be prostitutes. That started with just "flirting".
Long after having left TF, I still remembered people, who later were brought into berg's household, from when they first joined and were young themselves and way before they ever met berg. Then I realized they became some of the worst abusers under berg. But my memory of them was from a time when those FG were innocent before being sucked up into berg's inner circle. Before the Family had any children more than a handful that people within rarely saw.
It was hard to sort out old memories from current or more recent events but there is no doubt in my mind that the SG that grew up around berg or mini-bergs within and because of Berg's doctrines, I have no doubt about what they experienced.
I know they tend to UNDER-exaggerate their accounts of what happened to them because severe and traumatic abuse, such as sexual abuse, were so common for so much of their lives, that other abuses, also horrific, seemed "normal".
It's a terrible abuse to be separated from Family, to have parents that are automatons. I was an automaton while in. I was separated from my children when they were very young and that was painful for us all, but they grew up with those scars of separation. The main separation was not even consented to. But I had no place to turn to and would have risked losing all contact with my children to "rebel". I begged and cried to please be allowed to go to the school and then when allowed I would have to spend time with other people's kids. It was really quite sadistic, the design of the Family.
That shouldn't happen to children. One Wife shouldn't happen around children. Quotas and fund-raising shouldn't happen around children. Children shouldn't have to be out on the streets singing and begging for funds for piece of shit letters and now tapes, posters, CDs and such.
It's not hard to look back and feel deep regret and remorse for having been a part of TF.
At the same time it takes a lot of guts to get out and to get your kids out. I was fortunate that the funds, the kids together and the way out all occurred around the same time because I had no one on the outside to fly us "home".
My "home" in the Family was safer than my family of origin at least at first. When all the sexual stuff reached the outer limits, I got triggered big time and leapt to a third world country where we were abandoned again for a year. Had it not been for a West German guy in the Family that wanted to be with me, I'd have been in some version of Brokedown Palace and I dread thinking what might have become of my kids if that had happened.
Yes. It is horrible what happened to them. It's horrible what happens today,too. Even though there was unique harm to some who were around Berg's household, their siblings still within TF are reacting from TF mindset. In other words, they aren't thinking independently. They think they are, but anything that doesn't fit within the box of Maria's outline for psychic numbing and personality paralysis, is not allowed. If they didn't follow the party line, they would have to separate from TF and it is all they know, so far.
It's sad to read 'MyDelusion.com' and see how Claire speaks out against montel and then all the little stepford wives and husbands chime in.
