In Reply to: I'm sorry to hear that - where is the link? posted by Acheick on September 03, 2004 at 22:06:46:
I think that's a point. Mr. Don didn't suffer as much personally so could recover more quickly. He didn't see as much evil, so again, could mentallly recover more quickly.
We may be mixing up "personal recovery" and "awareness of others' pain" Mr. Don could have personally recovered and snapped back, but to some of us it might appear that he has not recovered because of his seeming lack of awareness of the depth of other's pain (people who have not yet recovered) and his sometimes insensitity to their pain. These are two different issues. Granted they are related but they are separate issues.
On the other hand, and I'm thinking out loud here, full recovery does seem to imply having a full grasp of all the issues -- even issues one was previously unaware of-- and having then to deal with and process them. For e.g. Perry mentioned a while ago he only recently read the article about Berg's anti-Semitism. Once he read it it brought whole new issues of pain and shame which he then had to deal with.
I think even if you were pretty much unaware of the sexual abuse of minors and never participated, to then discover the depth and full horror of that abuse perpetrated upon a generation, you suddenly have to "deal" with that whole issue from a new perspective. Yes, you could have personally recovered in everything else and be pretty normal, but there are always new things to deal with.
For one thing, you can no longer lightly say, "I was part of a missionary group and they were a little controlling and we had a false prophet, but hey, we saw the world." No, you have to say "I was part of a rabidly anti-semitic hate group that sexually abused children and teens." Suddenly you no longer have such an easy time mentioning your years of membership.