In Reply to: Re: ok, give yourself a break posted by sophi on March 23, 2005 at 18:42:28:
There were a lot of nice people in the Family, but what happened when we left. When I left the group only one person really stayed in touch with me as a friend. Out of all the hundreds of people who claimed they loved me blah blah, only one person really kept in touch, met up with me just for fun, didn't look down on me for leaving, took the time to write and call me.
The Family's love was very conditional to its members, as long as you were a member you were part of that love. Once you stepped out, you were a backslider, no longer part of it.
I did the same thing when I was 'in', putting an invisible wall between myself and the 'weaker' ones. It just happened.
The Family shows the most love for its supporters, where they get their money from, and for its members, those who have chosen the high and mighty calling. Once we leave, we are on the bottom of the list, left to fend for ourselves, left without the community we received our moral and social support, and we must start all over, more often than not, we do it alone.
The decision to no longer have communications with most Family people was mostly our own, we fell out of touch. But it just suprises me that after so many years of being 'loved', there were so few people who took the time to stay in touch.
Maybe it shows once again that the Family completely did NOT prepare for the event of members leaving the group. It did prepare in a way by teaching us that those members were backsliders, weaker bretheren, probably going to receive God's judgements, but not how to keep in touch with former members, how to help them get started back in society, how to make former members feel loved by the group.
So, in my opinion, the group's 'love' is very partial and partially given.