Posted by long time exer on September 29, 2012 at 10:09:04
In Reply to: Re: Question #4 posted by Extreme on September 28, 2012 at 19:23:58:
Experiences pre-TFI and in TFI have had longstanding negative effects, but less intense now. I totally agree with the "out of duty and slaving to some ideal", "going through the motions" description of time in TF. Another factor is the fear of what can happen when a person resists doctrine where the model of acceptable, desirable behavior is criminal in society at large outside of the cult. It's one thing to be in prison, physically locked up and quite another to be locked up in your head- God the hitman watching your moves.
Part of the reason I wrote what I did is because I understand some of the prior posts about things being as bad outside of the family as within, for many people. On an individual basis, this is certainly true, just as it is true that not all people in TF had the same experiences. Some stayed on the fringes more, but all were affected and exposed to doctrine as it devolved over time.
The huge difference is: Societies at large mostly (except for odd societies, such as cannibal, headhunter society) criminalize, consider disgusting and evil/bad, things that were/are doctrine and encouraged and/or practiced in TF.
I'm hoping no one was saying that TFI was no different than society at large, all having bad apples behaving badly, meaning that nothing was different in TF from the outside world. I took it to mean that bad things happen to people outside of a closed system that are equally damaging/bad. But in outside society, those things are criminalized rather than approved.