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night_raver - Wednesday, June 23, 2004

MAP stood for Military Academy Program. The difference? the victor program was supposed to help us get over our "NWO"s (shit I hate that term, had forgotten it till now), while the MAPs was just for pure punishment, the objective being to have someone's fantasy of the "heartless military" I guess, up at 5 AM everyday 7 days a week and worked till you went to sleep, no off-time to be taken away, so the only punishment -- you got paddled for anything, talking/signing/whatever to anyone not a shepherd, 'justifying/explaining'.

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wishicouldforget - Sunday, June 20, 2004

I think you have been very fortunate to have "hardly ever heard of this kind of neglect" during your 23 years in TF.
Although my observations lead me to conclude that the welfare of children raised in TF has improved to some extent in the past 15 years, during my childhood in TF I was not fortunate enough to have rarely even heard of extreme cases of child negelect and abuse. For example, my stepfather, an untalented guitarist, petty thief and small-time drug dealer, had a long history of violence against women and children before he joined TF but despite his record he was allowed to join and be a "father" to five young boys. TF leaders who approved his application to join were well aware of the fact that he had kicked his first wife down a flight of stairs during her sixth month of pregnancy and caused her to have a miscarriage. Although my mother certainly shared some of the blame for the tragic consequences of selecting such a poor specimen as a mate, provider and caregiver for her children, those who were aware of his continuing violent behavior towards women and children and did absolutely nothing to stop it also share some of the blame. The second time I met him (at the age of 6) he "disciplined" me by giving me a bloody nose. This first injury established a pattern of physical abuse that continued for the next 8 years and during certain periods occurred on a daily basis. Even now, so many years later, I have great difficulty trying to forget all the horrific details of those eight years. It is hard when a lover (or sometimes even a trick I hardly know) asks me how I got a particular scar and I have to debate whether I should even consider telling them the truth. What I found worse than the scars or the painful memories triggered by them was the automatic physical reactions I had to some forms of interpersonal contact for years afterwards. It was very hard for me to make friends or literally become close to someone when I automatically fliched when someone extended their arms to hug me or simply got too close.

Despite all the cognitive techniques I have experimented with in a futile attempt to erase the painful memories of my childhood, I am still unable to forget. Just as I am writing this, I remember being held down over the naked lap of my disgusting stepfather and being savagely beaten with a wooden spoon and after that broke, the dirty and splintered handle of a toilet plunger. I remember two of my fingers being broken and my entire hand swelling up for several days when I stupidly tried to use my hands to protect myself and ended up being hit forcefully by the plunger handle. I remember numerous other times when I was forced to endure the stench of urine and feces as my stepfather displayed a malevolent pleasure in always forcing us young boys to listen to pre and post beating lectures while he sat naked on the "throne." I wonder sometimes where he got that idea... I remember another time when I was beaten with a belt while lying on my stomach in a bed and ended up getting hit with the belt buckle when I turned on my side in a futile and desperate strategy to escape the blows. Although perhaps I was lucky that the buckle only landed on my hip rather than a more sensitive area, I still remember the deep, bloody and painful wound it caused and the months it took to heal without the benefit of any medical treatment other than bandages and prayer.

Over the years, my mother complained numerous times to TF leadership about my stepfather's violence towards her and her children and usually most incidents were dismissed as unfortunate accidents resulting from carelessness rather than disturbing violent behavior. Instead of receiving help that might have prevented future violence, my stepfather was instead counselled to use binding restraints or get other people to help hold the child down if severe corporal punishment was to be administered. I only recall a few occasions when he was admonished against certain types of violence against women or children. For example, when he punched me in the mouth and broke some of my teeth which resulted in the home having to sacrifice the financially productive hours of one of its top fundraisers to provision expensive dental work, he was required to apologize and promise never to do it again. Of course, I was punished for provoking him. Over the years he learned how to hide the most obvious evidence of his violent behaviour and we learned that complaining about it or reporting it to someone would only make it much worse. They were slightly more concerned about him beating my mother and eventually he stopped beating her (but not her children) after he was threatened with excommunication. They were far more concerned when they discovered he had been misapropriating part of the large donations we were receiving from a wealthy benefactor. They even threatened to excommunicate him and report him to the police for theft when they sensed he was being less than honest about the legitimacy of certain large expenses he reported. I think this may reveal something about the ethics of an organization that is extremely reluctant to report child abuse to law enforcement but apparently doesn't have any such qualms when it comes to matters of fiduciary responsibility.


However, despite my personal experiences of abuse in TF, I do think TF is a safer place for children that it used to be. Over a year ago, I visited my brother in Western Europe and ended spending several days at the home where he lived with 15 children (including two of his own, probably the only reason he is still in) and 7 adults. In general, the children seemed to be well-fed and cared for and psychologically and physically healthy. They were certainly receiving a much better education than I ever received in TF. They seemed to know quite a bit about pop culture and the latest movies, music, toys and video games. However, in discussing long-term educational plans and goals with the home's leadership team, it seemed clear that their educational goals and resources were extremely limited. One day I helped some of the children with their homework and it quickly became apparent that many of them were years behind in science and math and would have great difficulty in the future if they ever wanted to go to college or even complete a basic high school education. They could certainly be receiving a much better education in a public or private school staffed by professional educators and using standard and effective educational materials and methods rather than receiving their education from a group of highschool and college dropouts using a poorly organized hodgepodge of Family literature and publications suppplemented by outdated textbooks and workbooks from obscure Christian fundamentalist publishers. While homeschooling can work if done right, it still seems that any parent who strictly ahdheres to TF's policies, rules and procedures would have little chance of being able to successfully homeschool their children and ensure they even receive a barely adequate education. Anyways, although my recollection is that child abuse and neglect was once widespread in TF, I am fairly confident that it is much less common now.

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Baxter - Saturday, June 19, 2004

I remember memorising a series of lines in either Chinese or Japanese, none of which I could understand, then being parked in front of some poor unsuspecting housekeeper or shopowner and then being ordered to spout said lines like a FUCKING ROBOT, repetitively for hours and hours and hours. Inevitably, we'd lose interest which meant that it was up to the adult present to motivate us. One time my younger brother decided he'd had enough and refused to do it again. My dad dragged him by his ears out of the shop (in front of the shopowners), into the back of the van where he proceeded to beat him until his buttcheeks bled. And my father had the nerve to complain that his wrists felt sore afterwards. This happened every so often, this particular instance is just one of the examples etched into my memory slightly better than the others.

We used to come home and dad or mum would tell us they( one or the other) was gonna beat us, because we hadn't put our hearts into our witnessing. Mum would usually just scream, shout, pull hair, ears, noses, etc. and pretty much just humiliate us in front of the whole house; It was bad, it hurt, and I'll never forget it, but it was more about being humiiated than being physically assaulted. With dad, it was just sheer violence. I remember my father having boasting competitions with other dads in the home as to how hard they would beat their sons; it had turned into a fucking abuse contest. My dad would take me in the Ofuro (bathroom) and just whip me with a wire flyswatter until he just ran out of energy. there wasn't a single time that I didn't plead with him to stop, screaming, struggling, shouting for help. All it seemed to do was make him hit harder. When my mum left him, I think it got as bad as it ever got. I remember being barely able to walk, barely able to breathe, because I was just fucking exhausted from screaming. I can remember seeing my father's face after one particularly bad session. I had never seen my father show that much emotion, and all I saw in my father's face that day was sheer anger.

How the fuck am I supposed to be normal after that? I can remember time when all the parents in the home would go on 'spanking hysteria'; they'd just start grabbing the male children in the home at meals or after 'get-out' or whatever, and finding the most ridiculous excuses to dispense beatings. We'd all be sitting there afterwards, bewildered beyond fucking bewilderment, wondering what the fuck that was all about. I've since seen similar things happen in the military, where all the instructors would just get into the mood to humiliate and impose their authority, but this was not the Army I'm talking about. THESE WERE OUR FUCKING PARENTS!

I remember once losing my patience with my father shortly after I got out. I told him in plain english that I wanted to hit him, that I felt like taking a swing, fully expecting him to offer me out. All I got was a warning that if I did anything that he was going to call THE FUCKING POLICE! WHAT THE FLYING FUCK!!!??? How am I supposed to have any respect for this man?

Don't get me wrong; against myself, I still love my father. But not a day goes by that I don't think of kicking the living shit out of him.

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itsxena2u - Friday, June 18, 2004

So true! "God does things to make you humble, other things to keep you humble and yet other things to make sure you are still humble". Being constantly humiliated to keep us humble! Public humiliation was TF's main tactic. My earliest memories of humiliation was being spanked bare bottom in front of all my peers, then being spanked again in my early teens during my 1st stages of puberty, at the TTC I was told to put my nose to the wall and stand in the corner for half an hour in the same room with all my room mates for talking during quiet time (I was 14 yrs old) being publicly rebuked as an adult in front of the whole home as an example. I received demerits and had to do dishes well into my twenties! I was slapped in the face repeatedly so hard that I had welts and bruises from my chin to my upper eye. My hands were held down while I received repeated blows to my cheeks for calling my brother a stupid idiot! What was so horrible about this spanking is that finally when I was able to free myself from this person's grasp I was pinned to the bed with this person holding me down with their body weight on top of me and my hands behind my back so I couldn't move. My head was turned sideways and held down securely so I could continue receiving my facial beating! I remember screaming and begging this person to stop! My face and eyelids were swollen and my eyes were watery! I WAS ONLY NINE YEARS OLD!!! This was on of the most traumatizing and humiliating times in my life!

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Dr.4_Shure - Friday, June 18, 2004

I think DOOR TO DOOR was about the worst humiliation...out in the baking sun walking on a weekend day, I was embarassed that i have to be disturbing other people on thier only day off, with a already prepared speech barge into thier houses, and then beg for a donation for a tape or CD, the worst part was the conflicting issue of saying it was a donation but pressuring them for the price already layed out byTF. With some uncle or auntie who couldn't speak the language so they had to have the little "national " kid do it all for them or "translator", people must have thought here are foriegn missionaries using one of they're own kids from the institution and orphanage that we we're helping, they thought I was the misfortuate orphan, here they were using child labor to they're own benifits. I remember people use to ask me questions pertaining to my personal life and freedoms as a seven to eight year old, I didn't what to reply so I wouldn't even translate those questions back to the 'uncles and anuties". It seem to me outsiders cared more about me than TF. Basically for the speech it was ok to say we were an orphange, and refugees.

Uncle mean while would be trying to seduce auntie into having a date that night and the bullshit... went on. better yet if the auntie was a new babe then all the more you as the little Tf child had to be a good sample and show her how to do it!

of course little nation would be carrying a guitar and at any moment he'd have to pull it out of the sack to sing a DTD song, way out of his own level of comphrehension..." Daddy please come home... I'm glad to be a women..I'm proud to be a wife..." at home of course to listen to those DTD songs was a bit on the worldly side, " it might hinder your spiritual growth" was the only excuse they could give.

anyone got anymore on Door to door?

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Dr.4_Shure - Friday, June 18, 2004

The child abuse was as rampant as ever!

Public Spankings or the "board" with anything that could be grab at the moments whelm! You name it, a coat hanger made from steel, a fly swater with either litlle heart or star emblems embedded on the end, a shoe, books, PVC pipes, cooking paddles. I remmember not speaking english well at all being a "natiional", we' kids had watch this movie called "The Dove" . In it the actor aboard his yacht pulls out a revovler, trains it aimlessly shooting at a killer shark who eats up his girlfriends cat...something like that and screams out "You Bastard". As expected happy movie time is interupted by a pause and lengthy lecture with a stern threat that if any one is over heard repeating the phrase "UB"..they would be given 100 swats. Not one of us kids were over the age of 6 at the time i was 4 and a half. a day or so latter some of the boys wre scribling all over this board, upon the realisation f such sweet graffiti I yelled, " You bad boys". Sure enough the rest heard something else..i guess I was having a very misfortunate day, interagations we're made in front of everyone and i was shit scared to even say my piece of the story, and i held my silence, silence was a sure sign of guilt so in the spanking room I went. My butt was so purple by number 40 that the skin broke, I shitted every where... that halted things for a clean up..they had to lay a towel on afterwards to continue... by number 60 I was so numb the crying had stopped... and I was treathen if i didn't cry I would be given more ...( somehow TF had this thing about tears and crying being a sign of being sorry. ) This is one time in my life that I was forced to fake cry..during the whole hour session... i felt the whip of every other object, belt, hanger , shoe, flyswatter- note it cracked, bare hand- even the uncle resented me for making his hand sore, spoon, !

At four years old this left a detrimental scar in me!

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Dr.4_Shure - Friday, June 18, 2004

"Bare pit sessions" was the name they gave it at the TC. basically a few people would be the talk of the evening and in front of the whole school four to five shepherds would get up and tear away at this people, talk about everything bad about them , poke fun of them by drawings, and asume why the person was this or that way,aparrently it was to make them stronger. It grew us stronger away from them.

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cyborcosmic - Friday, June 04, 2004

Unfortunately, incest and child sex was common place. Even amongst the younger children. From my memories of staying in close quarters (remember the tripple bunk-beds) I remember 'fooling around' with several children, including girls -once even while my younger brother was in the room! I was about 5/6 at the time. When I was 7/8 I tried it with my brother, I don't know what pushed me to do it, it was encouraged to explore each other's sexuallity and I was curious. No one told me that doing it with your sibling is actually incestuous. Actually, my mom and stepdad knew about it and did/said nothing, their reaction was more along these lines: 'kids, ha!'

My step-dad sexually abused my sister during her 8th-12th year. That included the exchange of oral sex, but not rape, although their was penetration. My mothers reaction was: 'but touching a child sweetly is not harmful!' The bottom line is : Parents and other forms of authority are there to guide , mentor and support! Nothing more!!! It is not their job to touch you! Though that is the argument of people in the family (that they were showing love and care) But that is not their job!!

I believe strongly that any authority figure that abuses a child's trust has committed a crime, you can call it what you want, but its still a horrible violation. My sister and many here are very confused about sex as a result of there being NO GUIDELINES or TABBOOs. I believe that there were many perverts who were attracted to this FREE SEX environment and who fed off us children, while everything was justified in the name of GOD.

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It did go on - Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Yes it is true and did happen. I don't know if this is the same person but I do know a teen who's Mom was having sexual relations with him well into his teenage yrs. She was very beautiful and young looking for her age and he was very tall and looked older then his. I'm not sure how it all started but it did go on for yrs. I knew both these people personally. There were lots of things that went on that were hushed and it was left up to "according to your faith" "and as long as it was done in. ugghh and then they wonder why so many of their kids are mentally confused sexually. (from one who hates anonymous post but needs to due to not wanting to expose the person as it is very personable info.)

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Actually - Wednesday, June 02, 2004

I don't think incest was as rare as you may believe. I heard about it from a few girls. I think the most common type of incest, though, was brother-sister incest. I experienced this first-hand. When I was younger (7/8 years old) my older brother began sexually abusing me. Here's the crazy part: when my dad found out, he gave us both a lecture. Said something about how incest was bad. Plus he made it sound as if I was a willing participant (I wasn't but he ddn't ask, I'm not sure he cared). A lecture was my brother's entire punishment. Anyway, you should believe it. It did happen.