|
|
 |
|
Getting Support : Speaking Out
A Recurring Nightmare | from ChrisG - Sunday, December 28, 2003
accessed 2620 times I just woke up after another nightmare—a nightmare I’ve had many a time and just can’t seem to shake off. It appears in different forms, always varied scenarios, but the main elements are always there. I’m back in a combo, which I know I’m in because I see (a) the walls and gates—that were allegedly there to “prevent the evil systemites from disturbing our heavenly life”, but in reality were there to shut us out of the real world, to keep us clueless so that we would continue to swallow every word of mindless shit that was fed to us. Next I see (b) the aunties, who are faceless and nameless, and would be invisible if it were not for the crowd of children around them—some have swollen bellies, some have babies on their breasts. These aunties pass by me and are usually nice—some are too busy with their nursery to notice me, others are busy obeying orders from the higher-ups. I see a crowd sitting on wooden benches preparing to eat on plastic plates; some sort of slop is on the serving table—probably some stew made out of out-dated provisioned meat, or else some boiled, green liver. Last but not least, I see the most important element--the very dominating, visible, loud, harsh uncles who mill around always keeping an eye out for any disturbances of any sort. In some of my dreams an uncle comes up to me and tells me I will now be punished for something or other, and I feel the old feeling of panic rise up within me—the unprotected, vulnerable feeling that lets me know, once again, that I can do nothing to protect myself. I only wonder where, when and how I will be punished—will it be public? What instrument will they use, a belt, fly swatter or paddle? Will they spank until I’m black and blue or when they actually count out a number of swats? And then I turn inside and ask myself if at least this once I can try to hold in my tears, try to show them that I am strong, that they cannot break me, that their beatings are useless. And then the beating starts--I manage to hold out for awhile—this makes them angry, and they start to beat harder and faster until the screaming starts—they are satisfied, their lesson is getting through, but they must keep going until the “foolishness” is completely beat out of me, so they cover my head with a pillow so that the neighbors won’t hear and continue until I am covered in welts.
I can’t stand it anymore, and I bolt awake and find real tears on my face, a lump in my throat and anger in my being. I want to find the uncles and kick them, punch them, push them down, but I realize that no matter what I do, I will never get my childhood or my innocence back. I will never get the confidence that develops when a forming child is free to express herself and make friends. Just like I was taught to do as a child, I still wonder if something is wrong with whatever I am saying. On the outside I can now appear confident, but inside I am always worried that I will not fit in, that I will appear “corny”, that people will not enjoy my company. This comes from years of being told that I was nothing, unimportant, only alive to serve a cruel God and His emissaries, and from being beaten, put in isolation and on silence restriction for stepping out of line. The only problem was that there was no “line”; any action—from saying 2 words to going pee at the wrong time, could be wrong and was grounds for punishment, which taught me that everything I did was wrong, and slowly stripped away any confidence that my inner self was trying to develop. I will also never be privy to the many norms and traditions that are usually learned in childhood. Christmas just passed, and while at a friend’s house on Christmas Eve, she told me about a recipe for roll cookies that was passed down from her grandma, and had become a family tradition for her and her children. I tried hard to think of a family tradition, any family tradition that just my family had passed down to me. The closest thing to a tradition that I could figure out was “Christmas push”—Christmas was always a time to get out those singing outfits and roll up posters and put little bows around them, since somehow we made so much more money around that magical date. When I was little I never sat around and made Christmas cookies, or decorated a Christmas tree, or wrapped up presents to put underneath it. Those silly customs were for the systemites, not for us godly, revolutionary, called-out children who were not supposed to learn any norms. I cannot wrap up without mentioning that I will never get the 18 years back that were intended for playing, learning and developing. Even though I am now one semester shy of getting my A.A, there are many subjects that I pretend to know about, but actually know nothing about since they were never taught to me when I was a child. These past two years of studying have taught me a lot, but they could not teach me the foundation that I was supposed to have learned as a child.
Since I have a little girl of my own, I have been able to do some playing and a lot of fairy tale catching up, but these were all things I should have gotten out of my system years ago. I now look over at my little girl sleeping soundly on the bed, and breathe a sigh of relief because I know she will never have the recurring nightmare that I do—she will have years to play, learn, fool around and develop a personality. I look around the room and see all her new Christmas toys scattered on the floor and her bright decorations hanging off the ceiling and I realize that I can give her so much that I was never given, and while I’m at it, I can give those experiences to that little child inside of me that never came out to play.
|
|
|
|
|
Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from I was in a combo too.
Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 19:06
 (Agree/Disagree?)
This is a load of crap from beginning to end. I was there, I know. God help you. You need therapy because your mind has twisted something that although far from perfect was NEVER this bad. I was there. I've been out for 6 years. I was all over the globe. In dozens of "combo's". You've twisted everything from the food to the ministries to the severity of everything. Perhaps you should try writing. Your imagination certainly would support it...then you would find the perfect peace of serenity of riches to go with your sane mind.
(reply to this comment)
| | | | | | |  From Shaka
Thursday, April 14, 2005, 19:18
(Agree/Disagree?)
You cowardly piece of shit. Use your name when you tell someone that their memories are lies or exaggerations. Enough with this hit and run bullshit. I and hundreds of others here remember those combos for what they were, which was hell. I experienced everything that was talked about here and more. God help us? If there was a god, he would have helped us when we needed it; at the fucking concentration camps which you call "less than perfect". You are no better than a Family apologist when you tell someone that their abuse is just in their mind. (reply to this comment) |
| | | | | from fragiletiger
Monday, March 01, 2004 - 18:43
(Agree/Disagree?)
"always remember to forget the things that made you cry and never to forget the things that made u smile."
whiile there are many things in our childhoods that make us wince that is not the perogitive of the family almost everyone i know 'outside" has bad chilhood memiores too and abuse in every form is comenplace,we also need to remember the good times and the wonderful things we saw and experianced that we never would have otherwise
(reply to this comment)
| | | | from Mir
Monday, December 29, 2003 - 15:58
(Agree/Disagree?)
I know where you are coming from. When I first left when I was 18 (12 years ago) I used to have the most awful nightmare, very similar to yours in fact. I would wake up crying, frightened and then my fear would turn into anger. Anger that I had allowed myself to be abused once more. One night before going to sleep I sat up in bed and said to myself: "No more. Miriam, if you have that that dream again, this time, instead of taking it and cowering in fear, you are going to tell them to XXCK OFF!!!! Really loudly, and you are going to jump on them and beat seven shades of xxit outta them, OK?... OK!". I turned the light off, went to bed and lo and behold, I had that dream again! But this time, I remembered what I had said to myself, and suddenly the anger that I would feel when I was awake welled up within me and I went crazy! I told them EXACTLY what I thought of them. It felt sooo good. Try it, it might work!
(reply to this comment)
| from Nancy
Monday, December 29, 2003 - 11:37
(Agree/Disagree?)
This is really beautiful and sad at the same time. All I can say is that I feel exactly the same. I've had reoccurring dreams for 12 years in which I go back to Mexico to help my siblings escape. In some of the dreams, I get one or two out or none or all. They vary, but the dreams have subsided a bit. I think they will finally go away.
The wonderful thing is that a lot of the pain from my childhood has healed with the birth of my son. Just as you say, we can give our children what we never had. It is so healing to see a huge Christmas tree in the house with tons of presents under it and plenty of candy in the kitchen. The best part was the look on my son's face when he saw the presents and talked about Santa coming because he was a good boy. Watching his eyes and smile is the best gift at Christmas. Giving him all the sweets his little tummy desires is also great! I love to spoil him and make holidays magical. For his birthday, he got lots of new cars and airplanes. He slept with them all and when he rolled over in the middle of the night, I heard him say "birthday..." in a little whisper. It filled my heart with joy. Every one of those moments displaces another sad one from my own childhood. The unconditional love he and I share fills the empty place in my heart from my own childhood. It is wonderful, simply a wonderful gift.
The ironic thing is that the Family talks of "love" all the time, but they don't know the first thing about it. They NEVER showed children unconditional love! NEVER! Everything was conditioned on being a good worker drone and doing what you were told, basically being a slave with no mind or will of your own. That is not love, that is not childhood, that is not even human! The Family is every sort of evil and has infected and robbed and destroyed the joy, love and happiness of soooooooo many children! But, we, the most strong-willed of those children they abused and tortured, have become what they only talk about, real loving parents who care unconditionally. A lot of us do exactly the same for our siblings, for whom we did not give birth and are not responsible, but we are better parents to them than our own parents ever were. How ironic? Life is truly a circle and the human spirit will NOT be oppressed, not by this evil band of "Christian" pedofile child abusers, not by anyone or thing!!! And Christmas will come and time will march on, as a whole load of fictional characters stop at our houses and fill our own children's memories with magic.
(reply to this comment)
| From Banshee
Monday, December 29, 2003, 16:40
 (Agree/Disagree?)
I completely agree with you about the unconditional love that was never to be found in TF. That was something that was very difficult for me as a child and a teen; you wanted so badly to "belong" to someone, the way a child belongs to a parent; to feel that there was someone there for just you, and only you; who would stand up for you against the world no matter what. But we cut our teeth on the "One Wife" letters, and from the time we could comprehend we knew that we "belonged" to TF, not our parents or our personal family. Then they would go on and on, as you said, about all this "love" that was in TF; how no matter where you went in the whole world the love was the same; blah blah. But whatever kind of love it was that they thought they had it was not the real love, it was not the unconditional love, and it was not a personal love: it was not about us, about love for a person for themselves, it was this kind of big "love for everybody" totally ambiguous, totally vague thing. When you left a certain home, how many of those people would keep up with you, write, find out how you were doing, or help you if you got in a jam? Even your own "shepherds"; once you were passed on to someone else, that was it, you'd never hear from them again. See, that is not a "family." A real family is one who cares about you even when you are not living with you, who keeps in touch, who makes sure you are doing okay, who will bail you out when you're in trouble, and who will fight for you against all odds. Yet they took our real families away from us, the ones who would have been this for us, who would have given us that unconditional love, and replaced it with "The Family"; and with a warped definition of love that isn't in any dictionary.(reply to this comment) |
| | from EyesWideShut
Monday, December 29, 2003 - 10:14
(Agree/Disagree?)
Presently I can think of only one family tradition, and that only because I have elected to take it on and pass it down: turkey stuffing. My mom made a mean stuffing and everywhere I go I make it at the holidays. People love it and she's proud that I use it.
But there is only one that I can think of.
(reply to this comment)
| from DarkAngel
Monday, December 29, 2003 - 06:38
(Agree/Disagree?)
Well ,that's why I left MENTACORE and I like to kick ass.
My dream is that i'll put my hands on the elite leaders and have them go through some gentle retraining of my concoction.
To help them release that love hiding somewhere.Ha!
Hope you can do the same and relax from the side effect of the group.
(reply to this comment)
|
|
|
|
|
]
[About the Trailer Park] [Who Links Here]