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from been there too Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 23:35 (Agree/Disagree?) I have also experienced similar reactions to my past from friends and lovers. One friend had the audacity to tell me that she understood where I was coming from because when she was 15 she ran away with her dad's credit card and checked into the Plaza. It is frustrating. I have also had friends and lovers who have themselves been abused or ran away from home at a young age. I had a hard time accepting that their experiences were in anyway similar to mine. But the bottom line is that abuse is abuse and they are only trying to tell us that we are not alone. I think it is there way of comforting us. For that reason we should love and cherish them. No, they will NEVER understand... but then why should they? Why do we feel the need to make them understand? Yes they are the people closest to us and should understand but that doesn't mean that we have to share our demons with them. There are some things we should protect them from. I have found that going into the gritty details with them only frustrates them as there is nothing they can do about it. My advice is to not push the topic. While our experience was certainly unique, there are many people in the world with their own stories and unique experiences. I think one reason that we need validation from our partners is that we have never seen justice served. We have never been validated by a court of law, our parents or our abusers. But this is something our partners cannot provide. This is between us and The Family. Have you read JT Leroy's "The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things". His experiences with abuse by a Christian family are disturbingly similar to ours. He is a brilliant writer. He writes about the darkest of things with such fluid grace. He does not looking for sympathy in his reader. There are many ways of getting your point across without hurting or frustrating the people who love you. Let them comfort and protect you the only way they know how. Good luck. I wish you the best. (reply to this comment)

From cyborcosmic Thursday, May 19, 2005, 08:43 (Agree/Disagree?) wisdom by cyborcosmic: No one can fully relate to your experience nor can you fully relate to anyone elses It's a simple fact and you just need to accept it(reply to this comment)

From Sonderval Thursday, April 07, 2005, 01:11 (Agree/Disagree?) Brilliantly put. I think the hardest thing in the world is witnessing or hearing about someone you care about's pain and being utterly helpless. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't tell those close to you about what you care about, but it does mean that you need to understand the difficulties they have in trying to deal with it. It's easy to feel angry or upset when they try to relate to it or offer advice but if you care about them as well you just need to understand that they're doing it because your story has left them feeling helpless and their mind is frantically trying to find a way to ease that, and that the reason for this is that they care for you and the urge to protect those you care about is instinctive in any even remotely normal human being. I find the best thing to do is thank them for listening and tell them how much it helps you to be able to talk about it etc etc, and if they keep offering advice then gently try and explain to them that sometimes these things are deeply personal and it's hard enough even talking about it, and that there are a lot of differences between their past and yours which will mean that you have different problems, and emphasise that the problems are different rather than greater, after all, if they've had a hard past they will have issues of their own, and it's arrogant to say that whatever they suffered hurt them less, life is subjective.(reply to this comment)

from jane26 Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 23:24 (Agree/Disagree?) Thanks for your comments and the link...it has helped a lot. (reply to this comment)

from Banshee Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 18:41 (Agree/Disagree?) Besides the points brought up here already, I would also add that one of the most significant differences that I would touch on is the fact that we were, in essence, imprisoned in our lives, and our day-to-day abuses. We couldn’t just go down the road and have dinner at a sympathetic friend’s house if Mommy was drunk, or if Daddy was beating us. We couldn’t go to visit our Aunt or Grandma to get away from the madness. In some cases, we couldn’t even leave the house, let alone the compound. And we didn’t just have to deal with one or two abusive adults—five would probably be a gross underestimation. In our case, there was nowhere “safe”. The authorities were our “persecutors,” and our relatives were “10:36ers.” We didn’t even have our own room to go and hide in. A lot of the time, we actually roomed with our very abusers. I don’t think you can really compare that to “leaving home” in a regular life. (reply to this comment)

from vixen Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 18:15 (Agree/Disagree?) It might not touch on the exact question you pose, but the article I've linked below is quite a good one, in my opinion, and the related comments thread shows how we've tried to explain our background and ensuing 'issues' to non-ex fam. Does your boyfriend know any details at all about what growing up in TF was like? If you want him to understand, even to a degree, you will have to be extremely candid in explaining what it was like. However, having said that, I believe that unless people have grown up in a similar environment, perhaps as Jehovah's Witnesses or something like that, it will be almost impossible for them to grasp just how monumental the leaving process (and the resultant acclimatisation and adaptation) was for us, and as such you might have to just accept that he will never be able to relate on more than a superficial level. http://www.movingon.org/article.asp?sID=1&Cat=9&ID=502 (reply to this comment)

from porceleindoll Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 17:59 (Agree/Disagree?) I would say one major difference is that the abuse was done in the name of Jesus or God, using a very powerful tool (gaining control of one's beliefs vs. just their physical body) to convince the victims that what was happening to them was not just love, but God's love. This wouldn't only be harsh discipline (raise up a child.., spare the rod.., whom he loves he chastises...) but the sexual abuse enforced on the weak and innocent. Many were convinced that this was supposed to be, that God has willed it in His Word, that to rebel was simultaneous with witchcraft and those who rebelled were to be treated as such. Who of us was not afraid to obey or comply or yield and submit to whatever was dictated to us by our shepherds, leaders, parents? They effectively used the Word of God to kill our natural and inborn inclination to resist what we felt was wrong. We were convinced that to disobey them was to disobey God, and in so doing, left us in a greater fear and greater submissiveness then the ordinary child or young person would be in. (reply to this comment)

From moonshiner Thursday, April 07, 2005, 12:29 (Agree/Disagree?) I think you've hit on the key difference PD. Abuse inflicted under the guise of religion or spirituality may be the most inhumane abuse there is. When you compare the stories of victims of The Family to those of the Hare Krishna, or Mormons, for example, the similarities are astounding. In the excellent expose of Mormon fundamentalism, "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer, you can easily replace "Mormons" with "The Family", and "polygamy" with "the law of love", and you'd think you were reading a book about TF. Religious terror tactics used against children in such groups makes that kind of abuse different on several levels.(reply to this comment)

From Thursday, April 07, 2005, 10:57 (Agree/Disagree?) I would say they just numbed it for a while, otherwise we'd still be in.(reply to this comment)

From di Thursday, April 07, 2005, 00:05 (Agree/Disagree?) Yes, Pordeleindoll, you hit it exactly - the crux of maybe the most horrendous & difficult abuse to overcome. Physical abuse is horrible enough, but psychological, mental, and may I even it call it, spiritual abuse is something that must be faced and replaced by an entire new thought process, philosophy, and life-style. This takes time. (reply to this comment)

From yep Thursday, April 07, 2005, 10:07 (Agree/Disagree?) Indeed (reply to this comment)