Cruelties

from Jules - Thursday, October 31, 2002
accessed 1918 times

Now maybe there's a God above
but all I ever learned from love
is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.
And it's no complaint you hear tonight
and it's not some pilgrim who's seen the light--
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
--Leonard Cohen

In the Family, I remember the other children as people I could instantly relate to, no matter where I went in the world. They were interesting, intelligent and sensitive. In our isolated communities, the pickings were slim for friends, and as we matured sexually, also for lovers. It was rare however to find a home where there was open contention among the second generation. We seemed to bond almost instantaneously. But despite the company of peers every waking minute and despite the people surrounding me everywhere, I remember always feeling alone. I learned to be mindful of what I said and whom I said it to. Even with people I trusted the most, I was careful to word confidences in a way that could not be used against me if it were to be repeated.

Since leaving the Family I have not had much contact with my peers who were also raised in the group, until this web site. The process of reconnecting with my friends and my past has been intense and both healing and painful. The relationship with my peers in the Family was always complex and I have been doing a lot of thinking about the dynamics I remember and sometimes still surface. It’s hard for me to really trust anyone, and for some reason especially people I grew up, and I’ve been trying to understand this.

Many of us were separated from our parents at a young age, and we were all taught that our identity was the group, not our individual families. We were herded like cattle much of the time, and as long as we weren’t loud, disruptive or caught breaking any rules, no one really cared or noticed what we did. In the absence of any parental guidance and care, our friends became our family and our peer dynamics our identity.

There was never enough of anything to go around, whether clothing, food, rest, or even love or attention, and as children we were put in the terrible position of having to compete for these basic needs. Surviving as a child in the Family was a delicate and volatile balance. If you weren’t noticed there was no hope of ever moving from the menial and gruelling work of cleaning, fund raising and child-care, but it also kept you relatively safe from being singled out for humiliation and punishment. If you were noticed, you had a chance for other things, and possibly even to have some of the love and care we all desperately needed, but it also meant you could fall from grace at a moment’s notice. One wrong word or look and you could be stripped of any privileges and mercilessly brutalized until you broke and gave utter submission.

I don’t remember ever knowing unconditional love or acceptance. It was always a contest to see who was the most valuable. “Rewards to the Deserving”. If we weren’t the sort of children we should be then we could be punished severely and isolated or even permanently sent away from the only home we had ever known. If you had a thing you could do, a role you could play, then you could feel somewhat secure in your place. Considering myself unmusical, unartistic, unintelligent, unspiritual and unattractive, this was always an issue for me, until I read the quote from a Family publication: “There is always a place for a man of talents, even if his only talent is knowing how to work”. I could work hard, and so that became my thing. I tried to do everything I was asked to as well as I could and do it all without complaint or question.

The competition we all were under was brutal, and even if you figured out how to do what was required in your situation, that could all change at a moments notice. The rules changed constantly, and because the more recognition you were able to get, the more other children were passed over, a single mistake could cost you all the security you had achieved. Although relationships seemed close and supportive, just under the surface it very rarely ever was. We were all pitted against each other. Anybody could turn at any time and I slowly and painfully learned never to trust anyone.

In our Lord of the Flies styled tribe, some people took the path of oppressors over being oppressed. In England, the most brutal of the overseers in the Victor programs were teenagers themselves. The environment allowed for sadism to develop and thrive, and it’s true that it wasn’t limited to FGAs. I know a number of young girls that were raped and molested by older boys. It’s still difficult for me to talk about, but I was raped in the Family by teen boys that I had been put in charge of when I was an older teenager myself. I have experienced a great deal of brutality personally, but this is by far the most difficult to understand and deal with, because I don’t know who is responsible. I believe we must take responsibility for our own actions and lives as adults, but these boys had been through horrific abuse themselves and I was supposed to be responsible for them.

I hope that one day I will be able to learn to trust and be able to maintain a healthy relationship. The legacy of the Family in the life of its’ children is ugly and shameful and it makes me angry that I still carry that shame. Despite my best efforts I was never able to fit in within the Family and I always felt as though there was something wrong with me. In the real world my unconventional upbringing makes me feel as though I am different than my friends and it’s hard not to feel that same isolation on the inside.

One of the things that has affected me the most of anything that has been written on this site was Xhrisl's article about his brother Josh: http://www.movingon.org/article.asp?sID=8&Cat=34&ID=778

I can't read it without crying. The last line is the hardest to read: "because sometimes the demons win". I know sometimes they do, but I just can't accept that. I refuse to accept that.

The reality is that we as peers were not kind to each other all the time. We sometimes didn't support or stand by each other, and some of the hurt that was done was done by us to each other. The reality also is that the demons we all face are real, and no one understands what we struggle with but each other. For better or for worse, we share this legacy. Perhaps it's true that we can't escape the past, or our upbringing, but the cruelest irony of all would be to have to fight the demons we share alone.