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from Spat September 10, 2003 - This comment is in the main site  From Itbraksmyhart Tuesday, November 04, 2003, 15:24 This comment is in the main site

From live_fast-die_young Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 06:48 (Agree/Disagree?) That's pretty sick *Spat*, i am sorry for you too...but you're a big boy now and need to stop asking why and bloody get on with life. Catharsis my boy, catharsis! (reply to this comment)

From Nancy Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 18:03 (Agree/Disagree?) What in the world? Who do you think you are telling someone how to deal with their pain? Dude, mind your own damn business. Spat can ask all the questions he likes. That's his perogative! Sick is what happened to him, not how he chooses to deal with it. We all cope differently. If he's not eaten up with anger and hates his mother, then good for him. That is moving on. (reply to this comment)

From mex Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 20:58 (Agree/Disagree?) WTF, who do you think you are telling people to mind their business? By posting it here Spat made it everybody’s business. By the same token it is livefast’s prerogative to try to tell and tell people how to cope with their pain on a public website. (reply to this comment)

From Benz Thursday, September 25, 2003, 02:33 (Agree/Disagree?) Rather than contest the ability or prerogative of someone to question a comment I would rather attack the pathetic logic behind a remark so typical of “Family” mentality. I’m referring to the stated opinion that “you're a big boy now and need to stop asking why and bloody get on with life”. – Exactly like something you would hear someone from “The Family” giving as advice to a person with this kind of story. I doubt you will find many real experts will agree that repression of bad memories (genuine or imagined) is the right way to deal with them. I’m not an expert but I’d imagine if someone does have really bad memories they need to deal with them and not merely try to “forget it ever happened”. Your subconscious is not managed by an “on/off” switch you can control with 100% entirety. Emotional or other experiences can trigger your subconscious sometimes when you least expect it. I believe from my own experience it is better to deal with bad memories even if you have to compartmentalise them and only “go there” when you feel comfortable to do so. What upsets me is when people can’t even express this type of thing on this site. If no one else in the world can accept and try to empathise with us for what we’ve all gone through, at least we should to each other, which leads me to the suspicion that the person who made that remark is either a current FGA or SGA or a sympathiser of “family” abusers. (reply to this comment)

From live_fast-die_young Thursday, September 25, 2003, 04:19 (Agree/Disagree?) i am neither FGA/SGA nor sympathizer. it was a remark of a personal nature related to his whining. what i went thru may not entitle me to patronize others for not having quite my degree of pain but i tend to forget that. sorry for seeming so hard on spat. "I doubt you will find many real experts will agree that repression of bad memories (genuine or imagined) is the right way to deal with them." ---that's EXACTLY my point Benz!! Go look up "catharsis" if it troubled you...it's the exact opposite of repression. i was trying to advise him to follow the example of the original poster *verylonelygirl* and STOP repressing it. I admire her for her bravery and agree unreservedly with her last comment. his question "why" may just be the way he choses to deal with it but that is what held ME up personally for so many years. why is not a solution, is it? how can you possibly hope to heal when you're trying to comprehend the motives behind someone causing you pain? that's an honest question. i stopped trying to understand it after a while and, call it repression, it worked. (reply to this comment)

From Benz Friday, September 26, 2003, 01:07 (Agree/Disagree?) An on line dictionary provides the following definitions for Catharsis: ca·thar·sis ( P ) n. pl. ca·thar·ses (-sz) 1. Medicine. Purgation, especially for the digestive system. 2. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience. 3. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit. 4. Psychology. a. A technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness. b. The therapeutic result of this process; abreaction. catharsis \Ca*thar"sis\, n. (Psychotherapy) The process of relieving an abnormal excitement by re["e]stablishing the association of the emotion with the memory or idea of the event that first caused it, and of eliminating it by complete expression (called the abreaction). catharsis n 1: (psychoanalysis) purging of emotional tensions [syn: katharsis, abreaction] 2: purging the body by the use of a cathartic to stimulate evacuation of the bowels [syn: katharsis] I must admit I’ve never heard this word once in common use since I left “TF”, and don’t remember having ever needed to look up it’s definition. I do remember its’ usage in “TF” though as I think anyone who grew up in “TF” would. One of those persuasive cult lingo terms, to which a particularly intended meaning was invented. I remember it being closely associated with “becoming a new person in Christ Jesus”, “forgetting those things which are behind” etc. In reality “TF’s” usage of the word meant nothing less than “purging” a persons’ individualism when it conflicted with the goals of the cult (referred in the cult to as “god’s will”). I strongly suspect that your use of the word “catharsis” was the “Family’s” version. I refer to your comments of: “you're a big boy now and need to stop asking why and bloody get on with life”, and “how can you possibly hope to heal when you're trying to comprehend the motives behind someone causing you pain? that's an honest question. i stopped trying to understand it after a while and, call it repression, it worked.” Tell me how do those comments align themselves with a “catharsis”, being “a technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness”. – Sounds more like you’re trying to toss them into the “too hard” basket by pushing them into your subconscious, and rather it is Spat who is expressing himself by asking the hard questions and therefore “re["e]stablishing the association of the emotion with the memory or idea of the event that first caused it, and of eliminating it by complete expression”. We all have our ways of dealing with things and although I don’t know Spat, the fact that it’s his mom who is involved with this bad memory seems to make your comments all the more callous in nature. By the way Bunny Big Word, lean to capitalise won’t you? (reply to this comment)

From Nancy Thursday, September 25, 2003, 09:23 (Agree/Disagree?) "i am neither FGA/SGA" Then what are you doing here? There seems to be more people like you commenting here. Yet, isn't there something on the home page which states that this site is for second generation members of the COG? If you're not either FGA nor SGA, then you cannot intelligently comment on anyone's experiences here, as you have no knowledge of what they write. You must have the prerequisite experience in the Family to begin to understand one's experiences, much less comment negatively on them. (reply to this comment)

From live_fast-die_young Saturday, September 27, 2003, 00:38 (Agree/Disagree?) Oh, i do apologize, Nancy (ruffle ruffle)...i like to think that "SGA" refers to my dull 26yr-old elder brother still in TF and those like him. It hardly stands to reason that being YOUNGER means i "cannot intelligently comment on anyone's experiences here". (reply to this comment)

From Nancy Monday, September 29, 2003, 20:00 (Agree/Disagree?) I suspect, highly, that you are a fraud. You don't know what SGA means. Were you ever in the COG? It doesn't appear so. Then, hence, how do you have the slightest idea what is was like? Your comments are like if I were to try to comment on what it is like to be in combat and what PTSD is like, having never been. Or worse passing judgment on those that have. Further, you being younger has nothing to do with anything. Were you ever in or not is the question. Sitting back and passing judgment, having no experience with the subject matter first hand, is flimsy at best. Who needs that kind of commentary? One might as well ask someone on the street for advice. A child or complete stranger could offer more in the line of valuable advice or even valid criticism. Further, if your sibling was an SGA, would that make you one, as well? Hence, my suspicions. (reply to this comment)

From An SGA Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 14:39 (Agree/Disagree?) To get totally 'technical', SGA is a term which was never used in the COG - seeing as that name for The Family has not been used for over 20 years, and the term SGA is relatively new (sometime around '95, as I recall). So, having been a member of the COG has nothing to do with understanding the term SGA. Secondly, (again, to be entirely technical) so long as live_fast-die_young is (or was at the time of leaving the Family) 18 or younger then they were considered a YA and not an SGA - while their 26-year-old, current member, sibling IS an SGA. Now that I am out of the Family, I no longer consider myself to be an SGA - it doesn't really make any sense to call myself 'second-generation' since that term is describing generations of Family members - rather I am an ex-member. (reply to this comment)

From An SGA? Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 14:40 (Agree/Disagree?) Sorry, was meant to have a '?' after my name in my first post. (reply to this comment)

From mex Thursday, September 25, 2003, 16:21 (Agree/Disagree?) Your ability to completely ignore the context of a post and get sidetracked with ridiculous terminology is quite amusing. (reply to this comment)

From Nancy Thursday, September 25, 2003, 17:48 (Agree/Disagree?) Don’t you have some West Nile Virus to be spreading somewhere? Malaria? Better get with it and leave the rest of us to discuss matters. (reply to this comment)

From mex Friday, September 26, 2003, 20:03 (Agree/Disagree?) I will leave the rest us to discuss matters, but you don't seem to know what the matters is. (reply to this comment)

From verylonelygirl Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 13:00 (Agree/Disagree?) shame on anyone who mocks true confessions of such a difficult nature. a little boy is just as vunerable as a little girl. if that child is destroyed by his/her protectors then he/she will not blossom. i think that spat is trying to go through his personal catharsis as each of us are. he must know what he is holding onto before he let's go and his question "why" is how he will let go. dealing with the past is the most difficult because it cannot be changed and never remembered completely. puzzle pieces are hard to find and we should be happy and support those that are willing to face what cannot be changed whether they are male or female... (reply to this comment)