I ask myself this sometimes when i look in the mirror. Maybe i just see pain in my face. Anyone wonder if that organization truly broke them and ripped apart the best of them? The bard said it's like a rape and you never recover from the evil done to you in this life. I think he may be right, you can improve but you never completely recover.

Adam, no one ever fully escapes the influence of any event in life. we are the sum of what we experience. The bigger and longer the experience, the more enduring the effect.

But time, introspection, and subsequent events reshape what is past. People are able to moderate negative dynamics and inculcate more positive ones. The process is difficult--two steps forward, one step back--but it works.

That is where the healing comes from.

I see, keep forgetting the one step back part. I think everyone has the one step back after two steps forward. I don't really want all my experiences and memories to stay with me though. I want to erase it all but i can't and it sucks that i can't. I don't see an advantage for living through these things.

Every time you cycle through it, especially with a therapist, it will lose a bit of its power over you. You will grow stronger, freer. It will get better.

I think, as an outside observer of your time on RfM, things may have become a bit easier for you already.

They have become easier.

It is my impression that you have made considerable progress, Adam.

I think you are right but i am not sure how i am doing it exactly. I've been trying all sorts of different things over the last couple years. Maybe persistence is the key.

You are thinking about things, doing some therapy, right?

It's tough to find a therapist who is a good match, but even working with suboptimal ones helps. And if you find one or more who "fit," you can make a lot of progress. In short, you are doing more or less what you should.

I suspect there is a long road yet to tread, but you're stronger and more stable now than when our paths first crossed.

Something to feel proud about, I'd think.

It'll be a long road ahead for sure if i really want to do this. Not like i really have a choice either so keep climbing.

The key is to Find Something Bigger.

So far, the abuse that you received in your childhood is the Biggest Thing in your life.

So if you want to recover, you must Find Something Bigger, and hopefully better. Find a Good Thing that is bigger than what you went through. Then all your thoughts and energy will be focused on the New Big Thing. Your childhood abuse will seem like a distant memory that has little or nothing to do with who you are now.

You have gotten LOTS of good advice from other people, so I will let this be my only post to you on this subject.

Open your mind and heart to the Big Good Thing that you can wrap your energies around.

The more attention you pay to your past abuse, the bigger hold it will have on your life.

Just my two cents.

You were blindsided. It’s like being punched in the stomach when you’re all relaxed. They tell you all of this stuff to lower your natural defenses and think everything is cool, and then your canoe sails over the falls.

It was traumatic for me to learn that they all lied to me. These supposed fountains of God’s truth who care deeply about the saints were nothing of the kind. They were ravenous wolves in the process of eating me alive. Saying they loved the truth but doing everything in their power to not see it. One day I woke up and my whole life was a lie. I’d made my life about doing the right thing, and here I was as wrong as wrong could be. I had found the enemy, and it was me. My identity went into a tailspin. I was devastated. I gave them my innocence and they gave me shit. I was ready for anything life could throw at me. Any betrayal. But not this.

In a way, I’m over it. But these things change you. They make you wonder about the purpose of evil in the world. About free will and destiny, about life. I’m glad it happened. God, it hurt so bad. It’s hard not to hate the treacherous bastards, but I don’t. That’s why I had to make peace, although it’s more like an armistice.

Definitely feel sucker-punched still. Not sure how that's possible. My entire surroundings was a lie and i couldn't see it for a long time. They made me feel like i was in the wrong. I just get so mad when i think about it. I don't care if i never see my family again.

I was bent early and grew out bent. Most unfortunate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2018 02:01AM by donbagley.

Sometimes fate takes an intelligent and creative person, puts him through shit, and produces an artist.

Not entirely unfortunate, at least for others.