here goes nothing...

[Erin]

Hello all...this is my first post. I stumbled upon this forum a while back. I read it now and again, but I just haven't been brave enough to post anything. But I am curious about a couple things...first is there anyone else here who didn't choose to be in the church where the SA occured? What I mean is that I grew up in a church like that. I didn't choose it. It was chosen for me, and I had no idea that what was happening was wrong. It was just the way it was. When I left it wasn't because I knew anything was wrong. I left because I was in college and my parents couldn't make me go anymore. It wasn't until later when my parents finally got out that I found out that wasn't the way churches were suppose to be. I realize that sounds stupid, but I really had no idea.
Second it took me about 8 years, but I've started going back to church. It's the complete opposite of the church I grew up in - which sometimes I love and sometimes I hate. Anyway before I started going back to church I just felt very angry about what happened where I grew up, but now all these feelings keep coming up that I didn't even know where there - mostly I just feel hurt and I don't know how to deal with that. It was much easier being angry. I just feel like I'm bouncing all over the place - loving my new church one minute and being suspicious of every little thing the next.
I was just curious if anyone else has had any similar experiences.

Thank you...

[hornblower]

Hello all...this is my first post. I stumbled upon this forum a while back. I read it now and again, but I just haven't been brave enough to post anything. But I am curious about a couple things...first is there anyone else here who didn't choose to be in the church where the SA occured? What I mean is that I grew up in a church like that. I didn't choose it. It was chosen for me, and I had no idea that what was happening was wrong. It was just the way it was. When I left it wasn't because I knew anything was wrong. I left because I was in college and my parents couldn't make me go anymore. It wasn't until later when my parents finally got out that I found out that wasn't the way churches were suppose to be. I realize that sounds stupid, but I really had no idea.
Second it took me about 8 years, but I've started going back to church. It's the complete opposite of the church I grew up in - which sometimes I love and sometimes I hate. Anyway before I started going back to church I just felt very angry about what happened where I grew up, but now all these feelings keep coming up that I didn't even know where there - mostly I just feel hurt and I don't know how to deal with that. It was much easier being angry. I just feel like I'm bouncing all over the place - loving my new church one minute and being suspicious of every little thing the next.
I was just curious if anyone else has had any similar experiences.

Thank you...

Actually I guess my church experiences have similar flash backs to my first church experience which was good and bad depending on the people that were runing things. My Mother made me go and yet I knew it wasnt right from the begining because that church was not like my Dad who was so wonderful to me early on anyway. My Dad always answered my questions as honestly as he could. If he didnt know an answer he would say so. He was interested in me as an individual and he wanted me to make up my own mind on matters. Does this sound like church? Not much right?

Over the years Ive had many flash backs from that church. I wont go into it except to say some of it was really really bad and I dont thik I will ever ever get over one experience I had there. I dont blame them because I see them as being idiots! I always blamed my Mother for making me do some of the things she made me do there. She abandoned me there and it was very wrong what she did to me. I put the blame where it should be ON HER!

Ive forgive my Mother for everything. That wasnt easy to do but as I saw her life and how bad the entire thing was for her I began to understand her and forgive her. God did this for me. I asked my Mothers pastor to come and reside at her funeral and my Fathers. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked him but I still know that even he cant be trusted so anyway Ive never talked about my younger church abuse here but that is definitely what it was.

Keep coming and sharing it helps to get these things out and talk about them.

Welcome and may I say how sorry I am that you had to grow up in a place like that situation, it does make it hard to trust anyone again.

On the other hand so does almost all of our relationship situations. School was no picnic for me and neither was work and neither is family?

[Jerry]

Dear Erin,,,,
Your so normal it is disturbing :D LOL..........It is called "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" ;) WELCOME ,,,,Keep posting,,,,,,much as we hate to admit it,the only way through it is through it ,,,,,,,,,,,the posting really helps :)
Love Jerry

[SpinningHead]

Welcome! You're in the right place!!

I could have written your post it's scary! Only I hadn't realized my experience as a child/young teen was SA until I started coming to this forum. I always knew there was something "off" but couldn't put my finger on it...didn't know that there was a name for the experiences.

Hope you find the healing you're looking for here with us! :)

[Reg]

Hi Erin,

You have found the right place to tell your story. Here's a story about a good friend of mine who I've known for over 30 years. She also grew up in an abusive church.

------------

I 've been there!


I just read your e-mail letter and can I relate to you. I was also four years old when my mother joined WCG. She was maybe the 2000th person to receive the Plain Truth and literature published at that time. 1975 in Prophecy scared the daylights out of me. I was so afraid of doing anything wrong. The nightmares I had as a child still haunt me to this day. I often wonder who I would have become if I had not been raised in a cult. I am a good person, I've tried to live a good life but no matter how hard I tried there was slways something missing. I know now that is was the GRACE that Christ provided for me but something I never experienced until I left WCG.

I write this with tears flowing down my face because I realize how much
was wrong in my life. I am told not to be angry, hurt or upset and to get on with my life. If one of my loved ones had died or a mayor hurt had occured in my life I would be allowed to grieve. Being part of a cult is a major hurt in your life, let me feel my pain, my anger and even my hate for what was put into my small mind at such a tender age.

I can understand why my mother bought into HWA's twisted thinking. She
had several small children and she did not want them to be taken captive by the Germans who were going to invade the United States in the next major war. She wanted only to protect us and did what she felt was right. One has to go back in history and understand the times she was experiencing so we can have mercy on her and all the others who bought into this warped reasoning some forty three years ago.

To get over the hurt I try to dwell on the positive things that happened
in my life. I did meet one wonderful man at the feast in the Pocono Mountains. We have been together for over thirty years and we have four grown children who do not hate us because of our former belief system. We have been able to teach them to use their minds and don't let anyone control them against their will. This goes for every walk of life not just religion. I have also made some lovely friends through the church, but so many of them are at such great distances. I need a friend, my own age, in my own community who I can go out with and have a simple cup of coffee. It is not so easy to get on with life once you have left a cult. It still feels like you don't belong, you don't fit, and no one understands what you have gone through. I feel as though I am from another planet or time zone. People in their fifties have their group of friends that time has nurtured and developed. They don't need this strange being that speaks almost a different language, who's mind seems a bit mixed up and confused. Where do we belong?

WCG has left me with a large VOID in my life and I do not know what it will take to fill it up. Religion is not the answer. Material possessions are not the answer. Thankfully we can now afford some of the material things after being robbed blind for forty years. I tithed faithfully all my life, even on the tiny income I made as a child by picking cucumbers for the local pickle company in Wisconsin. For most of the day in the hot sun I bent over trying to pick the smallest pickles because they brought in the most money. My hands were dark green when I finished and my back ached from bending over. It took so long to pick a gunny sack of one inch tiny pickles. When I think of what Armstrong used my money for it makes me visibly ILL. How he abused all of us. How do we ever get an apology from him? Where is that loving God that promised to look after his children. I wish that I did not doubt his love, his power and his mercy. My trust has been abused and I do feel that it is Mr. Joe Tkach"s responsibility to apologize to all of us since he picked up the job of leading this sick church called WCG. If he is the leader he claims to be he will make an apology to all of us. We need to hear the words, 'I am sorry' just as we would need to hear those words if our mate had hurt us. The pain does not go away until the words are said.

Today I did some deep house cleaning. I found some more of HWA's books.
I thought that I had gotten rid of everything in 1997. I ripped the covers off; he sure made sure that those covers would not come off easy. I must apologize I spit on his picture and threw everything in the garbage. Needless to say I wish I could have thrown them in his face or taken him to trial for his wrong doing. I think I have nearly cleaned all the garbage out of our home. I thought I had gotten rid of everything two years ago but every once in awhile I find some more garbage. It sure feels good to have a clean home and I hope I will not uncover any more of his trash. Good riddance to the past, welcome to the future.

I am glad that you wrote your letter. As I read it I cried and felt the pain that I know you are going through and have lived in the past. I have walked in your moccasins and I want to take them off and throw them far far away. I never want to walk that walk again and I rejoice when I hear another sister or brother in Christ find FREEDOM from the cult control that we lived under. There is a new life out there, just let me catch my breath, wrap up my wounds so they can heal and then watch out because here I come. I don't know where my journey will take me but I do know it will be a lot more pleasant than the past has been.

Thanks so much for writing the words that I wanted to write but could not. Would love to hear from you again.

Sharron

"To our great kids and and dear friends:"
http://members.tripod.com/~ejm/get_over_it_reply.htm

[Cataract]

Hi Erin I'm new here too and yep I completly relate. I was bought up in the worldwide chruch of god and left without my parents backing at 16. Years later I was gobsmacked when I found out it wasn't 'the one true church.' :rolleyes:

[yeshua'smags]

Hi Erin! Welcome to the forum!

I know how you feel about loving your church one minute and then being completely suspicious the next. I still can't relax totally, and we go to a wonderful church. It's like I'm waiting for the uglies to come crawling out of the woodwork and laugh at me for trusting. Nothing to base that on, just scars from the other church I guess. Isn't it weird how much of the old stuff you can't shake?

[exwitchoz]

G'Day Erin...

Welcome to the Forum... :)

[abbey]

hi erin and welcome!

we all have been sa'd in one extreme or another and i find alot of similarities with everyone in these forums! I felt SO SO alone, but these wonderful folks and others continue to encourage me to keep pressing forward!

Please make yourself at home---it safe here!!!

Love abbey

[butterfly]

Welcom Erin,:)
I didn"t go to church as a child. I choose the churches I went to as an adult.

My heart goes out to you because that church was all you were taught. The way church should be.

Thanks for feeling safe to post. It took me awhile to know it was safe to post. I know how that felt.

We are loving and caring. butterfly shirley

[Erin]

Thank you...you guys are awesome. I'm so glad that I found you. It's always so nice to see that I'm not alone, other people feel the way I do, and that I'm not a freak! Watch out...I'll be back. I have so much junk I think I just need to get out, but I can only handle it a little at a time and then I just crawl back in my shell and hide for a while.

Erin

[Doug64]

Hi Erin:

I was a preteen when my parents joined the abusive church. Same one that Reg and Cataract left.

Doug