CoolWaters

OM...do you have a story of your own sexual abuse in twi? That is the topic of this thread.

The choices I have used here are paraphrases of things I have heard or read men say. Galen, I am sure that being in the military made things very different. Defining abuse...well...that's something that usually nobody agrees upon. I do consider that others who may not have been the direct victim are still victims. It's like dropping a rock into water...the ripples radiate out and get bigger. Thank you all so much for your input. Society does not often consider men victims...which makes it very difficult for men to come forward and heal. After reading some responses made by men concerning sexual abuse in twi, it dawned on me that perhaps the callous and cruel attitudes could be considered another result of the abuse. One of the reasons I started this thread was to look at the depth of the damage done. When any sort of abuse is allowed as the norm, the whole group is affected one way or another. If someone did not know, see or experience anything, he/she was still affected even if only because a victim would not turn to him/her because of fear.

Oh man, vickles...that's terrible cruelty! Because of heredity and a botched IUD job, I had a hard time conceiving after my daughter was born. When I did conceive, I couldn't carry the child past the first 8 weeks. For 8 years my hubs and I tried and tried to have a child together. I got "ministered" to many, many times. Usually I was told to relax and let nature take its course. Then in Alaska I had 3 "mogs" tell me that I would never have another child...that "god" had better plans for my life. I didn't believe them because I had had a dream about a 4yo little boy that was me and my husband's child. So we kept trying. Less than a year after the last time a "mog" told me I'd never have another child again, I was pregnant. We didn't tell anybody until the 2nd trimester. Just in case...ya know? When we told the limb leader of Alaska (G*** K***), he denounced the child in my womb as an "ill-gotten child of satan". Of course the other "leadership" in Alaska felt the same way. That child is now 17yo. He has been nothing but a great joy to me and my husband. In fact, we often wonder if he is our child at all...that maybe he is an under cover angel or something. :)--> He's never been in trouble. He's very respectful and easy-going. He's brilliant beyond our comprehension. He's a healing presence in many, many lives. He's just plain unbelieveable. I'm so glad we didn't listen to the MOG...!

I have a question about SIT... How come interpretation is needed? The first incident of tongues recorded in the KJV includes this verse: "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language" (Acts 2:6) Sure Paul goes into "instructions", but those are ambiguous and pretty skimpy for something that we've been led to believe is such a big deal...and with no other scriptural support, Paul's "instructions" depart completely from the original experience.

Starting this thread so as not to derail Linda Z's thread any further... Men are victims of sexual abuse, too. Johnny Lingo talked about a situation he experienced in twi. I feel that the "encouraged" abortions were a form of sexual abuse...and that fathers of the aborted babies were victims as well as the mothers. I also feel that the husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, etc of exploited and abused women were also victims. Are there other male victims of twi's sexual abuse? If so, does anybody want to talk about it?

Dot, The woman who was to go into the corpse with her hubs... Good for her husband! But what happens to the wife whose husband is a yesman? She gets needled and bullied by both "leadership" and her husband. She's pregnant (a perfectly legitimate state of being in a marriage, btw)...her emotions are tied to her hormones that are out of whack...she loves god...she loves "the word"...she loves her husband...she wants the child...but "it" is just a bunch of cells that most probably popped up due to a "trick by the adversary" to get her to turn against god, "the word" and her husband. Those "cells" haven't made themselves known yet...there's no movement or any visible signs of "life"...even "the word" says "it" is not "alive" yet... So here's her choice: turn against god, "the word" and her husband or rid herself of a nuisance that was probably put there by "the adversary". Yeah...there's a question in my mind about just what is behind the lack of simple human understanding concerning this...and in my mind it's more to do with guilt...especially when a "hypothetical" (yeah...right...me thinks the man doth protest too much) situation gets tossed into the discussion to confuse the point...

rascal, I did a PT to you.

OM, the questions are rhetorical to you...because you never had to face such a situation and you never will have to face such a situation. I've often wondered if you have any compassion at all in yourself...but then I've often wondered if your constant blame the victim mentality is a cover for your guilt at what you've done to people in the name of "the ministry"...and then I find myself wondering if this is just a game to you...a way to entertain yourself. BTW... NOBODY is EVER ready for parenthood with a first child...and if you have ever been an honest parent, you would have to admit this...

papajohn, I am more than just interested. I would be happy to help however is needed. I, too, have extensive experience with 501©3 organizations. In fact, I am setting up a new one right now. I think 'net meetings are probably the best way to go about things for now. However I also think that it needs to be done in a less public arena such as AOL messenger chat or something like that. Heck, the PT's here should be private enough...shouldn't they? I'm still very leery of an actual house for the reasons I stated above, but I will help no matter what the decision.

TY Psalmie. :D--> Most emoticons are gathered from the 'net via freebie collections...and nobody really knows who owns what or what originated where. So "netiquette" here is pretty much if it's there, it's open to use unless otherwise stated. To grab an image from these pages: hover your cursor over the image:[This message was edited by CoolWaters on January 06, 2004 at 20:41.]

Based upon my experience with 501©3 organizations (about 17+ years), I would like to recommend that people look at setting up a fund. A specific location is almost out of the question, imo, simply because of the logistics involved. There would have to be full time staff (maintenance and grounds people, manager, etc), transportation to and from the location, insurance out the ying yang (not just typical homeowner's insurance, either), city (possibly county and state as well) permits would have to be obtained and zoning may have to be changed. Anything done needing government involvement would most likely come with required public hearings as well. Often there are requirements that include showing what kind of rules and guidelines will be used to guarantee to the neighbors that the house will not become a nuisance. Then, of course, a board of directors would be needed...which would then require knowing the open meetings rules of the area. Lots of things to think about when operating a 501©3 that involves a specific housing location. However, a fund that can be administered via the internet would be a terrific option. The board could meet via many internet options. The funds could be transferred via many internet options. People needing the assistance would be connected to people in the area either willing to open their own homes or help find housing in the area. It takes the burden of day-to-day responsibility off of the organization's shoulders...and it gives the recipients the opportunity to de-institutionalize themselves. And one more thing a fund could do... It could simply make monetary awards to organizations already in existence. Just some thoughts...for what they're worth.

Thanks, ExC. Back atcha, woman. :)-->

Johnny, I don't have all of the details...and really don't want to have anymore details than I already have...but RU being in the military at the time was a twist that I've not been able to untangle. Maybe it's an old-time "don't ask, don't tell" situation? I dunno. SU's involvement? I don't want know that, either. Remember, the information I have is partially coming from those who were at HQ at the time. Who knows how much those people knew...or how much of that information was devised and/or tainted. My purpose for even discussing the situation anymore is to demonstrate the depth of twi's taint...and to demonstrate how such things stay hidden.

{{{{{valerie}}}}} Lucky for you that you hadn't lost all ability/willingness to listen when the alarms sounded. If you don't mind... What do you think now of that girl who stayed the night then? Do you think that she thought you had done "it" with vpw? Do you think that maybe she figured if she didn't do "it", too, that you'd be part of the shunning and shaming? It's very interesting to look at situations again after the twi-colored glasses have been removed...or at least cleaned.

(This post may seem like a derailment...but I don't feel that it is...because the denial is why some people don't get the abuse stories.) Johnny Lingo, That whole situation in Alaska is one of the saddest experiences I have ever had. The LC at the time had been a BC in Topeka, Kansas. He screwed up there, too. If I had listened to his "wisdom" in Kansas, I would be dead from HIV complications right along with my ex husband. Because we (my current hubs and I) knew him from Kansas, we knew not to listen to him in Alaska...so we turned to HQ for help. I still have the letters DM and LCM wrote back to me. Their words "blessed" me at the time...but they did nothing to help those children. Johnny, many of us tried to help those children in Alaska. My daughter and I lived with one of the families for awhile...and we still cope with what happened. I will tell you that at least 3 of the children involved then who are adults today want nothing to do with "god" or religion. I will also tell you that the folks running that "fellowship" did not start off "good" and "go bad"...they knew exactly what they wanted to run a "children's fellowship" for...and had been removed from other areas for doing the same thing...and were put in Alaska by HQ to cover tracks in the lower 48. 2 years after the fact of the arrests, I contacted that LC and asked him what he was going to do to in an effort to set things straight for the families of those children...you know...like paying for the therapy or at least acknowledging his part in it all. Know what he said? He said he was going to "work with the U******s to see that their lives are blessed". I asked him what about all of the children and their families? He said, "They are not my responsibility." I asked him if he still thought me and my family were "seed boys". He said he didn't know what I was talking about. I asked him if he still thought my son was "ill-gotten by the seed of satan". He said he never said exactly that...that I had misunderstood him. A few years ago when I found out he was out of twi, I contacted him. He was still calling me "devil spirit influenced" and trying to rebuke me in the name of JC yada yada yada. From about 1997-2001, I was involved in an offshoot church occasionally attended by one of the men who ran a twig in Alaska during that time. He was the first one in Anchorage to dub our family "seed boys" and prophesy our deaths. (Yeah, Johnny, in response to us trying to do something to help the children, 3 "men of god" in Alaska actually prophesied our deaths...right down to date, time and cause. Obviously they were wrong.) Know what? When I finally told him that we knew him from Alaska, he said he didn't remember us! He got on one knee before me and said, "If I did anything to hurt you or your family, I humbly apologize." He did it in front of several people, including the pastors of the church. When I tried to express my utter disgust with him, the pastors got between us and began harping at me to forgive. Sad thing is, I let those pastors do that...and I took on that freak's guilt...letting myself believe that it was my unforgiveness that was the problem...and a short time later, one of those pastors told me that the reason my husband had cancer and had been in a nearly fatal car accident was because my life was s*it. I am now M&A from that offshoot church. Boo hoo. My points, Johnny, are: All the time I was telling myself that I was doing something good by "working within God's family", I was buying into the dysfunction. It was not until I went outside of twi and told the proper authorities about what was happening in "children's fellowship" that I did any real good. Many of those involved in "protecting" perpetrators or covering-up the situation still believe they were right. What happened in Alaska was not isolated. HQ had put the ring-leader in Alaska in an attempt to keep twi out of legal trouble in the lower 48 because of the same problems perpetrated by many of the same people. Once released from prison, the ring-leader was accepted back into twi with open arms. Because I told the proper authorities what was going on, I am considered the "evil" one...even to this very day. In the face of such evidence, Johnny, I have been forced to take a long, hard look at everything I ever learned from twi. And when I did that, I found out that everything I learned from twi was tainted. But most importantly, I learned that from the beginning I knew there was something terribly wrong...and I chose to ignore or rationalize away the signs. Reading this thread, it is obvious to me that twi perpetuated itself by teaching and expecting a state of constant denial.

Johnny Lingo... My post was a direct response to diazbro's...particularly the part about staying in the dysfunction. I am very glad that I took PFAL. BUT, the idea that I should have made PFAL a lifestyle and should have clung to "the ministry that taught me the 'word'" was insanity, imo...especially when I fell into discounting the abuse I heard about, eye-witnessed and experienced.

Exactly. For me (remember I said for me and am not daring to speak for or of anyone else here), the question of "why did you stay so long" is answered with, "because I was just as dysfunctional as the organization". Yep. Somewhere in my head I'm waiting for this... Yeah. The worst for me is when I figure that "god" put me in twi to meet those good people...that I am alive today because "god" intervened on my behalf and sent me to twig. What a crock. What kind of insanity is it to serve a "god" that has no other way to work than to draw people into dysfunction of the nth degree?

TYVM {{{{{Linda}}}}}. That means a whole lot to me.

You'll get it. The techies here are very helpful. Just ask! :)-->

{{{{{ExC}}}}} {{{{{Dot}}}}} You two...and many others here...are just so very special to me. I'm very glad to be a part of such discussions. These kind of discussions are needed. There's always somebody out there lurking who is going through something similar...who needs to know they aren't freaks...who needs to know that telling and talking about it all is OK...who needs to have a safe atmosphere in which to tell and talk. It's been a long time coming...this type of discussion...but it's here...and somebody we don't even know exists is getting something very powerful and good and healing from it. Yay!

Linda Z, You have always been fair and even-handed to me. You've done your best to see both sides of the situation and to find the "coming together" point. I have the utmost respect for you. It's good to talk about how information is "heard". I always feel like a freak when I share certain things because those certain things are freaky...ya know? I assume that nobody really believes me...because nobody ever really did...and because such things are just plain difficult for the mind to comprehend. I was going to post this on the other thread but that thread was going in such wild directions I just didn't feel like it was worth my time. Your level honesty here feels more like a discussion. Anyway, when I first came to an excult message board, my very first post was in defense of vpw. It was one of those, "He was a human being. He's dead and cannot defend himself. Get on with your lives. Apply the knowledge and forgive the man...yada...yada...yada..." posts. VPW never did anything wrong to me and mine. In fact, he took my defense on more than one occasion...and on those occasions, had it not been for his involvement, things would have been a whole lot worse for me and my children. He was truly the loving father figure I so desperately wanted in my life. PFAL was the answer to all of my life's problems. It gave me a way to control my mind. It gave me a way cope with panic attacks and ptsd episodes. It gave me a reason to quit trying to kill myself. It taught me that I was worthy of something. So all of the allegations I was reading on the message board were just plain unbelievable to me. Not only had I idealized vpw, I hated wc folks because I fully believed that it was the wc folks who screwed up vpw's beloved ministry. (I even wrote many letters to vpw begging him to do away with wc.) It seemed that all of the allegations being made on the message board were wc folks. I had seen what wc had done in the field...and I believed that they would stoop to anything to keep themselves blameless...including lying about vpw. Posters on that board tried to point me to Juedes site. Well...Juedes is trinitarian...which automatically made him a "devil spirit infested" liar in my mind. Nothing changed my mind until I got to know a poster by the handle of MIMITATE. One of her posts hit me in the gut so hard that I could no longer deny the reality of vpw's lecherous appetite. I emailed her. She was very kind and patient with me. For about 2 years she and I discussed many things via private email. Everything she told me rang true to what I knew was the "typical" story of sexual abuse perpetrators and victims. She also knew "Marsha" personally...and shared with me things that she had eye-witnessed. The way she said these things...the feelings she described...the cunning manipulations she and others she knew were subject to...the actual scenarios she described...these things were very familiar to me from my childhood. I knew that she was not lying to me. But I still felt it was all very isolated...I still didn't grasp the enormity of it all. It was very difficult for me to reconcile in my mind that vpw or lcm were the monsters people were making them out to be...because the majority of the people who were making the accusations seemed to be just as monstrous. I just could not accept that things were not being purposefully blown way out of proportion. Then ExC started sharing her experiences. There was no doubt in my mind that ExC was telling the truth. It took GSCI to come along before I began to trust that the majority of the stories had any validity. People seemed to begin to get more honest on GSCI. And I had grown. And others had grown. It just seemed that more of the honesty of the situation was coming out...less of the reactionary feelings. Now here on GSCII there's a marked determination to actually explore what happened...look at things from all sides...define the lines in the sand that were always moving in twi...take a non-twi-influenced look at things. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the progression from trance.chat to WayDale to GSCI and now GSCII is one of growth...for me and for everyone else...and that it took that growth to open my eyes.

Dot...a PT is waiting for you...nothing bad. :D-->

TY, dmiller, for letting me know. Paw's got the handle on these things...and I'm a dummy on 'em...so I'll just bow out now and let the smart guy help ya. :D--> Happy New Year!

ExC (and others who have been hurt), Today is the first time I've read this thread...and I've read only the first seven pages and this last page...because I don't want to go "back" in my memory so much right now...but I want to say some things... I wish I could cradle you and comfort you forever. I'm proud of you for being so brave here. Yes, it's soul stealing. Taken from http://www.soulretrieval.com/ : Taken from http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-111.HTML : Taken from http://www.angelfire.com/moon/fae/Soul_Retrieval.html : OK...here's some hard stuff for me...probably others, too... Being sexually abused is very different from being abused in any other way. It's not "worse", so don't get me wrong on that count. It's just different. I think it's because everybody knows that physical, emotional, mental and verbal abuse are wrong and aren't things that are part of "normal". Sex, however, is a "normal" part of being an "adult". How and when does it become abuse? The confusion about it all makes sexual abuse hard to comprehend...for victims as much as anyone else. Something I'm dealing with right now in my life is this... My whole definition of myself as a sexual being has been determined by someone else since I was 4yo. How do I know what I want and don't want...like and don't like? As a child, I liked not being hit or ridiculed or demonized...so I quit telling and I quit crying about it and I quit fighting them off. As an adult, I liked not being hit or ridiculed or demonized...so I "gave it up"...either immediately or when I had finally had enough of the other stuff. As a child... I learned that giving into sex was the way to survive. I also learned to define "good" sex and "bad" sex. If the person performing sex on me was nice to me (never hurt me otherwise), it was "good" sex. If the person performing sex on me was mean to me (beat me, ridiculed me, demonized me), it was "bad" sex. I had both types of sex performed on me. I learned to "like" "good" sex...it had become comforting in a way that can be understood only by someone who had to allow sex to survive. I eventually learned to seek out the comfort of "good" sex. As an adult... It hasn't been much different for me. Does that mean that I have been a willing participant? Does that mean that it has all been consensual? Does that mean that because I initiated it, I wanted sex? NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!! If I "like" something because I fear the alternative, that is not being a willing participant...that is passivity. If I give in because I fear the alternative, that is not consent...that is coercion If I seek it out because I know no other way to find comfort, that not sexuality...that is palliative. My only two New Year's Resolutions this year are: I will be a shaman unto myself and retrieve myself completely. I will keep myself whole. Happy New Year.

dmiller...what kind of a machine do you have?