brainfixed

this is like the 3rd discussion about something like this? or maybe it's just me that thinks i've read something like this at least 3 times. and how many discussions are there on here about divorced parents where one parent is in the way and one is not and the one that is not is going through all sorts of litigation and expenses to keep their children from being exposed to the way? i know one thing and that is that i wish i hadn't been dragged to a "bible study" as a kid! the argument that "most churches are good christians and they would never hurt children" doesn't hold up because all "christian" denominations have been in the headlines for hurting children. this group is supposedly preying on inmates children which means at least one parent isn't around and more than likely the other parent isn't helping much or they'd already have their children in some activity so they wouldn't be caught in such a net. what if the kkk wanted to hold their "bible studies" there? the kkk bases everything they do on their version of the "christian" bible. what if it was the way? what if it was the family? or any other known cult? i just don't get "christians" that would raise real hell about any other group touting a reilgious viewpoint in public housing and other public places complaining about somebody not wanting their brand of religion in public housing and other public places. when i was a kid there was a tv program called "dinosaurs" and was about a dinosaur family with a baby and 2 teenagers and their daily lives, and there was a 3 or 4 part episode about W.A.R., and it was called this because it stood for We Are Right, and in the end nobody knew what they were fighting for except that they were sure they were right and the other side was wrong, but neither side know what they were right about but just that their being right was all important. sounds like "christianity" to me.

i don't know what's going on but i feel somehow emptied out and like i've said everything i need to say and that there's not anything left inside, but it's not a "bad" thing but just empty and i feel pretty good.

i didn't know i came here for help, and i didn't think i was going to give anything more than some participation on the "fun" discussions, and i didn't know that i could heal from being here. amazing what this place does to me. :wub:

is there an image missing? i see that red x between the first and second images.

thank you bramble and bolshevik. when people talk from their hearts it is very helpful to my heart. thank you.

rascal i have read your writings from my inbox a couple of times and then again here and it was like a cool breeze began to sweep over the desert of my pain and now a soft rain is beginning to water my thirsty soul. i wish my mother could have said these things to me but since she can't or won't i will accept these words from you as i can tell these are words from a truly repentant heart that works to undo the harm. i will read your words over and over again and when this discussion finds its way to the forgotten pages here i will find it and print your words out to have them with me for a long time. thank you.

i'm beginning to understand that the adults sometimes felt just as trapped and helpless as us kids. great songs. thanks!

thank you all for having the courage to get involved in this discussion. wordwolf i have read those and other threads several times and was going to link to them but couldn't quite figure it so i hoped you'd pop in and do just what you did, so thank you. something i didn't think i had to write any sort of disclaimer about because it's been so discussed here is that i am NOT asking anybody to put themselves in a position of legal jeopary but i assumed people knew enough not to do that here already. there's no need to "admit" anything and that's NOT what i was looking for and didn't even think about it until somebody else did and said something. i'm NOT here to accuse and point fingers and that's NOT why i started this discussion. what i want to know for my own understanding and perspective is how people handled things, how people thought about their own or other people's children who "misbehaved" or "disobeyed", and t-bone's post is a perfect example of that type of discussion. if you are worried about litigation against you by what you write here, then most certainly DO NOT write anything because if you're worried about litigation then you must have something to worry about. and if you didn't see or do anything great! i really don't want to hear about it on this discussion though because i've heard about it for too long already. my own mother says she didn't see or do anything abusive. denial is a form of abuse. this is a perfect description of "institutionalized".

ding ding ding ding ding! you're right! yay! i originally had a 5 pointed star instead of an actress star, and then i had a map of the atlantic ocean instead of an artist's rendition of atlantis, and even when i got choices of atlantis i went for one that could have been anything else, so i tried to make it a little bit harder than a star a gate and the atlantic ocean, but i figured you all would see right through me from the get go, so i blush over the "worthy conundrum" comment. :wub: thanks! now it's your turn, and make it hard, ok?

this discussion is inspired by a discussion in the "decaffeinated" forum, and this discussion is about institutionalized child abuse and what people did or did not do, or did or did not recognize as abuse, and how it all changed me and the other children around me. first a partial list of things the way international institutionalized that were "tools" of abuse all too often: Ephesians 6:1 that damned wooden spoon. all adults having absolute authority over all children. untrained and unchecked children's fellowship leaders. impossible expectations of parents and children. typical childhood behaviors and illnesses and acting out equated to "devil spirits". blame. shame. fear. assuming children are most often used as tools by "the old bird" to use against "men and women of god". second a partial list of behaviors children show when abused*: temper tantrums with angry-sounding crying and kicking hands and feet and possibly even trying to strike out. (begins 12-18 months) kicking and hitting and biting others and possibly self-injuring like banging the head. (toddlers) aggressive or abusive actions toward other children and animals and adults, or even themselves and are usually a more serious and longer lasting form of acting out. (older toddlers and pre-schoolers) and as a child gets older: pathological lying bullying others self-injury, such as cutting self or head-banging alcohol or drug abuse truancy running away participating in unsafe sexual activities getting into fights assault vandalism fire-setting stealing rape homicide *see acting out at answers.com for where i am taking direct information.** **this is not the only place information can be obtained. too often me or some of my friends or even my sisters and brothers showed acting out behaviors and the only responses from people in the way were to blame the devil, blame my dad for "bad parenting", blame us for "disobeience", and "suggest" that we need to "kept" somewhere besides with our mom like we were lost causes or something. and all of this came with being smacked with the wooden spoon and much worse. i'd like to know how people here handled and perceived what was going on with their children or other people's children when acting out behavior happened. i have assumed all of these years that it was the hell everywhere that is was for us, but some discussions here indicate that maybe some of the children grew up not quite so violently changed by their forced involvement in the way international. feel free to ask me questions but i may or may not answer them depending on if i feel safe about answering them or not, and i will not answer what i recognize as baiting questions. also this is not something i am asking for "help" about so much as i just want to discuss things. also please feel free to add any information you think fits the discussion. thanks.

no bites? :blink:

it took me 3 tries to get the pics not to come out with that dreaded red x but your instructions were terrific and all i had to do was take the url from the address bar instead of the properties information. you've got gate right. now what is ms. powell? and think of the body of water as much as you think of the legendary island. i had easier pics but then i thought that would take the fun out of the game. if the clues are too obscure i'll do better next time.

ok this is going to be easy. it's 3 pics and 2 words

doojable i like what you've said a whole lot. thank you. it helps more than you might know.

prison break?

the kids didn't have a choice.

your last paragraph says it for me quite well. thank you. i am a little bit jumpy with the idea that the quality of a person has no impact on the actual healing because if the quality of the person is part of an abusive system that has worn low a person's natural boundaries against abuse then the "healing" may "manifest" itself simply by subliminal suggestion instead of reality and people could go many years "believing" they are "healed" when in fact they are exacerbating an underlying condition by playing out being "healed".

mr. knapp you seem like a stand up person with a desire to help not hurt, and in fact that's what you've said, and i know that my reaction to the web seminar was because i felt a hard sell to hire you was coming, but you did say that wasn't it but i kept feeling like uh huh when's the other shoe going to drop. you and i both know that how i feel is on me and that nobody can make me feel anything i don't want to feel so i have to look at me and ask why i feel that way, so now that you're asking i think i'm ready to tell. i've been through every sort of therapy that every sort of psychiatrist and psychologist and therapist and "minister" could contrive of to "help" somebody like me and i have to tell you that 99% of it made things worse instead of better because the "help" was not designed around my specific needs but was designed around what everybody else thought i needed. in other words it mostly turned out to be a snake oil kind of thing for me because it was not about individual healing but about proving a pet approach or something like that, and each person i went to that was like that with me blamed me for being "too ill" or "not trying" or "hostile to treatment", and i found all those "helpers" because i was looking for someone that had been through what i had been through and had "recovered" and wanted to "help" instead of looking for someone with the best training and the best results. so all this being said i reacted from these experiences and from no way of knowing your reputation in your community, and the same with your guest speakers, and on top of all of that being charged just felt like insult added to injury to me. what i would respond more positively to would be seeing you on youtube like you said to see what you're made of and to see first hand your demeanor and approach, and being able to see this without being charged for what would really be an infomercial of sorts. i don't begrudge you making money for your professional services at all, but i do begrudge the idea that i must pay for someone to advertise to me, and because of the things i said in my first paragraph i felt like that was what was happening even though that is not what you were saying was happening. i would also respond very positively to you putting out something like a "getting started on your path to recovery" that included you being aware of the community each participant was in and had a list of the professionals you would recommend that they could turn to in their own community if they felt they would prefer such an approach instead of a web based approach. i hope this "feedback" helps in some way and i wish you the best in your endeavors and i thank you for keeping on and i hope you don't leave here as someone who could point the direction for things you know can help.

oh the secrets we could keep if only people were mature enough.

not my turn! let me watch a little more and if i get one then i'll take my turn for real. thanks though.

one time right after i was forced to take pfal i was also forced to "go witnessing" and it was door to door and in an upscale neighborhood and we were going there because "their god is their money". i thought it was the stupidest thing i had ever heard of even before i was forced to participate so once i was forced to do it i figured that the jerks forcing me to go were going to get me "all out dog soldier" and i hammed it up so good that the twig leader started apologizing to the lady and he drug me back to the sidewalk and gave me a good talkingto about not offending people, to which i replied "i'm offended i'm here so let me go home". that didn't happen but i got my swings in.

thank you lindaz. geisha779 i hear you and have heard you clearly, but i don't think you're hearing me, but i don't care now because i have found myself explaining things to you over and over again just to come back and see you demanding further explanation over things that i said very clearly several times, so that's that as far as i'm concerned with your understanding of what i've been writing. ham, i don't think there is a consensus here, but that's ok because who needs consensus when having our own minds is more fun?

good thinking things you've both said here. thanks. what i don't understand is how come people think that if the good times are viewed with an eye other than what chockfull aptly called "pollyana" that means they were any less good or must in some way take away from the experience or the people involved? i'm not asking that people lessen the good of what happened or lessen the people involved, but i am asking that people look at the whole and how those good times and good people were used to keep people around. didn't anybody else experience any leadership from the twig level on up using the good stories and the good people as "examples" of the "abundant life"? look at the green card again sometime and then compare those "promises" to your good experiences and then maybe ask yourselves if that had anything to do with keeping you in the way either consciously or subconsciously. what about that infomercial video? didn't anybody ever experience somebody in the way saying anything like "well isn't your life better now that you've taken the class? and didn't the class do what it said it would do on the green card?" is it unthinkable to separate out those good times and good people and look at them with the understanding that it was all while in the middle of a cult and it was all a part of the lure without also feeling like looking at such things takes away from the good times or the good people? because backing away from the individual instances and the individual people and looking at the whole does not take away from either but does allow one to comprehend how they were duped and manipulated. and i'm am NOT saying that it was the good times and the good people that duped and manipulated anybody, but i am saying that if there had not been those good times and good people then who would have stayed involved in the way international? and i am also saying that most likely not very many would have stayed which means that i am also saying that those good times and good people were used by the machine to keep people as victims.

i think of things like the commandment to have no other "gods" and how it was said let "us" create man in "our" image and how there are people whose "god" is their belly and the "unknown god" and stuff like that, and then i think about how many religions and "myths" are polytheistical and how historically humans relate better to specific "gods" because that helps the understanding, but how even polytheists recognize that all are part of the whole. and in the general history and understanding of even the bible it is recognized that the god of the bible was a local deity for a specific people, and that being obvious from the bible itself starting with the mark of cain to protect him not from "god's" people, but from those who were not of that "god". and i spent alot of time reading about "gods" and talking to people about their understanding of "god", and i looked at all the denominations even in the one religion of christianity, and i read many other "holy" books and books of "wisdom", and the only conclusion i feel comfortable with for my life is that there might be "one supreme being" but that does not mean that that being is exclusive of all the other beings but must surely be inclusive of them all. is this close to what you were thinking about?

the top one's "q" from one or more of the star treks. and if i'm not playing this right that's because i didn't stop to read how to play. sorry. :) ok nevermind my response. i agree it's got to be cupid.