Ok so here we go... I was accepted and I spoke in tongues to prove it! I threw myself headlong into everything. I ate, slept and breathed the word. Talk about climbing a ladder quickly. Dave and I became the twig leaders assistants. Life was going at a pace I never expected and honestly things were good for a while. SV and I ran a childrens fellowship in my apartment every week which I enjoyed greatly. MV and I or sometimes just myself would run childrens fellowships on Sunday mornings. Our twig was very sweet, we all seem to really care for one another and we even had fun. If it could have only stayed that way. :(
To this day I don't know what happened between Dave and I, I believe he was jealous so to speak. I don't think he expected me to rise up like I did but whatever the reason I rose and he descended. Our lives became quite the mess. It was like he lost all spark to him and there was no way I could help him. We began to fight about everything. There would be days on end that we wouldn't even talk. Our sex life became next to nil and that was the introduction to violence in our home.
I tried everything I could to be what I believed the word told me I should be. I cooked and cleaned constantly. I was always trying to do little things to show him my love, you know, love notes in the lunchbox, keeping myself as pretty as I could be, making sure everyone knew he was head no matter what, nothing worked. Deep inside I was so hurt because I thought if I could only.... but it only caused me to fall into depression. I kept it to myself for the longest time, believing it would all work out because with God on my side I couldn't lose. I was determined to make it all ok.
Have you ever had a timewhen there was so much going on that you could hardly breathe, but strangely enough all those things were exactly what kept you going? That is what the few years in this section were like for me.
I have struggled with keeping all of this in some sort of order in my mind. (I have a sound mind, I have a sound mind) HAHA! Sorry, just a memory of something a room-mate and I would say to each other in passing while we struggled through our days.
I will probably jump around more now and have to return to sections so please bare with me if this is hard reading.
So ealier I shared how close I got to my twig leaders, M&SV. I began to open up to them a little about what was going on between Dave and I. I know it broke their hearts to find out what was going on in our home. So a midst the fellowships and elders meetings and raising children they tried to be a steady form of support. MV talked with Dave and SV was a consistant shoulder for me. Somewhere in all of this there was a time when we switched twigs which made me feel very alone in it all. Details and dates escape me so I won't touch on that now. So anyway, life went on. The fighting, the silence, the unbearable truth that everything I had hoped for was falling and crumbling around my feet.
SV shared with me that she finally took the situation to Victor Banard, the MOG. I was hoping that things would finally begin to change. Maybe there was help after all. Nothing, nothing and still nothing. I lost hope and came to the conclusion that this is what my life would look like until I took my last breath. But then I got the call....
If there were ever any words I thought could hurt me as much as when they said my Nathan was dead, it was what he, Victor Banard, the MOG would say to me at that moment.
"Well Dawn, you spread your legs to him, so now there is nothing you can do."
I was in complete shock! Now it is true that we were not married as of yet but before God I felt I was and what he said that day only confirmed those thoughts. Life went on as usaul...sigh...twig face...sigh...
On October 28th 1992, I had another child. We named her Victoria after Victor Banard. (a name she hates now) (sorry Tori)
It's crazy how even after he said what he said to me, that I would name a child after him. Even stranger yet is how close Victor and I would become. But being who he was to me I was nothing but loyal . I felt like God had sent him to me and hard times and all I was blessed.
I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. (yuck!)
I'm not exactly sure how this all came about but the church was going through a time when we were learning about personal prophesy. We were also told about this group or class, whatever you want to call it, called Momentus that we were all encouraged to take. After all is said and done I will just call it nasty.
Dave and I really had no choice in the matter. We were told that Victor would not marry us unless we took this class.
I know, I know, I'm sure you are wondering why I would ever want to marry him anyhow. But the vows I had taken in my heart before God were stronger than my desire for earthly happiness. I don't know chalk it up to stupidity? Insanity? To me I just wanted, desperately needed to be right before God. So off to the devil's playground we went.
Now I must back up here. If you know me at all then you would know that I am not one to bring attention to others faults without clearly stating my own. S I will not begin to do that now.
It so happened that Daves mom died and he had to travel to Canada to take care of her estate. Although the year prior we had had the baby and things had calmed down a bit because of her, I was still far from happy. Our relationship was still far from peaceful. So I did something I never though I would do.
I cheated...
It was a one night stand. It was a few fleeting moments of excitement and attention I so deeply craved. However, no excuses, it was wrong. I was wrong, and I was determined to never let it happen again and certainly to never let Dave find out about it.
I don't know if any of you have ever heard of or participated in Momentus, so I will tell you just a little of how I experienced it. As far as I recall it was only a short class, only four or five days, but it was all day and if you really put your heart into it pretty much all night as well due to homework we were given. It was centered around certain verses in Gods Word although twisted for their own purposes, just like anything that would or could suck a christian unawares. I know I could hardly think straight due to lack of sleep or food during the class. The music which seemed to never end was so loud and very disorientating. Every part of this class made you feel it was hard but it was exactly what you needed. The whole basis of this trap was in order to be free you needed to be completely honest.
So here I was trying to hide the biggest secret of my life and all the while feeling like the biggest sinner in the world. I was so full of fear that it would come out. As expected, it did. In the middle of this circle of people I hardly knew, I was like a fish out of water gasping for breath and trying to lie to save my foot. It didn't work. Like so many other things that should have never been uttered, my secret came out. Now don't get me wrong, I do not condone lying but in that place and time it was just another thing that should have not been said. I honestly believe that there was no real reason to speak this horrible truth. But as it was everyone was speaking things you would have never expected. It was I assert this I assert that, filling in the blanks with whatever they thought or felt about just about everything. This is just an example of what I was told.
"You were not my dream woman because you are not tall enough, your legs could be longer, you're not blonde oh and your boobs aren't big enough." Oh and also, "I often wonder what it would be like to sleep with Victor's wife." Hmm, makes you think about...
A fool uttereth all his mind.
But anyway, there I was ashamed, embarrassed and completely broken. Not knowing what to do, out the door I ran. I never wanted to return.
Lo and behold, like in the past, my friend, my beloved, the MOG came after me. Outside he begged me to return. He stated he didn't want to continue without me. I was his little one, he loved me, all was forgiven and together we would get through it together.
As I sit here writing this, I am in tears. I am so hurt going through all of these memories. To this day it hurts me and I miss the friendship I thought me and Victor once had.
To wrap up the Momentus period I will briefly tell you how it all turned out.
People forgot about love and graciousness along with mercy throughout the church. Everyone spoke their minds no matter who it hurt. The women rose up against their husbands and tenderness was a thing of the past.
As the weeks wore on the strain around our home became worse. Dave was mad. We fought alot. He hit me and something was new, I hit him back. One night, I can honestly say I don't remember why but we began fighting again. I won't go into great detail but it started on the couch and I tried to get away by running to our upstairs beroom. It didn't end. We fought and fought. He was nuts, his face looked different and he even sounded different. I don't think I had ever been so scared in my life as I was that night when he tried pushing me out the bedroom window. I remember crying out to God. Please don't let me die this way. I thought about my children. Who would take care of them? I somehow got out of his grasp and made it to the top of the stairs yelling the whole way. The next thing I knew was he was shoving me down them.
I don't know how I survived that night and surprisingly I wasn't even physically that hurt. Praise God!
So to end this bluntly. It turned out I had gotten pregnant from that one moment of stupidness and to save my marriage I had an abortion and added one more thing that I would not speak of again unless I was forced to.
Please be aware that anyone can read this forum - friends, enemies, those who would help you, those who would hurt you. Dave, Victor, perhaps!
I'm sorry you were so abused. You were not alone. Unfortunately this outrageous treatment of women didn't start with Dave or VB and didn't end with them either. Some women have been threatened with firearms, others physically assaulted needing hospital treatment. I'm not belittling your experience: it was endemic through TWI and its offshoots. You didn't do anything to deserve it - it is not your fault.
As somebody who has known the group in which Grand Daughter was abused by the minister and her husband I think it is fair to say that they both would never take up these issues out here in broad daylight for the possible benefit of others as Dawn has here. And the ministry normal was to very carefully only pick on folks who are totally in their control, like Victor did by letting Dave apologize to Victor for falling asleep during one of his sharings, and totally skipping over the fact that Victor spit on him when he saw Dave asleep.
So Dave has actually learned from Victor how to carefully hide his abusive instincts until he can get away with those actions. For Dave I still pray that he can come to his senses somehow, but he has been under Victor's abusive thumb for a freakin long time when he should have been seeking competant help for his personal issues, so I am not sure that Dave can even still find his way out....sigh.
But personally, if either of them came at Dawn like that I would prefer to call the police first, but then take a very keen personal intrest in how those two cowards dealt with Dawn until the police arrived. And while Dawn has had to deal with a lot of dang on her own, I kinda wish that I could be there to go face to face with them both for a bit.
But Barnard would only allow such a situation to happen when he felt totally in control, he's a very intelligent bastard that way. And having me there would very likely make him face the possibility that he would no longer be in control.
Jeff (and Dawn) - it's amazing how many of these violent bullies smile in public, and then, behind closed doors, beat up on weaker victims (usually wives) when they get home or behind closed doors, and then maybe say, "Look what YOU made me do!" They retain self-control at the time of an alleged misdemeanor, stew on it some, then let the violence explode in secret.
I'd like to see some of these bullies accused of, say pedophilia or some other false allegation, and then put in a room with some big prison bruisers armed with minor weapons like jug cords, bike chains and so on. The bullies would be the first to call "foul!"
(Well...I don't really wish ill to anyone. I just wish they'd come to their senses and start behaving like decent human beings.)
Grand daughter, please be comforted in knowing that so many here (and sadly too many other places) understand your story and have experienced such similiar abuse.
You have support. I hope that can ease your heart as you continue to share your story, continue to heal in the area of pain and question and continue to remember that you're not alone. Truly.
The best part of telling a story is that it's your story, no one else's, even if we can relate. It's yours. I look forward to more of the telling.
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JeffSjo
Those are some of the most honest and real posts that I can recall reading at GSC Granddaughter.
Thank you for sharing so openly. :)
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grand-daughter
Ok so here we go... I was accepted and I spoke in tongues to prove it! I threw myself headlong into everything. I ate, slept and breathed the word. Talk about climbing a ladder quickly. Dave and I became the twig leaders assistants. Life was going at a pace I never expected and honestly things were good for a while. SV and I ran a childrens fellowship in my apartment every week which I enjoyed greatly. MV and I or sometimes just myself would run childrens fellowships on Sunday mornings. Our twig was very sweet, we all seem to really care for one another and we even had fun. If it could have only stayed that way. :(
To this day I don't know what happened between Dave and I, I believe he was jealous so to speak. I don't think he expected me to rise up like I did but whatever the reason I rose and he descended. Our lives became quite the mess. It was like he lost all spark to him and there was no way I could help him. We began to fight about everything. There would be days on end that we wouldn't even talk. Our sex life became next to nil and that was the introduction to violence in our home.
I tried everything I could to be what I believed the word told me I should be. I cooked and cleaned constantly. I was always trying to do little things to show him my love, you know, love notes in the lunchbox, keeping myself as pretty as I could be, making sure everyone knew he was head no matter what, nothing worked. Deep inside I was so hurt because I thought if I could only.... but it only caused me to fall into depression. I kept it to myself for the longest time, believing it would all work out because with God on my side I couldn't lose. I was determined to make it all ok.
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longgone
grand-daughter,
I hope you are going to continue. Please do if you can.
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Twinky
Grand-daughter, this makes for painful reading and I know there is worse to come. But also there is so much better to come! :)
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grand-daughter
Have you ever had a timewhen there was so much going on that you could hardly breathe, but strangely enough all those things were exactly what kept you going? That is what the few years in this section were like for me.
I have struggled with keeping all of this in some sort of order in my mind. (I have a sound mind, I have a sound mind) HAHA! Sorry, just a memory of something a room-mate and I would say to each other in passing while we struggled through our days.
I will probably jump around more now and have to return to sections so please bare with me if this is hard reading.
So ealier I shared how close I got to my twig leaders, M&SV. I began to open up to them a little about what was going on between Dave and I. I know it broke their hearts to find out what was going on in our home. So a midst the fellowships and elders meetings and raising children they tried to be a steady form of support. MV talked with Dave and SV was a consistant shoulder for me. Somewhere in all of this there was a time when we switched twigs which made me feel very alone in it all. Details and dates escape me so I won't touch on that now. So anyway, life went on. The fighting, the silence, the unbearable truth that everything I had hoped for was falling and crumbling around my feet.
SV shared with me that she finally took the situation to Victor Banard, the MOG. I was hoping that things would finally begin to change. Maybe there was help after all. Nothing, nothing and still nothing. I lost hope and came to the conclusion that this is what my life would look like until I took my last breath. But then I got the call....
If there were ever any words I thought could hurt me as much as when they said my Nathan was dead, it was what he, Victor Banard, the MOG would say to me at that moment.
"Well Dawn, you spread your legs to him, so now there is nothing you can do."
I was in complete shock! Now it is true that we were not married as of yet but before God I felt I was and what he said that day only confirmed those thoughts. Life went on as usaul...sigh...twig face...sigh...
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grand-daughter
On October 28th 1992, I had another child. We named her Victoria after Victor Banard. (a name she hates now) (sorry Tori)
It's crazy how even after he said what he said to me, that I would name a child after him. Even stranger yet is how close Victor and I would become. But being who he was to me I was nothing but loyal . I felt like God had sent him to me and hard times and all I was blessed.
I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. (yuck!)
I'm not exactly sure how this all came about but the church was going through a time when we were learning about personal prophesy. We were also told about this group or class, whatever you want to call it, called Momentus that we were all encouraged to take. After all is said and done I will just call it nasty.
Dave and I really had no choice in the matter. We were told that Victor would not marry us unless we took this class.
I know, I know, I'm sure you are wondering why I would ever want to marry him anyhow. But the vows I had taken in my heart before God were stronger than my desire for earthly happiness. I don't know chalk it up to stupidity? Insanity? To me I just wanted, desperately needed to be right before God. So off to the devil's playground we went.
Now I must back up here. If you know me at all then you would know that I am not one to bring attention to others faults without clearly stating my own. S I will not begin to do that now.
It so happened that Daves mom died and he had to travel to Canada to take care of her estate. Although the year prior we had had the baby and things had calmed down a bit because of her, I was still far from happy. Our relationship was still far from peaceful. So I did something I never though I would do.
I cheated...
It was a one night stand. It was a few fleeting moments of excitement and attention I so deeply craved. However, no excuses, it was wrong. I was wrong, and I was determined to never let it happen again and certainly to never let Dave find out about it.
I don't know if any of you have ever heard of or participated in Momentus, so I will tell you just a little of how I experienced it. As far as I recall it was only a short class, only four or five days, but it was all day and if you really put your heart into it pretty much all night as well due to homework we were given. It was centered around certain verses in Gods Word although twisted for their own purposes, just like anything that would or could suck a christian unawares. I know I could hardly think straight due to lack of sleep or food during the class. The music which seemed to never end was so loud and very disorientating. Every part of this class made you feel it was hard but it was exactly what you needed. The whole basis of this trap was in order to be free you needed to be completely honest.
So here I was trying to hide the biggest secret of my life and all the while feeling like the biggest sinner in the world. I was so full of fear that it would come out. As expected, it did. In the middle of this circle of people I hardly knew, I was like a fish out of water gasping for breath and trying to lie to save my foot. It didn't work. Like so many other things that should have never been uttered, my secret came out. Now don't get me wrong, I do not condone lying but in that place and time it was just another thing that should have not been said. I honestly believe that there was no real reason to speak this horrible truth. But as it was everyone was speaking things you would have never expected. It was I assert this I assert that, filling in the blanks with whatever they thought or felt about just about everything. This is just an example of what I was told.
"You were not my dream woman because you are not tall enough, your legs could be longer, you're not blonde oh and your boobs aren't big enough." Oh and also, "I often wonder what it would be like to sleep with Victor's wife." Hmm, makes you think about...
A fool uttereth all his mind.
But anyway, there I was ashamed, embarrassed and completely broken. Not knowing what to do, out the door I ran. I never wanted to return.
Lo and behold, like in the past, my friend, my beloved, the MOG came after me. Outside he begged me to return. He stated he didn't want to continue without me. I was his little one, he loved me, all was forgiven and together we would get through it together.
As I sit here writing this, I am in tears. I am so hurt going through all of these memories. To this day it hurts me and I miss the friendship I thought me and Victor once had.
To wrap up the Momentus period I will briefly tell you how it all turned out.
People forgot about love and graciousness along with mercy throughout the church. Everyone spoke their minds no matter who it hurt. The women rose up against their husbands and tenderness was a thing of the past.
As the weeks wore on the strain around our home became worse. Dave was mad. We fought alot. He hit me and something was new, I hit him back. One night, I can honestly say I don't remember why but we began fighting again. I won't go into great detail but it started on the couch and I tried to get away by running to our upstairs beroom. It didn't end. We fought and fought. He was nuts, his face looked different and he even sounded different. I don't think I had ever been so scared in my life as I was that night when he tried pushing me out the bedroom window. I remember crying out to God. Please don't let me die this way. I thought about my children. Who would take care of them? I somehow got out of his grasp and made it to the top of the stairs yelling the whole way. The next thing I knew was he was shoving me down them.
I don't know how I survived that night and surprisingly I wasn't even physically that hurt. Praise God!
So to end this bluntly. It turned out I had gotten pregnant from that one moment of stupidness and to save my marriage I had an abortion and added one more thing that I would not speak of again unless I was forced to.
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Twinky
This is very painful and difficult for you, Dawn.
Please be aware that anyone can read this forum - friends, enemies, those who would help you, those who would hurt you. Dave, Victor, perhaps!
I'm sorry you were so abused. You were not alone. Unfortunately this outrageous treatment of women didn't start with Dave or VB and didn't end with them either. Some women have been threatened with firearms, others physically assaulted needing hospital treatment. I'm not belittling your experience: it was endemic through TWI and its offshoots. You didn't do anything to deserve it - it is not your fault.
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JeffSjo
In general Twinky,
As somebody who has known the group in which Grand Daughter was abused by the minister and her husband I think it is fair to say that they both would never take up these issues out here in broad daylight for the possible benefit of others as Dawn has here. And the ministry normal was to very carefully only pick on folks who are totally in their control, like Victor did by letting Dave apologize to Victor for falling asleep during one of his sharings, and totally skipping over the fact that Victor spit on him when he saw Dave asleep.
So Dave has actually learned from Victor how to carefully hide his abusive instincts until he can get away with those actions. For Dave I still pray that he can come to his senses somehow, but he has been under Victor's abusive thumb for a freakin long time when he should have been seeking competant help for his personal issues, so I am not sure that Dave can even still find his way out....sigh.
But personally, if either of them came at Dawn like that I would prefer to call the police first, but then take a very keen personal intrest in how those two cowards dealt with Dawn until the police arrived. And while Dawn has had to deal with a lot of dang on her own, I kinda wish that I could be there to go face to face with them both for a bit.
But Barnard would only allow such a situation to happen when he felt totally in control, he's a very intelligent bastard that way. And having me there would very likely make him face the possibility that he would no longer be in control.
(edited for spelling)
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Twinky
Jeff (and Dawn) - it's amazing how many of these violent bullies smile in public, and then, behind closed doors, beat up on weaker victims (usually wives) when they get home or behind closed doors, and then maybe say, "Look what YOU made me do!" They retain self-control at the time of an alleged misdemeanor, stew on it some, then let the violence explode in secret.
I'd like to see some of these bullies accused of, say pedophilia or some other false allegation, and then put in a room with some big prison bruisers armed with minor weapons like jug cords, bike chains and so on. The bullies would be the first to call "foul!"
(Well...I don't really wish ill to anyone. I just wish they'd come to their senses and start behaving like decent human beings.)
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Shellon
Grand daughter, please be comforted in knowing that so many here (and sadly too many other places) understand your story and have experienced such similiar abuse.
You have support. I hope that can ease your heart as you continue to share your story, continue to heal in the area of pain and question and continue to remember that you're not alone. Truly.
The best part of telling a story is that it's your story, no one else's, even if we can relate. It's yours. I look forward to more of the telling.
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rascal
(((Grand daughter)) You put into words what so many of us have felt but cannot express. The longing to be good to be acceptable to God.
Our stories are different, but that same sense of not being good enough, of unworthiness has plagued me also.
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