I think cults with harmful beliefs are wrong, although all I know about cults is what I read in your fantastic heart wrenching book… But I think like most things their is probably good and bad, like most things, using children for sex and saying it is love is probably the most disturbing thing I have ever read, or heard… these bad cults need to be stopped, that is my opinion, I just want to say i respect you in every way, as a fellow writer I express my emotion through words I bet you are the same. I am glad you got out of it.
Thank you!
I think it is great that you found a way to show the world what it is like to grow up in a cult.
I always get the ‘Oh, it is great you found your way out’. Not many people understand what a fight it is to adjust to the ‘outside world’ and find you way of free thinking.
So I am very thankful for people like you and your sisters who find the strenght to openly speak about it. 🙂
I only recently started looking into the world of ex-cult kids, as I am one. I’m middle-aged now, and one of the very odd results of the ‘Independence’ Mo letter of 1972/73, in which I was raised by my own parents according to COG ideas c. pre-1973. The end result was largely the same: I was isolated from society and any extended family, and when I repudiated the ideals and made my own way, I lost my parents. My only brother blew his head off, unable to make his way in the world.
I’m not sure involving government in children’s lives is such a good idea; I am, after all, still an ‘American’ and have a certain attachment to the ideas of familial independence from government oversight, a practice which has an iffy history at best.
However, as someone who just barely avoided being a Stateless Person due to family withholding of critical personal documents, and as someone who was forced to cremate a sibling with no paperwork at all and who may as well never have existed, I’m down with at least the requirement of basic citizenship paperwork for any minor.
Without that, you can’t get a ‘System’ job, as it was described to me; you can’t do anything. You’re stuck in a slavelike limbo.
And I fully believe that adults are free to have their little crises of faith, but dragging their kids down with them is unforgivable.
Was the COG you were involved with called wmscog? Korean based we have a family member that has been invoked for past 3 yrs and has now just moved out of state with infant son and husband to a “church’ in NYS said church transferred them
I am a “survivor” and “victim”, although, I choose to not stay in a victim mentality. However, being born and raised in a cult, I have fumbled my way through adulthood after being viciously thrown out after blowing the whistle on sexual abuse (and being threatened to keep my mouth shut lest the “faithful” lose their salvation and then be cast into Hell). I self-destructed, and have spent the last 20 plus years trying to navigate my way through this bewildering new culture that sort of speaks the same language as me, but is definitely a completely other world. I vacillate between numbness, rage, and deep sadness.
I would love to connect with others who have similar experiences….I have felt so alone these last many years….
Thomas Thornley
giugno 18, 2012 @ 17:10
I think cults with harmful beliefs are wrong, although all I know about cults is what I read in your fantastic heart wrenching book… But I think like most things their is probably good and bad, like most things, using children for sex and saying it is love is probably the most disturbing thing I have ever read, or heard… these bad cults need to be stopped, that is my opinion, I just want to say i respect you in every way, as a fellow writer I express my emotion through words I bet you are the same. I am glad you got out of it.
Sara
luglio 6, 2012 @ 10:37
Thank you!
I think it is great that you found a way to show the world what it is like to grow up in a cult.
I always get the ‘Oh, it is great you found your way out’. Not many people understand what a fight it is to adjust to the ‘outside world’ and find you way of free thinking.
So I am very thankful for people like you and your sisters who find the strenght to openly speak about it. 🙂
Lenard Neal
agosto 1, 2012 @ 23:51
I only recently started looking into the world of ex-cult kids, as I am one. I’m middle-aged now, and one of the very odd results of the ‘Independence’ Mo letter of 1972/73, in which I was raised by my own parents according to COG ideas c. pre-1973. The end result was largely the same: I was isolated from society and any extended family, and when I repudiated the ideals and made my own way, I lost my parents. My only brother blew his head off, unable to make his way in the world.
I’m not sure involving government in children’s lives is such a good idea; I am, after all, still an ‘American’ and have a certain attachment to the ideas of familial independence from government oversight, a practice which has an iffy history at best.
However, as someone who just barely avoided being a Stateless Person due to family withholding of critical personal documents, and as someone who was forced to cremate a sibling with no paperwork at all and who may as well never have existed, I’m down with at least the requirement of basic citizenship paperwork for any minor.
Without that, you can’t get a ‘System’ job, as it was described to me; you can’t do anything. You’re stuck in a slavelike limbo.
And I fully believe that adults are free to have their little crises of faith, but dragging their kids down with them is unforgivable.
Dona
ottobre 15, 2018 @ 20:12
Was the COG you were involved with called wmscog? Korean based we have a family member that has been invoked for past 3 yrs and has now just moved out of state with infant son and husband to a “church’ in NYS said church transferred them
Cryssy
ottobre 11, 2012 @ 16:12
Well written, u nailed it! Bravo!
Alexandra Stein
aprile 17, 2013 @ 14:01
Well said, Juliana. A very important statement.
Emma
aprile 21, 2013 @ 04:50
Absolutely hideous. Why isn’t this group stopped and why aren’t the leaders in prison?
Heidi
febbraio 1, 2018 @ 08:23
I am a “survivor” and “victim”, although, I choose to not stay in a victim mentality. However, being born and raised in a cult, I have fumbled my way through adulthood after being viciously thrown out after blowing the whistle on sexual abuse (and being threatened to keep my mouth shut lest the “faithful” lose their salvation and then be cast into Hell). I self-destructed, and have spent the last 20 plus years trying to navigate my way through this bewildering new culture that sort of speaks the same language as me, but is definitely a completely other world. I vacillate between numbness, rage, and deep sadness.
I would love to connect with others who have similar experiences….I have felt so alone these last many years….