Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas.  There is snow on the ground outside, I am sitting on my couch next to my wonderful Mr. Darcy, with our puppy close by.  We spent the holiday in our new house, celebrating the birth of Christ with just ourselves and Chihiro.  It has been such a peaceful, relaxing time.  Yesterday, I sang for three Christmas Eve services at church and then headed home with Mr. Darcy to make some dinner and prepare for the festivities today.  We stopped at the grocery store on our way home.  We don't have much money this year and this month has been particularly tight.  Still, we were able to buy a few things, enough for a simple Christmas Eve dinner and a modest Christmas feast.  We managed to finish filling our cart and get to the cash register before the store closed for the night.  We collected our bags and headed out into the cold holiday night.  Mr. Darcy put me in the car and then hurriedly loaded the bags in the car.  A fresh snow was falling, and as we drove home in the snow, our car full of holiday cheer, we both smiled at each other and took a moment to be thankful for all the many blessings we have - our life together, our health, our house, our puppy, family who loves us, good jobs, and the chance to live life freely.

Today we spent time talking with family, exchanging gifts, taking a walk, playing with our puppy, and just enjoying each other's company.  This evening we had fun preparing and sitting down to a simple, but wonderful holiday meal.  Again, we were overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude and awe over the many blessings we have experienced, not only in this past year, but in our lives.  It is true that we have endured much and there is much in my life that is dark and sorrowful.  But...there are also so many blessings, so many miracles, so much healing and happiness.

As I rode home last night, a Scripture came to my mind - "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." - Psalm 27:13.  Many times I have pondered what that Scripture meant.  Last night, it made sense to me.  So many times, we wonder if what we believe is really true, we wonder if there is good in the world, we wonder if there will ever be anything but pain and sorrow, and then we wonder if the good we see is not truly good but only a figment of our imaginations.  There are so many promises that God has given us to give us hope that the evil and pain and hurt we see in this world are not all there is; there is peace and joy and good.  Yet, God does not only give us promises to help and sustain us; He gives us real, tangible examples of His goodness.  This is what David was talking about.  He would have despaired and lost hope if he did not believe that he would see the goodness of God exemplified in those of us living.  And what better example of the goodness of God than the arrival of His son in human form; sent so that He may one day give His life for us, to redeem us from this fallen, broken world.  The goodness of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we still behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  That glory shines in our lives and brings us hope, brings us joy and peace, and showers us with blessings.  Therefore, my heart does not despair.  I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, and I suspect this won't be the last time I do.  I have something to be thankful for and it makes my heart happy.  My wish for you this holiday season is that you too may see the goodness of the Lord in your lives and that it may fill your heart with gladness and gratitude.

Merry Christmas!

December

Oh, goodness, it's happened again.  I've had so many things I wanted to write about that I let myself get overwhelmed and then didn't write anything. :( 

Well, it's been a couple months since I posted on here, so I guess I better catch up.  There's been a lot going on, from elections to Thanksgiving, to getting ready for Christmas.  It's been a wonderful few weeks and I am so excited about life these days.  My job is absolutely a dream come true for me.  I am learning a lot and my boss is allowing me to try new things and improve my skills.  My Thanksgiving was absolutely fantastic!  It was the first time I felt like I was with family in a long time.  There was great food, good friends, lots of pies, and much laughter.  Plus, I got to make a few additions and changes to the hosue that will benefit us long term.  As one friend put it, I now have an adult house.

Now, the Christmas season is officially here and I am busy celebrating.  We started putting up Christmas lights over the weekend and I went out and got new Christmas decorations.  Mr. Darcy and I bought our first Christmas tree as a married couple.  It was fun too set it up in our first house together.  I know, I know, it all sounds so ridiculously sentimental of me, but I LOVE IT!  Tonight we get to decorate the tree and tomorrow it's Christmas Cookie Extravaganza with one of my best friends.  I've been playing Christmas music for the past week now and I am looking forward to hearing so much more before the holiday begins.
There's lots more to write, but I will have to do it later.  I think maybe I should post some pictures soon too.  Here's to a lovely Christmas season with all sorts of fun, including blogging!

A Struggle

I'm angry.  I'm angry and I'm hurt and I don't know how to get over it.  I wish this big lump in my chest would just go away, but it won't.  I've tried to understand it and tried to move on from it, but the wound still aches and the anger still flashes hot within me.  How do I forgive someone who spent their life trying to destroy me and my family?  How do I live without caring what they do and not allowing it to affect me?  How am I supposed to be happy for them when things in their life go well?  They refuse to acknowledge the truth about things.  They refuse to admit they did anything wrong and then they lie and try to paint themselves as a victim.  How do they do that??  How do they sleep at night and live with themselves each day?  How do they pretend that they are a righteous Godly person and even go so far as to declare themselves the standard bearer for Christian values?  How do they wreak so much damage and pain and then look around them with an uninterested gaze and act as though nothing has happened?  HOW???

I know that I am instructed to forgive people who have hurt me and I honestly want to, but it feels like I have hit a brick wall here.  My mind is screaming out for justice, not forgiveness.  I feel as though slapping the label forgiveness on this is not really being honest about things.  Yes, I can forgive this person, but how does that translate into pretending that everything is OK and nothing needs to be addressed?  That's what it feels like is happening.  I'm just supposed to say I forgive this person and then be happy for them no matter how much they lie and twist the truth, no matter how much they refuse to admit what they've done.  That seems to be impossible to me.  Yet, I know that if I don't learn to forgive them, I will be the one hurt by it.  This person couldn't care less about me and how they have hurt me, and they probably don't care if I forgive them.  I'm fairly certain they probably don't even think about me.  So, that leaves just me to be affected by my unforgiveness.  I'm the one who is blind with rage, I'm the one who's heart aches, I'm the one crying into my pillow at night.  I want to forgive this person; I need to forgive this person.  I guess I also need to know that justice will be served.  But, I cannot serve justice.  There is nothing I can do to ensure this person pays for the crimes they have committed. The only thing I have any control over is whether or not I will choose to forgive this person.  That's it.  That is the only power I hold.

Progress

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." -- C.S. Lewis

I love this quote by Lewis.  It sums up a major theme in my life over the past 5 years.  It is an ironic quote, in many ways, but the truth of it cannot be denied.  I was talking with a friend of mine a few weeks ago about exactly this idea of identifying a wrong road you are on and then having the courage to turn around and go back to the right road.  In my experience, most people want to argue that although they are on the wrong road, they have traveled too far on that road to do an absolute about-face and get on the right road.  Their arguments consist of things like, "I've been doing this for too long to just stop suddenly," or "There is some good in all this and I am choosing to hang on to that," or "I am refuse to stop and give up everything I've been fighting for for all this time."  My response to these arguments is - Is time a measure of the righteousness or legitimacy of thoughts and actions?  Is the small amount of good comparable to the mountain of evil, pain, and hurt your poor choices have resulted in?  Is what you have been fighting for worth your holding onto?  The way I see it, you are still on the wrong road, and that will not change until you stop, turn around, and go back to the right road.  While this may seem like a regression, it is in actuality, as Lewis stated, a progression.  It is progression into what is right, into what is healthy, into what God has intended and planned for you.

It seems like such a simple concept when viewed in this way, but the reality is that living it out is anything but simple.  It requires us to give up our pride and sense of accomplishment that is associated with our "progress" on the wrong road.  It requires us to be broken and humble and admit that we have been wrong.  The longer we have been on this wrong road, the harder it is for us to do this.  Yet, the thought of true progress should spur us on to make that about-face, and make it as quickly as possible.  The thought of reconciliation with our Saviour should comfort us in the difficulty of that change process.  The thought and realization of all that God has for us on the right road should be more than enough to inspire us to make the temporary hard decision of going back and getting on the right road in exchange for the lasting reward of the progress we will make on the right road.  The decision is ours, now and always.  Will you trade a false sense of progress on a wrong road for the hard truth of progress on the right road?  I am sure this is a question we will all ask ourselves many times in our lives.  I pray that my answer will always be to turn back and find the right road, no matter what the cost.

A Lesson Learned

"My problem is that you are demanding a resolution to your concerns without taking into consideration the other persons feelings about the issue."  Those words are still ringing in my ears.  My dear Mr. Darcy said them to me while we were discussing something I was upset about.  I have to admit, they were quite unnerving.  I was very upset about something and it was an issue that is important to me.  Something had happened and I was extremely uncomfortable with it.  Being uncomfortable, I did what I always do when in that position and demanded it stop.  Now, here was my husband telling me there was more to it than I was seeing; there were more feelings than mine involved.  Of course I knew there were other people's feelings involved, but I hadn't stopped to think about those feelings and the fact that said feelings might be just as strong as my own.  Well, that put a wrench in things.  How could I demand that things go my way and thus ignore the other person involved?  That would, in essence, be asserting that my own feelings were more important than the other person's.  Being completely honest, I do feel that way, and I want my husband to feel that my feelings are more important than other people's feelings.  However, that's not the truth of the situation.  In reality, no one person's feelings should be valued more than another's.  It's not OK to hurt one person in order to appease another, or ignore a person's feelings in order to please another's.  If you had asked me if I wanted the other person in the situation hurt, I would have said "no" without a second thought, and it would be the truth, but by not considering how they would be affected by my actions I was essentially doing the same thing.  Now, I'm not saying that you should allow things to happen that make you uncomfortable or are harmful to you just because you are trying to ensure that everyone around you is happy.  I am saying that it behooves us to consider the other person in the situation and to really look at all sides before making decisions to ease our own discomfort that could be potentially harmful to others.  My husbands words were right, and while exceptionally uncomfortable at the time, they were something I needed to hear.  I needed to be reminded that I am not the only person with feelings, and my feelings are not anymore important than someone else's.  Rather than demanding my way and demanding my feelings be respected, I should be approaching the situation with the view of what is best for everyone involved.

Politics

It's election season here in the United States and that means high levels of negativity, blatant falsehoods, and fear mongering are present everywhere.  It almost seems you can't get away from it.  It's on the radio, on the TV, on the internet, and on the lips of many of your friends and associates.  There is literally nowhere to hide from the "information" and "facts" that are election related.  That being said, I find myself wondering about the mechanisms behind all this election hype.  Do people really sit around all day and come up with these accusations and twisted presentations of truth, and then willfully sell them to the public in massive amounts??  Who are these people?  What kind of people are they?  How do they justify this to themselves?  Do they really believe the things they say?

In looking back over the political history of the United States, it is clear that politics have always been nasty and have always been more about power and money than about doing what is best for the electorate, the common everyday man and woman.  There have always been divided viewpoints and beliefs, and there have always been champions from both sides to defend their values and behaviors against the onslaught from the opposing side.  So, there is a very clear precedence for the behavior we see during this time of year.  However, does that justify the behavior and make it OK?

I'd like to go on the record as saying "no".  I'd also like to say that I can see no scenario in which my answer would ever be "yes".  I don't care how important you think the battle is, or urgent you think a matter is.  There never has been and never will be a "good reason" for using lies, slander, and fear as weapons for advancing your cause; I don't care which side of the issue you stand on.  I have no problem with honest debate and no problem with philosophical differences between people.  In fact, I think those are good, healthy things.  I believe those are the things which provide a stable foundation on which a strong government is founded.  Having a debate or disagreement about something, does not, however, need to include use of slanderous speech, falsehoods, or scare tactics.  Any idea or theory that is worth discussing should be able to stand on its own merits without the use of hateful mechanisms to give it weight.

Now, I'd like really say something that might ruffle a few feathers, but needs to be said.  I am absolutely appalled at the number of people who claim to be Christians or claim to follow Christ who engage in the behaviors outlined above.  It is the saddest thing of all that many people who claim to have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them find no problem with participating in producing and passing along nasty, untrue facts that are meant to scare people into agreeing with their political positions.  It's not only sad; it's downright disgusting.  That's right, disgusting.  I would rather you not associate yourself at all with the name of Christ and act that way, than to present to the whole world that not only are you associated with those who follow Christ, but you are using His name as a REASON for your behavior.  Nothing could be more slanderous or false, and it is inexcusable.  By the way, I highly doubt it does anything to sway someone towards your opinion, anyway.  It merely serves to distance others from you and from a Saviour who is nothing like the picture you are painting.  Jesus was not, is not, and never will be a politician; and He never asked any of his followers to change that for Him.

Does this mean Christians shouldn't have a voice in political matters?  No, and I am not trying to say that.  But, I am saying that Christians should act like Christians when they do involve themselves in political matters.  I believe there is a place in every area of society for those who love and follow Christ, and I believe that God has called and equipped people for every walk of life.  I believe that following Christ requires us to stand up for what is right, to challenges ideas, beliefs, and practices that are false and even evil.  I believe that we are to be firm in our convictions and not apologize when our faith does not agree with or contradicts the current culture.  I just believe that we are supposed to do all these things without sinking to poor behavior that is more representative of a fallen sinful nature than it is of a holy loving God.  There are plenty of people out there contributing to the creation of the negative atmosphere that surrounds the elections season.  Christians shouldn't be among them.

Recovery

I've been doing some research recently into abuse recovery and I found this article that I think is very well written.  In fact, it is one of the most well written articles on the subject of cult recovery I have ever come across.  I am thankful for the person who wrote it and the advice and wisdom it offers.  Given my background and the struggles I have faced and continue to face, I feel it appropriate to post it here on my blog.  The link to the website where I found it is http://www.factnet.org/node/778.  There is a link to the original publishing website at the bottom of the article.  The full text is below.  Please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Coming out of the cults - Margaret Singer

Coming Out of the Cults
Psychology Today, January 1979
By Margaret T. Singer, Ph. D.

Clinical research has identified specific cult-related emotional problems with which ex-members must cope during their reentry into society. Among them: indecisiveness, uncritical passivity--and fear of the cult itself. The recent upsurge of cults in the United States began in the late 60s and became a highly visible social phenomenon by the mid-70s. Many thousands of young adults -- some say two to three million -- have had varying contacts with such groups, frequently leaving home, school, job, and spouses and children to follow one or another of the most variegated array of gurus, messiahs, and Pied Pipers to appear in a single generation. By now, a number of adherents have left such groups, for a variety of reasons, and as they try to reestablish their lives in the mainstream of society, they are having a number of special -- and I believe cult-related -- psychological problems that say a good deal about what experience in some of these groups can be like.

The term "cult" is always one of individual judgment. It has been variously applied to groups involved in beliefs and practices just off the beat of traditional religions; to groups making exploratory excursions into non-Western philosophical practices; and to groups involving intense relationships between followers and a powerful idea or leader. The people I have studied, however, come from groups in the last, narrow band of the spectrum: groups such as the Children of God, the Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Krishna Consciousness movement, the Divine Light Mission, and the Church of Scientology. I have not had occasion to meet with members of the People's Temple founded by the late Reverend Jim Jones, who practiced what he preached about being prepared to commit murder and suicide, if necessary, in defense of the faith.

Over the past two years, about 100 persons have taken part in discussion groups that I have organized with my fellow psychologist, Jesse Miller of the University of California, Berkeley. The young people who have taken part are generally from middle- and upper- middle-class families, average 23 years of age, and usually have two or more years of college. Though a few followed some of the smaller evangelical leaders or commune movements, most belonged to a half-dozen of the largest, most highly structured, and best known of the groups.

Our sessions are devoted to discussion and education: we neither engage in the intense badgering reportedly carried on by some much-publicized "deprogrammers," nor do we provide group psychotherapy. We expected to learn from the participants in the groups, and to relieve some of their distress by offering a setting for mutual support. We also hoped to help by explaining something of what we know about the processes the members had been exposed to, and particularly what is known of the mechanisms for behavior change that seem to have affected the capacity of ex-cultists to adjust to life after cultism. My own background includes the study of coercive persuasion, the techniques of so-called "brain-washing;" Dr. Miller is interested in trance-induction methods. It might be argued that the various cult groups bear resemblances to certain fervent sectors of long-established and respected religious traditions, as well as to utopian communities of the past. Clearly, the groups are far from uniform, and what goes on in one may or may not go on in another. Still, when in the course of research on young adults and their families over the last four years, I interviewed nearly 300 people who were in or who had come out of such cults, I was struck by similarities in their accounts. For example, the groups' recruitment and indoctrination procedures seemed to involve highly sophisticated techniques for inducing behavioral change.

I also came to understand the need of many ex-cult members for help in adjusting to life on the outside.

According to their own reports, many participants joined these religious cults during periods of depression and confusion, when they had a sense that life was meaningless. The cult had promised -- and for many had provided -- a solution to the distress of the developmental crises that are frequent at this age. Cults supply ready-made friendships and ready made decisions about careers, dating, sex, and marriage, and they outline a clear "meaning of life." In return, they may demand total obedience to cult commands.

The cults these people belonged to maintain intense allegiance through the arguments of their ideology, and through social and psychological pressures and practices that, intentionally or not, amount to conditioning techniques that constrict attention, limit personal relationships, and devalue reasoning. Adherents and ex-members describe constant exhortation and training to arrive at exalted spiritual states, altered consciousness, and automatic submission to directives; there are long hours of prayer, chanting, or meditation (in one Zen sect, 21 hours on 21 consecutive days several times a year), and lengthy repetitive lectures day and night.

The exclusion of family and other outside contacts, rigid moral judgments of the unconverted outside world, and restriction of sexual behavior are all geared to increasing followers' commitment to the goals of the group and in some cases to its powerful leader. Some former cult members were happy during their membership, gratified to submerge their troubled selves into a selfless whole. Converted to the ideals of the group, they welcomed the indoctrination procedures that bound them closer to it and gradually eliminated any conflicting ties or information.

Gradually, however, some of the members of our groups grew disillusioned with cult life, found themselves incapable of submitting to the cult's demands, or grew bitter about discrepancies they perceived between cult words and practices. Several of these people had left on their own or with the help of family or friends who had gotten word of their restlessness and picked them up at their request from locations outside cult headquarters. Some 75 percent of the people attending our discussion groups, however, had left the cults not entirely on their own volition but through legal conservatorships, a temporary power of supervision that courts in California and several other states grant to the family of an adult. The grounds for granting such power are in flux, but under such orders, a person can be temporarily removed from a cult. Some cults resist strenuously, sometimes moving members out of state; others acquiesce. Many members of our groups tell us they were grateful for the intervention and had been hoping for rescue. These people say that they had felt themselves powerless to carry out their desire to leave because of psychological and social pressures from companions and officials inside. They often speak of a combination of guilt over defecting and fear of the cult's retaliation -- excommunication -- if they tried. In addition, they were uncertain over how they would manage in the outside world that they had for so long held in contempt.

Most of our group members had seen deprogrammers as they left their sects, as part of their families' effort to reorient them. But none in our groups cited experiences of the counter brainwashing sort that some accounts of deprogramming have de scribed and that the cults had warned them to be ready for. (Several ex members of one group reported they had been instructed in a method for slashing their wrists safely, to evade pressure by "satanic" deprogrammers -- an instruction that alerted them to the possibility that the cult's declarations of love might have some not-so-loving aspects.)

Instead, our group members said they met young ex-cultists like them selves, who described their own disaffection, provided political and economic information they had been unaware of about cult activities, and described the behavioral effects to be expected from the practices they had undergone. Meanwhile, elective or not, the days away from the cult atmosphere gave the former members a chance to think, rest, and see friends -- and to collect perspective on their feelings. Some persons return to cult life after the period at home, but many more elect to try to remake life on the outside.

Leaving any restricted community can pose problems -- leaving the Army for civilian life is hard, too, of course. In addition, it is often argued that people who join cults are troubled to begin with, and that the problems we see in postcult treatment are only those they postponed by conversion and adherence. In a recent study by psychiatrist Marc Galanter of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and several colleagues, some 39 percent of one cult's members reported that they had "serious emotional problems" before their conversion (6 percent had been hospitalized for it) and 23 percent cited a serious drug problem in their past. But some residues that some of these cults leave in many ex-members seem special: slippage into dissociated states, severe incapacity to make decisions, and related extreme suggestibility derive, I believe, from the effects of specific behavior-conditioning practices on some especially susceptible persons.

Most ex-cultists we have seen struggle at one time or another with some or all of the following difficulties and problems. Not all the former cultists have all of these problems, nor do most have them in severe and extended form. But almost all my informants report that it takes them anywhere from six to 18 months to get their lives functioning again at a level commensurate with their histories and talents.

Depression.

With their 24-hour regime of ritual, work, worship, and community, the cults provide members with tasks and purpose. When members leave, a sense of meaninglessness often reappears. They must also deal with family and personal issues left unresolved at the time of conversion.

But former members have a variety of new losses to contend with. Ex-cultists in our groups often speak of their regret for the lost years during which they wandered off the main paths of everyday life; they regret being out of step and behind their peers in career and life pursuits. They feel a loss of innocence and self esteem if they come to believe that they were used, or that they wrongly surrendered their autonomy.

Loneliness.

Leaving a cult also means leaving many friends, a brotherhood with common interests, and the intimacy of sharing a very significant experience. It means having to look for new friends in an uncomprehending or suspicious world.

Many of our informants had been struggling with issues of sexuality, dating, and marriage before they joined the cult, and most cults reduce such struggles by restricting sexual contacts and pairings, ostensibly to keep the members targeted on doing the "work of the master." Even marriages, if permitted, are subject to cult rules. Having sexuality highly con trolled makes friendships especially safe for certain people: rules that permit only brotherly and sisterly love can take a heavy burden off a conflicted young adult.

On leaving the cult, some people respond by trying to make up for lost time in binges of dating, drinking, and sexual adventures. These often produce overwhelming guilt and shame when former members contrast the cult's prohibitions to their new freedom. Said Valerie, a 26-year-old former teacher, "When I first came out, I went with any guy that seemed interested in me -- bikers, bums -- I was even dating a drug-dealer until I crashed his car on the freeway. I was never like that before."

Others simply panic and avoid dating altogether. One man remarked, "I had been pretty active sexually before I joined. Now it's as if I'd never had those experiences, because I'm more inhibited than I was in junior high. I feel sexually guilty if I even think of asking a girl out. They really impressed me that sex was wrong." In at least one case, the rules restricting sexuality seem to have contributed to highly charged interpersonal manipulations. Ruth said she was often chastised by Mary, a prestigious cult member, for "showing lustful thoughts toward the brothers." Mary would have me lie on my face on the floor. She would lie on top of me and massage me to drive Satan out. Soon, she'd begin accusing ME of being a lesbian." Needless to say, anyone who had been through experiences of the sort described would be likely to have sexual conflicts to work out.

A very few who were in orgiastic cults had undergone enforced sexuality rather than celibacy. Describing the cult leader, one woman said, "He used orgies to break down our inhibitions. If a person didn't feel comfortable in group sex, he said it indicated a psychological hang-up that had to be stripped away because it prevented us all from melding and unifying."

Indecisiveness.

Some groups pre scribed virtually every activity: what and when to eat, wear, and do during the day and night, showering, defecating procedures, and sleep positions. The loss of a way of life in which everything is planned often creates what some of our group members call a "future void" in which they must plan and execute all their tomorrows on their own. Said one, "Freedom is great, but it takes a lot of work." Certain individuals cannot put together any organized plan for taking care of themselves, whether problems involve a job, school, or social life. Some have to be urged to buy alarm clocks and notebooks in order to get up, get going, and plan their days. One woman, who had been unable to keep a job or even care for her apartment since leaving the cult, said, "I come in and can't decide whether to clean the place, make the bed, cook, sleep, or what. I just can't decide about any thing and I sleep instead. I don't even know what to cook. The group used to reward me with candy and sugar when I was good. Now I'm ruining my teeth by just eating candy bars and cake."

Except for some aspects of the difficulty with making decisions, these problems do not seem to stem especially from the techniques of behavior modification that some cults apply to their members. But the next two items are another matter.

Slipping into Altered States.

From the time prospective recruits are invited to the cult's domicile -- "the ashram,""the retreat," they are caught up in a round of long, repetitive lectures couched in hypnotic metaphors and exalted ideas, hours of chanting while half-awake, attention-focusing songs and games, and meditating. Several groups send their members to bed wearing headsets that pipe sermons into their ears as they sleep, after hours of listening to tapes of the leader's exhortations while awake. These are all practices that tend to produce states of altered consciousness, exaltation, and suggestibility.

When they leave the cult, many members find that a variety of conditions -- stress and conflict, a depressive low, certain significant words or ideas -- can trigger a return to the trance-like state they knew in cult days. They report that they fall into the familiar, unshakable lethargy, and seem to hear bits of exhortations from cult speakers. These episodes of "floating" -- like the flashbacks of drug-users -- are most frequent immediately after leaving the group, but in certain persons they still occur weeks or months later.

Ira had acquired a master's degree in business administration before he joined his cult; emerging after two years of nightly headsets and daily tapes, he is working in a factory "until I get my head together." He thought he was going crazy: "Weeks after I left, I would suddenly feel spacey and hear the cult leader saying, "You'll always come back. You are one with us. You can never separate." I'd forget where I was, that I'm out now; I'd feel his presence and hear his voice. I got so frightened once that I slapped my face to make it stop."

Jack, a former graduate student in physiology who had been in a cult for several years, reported, "I went back to my university to see my dissertation adviser. As we talked, he wrote ideas on the board. Suddenly he gave me the chalk and said, ‘Outline some of your ideas.' He wanted me briefly to present my plans. I walked over and drew a circle around the professor's words. It was like a child doing it. I heard his words as a literal command: I drew a line around the out side of the ideas written on the board. I was suddenly embarrassed when I saw what I had done. I had spaced out, and I keep doing little things like that."

During our group discussions, unless we keep some focus, we often see members float off; they have difficulty concentrating and expressing practical needs concretely. Prolonged recitals using abstract cult jargon can set off a kind of contagion in this detached, "spacey" condition among certain participants. They say these episodes duplicate the conditions they fell into at meditations or lectures during cult days, and disturb them terribly when they occur now. They worry that they are going mad, and that they may never be able to control the floating. But it can be controlled by avoiding the vague, cosmic terms encouraged in cult talk and sticking to concrete topics and precise language spoken directly to a listener. In one session, Rosemary was de scribing a floating incident from the day before. "In the office yesterday, I couldn't keep centered . . . . I couldn't keep a positive belief system going," she said.

"Now, look, Rosemary," I said. "Tell us concretely exactly what it was that happened, and what you were feeling." With effort, she told us she had been using the Xerox machine when the paper jammed; she didn't know how to fix it, felt in adequate, was ashamed to go and ask. Instead, she stood silent and dissociated before the machine. Under pressure now, she found ways to tell the story. In cult days, she had been encouraged to generalize to vague categories of feeling, to be imprecise, to translate personal responses into code.

People affected by floating are immensely relieved to learn that others have experienced these same flashbacks, that they can be controlled, and that the condition eventually diminishes. Those who still float for a long time -- it can go on for two years -- are generally the same ones to have reported severe depression, extreme indecisiveness, and other signs of pathology before entering the cult.

Blurring of Mental Acuity.

Most cult veterans are neither grossly in competent nor blatantly disturbed. Nevertheless, they report -- and their families confirm -- subtle cognitive inefficiencies and changes that take some time to pass. Ex-cultists often have trouble putting into words the inefficiencies they want to describe. Jack, the physiology graduate, said, "It's more that after a while outside, something comes back. One day I realized my thinking had gradually expanded. I could see everything in more complex ways. The group had slowly, a step at a time, cut me off from anything but the simplest right-wrong notions. They keep you from thinking and reasoning about all the contingencies by always telling you, ‘Don't doubt, don't be negative.' And after a while you hardly think about anything except in yes-no, right-wrong, simpleminded ways." Ira, the factory worker, or Jack, now working as a hospital orderly, have to take simple jobs until they regain former levels of competence.

Uncritical Passivity.

Many ex-cultists report they accept almost every thing they hear, as if their pre-cult skills for evaluating and criticizing were in relative abeyance. They cannot listen and judge: they listen, believe, and obey. Simple remarks of friends, dates, co-workers, and roommates are taken as commands, even though the person does not feel like doing the bidding, or even abhors it. One woman had gotten up in the middle of the night to respond to the telephoned command of a near stranger: "I borrowed my dad's car to drive about 65 miles out into the country and help this guy I had just met once in a coffeehouse to transport some stolen merchandise, because he spoke in such a strong and authoritative way to me on the phone. I can't believe how much I still obey people."

When this behavior comes up in our group sessions, we discuss the various cults' injunction's against questioning doctrine or directives, and the effects of living for months or years in situations that encourage acquiescence. Ex-members of some of the more authoritarian cults describe constant urging to "surrender your mind .. accept ... melt ... flow with it . . Don't question now, later you will understand." Reluctance or objections are reprimanded: "Don't be negative, don't be resistant, surrender."

Joan had been the nemesis of many college teachers before she joined a cult. "I was into the radical feminist group at school; I was a political radical; I was trying to overthrow the system. In three months, they recycled me and I was obeying everybody. I still have that tendency to obey anybody who says 'Gimme, fetch me, go for . . . . '" Ginny was described by her family as having been "strong-willed. It was impossible to make her do any thing she didn't want to do." Now, she complains, "Any guy who asks me anything, I feel compelled to say yes; I feel I should sacrifice for them; that's how I did for four years in the group."

Fear of the Cult.

Most of the groups work hard to prevent defections: some ex-members cite warnings of heavenly damnation for themselves, their ancestors, and their children. Since many cult veterans retain some residual belief in the cult doctrines, this alone can be a horrifying burden.

When members do leave, efforts to get them back reportedly range from moderate harassment to incidents involving the use of force. Many ex-members and their families secure unlisted phone numbers; some move away from known addresses; some even take assumed names in distant places.

At the root of ex-members' fear is often the memory of old humiliations administered for stepping out of line. Kathy, who had been in a group for over five years, said, "Some of the older members might still be able to get to me and crush my spirit like they did when I became depressed and couldn't go out and fund-raise or recruit. I had been unable to eat or sleep; I was weak and ineffectual. They called me in and the leader screamed at me, ‘You're too rebellious. I'm going to break your spirit. You are too strong-willed.' And they made me crawl at their feet. I still freak out when I think about how close they drove me to suicide that day; for a long time afterward, all I could do was help with cooking. I can hardly remember the details, it was a nightmare."

It appears that most cult groups soon turn their energies to recruiting new members rather than prolonging efforts to reattract defectors. Still, even after the initial fear of retaliation has passed, ex-members worry about how to handle the inevitable chance street meetings with old colleagues, expecting them to try to stir up feeling of guilt over leaving and condemn their present life.

Fear may be most acute for former members who have left a spouse or children behind in the cults that recruited couples and families. Any effort to make contact risks breaking the link completely. Often painful legal actions ensue over child custody or conservatorship between ex- and continuing adherents.

Even reporters who have gone into a cult as bogus recruits to get a story, staying only a few days, have felt a terrible compassion for the real recruits who stay behind. One, Dana Gosney, formerly of the Redwood City Tribune, wrote that it took him three and a half hours to extract himself from the group once he announced he wanted to leave. He was denied permission to go, he was pleaded with, he was told the phone did not work so he could not contact a ride. Eventually, he says, "Two steps beyond the gate, I experienced the sensation of falling and reached out to steady myself. My stomach, after churning for several hours, forced its contents from my mouth. Then I began to weep uncontrollably. I was crying for those I had left behind."

The Fishbowl Effect.

A special problem for cult veterans is the constant watchfulness of family and friends, who are on the alert for any signs that the difficulties of real life will send the person back. Mild dissociation, deep preoccupations, temporary altered states of consciousness, and any positive talk about cult days can cause alarm in a former member's family. Often the ex-member senses it, but neither side knows how to open up discussion.

New acquaintances and old friends can also trigger an ex-cultist's feelings that people are staring, wondering why he joined such a group. In our discussion, ex-members share ways they have managed to deal with these situations. The best advice seems to be to try focusing on the current conversation until the sense of living under scrutiny gradually fades.

As I suggested above, returnees often want to talk to people about positive aspects of the cult experience. Yet they commonly feel that others refuse to hear anything but the negative aspects, even in our groups. Apart from the pleasure of commitment and the simplicity of life in the old regime, they generally want to discuss a few warm friendships, or even romances, and the sense that group living taught them to connect more openly and warmly to other people than they could before their cult days. As one man exclaimed, "How can I get across the greatest thing -- that I no longer fear rejection the way I used to? While I was in the Church, and selling on the street, I was rejected by thousands of people I approached, and I learned to take it. Before I went in, I was terrified that anyone would reject me in any way!"

Conditioned by the cults' condemnation of the beliefs and conduct of outsiders, ex-members tend to remain hypercritical of much of the ordinary behavior of humans. This makes reentry still harder. When parents, friends, or therapists try to convince them to be less rigid in their attitudes, they tend to see such as evidence of casual moral relativism.

The Agonies of Explaining.

Why one joined is difficult to tell anyone who is unfamiliar with cults. One has to describe the subtleties and power of the recruitment procedures, and how one was persuaded and indoctrinated. Most difficult of all is to try to explain why a person is unable simply to walk away from a cult, for that entails being able to give a long and sophisticated explanation of social and psychological coercion, influence, and control procedures.

"People just can't understand what the group puts into your mind," one ex-cultist said. "How they play on your guilts and needs. Psychological pressure is much heavier than a locked door. You can bust a locked door down in terror or anger, but chains that are mental are real hard to break. The heaviest thing I've ever done is leaving the group, breaking those real heavy bonds on my mind."

Guilt.

According to our informants, significant parts of cult activity are based on deception, particularly fund-raising and recruitment. The dishonesty is rationalized as being for the greater good of the cult or the person recruited. One girl said she had censored mail from and to new recruits, kept phone calls from them, lied to their parents saying she didn't know where they were when they phoned or appeared, and deceived donors on the street when she was fund-raising. "There is something inside me that wants to survive more than anything, that wants to live, wants to give, wants to be honest," she noted. "And I wasn't honest when I was in the group. How could they have gotten me to believe it was right to do that? I never really thought it was right, but they kept saying it was okay because there was so little time left to save the world." As they take up their personal consciences again, many ex-members feel great remorse over the lies they have told, and they frequently worry over how to right the wrongs they did.

Perplexities about Altruism.

Many of these people want to find ways to put their altruism and energy back to work without becoming a pawn in another manipulative group. Some fear they have become "groupies" who are defenseless against getting entangled in a controlling organization. Yet, they also feel a need for affiliations. They wonder how they can properly select among the myriad contending organizations -- social, religious, philanthropic, service-oriented, psychological - -and remain their own boss. The group consensus on this tends to advise caution about joining any new "uplift" group, and to suggest instead purely social, work, or school-related activities.

Money.

An additional issue is the cult members' curious experience with money: many cult members raise more per day fund-raising on the streets than they will ever be able to earn a day on any job. Most cults assign members daily quotas to fill of $100 to $150. Especially skillful and dedicated solicitors say they can bring in as much as $1,500 day after day. In one of our groups one person claimed to have raised $30,000 in a month selling flowers, and another to have raised $69,000 in nine months; one testified in court to raising a quarter of a million dollars selling flowers and candy and begging over a three-year period.

Elite No More.

"They get you to believing that they alone know how to save the world," recalled one member. "You think you are in the vanguard of history . . . . You have been called out of the anonymous masses to assist the messiah . . . . As the chosen, you are above the law . . . . They have arrived at the humbling and exalting conclusion that they are more valuable to God, to history, and to the future than other people are." Clearly one of the more poignant comedowns of post-group life is the end of feeling a chosen person, a member of an elite.

It appears from our work that if they hope to help, therapists -- and friends and family--need to have at least some knowledge of the content of a particular cult's program in order to grasp what the ex-member is trying to describe. A capacity to explain certain behavioral reconstruction techniques is also important. One ex-member saw a therapist for two sessions but left because the therapist "reacted as if I were making it up, or crazy, he couldn't tell which. But I was just telling it like it was in The Family."

Many therapists try to bypass the content of the experience in order to focus on long-term personality attributes. But unless he or she knows something of the events of the experience that prey on the former cultist's mind, we believe, the therapist is unable to open up discussion or even understand what is happening. Looking at the experience in general ways, he may think the young person has undergone a spontaneous religious conversion and may fail to be aware of the sophisticated, high-pressure recruitment tactics and intense influence procedures the cults use to attract and keep members. He may mistakenly see all the ex-cultist's behavior as manifestations of long-standing psychopathology.

Many ex-cult members fear they will never recover their full functioning. Learning from the group that most of those affected eventually come to feel fully competent and independent is most encouraging for them. Their experiences might well be taken into account by people considering allying themselves with such groups in the future.

The url of the original is http://www.caicusa.org/leaving/sing-lev.htm

On Being A Woman

I know it might sound strange to many of you, but I have always struggled with being a woman.  I don't struggle with wanting to be a woman or enjoying the 'girly' things my DNA predetermined would make me happy.  I struggle with the position in life that being a woman relegates you to.  Mostly this is an historical position, but I never cease to be amazed at its persistence in today's society.  I find it frustrating that I can acknowledge the differences in men and women and yet cannot be satisfied with duties and positions those differences tend to create.  Why is that?  Why do I consistently struggle against what has been and is an established way of doing things and viewing things?  Why must I always ask 'why'?  And not only do I ask 'why', but I am most always not satisfied with the answer that follows that question.  Is it because I am so inherently stubborn and obstinate that I must fight against something, must always rage against the predetermined set boundaries?  Perhaps.  It is certainly a viable answer for my ongoing struggle with who I am.  And yet, I feel there is more to it than that.  Underneath the tough layer of simple female stubbornness, I sense an opposition to the illogical, chauvinistic tendencies with which many of the world's societies are run, and that opposition is what stokes the fires of my unrest and causes them to boil up and over from time to time.  While my outbursts are not always legitimate, often times they are the result of this eternal stewing that goes on in my head.  I see something I want, and I am told I can't have it because I am a woman and those things are meant for men.  I have dreams I want to accomplish, and I am told dreams are childish pursuits best suited for men.  Women are to be caregivers and nourishment providers to those around us and that takes a mature, responsible adult; not a child chasing whimsies.  I have a mind that I want to develop and stretch and I am told that I need to limit myself lest I become too intimidating and people refuse to interact with me.  I have opinions and thoughts and I want to express them, to discuss them, and I am told that is too aggressive and I will be viewed as an unpleasant woman.  Why?  The simple answer always comes back to my gender -- I am a woman.  I hate that!  Who ever put a limit on a man and told him it was for the plain fact that he was a man?  While I'm sure there are rare examples that could be provided, the vast majority of time and experience have produced very little evidence of this.
Don't get me wrong.  I am not trying to squelch men or infringe on their rights.  I would be no happier with limits on men as I am with limits on women.  I am merely pointing out that I am, indeed, truly unhappy and frustrated with the limits I am continuously running into because I am a woman.  I respect the differences in men and women and I accept that those differences do require respective differences in roles and responsibilities in life.  What I do not respect, and do not accept, is the notion that as a woman I am bound to operate within the confines of a box some prehistoric male dreamt up hundreds of years ago, and subsequent males have continued using for generations.  Sorry, that's not the way I work, and as long as I have breath in me I will fight to operate within the confines of who I am, who I was created to be, and those will be the only boundaries I will ever settle for.  I guess that means the struggle will continue, but that is better than settling for what is wholly unacceptable to me.

Some Thoughts

Oh to be who I really want to be.   That's what I really want.  I find it incredibly frustrating that there are so many rules and expectations that I must meet that keep me from being who I want to be, who I really am.  All my life I have fought against being a stereotype, against being taken for granted as a number or a specific gender.  I've fought long and hard to be respected for who I am and not what I look like or how many fantasies I fulfill.  I'm heartbroken that apparently in the end, none of that matters.  I guess you can't have it all.  There is no balanced woman who can be both loved and desired.  It seems you have to choose between the two.  Either you are the sexy, strong domineering type who isn't a very attractive person inside, or you're the sweet, caring devoted woman who is relegated to being boring and prudish for the rest of her life.  I hate this; despise it in fact.  It makes me want to scream and shout and take by the throat the prehistoric man who started this whole concept and brought grief forever into women's lives.  I'm not a play thing.  I'm not just a cute face or gorgeous body.  I have a mind.  I have thoughts and opinions.  I want to be respected and loved for who I am and not ignored or traded for a fictitious ideal of a physically pleasing woman.  I AM SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!!  I am so much more, and I want you to see it.  I want you to see and love it and desire it.  I want that to be the standard for what is attractive and desirable.  I'm sick of being compared to plastic women with balloons for breasts and asses that they have to live on a weight machine to maintain and achieve.  Women who wear clothes that are way too tight, way too revealing, and as classless as they come.  I want to be compared to graceful, modest, beautiful women who are appreciated for their wit and humor and ability to think and reason.  Is that really too much to ask of the male population?  Are you really that entrenched in your pathetic, juvenile ideals of women that you can't really see there is so much more to it?  Perhaps we haven't really come as far as we thought in the past century.  Perhaps we have more work to do than is readily admitted.  I hope the future will allow women to be who they really want to be without relegating them to the ridiculous man-made categories that serve only to limit and suppress the true beauty and awesomeness of all a woman is.

The Forgotten Girl

When I was a kid I was the dorkiest little girl you ever saw. I was skinny as a rail and wore glasses that were too large for my face. Even worse, my left eye's vision was so poor that the lens in my glasses magnified my eye to the extent that people readily noticed my left eye looked larger than my right eye. I very rarely had my own clothes to wear and mostly ran around in things my 4 older sisters had handed down to me. Needless to say, I was never wearing the latest fashion in anything. To make matters worse, I was one of the biggest tomboys you ever met. That meant that my hair was usually an unkempt mess and my outfit was chosen for comfort rather than any sense of style or fashion. As I said, I was the dorkiest little girl you ever saw. I had nothing going for me and I was regularly made fun of for my appearance. I was an introvert to the max as a child. I preferred reading a book alone to playing with any of my friends, and that served me well in ignoring the fact that I was not one of the cool kids. The honest truth is that my books were always far kinder to me than the reality I lived in and I never had to worry about how "ugly" or unwanted I was when I was reading. Sadly, though, I am realist, and I always knew what I appeared like to others. I knew I wasn't pretty or nice to look at. I knew I wasn't popular.
 I gave you all that background to say this, today I realized something about myself that shocked me. I still see myself as that dorky, unattractive little girl. Twenty years have passed since I was that girl, but I have never shaken that identity. It's become a part of me, embedded in the deepest layers of my identity. Sure, I've changed a lot, particularly in the past 4 years, but deep down, in the part of me that no one sees, I am still her. I'm still wearing shabby clothes and glasses that don't fit and my hair is still a mess. I'm still ugly, still unlovable, still the dorkiest girl you'll ever meet. I'm amazed that I never realized before that girl was still alive and well inside of me, and still very much a part of me. Her presence motivates me to act in certain ways and believe certain things about myself. Who I am today is very much tied to who she was. I still prefer to be alone than to be with people, believing that others really don't want to be around me. I still feel awkward and funny looking to others. I'm still not comfortable in my own skin.
 While there are many things that have changed about me and I have grown up and grown out of so many bad habits and bad ideologies, I can't help but wonder how it is this girl has managed to stay here in my subconscious, influencing me in ways I never imagined. She affects my self-image, she influences the way I relate to my husband, she helps determine my attitude about how I take care of myself, and she is constantly whispering in my ear what others are thinking about me. How did this happen? Why is she still here? I ask these questions, and yet I know the answer. Early life experiences are important. They help shape who you become and how you view yourself. If those early experiences are bad and they are never addressed, they hang around, crouching in the shadows of your ever growing experiences, continuing to influence you until they are properly taken care of. I know this, but I never realized what it meant for me. I'm not sure why this realization happened today. Sometimes things just hit me at random moments. All I know it that suddenly, sitting at my desk, I saw a picture of myself staring into a mirror and the reflection gazing back was that little girl from so long ago. The pain that twinges in my chest tells me the picture is true; that is the reality of how I see myself. This forgotten girl from so many years ago has never really gone away. She has merely slipped into the shadows of my mind, where her influence is hidden but never nonexistent.

Being Honest

I feel like being honest today. Sorry if it's a bit too much for you; but I need to get it off my chest. It's been eating at me for a while and I figured that airing it out would help me deal with it. I've found that many times the things I think about over and over again and dwell upon with such passion, are often times not nearly as important or unsolvable when I talk openly about them as they seemed in my head. I seem to be able to spot ridiculous logic and unfounded feelings far better when they are written down or spoken aloud than when they are merely swirling around in my head. So, without further ado, here goes! I am scared. Scared I won't find a good job. Scared I won't be able to do well at a different job. Scared I won't measure up as a therapist. Scared I am a lousy professional who leaves much to be desired. I'm scared that if I ever get a "real job" I won't be able to handle the pressure. Scared I will never be a success. I'm scared that I am the one person in the entirety of history who went to school for something and learned nothing. I'm scared that all the nice things people say to me are not really true, but just a way to make me feel better about my ineptitude. I'm scared I will never achieve my dreams. I'm scared that my dreams are too big and not realistic. I'm scared that my dreams are fake and not really worth pursuing. I'm scared of trying new things. I'm scared of trying things I really want to try and scared of having new experiences that I am truly curious about. I'm scared of failing. I'm scared, plain and simple. I thought that after living on my own for a while and having a few adventure that my fears would subside. I thought that after some experience and at least a year on the job that I wouldn't be scared anymore. But, no, I am still scared. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever not be scared. To me that seems like a completely foreign concept, but it has to be possible. Why else would Scripture say that perfect love casts out fear? When I think about this, I realize that not only do I not have perfect love (something I continue to work on), but I don't truly believe in the perfect love of God. If I truly believed that God loved me and I loved Him, there would be no fear that He might fail me and I might fail Him. That's something to think about and definitely something worth pursuing.

Puppy Love

So, as I mentioned in my last post, Mr. Darcy and I recently got a new puppy. When we first started talking about getting a dog, I was a little apprehensive. I didn't want a little critter running around in my kitchen, getting dog hair all over the furniture. Mr. Darcy kept assuring me it wouldn't be like that and that having a dog would be so great. Still, I was skeptical. Then, I say her picture on the Humane Society website and I knew she was perfect. We went to meet her in person and I was sold. We had to have her. Last Saturday we picked her up and took her home, and our journey began. Her name is Chihiro, and I am in love with her. Her name is Japanese and means "A thousand questions" or "A thousand fathoms", and it suits so well. She is our little investigator. She sniffs out everything and is not comfortable in a new place until she has explored every nook and cranny. She is a mischievous little imp with all the hyperness and love a puppy is supposed to have. She is shy but curious and she is so sweet and loving that it's hard to not fall in love with her. Her little tail wagging frantically makes my heart so happy. I love feeling her puppy kisses on my hands and laughing when she tickles my feet with her little puppy tongue. She's a cuddle bug for sure, which makes her the perfect fit for our family. She doesn't like being along and is perfectly happy to sit next to me on the couch and nap while I work on this and that. She's a smart little puppy too. She's been with us for a week now and she's already almost completely house trained. She knows where she can and cannot go in the house and she's quick to ask for a treat when she's been a good puppy. I know this will sound silly, but I never imagined I would love a dog the way I love this little puppy. She has brightened up my life in the past week in ways I never imagined. She has been a real handful at times and she is definitely an added responsibility, but she has made coming home an absolute joy. Chihiro makes me laugh, makes me get out and do more, makes me focus on others rather than myself, and reminds me that love is a powerful motivator. She has been such a great addition to our family and I am so happy we got her.

Waiting

Today I am home sick for the first time in a while and I figured it was a great opportunity to blog. There's been so much going on in my life and my rush hour traffic brain has had a hard time staying focused on any one thing in particular. I don't like being sick, but it does afford me the chance to slow down and collect myself, so that's what I'm doing. It's funny how this comes at a time in my life when waiting seems to be the thing to talk about. It all started a few weeks ago. I've been really anxious about several things: getting a new job, wanting to find a new place to live, needing to make enough money to pay my bills, wanting to start a family, along with several other everyday worries. Of course, I guess it really all started last year when I didn't make it into a doctoral program and my grand plans were dashed into a million pieces. I had been following this nice little road map I had come up with for 3 years and then suddenly, the map was ripped out of my hands and burned up. I had no idea where to go next and what I was supposed to be following. I went into emergency mode and made decisions based on the only options I had in front of me, but I was devastated and my heart wasn't in the new path I was on. As the months went by I learned how to enjoy where I was and relax in not knowing what was coming next. I still had no map to follow, but the road I was on would last for at least another few months, and surely by that time another road would open up. That was my thinking, and I was at peace with that. Then, the few months ran out and I found myself once again without a map but needing to move forward. I wasn't sure what I was going to do and the thought of having to make decisions without knowing which ones were right was scary. The thought of having to wait for a right answer and knowing that I would probably have to wait again for the next right answer was very unsettling. I like knowing what's coming next. I like having a plan. I like maps. Then, 2 weeks ago, things started happening, as if some Play button somewhere had been pushed and the tape of my life was now rolling. My job situation became tumultuous and I wasn't sure whether to start looking for a new one or try to wait out the storm. Within one week it became clear what it was I was supposed to do, the right choice was outlined for me, as though a piece of the map had been handed back to me. Mr. Darcy and I need to find a new place to live but nothing seemed to be working out. Then, avenues we had never before thought of walking down began to open up and help for the journey seemed to fall into our laps. Another piece to the map was provided. Mr. Darcy and I really wanted a dog and withing 2 weeks we had the perfect fit for us. She is wonderful and has brought so much joy to us. Of course, she has also brought responsibility as well, but that is a good thing. Great preparation for that family we both want so much! :) There is still plenty of waiting to do, and I am still learning to wait graciously, but I have learned in the past few months that even though I may not have a plan or a detailed map to follow, I am not lost. There is a plan, and Someone does have a road map that I am following. The difference is that I have to learn to hear His voice and watch for his leading if I want to know where I am supposed to go. I am not guaranteed that I will have all the answers ahead of time, or that I will ever have all the answers, but I am guaranteed that I will always have a travel guide and He will always lead me in the paths that are right and best for me. In the times when I cannot see what I should do next, or do not know with path to take, I have only to wait for Him. He will lead me, He will show the way. I might have to wait hours, days, months, or years, but my waiting will not be in vain, and the option of not waiting is really no option at all.

Having a Hard Time

It's Super Bowl Sunday and I should be with friends watching the game. Instead, I am sitting at home, alone. It's been a rough week and I just couldn't imagine myself being with anyone tonight. I wish I could say it was one thing in particular that's gotten me into this funk, but that would be too easy. No, as with most things in my life, this mood I'm in is as complicated as I am. The emotional roller coaster I've been on for the past two weeks has me feeling confused and exhausted. The most frustrating thing in all this is that I have so many unanswered questions. I hate when I can't answer something. My understanding something helps me to cope with it and not get overwhelmed by things. When I don't have answers and just don't understand things, I become very overwhelmed and it becomes hard to function. Adding to my mood is the fact that I am feeling pretty crumby about myself right now. I hate that I can't seem to keep my weight under control or stick with a fitness plan. I hate that because I am not healthy I feel like garbage 90% of the time. I hate that I don't know how to help myself do the things I want to do. I hate that I keep making the same mistakes over and over. I hate that I am lacking a very large body of knowledge that would make my life SO much easier. I absolutely HATE that I am so afraid of so many things. Yup, I am definitely down on myself at the moment. But what do I do about it? I don't want someone to tell me how great I am or how much I have going for me. I guess what I want most is for someone to hand me the proper tools and then help me start climbing out of this giant pit I am in. I know that I have people in my life who are trying to do just that; maybe I don't know how to accept their help. Sometimes, I feel like I am caught in life limbo. I am physically one age and have experienced so many things, yet, I feel mentally and emotionally young and inexperienced. Do you ever feel that way? It's such a confusing thing to experience, to feel. It can make you doubt yourself and the reality you live in. It can make you wonder if you will ever arrive in one place or if you will forever be in limbo. I hope, I pray that I will be able to leave this limbo one day and I am trusting that when I do eventually arrive somewhere it will end up being the place I was intended to be all along. I know this post is rather sad and brooding. It fits my mood tonight. I'm not sure my ramblings here have made much sense, but in the end, it helps me to air my thoughts, and that is the ultimate point of this blog. So, I guess that makes this post OK. Besides, no one has only sunny days with only happy thoughts, at least not on this earth. This post and others I've written like it are me being real with those of you who follow this blog. I'm not just some person who puts words out there for people to look at. I'm a real human being with struggles and hardships just like everyone else. Having this blog to help me work through the hard times allows me express myself and process through things and I think it's great. But, don't worry, there will be lots more happy posts in the future. :)

Grieving

My heart is breaking right now and I can't seem to stop the steady flow of tears that started last night when I first heard the news. My nephew was to be born some time in late March or early April. My whole family was anticipating the arrival of this first addition to the next generation in almost 10 years. Then something went terribly wrong and my sister-in-law went into preterm labor. The family fought to find a hospital that would agree to take the baby and treat it since it was less than 24 weeks old. The first hospital sent them home and the second hospital had to be convinced to treat if the baby was born. To make matters worse, the mother started running a temperature and her white blood cell count went up indicating an infections was starting. After 24 hours on antibiotics, the infections was still raging and the mother went into full fledged labor. My nephew was born at 8:15 p.m. last night. He was immediately placed on a ventilator and sent to the NICU. His heart was strong and he came out kicking. We thought, we hoped, he would survive. We knew the first night would be a crucial one for him. After three hours of fighting, his lungs simply couldn't process the oxygen he was receiving and his strong little heart finally gave out. My brother and his wife, along with my parents and my siblings, gathered in the NICU and had the chance to hold the baby and say their goodbyes. It was a precious moment in a tumultuous time. After just a short interval in this world, the baby left for a far better place, and while I know that he is at peace, I cannot help but grieve his passing. There were so many hopes and dreams for this child. He was a life with promise. I cannot pretend to understand why this has happened or how it is that my family was chosen to bear this burden. I can, however, rest in the knowledge that God is the giver of life and He saw fit to allow this child into our lives. It may have been for just a brief period, but it was a gift for which I am grateful. I am so sorry I never got the chance to meet him, to watch him grow and develop the great big personality he was bound to have. I am sad I never got to hold him or give him Auntie hugs and kisses. Yet, I feel so blessed to have been a part of the fight for him to have his brief time here. The hours spent praying, hoping, and believing do not feel like a waste. They were my chance to be a part of his life, and I'm glad I took that chance when I had it.
Still, there is much more grieving ahead and I hurt not only for the loss of my nephew, but also for the tough road ahead for my brother and his wife. This is not a light thing and there will be many dark days ahead. I hope and pray that on those days they will not forget that even though the sky is overcast the sun is still shining behind those clouds and it will eventually break out. Grief is a part of life and sorrows will come for each of us. Right now my heart is heavy with sorrow but I know that joy will come again and when it does, how much sweeter it will seem for the sorrow I have endured.

The New Year

The new year has started and I feel like I have been running to stay up with it. As always there is plenty to do around me and this year I am feeling like I really want to be a part of as much as I can. The only drawback thus far has been my introverted personality. I love seeing people and talking with people, but it takes so much out of me. I've come to realize that I am much better at one-on-one interactions than I am in group settings. Don't get me wrong, I love being with a group of fun people, I just get very overwhelmed by it all and feel like I've been drained of 20 years of my life when it's all over with. Perhaps that's why the idea of a career as a performing musician never really appealed to me. I love music and I love performing, but dealing with people all the time is way scary for me. Oh well, guess I shouldn't psychoanalyze myself too much.

Back to the new year! I have found myself becoming more and more immersed in my work and finding that I like it more than I originally thought I would. It definitely helps when you have the right tools and materials that are appropriate for your clients. This means that I have been on a shopping spree for children's toys and books. My Christmas gift cards were very useful (and cost effective) in helping me accomplish my giant spending spree and now there is a steady stream of packages arriving at my door every few days. I love it! If I haven't mentioned it already on this blog, I love getting things in the mail or via some delivery service. There's something so wonderful about receiving a tangible item that someone else has packed up specifically for you and placed your address in the Send To spot. I just can't get over how wonderful it is. Ok, nerd tangent over. Anyway, work has been busy but good and my social life is steadily growing. I have so many options these days for human interaction that I sometimes find myself having to pick what I most want to do and sticking with that. Of course, the whole overwhelmed introvert thing has to do with how much I limit my schedule, but still, it's fun to have options.
So, I guess this post is really just to say that the new year is looking like it will be busy and fun and overall a great year. I'm sure there will be much to learn and new horizons to cross, but that means an opportunity for some great adventures. Hooray!

A Rant

So, I'm a little peeved, and that usually means I write. When things get me riled up, I usually find that writing my thoughts down helps me settle down. That, unfortunately, means you all are in for a rant. Begin rant:
I hate it when people use the name of God to harm and manipulate others. I hate when people slap the name of God on something that is no more God than I am a blue alien. Why is it so hard for Christians to admit the truth about things that are wrong? Why is it that we feel compelled to defend that which is clearly evil. Why do we have to insist on clinging to something that is bad, telling ourselves that it really is good. I am so sick of hearing the logic "It's not all bad. There really is some good to it." There may be "some good" to it but that doesn't make it right or worthy of you hanging on to it. Don't tell me about the heritage it has, or the merits it had in the past. Chicken left out of the refrigerator for 2 days may have been good chicken at some earlier point, but that doesn't mean it's not rotten now. Do you really want to hang it up in your house as a testament of what it used to be? No! Get rid of it before it smells up your entire house and makes you sick. It's the same with our lives. Too many people are running around holding on to a past that is full of failures and bad mistakes, and instead of just letting it go and starting over they keep living in it and even try to put God's name on it.
I had someone tell me the other day that they were going to hang on to their heritage and fight for their legacy. The heritage and legacy they were referring to is wrapped up in some of the most horrendous abuses of power and mistreatment of human beings known to man; yet, they want to hold on to the "good" in it. I'm sorry, but, there is no good that's worth holding onto. It's just as though this person was standing outside a home that has burnt to the ground, one which before it burnt down was filled with every sort of pest and vermin known to man. Now that person is frantically digging through the rubble trying to find something of value in this house to justify their desire to live there. That's crazy! Right?! Yet, I'm watching it happen in the lives of several people I know. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, "WAKE UP!!! There is nothing left there for you! Start over and build a new house that is beautiful and comfortable, that doesn't reek of uncleanliness and isn't filled with horrible memories." How I wish these people could see that they don't have to hold on to the past to ensure they have a heritage. They could start today to build a new heritage; and my guess is the one they start building today will be a whole lot more powerful a heritage than anything they are holding onto from the past. Yet, no matter how simple it seems to me, if they don't come to that conclusion, they will continue in this behavior. It's enough to make me crazy sometimes!
End rant.

Genetic Devastation??

I had a thought today and I thought it was worth sharing. I read an article several weeks ago about poverty and economic environments and their lasting effects on a person. The article covered a research study with results that indicate the effects of your economic environment growing up change your DNA, and thus stay with you well into adulthood. Simply put, something like poverty can change the way your brain works such that the DNA of your cells is changed permanently. You never grow out of it and your thinking and behaviors are forever impacted by the change. This can be seen in a myriad of ways such as your eating habits, your learning tendencies, and your financial habits and behaviors.

In pondering this concept and its implications for human development, I began to wonder about other areas of life. What if all experiences in childhood, not just economic environment, affect our DNA and our development as a whole? Do the emotional and behavioral environments we grow up in change our DNA forever? Specifically, does an early life of devastation, grief, and abuse affect us to such an extent that the very makeup of our physical cells are changed? If so, how do we cope with this? How do we attempt to address this change and account for it in our continued development?


As a person who endured much devastation early in life, I have often wondered to what extent that devastation will continue to play a role in my life. How long will the effects last? How much of my life is affected by my earlier experiences? I can tell you from experience that I am continually surprised to realize just how much my earlier life experiences have shaped me as a person. Sometimes I wonder if the person I have become is truly who I am or the creation of an environment I had no control over. I am sure there are many people out there who could ask themselves the same question and this article on changes in DNA led me to wonder if perhaps there might be actual physical answers to these questions. If something such as our economic environment as a child can impact us to such a point that the very DNA of our cells in altered, is it such a large leap of faith to assume that our emotional and behavioral environments would impact us just as greatly? I don't think so. In fact, I think there is probably a greater probability that an emotional and behavioral environment early in life impacts you for the rest of your life.

If this is the case, and our earlier experiences do indeed change our DNA, what does that mean for those of us who had a traumatic early environment? What does it mean for us as we try to heal and grow in a new healthy environment? I've often asked myself how long it would take me to no longer be affected by my past. Yet, if the findings of the above mentioned article are true and can be applied to more than just early economic environment, it seems there is a chance that I will never truly be able to "get over" my past. It seems that certain parts of me have been forever altered and will forever affect the way I make decisions, the way I feel, the way I learn to do new things, and the perspectives I have on just about anything. While that completely makes sense to me, it is also very frightening. While trying to recover, you tell yourself that much of what you are going through is all in your head and if you just learn to think differently about things, you will recover much faster and much better. You like to think that the struggles you are having are all mental and thus can be conquered by changing your thinking. However, if your DNA is affected and has been altered permanently, that suggests that the struggle you are having are not just mental and do not necessarily have some finite end point. This has a lot of terrifying potential outcomes for someone who has endured much devastation early in life. Perhaps this means you will never truly be free of those awful experiences. Perhaps you will never truly rid your mind of the altered way of thinking that took place as a result of those experiences. Perhaps they are somehow then transferable to your offspring. Troubling thoughts for a person like me.

Returning

Well, my vacation is over and I have returned to work and the regular rhythm of my day-to-day life. I can't say that I'm sad to be back, but I'm not delighted either. My time off was nice and it was great to catch up with family and friends. However, I wish I had more time to just relax and before plunging back into my busy schedule. Perhaps it's a god thing I didn't. Certainly my pocketbook couldn't handle much more of a break. I guess it doesn't really matter either way because I am back and things are happening around me left and right. I am thankful, however, that it was a short work week. I have this weekend to catch my breath and organize myself some more before I have to fully submerge myself into my work. I shouldn't complain. I did have 2 weeks off and I do enjoy my job. Life could definitely be worse. So, with that, I will stop whining about having a job and needing to work and I will focus instead on all the great adventures that are waiting for me. :)