Re: Jumping from the frying pan into the fire

September 6, 2010

Oh yes, I think that growing up as a KO it sets us up to fall into these kind of

things. Twice now in my life " cults " have almost sucked me in and my initial

interest in them was based around trying to get healing and freedom from my

upbringing. One time at college a " Moony " literally jumped out from behind a

bush as I was walking down the sidewalk and tried to recruit me. I'm not even

counting that one! The two I mentioned I only got peripherally involved and

thanks to the internet discovered I was in trouble and backed out in time.

Unfortunately the internet didn't save me from getting involved with the wrong

individual people who would replicate the environment I grew up in. As KO's I

think there's a set up: first we've been exposed to so much craziness that the

initial warning signs of a dysfunctional group or individual don't scare us off.

That gives us the label of a " good prospect " in their minds and they begin to

pursue. Also we've got needs for healing and validation that can lead us to

being manipulated by nasty types. A person who doesn't have primal wounds

doesn't have the same level of hooks a manipulator can pull on. So I think

KO's must be very very very careful.

I'm sorry you went through such awful experiences and glad you got out and found

support groups for ex-members. It took a ton of strength to break out of that

after you were all the way into it - I hope you give yourself credit for that

every day. All we can do is live and learn in the end.

>

> warning - this post contains my opinions on a certain religious group. They

are simply my opinions and I am not trying to slander/offend/etc.

>

> Since coming onto this website a lot of things that Ive done in my life make

more sense. Ive always been fiercely protective of myself and tried to be very

independant, but I can see a lot of the choices Ive made may have been as a

result of the damage my mother did to me growing up. Til now I hadnt considered

that to be the case, Ive alsways thought that I did a good job of " not having

baggage " .

>

> When I left school I moved to the city to go to university. My boyfriend at

the time was a Scientolgist and before long I was too. The church convinced me

to drop out of uni and work for them - saying that they could fix my mother and

the upset she causes me. For the next 3 years I worked for free, lived below the

poverty line, put up with verbal abuse (called an SRA in the church - a " severe

reality adjustment " - basically being screamed at for up to several hours), and

my husband became violent when I was pregnant - with the permission of church

leaders. I hated the fact that my mother may have been right - these people were

not good to be around, so I think I put up with it for a lot longer than I

wanted to. I ended up having to pack a bag and disappear, staying at friends

places as members of the church tried to " recover " me. They stalked me for the

next 7 years, and I was terrified of what they would do to get me back in, until

I started reading a forum for ex-members and began to get a grip on what Id

actually been through and how they made me so scared. They scared me more than

my mother. Now I see how I put myself in a very similar position to how I had

been with my mother.

>

> Im not saying its my mothers fault that I was so stupid. My own decisions have

always been my responsibility. But why couldnt I see these people for what they

were - conmen? I SAW them taking people's life-savings, I SAW them taking

advantage of the elderly, I saw it all and still thought it was for the " greater

good " for too long. I find it hard to understand how I was so stupid.

>

> Now I can see that in desperation to try to understand why my mother was so

horrid, and wanting to belong to a group of people that understood me and seemed

to have all the answers, made me susceptable to influence if they said the right

things. Made me easy to brainwash. I just thought I was making my own decisions

and being independant.

>

> Has anyone else tried to get out of the circle of influence of their nada,

only to fall into a similar relationship/group? Its only now that Im starting to

join the dots.... Its freaking me out a little.

>

September 6, 2010

From what I've read, it seems that its a pretty common occurrence for the child

of abusive, domineering or negligent, rejecting parents to grow up and become

attracted to a reincarnation of the abusive parent(s) as a potential mate.

Similarly, I think an abusive upbringing also makes us ripe for being sucked

into cult-like groups.

One theory as to why this happens is that however we are treated as children

becomes our experience, definition and " blueprint " of what " love " is supposed to

be. When we run into someone with the same characteristic behaviors, our

subconscious equates this " familiar " behavior as being " loving. " Our

subconscious is saying something like, " Wow, he's cute AND he's cold and

rejecting just like my father... I think I'm in love! "

Another theory is that when we run across this reincarnation of our rejecting or

abusive parent(s), we just switch our attachment to this age-appropriate,

available individual but our subconscious is just rehashing the original trauma

bond we developed with our abusive or rejecting parent(s) *and trying to fix

it*. Trying to make the outcome be different.

I think that some of Freud's theories on psychology such as his theories about

the subconscious mind are still valid, but other theories of his seem to have

fallen by the wayside in favor of more workable, rational theories. For

example, Freud's theory of infantile sexuality now seems to be passe. Instead,

in more recent decades its become more widely accepted that there unfortunately

really is a great deal of actual child sexual molestation going on; its not the

infant's or child's fantasy or false memories based on a thwarted desire for the

parent. No, the child actually was sexually molested and traumatized by a parent

or other adult or older child.

But to get back to your point, not all choices and decisions we make are based

on rational, conscious thought processes. There is such a thing as brainwashing

and conditioning, and sometimes we make choices based on subconscious triggers

and conditioning which is not part of our conscious awareness.

-Annie