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Abigail

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Posts posted by Abigail

  1. Skyrider's thread on psychological trauma prompted me to do a bit of research on the topic. Along the way (so to speak) I came across some information on rape trauma syndrome and thought I would share it here.

    The main link is HERE

    The various responses to the initial assault fall into two categories; expressed and controlled. Survivors engaging in expressed responses are open with their emotions and are in an emotional state. Examples of expressed responses are crying, yelling, showing anger, or agitation. The second type of response is known as the controlled. Survivors engaging in this style of response contain their emotions and focus more on keeping their composure. These responses are a result of the survivor "regrouping" after the situation that has occurred. Again, neither response is superior to the other. They are both responses to trauma.

    During the Reorganization Phase, the survivor attempts to reorganize his or her life and create the world that she or he once knew. Despite best efforts though, this phase is often riddled with feelings of guilt and shame. The survivor's attempt to get back to his or her routine is often plagued with feelings of anxiety and fear. She may attempt to return to normal social functioning (i.e. go out to social engagements), yet may find herself unable to do so. His or her attempts to re-establish in relationships may be hindered by lack of trust.

    Long term reactions to sexual assault may also include the inability to find peace within this world. Sexual assault can change the individual forever as well as the world as they know it. The end result is a constant state of turmoil. At times, the survivor may not even recognize what is happening within. Sexual assault causes the body to be an unfriendly environment leading the survivor to at times feel dirty and ashamed. These feelings cause the individual to disconnect from their body entirely. Without a connection to their body, the survivor is unable to listen to internal states which assist her in navigating through the world. This contributes to a feeling inherent in many survivors, the feeling of being "lost."

    Additional "rules" and guidelines lay within the human mind. These rules are called "cognitions" or "beliefs." They are beliefs about oneself which are perceived to be true based on one's experience. Some common beliefs are that people are good, the world is relatively safe, sex is pleasurable, and we are in control of our environment. A sexual assault can change these beliefs at the core of the human being. These beliefs infiltrate the survivor's life without the conscience being aware. The beliefs then morph into the feelings that people are bad, the world is not safe, sex is something that hurts, and the environment is out of control. These beliefs about oneself and the body then polarize the survivor from their body or their world. However, rarely are survivors able to articulate that they feel their body is an enemy. Instead, they present with eating disorders, substance abuse, or self injurious behaviors.

    There is more information at the link above.

  2. No, I'm no psychologist.....just an avid observer of human behavior. And, reading thru the Lured thread, I again see, ANOTHER PERSON striving to cope with past experiences and trauma. Perhaps, I too was more deeply affected than I possibly care to admit.

    The indoctrination, the bullying, the repetition, the confrontations, the stress......took their toll, especially for those of us who stayed "in the belly of the beast" for 10+ years. No two people had the SAME experience in twi. Depending on numerous factors, one could "breeze" thru with some laughs and prayers.......OR be the victim of sexual predation from wierwille and company.

    I do know that the corps program put me on a path of accelerated indoctrination! But as many have pointed out.......the seeds of seduction and indoctrination were planted in pfal. From the onset, wierwille was sowing seeds of discontent and division. Remember, "stand on this word".....and don't let your FAMILY, FRIENDS OR CO-WORKERS talk you out of it. Put away ALL your other material.....and spend the NEXT THREE MONTHS on the pfal material.

    Yeah....it WAS psychological trauma.

    Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event. When that trauma leads to posttraumatic stress disorder, damage may involve physical changes inside the brain and to brain chemistry, which changes the person's response to future stress.

    A traumatic event involves a single experience, or an enduring or repeating event or events, that completely overwhelm the individual's ability to cope or integrate the ideas and emotions involved with that experience. The sense of being overwhelmed can be delayed by weeks, years or even decades, as the person struggles to cope with the immediate circumstances. Psychological trauma can lead to serious long-term negative consequences that are often overlooked even by mental health professionals: "If clinicians fail to look through a trauma lens and to conceptualize client problems as related possibly to current or past trauma, they may fail to see that trauma victims, young and old, organize much of their lives around repetitive patterns of reliving and warding off traumatic memories, reminders, and affects."[1]

    Trauma can be caused by a wide variety of events, but there are a few common aspects. There is frequently a violation of the person's familiar ideas about the world and of their human rights, putting the person in a state of extreme confusion and insecurity. This is also seen when people or institutions, depended on for survival, violate or betray or disillusion the person in some unforeseen way.[2]

    Psychological trauma may accompany physical trauma or exist independently of it. Typical causes and dangers of psychological trauma are sexual abuse, bullying, domestic violence, indoctrination,...

    When you think about it, nearly everything in twi lead towards instability, insecurity and dependence. Twi's classes and programs were more important that your education, job, family, church, etc..........it was all, or nothing, always!

    How many of us left twi......BROKE?

    How many of us left twi......ABANDONED?

    How many of us left twi......TO START AGAIN?

    Books have been written, some are blogging and posting........and lurkers come to GS. Are they too traumatized to post? I don't know. Hopefully, all who come to GS are encouraged and uplifted by our posts.

    May your wine glass be always full. :)

    .

    It is posts like this one that make me really glad Paw is keeping this place open. Yeah, the terms psychological trauma may carry a negative connotation to some. It may imply a victim mentality to some. But, at least some people were victims. Some people were victims before they came to TWI and TWI was just another way they re-played that trauma.

    The fact is, some people do have victim mentality (or did). It takes recognizing that in oneself to overcome it and stop being a victim. If we don't talk about it - - if we refuse to acknowledge it, if we put down the person who suffers from it, how do we possibly overcome it or help someone else overcome it?

  3. "The bottom line is this. I lay down for no one. I surrender to no one. I stand for my Lord Jesus Christ and I stand for God. I plan on speaking to the whole city wherever it is and uprooting the devil's kingdom myself and I will step on anyone and anything that gets in my way. So who's with me?"

    ....step on anyone and anything that gets in MY way?

    chapter and verse, please. :anim-smile:

    Bold added by me. Talk about an ego run amuck! This guy is going to uproot the devil's kingdom all by himself??? Pretty amazing. And BTW, wasn't the Word already Over the World??

    It's already happening.

    CLICK

    They have the Corps Principles, a L.E.A.D. program and, now, a W.O.W. program

    OMG Wayward, I just checked out the links you posted. That is down right creepy!!! <shivers>

  4. Morality is an interesting thing, and is often determined by the eye of the beholder. For instance, Ham, there are many things you would never do in the name of the god-money. But, what wouldn't you do to protect your children??? See, I'm thinking that table can get turned around real quick, depending upon the circumstances.

    Which brings me to another thought. In TWI "good intentions" were never good enough. Road paved to hell and all. But is that the case with God or does God not look upon the heart? Now, I think good intentions mean a lot!

  5. thank you for responding

    i do try to learn and examine myself and have been for a very long time

    what am i catching on to? that it was my fault?

    i understand about being vulnerable and about having a past that makes one so

    ExC, understanding a past that makes one vulnerable can be useful in protecting yourself in the future. It still doesn't justify or condone someone taking advantage of that vulnerability to hurt you. None of it was your fault. VPW was a pig, plain and simple. You were/are the innocent one in this.

  6. Socks,

    This post should be pinned at the top of the forum permanently. I know it was written to ExC, but so many of us could take it to heart. Very beautifully said!

    Of course it's an insult. A put down. If it means what I read it stinks. I'll leave the balanced empathy to others. I don't suffer insults easily or for long. If someone doesn't like me, what I say or what I write all they have to do is move along. If they really want to get in my face about it that's going to be a situation of their making because they can easily avoid what's going to come next.

    While it's true everyone does get hurt and suffer in this life the fact that we do sucks. It's inescapable but it isn't good. And I'll die my last breath cursing the f-king evil of this world that makes life insufferable for so many and declaring the only answer I've known to it - following Jesus Christ, a much better man than I'm sure I'll ever be. As far as the evil goes - acceptance is insane.

    There are people who don't like the fact that you repeatedly reference your experience with VPW, that you feel now like it was wrong and that you realize now what you may have then or may not have - that it was wrong on both sides. You shouldn't have done what you did and you wouldn't have had the opportunity had it not been offered to you. Under his guidance and direction you did what you did.

    VPW was a fully experienced adult, a teacher of the bible and a man who held the role of a pastor by virtue of the fact that he built an organization that brought people in under his direction. In that role he held the highest responsibility, greater than those who he was responsible for.

    Any idiot would know that and would know that what he did was wrong. Saying it was wrong isn't wrong. Describing the betrayal and the results isn't wrong.

    Some of us more than others suffer emotionally and struggle with the hurts of this life, be they small or large. We feel broken, torn, looking for that bright light to show the way out of the dark hole of life. Given that light doesn't mean we will never do the wrong thing, we'll stumble and fall and hurt again and again.

    What's important is to live another day to tell the story, learn from it and move forward. You're doing that otherwise you would have blown your brains out years ago - some do that.

    Whatever gives us the grip on getting through another day of living in this s---hole of a world is good for starters. There's more to it than that but if you don't get up and out for another day of fighting it - how's that go? - you live for the fight when that's all that you've got. But there's more than that.

    You've got more than that and you know it. And you know what else - f-k anybody that can't bear to hear it. They don't have to. It's not their hurt or their burden.

    I'm sure you already know there's no answer to "why?" Why - because. Because it happened, because life really does suck badly when it isn't cool and it's not cool a good percentage of the time. I'm fortunate but I do screen myself from anyone who would push my buttons or give me the urge to beat the crap out of them because they're such idiots. It's much easier to maintain my good will towards others remembering that just because they're as-sholes doesn't mean I have to be.

    But y'know and having said that - writing screeds in an email is one thing - anyone say that to your face stick your foot up their as-s.Then tell them to get over it.

  7. Abigail: I meant that you guys went easy on me. I never found out why I got suspended the 2nd time. I thought they were just going to run me out of here whatever it took. I know that isn't true now, but I said to myself, hey man, you been posting as a minority opinion for 7 years and these folks seem to need a break from you, so why don't you take a break from them as well. Few days later I logged on at someone else's place to show him the Athletes/Rocky horror video. After that I didn't even LURK here until this past Nov 8th. I thought about getting on here during the last month before the '08 election because I wondered what ClayJay and Templelady might have to say about Sarah Palin, but didn't. I came back because I wondered if Howard Allen was still alive and if GSC doesn't know, NOBODY knows. I see his wife has passed plus a few others I didn't know about, but seeing the graphics and the forums I just found myself reading threads again. What can I say?

    One thing I did before posting again was to reread the entire thread of 'A few big things I learned taking pfal'. Doing that reminded me what GSC was like at the time I left. It also allowed me to read my own posts from a detatched pov, not caught up in the emotions of the moment. There were times when, without provocation, I introduced a harsh tone into a benign section of posts. Not cool. I really did need a time out. Glad I got here before the end.

    I'm glad you made it back before it closed to John. We all got a little testy from time to time. I know I did.

  8. Someone on your friends list tried to invite you back into the group. She got a message saying you left the group. When that message comes up your friends cannot simply bring you in by inviting you (if they could it would mean you might never be able to leave if you wanted to). You will have to send a request to join to the GSC page and then Bramble will approve you.

    Perhaps you inadvertently hit the leave group when trying to add friends or something?

  9. I had Bramble remove me from being an administrator. As I said at the start of this, you are both welcome to the grop and no one blocked you. Neither of us knows what happened, but if you want in the group you are welcome and now you don't have to worry about sushi or I removing you and I don't have to worry about being falsley accused.

  10. Cindy you are mistaken. My husband does not have access to my facebook account and I did not remove you. and BTW, facebook would never have revealed that even if I had. So. . . I do not know what happened. I told you here, I told in 2 PMs you and your husband are welcome to the group.

    I do not know what happened, but I did not remove you. Beckie did not remove you. NO ONE has been blocked from the group. EVER.

  11. Yes, indeed - if you block my wife, you block me.

    Cindy, there is something weird or wrong here. I checked the block lists in the GSC on facebook and no one has blocked you or anyone else. To my knowledge, there are only two of us at GSC who have access to block people . . . me and Bramble. I haven't talked to Bramble yet, her husband is in the hospital, but I cannot imagine she would have blocked you.

    There are two ways into the group. Someone who is already in the group and on your friends list can bring you in or you can request to join. If you ask to join, I will approve the request.

    I do not know what happened. I do know facebook can be glitchy and sometimes I will get notifications that 3 or 4 people have asked to join and when I go to hit the "button" that allows access it will only give me 1 name.

    Whatever the case may be, if you want back in I will approve the request.

  12. Abi, you were a wonderful mod. Actually, I was never moderated on anything here until I sallied forth into the political forum this past year. But it was a pleasure talking with you Abi - you've got a good heart. I hope your family is doing well.

    Alas, I think I am #1 on Paw's list. :(

    Thanks Sunesis. Things are settling down into something akin to a routine again. Hoping to get the oldest back to school when the break is over.

    FWIW - you and ClayJay . . . . everyone gets mad sometimes. I have been moderated too. Everyone gets that.

  13. Raf, Abigail, ClayJay (J Lingo) and Oakspear. All you guys are moderators? I'm surprised I didn't get suspended MORE.

    John, I'm pretty sure I never moderated you. In fact, I got involed as a moderator, in part, to defend voices like yours and Oldiesman. I may not agree with you on very many topics, but I always believed you had a right to voice your opinion (as long as you did so respectfully). I also believed you had a right to be treated with respect when people responded to you.

    Believe it or not, as much as your opinions angered me at times . . . I angered a number of my friends defending your right to express them.

    I should qualify that by explaining that I did not so much have to defend you to other moderators in my moderator hat. It was more an issue of defending you to other posters in my Abigail hat.

  14. Kit, I sent you an email. Or, if you want you can private message me. If you are interested in the facebook group but nervous about the privacy issues, I can talk you through how to set up your page so that your privacy is as intact as it can be on facebook.

  15. I was reminded tonight of the years I have spent here. The pages upon pages on which I have poured out a lifetime's worth of words. I came here newly out and married to someone still in. There were so many people who helped me in those early days. Pamsandiego, Belle, Oakspear, Mandii, Satori, ExC . . . . more than I could name. As I explored my relationship with God and my religious heritage . . . Clay, SirG, Bramble, again more people than I could name. Then there were the chatroom food fights with Hope, Shellon, Sushi (of course), Hap . . . .

    Here I grew from a frightened and confused little girl to a woman who can stand on here own two feet and take on the world, when necessary.

    And among the many friends I have made, I owe a gigantic debt of gratitude to Paw for providing me with a safe place to pour out my thoughts and heart as I explored who I was and who I wanted to become. My life story is hidden among the back pages of the many faces of Greasespot. Thank you Paw, more than words can say, for allowing me a place to pour out my inner most thoughts within the safety of anonymity, until I no longer felt the need to hide. :)

  16. I honestly don't know where I would be today, if it hadn't been for the cafe. Here I recovered from the horrors of TWI. Here I began my journey into logical and critical thinking. Here I received the inspiration and encouragement to return to school and to explore my religious heritage. Here I received the love and support to get out of an abusive marriage. Here I met my wonderful husband and many true friends.

    Paw, thank you for all you have done for those of us exiting TWI. I will miss this place, but I am also glad that you are finally willing to remember that it is okay to take care of yourself. :)

    We should at the very least do a chatroom meet up on New Years Eve as part of the send off. However, I need someone to help me figure out why I cannot get into chat on my laptop. I know it is something in my security settings, but I haven't figured out what yet.

  17. Okay, Garth, I'll take a crack at it.

    Just a few curious questions here. (Yes folks, one of the vile village atheists is speaking up. :rolleyes: )

    What exactly is it that 'forgiveness' is supposed to accomplish?

    It allows the person injured to move past the injury and forward in life.

    What does it do; towards/in regards to the perp, that is?

    Depends on the situation. Forgiveness may do absoultely nothing for the "perp" or it may alleviate the perp from feelings of guilt or shame. Example: I forgive my sister for yelling at me. We both now feel better. Example: I forgive someone who hurt me long ago in my past, but never actually express that forgiveness to the person: It does nothing for them, but it still helps me move past the injury and forward with life.

    Does that relieve them of their responsibility/culpability of the crime(s)/transgression(s)? (In that account in Matthew(?) that seems to be the case, yet people today don't seem to make that particular connection.)

    No. People are always responsible for the choices they make. Forgiveness may relieve them of some of their feelings of guilt and shame, but it does not relieve them of responsibility.

    And why should forgiveness be _required_? "You need to give said perp forgiveness, and God _requires_ it!" I always thought that forgiveness is where you _give_ absolution to the transgressor, and you did it with a _giving_ heart. If you _have_ to give, then it's not giving, ... right?

    We have to give it not because it gives absolution to the trnasgressor, but because it gives absolution to the person forgiving.

    And what about people who 'ask for forgiveness', ie., expect to get it, so that they get out of being responsible for what they did? Are you still obliged to give them the forgiveness anyway? Knowing that they are just looking for a way out of being held accountable for what they did?

    Forgiveness does not alleviate responsibility. See answers above.

    I would also add, forgiveness comes in many forms and can take days, weeks, years, decades. We all forgive in our own way and in our own timetable. Much like we all grieve the loss of a loved one in our own way, in our own timetable, etc.

    Just a few questions that I think people should seriously consider, ... even if it challenges what they are told to believe.

    and for the record . . . I never believe something simply because I am told to believe it. Not anymore. Been there, done that, have no interest in repeating it.

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