Originally posted in August 2021; updated a bit in August 2024
So my blog may seem to be shifting among a couple of themes.
A friend who is a professional journalist/editor encouraged me to be clear on my mission in my writing.
Let me try to state my mission for this blog. It is minimally five-fold.
To break silence and dispel secrecy, I aim to promote genuineness, truth, lovingkindness, and increased safety for the vulnerable.
By sharing my own experiences, I hope to help others with whom my story resonates. We live in community and sharing our life experiences can benefit others - even save others' lives.
By sharing lessons I have learned and things I have read that have helped me, I hope to share such benefits.
My mission is also to shed light on abusive behavior so that hopefully there are fewer people hurt and stumbled by intolerable treatment of anyone.
Finally, since I am aware that I mention God in my blog, and this could be difficult for dear ones in my life who don't believe in God, I hope readers would consider God, perhaps in a new way, and come to know God personally.
So topics may seem a bit random... but in my heart, they are all related.
I drove from Dallas to Albequerque today. Part of the way I listened to an audiobook: Cults Inside Out (Rick Alan Ross).
Chapter 3 is resonating with me, discussing characteristics of "family cults" - cult-like behaviors that have, in my experiences in the current crisis, been major factors in dismantling my practical married life. Please notice, I am not calling the family a cult; but cult-like behaviors are undeniable. I won't thoroughly expound tonight. I need rest. But I also want to get things out, as they help me. Characteristics of cult-like family dynamics, that resonate with me, are:
Family is led by an "all-powerful" - usually patriarchal - figure.
Deceptive and coercive persuasion and control techniques are used.
The bonds are strong, due to expected family loyalty.
Children know nothing different, so they accept what outsiders regard as bizarre behavior.
"DDD" syndrome develops: Debility, dependence, and dread.
Deception is used.
Deception, control of the environment, and unhealthy socialization may debilitate those victimized.
Stringent rules and relative isolation enforce the debilitation.
Those held are expected to show dutiful submission and commitment to (parental) authority.
Victims are deceptively controlled by authority figures that appear to be benevolent and beneficial.
Through relative isolation, the authority figure (typically the father figure) becomes the sole source of the victim's validation.
Because of the assumption that the group (family) is always right, any "negative" thinking is unacceptable and functionally inexcusable.
The environment is contained by absolutes.
Whenever/Whatever failures occur, they cannot be attributed to the leader/authority figure.
Victims must (or, learn to) suppress their doubts and criticisms.
Victims inhabit a world of shame and submission, where the leader actively encourages escalating dependency.
Status within the family is contingent on agreement with "black and white" thinking, that allows little, if any, room for ambiguity.
Within such an environment, nothing human is immune to a flood of stern moral judgments.
All "taints" and "poisons" - "impurity" (or, being human) - must be searched out and eliminated.
There is an ongoing subtle undermining of self-esteem.
The group may threaten or inflict punishment to maintain dependence.
The dread of disequilibrium, the dread of punishment or future retribution, that often solidifies control within a family cult.
The result of this process is a person who proclaims great happiness, but hides great suffering.
Oh.... I can't describe how much these words describe my experience. Retribution for showing my feelings, for speaking something that is the truth but not acceptable to an authority figure in the family... such behaviors have caused me to lose nearly everything I knew: my home, marriage life, contact with my husband's family (that I treasured), access to a vehicle, fellowship with dear ones in my church community, my children's stability/family/home life... even my jobs, multiple times, due to crying at work.
Almost exactly one week before I got sent away from my home again on December 25, 2019, I received an email from one of my in-laws. It included:
"One of the things I found when I got home was a note from you that you wrote on 12/4/18. (It was one of those experiences, where you know it was the Lord's sovereign arrangement for me to see it at this time). It was just on top of an object in one of my closets and I saw it as I was looking for something else. I don't think I had really read it before. You had left a calendar at your house for me with this note attached..... Ironically, I did not see the calendar until I had ben at your house for several weeks, almost at the end of my stay - although it was in plain sight.
Now I am here reading your note:
'R-------, I intended to bring this to Mayo. Then I planned to mail it to you. I wish so badly I could just be with you and Donny again, on this life-journey together. I just keep making mistakes and not knowing what to do with the pain. I'm so sorry. I'm soooooo sorry. I'll miss my husband unutterably. But I can't bear the guilt and shame and pain I brought on myself in all of this. I love you. Thank you for your care and love. I hope you and Donny have a very special time. Love, Ruth'
I hope you don't mind me quoting it.
As I read it, what welled up in me is a sweet remembrance of a person I have love and admired since I met her. Your note had in it the preciousness of a gift to the Body, that is a treasure. Thank you, Ruth."
And then this relative signed off.
Adding this on August 12, 2024:
To that relative, my husband’s mother, I would say, “My note caused a remembrance of me to well up in you? But you were also fine sending the writer of that note away from her home and away from her husband, while YOU stayed with my husband in MY home. My note 'had in it the preciousness of a gift to the Body' but I, your daughter-in-law, your son's faithful wife, the writer of that note, was made homeless by you and your family, while you have multiple homes and would come and go from my home whenever you pleased. My husband and I were married.. You were one of several who put us asunder. This is truly evil. And don’t tell me again that I’m “on the wrong tree.” God’s Word tells us to ABHOR what is evil. I ABHOR what you and others did to me, while I kept desperately apologizing for any offense I had caused you, so that I could be restored to my place in your family, in my marriage, and in my home, for the sake of not only myself, but for the sake of my children (YOUR grandchildren), and for the sake of all whom our lives and marriage affect."
When I wrote that note, I was leaving my home because my husband told me I couldn't be there, and that his mother was about to arrive. I wanted to stay with my husband unutterably, but expressed pain and guilt and shame that "I brought on myself..." and I wished my mother-in-law and my husband a very special time. I was continually refused the opportunity to live in my house until police told me to go home months later... and the person who wrote this, a few days after I finally returned, refused to assure me, per my specific request, that my marriage would be honored, that I would be included in my husband's care.... Months later, I was told that I have to leave my home again. But by then, I had learned, and I stood up for myself. Even if it meant not "submitting" to the "authority figures" in the family, and facing the retribution.
What had I done, that I referred to in that note? I had raised my voice at my husband and his mother, because I was hurt about something that made me lose trust in a very important older member of our family. I expressed my pain. I was expected to show dutiful submission and commitment to parental authority who must appear as benevolent. I did not "suppress" my feelings, I "inhabited a world of shame and submission", my "status within the family was contingent on agreement with 'black and white' thinking, that allows little, if any, room for ambiguity." My being human was subject to a flood of stern moral judgments. My self-esteem and even role as a wife were undermined, I faced major disequilibrium, punishment, retribution... and the result was... I became a person hiding great suffering.... which was intensely isolating from almost everyone in my life... until I could hide it no longer... and I began to speak out.
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