# maybe it's time I spoke out...



## JaniceM (Sep 4, 2017)

Long ago, I got mixed up with some very messed-up, manipulative individuals.  This is what I found in my experiences:  in general, when someone asks a question you can take either of two approaches-  you can either brush it off and not answer, or you can give an honest answer.  The catch:  both of those approaches were ‘wrong.’  If you do not answer, you’re said to be hiding something;  if you do answer, a truthful answer doesn’t cut it-  you must give the answer _they want.  _In addition, if you say something was ‘good,’ you’re attacked as being ‘dishonest;’  if you say something was ‘bad,’ you’re ‘trying to make people feel sorry for you.’  In other words, a lose/lose situation.   



Some of these individuals focused on specific topics-  relationships with parents, childhood.  Although I’d always gotten along well with my father, my mother and I never got along.  The facts:  first, she as much as told me that she’d ‘done all the parent stuff’ with/for her older kids, and wasn’t about to do it all again for me.  Second, anything pertaining to me wasn’t worth acknowledging-  interests, goals, accomplishments.  Third, she believed it was perfectly acceptable for a parent to expect adult-aged kids to forgo any lives of their own and be in-person caregivers to their parents.  It was this third example that led me to reach out to total strangers for advice- and it ended up destroying me, my life, and my family.   



The facts I just gave kinda sucked, but these individuals would not take it at face-value.  Instead of a demanding, unreasonable mother, they began using tactics that I later learned was common in the so-called ‘recovered-memory movement’ trying to get me to believe the ‘real’ problem was ‘****** abuse’-  that I wasn’t simply a nearly-middle aged person trying to figure out how to deal with an unreasonable parent, but that I was an ‘incest survivor.’  They started with my parents, then my much-older brother, an older kid and  police officers from my early childhood, and another claimed there were probably doctors in my childhood who ‘sexually abused’ me, too.  The individuals tried to weaken me by insisting I didn’t know my own life history, memories, or mind.  One of the individuals demanded I turn over all my family pictures, tossed them into a wastebasket, set fire to them, stating “You’ve gotta mark ‘em all as _Perpetrators.”  _ 



The individuals took cult-like approaches and tactics. Long before I learned about false memory, cults, etc., I started realizing something was very wrong-  but I found I couldn’t get rid of these people, when they weren’t directly ‘on’ me they were going after members of my family.  I also found I couldn’t simply put it all behind me, because they’d given false information and false accusations to some of my family members.  One family member vanished quite a few years ago, and one has never been willing to listen to my explanations for any of this.   



Today, and for a long time before now, the biggest regret of my life is we do not get ‘do-overs’-  we can’t take back horrible mistakes and do things differently.  But one reason I feel the need to tell all of this is hopefully it can help someone else avoid the same nightmare.  Specifically:  when I couldn’t come up with a solution to move ahead with my life without my mother’s interference, I reached out to strangers.  The first person was a very nice woman, but her advice set this all into action.  She said I could have a great life, but what I needed to do to achieve it was to ‘work the 12 Steps.’  So without any alcohol or drug problems, I jumped headfirst into AA and then NA, and then others pressured me to become involved with an ‘incest survivors’ program too.  However, it was ‘recovering’ alcoholics and addicts in AA and NA who came up with this ‘****** abuse’ stuff.  The way I’d explain it:  when you look for answers in the wrong places, you’ll find the wrong answers.  But all the wrong ‘answers’ that came up weren’t nearly as bad as the effects it’s all had on my family.  One family member was manipulated into believing I’m ‘insane’ because of ‘repressed memories’ (of things that never happened), and another is completely destroyed.  But try as I have, I don’t see anything I can do-  I can’t wind the calendar back to 1994 when this all started and do things differently…


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## hollydolly (Sep 5, 2017)

Dear Lord, Janice I don't know what to say...I'm sure others will be long who do....but I just want to say thank you for sharing what must be the most painful historic  part of your life for you, and as you say...if it only helps one person be aware of what can happen through mind manipulation then it'll have done it's job.

I'm very glad you came to realise what happened to you, many do not, but what heartbreak to learn that you lost members of your family through these manipulative lying 'cults'... 
Just shocking.


Did you ever get the real  help you sought in the first place?


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## Lara (Sep 5, 2017)

You've been through so much and it helps to put it all down in writing so as to organize your thoughts and to be able to step outside of the picture as you read back over it for clarity. It sounds like you have reached out to strangers for help, some well-intentioned and some not. You have learned now how to recognize toxic people so, moving forward, stay away from toxic negative people and choose positive people and proven good sources of help. You're right that we "do not get do-overs" for past mistakes but here's the good news...

I hope you don't mind me briefly mentioning the source I trust, God's Word, the Bible. I've relied on it most of my life. I don't know if you want to hear about it so I'll stop there because I'm not pushy about it. But if you do just let me know. It can tell you how to easily be completely free of those deep regrets that pop up unexpectedly in your thoughts and make you sad. Everyone has some regrets. But His Word can show us all how to instantly unload that burden and show us the way to fill that void inside with love, peace, and joy. I can help you find it if you want...quickly and easily.

Stay strong and believe in yourself. You can leave the darkness behind now and move forward in light. I care about you.


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## Happyflowerlady (Sep 5, 2017)

I totally agree with Lara, and I believe that staying away from the negative and toxic people is an important thing. I imagine that some of these people really were trying to help you, and maybe some of them had suffered through childhood abuse and repressed it. I have heard of people who said they had that problem, and they naturally might have thought the same thing had happened with you. 
I think we all do that sometimes. 
When someone tells me that something is wrong with their car (as an example) and I have had the same problems with my car, then I will say that it might be whatever it was that went wrong with my car. 
What happened with you was that it sounds like it became more than just helpful advice, and it devastated your life at that point. 
Sometimes I have wished that I could just go back in time long enough to correct my poor decisions , but like you said, we just can't fix the past, and all we can do is move on and do the best we can for the future. 
If you can write it down, as Lara suggested, then maybe you can send that to the family member who won't listen. Sometimes, that works better than trying to talk about something, because our emotions can get out of hand, and the conversation doesn't work out like we intended. 
With a letter, the other person can read it, try to understand your side, and maybe will change their opinion of what happened. If not, at least you have sent the letter and tried.


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## JaniceM (Sep 8, 2017)

hollydolly said:


> Dear Lord, Janice I don't know what to say...I'm sure others will be long who do....but I just want to say thank you for sharing what must be the most painful historic  part of your life for you, and as you say...if it only helps one person be aware of what can happen through mind manipulation then it'll have done it's job.
> 
> I'm very glad you came to realise what happened to you, many do not, but what heartbreak to learn that you lost members of your family through these manipulative lying 'cults'...
> Just shocking.
> ...



You know, that's something that didn't occur to me for a very, very long time-  after I was duly sucked into it all, the problem I'd sought help/advice for never came up again.  Not even with the first person I'd talked about it with.  Somehow, though, it resolved itself-  _without _their help.  

I can't say 'lost,' though, because I cannot give up on my family.


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## JaniceM (Sep 8, 2017)

Lara said:


> You've been through so much and it helps to put it all down in writing so as to organize your thoughts and to be able to step outside of the picture as you read back over it for clarity. It sounds like you have reached out to strangers for help, some well-intentioned and some not. You have learned now how to recognize toxic people so, moving forward, stay away from toxic negative people and choose positive people and proven good sources of help. You're right that we "do not get do-overs" for past mistakes but here's the good news...
> 
> I hope you don't mind me briefly mentioning the source I trust, God's Word, the Bible. I've relied on it most of my life. I don't know if you want to hear about it so I'll stop there because I'm not pushy about it. But if you do just let me know. It can tell you how to easily be completely free of those deep regrets that pop up unexpectedly in your thoughts and make you sad. Everyone has some regrets. But His Word can show us all how to instantly unload that burden and show us the way to fill that void inside with love, peace, and joy. I can help you find it if you want...quickly and easily.
> 
> Stay strong and believe in yourself. You can leave the darkness behind now and move forward in light. I care about you.



Thank you, I don't mind at all, especially because I agree with you-  I'd been in life-threatening situations, and the stress the rest of the time has been flattening, and I fully believe I wouldn't be alive and functioning if God didn't have some reason to keep me going.  I can't place how the quote goes-  'a strength that is not my own.'    I don't know what the reason is, though.


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## JaniceM (Sep 8, 2017)

Happyflowerlady said:


> I totally agree with Lara, and I believe that staying away from the negative and toxic people is an important thing. I imagine that some of these people really were trying to help you, and maybe some of them had suffered through childhood abuse and repressed it. I have heard of people who said they had that problem, and they naturally might have thought the same thing had happened with you.
> I think we all do that sometimes.
> When someone tells me that something is wrong with their car (as an example) and I have had the same problems with my car, then I will say that it might be whatever it was that went wrong with my car.
> What happened with you was that it sounds like it became more than just helpful advice, and it devastated your life at that point.
> ...



I'd tried everything possible with one person, but they've refused to listen;  the other is missing, so contact isn't possible.


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## terry123 (Sep 8, 2017)

I have always believed that when someone shows you who they are to believe them and continue on your way.  Distance yourself from toxic people whether they be friends or relatives.  I have a deep faith and believe that God moves people in and out of our lives for a reason.  Some stay for a few days, hours, a season or for years.  when we have learned the lesson they bring, they leave and we move on.  Just my experience.


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