Hi there,
I was recently reading a post by Jason Lanik entitled SPEAK UP, so here goes.

I was raise in the COG where I suffered sexual, mental and physical abuse.
Until now I’ve kept pretty quiet about it, but there is a time to SEAK UP, and that time has come.

I do not have any children but if I did I imagine I would try my best to provide them with all of the tools necessary to have a happy successful life. Tools like education, how to maneuver thought the world, and how to maintain healthy relationships with friends and family. I imagine that I would also try to protect them as best I could from abuse, failure and other pit falls.

When I left the COG with my family I realized, sadly, that I had lost my childhood. But that was not the worst of it. I soon realized that I also had no tools to function in normal society. Since then I have been struggling to gain an education, find fulfilling employment, and the biggest struggle of them all, to connect and maintain relationships with the people around me.

I have since moved away from my family, too many painful memories, and I live in a small town. As I watch the people around me achieve goals and move foreword with their lives in apparent ease, I wonder what is wrong with me? It is a struggle for me to get through the day without once thinking about how I was abused and degraded, much less try to move foreword with some kind of success in life. Why do I have to struggle so hard to gain an inch when others breeze by and enjoy life?

I soon realized that they have backup, we (xCOGs) do not. They have their family to pick them up when they stumble, to talk them though difficult choices, lead them in the right direction. At the least they have examples of healthy relationships, of what success looks like. When I speak of success, I not talking about being a “rich systemite”, I’m talking about having a healthy mind, body, and soul, and yes, material success as well.

Their parents have done their best to give them a hand up, by providing them with tools. With your help, family parents, we ex members are starting the race way behind the starting line. You denied us every opportunity as youth to make a healthy start in the world.

Why did you do this to us? Who gave you the right to destroy our lives?

An apology would be a start, but I’m not holding my breath.

So, Dear parents who raised your children in The Family, do you ever wonder why they are now drug addicts, do you wonder why they commit suicide? Oh, no, don’t give the credit to God, this one’s all on you.