Tag Archives: sam fife move of god

Accountability and the Fear Of Judgment

“When the parent heals, they heal their children’s children.”

The best thing my mother could have done when she was alive was to take accountability for what she took her children into. She never did. She died drowning in the river of denial. Why is this the best thing she could have done? Because it would have healed her. It would have healed my children, because it would have helped me heal long before I actually did.

What’s so hard about owning our own shit? Why do we so adamantly avoid it? What is this fear of accountability and judgment? I would come to realize, that understanding my mother’s refusal to own her behaviors would take me facing and looking at my own. Ouch. That stung to even write out. It’s true, though, and I’m going to tell you why.

“Don’t judge me.”

I know people who preface a story with this phrase. I used to sometimes do the same.

“Ok. I’m gonna tell you what happened but FIRST you gotta promise not to judge me.”

Judgement walks around leaving wafts of fear in its wake. Some of us fear judgment because we care what others think of us and derive our self-worth from the opinion of others. Some of us use religions as a basis to judge other people. Whatever the platform it’s performed from, there is one element that is constant across the board. No one wants to be in the front row when Judgment is on stage.

This has been one of the difficult parts of my healing journey; learning to stand without judgment and see a person exactly where THEY stand and not finding fault in them just so I could feel better about who I perceive myself to be. I’ve had to find my own well of confidence which was already bubbling inside of me. I just had not tapped into my own rich oil. In avoiding accountability and judgment, I was ignoring myself.

“I had to linearly eliminate my fear of judgment and stop caring about being judged. This was intensive self-work to take on.”

In this conversation on judgment we can rule out criminals. They break laws and must be judged by those laws. I’m talking about judgment that is often blanketed as “opinion”. That’s really what judgment is. It’s our opinion on someone’s life, their actions, behavior, decisions, choices, orientation, gender, skin color or whatever else we choose to focus in on. The point is, that for those skilled at the art of judgment there will always be something they can find to have an opinion about.

I found that step one of this learning curve in eliminating the fear of judgment was to look at why I had this fear. It lived in multiple facets of my life. I feared judgment on:

  • My parenting skills or lack thereof
  • My relationship choices
  • My weight and the state of my body
  • The way I spoke, or the words I chose
  • My personal views on life/society
  • My past

Here’s the kicker. I acted like I didn’t care at ALL what anyone thought. In fact I needed to reinforce that illusion by letting others KNOW every now and then that I didn’t care. I imagine many of you are feeling me on this. We are the skilled mask wearers, where on the outside we appear as if we do not give a stone cold shit. Oh, but I did. I cared very much what others thought of me. Words sunk into my skin like arrows. I was affected. I would ruminate on an opinion and even adjust my life out of that fear.

“To understand why I had so much fear of judgment took following the connecting strands into my childhood.”

I was surrounded by judgment as a child. Being a kid in Sam Fife’s “The Move Of God” cult meant walking around with an invisible “judge me!” sign on many of our backs. Day in and day out. Week after week. Year after year, I was subjected to judgment in multiple ways.

The ministers told us that God would be judging us.  That judgment was so deep it could result in an eternity inside a pit of fire. That one messed with my head. Especially after kerosene exploded in my face at 12-years-old, and I learned firsthand exactly what a second degree burn felt like. I shuddered at the thought of my whole body being engulfed in flames. For a whole eternity, 24/7, I would be a ball of burning pain. I did, however, somehow have a smidgen of critical thinking as a child. I would waver between extreme fear of hell and a doubt that anything these people said was true.

I was surrounded by judgmental adults. They judged others together. Then they judged each other behind each other’s backs while claiming to be friends. There was no loyalty or trust existent for me to pattern as a child. Growing up in a cult, I quickly absorbed that no one could be trusted.  I was enmeshed inside endless two-faced, judging eyes.

I watched kids lie on other kids to escape judgment. As a child in the cult, I both lied to escape judgment and was also lied about.  This environment, which included a deep fear of brutal, physical punishment, was a viscous “Avoid Blame” game. We were all constantly side eyeing each other.

This is what prison is like, always watching your back just in case someone comes after you. This is what living in a domestic violence relationship is like, always worrying you’ll say or do the wrong thing and get beat. The consequences of being judged can range from verbal attacks to physical attacks and in some instances and regions of the planet, even death.

“Fearing judgment is a deep clotted vein in our bodies. It is real, and it is dangerous to our wellbeing.”

Cleaning out fear of judgment was part of doing intense inner child work. I looked at every piece of my life, the moments I judged others, and the moments I was crippled by judgment. It was an extensively long list. There were times I felt I deserved judgment, when I made mistakes as an adult. It was easy for me to say that I had the right to judge others because I was tough enough to take it. No. I wasn’t. That was a big, fat lie. Being judged hurt horribly.

Yet, no one would ever judge me more harshly than I would judge myself. I was my own United States of Vennie’s Supreme Court. I’ve come a very long way, and it’s one I actively work on.

“Story-time.”

A few years ago I was visiting a family member. We were watching a movie. Suddenly my family member’s husband muted the television and turned to me.

“I am curious about something. Do you feel successful? I ask this because you don’t own anything. You don’t own a house. You don’t have assets. What have you done with your life?”

I was blindside and stunned. I looked at my family member, whose eyes were big as saucers, equally shocked at what her husband had just said to me. I later realized she might also have been waiting for me to lose my shit on her husband. I didn’t. I didn’t even have a desire to lose it. All of this happened in my head in a matter of seconds. I understood clearly that I was dealing with a truly miserable person who thought it was alright to put me down and verbally abuse me. I could see the thing for what it was, and it had nothing to do with me.

What I said next would reveal to myself one of the biggest steps forward in my growth journey. I smiled and kept my voice steady and low.

“My life is so rich. I have two brilliant sons who are adults making their own way independently in life. I have amazing friends. I am free to travel. I’m not tied to anything. I feel the freest than ever in my life. To be free and happy. That’s what success is to me.” I responded.

His face twisted. It wasn’t the reaction he expected. This time, I didn’t take the bait and go off so he could enjoy watching the show of my negative emotions. I was a bit surprised at myself. He retorted some sideways comment I don’t recall or think I even tried to hear, and then resumed watching television. I realized in that moment that I had conquered a huge auto reactionary habit response which had always flashed when I felt judged. In my head I congratulated myself. Inside my spirit and thinking I didn’t feel affected. I didn’t have the usual body reactions such as warmth spreading over my face or fight/flight heart palpitations as I prepared to release my dragons. None of that happened. There was a calm inside me which felt new and permanent.

I had taken a massive step in eliminating my concern over other people’s words in regard to how my life path had emerged itself or the choices I had made. I realized I could actually own all of my stuff. I didn’t have to wear a mask anymore. This began to burst open in many facets of my life as I took accountability for the places where I actually had failed. I learned that there was a difference between my actual mistakes and all of my self-perceived “failures”.

This leads me back to the quote at the top of this post. Healing my fear of judgment released the ability for accountability. This helped me become a better mother. I could look at my children and accept the times I made choices which negatively affected them. I could say this to them without feeling like a horrible failure of a mother. I could hold accountability without excuse.

“I didn’t make the right choice, and for that, I am sorry.”

Holy shit! Do you know the power of healing these words hold? Oh, my friends, let me tell you.

“Story time”

A few years ago I was in a very stressful situation. I had a dear friend who was also going through stress. In the process of that friendship, I projected my stress out into a conversation my friend and I had. I literally screamed into a voice note that my friend was “dead to me”.

If you just said, “What the hell??” you’re a better person than I was being at the time. Exactly! Who says that to their friend? Someone who needs to grow. That’s who. I could have said, “Hey, I can’t deal with this right now because I’m overloaded.” Right? No. I was reactive, and I projected my personal stress into someone who didn’t deserve it. Bad behavior!

I justified the way I acted for a long time, until I had personal growth, and it began to bother me how I had spoken to them. I really loved this person and had promised never to betray them. Yet, I had horribly emotionally betrayed them. When we realize we have wronged someone it does not end there. This is where I have a perspective on the forgiveness concept.

“Forgiveness involves two steps. The first one is the most crucial and must happen if forgiveness is to be the end result.”

  1. I had to contact the person I had been cruel to and apologize. I had to detail my behavior, so they understood I recognized it. I had to say, “I’m sorry.” without expectations.
  2. They got to make the choice on how to receive my apology or if they even wished to accept it.

Accountability should not have expectations. I didn’t apologize with an expectation of acceptance. I did it because it was the right thing to do. Our accountability cannot be self-serving. It must stand with truth and the purpose of making a wrong behavior right again.

There is an inner freedom which comes with accountability. That does not mean we get to keep acting badly just because we own it. No. Accountability comes with change of our behavioral patterns. It means we look at ourselves and, through that examination, we create elimination of the rotten parts of our behavior and thought processes.

I found that as I worked on my self-accountability and my own fear of judgment something else happened. I judged others less. I didn’t have to work very hard at that. It came automatically. When we can connect how bad it feels to BE stabbed with the fact that’s exactly how it feels for someone else when we stab them, it helps us put the knife down.

Accountability is part of processing for me. It’s not just about actions either. I am accountable for how I speak to myself; how I self-care and how I conduct my life in as such as it relates to ensure that I am maintaining personal health; physically, mentally and emotionally.

While I no longer fear the judgment of others and don’t feel an urge to have opinions on other people’s lives, per-say, I am still working on self-judgment. I work on my body image. I work on how I speak to myself and about myself. Sometimes the people who appear the most confident can have some of the most self-destructive inner conversations.

Self-accountability takes a lot of work. One thing I want to leave you with is remembering this. We do not have full control over how others choose to see us. We have 100% control over how we view ourselves and others. We have 100% control over how we behave and process our own emotions.  When I began to actively practice this self-control, many triggers naturally fell away.

When you have moments of self-judgment, apologize to yourself. Be accountable to your own being. You will immediately heal the wound you just created in yourself.  Our relationship with our own mind and body is completely within our own choices.  Forgive yourself for the past if you self-harmed with bad behavior, food, drugs, alcohol or whatever it may be.  Tomorrow is a new day, and you get to choose. That is a freedom no one can ever take from us.

“Fear of accountability and fear of judgment often hold hands. What I can promise you from experience is that self-accountability will help heal your fear of judgment.”

Love yourself. You deserve it.

4 Ways to Stop Fearing Other People’s Judgment

I Stopped Fighting Because I Can’t Win

“All my life I’ve had to fight.” Sophia, The Color Purple

One year after leaving an abusive cult where we have spent our childhood merely surviving, my sister and I curl up on a second-hand couch in a mobile home sitting on a Tennessee, small-town trailer park, and we weep together as we watch “The Color Purple.”

It will be the below scene that will stick in our minds forever. When we become adults, we will smile together, softly making fun of ourselves, recalling how real the separation anxiety and fear of abandonment was for us.

This movie scene will make my brother’s face come into my view, time and time again, a nine-year-old little boy clinging to my father’s legs as our mother pulls him away. The sheer helplessness in my father’s eyes will never leave my peripheral vision. I will hear my brother’s screams echoing inside of Sophia’s words. I will see the white blonde of his sweaty hair pasted to his forehead, the redness in his cheeks and the shuddering of his heaving shoulders from so many sobs.

This movie scene will remind me of Prins Samuel, a man from India, who came to the cult in the early 80’s and took a liking to my teenage, older sister. Terrified that she would be taken back to India, I write in my memoir, “Cult Child”, about the afternoon Prins and his travel companion come knocking at our cabin door.

“I pick up my book to read for a while when there is suddenly a loud banging on the door. It’s louder than usual, but I ignore it for Leis to answer. The banging continues so I go to the top of the ladder. Leis is at the door with her back pressed up against it. She signals to me with her finger to her lips.

“Ssssshhh…”

“Who is it?” I say in a loud whisper.

“These two guys from India who are here visiting. Prins and Max. Shhhh! I’ll tell you in a minute.” She whispers back.

We stay silent as the men continue to knock, and I lay flat against the floor of the loft peeking down as one of them cups their eyes with their hands to look inside our cabin through the bay window.”

“Cult Child” excerpt

Body memories come in waves, signaled by rapid heart beats and sweaty palms. I recall ducking down the cult compound pathways with my sister and avoiding the men from India at every turn. The days they were visiting seemed endless. We worried. We hid. We were terrified of being separated.

So many moments in an abused child’s life are filled with the anxiety of abandonment and separation. As a child, my sister was my only lifeline. If she was taken away, my last strand of feeling any severance of “protection” would have been erased. In abusive situations, when the children are removed from the abuse environment, keeping children together is crucial, unless one of the children is harming the others, of course. Abused children can create a deep bond with one another; a bond which helps them survive. Separating them becomes an additional wound.

In my song, Capable, I write:

“See ever since I arrived I’ve been fighting to keep all the pieces alive; from drowning.”

To live a life of fighting is exhausting for a child. I was already exhausted physically, psychologically and emotionally by the time I was a teenager. This is part of why abuse victims struggle so much when they become adults.

Imagine you begin working at three years old. You rise before dawn to do field work. You work all day until you go to bed at night. Your sleep is often interrupted and limited to 4/5 hours a night. Riddled inside of these grueling work days you are also subjected to physical and emotional abuse, neglect, sexual molestation and extreme mind controlling beliefs. Additionally, you witness this same abuse happening to other children.

Imagine spending your whole childhood fighting to process every moment of your day. In later years, I can tell you, that you will want to sleep for hours, days, weeks, months and sometimes years. You will want to somehow rest your mind, but by the time you get to a place in your life where you can rest, your mind won’t be able to sleep anymore due to its inability to expel the insomnia that years of trauma memories create.

If the first eighteen years of your life are filled with fighting to survive, by the time you enter society after high school, when you should be excited about starting your independent life, you are already very tired. When you reach fifty-years-old, the cusp of your life, you feel as if you are seventy-years-old in spirit. That’s the weariness which sets over the mind, body and soul of an abused human being.

No child should ever begin their life fighting through environmental combat battles day in and day out. They fight to protect their mind until adults break it and fill it with their own ideals. Children fight to have just a voice, a choice, an opinion or any respect in their little lives. They are often brushed off by adults and the system and not even considered an actual “person” until they become eighteen.

Yet, they are people. Children are individual little beings, who have entered this planetary dimension with their own unique DNA.

Everything my siblings and I did was a “representation” of our mother, according to her. When I fucked up and became incarcerated at the age of eighteen, she wept embarrassingly in the visiting room…. EVERY TIME SHE CAME!

“Where did I go wrong? How can you do this to me?” My mother lamented.

Ah, the sweet scent of martyrdom, almost confessing before blaming me. In my lowest moments, she somehow succeeded in always making them about her own failures, failures she never really ever identified, though. If she walked the edge of accountability, it was only in private and always to her own advantage, vauge and hollow.

To hear my mother tell it, I was the “wild child“; the “black sheep” of the family. I had always been the difficult one, the loud one. You know, the youngest ones usually are, she’d say. Enter her fake lipsticked smile and an invisible hand to the forehead in angst.

In Rise Of Sila, the totality of my mother’s psychosis emerges, manifesting sad remnants of a cult that starved her and snatched her mind the moment she stepped foot onto their first compound is emerging even more. It’s not easy to examine. Some days I can dig in. Other days, I must rest.

All her life my mother fought. All her life my grandmother fought. Into my Moravian ancestry, women fought to survive, working themselves into death, sick in body and shattered in soul. This is why I decided to stop fighting. I had to break the generational trauma of lives filled with suffering. Why I stopped fighting is a multifaceted thing.

I stopped fighting because I cannot win. I stopped fighting because I don’t want to win.

Who was I fighting? Everyone, including myself.

Why was I fighting? Fear. Fear of abandonment, loss and hurt.

Most humans fight out of sheer fear.

I’m a major Game Of Thrones addict. Arya Stark is one of my favorite characters. The child in me relates to everything about her journey in this series. She was born having to fight. She lived having to fight.

SPOILER ALERT

In one season, Arya finds herself inside of the arena of the faceless man. He teaches her to become no one. She becomes blind so that she can see everything. She spends days, hours, minutes, fighting off her inner demons and rage, and when she is finished, she emerges as a mighty warrior, able to wield her slender sword with exact precisions. She develops the ability to become the very person she must eliminate. She becomes a woman wearing her emotions like a badge of honor, yet still, she understands that being no one is the true way of the warrior.

I am nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore I am perfect.

All of my childhood and a large part of my adulthood, I felt like a “nobody”, the kind of nobody who was lower than the swamp. My mind battered my own existence in deep ways. My thoughts told me I was destined to be an overweight food addict all of my life. I believed I was a “Jezebel” just like the cult pedophiles had described us young girls. To myself I was not worthy of anything good. I would never “have” anything good. I would never “be” anything good.

Then one day, I just stopped in my tracks. I had no more energy left to keep fighting. I had to make a choice. I turned to myself. I looked at the “nobody” that I am.

I explored her and I learned so much. What was I trying to win at? Being me? Who was I? I had to go faceless. I was fighting no one. I re-defined my understanding of what it truly meant to be “nobody.”

I dove into myself blindly.

Straight into the bottom of my own nothingness I sank. Do you know what is inside of the dark matter of yourself? Let me tell you, loves. There is infinite possibility. You will fight the darkness fiercely at first. That’s what you’re used to. Fighting. Your whole life you’ve done it. You’ve been separated from yourself, trying to win a war with no one.

The truth is, we are actually ever morphing, infite streams of something. I stopped fighting because without me fighting, I had no one to fight with. Everything I projected outward was really about my innards. Faceless, I roamed my own hallways. I left slain apparitions in the dark corners, lighting them on fire as I passed.

It takes two or more to tango, and so I merged every one of my inner enemies into my nothingness. They evaporated inside of me and became one with my existence. Without me fighting, they don’t have to hide. Together we stand in the Light of truth.

When I accepted that I was no one, I realized I am all of me.

I am everything I observe and absorb. Now, I dance with all of it; the fear, the danger, the anger and the evil. I dance it into my own joy and worth. More can be eliminated in synced-together movements, than in the brutality of battles and war. If this isn’t clear to you yet, stop fighting. Stop trying to win. Be still for a while. Observe yourself.

Stand within your nothingness so you can be all of who you are. Inside the nothingness there is no need for validation. Worry dissipates. Fear gets sucked into your self love. Anger expresses its pain, processing itself inside the brilliance of your confidence.

I ceased fighting, and now, standing in the silence of the nothing, I hear everything.

The Moment I Went Invisible Is The Moment I Became Invincible

Traveling within our own beings we find the universe that we were born to be.
You have universes inside of you.

I Never Loved My Body. Here’s Why.

When I broach the topic of my own sexuality and where I am inside of it, I am sometimes told that my state of mind and feelings regarding my sexuality are just skewed by my child sexual abuse. I don’t completely disagree with that perspective. It’s not a new concept. It’s a scientific fact that child rape shatters a human both mentally and physically.

I do however, disagree that’s its skewed. I wouldn’t use that specific word.  My whole view of sexuality was formed from being raped as a child.  To define my perspective as skewed is implying that I once had a choice to know what sexuality even was.  Just as I have had to travel a path of re-programming my DNA back to its authentic thought perspective form, to expel physical and mental childhood trauma, so I’ve also had to do work specifically with my sexuality.

 “You see, I’ve never loved my body, but not because my body isn’t lovable. It’s that the natural urge to love myself in any way was taken from me by abusive adults.”

Vennie Kocsis

You see, I’ve never loved my body, but not because my body isn’t lovable.  It’s that the natural urge to love myself in any way was taken from me by abusive adults.  When I say, “never loved my body”, I don’t mean standing naked in front of a mirror and being happy with what I see. I didn’t love my body by not caring how it was used. I didn’t know what boundaries were. I didn’t know that I had an option of saying no. By the time I was old enough to learn I could say no, I was formed into a fearfully compliant and sexual system. I often moved into a space of sexual robotics, dissociated away from the act itself, even convincing myself that I loved individuals I did not love, so the programmed guilt of my sexuality would not plague me.

Growing up in a religious cult, I was taught that my body was a temple. Masturbation was a sin. Females who had sex before marriage were vile, dirty whores. Girls who were caught being seductively raped by much older men were blamed for their own fear and compliance. We were taught that our bodies belonged to the Christian God until a husband was chosen for us.

We were taught purity in conjunction with being raped by pedophiles, who came in droves to backwoods communes full of children; pedophiles who sought healing from the religious ministry, a ministry more intent on their doctrine and accepting the pedophiles into the fold to cast out the “pedophile demon”, than on the safety of us children.

If you think all rape is violent you are wrong. There are many ways a predator takes what they want from children and/or adults. Sometimes it’s soft coercion through gifts and items given, so the predator can later say, “Now you owe me.” Sometimes it’s offering sweets, toys or gadgets to little children. Sometimes it’s seducing a teenager or adult who blindly believes and hopes for love. Sometimes there is the use of drugs and/or alcohol. Sometimes it is taken by force as the victim fights to no avail. The list of ways rape is enacted is long and varying.

The media tends to highlight violent rape when soft coercive rape is possibly more often used. It can leave even the victim blaming themselves. It can coerce the victim into believing they participated and even enjoyed it. It shatters the mind into countless pieces.

Whether through physical violence or mental coercion, when the intent of the rapist is to TAKE for them-self, it is, indeed, rape. It is not a fully consensual act.  Children cannot consent to and should not be consenting to sexual acts.  It is a violation for which there is no coming back.  There is no argument for this.  The fact that child rape damages a human so deeply, is proof enough of its dissecting aftermath.   When fear or falseness is involved in the taking of anything from another human without their awareness, it is an absolute act of taking. It leaves scars. It leaves a broken body and mind as the predator walks away full and fed.

Shattered throughout my whole-body system, physically and neurologically, I ran through life in many modes. At times I was in fight or flight for days. Other times I was dissociated. I had other states of being come into my forefront as the authentic me wandered and self-moved like a robot behind them. I had no way to gauge what was healthy for me.

I would search many facets of sexuality, from bisexuality to the lifestyle of fetishes and BDSM; to poly-amorous attempts and more. Being a sexual abuse survivor, I had no self-awareness to connect my spirit with my sexuality.  I had yet to call my soul back into my body.  Instead, sex became a way to both numb and sometimes expel rage and pain.

I had been trained to never say no. I had been trained that saying no would leave me punished and/or shunned.  Saying no meant I wasn’t a good person.  Saying no meant I was selfish. I had been trained for compliance since the age of three. It was all that my mind and my body ever knew.

Many victims of sexual abuse take a journey through exploring extreme sexuality. I do not blame them or judge them for this journey. There is both a disconnect and a confusion in the mind towards our sexuality when we have been raped starting at a very young age. We sometimes become dominant to control being hurt. Yet, in the quiet of our mind, the pain still exists. We sometimes become compliantly submissive, believing if we give our bodies fully, that we will be loved, often ending up further abused.

I am not ashamed of my sexual past.  You should not be either.  Let no one shame you, and please do not shame yourself.  All my experiences, especially the ones which left me hurt and damaged, with more scars, remnants of my pain left in the hands of men who only cared about their own wants and having visuals to hold for their own pleasure, have formed me into who I am today. This does not erase their accountability for their predatory behavior. Acceptance is merely my path to freeing myself from the hold these sexual patterns have had on me.

I believe deeply in my own sacred sexuality. I now know that my vagina belongs to MY body. I am not a fan anymore of the ideal that sacred sexuality means giving my body away. This does not at all feel in alignment with my spirit or what makes me feel comfortable inside.

I have misgivings about the industry of sacred sexuality. It is a new-age trend rife with predators, many seemingly moving through one partner after another, and charging money to other humans to “free them from their sexual traumas and blocks”. One can only wonder the effect this has on individuals emotionally, especially when they have been severely sexually abused. I see the trends of sexual gurus, and their followers crawling behind them, believing that “free sex” means “healed wounds”.  I’ve see the aftermath from those who have awakened to understand they were being preyed upon by ill-intended individuals.

I am becoming very comfortable in owning this personal space. As the numbers of my age rise, the more I am deeply connected to the ethereal strand holding my body together. I have come to many realizations over the years. I have given my body to other humans for the wrong reasons, most of which did not align with my greater good.

Sexual healing, for me, has been learning to say no without fear of rejection and loss.

Healing from my sexual abuse has meant being willing to walk away from anyone who can’t respect the space I am choosing to be centered into, who would still coerce me or place me in a compliant or humiliating position, even after me having said it wasn’t where I wanted to be.  Healing has meant walking away from those who may have a hold on this part of me. Healing is putting my body first in health and energetic care.  Healing has involved learning to be alone with myself without feeling lonely and loving my body with a healthy perspective.

I dare say be mindful of your intuition, fluttering there below your rib cage. If you feel as I feel, in a space of exclusivity, with no urge to give yourself to others out of a “free sexuality” trend following or patterns of past abuse, don’t let anyone persuade you away from yourself.  Do not judge, but more so, do not let yourself be judged for not following along with any patterns of group think.  You have the right to be an individual with your own choices.

This poem grew out of this journey, as my childhood sexual abuse has been the deepest wound I’ve had to clean.  It is the wound which has held the densest toxins and had the strongest hold on me.

Somewhere

There are kisses invisible

Sent by men who

Stare at ceilings

Dripping with strands

Of hair.

I don’t dare travel there.

Imagine surprises;

Beach town getaways,

Watching watery sunrises.

But aloneness

Doesn’t call

For such privileges.

Floating to other circles,

Hoping for different hues;

Something new,

Unfamiliar.

Some call it

‘Being loved unconditional.’

I don’t know what

That feels like.

I know abuse and use,

Sex feigned as passion.

Forever exists;

Waiting somewhere.

by Vennie Kocsis, 2015

As I am rising higher inside of my own power, I am wielding an invisible sword called boundaries.  I reserve and demand the right to say no. I do not consent to being love bombed and flattered into giving myself away. I hold onto my power, as it is my sovereign right to be in full control of my human body. My mind can no longer be persuaded to go against the greater good of my own thoughts and desires.

As it is, so shall it be.  img_3657Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and the hostess of Survivor Voices Show and her live Sunday broadcast Off the Cuff. She is an advocate, poet and artist.

The Horror at 1379 Milepost

If you take a drive from Fairbanks, Alaska, an hour down Richardson Highway, through Delta Junction, you will arrive at 1379 Milepost. There you will turn onto a solitary road. At the end of that road is a religious commune with a history so horrible, the average person can only listen with radical acceptance, in order to grasp the total truth about the roots of this cult.  Child Abuse.  Sexual Molestation.  Mental Brainwashing.  Torture.  Public Humiliation.  Sleep Deprivation.  Control.  Triangulation.  All orchestrated in a patriarchal society of narcissists.

Three years ago, a couple of young reporters made a trip out to two of the Alaska compounds. At the 1379 Milepost compound, where I lived from the ages of seven to fourteen, they were met by a man named David Johnson, Their eyes were wide with disbelief. What my fellow survivor and I had told them was in fact, truth. There are compounds deep in the Alaskan woods, secluded, patrolled and controlled, a place where they were not allowed to step foot anywhere, except the office inside of the Tabernacle.  A tour of that compound was out of the question, according to David Johnson.

Plans for The Land Cult Compound 76-74

The original survey plans for “The Land” cult compound at 1379 Milepost, Delta Junction, Alaska

The compound I was on had several names including, but not limited to, Dry Creek, Living Word Ministry, The Farm, or as we referred to it when we lived there, “The Land”. They quit claimed the deeds back and forth, most likely to avoid taxes, changing names, hustling land parcels together. Douglas McClain, Jr was just a child on this compound with me. His father, Douglas Sr, groomed him on a path into prison, where he sits today, awaiting appeal. They were hustling a drug derived from goat’s blood. You can read the actual court complaint here:

Security and Exchange Commission vs Stephen D. Ferrone, Douglas A. McClain, Jr., Douglas A. McClain Sr., and et al.

Doug McClain Quit-Claim Deed

This is just one of several deeds I have showing the quit claim sell of The Land between Douglas McClain and George Harris.

l_b0180077765b4bed80949cc27fd5a15a

Sam Fife in the green coat, with his wife and their private plane, scoping out “The Land”

The words the main reporter used to describe his brief visit to the compound felt familiar to me:

“Creepy.”
“The energy was so thick and heavy it could be cut.”
“An air of sadness hovering.”
“Desolate.”
“Isolated.”

Indeed. I nodded. I know. I remember David Johnson, with his slit eyes and foul energy. He doled out a few beatings.  Many of the adults where abusers. It was, after all, God’s will to strip a child of its flesh, as Brother Sam Fife would instruct. If we weren’t being punished, we were being humiliated, gossiped about, and any sexual abuse that was found out in later years is blamed on the victim.  Still today, the mentality remains the same. Religion cloaking forced insanity.  We were monitored, lived in continuous fear and told the “night watchmen” were there to keep the bears out.  Yet, the compound was so large, it was impossible for them to watch everything at all times, hence my brother’s success on his second escape.

Bryce and Pat Alloe

Young men at “The Land” approximately, 1980/1981, monitoring with guns.

Three years ago I was there as an adult, hunkered down in Fairbanks, Alaska, just miles away from so many people who had either abused me directly or who I had witnessed abuse other children. I wanted to drive onto that compound myself. I remember the layout like the back of my hand. I could navigate it in the dead of night. I wanted to find Marilyn Hagley and ask her why she beat me so much when she was my teacher.  Maybe if abusers experience what they have doled out onto children, they will get a notion of the affect it leaves behind.

Not far from The Land at 1379 Milepost is another compound owned by this cult. It is controlled by a man named Bill Grier.  Whitestone Farms is located not far from The Land. Some cult apologists have adamantly denied being associated with Sam Fife. Yet, Whitestone is on the cult’s Convention schedule, and Bill Grier’s criminal record began in the 1970’s. Their website proudly boasts about the man who helped broker their land; a man named Doug McClain.  When the pieces fit, they fit.  When the puzzle reveals the picture, it’s existence cannot be denied.

History of Whitestone Screenshot

ScreenshotBillGrierArrestedforExorcism

Press release naming Bill Grier in the use of exorcism on children in school from “Today’s World”, edition dated: 5/23/1974

I remember conventions. Six, sometimes eight hours of sitting with no breaks or food. My mother sometimes kept mints in her purse.

“To give us all a little sugar so we won’t get faint.” She’d say.

Conventions are hardcore mind control sessions with the Elite Move Leaders all gathering, vying for the position to preach their sordid interpretation of Biblical text. None of it matters. It’s all just long sessions of angry preachers feeding the fear of Hell and counter love bombing with the concept of Heaven and God for the good people.

Conventions provide a chance for the Movite “big wigs” to cavort with one another and shake their peacock feathers to impress the gathering of cult members, who often travel thousands of miles to attend the conventions and participate in lengthy frenzies of speaking in tongues, singing and serving their religious Handlers who feed their minds controlled instruction.

I wonder if the poor children still have to sit like we did for hours, on hard, backless benches or folding chairs. We sat so long, our hips ached.  Do they at least break for meals now?

There are mini countries inside of America. They make their own rules. They abuse children and swindle their “citizens”.  They are mind terrorists who get away with abuse under the guise of religious freedom, and American citizens have chosen to look away for too long.

I wonder when people will begin to care about the cult no one ever talks about?

When Cult Members Attack

Peeling off layers of truth about growing up in a cult which still exists has also released an influx of opinion, perspective, experience and much more from those who were also involved in this cult.

Since first publishing “Cult Child”, I’ve been examining the ways in which my fellow cult survivors have reacted to my publication. Now that I am speaking out more vocally on forums such as the radio, they are seemingly reacting more.

One of the main observations I’ve gathered is that those who were older when the cult began, have a differing perspective than those of us who were either children taken into the program or born into the cult, with those same adults being either our parents, caregivers and/or present and influencing adults.

We children have a differing set of circumstances as we witnessed and experienced horrible abuses. The adults who doled out or stood by and did nothing live in deep denial, often lashing out, calling us liars and being accusatory.

When I say adults, some of them were in their early twenties and participating in the severe beating and abuses of children. I see them for where they stand, deeply mentally ill and having to carry the horror of what they either did to children or did not do to help them.

Just as we victims carry the images of what was done to us, likewise our abusers must carry the images of what they did and/or witnessed.

Another way that I am attacked is individuals leaving poor starred reviews on my book where they can. Luckily Amazon requires one to be a purchaser of a product for the review, so in the least, I get a small compensation for having to be re-abused and attacked for telling the truth about my abuse.

I am not one to be intimidated by gang stalkers. When they call me a liar, I ask them which farm they grew up on? Who did they know? Were they a child? Who were their parents? What specifics can they give to prove, first off, that they were a part of the cult at all. After all, one must have been there, to factually call me a liar.

Furthermore, if they were not on the exact same compounds as I was, they can speak nothing of my life or the experiences of my family. Since stories of abuses have come from every compound Sam Fife and his cronies created, then I ask, if the person was an adult, why they did nothing to turn in the child abusers? So, this attack is easily lain to rest for me.

Another avenue that is used, is to say that I am out for money, made from the backs of other people who suffered in the cult as well. First, aren’t most authors hoping to make a living from writing, after all, writing is our passion? Why then are we not allowed to make a living from what we are bestowed to do?

Secondly, when one reads “Cult Child”, it takes but one page turn to understand that this is the story of me and my family. Every story contained in the first book of this set, yes, there’s a sequel coming, is related, and pertains directly to my family.

However, if I chose to write a book telling the stories of others who survived, I have the legal right to do so. It is not, however, my intention. Not just because their stories are not mine, but because I have other projects that I look forward to delving into. So, this attack is easily lain to rest for me.

My family owns the originals of all photos which are contained in my books. If you happen to be in one of those photos, luckily for you, I chose to blur faces. Luckily for you, there is a disclaimer in the front of my book that states I have changed names for privacy and liability purposes.

Luckily for me, I am well informed, have consulted an entertainment attorney before publishing and scoff at the ideal that anyone related to Sam Fife’s Move of God thinks they in any way hold any rights to the story or photos containing and relating to my family.

As for the statements made about me that return in the circle that is my support network, I somehow feel a great sorrow, for old people who make statements that we children were seductive, leaving me to understand that the pedophilistic mindset this cult built its roots on, still exists today.

It amazes me most that our abusers never stopped to consider we would grow up one day. Did you not think we would have a voice? Did you not think we would have something to say?

You don’t get to say “Yes, it was bad and all but…”. There’s no “but” which follows sexual abuse, demon possession casting out rituals, beliefs in end times, beatings, sadistic mental manipulation, sleep deprivation, brainwashing, demonology, spanking of babies, Old Testament animal sacrifice (Ware, MA) and more.

You see, I am not alone in this truth. I just happen to be the most outspoken. We children are now adults in a gathered tribe, quietly supporting one another, and we are large in numbers.

The network of survivors is so vast that the messages I get which are attacking of me, either myself or someone I know, remembers the person doing the attacking. These people were adults or elders children, seeking to silence the truth about the hidden horrors of Sam Fife’s Move of God.

It never fails to be consistent, that those who step forward to attack me were in some way an abuser, worked in a nursery where they could abuse children, were mean spirited, witnessed the abuse of children, and did nothing. Now, they have grown into bitter, self-righteous things who remain the same abusive evil they were when I was a child.

You don’t think we remember you, the things you said and did? Nothing has changed in regards to your existence, except now, you don’t get to silence me. And you won’t. Abuse is silent. You will never abuse me again.

EDIT 11/25/16: For those who took part in the free download of “Cult Child”, thank you.  For those who missed it, sign up at: http://VennieKocsis.com to be notified of the dates for the next free download days.  There will be one 5 month. Thank you for such an immense interest this month!  I am honored that you are interested in understanding the cult abuse of children.

A Poster Child for Shame

There’s a duality existing when what we long for finally arrives. In that moment we are tasked with facing it. Now, I am going back inside. I am choosing this journey. While still somewhat tired from writing “Cult Child”, I want to keep myself surfing this wave lest it all disappear.

As I am writing “Rise of Sila” I am facing some extremely harsh realities. I am diving into teenage stories that bring more realizations of the emotional intensity and aftermath being an abused child  had formed.

In some ways, we became a predator as a teenager and young adult. I wasn’t brought to that realization until today, talking with my therapist about teenage moments that as I write, I realize are filled with an incredible amount of shame.

Gottamn, that fucking hurts. It makes me angry. It makes me wince. How dare they.

I sat talking with my therapist, and she was so beautifully raw with me. Softly facing it. She asked me, “What would you know right now, today, do if you met a teenager like the one who sometimes came out in you? How would you treat her?”

I know what I would do today. I would empathize with her, hold her and do everything for her that I was screaming for. I would want to know what happened to cause her so much pain. I would see the need for love. I would reach out and give her a voice. I would believe her. I wouldn’t judge her.

“Then as you write your teenage experiences, that’s how you treat yourself. With understanding.”

Is this what I am tasked for in this life cycle? Is this why I took this mission; to stand in the footsteps of the shame, holding the highs and the lows of every human who experiences child abuse, teenage wildness and criminal behavior; standing firmly inside of owning it? Am I to be a split open example of how painful it is to heal? Am I to be a warrior of the journey of human mind control survival?

When the switch happened as a young girl, I didn’t realize the totality of its many manifestations, until I sat down to it write it out. I didn’t know until I looked back, how formed we had become and how utterly out of control the wheel had been spun.

As I drove home today, I thought to myself, I know why Lot told his wife not to look back. It had nothing to do with religion or the tale of a sinful city. It was a metaphor that sometimes going back can grind us to salt if we’re not strong enough. Lot’s wife wasn’t strong enough, so she crumbled.

I hope I am strong enough.

I believe that I am.

Odd Girl Out

I never felt like I belonged to my family. I lived their dynamic hovering on the outside looking in. Mom and sister always seemed to have secrets between them that I never seemed good enough to know. I didn’t feel included or chosen. I was often told to go away, things were none of my business that I was just a kid.

Years of abuse in a cult weren’t the only aspect of my childhood that would chart my future relationships. I would feel like an outsider in almost every part of my life. Even now I often feel the same way; either unnoticed, misunderstood or both. Highschool was often a filmy dissociation. I hover in most of my memories, seeing my life from a third perspective view.

Living on the edge of cloudy hazes turns loneliness into a quiet craving to always be alone. Just as a prisoner becomes accustomed to their cell, I have become accustomed to solitude and absent intimacy. If I wish for anything, it is to be beautifully courted, slowly, with time, respect and patience where I am whisked into lands of surprises by eyes telling me that I am accepted and loved. i know, but a woman can wish.

I feel as if I am stepping over a milestone where I won’t be able to turn back. Aloneness will have settled in so deeply, I will make the outskirts my permanent home.

From around eight until I was a teenager, my mother, sister and brother all told me that my father wasn’t quite sure that I was his. I spent many a day examining my siblings’ features in comparison to mine. I was tall and lanky, while they were shorter and stockier. My lips were more plump. Hmmm.

I picked it all apart, adding to the story, which confirmed in my own head that I was in fact the product of my mother’s alleged affair. I even spent some years wondering how I could find my “real” dad until finally, in my adulthood, I posed the question openly. It was greeted with laughter by my siblings and mother. What a joke, they said. How could I believe something so silly?

How could I not? How could they tell a child their father wasn’t their real father? Since when did “I cheated and got you” become a joke?

At 38 years old, I finally got a chance to ask my father, if he ever doubted that I was his.

“Absolutely not.” He said firmly and without a second of hesitation. “I always knew you were special and undoubtedly mine.”

There was a slight quiver in his voice, and a pause filled with emotion. Pain. A man hurting. That’s what those three seconds told me. My whole body felt his loss.

My father had loved me, but I was ripped from him, then taken into a sick world where I would always be the ghost girl, drifting on walls, watching other people’s movie screens. I’d be the girl who grew into the shadow of a woman, still fragile beneath a shell.

I am a woman remotely viewing human lives, sitting on the outside. I watch lips mouth lies to one another. I see lovers gazing at each other. I tap my pen against my cheek. I am conditioned for being different.

It is sometimes a rabid duality, to both crave togetherness and aloneness, all in the same breath. Somewhere, someone understands the balance some of us need between together and alone. I only hope one day to meet them.