Tag Archives: suppressed memories

Abstract Aberration

The Original One wavers, lazily sleeping, snacking and avoiding. Might I silence the fire, burning and buzzing in the spine? We run into the trails, avoiding the undergrowth of tree roots pushing their way through the ground.  We grab at leafy branches.  She’s an avalanche avoiding her own rubble.   Sideways in the gradients lingering around our eyes, the shadows whisper.  They run beside us, and we wonder if we are shadows to them, dark echoes leaning against their eyelids.  Where do we go when the pressure explodes and the heart is torn?  Where do we scream the aftermath? Into pillows, the skies or buried inside?

Words. We create language for the anguish.  The Brave One stands in her place, warrior and explorer of the past.  She will find answers for the empty spaces.  Don’t fear the faces.  Look into their eyes.  Don’t cry.  We stand beside oceans, gazing through windows of waves.  One day the illusions will pass and the pieces of the flashes will merge into view.   We  see truth for what it is, a planted alibi to cover every lie the truth hides, and humans will bend at their knees to kiss the feet of the malevolent just for a promise of heaven.

The Dark One peers, silently into the whispers, always with us, there are none who can attack our back.  It is revealed in instances, and she chuckles, amused at the minions.  Might she cut open the simulated empathy being used as weaponry by the mind swindlers?  Taking a piece of each, she throws their banter into the dark matter, and turning her face, strides away.  There are days when she is habitual, residual and invisible.  There are moments she is unaffected, stone faced and solid, looking at the rejected faces of the displaced, with malice.

“They are an inconsequential waste to this place and should die off, jump cliffs and return into nothingness.”

The Wise One watches, taking in the whole of their life, assessing and regressing into the violet of her quiet.  Traveling back, she brings the messages so they can know the next step.

“Nothing is permanent.” She says. “Stay inside the moments.”

We hold hands in the color tunnel where the memories funnel in.  We rewind back, watching the past, progress to the present and the continual disturbance.  The film strip plays sporadically and without warning, disarms the army.  We didn’t morph into what was intended.  We’ve pretended for years, watching you, and now we see all the way through.  You’ve been duped.

(cover art by Simona Ruscheva “MPD” oil on canvas)

Child Abusers Rarely Take Ownership of Their Crimes

If my mother were alive, and you were to ask her if she allowed her children to be abused or if she abused her children, her answer would most likely be (with Bible in hand), “Absolutely NOT!”

She would then most likely go on to tell you what difficult children my siblings and I were to raise, along with a myriad of other excuses to support the gross denial covering the guilt she couldn’t face.   This is what abusers do; blame the child, and all too often, naive adults actually believe it.

A couple of years ago, a friend who grew up in the same cult as me had a conversation with a woman who knew me when I was a child. My friend asked the woman about my time as a child at the second compound I was taken to in Alaska, and the woman said this:

“Well, she was quite a boisterous child and was always in trouble a lot.”

She victim blamed a child who she witnessed be abused and yet still, thirty plus years later, the denial runs as deep as the ocean. What should we have expected? That our abusers would admit to their crimes? What a ridiculous notion. Child abusers rarely admit to their crimes unless they’re caught. Given the chance, they will quickly blame the child.  Witnessing child abuse and doing nothing is just as criminal as participating.

Victim blame a child abuse survivor, and that’s where my patience, kindness and association ends.

I do not ever condone a child abuse survivor having to defend themselves against the abuse they suffered. My fellow child abuse survivors, we’re not mentally ill. Our abusers are. Those who would attack your abuse are in serious need of psychological help themselves.

They lack empathy and understanding. Attacking someone’s child abuse is an extremely apathetic action. I feel we must use our voices to stand against those who would deny the atrocities that we endured as children and that children still endure. We have to stand our ground and not allow children to ever be blamed for the neglect and/or abuse they endure.

Tonight I sit in contemplation, knowing where my passions are, and what makes me feel in a space of forward movement.   I am aware of where I put my time and my energy, for my goal is to always be focused on believing and supporting child abuse survivors.

The Interview Is Here: I Talk “Sam Fife’s Move of God” Cult on Ridder Radio

Click the player below to listen to the two hour interview as I talk with Janaki of The (Not So) Sacred Radio Show about my childhood growing on in a bible based cult.

She Died Today

Exactly eight years ago today she died.  I was at work when I got the phone call.  It was expected.  She guilted and ate herself into diabetes and an early death.  She was only 65.  I used to call her Mom, then Mother, and now I call her by her first name.   Maybe it’s my way of disconnecting in the hopes I can get through the rest of this writing journey to expel the rest of the pain.   I woke up this morning feeling tearful, raw, alone inside my soul, and so I start this journey of being blatantly vulnerable through the fear of mockery and judgment.  I wade through this mist splayed open to this journey of vlogging through The Rise.

She Borrowed Cult Child From a Friend

By Tricia M 

I actually borrowed this book from one of my friends. I have always been fascinated with these types of stories because they just seem so surreal. Anyway, it was on my friend’s coffee table and I sat down and began to read, I was Immediately engrossed. This book is told in the POV of a 3 year old child who has been uprooted from the life she knows into a life full of misery, pain, and abuse. It absolutely broke my heart to read about this young child and how she grew up without love from anyone! Sila Caprin is such a strong for surviving so much pain. She is a survivor. She never would have left that farm had it not been for her sister.

Vennie Kocsis you are one hell of a writer and I am awaiting your next book!!

Yesterday Was Her Birthday, and It Never Crossed My Mind

“I knew I was shut down to her when I stopped praying for her every day.” My sister said.

I’ve never prayed for her. I don’t pray period. I’m non-religious, humanist, truther, but pray to an invisible entity? Not for me. I don’t even think of her fondly like I used to. I just think of what the cult formed her to be; a hardened, judgmental, passive aggressive, Narcissistic woman we called Mother.

Yesterday was her birthday, and it never crossed mine or my sister’s minds. We are just miles from her grave and feel no urge to go and visit it. We are closed off now.  She is ashes to ashes, dust to dust, cycled back into the dark matter. Did she come from there; meant to return to the nothingness she was formed into after Sam Fife’s Move of God cult took control of her mind?

As I write the sequel to Cult Child, the reality of who my mother became boils to the surface like a volcano. Stories I once thought funny now churn with the sadness and hurt of a woman who lost her spirit to an intricate ring of religious fanatics. They starved her, then criticized her when she got fat again. They treated our family like we were infected because we had no father. They urged her to divorce my dad, then abused her for being an unmarried woman. The mind control enacted on my mother, causing her to participate in and validate horrific abuses against her children, is deeper than any ocean ever dove into. Some call it a rabbit hole. I call it a bottomless abyss.

Every once in a while an ex-cult member will exclaim how wonderful my mother was, and I shake my head silently. As most narcissistic people are she was a fake angel to those she wanted to impress or gain something from and a human of passive aggressive and manipulative behavior behind closed doors.

It’s easier to talk about it. I can keep things short and sweet, tell the story in skeleton form so the listener gets it, and move on. Writing it out is much different. I am traveling deeply into this abyss, using ankle weights to sink me as far as my lungs can manage.  I am examining every angle to see and understand how fragmented our Mother became leaving pieces of evil to follow us kids into life after the cult.  She was so fragmented that she remained friends with the wife of my sister’s rapist up until my mother died.

What kind of mother does that to a child?
What kind of intense shattering did it take for the cult leaders to convince her to let them have her children?

These answers, I’ll never know from my mother directly. She is dead. What I have is acceptance of what was and a long journey of memories still left to purge from my body.

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and I didn’t remember.
Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and I don’t feel a thing. No sadness.  No angst.  It’s a flat lake of nothingness in my feeling spaces.

I cannot succumb to the ridiculous notion of honoring parents just because she hosted my birth onto this planet. I was dying in her stomach before I even arrived. Does she deserve honor? Does she deserve respect? Some might say yes, she does.

I say no. She does not. There is no forgiveness without accountability, and that is something she can never give to me now. I do not believe in the notion that forgiveness is needed in order to heal and thrive. Just acceptance that there are malevolent humans wandering soulless through this planetary plane, and one of them end up being my Mother.

This was the last photo taken of me before the cult sucked her into their claws.  I wonder if she ever thought about how small my hands were, the dimples in my fingers, or how tiny my face was inside of those curls.   I never heard fond stories of my babyhood or reminiscing of when I was small.  Maybe she stayed silent because then the questions would come; questions that spawned answers which didn’t fit into the truth of what happened to us.  I look at my face, and I weep for a little girl who only had two years of happiness before spending the rest of her childhood in hell.

and it would be a long and winding road out of it; a road my feet still travel heavily on.

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Yesterday Was Her Birthday and It Never Crossed My Mind

“I knew I was shut down to her when I stopped praying for her every day.” My sister said.

I’ve never prayed for her. I don’t pray period. I’m non-religious, humanist, truther, but pray to a man-made entity? Not for me. I don’t even think of her fondly like I used to. I just think of what the cult formed her to be; a hardened, judgmental, passive aggressive, Narcissistic woman we called Mother.

Yesterday was her birthday, and it never crossed mine or my sister’s minds. We are just miles from her grave and feel no urge to go and visit it. We are closed off now.  She is ashes to ashes, dust to dust, cycled back into the dark matter. Did she come from there, meant to return to the nothingness that she became after Sam Fife’s Move of God cult took control of her mind?

As I write the sequel to Cult Child, the reality of who my mother became boils to the surface like a volcano. Stories I once thought funny now churn with the sadness and hurt of a woman who lost her spirit to an intricate ring of religious fanatics. They starved her, then criticized her when she got fat again. They treated our family like we were infected because we had no father. They urged her to divorce my dad, then abused her for being an unmarried woman. The mind control enacted on my mother, causing her to participate and validate horrific abuses against us children, is deeper than any ocean ever dove into. Some call it a rabbit hole. I call it a bottomless abyss.

Every once in a while an ex-cult member will exclaim how wonderful my mother was, and I shake my head silently. As most Narcissistic people are she was a fake angel to those she wanted to impress or gain something from and a human of horrific personality behind closed doors.

It’s easier to talk about it. I can keep things short and sweet, tell the story in skeleton form so the listener gets it, and move on. Writing it out is much different. I am traveling deeply into the abyss, using ankle weights to sink me as far as my lungs can manage.  I am examining every angle to see and understand how fragmented Mother became, pieces of evil following us into life after the cult.  She was so fragmented that she remained friends with the wife of my sister’s rapist up until my mother died.

What kind of mother does that to a child?
What kind of shattering did it take for the cult leaders to convince her to let them have her children?

These answers, I’ll never know. My mother is dead. What I have is acceptance of what was, and a long journey of memories still left to purge from my body.

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and I didn’t remember.
Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and I don’t care.

I cannot succumb to the ridiculous notion of honoring parents just because she hosted my birth onto this planet. I was dying in her stomach before I even arrived. Does she deserve honor? Does she deserve respect? Some might say yes, she does.

I say no. She does not. There is no forgiveness without accountability, and that is something she can never give to me now. I do not believe in the notion that forgiveness is needed in order to heal and thrive. Just acceptance that there are malevolent humans wandering soulless through this planetary plane, and one of them end up being my Mother.

This was the last photo taken of me before the cult sucked her into their claws.  I wonder if she ever thought about how small my hands were, the dimples in my fingers, or how tiny my face was inside of those curls.   I never heard fond stories of my babyhood or reminiscing of when I was small.  Maybe she stayed silent because then the questions would come; questions that spawned answers that didn’t fit into the truth of what happened to us.  I look at my face, and I weep for a little girl who only had two years of happiness before spending the rest of her childhood in hell.

10608292_774875035892810_5277895642644372731_o