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TW PW (politics warning)
I put an unusual PW at the top of this post because although this topic is personal to me, it may be touchy for some member who may be partisan to what I'm talking about here. Sorry, I only mean to vent about my abuser, not to push any agenda. It's just that my abuse happened in a political context. Bear with me, I'll be brief.
Today ex-President Fujimori of Peru, who I call the President Vladimir Putin-type of Peru, was pardoned and released from prison. Like Russia's Putin is alleged to do today, Fujimori was a strong man president who killed a lot of his opponents and stole from his country's national treasury. His pardon by today's president has provoked two days of rioting in Peru, and two congressmen from today's president's own party have resigned in protest.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42481281
How this affects me personally is that my parents were missionaries in Peru back in the day of Fujimori's presidency. My father beat me and my mother in private, but in public he was a charismatic preacher who built up a mega-church of 3,000 people in Peru's capital. But my dad was like his friend Rev. Jim Bakker who went to prison for corruption in his PTL Club TV ministry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker
My dad's Peruvian mega-church had a congressman from Fujimori's party join it, and so my dad enjoyed a time of privilege until Fujimori's regime fell apart when democracy returned, and fair trials sent Fujimori and his cronies to prison. My dad's own church board expelled him, my dad's USA missions board expelled him, and the government of Peru deported him back to the USA with a warning not ever to return.
How this affects me and my PTSD is that my dad blamed me for his downfall, saying I had blown the whistle on him. It's absurd, because I we hadn't spoken in 8 years after one of his violent Christmas holiday outburts at his house. I didn't even know he lived in Peru by then, much less what he was doing there. He blamed me, though, as the white (not black) sheep of the family who always steered clear of his dealings.
My dad had a mental breakdown after being expelled from Peru and from missionary ministry. Hecame back to the USA and mowed lawns for a living for about 8 years until retirement. I went to visit him for Christmas since I felt sorry for him. Typical of his past behavior, though, he punched me in the face on Christmas.
So that is why I'm alone on Christmas again this year, not going to visit him. We haven't spoken again, this time for 7 years. I'm extra glad I'm not with him right now, because he's surely gloating about "his" president's pardon in Peru, conflating it with his own story to say he's "pardoned," too, and falsely vindicated, too, somehow.
It doesn't change anything for me. "His" president couldn't have been pardoned for something he didn't do, and he's on the record tried and convicted for his crimes. The rioting and resignations from today's president's own party for doing the pardon speaks for itself as to how many people feel about its justice.
My heart is rioting a bit, too, because all of this is triggering flashbacks for me, not of politics, but of how my dad would beat me and my mom, and then get up in the pulpit in public and be all pious and self-righteous. Because of his hypocrisy and corruption, it was a miracle I didn't lose my faith.
However, when I became a minister myself at age 42 in spite of my dad's downfall, I went out of my way not ever to be close to an offering plate in a church. Instead I chose to be a hospital chaplain, which meant I was just another hospital employee like a doctor or a nurse who stuck to my specialty without handling any fund-raising.
My work as a hospital chaplain, though, is why my dad punched in the face. As a hospital chaplain I allowed a gay man to visit his dying partner as a family visitor in his hospital room. I never mentioned it to my dad, but he found out anyway. I didn't allow the visit as a political statement or to upset him, I just did it as an act of mercy on my job. I knew he would object though.
You see, when I was molested as a kid when I was 10, my dad found out and he hit me for that, too. I come here to DS PTSD for PTSD from both being molested and being hit for it weekly for the rest of my life at home.
As I said, my dad conflates things, so he conflated pedophilia with homosexuality. To him, being molested by a same-sex pedophile was like being bitten by a vampire. To him, if you're bitten by a vampire, that makes you a vampire. Therefore, if you're molested by a same-sex child molester, you become gay and gay people must be hit.
So that's why he hit me 7 years ago at Christmas when I went to visit him as an act of mercy. I've remembered that blow every Christmas since. Now this Christmas "his" ex-President Fujimori's pardon is another blow to me. Sorry if that's political to somebody here. To me it's personal, because my abuse happened in a public context the way it did.
It's sad to me that abusers often get away with it, like my dad did and not "his" president is, too. I realize that is true to many members here at DS PTSD as well. Your abusers got away with it, too.
It's hard to take, isn't it? Thanks for letting me blow off some steam about it. Sorry again for the politics required for me to tell my story. Hope somebody here can still validate my feelings about it anyway, though.
It's a bitter pill to swallow when your abuser gets his way in the end. The worst part is that in therapy my shrink and I worked out that given my blood relatives who do have a bipolar diagnosis, my fathers' up and down behavior indicates he is probably an untreated bipolar who needs help and get it.
My therapist helped me stop just hating him. He showed me it was ok that I can't help feeling sorry for him and loving him in spite of all so I could love myself. I had to forgive myself for how it's a train wreck of a contradiction that he was my abuser, my pastor, and my dad.
My inner child is grieving, feeling sad for the dad I never had. Supportive validation welcome. Please feel free to offer your own story in return. You certainly have my empathy and my ear today.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
And I fucking hate that.
Puma support.
I went to a handful of prayer meetings with them.
When the whole PTL thing came out...the thing that broke it for me were the dog houses worth more than many people's houses. A pair of them. I was never able to get past how anyone with Morals...could think that that was okay.
It changed my views on a lot of religion/politics. (Sorry, I don't think much of missionaries. To me it's the definition of seeing someone down on their luck and taking advantage of it. If you were going to a Muslim country with the idea to make Them better MUSLIMS...I'd think differently. But they're not. So it's pride (my beliefs are better than their beliefs) and selfish at it's heart. The worst is the Feed the Children...and it's part of the reason the world hates the US.
Turn it around...if your child was dying of starvation and Muslims showed up at the door...you'd take the food, and hate them forever for trying to change your child's faith...even if it was "only by example (definition of passive-aggressive).
(I'm atheist. I think you're all a bit nuts. I'm NOT defending Islam. And yes, they're different...with both theology and culture.)
Of course Peru's ex president wasn't passive aggressive. (Beautiful country, I once had a couple of friends from there.) Political brutality is a monster that, in the United States, that we just don't have a lot of personal experience with. It's no joke that people get killed for their politics, religion, race, all over the world...even today.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/msf-least-6700-rohingya-killed-during-attacks-myanmar?source=ADD170U0U00&utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=GooglePaid&utm_content=nonbrand&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzca7uKmo2AIVAlcNCh3g8gw2EAAYASAAEgJbA_D_BwE
In any case, there's good and bad people from ALL countries, religions, and even political beliefs.
Grief for the parent you never had...is totally understandable.
As is grief for the parent that could have been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq6rusc_EjM
Message that I take out of the song..."and know they love you".
Love, if we let it, can surpass all. (But you have to put down the guns and fists for that to have a chance.)
Bless you Muji...you're one of the Good People in this World.
Rocking you gently and crying with you, Muji. Hope healing happens here.
My foo (family of origin) was not in the public eye,as yours was,but the hypocrisy was there. Nice family on the outside,but abuse both sexual and physical happened to me until I left at age 16.(married,10yrs,divorced no children) Seuxal abuse began when I was in fourth grade. Grooming begain when he moved in and married my mom. we lived in a three bedroom trailer on my grand fathers farm and across from their house.
My grand father,sexually abused my mom. I believe i triggered her because she would slap me and hit me with a belt. Out of control and breath. Then there was dad who was grooming me sexually.
I made it out and only went back two times,and that was enough.
IT wasn't me personally that they hated so much,it was their own trauma playing out ....patterns.
I broke free and so did you Muji.
You broke free and worked hard to free/understand yourself and how all that trauma affected you.
That takes courage,heart and faith.
Sorry about the grieving,but its all part of healing isn't it? From one survivor to another Hugs and support sent.
May you and your inner child enjoy the warmth of the sand and sunshine.
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((((((((((((((((((muji))))))))))))))
absolutely is a bitter pill. Everytime they get away with it, and something in society seems to justify their cause.
While I don't really grasp the political aspect of it in your situation, i totally understand the family dynamics of it.
I get the grief for the parent you didn't have, and having to forgive something pretty much unforgivable because not only is it in your best interest to help you move passed the past, but also because your empathy as a survivor of such a traumatic life almost works against you towards releasing of the blame.
stamping my validation stamp right here~
triple hugs~.
that I'm really grateful for your six replies sharing your stories and giving validation. In no particular
order:
Simpson, it really helped when I read that you wrote: "My goal has been to not just survive, but to thrive." Yeah, me too. In seminary in my hospital chaplaincy training we actually had a textbook with a title about that. It got me started. I healed a little bit every time I talked to a patient who had that goal, too. So it helps me to talk to you knowing your goal is to go from survivor to thriver as well. It's a work in progress, but I still think we can do it.
Knee, I'm so sorry about the horrors that happened to you in that trailer you lived in with your
"f.o.o." Thanks for sharing that "My grand father,sexually abused my mom. I believe i triggered her because she would slap me and hit me with a belt." I didn't mention it today, but in addition to being a victim of my father's beatings, my mom went after me, too, and she killed our family pets. Kind of crazy, yeah. I think my grandfather sexually abused my mom, too, so she brought trauma already into a marriage in which her husband, my dad, continued it not with sexual abuse but beatings.
And yet, as I said with my dad, in therapy as much as I hated her for what she added to my misery, I still loved her, too. In church sometimes she would let me hold her hand. During that hour on Sundays
she wouldn't hurt me, she'd just let me hold her hand, and for that hour once a week she felt in my
hand like a mom.
arfie, thanks for mentioning that you got your day in court and it didn't bring relief. Sorry it brought
rage instead. I've mentioned her that the pedophile who molested me in South America came to the USA and did it again and got caught, convicted, and stabbed to death in 2009 by another inmate in prison. I wasn't sorry he died, but I didn't get relief, either, so that lesson learned is one of the things that brought me here in 2012.
patti, it was good to see that you had some personal experience with the PTL club, so you understand what a circus that was. Hearing that you're an atheist is comforting to me as my believer status begins there and goes on with Einstein and quantum physics and what I learned as a chaplain from brain surgeons on my neurosurgical unit, not from church and certainly not from my parents. So the churches where I speak regularly aren't the usual kind.
Though I personally identify as a Christian, though I'd rather not name them so as to stay religiously
non-partisan here, let's just say they are congregations from traditions that are old and believe in one
God. Kind of funny that both congregations want to hear from me once a month, but the same
happened with my atheist patients when I was a hospital chaplain. I always saved visiting them as
the best for last at the end of the day because it was safe to talk to them given my personal
background. And yeah, you said we're all crazy, and that goes for those of us in the small but
growing club of offspring of evangelists.
Thanks for the links. I always left out that same last line from that CSNY song, too. I've just got a
couple of book titles to offer back. One of us literally wrote a crazy book about our crazy type of
experiences called Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious
Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) and another book Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in
God. They're by Frank Schaeffer, son of missionary Francis Schaeffer--and by the way, he and I both
are missionary kids who agree with you about missionary work. My dad's mission in South America was to steal members from Catholic churches, so you can imagine how he felt when I was a traitor to that cause, too, and married a Catholic myself.
Yeah, your link about Doctors Without Borders having trouble with Buddhists in Myanmar reminded me also of how one of the most dangerous nuclear borders is the one between Pakistan's Muslims and India's Hindus, so sadly it's not just Christians who crusade and get people killed and get in the way of helping folks, you're right.
Another book about our craziness after growing up with evangelist parents is Faith and Doubt and
Other Lines I've Crossed by Jay Bakker, son of PTL that TV evangelist and convicted felon Jim Bakker.
I don't recommend any of these books as reading for you, just as confirmation you're so right we're
crazy that there's a sub-genre of books about our craziness. Crazy thing is that today I just wrote a
whole speech on those books for one of those congregations to present in February 2018. They're crazy, too, some of the members of the congregations are atheists themselves, great ones. They still not only welcome me to speak at their congregations but they pay me for it, too. Go figure. I like to tell them about what I learn here at DS PTSD, too.
Leo, I've just got to say I found lots of validation in your last line, "I just f****** hate that. Ha!
Kind of sums it up, ya know? Thanks for the puma power, my friend.
nancy, thanks for writing "While I don't really grasp the political aspect of it in your situation, i totally
understand the family dynamics of it. I get the grief for the parent you didn't have." Who really does
get the political aspect of it? I got a doctorate in Latin American Studies mostly so I could say on
good authority that it really doesn't make sense, it's from corruption and greed, not thought or logic.
It's really great to me that you did get the family dynamics and the grief, and it was so GREAT to get
your stamp of validation. I'm very grateful to you for it, truly.
My ex is Christian and I keep encouraging him to try to find a church out in Iowa. (He's just moved out there.) He's a coward about it(maybe not the word, but I'm half asleep). Doesn't want to search around.
I keep telling him to ask people or just walk in. They won't bite. Sit in through a few services and meet some people...he just won't do it. It's Iowa, it's a church...not some crazy motorcycle bar. Maybe someday... (Yes, this atheist used to love, love, love church... not believing in Jesus or a god is sort of a deal breaker though.)
(It's my ex...we talk 4-5 times a year about the kids. He lives a thousand miles from me. I have no influence with him. Probably someone he drinks with will finally invite him one Sunday, and that's how he'll end up going. He does everything so backwards.)
I’m so sorry for what happened to you & even though I know you know this I feel compelled at this moment to tell you........ It’s not you fault. It’s so not your fault & Im very sorry what you been through.
Thank you for being a kind person despite what people tried to mold you to be. I try very hard to be kind despite my pain & some days I get angry about it all & im trying to allow myself to be angry about it when I need to be without letting that change the soul I am in my heart. I also understand at the same time also feeling sorry for our disfunctional abusers, but then not trying to let that make me feel too crazy. I hope that all made sense, my response was so all over the place that I hope it did more good than harm. It’s very hard for me to talk about my parents. I find it crazy that I’ve actually talked more about my ex that brutally tried to kill me & then stalked me than to talk about my “parents”
Oh & btw to this day trying to have a relationship with my mother, she believes it’s my fault what happened to me with my ex because she said it was my fault that I picked the wrong guy
I hope my response was validating & not triggering I don’t normally get so honest about my “childhood” or feelings as an adult child of abuse
Gentlest of hugs <3
the one best word is love X
are you feeling any better?
are you feeling ok otherwise? i've thought of you a lot over the past week and when i prayed for my neuropathy, i prayed for you too.
i don't really know how many days i spent not coming on or hopping on and off again. my back is on fire and i don't even really know if it is all neuropathy or not - i'[m wondering at the moment as my dr isn't very real at all and trying to talk to him is useless.
it helps to take medicine that konks me out that i know you can't take and i hate it for you.
i hope things are feeling stable where you are, i'm truly hoping that the gentle magic of your special town will sink way in and help you feel good in a way that maybe only it can, you know?
i'm picturing us coasting in on the good ship Calypso - more like a sailing vessel than anything else, genltye asailing into harbour and the music is coming more from the town than the ship, it is pulling smiles out of us all on board, dogs tails are gently a waggin -
we cannot wait to see our dear friend, Muj xo we been missing you so much xo
Hey, at least this other dictator I had a beef with did die in prison for his crimes. It was his army's officer who nearly killed me but for the fact that his gun jammed twice, one of the reasons I'm blessed to be alive but that I have PTSD. His son was in my class at school. In this photo that's him on the right as dear old dad got arrested.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uruguayan-ex-president-arrested/
Sometimes thugs get pardoned, sometimes not so much.