call for work

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I’ve been feeling itchy and creative, wanting to write and express and purge my innards out through the arts.

Then I found this, “If you are a former member of a cult or high demand organization, we invite you to participate in this upcoming exhibit to present art, musical, and literary (English or French) work related to your experiences while in your group or during your recovery…..  

Creations may be in any art form, including but not limited to: literary (such as poetry, drama, short story, or other writings), music of any kind, dance, and the visual arts (such as paintings, drawings, collage, sculpture, fiber arts, photography, film, video, or multi-media).”

I emailed and told them I had writing, art and dance submissions.  I am so excited!!!

http://groups.google.com/a/icsa.name/group/freeinfo/browse_thread/thread/b40830ff863892cc?tvc=2&fwc=1&pli=1

 

 

Thursday

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I was right, I don’t have a job.

PTSD sucks.

But hey, I found a new phone app called PTSD manager where I can track my symptoms and maybe that’ll help it be more manageable.  I remember when I used to be able to hold down a job and be awesome.  I wonder if that will happen again.

yesterday

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OK: Here’s the lead up…

Therapy: I was seeing a therapist and she was ok.  But I was about to get insurance in 2 months through my work.  I didn’t want to bond with her.  I asked her to refer me to a therapist in the same program who took my future insurance so that when the insurance came we could transition.  This took forever, and then the New Year turned and I wasn’t reenrolled in the program.  Now I have no therapist and don’t qualify for the program.

Work:  This has been a terrible sales month.  In fact, last month was awesome.  This month terrible for everybody.  I was also working through a sickness for two weeks.  This shouldn’t make me worry, but this month is the end of my three month probation.  And I am ill at ease.  So my hypervigilance, paranoia, the whole ptsd package has been kicking in.  And without therapy to balance it, it’s been even worse.  Pretending not to be a crazy person at work has been excruciatingly exhausting.

Also, a coworker has taken to whistling, winking and now there’s been a rubbing incident that I need to deal with.  I wasn’t in the mood for sexual harassment.  That is one of the main reasons I became self employed.

My boss wanted me to revisit the church industry project and since I’m a pussy, I said yes.  I tried.  But that really led me to sitting in the car for two hours crying.  My job was to walk into a church and say hi.  I couldn’t move and I couldn’t get out.  I was just so terrified of who was behind that door.  I was terrified of the list of 30 more churches I had to see that week.

I was supposed to meet up with my boss to do a few together, but when we communicated it was obvious I was crying in the field (how embarrassing).  So I was sent home to “take care of myself”.

I wonder if I still have a job.

I wonder if I should have a job.

I wonder if I can have a job.

I sure need revenue.

But I can’t have a job right now where I am social every day.

I don’t know what to do.

I’m so angry, because it wasn’t too long ago when I had my business and I could do anything and everything, or so if felt.  But I really think I could hide a lot of this stuff because we were creating our own reality.

I have noticed a lot of entrepreneurs are survivors of trauma as well.  Maybe being the master of our own reality is how we coped.

This entire post is copied from refocus dot org

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http://www.refocus.org/open-letter-to-clergy-helping-ex-members.html

An Open Letter to Clergy regarding helping former members of abusive churches or cults 

By Carol Giambalvo

As both the Director of Recovery Programs for the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) and a co-founder of reFOCUS, a support and referral network for former members of closed, intense organizations or relationships, I’ve had inquiries from clergy about how to help former members when they come to them. I’ve also had remarks from former members that clergy don’t seem to know how to help them. As a former member myself, I’ve had my own personal struggles addressing spiritual and religious issues. Hopefully I can give you some useful information and suggestions.

First, some background information. People don’t join cults. They are deceived and purposefully recruited. The majority are in some sort of normal human transition stage in life such as leaving high school for college, leaving college for the “real world”, breakup of a relationship or marriage, loss of a job, moving to a new location, retirement – and along comes a group of what seems like the most wonderful people from the most wonderful group with the most wonderful goals who show them love, acceptance, and a “higher purpose”. Many people have the mistaken idea that only troubled people from troubled families get involved in these groups. Cults don’t want troubled people. They want bright, dedicated, idealistic, energetic people to raise money, do the work of the group, and recruit new people.

So how do you help the former member? Here are some suggestions:

 

  • Encourage them to get information to help them understand what happened to them in the group and to help them recover from it (sources of information listed at end)
  • Understand that you will need to earn their trust – they have had their trust violated so badly by a group that looked good 
  • At times they may be triggered by words that were “loaded” in the group, by the use of some scriptures that the group twisted and emphasized, even by some hymns that were sung in the group, by dynamics – normal things that are found in healthy churches can be a source of a trigger to them. Just understand and make it okay if they need to leave a service, meeting or conversation if should this happen.
  • Understand that they may not want to share their story – they need to build healthy personal boundaries. Respect their boundaries. The groups build unhealthy boundaries between members and the “outside” world and tear down their healthy boundaries and encourage them to bear their souls and confess all to other group members and leaders. It takes time to re-establish their healthy boundaries after leaving.
  • When they need to talk, listen to them. They need a voice, on their own time.
  • Encourage them to ask questions and let them know that it’s okay to disagree.
  • They need respect and love as they struggle through their recovery issues

What are the recovery issues facing former members?

1.    Identity Crisis

 

  • Who am I now? For those born/raised in high demand groups, who am I?
  • What do I believe?

2. Feeling disconnected, sense of purposelessness

3. Grief

  • For the people you left behind
  • Loss of a cause
  • Loss of “belonging”
  • Losses you had to give up in order to join group
  • Loss of innocence
  • Loss of career goals; finances; belongings
  • Missing the “buzz”, the feeling of a “high” and looking for it elsewhere
  • Anger

4.    Boundary issues

  • Rebuild healthy boundaries  — creating a safe place to heal
  • It’s okay not to divulge everything to everyone
  • Learn how the group tore down your boundaries between you and other group members/leaders
  • Learn how the group built up unhealthy boundaries between you and the outside world in order to discredit outside information and feedback and make you more dependent upon the group/leader

5.    Trust issues
·      Test the waters, build up a relationship before you trust someone – develop healthy boundaries

6.    Magical Thinking of cultic group, spiritualizing everything. One needs to learn or reconnect with their critical thinking skills.

7.    Varying symptoms of post traumatic stress

  • Panic attacks
  • Floating/triggers
  • Nightmares
  • Sleep disorders
  • Inability to make decisions
  • Inability to concentrate
  • Fears not grounded in reality, fear the group was right when they told you something bad would happen to you if you left
  • Hypervigilence

8.    Difficulty with relationships and authority figures

9.    Underemployment 

Resources:

International Cultic Studies Association:  http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_topic_collections/tpcol_exmember.asp

Again, I copied everything from refocus.org, because I wanted my readers to see this website.  This letter was very helpful to me.  Thank you Refocus.org for being there!!!

Universal Call Out

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The first time was at a mixer a few months ago.  I was talking to a brilliant, charming man in a fez.  How could you not love a guy in a fez? It was a great conversation.  I would wear a fez, but my head is far too round and giant.  He told me what he did and it was awesome.  I told him what I did, “How can that be your passion?”  He wasn’t rude, he was genuine.  I was side-swiped.  I did what I did, like Rumpelstiltskin I told him that it was.  I stomped my straw of a lie and smiled pretty and tried to sell him gold.  I felt like I had sullied what had been one minute a go a true, real, human experience.  Curses.  Gross.

Hi, I’m Feisty Boots.  I am here on this planet to use my life experiences as a means of illumination against spiritual abuse in the world.  I write and speak so that people who have been hurt by leaders and family who have claimed that their abusive power came from a divine source don’t feel alone.  I believe that the unheard victim can get back on the wheel of abuse and become an abuser and I want to do what I can to stop that cycle.  I have seen the foulest of human nature and been told that it is the love of god and having broken free from that.  I write out those experiences and that process so that others in similar situations can take heart.

That’s a scary thing to say out loud.  Wish I had the guts that day.  Yesterday I met with two people for business and ended up talking about this anyway.  They were far more interested in this.

A woman with experience is in my life and she has some great ideas, I think I will start a step at a time.  Let’s see if I can work this transition.

bubbling dissatisfaction

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I have this bubbling dissatisfaction from not being creative.  When I had my business a lot of creativity went there, but as of the last couple years I have become more creative.  Rather, I have opened doors that had been long shut and creativity has been coming out.

I want to write more and different things.  I want to write a book.  I want to dance and learn guitar.  There is this whole other side to me that is on fire and I want to express it.

Update from the high seas

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Grrrrrrr

Grrrrrrr

Four months later.  Four months!  We were packed up on September 12th, in the summer.  And now our belongings are on their way to us in another moving van.  Finally.

We had to hire a second mover to go into the pirates den to get our stuff out and load it up to move it here.  (cha ching)

When we got their inventory list of “our items” half of them were ours and half of them were somebody else’s!  The pirate movers warehouse was full of stacks of people’s stuff that was missing from other people’s homes.  We had to hire a professional organizer to work with E yesterday and they texted all day back and forth…  “Is this yours?”  “No”  “What about this?”  “YES!”  And so she worked in the pirates den with the new mover and if it was aproved by E, here in NC it went on the truck.  The organizer then went to the scales as she had in the morning to witness the truck get weighed at it’s empty and full weight.

Now it’s on it’s way here.  I am incredulous and stoked.  I fear the rental bed is in better shape than our mattress, But I’m not going to worry about that right now.

After our stuff is returned, all of the costs will be given to our attorney whom we had to retain (cha ching) for reimbursement.  We will be requesting this reimbursement based on the instances of fraud and extortion that my attorney and the DOT have found.

Paying for two moves and having to rebuy a wardrobe was really expensive, I was lucky to get a job so quickly out here.  I hope that the pirates can help us break even on the whole incident.  I hope their crime doesn’t pay.

meh

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I feel stunted, halted and blocked.  The burning cinder block on my heart that I want to show you is harder to show you because it’s somebody’s current situation that is triggering my past (well, my entire life).  And it’s a hard decision to write about it.  Cause it’s about me, but it’s about them.  But they read this and I’m putting their business on the internet…

Or I’m not and this firey cinderbock stays lit and burns a hole through my chest and my gut.  I feel angry and I feel robbed and I feel hurt and I feel sorry and I want to help and I can’t and I am grieving so much.

The natural consequences of a life and a cycle can be so hard to watch.  And mindfulness is so exhausting.  And you can be learning to be mindful but still have done a lot of damage in the world and have a lot of karmic bills to pay, like I do.

Mather 10:29.  “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”

But they still fall to the ground.  I don’t know why people do what they do.  I know that people need community fiercely.  What has to happen in a life or in a generation to make it so that staying in a cult is the right thing.

How can you hand over all of your self preservation?  I know I was learning to.  How can you hand over your children’s well being, your physical well being and your financial future.  Then I look at the ways in which I am blind to my own situation and how I do the same thing.  Goddamn cycles everywhere I look, and I have to break them all.

Will I get over this, ever?  Seems like there are people I grew up with that seem so happy (on facebook) and I really hope they are.  More than anything I hope they are.  I hope they don’t feel the cellular level betrayal and abandonment that I do.  The rage and the theft.  OK, gotta take my brain pills and get ready for work so I can be happy.

Biggest Joy

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There is a man whom I have known for 20 years now.  He’s a brother of mine.  Yesterday I found out that the thing he’s always wanted is happening and I feel the biggest joy.  I am so overwhelmed with complete happiness that he’s going to be a father.  This person, this man, this brother is one of my few soul mates in the world and the last few years have been hard for us.  But underlying the pain of the last few years and the trials in our relationship, I’ve known that it’s us, and we’re going to be ok.

But this is so amazing; I am excited for the child that gets to be his.  This child has been wanted for so long.  He’s got the right girl and they are going to have a baby and I am so very excited.

It’s finally his turn.  I remember when I was about to give a speech in front of hundreds of people and it was my first time and I was accepting a big business award.  I told him that we didn’t deserve it anymore than anyone else in the audience.  He said, “Of course we don’t.  Fuck ‘Deserve’, it doesn’t exist.  It’s just our turn.  So go make the most of it.”

And if I was there I know we would laugh and cry and dance and I would wrap my arms around you, because this is worth celebrating so big.  Congratulations honey!  I love you so much!!

Confronting Sexism in the family

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Gender is a funny thing, kids get conditioned about what girls are “capable of” and what boys are “capable of” so early.  They are put in their tiny boxes and then many of these people after they have been conditioned spend their lives trying to bust out of these boxes.  Some are harmed by people who don’t even know that they are in a box, but the box people are angry that you aren’t in your place.  Get in your box!!!

My 6 year old nephew is one of my favorite people in the world.  In many ways he is the embodyment of my inner child.  This kid is nuts.  This kid is perfect.  He told me that girls can be ninjas.  I said that’s awesome!

In my brain, I saw a potential teaching moment… It was like “The more you know” rainbow streaked across my brain.  And I thought since we were talking about girl ninjas and normally that is a male dominated industry I thought (in my brilliance) to ask him.  “Is there anything a girl can’t be?”

He seriously puzzled till his puzzler was sore.

Yes, he finally answered.

I was surprised, and fully ready to explain gender equality, etc.

“What?” I asked.

“Vampires.  Girls can’t be vampires.”

“Why can’t girls be vampires?”

“Cause they don’t exists, Suzi, duh.

pwnd. Sometimes you can expect something so much that you ignore the obvious.  Girls can be anything in the world except something that doesn’t exsist.  DUH.