I've already mentioned how being in a continuous state of submission actually causes neural degeneration. As I look back to the period immediately after leaving TFI, I can see what a weakened state I was in mentally and emotionally.
Finding out that the cause I gave my life to was nonsense was a jolt, but the true horror of it all took a few years to realize. At first, I was just paralyzed by the guilt of how my life-choice had affected my children and desperately wanted to do what I could to improve their future prospects. The first step, I felt, was to get them to the US (the country of our citizenship) where they could attend college more easily.
My paper-thin optimism, my willingness to take risks, and my wishful-thinking (in the jargon of the cult, "full-of-faith") attitude was mainly still intact, and I expected doors to open and things to work out for us - as I had felt things had so far in my life. Not so. My time spent in the US that year was the lowest of my life. I learned what it was like to be poor in the US, and it wasn't pretty. I was not prepared for the social stigma nor hardship.
I had no idea how weak I had really gotten and how easy I had become to take advantage of. My "trust everyone" philosophy was sorely tested. My brain was muddled, my self-confidence became virtually nonexistent, and I was a mess. True to the Dunning-Kruger effect, I had no idea how little I knew.
The advice I would give now to my former, just-out-of-the-cult, self would be to not make any moves, not make any big decisions until spending a at least a year or more studying, learning, and planning.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Entitlement
As one of "God's chosen elite few," we COG/TFI members shared in the collective delusion that we were somehow more special than the rest of the world. Of course, our sins were constantly held before us to keep us in submission and "humble," but overall, we knew, and were to be ever-thankful, that we were chosen to be saved and to enter into the highest levels of heaven for being those special Christians who would live through "the End-time." ("End-time" meaning the seven years preceding the prophesied second coming of Jesus Christ.)
Part of being "chosen," as I wrote before, was that we were to dedicate all our time to our "work for the Lord" and not work for "mammon" (material things). "You cannot serve God and Mammon." (Luke 16:13) So basically, no one held a job.
The most common method of livelihood in TFI was what was euphemistically called "provisioning" but which in reality was simply begging. We would beg directly from people on the streets, approach businesses for cash or material donations, and go to stores to ask the managers for donations of food. There were certain members whose daily job it was to call businesses and ask for donations. Of course, this was ambiguously phrased as "donating to help our work for the Lord," or whatever we felt would be effective in the situation, but really, those funds and goods would go to supply our own communal household.
We didn't look on this behavior as "begging," but rather that it allowed people to partake of God's blessings by helping "His children."
In reality, we subsisted thanks to the kindness and generosity of others who really didn't know all that much about TFI.
It is inevitable, in my opinion, for this deluded perspective of being "chosen" to affect those who partake of it, furnishing them with a sense of entitlement where they expect other people to give them things and to be somewhat affronted when they are turned down.
What a shock it must be to people when they leave the group and realize that they have spent their years as (very possibly) an annoying beggar. Worse so for the young people who were born into the group and made to beg on the streets from a young age. As well, down comes the shocking realization that no one owes us a thing.
Part of being "chosen," as I wrote before, was that we were to dedicate all our time to our "work for the Lord" and not work for "mammon" (material things). "You cannot serve God and Mammon." (Luke 16:13) So basically, no one held a job.
The most common method of livelihood in TFI was what was euphemistically called "provisioning" but which in reality was simply begging. We would beg directly from people on the streets, approach businesses for cash or material donations, and go to stores to ask the managers for donations of food. There were certain members whose daily job it was to call businesses and ask for donations. Of course, this was ambiguously phrased as "donating to help our work for the Lord," or whatever we felt would be effective in the situation, but really, those funds and goods would go to supply our own communal household.
We didn't look on this behavior as "begging," but rather that it allowed people to partake of God's blessings by helping "His children."
In reality, we subsisted thanks to the kindness and generosity of others who really didn't know all that much about TFI.
It is inevitable, in my opinion, for this deluded perspective of being "chosen" to affect those who partake of it, furnishing them with a sense of entitlement where they expect other people to give them things and to be somewhat affronted when they are turned down.
What a shock it must be to people when they leave the group and realize that they have spent their years as (very possibly) an annoying beggar. Worse so for the young people who were born into the group and made to beg on the streets from a young age. As well, down comes the shocking realization that no one owes us a thing.
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