Just Cause

Below is a link to my cause which helps raise awareness about the effects of thought reform.  Any donations go directly to Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Victims-of-Thought-Reform-and-Coercive-or-Abusive-GroupsRelationships/199825176699233

Impatience

Impatience...it should've been my middle name.  I am anxious to share more with you, and I hope you'll keep checking back, but there is a reason I am pacing these posts.  First because I chose March 3rd as our official date to publish via Amazon Kindle.  Second because I am tying up loose ends.  I would really love to just finish with it and be done.
It took me almost two years to write this book although the actual time spent writing was drastically less.  I wrote for a couple of hours two days a week often making up excuses to not write and avoid it all together.  I pushed through because I felt maybe my story would one day help someone and because I thought it would be healing for me.
I was wrong.  It wasn't healing at all.  In fact, it was nightmarish.  Even now when I do something as seemingly benign as reformatting this book, I begin to have insomnia and, when I do sleep, I have nightmares.  It that old post-traumatic stress disorder rearing its ugly head. 
Soldiers are not the only ones who suffer from PTSD.  Battered women, survivors of plane crashes or natural disasters, or victims of mind control suffer as well.  Anyone who suffers a trauma in which they feel their lives are in danger can develop PTSD.  It is a condition that is little talked about because you cannot see the scars and you cannot hear the silent screams.  The National Institute of Mental Health has a link ( http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/what-is-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-or-ptsd.shtml ) that gives an overview of PTSD, the symptoms, and ways to help yourself or a loved one.
Recently the diagnosis of CPTSD or complex post-traumatic stress disorder has been given to victims of thought reform/mind control.  This would apply to survivors coming from large groups (think Unification Church--the Moonies), smaller groups ( Heaven's Gate--39 members), or one-on-one cultic relationships (like me).  It's not only religious weirdos who prey upon the universal vulnerabilities of humans.  Cults can be political or psychological or scientific.  There have been beauty salon cults and horse cults and art cults.  If you are live and breathing....there is a cult for you, but I pray you never find it.
Cult members are not crazy or mentally unstable or stupid.  On the contrary they are usually the "cream of the crop".  They generally are intelligent and gifted in some way.  It wouldn't make sense for a cult leader to recruit someone who wasn't.  How do you exploit a mentally ill person?  You would end up taking care of them when you really want them to serve your needs.  Also, as a cult leader you would need thier specific gifts to further your cause.  Need help with money problems?  Recruit someone who has a knack for numbers and money.  Then they can help you cook the books.  Need help with your cult literature?  Recruit someone who is gifted in writing.  Then they can help you put a new spin on your lies.  No one is immune to recruitment...because it happens so slowly, so masterfully, that you don't even know it's happening.  I spent a long time thinking I was stupid and that I was to blame for my experience with the priest.  A long, long time.  But it is simply not the case.
So, beloved reader, please embrace that characteristic which I lack which calls itself patience.  I plan to post Chapter 3 next week.

Ready to Launch

     The launch date is set.  March 3, 2012 is a significant day in my life--perhaps even more important than the days my children were born or the day I was married--so it seems appropriate to release the whole of the book on that day.
      I will be releasing Chapters 3-5 in the coming weeks, but, due to legal matters, cannot post more than this.  I am waiting to hear from other entities for thier blessing and approval.  In telling this story I do not wish to harm others.  Be patient, beloved reader.  More is on the way.

Who, what, when, where, why, and how?

Who:  Lunch with a Sociopath is the story my struggle to break free from the bonds of a cultic one-on-one relationship with an Episocopal priest.
What:  Thought reform is a means by which someone entraps another person or persons by coercive means.  In my case, I believed that the priest was God and to leave him or to disobey would be akin to betraying God only with stiffer consequences.  God forgives.  The priest did not.
When:  I met the priest in February 2001 and last spoke to him in May 2009.  I wrote this book over a two year period often becoming overwhelmed and putting it away for months at a time.
Where:  I wrote at La Trattoria in Alpine, Texas where they nourished my body and soul with chai tea lattes, creamy tomato basil soup, and the best pizza this side of the Pacific--the best being Boston Pizza in Waihiawa, Hawaii.
Why:  At the insistent urging of my therapist at the time, I began to write as a way of remembering what had happened.  The more I wrote, the more I remembered, and the more I healed.
How:  With the help of family and friends, I have made it to the other side of this ordeal.  To them and the staff at Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, I am forever grateful.

Excerpt from Chapter 1

Then again, I wanted to make my father proud.  Growing up I never felt my father was as proud of me as he was my sister Susan.  High school was agonizingly painful for me as she racked up one award after another both academic and athletic.  She was truly gifted.  That I cannot deny.  I remember watching her play in basketball games wishing I could do that though my stumbling feet and complete lack of athletic prowess stunted my sports career almost as soon as it started in seventh grade.  Before it died in junior high school, my career as the family athlete lay in a deep coma since I first signed up for softball when I was about eight or nine.  I didn’t want to play, but my parents signed me up anyway because, to have worth, you must play sports…. and be good at them.  I hated—no despised—softball.  It was the biggest waste of my time.  I could have been reading a book or daydreaming.  Instead I was standing out in left field waiting for a ball to come my way….and they never did because everyone was too little to really hit the ball.  So I began daydreaming about being Laura on “Little House on the Prairie” or Pippi Longstocking with my red pigtails standing at attention or Ramona who drove her older sister absolutely crazy just by being a little sister.  I’d look at the ants crawling on the ground flirting with danger as I stepped aside at the very last moment lest they bite me.  Oh, and there were ugly, scraggly half-dead pink and white flowers on the field starving for water and attention, but to me they were the most fragrant and beautiful flowers of which to make a daisy crown….which is why when the occasional ball was hit my way I couldn’t catch it.  My glove was full of flowers. 

          My sister, three years older than me, would come home from her games tired and sweaty, a towel hanging about her neck, take off her shoes, and watch television before going to shower.  Man, she stunk!!!  She smelled like girl sweat and feet that hadn’t been washed since the last game.  But I didn’t mind and I kind of liked it.  I think I would die if she ever knew that.  I liked it because I wanted to smell like her, to play sports like her, to make good grades like her, to have my father proud of me the way he was proud of her.  I wanted to be her!  Why didn’t God grace me with all her talents?  Because obviously I had none.  I was just a screwed up kid who had screwed up friends in a godforsaken screwed up little bohunk town.  While my sister was floating through high school on a cloud of recognition and praise, I was busy devising ways of killing myself.  So many times I took handfuls of various pills.  I cut my legs, my face, my wrists, and got sent to a psychiatric hospital for my efforts.  However, I did well in school except for math.  I always did my homework before attempting suicide….just in case. 

     I have forgiven Susan for being the perfect athlete and scholar and for making my life a living hell because I know it was all a lie.  Not that she wasn’t smart and accomplished.  That’s not her fault.  It was mine for not accepting what I was (and wasn’t) and for trying to live up to a standard I could not possibly attain.  I’m sure I made her life hell by virtue of being her little sister and wanting to be just like her.  Really it was my dad who never really valued my accomplishments in band or theatre.  But I couldn’t be angry at my father and I didn’t really understand that it was wrong of him to never go to my band contests or football games when we marched at half-time or to my speech tournaments.  I think he went once to a football game.  Instead I aimed my flame-thrower of vengeance at Susan and unloaded on her for all I was worth….which was, apparently, not much.  In that family, you have to be good at sports to be something.  You can’t just be a troubled girl in black who listens to The Cure and plays the flute.

          So it flattered me when Father Will told me I was intelligent and witty and full of promise.  He was almost old enough to be my father—sixteen years my senior.  But, let’s get this straight…this is not about my father.  We all do the best we can when we parent and then we have the rest of our lives to look back over what we have done with our children and, with great sighs, say I wish I would have and I should have.  I’m sure I will heave great heavy breaths from my aging body when my children are older.  I only tell you this because I want you to understand that I grew up with a self-esteem that could only be viewed under an electron microscope on a sunny day.

Father Will told me I was a kindred soul and, to me, that was the best compliment of all. He was educated, charming with an acid wit, and, most importantly, he was a man of God with a growing church besides his career in academia. He was success. He was holy. He was as close to God as I was going to get considering my life of failures and out and out sins. Surely God could not love me. And if He did, it would be a pitying kind of love you have for a dog that tries really hard to be good, but always ends up making a mess on the living room floor…in front of company no less.