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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Aug 7, 2009 20:13:30 GMT -5
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Post by kisekileia on Aug 7, 2009 21:25:40 GMT -5
It makes me furious that the cop didn't even listen to Tapati's side of the story. I know authority figures were very ignorant and reluctant to intervene regarding child abuse back then, but it really should have been obvious to any sensible person that she was afraid of her mother. And when a child is afraid of their parent, something is wrong. If the cop had listened to her and gotten her placed with a responsible relative or friend's parents, she could have had an alternative to sacrificing her education to flee to a temple that was so strict and austere that it was itself abusive.
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Post by tapati on Aug 8, 2009 8:14:03 GMT -5
That's true, but I'd already tried that route. I'd asked to be removed from my home during the spring of 73, and was placed in their warehouse for teens, the "county home" which also housed indigent elders. They had no foster homes. My relatives were also dysfunctional in various ways and pressured me into staying with my mom so she wouldn't kill herself. I really had no options and I can honestly say, the temple was better.
On our forum, whenever the austerities of temple life come up, one person always reminds us that austerity always goes with monastic life, be it Christian, Buddhist, or Vaishnava. Of course usually it is adults who are choosing to join monasteries, nunneries, or temples. But at the very least it was a structured, clean environment where no one was hitting me, unlike home.
I should add that my mother didn't become violent very often at all, only a few times that I recall. It was mainly emotional abuse in my family.
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Post by arietty on Aug 8, 2009 8:32:30 GMT -5
Kisekileia no one ever gave a shit that my kids were scared of their father. I long ago realized that it was only ME that would ever care about this in any real and practical way. The last incident that happened which involved violence we did not discuss with anyone because NO ONE gives a shit, all they care about is "repairing" the relationship and encouraging my children to "forgive" blah blah blah.. one by one they have disowned their father and have nothing to do with him. They don't talk about about it because no one ever wants to believe this is a good thing. I can't even express how angry I am about this, the lack of anyone caring or even inquiring about my kids even when they know the history of this man and even when (in the past) they saw my injuries. This is my huge hotspot at this time.
Next time you hear of a woman who says her partner has been violent ask after the children.. find out if they fear their father.. find out if he has threatened or hurt them.
Tapati I am enjoying your story very much. I have read your whole blog but this is very interesting the way you write it here. It brings up a lot of things for me.. I have not spent much time looking at how/why my childhood with an abusive mother (narcissistic, emotionally unstable..) might have led me into fundamentalism. I know how it led me into an abusive marriage--many many things looked completely normal to me because they were no different than what I grew up with. In the past I have missed the sureties and formulas of my fundamentalist life and it makes me wonder now how much of it was both a longing for escape (because it presents an alluring alternate reality) and a longing for stability.
Thankfully I no longer miss it and I feel I have now a certain exhilaration in flying blind, in not knowing for sure anything in the spiritual realm. Took a while to get there though.
I am looking fwd so much to reading your next installment. It is creepy to me that I am reading this just DYING for you to be able to get back to the temple when of course I know the temple is going to bring you its own grief. But it's very hard to be 16 and be trapped in an single parent family with someone who is unstable, I know that from my own experience. How I longed for another place to be.
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Post by kisekileia on Aug 8, 2009 11:08:51 GMT -5
Ah, Tapati, I remember now. It doesn't sound like you had any better alternatives to the temple, but it's awful that you didn't.
Arietty, I'm sorry the people you knew have been so clueless, complacent, and uncaring. I will keep in mind that when I know a woman is being abused by her partner, it's important to check whether the kids are scared of the abuser too.
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Post by tapati on Aug 8, 2009 12:36:34 GMT -5
I know what happened and I'M hoping that in the next installment I get to go back to the temple! It definitely was better than where I was, at least until I got involved with my first husband. There really ought to be more alternatives. Emancipation would have been a possibility and maybe social services could have facilitated that when they were involved. I'd rather have worked full time, attended college part time, and lived on my own than live with my mom. However, religion (from the point where I got involved with Catholicism at 13) played a role in helping me cope WHILE I was there. If threatened by a Big Person, turn to another, BIGGER Person to even the score! While God didn't swoop in and rescue me, at least praying helped me feel less alone. (One reason I try not to mess with other people's belief systems is that you never know what role it is playing in their lives. Take out that support and you don't know what might crumble.) Kisekileia, I realize it is hard to keep track of all the ins and outs of the story. One current devotee of Krishna, not in ISKCON, took me to task recently on another ex-devotee's blog for not blaming and writing about the other factors that caused me to drop out of high school, instead of blaming it on ISKCON. I replied that I am writing about all the factors involved in that decision, but ISKCON was definitely one of them with the Secretary of the organization telling me "material education" was unnecessary. (I have the letters to prove it.) There is a lot more I could write about Keli Cancala (pronounced with the ch sound). She had a lot of problems of her own and they got taken out on those around her. But she was in charge and so we had to obey her. At least she wasn't as dysfunctional as my mom.
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Post by tapati on Aug 10, 2009 11:53:27 GMT -5
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athenac
New Member
I'll be a post-feminist in the post-patriarchy
Posts: 39
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Post by athenac on Aug 11, 2009 0:53:49 GMT -5
I read their current policy.
Barf.
It's depressing that so many religions teach keeping teh wimmins down.
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Post by tapati on Aug 11, 2009 18:57:47 GMT -5
I read their current policy. Barf. It's depressing that so many religions teach keeping teh wimmins down. It was, in turns, depressing and then ridiculous. At some point I'll have to do a point by point refutation of it. Ugh.
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Post by rosa on Aug 11, 2009 21:16:34 GMT -5
Tapati, i know this doesn't go back and help you, but I think people are more willing to unofficially help teens in that situation these days. I had a friend in h.s. in the early '90s who lived with another friend's family the last two years of school, and I have a friend now who's housing her son's friend from the sober high school because the friend's mom is still using and he couldn't stay sober and stay there. I think it's one of the side effects of the public education on abuse, addiction, and mental illness issues - people are a little less willing to assume troubled kids are the problem-causer in their families.
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Post by tapati on Aug 12, 2009 23:53:55 GMT -5
Tapati, i know this doesn't go back and help you, but I think people are more willing to unofficially help teens in that situation these days. I had a friend in h.s. in the early '90s who lived with another friend's family the last two years of school, and I have a friend now who's housing her son's friend from the sober high school because the friend's mom is still using and he couldn't stay sober and stay there. I think it's one of the side effects of the public education on abuse, addiction, and mental illness issues - people are a little less willing to assume troubled kids are the problem-causer in their families. I am glad to hear that. I think my mom would have blocked any attempt to do so, however. She was going to cling to me up to the last possible moment. I was supposed to meet the emotional needs that her own mother never did. I should say that in later years before her death we improved our relationship. I think that the things that pushed her to reject whatever I was into as a teen worked in reverse--she learned that the way to get closer was to give me the space to be myself and accept me as I am.
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