I was thinking about how really defeated we were while in the family. Even though we were supposed to be "in the victory", we really were a defeated army of constant supplicants for our life. Some didn't care and took the spoils as they came claiming all they could for their own selfish reasons but others who would faithfully try to do the right thing were relegated because they didn't have "the faith" to "lay claim" of something, somedoy, etc. The problem is that in many cases people did have the faith but were discouraged because some leadership had decided they couldn't do such and such thing. The cult itself defeated its own followers, what a fiasco.
That is why I feel good about people who are able to move out of the cult. Why is it that some people have what helps them pick up the pieces and build something good, even great, after leaving? I know of people who after leaving went great distances against all odds while I also know of others who had or could have had support but sort of whithered.
My gut feeling tells me that it is not just support but something else, and I don't think for a second that they don't want to improve (why else would they have left the family?). Is it lack of some basic life skills in general? A support group of some type?
Since my contacting exers I started thinking that some people just simple were unable to leave the cultic frame of mind but now I'm not even sure of what that means. Some people are "successful" pretty much the same way they could have been successful in the family, had not they intervened. That would be and interesting finding, because the family saw success a different way. The less nay-sayer one was, the better off one was. That created the submissive and silent population they could herd.
But upon leaving, we found out their promises of doom were fabrications to keep us in and have shown that we are a group of successful people. Most of all we succeedded by leaving them and doing even better things than we did there. Most of us had talents quenched by the hierachy of the family which later flourished without their interference. So, what makes us different from others who have also left but cannot make it? Were we unsuccessfuly in the family only to become successful after we left them, or is it that they didn't recognize our potential and that is why we couldn't make it there either?
I still wonder, what were they thinking? But my only answer so far is that blind obedience, complete submission by manipulation was more important than talent, spirituality or gifts of the spirit.
So, once we shook off their chains... we found we could fly on our own.