Jaded

Yesterday I found out that the "new" blog I found was fictional.

I am not very happy about that. Here is a comment I left on another blog about that experience:

I have been deep in thought about the X-ATI blog.

I have known several families involved with ATI, but without exception I would never have gotten to know them if they hadn’t already left the movement.

(Those still in the movement don’t make friends with “outsiders”.)

The damage done to these precious hearts who have escaped is serious, painful and very real.

The damage done to children by any kind of abuse is not at all funny on any level. Even though I was never ATI, I was a dominated, abused child.

As such I know how important it is to be heard and believed when an abused person finally starts to tell their story. One can not approach a wounded person with skepticism and cynicism. It only compounds their pain.

One of the big woundings of child abuse is that people make light of your suffering.

I remember a particular counselor encouraging me to be honest with him (about the abuse), though I hesitated at first because I didn’t think he would believe me. His response, “Well, I find that hard to believe! Your mom seems like a nice person to me.”, worked in my abusers favor, shutting me down and reinforcing to me that my abuser really did control every aspect of my life. There would be no escape.

In light of my personal experience, I am inclined to believe those who claim abuse. I think it is righteous and godly to assume they are being honest, at least honest from their perspective.

Because of this, I will make the statement that parody blogs that are not clearly marked as such do more harm than good. I feel manipulated. The authors of that blog purposely lie, making humor out of something that is not in the least bit funny to me.

It is as distasteful to me as if someone wrote a fake blog claiming to be a victim of forced prostitution. Some things just aren’t funny.

Maybe if the authors of that blog clearly marked it as parody, some people might find it funny. But it would never be funny to me. And now I must confess I will doubt every new survivor’s blog out there.

That is all that this parody accomplishes that I can see. A few smug in-the-know people feeling smarter than everyone else, while readers who find out they have been deceived harden their hearts to future claims.

Personally, I don’t think breeding skepticism and cynicism toward claims of religious abuse is very helpful.