What helped me was to in my own mind strip NTM down to it's basic components and understand what was making the average Triber tick. To understand why they acted the way they did in other words.
I was old enough to remember going into training and so the life pre and post NTM. I remember arriving at boot camp and warning bells going off in my head. It was a very alien environment, that behind the facade of ultimate sacrifice for the most noble cause, was a structure with a clearly defined pecking order and a control by fear by those at the top. And my parents changed rapidly, suddenly they were talking in mantras and everything and everyone had to be labeled so that we could follow a predefined reaction to the people we encountered. And we started to use people for what they had, rather than seeing them as individuals. For me, in hindsight, we had entered a CULT. The year at language school was relatively normal and then we went to the mission field and the nightmare really began. The mantra of breaking a childs will to make them subservient to god was enforced, except it had more to do with the sadistic pleasure of those inflicting the beatings, mental manipultion and sexual abusing, than any god. And the pecking order and labeling was back in full force. It was an environment devoid of normal human compassion, yet rambling on about a loving god, a place that preached sexual purity day after day, but closed a blind eye to those who molested and raped children and a home for rascists, haters and fanatics. The reason none of this was cleaned up was the CULT mentallity, as long as one regurgitated the prescribed mantras, didn't get off side with the filed committee and was the right race, color and country of origin, one could pretty much do what one liked to those lower down the pecking order and get away with it. To be fair, there were some good people about and some of them got me through without going totally insane, but the system was rotten to the core and they had their own battles to fight.
NTM was not a "normal" environment and still isn't. It's a CULT and it's members by and large have been programmed. Those at the bottom of the order are scared to step out of line and to think for themselves. Some get out, some are thrown out for questioning or thinking for themselves, but many stay in because they don't know anything else, have swallowed the line that the outside world is terrible or find that financially they are doing quite well thank you very much. There is an answer and excuse for everything, no matter how ludicrous the answer or excuse. Everything is god's will or god's judgement, depending on who you are. Everything and everyone is seen as black or white, friend or foe, of use or to be discarded.
And that's the environment we grew up in and the residue of which will roam around in our minds for the rest of our lives. For me it has been liberating to see why it was all so weird and damaging and then rebuild my life with the good bits of my past and discard the cultish rubbish.
The bottom line is, as a child none of this was your fault. It was the result of decisions of others. Away from the toxic environment of our childhoods, the air is much cleaner, but every so often we will get a whiff of the pasts pong. Just try and stand upwind and don't inhale if the wind changes.
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