You are so right, Scatterbrained, about child abuse deniers. I have encountered deniers on every level. Mission leaders, mission members, parents of MKs, and sometimes fellow MKs. The lack of support and validation is horrendous. Even the "investigators" of IHART, who act empathetic when they are listening to MK abuse survivors recount their trauma, turn out to be deniers in the end, when their report is produced.
Deniers of the child abuse that occurred over the past decades in NTM (now Ethnos360) refuse to deal with mistakes that were made and crimes that were committed. They rationalize and justify participating in the environments that caused great harm to young children. The rampant harsh, cruel use of extreme corporal punishment to control children is still defended. The boarding school model, which was forced on families who just wanted to serve the Lord, left children feeling abandoned and unvalued, and placed them within reach of sadistic and sometimes dangerous school staff. That boarding school model is still defended by Ethnos360, a defense which keeps the wounds suffered by MKs open and bleeding, because current mission leaders refuse to repudiate the inhumane treatment of vulnerable little ones. And don't even get me started on the ways in which MKs were manipulated and controlled by spiritual abuse. Boarding schools may no longer rip 6-year-olds from the arms of their mothers, and children in the mission may no longer be beaten black and blue by random adults who aren't even related to them, but the spiritual abuse continues to this day.
I am so sorry, Scatterbrained, that you have these deniers in your own family. This is a huge impediment to any who are trying to heal, trying to move forward. It sounds like you have made significant progress in your journey .... but your own family could have - SHOULD HAVE - been helping you along, not holding you back.
It's all so messed up. I weep for the children. I weep for those who were once children, but no longer are, who still lack the kind of support that should be offered unconditionally.
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