MK forum

Collusion, confusion, exclusion, delusion.

or

Admission, Confession, Contrition, Reflection.

The choice is not mine to make,

but might I humbly suggest option 2

Thanks, BevST and Viv, for the article.
It sounds VERY familiar to all of us.
Sadly so.

Befused:
The crime: Already done--
Punishment not yet won.

Radioshack:
Yes, TRUTH!

Everyone:
HANGETH THOU IN THERE!

Setting aside the sexual abuse for one moment and looking at the psychological aspect. Some of the proponents of brainwashing were clever. They used other MKs to breakdown the non compliant MKs. There were rewards for towing the line, saying the right things and there was the punishment of isolation and bullying by your peers. So MKs who had the courage to stand up and say "this is wrong" were put in their place by boarding schools staff using MKs to do their brainwashing for them. Even the parents were in on it, so a child could grow up in almost an isolated environment, surrouded by people yes, but totally alone.

This may have some bearing on why some MKs are not willing to participate in a forum such as this. Imagine if you have been struggling with your conscience for decades about the acivities you particiapted in as a teenager/child and suddenly an MK you knew you had allowed or even yourself victimised suddenly turns up, it is unlikely you are going to want to revisit your past activities. It is much easier to hide, say "it was all in the past".

Speaking as one who was at the bottom of the MK pecking order, what happened between MKs is of minimal significance now. It is what the offending adults were up to that is the focus, for they knowingly orchestrated and allowed abuse to occur, designed the brainwashing and controled every facet of MK life. I got a rough time from fellow MKs, but that was decades ago and of little interest to me now, but I am very interested in the parents and staff of the boarding school who used MKs to breakdown the minds and wills of those MKs they disliked.

So if you were an MK in my past or any other MKs past and you are feeling a little guilty about your role in the collusion of victimisation, take the extended olive branch. Then look at who really was behind this nonsense, the ones who wanted to control as many young minds as they could and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. You were kids who deserved better too!

Excellent points here, Bemused.

Yes, I believe this applies to MANY MKs ... not only ones who were in your school with you, but in countless other situations. There is quite a bit of shame that now keeps adult MKs silent.

The important point here, I believe, is to understand that if, as a minor, you participated in activities or attitudes of which you are now ashamed, please remember your age at the time and also the isolation, brainwashing, and other dynamics in that mix.

Come out into the light! There is forgiveness! And acceptance! We need you! We need your support and your corroboration. All of us have regrets in our past. But hiding in the shadows refusing to acknowledge them helps no one. Not even ourselves.

Oh so true. Probably fair to say that most of us left our field days as MKs with hangups, misconceptions and loads of guilt.

Raz is very right, we were young, we were growing up without influences from the "normal" world, in fact we were told that the "normal" world was almost entirely evil and the world we were in was some sort of Utopia.

In PNG (where if you've just tuned into this excellent forum, I spent my adolescence), the bar was set very high for standard of moral behaviour, yet one didn't have to look to far to realise that the adults were not playing by the same rules. O.k. lets be blunt, who was in bed with who, when they were married to someone else and then of course there was the sexual offending, all of which we were constantly told only happened in the depraved world of the unsaved and the Catholics (yes there was an awful lot of mention about the sins of the Catholics, who now don't look half as sinful as some of our lot!).

For whatever has happened as a consequence of the strange childhoods we had, forgive yourselves. We carried out heavy burdens and we dealt with those burdens in many different ways (although with often similar patterns). We did not ask to be ladden down, we did not ask that our families be torn apart so that we struggle alone.

There is little chance of undoing the past with all its ramifications, but there is the opportunity to heal through forgiving oneself and taking the opportunity to join others on similar journeys to overcome the effects of the past and create a better future for both ourselves and a future for the following generations where this sort of abuse never ever happens again.