Why do we keep going back to the people who hurt us? Why does a hurt and exploited intern return for a 2nd year? Why does a dismissed intern return for another shot at graduating?
Sometimes, the answer is “Stockholm Syndrome.” The term was coined when hostages in a Stockholm bank robbery bonded so deeply with their captors that they were actually angry at being rescued. Although threatened with death, the hostages supported the captors and after 10 years in prison, 2 of the hostages married 2 of the captors in a double wedding attended by many of the former hostages.
I recently came across a great discussion of this concept in the book The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitative Relationships by Patrick Carnes. For many reasons, we can bond deeply with those who hurt us – and this addictive bond keeps us entrapped in the cycles of abuse, often with a smile on their face.
In terms of the Honor Academy, we sometimes see this when interns that were clearly abused by Teen Mania continue to speak its praises. I can’t tell you how many times alumni have profusely praised their Teen Mania experience – and yet when I ask some deeper questions about what they went through, they recount tales of humiliation and abuse.
An apt description of these bonds via Caught in the Cogs:
While this might seem counterintuitive, its a common phenomenon in abusive relationships. In fact, I think interns might be more subject to this than the average victim because their entire life is under the subjection of Teen Mania. At the end of the day, they can’t go home to their own safe space. Teen Mania is their entire reality and in order to cope with that reality, denial is often employed:
The use of denial and distancing oneself from the abuse are forms of what is called cognitive dissonance. In abusive relationships this means that what is happening to the victim is so horrible, so far removed from their thoughts and expectations of the world, that it is “dissonant” or “out of tune” or “at odds” with their pre-existing expectations and reality. Since the victim feels powerless to change the situation, they rely on emotional strategies to try to make it less dissonant, to try to somehow make it fit. To cope with the contradicting behaviors of the abuser, and to survive the abuse, the person literally has to change how they perceive reality. Studies also show a person is more loyal and committed to a person or situation that is difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating, and the more the victim has invested in the relationship, the more they need to justify their position.
Trauma bonding makes it easier for a victim to survive within the relationship, but it severely undermines the victims self-structures, undermining their ability to accurately evaluate danger, and impairs their ability to perceive of alternatives to the situation.
If you think you might still have a betrayal bond with someone, here is an online test to help gauge the level of your symptoms. (Of course, this is no substitute for seeing a therapist for a professional diagnosis.) A few sample questions that may be relevant to former interns:
– Do you continue to be a “team” member when obviously things are becoming destructive?
– Do you find that others are horrified by something that has happened to you and you are not?
– Have you kept damaging secrets about exploitation or abuse?
– When there is a constant pattern of non-performance in a relationship, do you continue to expect them to follow through anyway?
– Do you find you cannot detach from someone even though you do not trust, like or care for the person?
– Do you find yourself missing a relationship even to the point of nostalgia and longing, that was so awful it almost destroyed you?
– Do you keep secret someone’s destructive behavior because of all of the good they have done or the importance of their position or career?
28 comments:
Thank you so much for this! Really, I’ve been thinking about why so many stay a second year a lot lately and drew these same conclusions (which is weird cause I haven’t thought about it in a while.) This is EXACTLY what happens. It is strange to think that these kids are humiliated and they like it. Perhaps because they are rewarded for it? The whole thing is very sick.
Shiloh, you wrote, “It is strange to think that these kids are humiliated and they like it.” That’s kind of a blanket statement. I want to make it clear that not EVERY intern experienced humiliation while at the HA.
I loved Teen Mania while I was there, and still do. My year was awesome. There were certain aspects that I didn’t particularly enjoy, of course, but most of my experiences were good. I even went down SOW roads and was accepted for a 2nd year. I was unbelievably excited for my GI year as part of the School of Worship. Due to medical reasons though, I ended up having to be “medically released” from my 2nd year. I had to completely change my diet and start multiple new medications because of the conditions I’d been diagnosed with. Mr. Bushnell thought that I would recover better at home with my parents watching over me than I would at the HA, which was the exactly what my parents had been telling me as well. He more or less told me that he couldn’t with good conscience allow me to continue a rigorous 2nd year while trying to battle with my illness, and that he was releasing me from my commitment. He was kind, gentle, and almost fatherly while he was explaining this to me, understanding that I really wanted to continue my 2nd year, but insisting that I needed to take care of my health. I never had to endure any humiliation or abuse.
That being said, the more of these stories I read, the more I’m starting to suspect that my year might have been the exception. And I’m not just talking about MY EXPERIENCE of that year, I’m talking about my whole undergrad class. There are a few from my class who told me that the year sucked for them, but overall, my class was a super happy, super satisfied, super laid back group of people. Everything was really chill. I’m thinking though that we may be the only class who had that experience.
I was an intern in 2007. I was a G.I. in a program which John Bushnel was my main contact in leadership.
We were there the same years. I probably know you. 🙂
Most interns are humiliated. You probably were too. This includes ESOAL, W.A., UPG, Men and Womans Retreat, Fasting LTE’s. A lot of interns don’t count these cause they’re often considered ‘role play.’ It doesn’t change the horror’s of what happens during these weekends.
I find it VERY hard to believe that you were never humiliated at T.M. Never made to feel like you were wrong even if you were right? Never forced to do something you didn’t want to…
But, if you say so, I don’t have much choice but to take your word for it.
Anon, I really respect you for being bold enough to say something. 🙂
Comment 1:
Shiloh, I was an undergrad Aug ’06-’07, and was only there for like a week or two of my 2nd year before going home to see some doctors to find out why I was sick. I went back to Texas to figure out how things were going to go and fill in Mr. Bushnell on everything that was going on with me. It was after hearing all of the changes I had to make in my life and new medications I was taking that he medically released me.
I’m not saying that I don’t have any embarrassing moments from that year. I have embarrassing moments from all the rest of my life too, though. I didn’t experience ANY humiliation at the hands of Leadership.
I tried out ESOAL, but I always understood that it was completely optional and knew that I could ring out whenever. It wasn’t that big a thing to me. When I started throwing up, I decided that I was done, and rang out. No one made a big fuss about it, no one questioned me, no one even tried to make me stay in. They asked me if I was sure I wanted to ring out, and when I said that I was feeling too sick, they congratulated me on what I had accomplished so far and expressed their hope that I would start to feel better quickly.
Our year was the first year that they did the World Awareness LTE. I actually had a lot of fun. I grew up camping and spending lots of time outdoors, so it wasn’t hard on me at all. I remember a couple facilitators attempting to give me a hard time, but it was always while I was in a “safe zone”, so I pretty much rolled my eyes and told them to give it up because I knew that they couldn’t do anything to me. There was one time though that I was out with a “food gathering party” and we were “searching” for food, when a group of facilitators tried to capture us. One of them shot my friend with a paintball gun from a VERY short distance away. I was SO angry and told them off right there. I know I “broke character”, but I didn’t care. It was stupid and wrong of that individual to do something that would actually hurt someone. All the rules of the LTE were clearly laid out for us at the very beginning, and one of them was that facilitators could be no closer than a certain distance away when using their paint ball guns on us. I told him that he broke the rules, that we were taking our food and going back to our camp, that I was going to report him, and they better not come anywhere near us on our way back. No one did, and when we reported the incident to Dave Hasz, he addressed the facilitators right away saying that the rules are there to keep everybody safe and that there better not be anymore of it happening. Things went fine after that, and it was just fun.
Comment 2:
The UPG was the MOST fun LTE that year. That being said, I was a tribes person, and I know that tribes people tend to experience the UPG differently from the Missionaries. I loved getting to dress up all crazy and make up a language with my tribe. I ended up marrying into another tribe, but a bunch of my friends were in that tribe as well, so it was cool. Our tribes were “connected” after that anyway, because the marriage was a trade, one of us for one of them as like a treaty agreement or something, so we ended up all hanging out together a lot of the time. The missionaries trying to figure out our language and customs and how to communicate the gospel to us was pretty funny, I gotta say… but once they figured it out, we had a LOT of fun all together playing games and roasting marshmallows. It wasn’t hard or trying… I just felt like I was playing a giant game of “let’s pretend”. But at the same time it wasn’t just frivolous and without meaning. It made me think about the rest of the world and all of the people who have never heard of Christ. I’m not saying I had some sort of big revelation because of it. It just got me thinking.
The Woman’s Retreat was great. Of course, I don’t really remember any of what Katie Luce talked about because I always had a really hard time paying attention to her. It’s just something about the way that she talks and her voice… I could never manage stay focused, haha. But she only spoke for a short time. We had a guest speaker… I believe that it was the woman who wrote Captivated. She talked about intimacy with the Lord and being the Bride. It was beautiful, and girly, and personal, and I loved it. Then we did the Damsels in Distress thing with our brother cores, which I have to admit was pretty pointless. “Hey, let’s stand out in the middle of a field and make our brothers come out and get us while being shot with paint balls from all sides. It will teach us valuable lessons about chivalry.” Okay… that was dumb. I could see the intent behind it, but it was still dumb. Then the girls had like a big giant sleepover party in the SAC and watched Pride and Prejudice, which is one of my favorite movies. Overall, I found it enjoyable and rewarding. I was reminded of how beautiful I am to the Lord and how passionately He is pursuing me every day of my life. I never get tired of thinking about that. <3
The Fasting LTE’s were tranquil, but in a good way. While I’m not a HUGE fan of fasting, I found it very beneficial. It was nice to have so much alone time with the Lord without any interruptions or loud noise going on around. The breakout sessions were cool, with a different person covering each one. Having so many speakers and different perspectives really rounded things out, and kept things from getting boring. I came out of the retreat feeling well rested and peaceful about where I was in my life and in my relationship with Jesus.
Comment 3:
I’m not going to claim that I never had any conflicts with anyone. I think that the way I view the world had a lot to do with how my internship went. I’m a pretty laid back, take things as they come, love everyone kind of person.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist church and I wasn’t really exposed to a lot of different denominations growing up. The Honor Academy was like this huge melting pot for denominational differences to all come together, focusing on what is really important: Jesus. I loved this. That being said, sometimes people have a hard time accepting anything other than what they have been taught their whole lives. I had quite a few people tell me that if I was truly filled with the Holy Spirit, then I would be able to speak in tongues. I personally don’t believe that this is true because scripture tells us that there are MANY different spiritual gifts and God gives different ones to each of us. Speaking in tongues doesn’t happen to be one of mine, but that didn’t stop people from trying to tell me that I wasn’t really filled with the Holy Spirit.
Here’s how I handled it: If someone confronted me about something or tried to force their opinion on me, I would make sure to listen to what they had to say, thank them for sharing it with me, and assure them that I would pray about what they brought up. Sometimes, depending on who the person was, I would make sure to take what they were saying into account and then respectfully share my view with them. Sometimes, if they were especially stubborn, they might try to shut me down or accuse me of making excuses. If this happened, I would just let them know that I would consider their input and leave it at that.
There was one talk in particular that Dave Hasz gave us which really helped me keep things in perspective. I am definitely paraphrasing here, but the gist of what he told us was that there is usually a grain of truth in everything that someone confronts you about, especially if you are confronted by multiple people about the same thing. This was helpful to me because it made me realize that in every situation, I need to step away from myself and examine my motives and actions instead of taking offense and putting up a wall right away. Because of this, I was able to have patience with the people who were overly confrontational, finding the grain of truth that was hiding in what they were telling me, and applying it to my life while leaving the rest (all the harsh words and accusations) behind. I was constantly praying Psalm 139:23-24 – Search me God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – God was always faithful in showing me when my motives were wrong, making it nearly impossible for people to make me feel like I was only “making excuses” for whatever it was they were confronting me about. The people in leadership over me were always very reasonable. They listened to what I had to say, and always allowed me to defend myself if I felt I was being wrongly accused of something.
Comment 4:
Allow me to share a specific example: I was led to believe that the “creative” portion of the grad-defense was optional. When people spoke about it, the only words I ever heard were “recommended” and “encouraged”. So, since I was super super busy toward the end of the summer, I decided that it was in my best interest to spend my time working on the important stuff instead of creating colorful posters or presentations. No one EVER told me any different. It was only during my grad defense that I was told that the creative portion was a requirement. I told them that I was always led to believe that it was optional. I always assumed that it was just to lighten it up and make it seem less serious and dull. When I told them that I thoroughly weighed the options and was absolutely confident that I was making the right decision to leave the creative portion out, from the perspective of someone who had no idea it was a requirement, they couldn’t find any good reason to reprimand me for it. I passed with flying colors.
I always took everything we were taught as being whoever was teaching at the time’s opinion, unless they were backing their stuff up 100% with Scripture. Even then, sometimes the way we interpret Scripture is a matter of perspective, so I never just mindlessly believed that whatever they were saying was absolutely the truth. There were plenty of times when I disagreed with what whoever was speaking during class or a meeting was telling us. But that’s okay, because I knew that I didn’t have to agree with everything. I appreciated wisdom, tried to put myself in other people’s shoes, and had a good time. I know without a doubt that it was the right place for me to be at that time in my life.
Were there some people I didn’t get along with? Sure. Was everything sunshine and happiness all of the time? Absolutely not. Knowing that there are alumni who were persecuted so horribly makes me unbelievably sad. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that there were fellow interns and people in leadership putting them through hell, stunting their spiritual growth, and twisting their view so much during a year that SHOULD have been one of joy, refinement, and growth. When I compare the stories I hear about the HA from the alumni who are hurting and compare it to my own experience… well, it’s hard to even wrap my head around how different things could have been for them or how different things could have been for me if the circumstances were reversed.
And… wow that was long… sorry. Pretty sure you didn’t expect that much in response. haha. Thanks for being so open to what I have to say, Shiloh. I really appreciate it. 🙂
Anon – Thanks for sharing your perspective. It sounds like you had a really good head on your shoulders and weren’t easily swayed by hype and peer pressure. I’m sure those traits served you well at the HA adn will continue to serve you well throughout your life. At the tender ages of 18-22, I’d say those traits are fairly rare.
Anon – Quick question. You said that you understood the teachings to be often based on opinion or individual perspective. How did you come to that conclusion? Is that something you were raised with? How did you deal with the ideas promoted that you must 100% submit to leadership and that the authority of the HA was basically the same as God to you. I think that is where a lot of people feel that it is necessary to shut down their critical thinking in order to be an obedient Christian.
Anon what were you diagnosed with? I ask because I have a life changing illness that the symptoms first came out from at the HA I would be more than happy to compare and contrast experiences for some perspective if you wanna find me on the forums.
RA: I guess my parents just always raised me to think for myself. In my younger years (like age 11-16) I was very opinionated and confrontational because of this, always challenging leadership (including my parents) to explain their reasoning for anything they said ever (no matter how inconsequential it was). I think that I just assumed that this was reasonable because I would, in return, always do my best clearly explain myself. When I got a little older I just accepted that people are flawed, and I eased up a bit. I suppose I tend to assume that everyone is bound to be wrong about something every once in a while, so I take everything that they say with a grain of salt. I never got the impression that Mr. Hasz or Mr. Luce wanted us to accept everything they said as absolute-straight-from-God-truth. I remember them encouraging us to take everything we were taught and test it against scripture. In fact, I always got the impression that Dave was impressed with those who would challenge authority, as long as they were able to back themselves up. Those people always seemed to be the ones who got the most respect.
As for leadership promoting the idea that we must always submit 100% to authority, I always felt that was a matter of interpretation. When they told us that God had given them authority over us and that we are to submit to authority, I never took that as “do every thing we tell you without question”. There were some people who did, but I just always assumed that their perception of what was being said was off. I’ve since learned that a lot of the leadership, while saying that they want interns to feel free to bring up their concerns, aren’t actually willing to hear them.
Heartsfire: I actually had some of the symptoms before going to the HA every once in a while, it was just while I was at the HA that they got really bad. I threw up every day for the last 6 months of my internship and had intense, horrible stomach pains that were sometimes so awful that all I could do was lie curled up in a ball until they went away. My stomach would feel better while I was eating, but would always hurt way worse after eating, and it didn’t seem to matter what I ate. (I found out later that I can’t eat any red meat. My body just wont process it and I’ll be in horrible pain until it is out of my body. The reason it seemed to hurt no matter what I ate was because it had gotten so bad.) My stomach would seize up every time I exercised, so I was no longer able to participate in corporate. I wasn’t too torn up about that, since I was able to sleep later because of it. Unfortunately the result of no more exercise was that I gained 50 pounds in that last six months, despite throwing up every day. I got way out of shape, and still haven’t been able to lose the weight. The weight gain led to sleep problems, which led to my immune system crashing, which led to catching every tiny little illness that anyone I was around had. I went to the clinic every once in a while, but that didn’t do me any good. My brilliant decision was to not go to any doctors in Texas because I’m a health care snob and was absolutely positive that the doctors in Washington were far superior to any doctors that Texas could have. I knew that if I went home to get tests done that I would miss out on stuff, which I didn’t want, so I decided to wait it out until graduation. I didn’t want to miss roads, the celebration LTE, my mission trip… etc. I put the fun stuff I didn’t want to miss over my own health.
Turns out that, in addition to being unable to eat red meat, I also have a hiatal hernia (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002122/) and really bad reflux because of it, which increased the pain I was feeling.
Anon – Random, but did you ever take Accutane (the “acne treatment” medication)? A scary number of my friends have horrible digestive problems due to having taken Accutane in their teens. Just a thought.
Also, I laughed at the “…because I’m a health care snob and was absolutely positive that the doctors in Washington were far superior to any doctors that Texas could have.” I hope, in the wisdom of age, you still don’t believe this.
anon, I totally love your perspective. We probably knew each other. I was a January in Tara Janics r.d. Group. I worked in atf, as well as the mob. All the lte’s you mention I was there for. Though my perspective much different. Having never gone to church until about a year before I attended the H.A. If I had one advantage most interns didn’t it was that I knew, without doubt that God is love. Because I had absolutly nothing without Him and everything with Him.The worst thing a Christian can do is not love in my opinion. Perhaps we saw two different sides of the coin, but I saw the opposite of love. The weak ones were not held in the highest honor. The poor were not given everything they needed. The less educated were dispised and rejected. You were honored based upon on how well you could benifit teen mania. How ‘socially normal’ you were. Even if I didn’t think teen mania was entirely jacked (and I personally do.) the fruit just isn’t there. I judge T.M. On their (Godly) love. _shiloh
Layne: Is Accutane a topical medication, or one you swallow?
And no, I totally don’t believe that anymore. I only worded it that way to point out how ridiculous I was being at the time. I was laughing when I wrote it! haha. I know that the North West has higher standards when it comes to education requirements for medical professionals than other parts of the country. For example, someone with a massage therapy license from Indiana isn’t allowed to practice massage in Washington State without taking the additional classes that Washington state requires to become a massage therapist. That’s pretty much the only basis I had for my odd snobbery. I never did any kind of research into what health care was like in Texas, so I really didn’t have anything to back my claim that Doctors in WA were better than Doctors in TX. I didn’t even stop to think that a Doctor practicing in TX wouldn’t necessarily have gone to medical school in TX… it’s so funny to think about now. hahaha
Oh, and I want to kind of apologize and clarify something I wrote in a previous comment. I wrote, “God was always faithful in showing me when my motives were wrong, making it nearly impossible for people to make me feel like I was only “making excuses” for whatever it was they were confronting me about.” When thinking it over this morning, I realized that I made myself out to sound way better than I actually was. Just because the Lord never failed to show me when my motives were wrong, doesn’t mean that I always had the right motives for every thing I did. I was plenty disobedient. I was no where near the “perfect intern” standards that a lot TM people feel the need to hold themselves and others to. I just never beat myself up about it. I knew that I was imperfect and had absolutely no intention of trying to achieve perfection. Jesus is the one who can claim a blameless life. Did I try to better myself? Yes, of course. It would be weird to never try to improve in areas you know you lack in. But I also knew that I was okay the way I was because I was perfectly loved by the perfect Creator. And that, right there, is the only reason I never felt any pressure to fabricate “sin” that I needed to deal with in my life that wasn’t really there.
Layne and Anon-So funny! When I read the “health snob” part, I was going to tell Anon this story, but then you Layne, said you hope Anon’s view of the Texas health care system being subpar had changed with age so I hope you read this too for fun. When I was a Staff Associate at TM, I was feeling pretty run down. I have fibromyalgia, but this fatigue and sick feeling had been worse than my usual symptoms, and lasted for about a month. I went to a clinic in Lindale and the doctor there first told me that I was just clinically depressed and gave me some prozac in a sample card. He said he didn’t know much about fibromyalgia, but was sure I didn’t have it. I had been diagnosed at 17, I was 22 or 23 at this time. When I went back again a few weeks later, I told him my roommate had sufferred a bout of mono. He said he was sure I didn’t have that either, but instead thought I might have cancer, leukemia to be exact, and sent me to the TYLER CANCER CENTER instead for extensive testing of my blood. I was there an entire day, and over $400 later, I found out I didn’t have cancer at all. Just the tail end of mono passing through my system. And a little fibromyalgia as a cherry on top. Also during my Staff Associate year I cut my finger on some glass and had to go to the ER for stitches. The ER nurse left a piece of glass in my finger and to this day it sticks out with a bump and hurts super bad when bumped. That visit cost over $500 in fees. So, yeah, Anon, I think you were probably correct in your feeling of subpar health care. At least in the Lindale/Tyler area in my experience.
Oh man, I went to a clinic in Tyler with what was so obviously eczema on my hands (I didn’t know it at the time, of course, because it developed in Texas) and the nurse said “I’m not sure what that is but it might be scabies…except it doesn’t look like scabies…let me give you some ointment for scabies…” It was a useless visit. When I moved to Austin and started working in the service industry, all of my co-workers recognized that it was eczema almost immediately. Which it was. So, yeah, maybe the poor health care is localized to East Texas? Hah.
Yes, I’ve heard pretty bad stories of inadequate care and misdiagnosis at the local Lindale clinics….
I find myself coming back to this blog, even though it’s hurtful to me. Are you abusing me, RA?
-RL
Oh man I hope RL stands for Ron Luce.
Does it stand for Ron Luce?
Please tell me it does.
I already knew what kinds of doctors I would need to see… tummy doctors. haha… aka gastro-something-I-can’t-spell-ologist. haha. It sounds like gastro-honor-ologist, but I know that’s not how it’s spelled… hahaha. I wouldn’t have just gone to some random clinic in Lindale if I were to go to a Doctor there.
Layne: She mistook eczema for scabies?! Seriously? First off, they look totally different! Wow… you went to a real pro. hahahaa. What I’m really wondering about though is why a nurse was diagnosing you instead of a Doctor… was she perhaps a nurse practitioner?
Anon: Yeah, really. She even admitted that it looked nothing like scabies, but she was stumped so she gave me ointment/treatment for scabies.
I had never heard of scabies so I was all “she said it was scabies…” to fellow interns, not realizing that, in some cases, it’s an STD. It was like stamping a big ol’ “dirty girl” label on my forehead. And it was eczema. And I was a virgin among virgins (uber virgin!). I was horrified once I finally researched ‘scabies’.
I’m not sure why a Doctor never saw me. Oh and ALSO… after the visit, my insurance sent a letter to me asking for verification that I was “in school”. TM told me they had a form letter that they send out to insurance companies which would verify my status as a student (and verify that my insurance coverage under my parents was valid). They told me not to worry, it would be sent promptly. They (apparently) never did. I found this out about three years later when I had my credit report sent to me and found that I had a collection listed on it from the Tyler clinic. My insurance never covered it because they never received the letter of verification. Not entirely TM’s fault (in retrospect, I should have been paying attention to the situation better…but I wasn’t) but they still should have done what they said they would do (with excellence!).
Ok, the end. This was long.
Wow. RA, I cannot tell you what a change this blog has brought to my life. I was at the HA ten years ago, and I can honestly say that since I discovered this site last year, I have finally come to terms with the spiritual abuse I experienced for the first twenty years of my life. I remember my experience at the HA in a positive light, but I realize now that it’s because it was less spiritually abusive than the environment I grew up in. I drank the kool-aid and loved it the entire year, just because I was less oppressed than I was back home! The first day I saw this blog, I stayed up until 3 am reading, and the next day took myself to therapy. For the last eight to nine months, I have been working through so much…and this particular entry was just a reminder of how far I have come. I can’t imagine where I would be right now if you hadn’t reached out to us last year–so thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
MelCro – I’m delighted to hear that. Thank you so much for sharing!
ii think part of it too is that we HAVE to love them. part of that whole commitment we made about not ever letting tm be portrayed in a negative light.
It’s interesting to hear from someone who had positive experience with TM. I always thought that I had a positive experience with David and TM (I didn’t attend the HA – I know David from his years as a HS teacher before he joined TM). I can relate with the positive personally interactions with David. I felt like he cared for me and appreciated our different theological views (I didn’t come from a charismatic background).
I think what really became a problem for me was David’s teachings on grace (or lack thereof). While I intellectually rejected these ideas, I found that it really warped my perspective of God. I acted for many years as though God was really only concerned with my performance, which of course led to despair. Just in the last few years I have begun to understand what real grace is, but I didn’t connect what I learned from David to my warped view of God until I found this website.
When I did finally make this connection, my wife seemed to think it had been obvious to her for a while. She had noticed that while I talked about my positive experiences with HS and TM in general, just about every story I told her about both were terrible.
After reading many of the stories on this site, I sort of had worked up the idea in my mind that David had somehow transformed into a monster after joining TM (it’s hard for me to believe the videos of ESOAL show the same man I knew in HS). However, looking back while David was kind and caring to those he liked, he was at times very negative to those he didn’t like. Overall, it’s a very shocking experience to find that someone I had looked up to and trusted so much has turned out to be someone so unworthy of that trust.