Well to be honest with you the relationship with her (friendship) at the time seemed perfectly sensible, reading back what I posted here the other night (and its all true) I must say it seemed like I was reading about someone else...Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
... some naive bunch of folks that got caught up in shit they could have and should have avoided.
But at the time, knowing what we did about the mother and how she had changed from a happy woman (that was down on her luck) to a complete whacko that was willingly putting her vulnerable teenage daughters into a situation that blind Freddy could see was all wrong. And knowing what we did about the friend and how she wanted out (her older sister had become a disciple), at the time we could see no alternative but to "get involved" although we did do everything we could to get "uninvolved" (with the nutters) as quickly and cleanly as possible.
No, after talking to her quite a lot recently I would say the "rubbing off" from the cult is what sent her into the abyss of drug use, living rough and most importantly the self loathing that was at the centre of her problems. It is patently obvious that the seed for her self loathing was planted in that place and reinforced in her mind by all of her close family members while she remained there and again when she eventually returned years later.
We, her foster family (as we were officially referred to during her time with us) did all we could to refute and dispel and destroy all those ideas planted in her then 13 year old mind by these nutters. It seemed that while she remained with us we had succeeded in freeing her from the influence of the nutters. During those years with us she was for the first time in her life a model student at school, she was also a contributor around the home and a delightful guest at gatherings and social events of all kinds and to me she was a fun-loving and likeable friend (but not a troublemaker or a drama queen like so many other girls her age because she knew of a different life the other girls couldn't imagine).
In our small family group of my mum and dad, me (my oldest brother had moved 500km away) and the friend it was my mum that struggled to connect with her most of all, there were abundant reasons for this which were obvious to all of us even then but despite this they did quite quickly learn to be ok with each other. Central to my mums issues was not the friend at all but the fact that my brother, her middle son, had committed suicide a year earlier and she was still grieving for him, she found it hard to fit a new "love" into her life and she had (and still has) a somewhat broken heart. My Dad and I also dealt with this particular demon in our own way at the time and I don't doubt that my dead brother loomed large in the background the whole time for the friend too... this is just how it was and nothing could change it. That story is also a whole different topic...
So Dread I think that the "cult" version of Christianity she had experienced did not in any way encourage her to look for God but quite the opposite. I also know from our recent discussions that having that "comparison" to the type of people she now knows through her Church they are not two sides of one coin as many would picture (me included), they are completely different coins. While both groups may praise Jesus, one is a dark hidden thing that preys on peoples fears and destroys families while this "other" group for her has been a bright, welcoming thing that brought her happiness, eventually love, it offered an opportunity for a better life and also important to her is forgiveness of those in that dark group (I struggle with that part...).
The contrast between the two groups could not be more stark, where one treated her as a devils spawn when she was an innocent young girl, the other group treated her as an innocent young girl when she was a drug addict living in the street.
Yeah well, you can cling to your Alexander Graham Bell ideology of the past GGT and I really don't blame you for feeling the way you do because I once agreed with you but...
...However if you are sensible about how you use them, social media like Facebook can provide very positive experiences the obvious being catching up with not only old friends but old work colleagues, alumni, distant or estranged family members and if you're brave perhaps even old flames. But a more common and less recognised benefit is that even the people you do still socialise with (or you see occasionally but not as often as you would like) can still share experiences with each other without actually being "there".
Here's a good recent example: My brother and I are not very close and do not talk often, for a million reasons, and I know without a doubt he would not have called me to tell me it was his daughters prom, but because my niece posted a photo on FB, we then quickly called her on skype and were able to share her excitement and enthusiasm for an important night in her young life.
With my brother living with his family in another state thousands of km away from here we simply don't see each other often so without these internet tools (Facebook+Skype) I would have either not even known about the prom or seen a few dusty pictures months or years later.
As for the can of worms you refer to - isn't life a can of worms? And if you specifically meant people you don't like contacting you, I have had a few people attempt to add me as friends that I simply decided I would rather not welcome back into my life and guess what? It's easy - you simply block them - done - and if you take the time to go through the privacy options properly you can ensure they see nothing you wouldn't want them to see (through "mutual" friends).
The biggest danger with social media is using them when you are ignorant, if you don't learn how to set the account up in a way that gives you control of what other people see then the can of worms will be wide open rather than simply cracked ajar enough for you to share your life and have others share right back at you.
How often does the phone ring?
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