One of the favorite sayings in Armstrongism thrown at those who have left it is, "Get over it!" Here is an article written by an exArmstrongite on the Unfundamentalist Christian blog about this slur.
Every so often someone joins our group, and is dismayed by the raw and painful emotions they encounter there. They don’t quite understand the anger and the pain displayed, often by people who escaped the cult years ago. And so they usually end up offering the same advice: Get over it.
I really hate that platitude.
How does one “get over” discovering that everything they’d been taught about God and religion since childhood was a lie? How does one get over needless deaths or prolonged illnesses brought on by church teachings? How does one get over being inculcated into a “religion” that fostered rape, child abuse, spousal abuse, forced divorce, abandonment of every sort—that created and insisted upon poverty?
How does one “get over” losing family members who will no longer have anything to do with you, because you walked away from “God’s True Church”?
How does one “get over” all the things, and all the ways, that have nearly broken us, when patching and sewing back together all the cracks, rends, and damage done to us is such an agonizingly slow process?
While it is true that time can soften the memories and ease the pain of past traumas, “getting over it” is an impossibility. Life-altering events forever change us—even positive ones. But it seems to be the negative events that we have such a hard time with. Maybe it’s because we suppress the emotions they bring up in us, and don’t share our stories, because we’ve encountered too many “get over it” responses. Maybe it’s because our culture and our churches tell us that we must forgive, must be strong, must move on, must stop “living in the past.”
Read the story here: Getting Over "Get Over It" on the Unfundamentalist Christians web site.
It has been my experience that the people who tell us to "get over it". are the people who are still reveling in "it". The fact that they see nothing wrong with "it" makes them very flippant and cavalier in their approach to the damaged. They should be the objects of our pity, and not vice-versa.
ReplyDeleteBB
I HAVE gotten over "it". This is why I am having so much FUNNNN now exposing the "its", as in "idiots!" LOLLL
ReplyDelete...and to all the "its"...
ReplyDelete"GO THROW ANOTHER RAG OVER THE CAMERA!"
When they say "get over it" the message I hear is, "Lalalala I can't hear what you're saying about my cul- I mean, church lalalala."
ReplyDeleteIf fostered rape, child abuse, and spousal abuse? Sorry, but not in any of the people I knew, or in any of the sermons I heard. Try not to lay it on so thick that you make all us exiters look like liars. Herbie the Horrible was the only child abuser that I knew of.
ReplyDeletemaybe you should seek professional help....you feel wronged and want to get even, not a very Godly attitude.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that my daughter's teen friend in the WCG has gotten over her incest by now -- she's happily living on welfare: It's a win-win -- the church ruined her and now we take care of her through taxes.
ReplyDeleteAnother girl in church had appendicitis and her appendix burst -- you can blame the church's teaching on healing. She survived. Her immune system, not so much.
The WCG killed off my brother and then the church members came by to take all his stuff. He should just get over it and live again.
The couple in United who was being stalked by a member helped along by the Regional Pastor (guess who?) did get over it by getting a restraining order and a Feast trip to Alaska paid for by the UCG.
We wonder if the teen fondled by a local elder in the UCG has gotten over it. After seeing some episodes of Law and Order SVU, I'd guess not.
And then there's all that false prophecy based on British Israelism used as a tool to leverage money from members because it was the end of the work so we could go to the Place of Safety and it would be all over. Now all the money we sank into such things as the building fund are all gone, Ambassador College is gone and the WCG is gone with those cons in the GCI making off with what's left of the money that paid for Steuben Crystal and Silver with Gold inlaid Zodiak stand.
And then there are all those people who never drank a drop in their lives turned to alcoholics who got terrible headaches from hypoglycemia as the sign of the last stage of alcoholism before they died (while the debauched Armstrongs drank without getting much farther than stage two of alcoholism).
And then there are teens who were kicked out of their parent's homes to the street because they didn't agree with the cult. It's called child abuse and parents go to jail for it.
Then there's the cult leaders who have gone to prison for various things, oh, like felony income tax evasion.
How about the boys exposed to the pedophile elder? Again L&OSVU suggests that get over it -- not so much.
And the preaching elder in the WCG, Global and the CoGGG who raped 16 teen girls and had affairs with 8 of their mothers (last seen selling insurance)?
They lie to you and take your money... and worse.
We'd get over it (quicker) if they'd give the money back.
Apologies might be accepted, but it may be a little late for that.
God can just throw them into the Lake of Fire and then He can get over it.
Knowing the 5 things you cannot change can help...
ReplyDelete1. Everything changes - nothing last forever.
Everything ends, every beginning is the start of an end. Relationships end, people die. Seasons turn, things change. Get used to it. Learn to let go gracefully, change and grow yourself.
2. Things do not always go according to plan
The best laid plans often go astray. No plan survives contact with reality. Adapt, improvise, flex, adjust your sails, innovate. Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out. Plans are useless but planning is invaluable.
3. Life is not always fair
Some serious wrongs cry out to be righted but many more are best dealt with by moving on and not getting ensnared in a negative energy cycle.
4. Pain is part of life
There is a cost to everything and suffering may be part of that cost. Pain is not necessarily punishment and pleasure is not necessarily a reward. Pain can be a source of tremendous personal growth. But there is no need to seek out pain to speed your growth. Life will send you your proper measure!
5. People are not loving and loyal all the time
We are social, gregarious creatures. We depend on each other. But people are human and inevitably let us down. Our work as healthy adults is to feel this fear of betrayal and abandonment and deal with it, embrace it, learn from it, grow beyond it, NOT run from the fear. Running only strengthens fear.
Christianity started out as a slung together amalgamation of previous savior cults forced on the western world by the power of the Roman state. Predictably, it eventually fragmented.
ReplyDeleteHerb was a conman who set out to form his own amalgamated family religion out of skillful picking and choosing of carefully chosen pieces of the most extreme but imagination grabbing facets of that fragmentation, like British Israelism. Nothing he taught was truly original and he had a crafty way of introducing new extreme doctrines like the makeup farce once in awhile, always with the objective of further isolating us from eveyone and everything else.
Being the elite and chosen ones specially picked and chosen by a fictitious god is a powerful draw and we all fell for it. Some people cling to that specialness even now. It's like the hold a drug has on people.
I think that if HWA wanted to cobble together a bunch of doctrines to gather followers, he did a poor job of choosing them. By choosing dietary requirements, D & R, healing, three tithes, etc. to increase his market share in the world of Religion probably hindered his growth. He could have stuck with prophecy and used his skills as a communicator and manipulator and probably done better for himself, and done less damage to others.
ReplyDeleteCan it, Velvet.
ReplyDelete"maybe you should seek professional help....you feel wronged and want to get even, not a very Godly attitude."
ReplyDeleteYa sure? Gods track record seems to be loaded with it. - RSK
1. Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and nutjobs will always exist. Learn to identify and avoid their influence. "Life Code" by Dr. Phil can help.
ReplyDelete2. PTSD is a reality. Some people who have been extremely distressed can fall victim to it. Armstrongism is filled with extremes which can trigger PTSD. PTSD has physiological consequences which cannot be willed away just by being told, "Get over it".
3. Alcoholism is an inherited disease caused by malfunction of the liver passed from the mother. You are not going to "just get over it". You must stop drinking. Avoid cults that promote alcohol.
4. Trauma on children a critical times during their development don't just go away. It's abusive to tell them, "get over it". A few episodes of Law & Order SVU may be helpful for you to understand that (I personally don't like the show) if you are not to dense to get the point.
5. While Folie à deux may go away on its own when it is between two people and the one inducing the psychosis is removed from influencing the person with the mental disorder, folie à plusieurs often does not. The problem is that even if the leader goes away (Herbert Armstrong died after all), the participants become interdependent to continue the shared psychotic delusions (such as British Israelism). In short, people don't just "get over it".
6. Get over it is an attempt to excuse abusers from their responsibility and accountability for outrageous extreme heinous acts. It is also an attempt by coconspirators to abnegate any consequences for bad behavior. Proverbs 18:17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him. The anti Armstrongists have made a thorough search and we won't stop. Excusing evil is evil.
7. Justice demands accountability. Try telling a judge at your murder trial, "get over it" and see if that works for a defense. For that matter, tell God that as you face the Lake of Fire.
It is rather disturbing to see people defend the evils of Armstrongism and makes us wonder just how corrupt people can get after they have been in an evil dysfunctional system to be coconspirators of the Stockholm Syndrome variety.
Velveeta has got a LOT of issues she has never gotten over. First she worshiped Dwight Armstrong's hymns and now she has went straight back to the pig slop of Armstrongism.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeletemaybe you should seek professional help....you feel wronged and want to get even, not a very Godly attitude.
April 26, 2014 at 5:48 AM
Actually, I don't want to hear that word "Godly" right now. After wasting almost 20 years in the (WWCOG and then PCG) and trying my best to be "Godly", but seeing none of the hierarchy putting in any effort. Seems the more you tried, the more the devils came after you. So don't give me the "Godly" guilt trip.
Besides, turn the mirror on yourself...(examine yourself). Why do you post anonymously?...just to antagonize?? See, I can "judge" you too!! So why don't you first go seek professional help, (and get the plank out of your own eye), then come back and post.
One of the basic drives for all of us humans is the seeking of equilibrium. We try to find the sweet spot, the happy medium, a place in which the key elements of life are all in balance with one another. Health, financial, relationships, fulfilling work, etc. This state of adjustment minimizes worry and anxiety, opening the door for our minds and bodies to be optimally functional and healthy.
ReplyDeleteSome of those who seek to be leaders, or who we would voluntarily acknowledge as leaders actually promote this equilibrium, or assist us in attaining it. However, basic Castro, basic Guevara 101, the leader wannabes, the little guys and bottom feeders who aspire to be leaders can only gain traction by yanking the rug out. They become drama queens, who attempt to make the status quo or establishment appear to be intolerable. In fact, they will actually attempt to exacerbate conditions, to shake their followers to their very souls, and then to institute a reeducation process, one that is consistent with their own goals and agenda.
This is the way in which Herbert W. Armstrong, for some, attacked and dislodged the huge and formidable mainstream Christian establishment which dominated American society during his productive years. It is estimated that he found 150,000 suckers, largely by convincing them that everything they knew was pagan, that God was going to punish the world through events of "the end", but his followers could be saved as part of the victorious team. 150,000 of anything is probably going to provide the income necessary to find one's own excellent comfort level and equilibrium!
The problem is, once you, the follower, have bought into the "leader's" revolution, and have later found it to be based on false premises, or not to deliver the things promised in his time frame, there is no complete "getting over it". A rip off has taken place, a burn, a fraud. One attempts to regain the equilibrium once lost, to expose and repair the damage done, and to warn others. Unfortunately, the peculiarities of some, or their own personalized catastrophic needs, have made it so that they have found their version of equilibrium within the specialized cult or group of revolutionaries, and future Castro-Guevara 101 attempts to take them into yet another perhaps more reasonable direction will not work. These are the people who would call us traitors, or label us as those who have fallen away.
The good news is this. How many of us once held their same attitude? Time and circumstance dislodged us and changed our views. It will do that same thing for many of them, as well, as the specifics they promised continue to fail to come to pass! This makes most of the "get over it" people just a temporary nuisance. The loudest ones are probably fighting an internal conflict over this very same topic within their own minds, even as they write their foreboding words of advice to the rest of us.
BB
As I skimmed through this subject and some of the comments I found myself wondering what can I learn that will be useful in my relationship with people.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I agree with, is that telling people who have negative experiences in relationships created by religion will not be helped by telling them to “get over it”. Why; because like it or not religion is one of the key factors that separates the human being from other material life forms. It is like telling a person to get over being a human being.
I deal with questions that concern helping or hindering personal relationship rather than changing the emotional damage done by these negative experiences.
Why do some people have negative experiences and others appear to have positive experiences within the same environment circumstances? This is true in the secular world as well as religion.
Are these negative experiences due to human power or human weaknesses or maybe both?
What positive solutions are there to reverse the affect of the emotional and physical damage incurred by these negative experiences?
My personal conclusion has come to the point that we are dealing with subjects that humanity has been and will be facing since time began and will be until there is a universal internal change in that matches the perfection we apply to the Christian Deity we call God.
I personal find there are many positive information sources available, but there is a need to sift the wheat from the chaff.
A. Boocher
Black Ops Mikey said...
ReplyDeleteWell put.
And I wonder how many Jews you could say those words to..."GET OVER IT!"
Gerald Flurry AKA >THAT PROPHET< STILL has not gotten over it.
He was mad as hell when he was disfellowshipped from the WWCOG.
Every sermon I heard was focused at the so called "LAODICEANS". His excuse was that he was "warning them". The truth of the matter, he scammed all of his already poor members out of their money and lives just to >SHOW THEM LAODICEANS< it was HIS commission now to "PROPHESY AGAIN" (even though Herbert W. Armstrong claimed he already did that very thing).
Gerald Flurry is an out of control TYRANT who "hasn't gotten over it", and he trains his mini me's to be the same way.
Yes, ROB people so I, ME, MINE, can build all this worldly stuff so I, ME, MINE can have our "Kingdom of God" right now on earth, just like my father figure IDOL did (HWA)...cause obviously the more "stuff" you have, the more it looks to the other lost people, >AKA Prophets/splinters/offshoots of the WWCOG, that GOD is blessing ONLY YOU>..I,I,I,ME, ME, ME, MINE, MINE, MINE...AKA GERALD R. FLURRY.
Nothing Godly about him!
I was scammed out of child support by those evil people. My son is now fifteen and has not received child support from his dead beat dad. The dead beat dad was never ordered to pay child support by the courts because the Philadelphia Church of God interfered and when they were cleared, they ordered me to sign papers saying I would pay my son's dead beat dad child support. The PCG played into the devil's hand (because they ARE the devil) and put mine and my son's lives in worse shape than before I came into contact with SATAN'S CHURCH (PCG). My ex claimed he "WON" after this and dropped my son off at my apartment and went to live at his "mommy's house".
The PCG minister's and Regional Director BRIAN DAVIS threatened me with disfellowship if I didn't sign those papers.
So while Gerald Flurry and Brian Davis and all the other "gods" at >headquarters< Edmond, OK. sit there amongst their "kingdom of god" having all the creature comforts at their door step, their are thousands they have ABUSED to get to that point!
This site IS my professional help.
Thank's Dennis!
So don't EVEN tell me MY actions are not "Godly".
ReplyDelete"Get Over It!"
No.
Never.
Not possible.
God, the Bible, and the Church of God scene are not something that anyone can ever truly "get over."
Jesus said that he would build His church and that the gates of the grave would never prevail against it, meaning that it would never die out. And so, the saga continues, and will continue to continue until the very end.
It is not all in the past. The current crop of false apostles, false witnesses, false prophets, false evangelists, false ministers, false deacons, and false members are still around to this very day plaguing everyone they can. Some of them might seem like relatively harmless idiots IF you knew better than to believe them, while others are much more cunning and malicious and act like they were sent by Satan himself to lie and kill and destroy.
It is not realistic to deny the existence of evil, or to pretend that it does not affect people, or to falsely claim that it is in the past and should be totally forgotten. Warning other people about the present dangers that continually lurk virtually everywhere on the Church of God scene is actually a useful public service.
The Banned Blog can actually serve a useful purpose for true believers by exposing many of these wicked people for what they really are. Telling the plain truth about these false religious leaders is, of course, the one thing that these crooks hate. Anything else goes, no matter how evil it is, and especially when these false religious leaders themselves are doing the evil. In their world, the only great and unpardonable sins are to refuse to hand over all your money to them, to refuse to submit to their satanic abuse and worship them, and to tell the plain truth about them and their evil behavior.
The leaders and members on the so-called Church of God scene today are NOT ALL GOOD. In fact, it would be very lucky if it turned out that they are NOT ALL BAD.
I was never a member of this group but I believe I can empathize just a little. I believed in a particular "theory" for many years that seemed to have answers for all kinds of problems. When something didn't "fit" the leaders could stretch the theory to explain that. I just set aside my doubts and questions because so much of the theory seemed accurate. However, I eventually had a "shock" when I realized that the theory was not based on fact but on one man's perception of things and his loyal followers repitition of the ideas. It was painful to realize that I could no long look to that theory for almost all answers. I now realize that I have to "pick through" all aspects of the theory and decide which ones really seem true based on objective evidence and/or my own experience. I think it will take a long time. When a belief system starts in childhood as many religious ideas do, it has to be much harder but it is possible to reach a place of peace.
ReplyDeleteA. Boocher
ReplyDeleteApril 26, 2014 at 10:48 AM wrote:
Why do some people have negative experiences and others appear to have positive experiences within the same environment circumstances? This is true in the secular world as well as religion.
When a certain person has it in for you from the beginning, (BECAUSE OF THEIR UNWISE ADVICE which cost the PCG over $100,000 just to get out of potential trouble and MORE MONEY...and that certain person whom gave the UNWISE ADVICE does not want that info spread to the rest of the members/congregation)...THIS is where the problem lies.
THE GREAT COVER UP PLAN!
Now this GREAT ONE whom gave the UNWISE ADVICE appears to not have any trouble with others whom...DON'T KNOW HIS BIG SECRET HE'S KEEPING. But the poor soul whom was given the UNWISE ADVICE from THE GREAT ONE better watch out! Because the BIG SECRET she knows means she has POWER over THE GREAT ONE.
Therefore GET RID OF HER no matter what it takes and how long...
"WE MUST NOT HAVE POWER OVER "THE GREAT ONE/ONES!" >AKA Philadelphia Church of God hierarchy.
Thanks but I don't need a positive information source to try to tell me what I already know!
"I still say: "You people need to GET OVER IT!...and stop acting so BIZARRE!"
ReplyDeleteSigned,
Gerald R. Flurry
P.S...But you can still send me money!
"Herbie the Horrible was the only child abuser that I knew of."
ReplyDeleteI'll assume you were never in the UCG!