I will tell you that as a male in a paternalistic cult, I had it much easier than you did. I could run away informally, as opposed to through the courts. Reading your post and subsequent comments has moved me. Too many similarities, including sibling schizophrenia.

Your anger is well founded, and I understand it; I have some of the same defense skills. It is difficult to explain to people who have not experienced it.

You are fortunate to have escaped, but you are truly noble for telling others.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. You are a survivor.

This is why I wrote this. For you. In your honor.

Keep on keeping on. Do you still have that college paper? Think about writing and publishing your story.

If enough of us tell our stories, they won't be able to deny the truth any longer. They won't be able to blame us. They won't be able to marginalize us. They won't be able to pretend that we don't exist.

I understand the lost feeling very well I left the church and joined the Navy and was sent to Italy. It was quite a culture shock, but it helped the healing to begin because I was able to get as far away from him and my mother as possible.

Now I am free of the hate and lostness(know its not a word but can't explain any better) that I went through as a child. Yes I still deal with depression and some bi-polar issues but am doing better. I can only say thank you Sarah for writing what I couldn't.

The thing that always shocks me the most when people respond with their blaming the victim tactics is that we're talking about children here.

I mean, yes, I do describe the aftermath during my late teens and early twenties, but one does not immediately move past egregious trauma on your 18th birthday.

And, that's really my point. We're sending untold numbers of severely damaged and wholly unprepared young people out into the world.

And, that's only if they're strong enough to take personal responsibility for their lives and walk away from everything they've ever known.

I know for a fact that I have taken personal responsibility for my life and for the repercussions of my actions in a way that my parents will never know.

It's so much easier for them to remain in their fantasy land of make believe and no culpability and to demonize the escapees.

My one brother killed himself to escape. My other brother became a paranoid schizophrenic.

I chose to recreate myself anew, to try to right the wrongs and to get as far away as possible. If that's not taking personal responsibility for one's life, I'm not sure what is.

... it's always easier to blame others than to take personal responsiblity.

The funny thing is, had Sarah stayed in her religion, she would have had a fine whipping-boy. I cannot speak for Sarah, but only once I left my Southern Baptist dogma did I learn to truly accept responsibility for my actions. I had no devil left to blame.

If you credit God with the happiness in life, you must debit him the tragedy. Anything else is a double-standard.

But, if I spiraled downward into mental illness, because I had been indoctrinated into believing in a fantasy world in which demonic attack is a constant threat, that must have been my own doing.

Hmmm. See a pattern yet? Probably not. It's always easier to blame others than to take personal responsibility.