This child survivor was the inspiration behind Children Raised in Worldwide Church of God (which today includes articles and stories for any child survivor of the Armstrong groups). The following writings cover some of her painful memories, feelings and struggles in her long road to recovery from growing up in the Worldwide Church of God. The parts posted were emailed over a period of three years to a special helper in ESN and are posted with her full permission in that they might help other child survivors feel validated.

This survivor finally gained enough trust to begin individual professional counseling in the spring of 2002 with a Christian therapist who understood trauma, dissociation, and had a knowledge of abusive religious cults. This same survivor later received  Dialectical Behavior Therapy,* which became the turning point in her recovery. Today (2007), in spite of the severe abuse she suffered, she says she is happier and more fulfilled than she ever thought was possible. Her sad life has now been turned into a success story--which is possible for every survivor who is willing to work hard on their recovery.

(Note: The word "cult" in this journal is used in the context of an abusive, totalitarian,  mind-manipulating organization.)

Read this child survivor's letter to ESN from 2002: Had to Learn to Trust Before Seeing a Professional Counselor.

Read poems by this child survivor

Child Survivor's Journal - Page Two (Starts with January, 2002, continues with updates for 2003 and 2004, and ends with a Note for 2008.)

*Dialectical Behavior Therapy: If you are struggling with any kind of destructive behavior; i. e., suicidal behavior or self-injury, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has been found to be helpful. This kind of therapy helps survivors to use tools to control moods that can go out of control very rapidly. As this child survivor (who underwent DBT) told us: "When you feel powerless, you feel hopeless. Once you realize that you have the power to change things in your life, you will not feel you have to wait for people to be good to you. You have the power to choose a better option."
 

Loss of Hope

February, 2001
The biggest loss has to be hope. When you take from a child their hope for a future you are literally giving them the mindset of someone in a concentration camp or on death row. You toss them some food, make them follow the rules and let them know every day that this is as good as it gets.

I always felt evil for not wanting Christ to come back because I wanted the chance to grow up and live. Most all articles on cult recovery are directed to people who had a real past, got caught up in something they didn't understand and now are moving past that bleak spot in their life. The difference is with me that bleak spot has been my whole life and whole belief system. I don't have an old religion to fall back on or people who knew me before my involvement to take me back into the fold. I have to start at ground zero and work my way up.

If I believe in mind control, as was used on these people, I have to believe that everything that I ever knew was false and I have to begin again because I actually formed my whole way of seeing the world and people and God by soaking up lies. If you want to think about mind control, think of someone who received subliminal messages their entire childhood. ("You are inherently evil; God is malicious and vindictive; your 'unconverted' parent at home is evil and therefore doesn't exist; your school is evil; your friends and neighbors are evil; our country and government is evil and out to get you; you're not doing enough to save yourself; you're headed to the lake of fire; you're going to die and you should be ecstatic to have been given the opportunity," etc.) I'm talking MAGNITUDE of loss!

Taught Me Mean and Hateful Things About  God

March 2001
I really like those "How God Sees Me" things. There's so many of those listed -- I can't believe all those things about Him loving us are in the Bible and nobody ever showed me all that time. Why did they have to be so mean? It really hurts to think about all the mean and hateful things I believed about God. I wish with all my heart that I'd known Jesus was there all along. I could have been talking to Him the whole time my [parent] was yelling at night. I could have been comforted to sleep and maybe not have even heard it all. He must have been there because I wouldn't have lived through it all. 

Views They Gave Me of God 

April 4, 2001
The views I've had of God are how you would describe Satan to be - hateful, vengeful and just waiting to kill me - all those things. How can I just conjure up this loving and giving God - like Santa Claus, or something, from all the hateful things that I know? The WCG wasn't just some legalistic church that I can put behind me. I have to live with it forever. They didn't just take my money or a little bit of time. They took my whole spiritual life. My whole trust of myself and value of myself. They taught me from a toddler that I was filth and worthless and that god was mean. As many pitiful attempts at apologies that they've made recently, how are they going to make up for those who didn't just visit hell but were born into and grew up in hell? They get away with it because nobody could possibly know unless they lived through it. 

How Much WCG Ruined Our Lives

May 2001 
Growing up in the WCG is about having to grow up as a "split-personality." You have to be in the world going to school and a different person at church.  About only knowing a mean and spiteful God. About being sick from not having shots.  About going home from school on Christmas party days. About not knowing who you really are. About not knowing what's implanted in your own head until it just pops out (I just now realized the PCG wasn't about being in Philadelphia - the city - but about the era of the church in history. I knew that somehow, but I didn't realize I knew that. All those cult recovery books I read helped with things but I put them down and feel bad because they're not talking about me. It hurts to be the one whose problems and life are ignored and not significant to the cult recovery people. There just isn't any information out there for people like me. ESN told me I didn't have a choice and I was safe now and nothing could hurt me. Those words helped me feel better more than all the recovery books I read. We grew up in a whole other world. Like being from another planet. Others don't understand the real world and the "rules" other people live by. You can't tell them your past because it makes you sad and ashamed. You are so lonely.  The regular people don't understand and your family is so messed up that you don't even talk about it among yourselves. I didn't know the "rules" of real churches. I don't understand them. I didn't know about a loving friend called Jesus. Churches and pastors and Christians don't understand why you can't move on and just follow-the-leader; why you can't understand what they're talking about. There's so many of us. All those members had kids. Where did all the children go? They're out there somewhere and they have no idea what hit them.

Carrying Picture of a False God

May 2001
I think part of my problem with God is that He is a man. At least I think He is. My whole concept of a father figure is so distorted and dysfunctional. I find it to be really hard to relate to a Heavenly Father. Scenarios that I make up kind of help me to get past that. I use them to picture how I WISH a father would be. It's kind of neat, though, because when I do I can actually feel how loved I would feel in that situation. That feels so amazing to me. I could describe love I think - warmth and touch and a sense of belonging and being understood and accepted. That's the kind of God that I want to believe in -- like the one in a poem that I wrote where I climbed into His lap.

I could talk to that kind of God. I'm so tired of this false god I've carried around for my whole life. There is nothing at all pleasant in the tied-up in knots feeling I get thinking about him. I know now that he was false. I know because of what I know about the WCG. And, I know because the Bible tells us how to see false prophets and they just are. They are liars and they've destroyed lives and God wouldn't want that. I know that now in my heart.

I Can't Go Back to a Loving Family

May 2001
I was thinking. There was this song on the radio today that I like and it says, "When you're cold, maybe it's time to come home." That makes me feel sad. I can't ever go home. You know what's weird? Like on movies or TV when somebody has a deep experience or whatever they always end up going into a church and sitting and praying. Usually a catholic one because they're prettier. They always go home to their childhood faith. Isn't that nice? That would feel good to run back to where you felt safe. I wish I had a home like that. There isn't any home I can runback to, to escape the world. I can't go back to my childhood faith. I can't go back to the loving and waiting arms of a caring family. It is scary sometimes to only be able to go forward because you don't know what's there waiting for you. Do you ever feel like a shadow? You're there and you're shaped like a person but you're just a not real. You're only visible in certain light. You're only as tall or short as someone else's perspective. You're two dimensional and only a reflection of someone else. 

The Depths of Betrayal

June 2001
Betrayed is the only word I can think of, but it doesn't mean enough. All these years nobody ever told me those things [that I didn't have to observe] and I just didn't know. All those Friday nights and Saturdays when I could have done things with my friends and when I did start to do things I felt so horribly guilty. I feel like my heart and my mind have reached their breaking point. Every new thing I find out about the Bible and the Law and how easy it is to know the truth -- they didn't misread things, they lied and lied and they took my childhood. And, I can't ever have it back. I feel so hateful and just rage at them because they are so callous. They took all that and ruined my life and now they smile and lie more and people believe them. And, it hurts because people don't want to know, they just want to forget the past. But I can't. It's all I have. All my beliefs and all those memories and all the things I feel inside don't even matter.

There's joy in knowing something new about the Bible and understanding it and it's immediately followed by a lightning bolt of absolute rage. It's betrayal, but also persecution and the pressure of being subjugated. It's overwhelming sadness at the realization of all the time and life that are lost and just futility. Just what is the point of putting myself through more? I will keep plugging ahead though. Because I don't care if I have to crawl on bloody hands and knees to freedom, they will not be the ones who kill my soul. I will guard what's left of my mind and heart and hand them to Jesus to heal. Out of pure spite, I will not allow them finish me off!

Thinking About Valuing Myself

June 19, 2001
God wants me to trust Him and rely on Him because I have realized that I can't fix this on my own. I realized something today, too. He values me, not because of who I am, but because He values Jesus' sacrifice which was applied to me. That is freeing because it takes the responsibility for being good or bad off me. It means He can love me because He loves Jesus. Accepting Jesus is what has made me lovable to Him, not anything I have said or done. That means to me that I can still work on the painful feelings I have and not feel guilty that it's separating me from God. It's not. "Nothing can separate you from the love of God." If I can't feel it, it's not because He's not loving me, it's because I'm not letting myself feel the love He's giving me. God has been showing His love to me by working through certain others and letting me know what it feels like to be cared for. He's helping me to begin really hearing the things they are saying about having worth. I have a long way to go but I think I'm getting an inkling. The fact of the matter is that I have to learn to value myself solely because God does. Because I do not feel any worth or regard for myself right now. I know there's hope. I believe that and I'm working towards that.

WCG's Fake Freedom

June 21, 2001
I'm thinking right now about the difference between the god of WCG and their way of life vs. accepting Jesus and living with Him. Just imagine in your mind the turmoil of going to services, the pressed and unhealthy environment among people whose minds are closed from authoritative ruling. The trying and the smiling when you don't feel like smiling. Watching each other and feeling pressured and never measuring up. Then, just imagine yourself running freely in a field with sunshine and flowers and fresh air. Loving people freely because they deserve love. Talking to Jesus when you choose and not having to fall into line and march. Freedom. That is the difference. They can't even imitate it now. All the talk of Jesus and waving their hands in the air and joining the ranks of the born again Christians. They can't even fake it properly because the people aren't freely waving their arms and yelling out "amen." It's not heartfelt. They are like people who lived under communism - it's too planned, their "amen's" are in unison, they all have the same words of praise, there's no individuality based on people's true feelings. The freedom to do "what you want" now -- ha, so laughable. Telling robots and zombies to go and be free. It's all up to you. Problem is, people who are really thinking for themselves don't need anyone to tell them they are.

Restructuring Painful Memories

July 13, 2001
A lot of people in my past feel like they were unfinished business somehow. Either I never was able to say goodbye and find some kind of closure, or there were unresolved hurt feelings that come up sometimes when I least expect it. I feel like really looking at things that I felt hurt and that I keep remembering is helping me to kind of restructure the incident into a less painful memory. As I was thinking about those incidents I actually could feel how hurt I felt then, even with the same feelings of shame and vulnerability as I did as a child. I felt like that child felt. But then, it was strange, after I cried over the things I could tell myself in my mind what was true in those incidents with the maturity level of an adult. I could recognize that those things were not my fault but were just normal bad experiences that I took inside me because of how damaged I have always felt. I think when you're used to abuse - physical or verbal - you just always assume whatever someone does or says is your fault. With me, it's like so many people have done things to me that I've felt like it must have been something about me that causes lots of people to want to abuse me. That I had a defect or something that made me bad and deserving of bad treatment. I just feel like crying from the relief of all this grief that is pouring out of me. I have so much to go but I feel like I'm making progress and trying to really put truth inside me where before there was only lies.

Want to Look Out For My Heart 

July 14, 2001
I'm beginning to recognize situations that make me feel undervalued and invalidated. Those things hurt terribly and I feel stronger even just saying that I want to avoid those situations and look out for my heart right now. I don't want to put myself into those kinds of situations right now when I don't feel ready to stand up for myself and face their criticism or their uncaring attitude. I feel like part of my recovery will mean recognizing a tough situation and being able to evaluate how strong I'm feeling and taking care of myself. Not letting others goad me into a situation that I don't feel capable of handling emotionally. Someday I want to wear the face of a person reflecting their true emotions. Not wearing a mask to cover what I'm really feeling. I think I'll feel like a more honest person and freer because I won't be cutting off my feelings over and over again.

Hard to Understand About God's Love

August 2, 2001
I guess it's so hard to understand about God's love. Vernon McGee just makes sense but he doesn't hurt people with the Bible. He doesn't make God's love seem unattainable and punishing. He made me believe that God loves me though. Because God loves everyone. The way that he says that "God so loved the world," [referring to tape on John 3:16 entitled "God SO Loved"] which includes everyone who every lived, including me, doesn't leave me with any way to doubt that the Scriptures are including me also. I still have trouble sometimes feeling the love that He has because I'm still trying to understand what love is and how it feels. But, even so, I know that I'm included too. 

Religion Used as a Weapon in WCG

August 3, 2001
I'm beginning to see how controlled we were there. I think about how different people are outside of the WCG. They don't feel like there's an authority figure above them who could punish them. They don't feel like they have to account for their decisions to a minister. I've always felt that ministers had power over me to punish me or correct me and I had to hide myself with them. 

I don't remember in the WCG feeling like God was ever approachable. Especially to children. It was almost like I was only along for the ride and had no spiritual value until I became an adult. I just don't really know for sure the actual doctrines I was taught. I really remember more the feelings I had and the overall tone. It makes me angry too because I was lied to and I believed those lies all of my life. It makes me sad still that I was robbed of my childhood, but also my innocence that the world was a safe place. I keep coming back to that because that is really something that hurts me. That I have been afraid of so many things and people and the outside world that I've spent the better part of my life in fear. Part of it was the way religion was viewed in our home. Religion was the most powerful weapon my parents used against each other. I just feel like my life is only fallout from a vicious religious war. Since the WCG had an opinion on every aspect of a person's life, the religious war was in everything having to do with our lives. All the kids in my family are just casualties of war. I'm afraid of religion and church because I haven't ever felt anything positive or loving about church or Christians or God. I've always been afraid of Christians because I thought they were evil. Now I want to be a Christian and I don't know what that means.

Feeling Hopeless

August 31, 2001
I think about WCG things and I get such a sick feeling. So hopeless. It's always going to be a part of me and be a huge shadow on my life. I feel so hopeless because I will never get back what they took from me. I can never again be innocent and have a childlike wonder. I can never have that level of comfort and security that people have who were raised in a normal church. I feel so angry at them and there's absolutely nothing I can do to make it better. And then I think about the changes and I get such a white hot anger at them but mostly at the world because they just don't care. The WCG and the world have all moved on. I see them walking hand in hand down the road. Down the yellow brick road, off the see the Wizard or whatever. And then here I sit. A casualty on the empty battlefield. The fighting is over. There's nothing left but the dead and the ones bleeding to death. That's me. Bleeding to death. Sitting in my crater. Hearing the sounds of the weapons. There's nobody coming back to pick up the dead and the wounded. They've all moved on and forgotten about us. They don't care at all. Cult watchers saying they are rejoicing in the changes nearly killed me. They cannot understand that they did something worse than the WCG. WCG ministers are already heartless. Those that have accepted WCG don't feel I am  important enough to help. Even the cult watcher industry thinks it's all over and they won the war against WCG. Those people don't just step over us. They throw the dirt in shovel full by shovel full and they bury us. They want us gone because we cause trouble. I feel hopeless now even writing about it.

What Sorrow Means to Me

September 11, 2001
I think this verse ("For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." - Romans 10:13) really hits home to me because in times of sorrow I have called on His name. Sorrow is only a word sometimes, but I know what it truly means. I have felt it. It is lying curled up in a ball and hurting so badly that all you can do is call on Him and just beg for love and comfort. I have been there. Deeply in there. It is actually physical pain and it is sharp. That has to be the brokenness. There's times where I have thought that feeling something so intense would surely kill me. I guess I'm still alive though, so it's not true that it will kill me. It may mold me though. Like fire even making steel able to bend. Like pain allowing my will to bend.

WCG Made Me Think Satan Could Read My Mind

September 15, 2001
I didn't know that Satan couldn't read my mind until I was told it yesterday. I've lived my whole life in terror that he knew my thoughts and would come for the people I love and I didn't even know that was false. I feel like screaming and crying. I thought they could and sometimes I would feel so afraid that they knew what I was thinking about people, like my kids or something, and that they would attack them because they were on my mind. I used to stay up really late sometimes and even all night because I get afraid when people talk about ghosts and stuff. I've always been afraid of the devil. Always. I always took it for granted that I'd get killed someday and die in the lake of fire. I knew I wasn't going to go to heaven because I always remember that nobody got to go to heaven. I want to hit my own head against the wall to get that picture of HWA sitting at a desk out of my mind and saying, "Greetings, brethren." I want to erase my whole mind. I don't think there's enough tears in the whole world to cry them all out. I need to go into the woods and just scream until my voice is gone.

Women Demeaned in WCG

October 4, 2001
It is so true that WCG made women feel bad about themselves. They destroyed our self-worth.. The whole thing was definitely run by men. Even though men were abused in there also, I still think they had the best deal of all. Better than women and children. That's pretty much true in any totalitarian society. It's easier for them to keep us all in line because they dealt with the men and the men dealt with the women and children under them. They weren't interested in the spirituality of women and children. Only that they did as they were told and kept quiet and out of the way. They invaded us by giving us our place, making sure we had no hopes and dreams outside of our traditional female roles as wives and mothers and deliberately made us subject to the sexual whims of the men who ruled us. They also made sure we felt like prostitutes for wanting to use basic cosmetics and wear decent clothes. They were not interested in us furthering our education or doing anything but cleaning house and making babies.

Dealing With My Fears

October 17, 2001
I've read some things about how terrorists are trained that have been in the papers lately. They are very similar to cults. One of the worst things they do is to sometimes isolate children who are orphans and train them (indoctrinate them) as kamikaze types. They are robots and trained to have no feelings. It is a harsh world for them. There is evil in this world. 

Psalm 91 was very helpful in making me feel better about the global situation. It even mentions the pestilence (anthrax?) not touching us. That was a perfect chapter for me to read since I've been feeling fear from all of this. I'm going to reread Psalms 91 again tonight outloud and do it slowly and really listen to the words before I pray. This is such a crazy world anymore. I keep thinking about how evil has influenced our lives - from the problems we carry with us from our childhoods, to the misunderstandings and anger we show to each other, etc. I want to learn how to react better to problems as they arise instead of only reacting to the negative emotions.

WCG God Getting Further Away

November 7, 2001
I feel so much peace when I let go of my troubles and look to God as a loving Father. That image of the old WCG god is getting further and further away from me and I'm so happy of that. I think that bringing Jesus into my healing was such a valuable tool in helping me to recover.

I have been separating two things in my mind recently. The bad things that happen to me aren't from God as a punishment, but from Satan to throw obstacles in my path. And, the good things that have come out of them are Jesus answering my prayers and constantly lifting me back up and out of the problems. I'm learning to trust Him and rely on Him and I'm realizing it. I don't feel guilty anymore and like He'll punish me for being afraid of him sometimes now. I think He's working with me and showing me that my fears are from lies in the WCG.

What I Learned About God Came From Liars

November 7, 2001
Do you know what's funny? I really am certain now of the WCG being a deceptive cult. I don't have any thoughts anymore of "maybe they really are the true church" or any of that. I was thinking that knowing all the stuff I know now from reading the OIU Newsletters and then reading those articles that ESN has about cults, that it's so completely obvious to me now and there's no turning back to thinking they're good. So, I'm thinking that my knowing the WCG is a cult and from Satan shows that everything they taught me was lies and wasn't good. I think what I always learned about God came from liars. 

WCG Guilty of Double Betrayal

December 11, 2001
Forgiveness is such a hard thing and a long road. I thought I had placed the ministry of WCG into a little area of forgiveness and I was so surprised to find out that I really still want vengeance. I guess I'm not there yet. I guess I still need to realize the level of betrayal. I feel it, but I haven't been able to completely verbalize it yet. It's so much worse in my mind because they have moved on to more "Christian" things. I guess because it's double betrayal somehow. First, they abused us and then they left us all for dead and moved on with a new group of believers like we didn't matter any more than a doormat that they wiped their shoes on. Do you understand my feelings? I need to keep sorting this out somehow.

Never Forget That Evil Exists on This Earth

December 23, 2001
Sometimes you just wish you could shake some people and tell them to wake up and stop being so blind and ignorant. I want them to know they don't know enough yet, they need to dig into some research and realize that it's all a big hoax. It's like with the "changes" at WCG. The day the world forgets about us who lived this before the "changes" and the "offshoots" is the day we fall into oblivion. We will be forgotten casualties of a forgotten war. Do you understand my fear? I don't want restitution like those who want to sue the organization. Jesus will give me my restitution and reparations. I want recognition that I really did suffer something horrible and that my suffering matters. I don't want the world to forget HWA. I want them to remember and I want them to understand and learn from history. I want them to recognize the danger in allowing one man to run roughshod over an entire generation of people. I still want my childhood back. I want it, but I can't have it. I can accept that. But, I will not accept that I never had one to begin with. I will not accept that my life had no value and that stealing my childhood wasn't a crime. It was criminal! It was wrong! It was deliberate! Every bottle of fine wine that HWA drank was BLOOD! My blood, your blood, your children's blood too. He took our lifeblood and he savored it and squandered it and he laughed about it. He owes me something! He owes me my life! Jesus will settle the score. I believe He will. But, my job is to never let this world forget that evil exists on earth and evil kills hearts and minds and hopes and dreams. I will not forget and my children will know and they will not forget either. I will make sure that every generation that lives after me will hear my story and know that there are men who will look you in the face and lie to you about God!

Next: A Child Survivor's Journal - Page Two (Starts with January, 2002, continues with updates for 2003 and 2004, and ends with a Note for 2008.)

How to Recover After Exiting a Deceptive, Abusive Group (this article has a section under "Emotional & Spiritual Healing" entitled, "If you were raised in the group")

It's Hard to Get Close to God After Being in Philadelphia Church of God (also helpful for child survivors of WCG)

Back to Children Raised in WCG, PCG, or Offshoots

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