I am a newcomer and having difficulty using the site

The huge added difficulties in the BK environment are;

firstly, they are self focused, so the lack of awareness of others feelings is more pronounced. They were floating all around me, their main preoccupation being to make efforts to get a good number in the rosary (the Seniors had their own important things to be doing; entertaining important people and the like).

secondly, I had by that removed myself from the normal support systems, i.e. family and friends ... No one tried to get me counselling or any type of help.

I just wanted to underline these two points and raise this issue of it being said that individuals are "mentally unstable" and that is why they leave.

That they said you "would never be of sound mind again" portays both the insanity of their world and its lack of duty of care and plan 'evilness'. I want to define 'evil' elsewhere. I mean it. This is the penultimate curse and buck passing within the BK world ... how many times have we now heard it all over the world?

Without knowing the details, I suspect it was entirely reasonable to be "crazy" with grief AND the added confusion of the BK experience and treatment. It was actually the sane response to that insane world that every day therapists would not get or understanding despite their best intents and training.

Actually, I had been treated for shock by my doctor who sent me to a psychologist. The psychologists diagnosis was that I was not showing any symptoms other than what would be expected. Unfortunately I was not in the right place to access the professional help that I needed. I had seen other people struggling with bereavement in that environment. We were told that the soul had taken another body and any grieving from us would be pulling the soul and very upsetting for them.

SO IT WAS NOT ONLY NOT GOOD FOR ONE TO GRIEVE, CRYING NOT GOOD, BUT YOU WOULD BE HURTING THOSE WHO HAD PASSED ON.

The remarks that I had from those around me were unbelievable.

"It was their karma", I heard from people who had only heard of karma 5 minutes before. And much worse ignorant hurtful remarks from these "highest of high souls."

I met someone last year who said they considered I was treated very badly. "You were just put out", was what they said. "We did not know what to do, we were not counsellors."

Another person was looking after a young Kumari who was getting really spaced out, had to take her to a mental health facility. This person had no official role within the BKs and had taken this duty upon themselves but I got the impression that no one else cared. They seem to still not have anything in place to look after these people, who they encourage and, indeed, even bamboozle into handing over their lives. In my opinion this is criminal negligence.

To induct people so deeply into a philosophy and way of thinking; and then have no thought or concern as to how they will cope, if it does not work out for them; criminal negligence.

And it has been pointed out that we have our own responsibility in joining but it must be remembered that some are very young. Also meditating for peace and wanting to be peaceful, positive, happy etc. are worthwhile aspirations. Happily, I can report that I eventually found an amazing therapist who specialized in grief counselling, and so I could, at last, give myself permission to deal with the traumatic grief I had been carrying with me like an open wound, for so long.

The post traumatic symptoms which are both physical (numbness in limbs, exhaustion) and mental (sleep disturbance, nightmares); being just some of those, have now almost gone. This disorder does not go away without treatment, as has been widely documented in the cases of war shocked soldiers. In fact, it gets worse in time. And it is not insanity. I consider myself more sane than most!

I also believe that there is a time for moving on, but I do not believe anyone can really move on, until they address the issues and honestly look at the losses and damage that has been incurred.

I am at a place now, where I feel it is time to look at these issues, and how they have affected me.

Hello again starchild. You touch on some very significant issues with the BKs here:

The huge added difficulties in the BK environment are; firstly, they are self focused, so the lack of awareness of others feelings is more pronounced.

You obviously experienced the harm of that firsthand. I remember becoming gradually more concerned about this aspect while I was still there. On a number of occasions, I became very concerned for individuals who experienced a personal tragedy, and the complete lack of permission to respond with real emotion, or have the experience validated by the supposed family of BKs. I still think this is a very damaging aspect of the BKs.

This quote of yours:

When it became obvious that I was getting worse, not better I was no longer welcome in the way I had been..

I think encapsulates a great tragedy and the huge irony of a system that believes it is saving the world. A system like the BKs is not self-reflective. It is externally focused and preoccupied with presenting a perfect face to the world. That takes precedence over everything. Nothing can be tolerated or accepted that reflects back to the group the possibility that it might be failing. If you or I, in our grief and time of need, don't get over it quickly enough and prove that their message works, we have to be sidelined and labeled as the one who has it wrong.

The BK system, which I have described elsewhere as shame-bound fundamentalism, very closely models the system of the dysfunctional family - don't talk, don't feel, don't reveal, don't rock the boat, don't tell the truth. In the dysfunctional family, the child who cannot tolerate this, begins to act out and is called the IP - identified patient. The parents, or extended family, truly believe that this child is the one with the problem. So it is with the BKs. We are no longer welcome if we are not contributing to their status quo and sense of success.

The alternative to acting out is acting in, or internalising and suppressing all our true emotional responses, needs, energies, until we no longer know what they are. I believe that many BKs who stick around for years practice this. I certainly did, and many years later I am still unraveling that. For me, the BK system tapped into my own internal system that had been set up in childhood, and compounded it. I don't know if that is true for everyone.

starchild, it sounds as though you have come a long way. I don't know who you are, but we were around at the same time, and I remember a truly terrible family tragedy. I remember being appalled at the thought of how the BKs might try to "help" and at the stupid and useless Murli quotations used to try and explain it. It was another event that definitely contributed to me moving away from the BKs. Clearly, you have moved on too, and I hope this forum helps you examine your BK experience and come to useful insights and even greater healing, as it has for me.

Thank you Leela.

We seem to be similar in experience in that as you say we were around at the same time and a fairly longish period of time passed before looking at our BK time.

I hope that I can come to a greater healing. I feel the forum has helped.

For me, the BK system tapped into my own internal system that had been set up in childhood, and compounded it, I don't know if that is true for everyone

I think it probably is. The experiences from the people posting are pretty varied and the attitudes towards the BKs also so. I would think that directly reflects what they come with, but also I would imagine that their are myriad reasons and expectations involved.

I would like to point out, I think it would be very unfair not to, that there were BKs who treated me with great love and kindness during my worst days. And I am wondering how I was towards others when I was floating around on top of the world.

Obviously for me the unraveling seems quite complex. Not just my personal unraveling I think the whole thing is quite complex for everyone involved.

To me, it seems that the problems are institutional based, individuals get caught up in it.

Leela,

I find your comments on shame, and dysfunctional families etc. very interesting and deeply relevant.

To me, it seems that the problems are institutional based, individuals get caught up in it.

Yes, I echo your gratitude for Leela's contributions.

The lasting question I am left with is not the institutional one, which I agree to and interpret as 'the influence of a few individuals (the leadership) onto the creation and sustenance of a sick external social system', but also the nature of the 'psychic influences' upon the individual entering it. I mean "psychic influences" in the broadest possible sense from societal to spiritualistic, e.g. what kick starts the Honeymoon Period, what is going on, the influences of "the spooks" and so on.

The debates regarding "brainwashing", coercive psychological practises and spiritualism within the BKs, or cultic religions in general, will rage on for as long as the various involved parties have air in their lungs. I don't expect them to be easily resolved. But I could not for one moment deny them.