Ramblings of a Survivor

Two days ago, I heard that Rhonda died unexpectedly. I had read her Facebook post from 48 hours earlier that said,

“Please pray all mold spores that have been making me very sick, are eliminated!!!!“

I won’t lie. I kinda rolled my eyes.

I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for her.

I still don’t.

And I also have been feeling the feeling of not feeling.

Not feeling feels scarier than feeling something….but then also feels so right…but then also feels so wrong…

When I started writing publicly about my journey a few short weeks ago, I suspected that I would have some new emotions come up…but I didn’t know that one of the people who was integral to my experience in Hungary would become the subject of my writing. Nor did I even suspect that it would be because she would no longer be with us.

As I began this path of vulnerably expressing my story of “Budapest” – to me THE story of Budapest – I suspected that I’d have moments where I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I could figure out how to articulate the horror, the pain, the joy, the complex and competitive camaraderie. I didn’t know if I could put my heart out to the world, share the complete devastation and self-hatred that was created there, or be able to put words to what happened to me and my peers. But I have chosen to use this form of expression to maybe give some insight and perspective to those of you who maybe thought they knew what was happening. I don’t know. I really don’t know what I”m doing, but I do know that there’s a dam of anger, sadness, grief, love and expression that needs to be shared. I don’t know if it’s for others or just for my own healing, but these words are pounding against my skin from the inside out. Like molecules of air pounding with pressure against my balloon-like skin. Begging me to expand, begging me to give them space. These words feel as if they will literally perforate my skin if I don’t write them.

Rhonda was a complicated character in my story – and I am trying to figure out what words are so adamantly pushing me to come here to write.

“Rhonda was….” I keep hearing, and feeling through my arms…

“Rhonda was….” I feel the knot in my stomach say.

“Rhonda was…” and my brain says, “Watch yourself. People love her.”

“Rhonda was…”

And the only word I feel is “pain.” The only word my brain will say is “facade.” My heart says, “a hurting soul who sought love through approval.”

I’m angry. Really, really, really angry. Probably one of the angriest I’ve felt – ever – since finding freedom from my captivity.

My back is tightening…the back of my head and spine are revolting against the anger – anger so deep it makes my toes tingle.
Rhonda was the only one who stood up for me on the night of the War Council. Yes. “The War Council”. A ritual ordered by Brother and Sister Abbott and Tina who was in Hungary for a few weeks to help “minister” to the team. Rhonda broke the rules that night and said something positive about me…

The War Council? What the heck was that you ask?

I walked up the stairs of the house on Fogarsi Ut. – I could feel tension in the air. None of the girls would look at me.

I can’t remember what led up to this. Had I already snuck out at 3 am to call my dad with the phone card I had stolen forints to buy? Did this happen before I called dad? Did it happen after? I had I already tried to run away but been caught by Jill and been confronted by her? Had I already been so overcome with frustration and anger and hatred that my hand had slapped her across the face? Had I already lost myself?

Walking into the kitchen, I saw that all the chairs had already been taken into the living room. The air was thick with fear. A few people made small talk, but no on addressed me.

Lynn: “Ok. we’re gonna get started.”

I moved into the living room. The room had been arranged as it usually was for team meetings: chairs lined the circumference of the room…but this time it was different.

A singular chair sat, an island in the middle of the room.

Mary: “Melissa. Sit in the chair in the middle.”

Silence.

I was still wearing the thin green North Face windbreaker that Dad and I had purchased in the days before I left home.

I glanced around at my peers, hoping for some sort of support. Down cast eyes. Diverted gazes. They were all just happy it was me, not them.

I sat, reluctantly. My hands under my butt cheeks.

Mary: “Brother Abbott has advised us that we are at war. It is our duty that we act like the Army of God that we are. Melissa has transgressed.”

Why don’t I remember what precipitated this? Wouldn’t I remember? Why don’t I remember???

Ringing in my ears. LOUD. She was speaking. I wasn’t hearing.

Lynn: “It is our duty as fellow soldiers to call out the things that our fellow soldier has failed us on…it is time to be specific about her sins so she can repent.”

My ears. They were so loud.

My eyes. Aching. No focus. NO focus.

My body. Shaking.

I grabbed the zipper of my coat. My anchor to home…to safety….to regulation.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

I focused on the sound of the zipper.

Yancey started. “Her smart alec comments undermine what the Holy Spirit wants to do amongst the team.”

I know I heard that.

Blank. Everything went white.

People talking. People pointing out all the places I needed to change and all the mistakes I had made.

They had started to my left, far in the corner where Yancey sat in his faded khakis and white shirt that at this point was more of a grey from hand washing over and over. The litany of accusations and honest expressions of my transgressions continued across the line of fearful peers – all knowing that if they didn’t perform in accordance, they would be the next to be sitting in the chair where I sat.

I tried hard to predict what each team member would say about me so that I could prepare myself for the emotional impact. These were my siblings of sort. We’d known each other since birth…there was no end to the sins they could accurately accuse me of…but I don’t actually remember my thoughts. What was actually said? Did these people who had shared my childhood actually make statements of failures or is this something that has become truth to me but never actually happened? Did the “war council ever happen??? Did my trauma brain make this up? If so, how is it that I can still feel the vibration of the zipper closing and shutting? How did this story even come to be in my memory if it didn’t happen??? But what if it didn’t happen? What if I am crazy enough that I made this up??? DOES NO ONE ELSE REMEMBER THIS???

Each person spoke up on their turn. A prayer was said for me after each accusation – some of them embarrassingly true. “A prayer” to outsiders seems mild….a prayer to those who know what our faith was understands that each prayer was a physical trauma. Multiple hands touching my back, my head, screaming into my ear – demanding repentance, to which I complied. Until….

Rhonda’s crossed legs and lack of prayer contact (lack of “laying on of hands” for those in the know) had told me that she was feeling doubts.

Mary: “Rhonda. Please speak to Melissa about areas where she has sinned.”

Rhonda: “Well, I actually think that Melissa has contributed a LOT to the team. Her art work, her cooking , her cleaning the house so that we are free to do God’s work is—“

Mary: “We do NOT have time for this. Melissa needs to be brought to her knees. This is NOT that time, Rhonda.”

Zip.

Zip.

Zip.

Silence.

Mary: “Alec, stop playing with your toys, and contribute to what you feel God wants to say to Melissa about her sin.”

As Alec struggled to find words, I jumped up from the chair in the middle of the room and ran out. Jill rushing out after me. I ran toward the bus stop. She caught up to me, grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. I was trapped.

Tina and Mary came out. Each of them grabbing an arm, I didn’t fight. I couldn’t. I had no options. I just sobbed – and repented of the evil I knew they wanted me to admit I WAS. It was the only way to get reprieve.

My body folded underneath me and my insides became my outsides….and in doing so, a steel arose.

But did it. When did this happen in relation to my escape? I remember this as the moment days that gave me courage to escape and remember it as being only weeks before I managed to get out…but I can’t remember it in a timeline. I THINK it was October, and I left in November, but there is no mention of it in my very detailed diaries. Did this actually even happen????

Rhonda.

Complicated.

Years later, a Facebook page was established: “Where are you Now”. The litany of dogmas that were thrown in my face regarding why and how and justifications of the treatment of “the second generation” were appalling. Mass agreement by former adult members that the ends justified the means brought most prominantly: “We just wanted it better than we had it” motivated me to be honest about my experience (which I have since learned paled in comparison to most in my peer group). As I spoke vulnerably and honestly about my experience, Rhonda reached out.

“I had no idea you guys didn’t want to be there.”

I remember actively restraining myself…I had had full bladder loss on a subway train because of the pain from kidneys that were 90% blocked by kidney stones and Rhonda (as the only fluent hungarian speaker) had taken me to all my appointments. I HAD TOLD HER I WANTED TO GO HOME AND THAT I FELT I WAS BEING ABUSED. I HAD TOLD THE DOCTOR AS WELL.

It was 10 -15 years of the same conversation:

Me: “Rhonda, I told you I felt abused.”

Rhonda: “I didn’t know”

Me: “But I told you.”

Rhonda: “But if I had REALLY known.”

So yes. Complicated emotions. Incredibly sad. Incredibly angry.

And mostly, confused.

Rhonda did impact people who had no one else. She helped countless people who had NO ONE ELSE – including me….

and maybe this is too soon to publish, but I am committed to vulnerability.

I have a confusing, complex overpowering sense of grief. I’m sad for my friends, my sister, my church-siblings who have lost someone who they respected, loved, and who did show more “christian” attributes than 98% of the adults that we grew up with. I am gut-wrenched while also feeling nothing; I am angry, while also feeling deep loss and sadness.

I most of all feel nothing. Numb. Alive. Angry and that this is unfair.

I know that this is probably completely insensitive in mamy aspects, and some of my very close confidants will probably chastise me for being so brutally honest so close to her passing…..but I also have to say that this is my tribute to her.

My eyes are flooding for the first time since her passing. I wanted her to see the pain we endured – pain that she witnessed, but didn’t SEE. But maybe if she had really seen it, she wouldn’t have been able to do what she did for so many others after everything fell apart. Maybe she had to turn a blind eye in order to keep her faith and still keep loving, to still keep giving to so many who needed her. She was complicit, but maybe her own pain couldn’t allow her to see ours.

The last thing Rhonda said to me was regarding a memory I had that I confronted her on…she asked me if she could make a public apology without mentioning specific people. I never responded. I don’t know how I feel about my lack of response…

I still don’t know how or what I’m doing with writing all this. I just know there is something within me that has to express this. I doubt I’ll ever have more readers than those who know and love me, or at least shared parts of my story, and that’s why I can write: I assume if you’re reading this you have some sort of understanding of religious pain….of religious trauma…of communal connection gone wrong.

IN closing…Rhonda did do a LOT of good. A LOT, and I don’t want to take away from that. AND…there are those of us who were damaged deeply by her faith, her loyalty to a cult that destroyed its young people, and who in consequent years claims to have “not known” and thus belittled and undermined the legitimacy of our pain.

I will always hold on to her statement of “But Melissa contributes a lot to the team” and remember her taking me to my first Gyno appointment where they told me I have kidney stones because I sit on cold stones after church service…but all that aside…

I’m so sorry for those of you who are grieving deeply. I apologize that my post is insensitive to her loss and your grief. I know that I’ll probably get backlash, and I’m willing to take it.

Rhonda did her best, loved her fullest, and made an incredible difference in countless lives. I financially supported many of her endeavors and between the two of us, we supported one of her close Roma friends, Maria, until her death. Despite what may seem as a negative view of her, I believe that Rhonda helped many, gave with her heart, and desired to be a “true Christian.” She loved deeply, held her beliefs even more deeply (our cause for discord), and gained respect, love and admiration from many. Please do not take this post as more than what it is: Processing of a traumatic time in my life, and being honest about that experience of which she was an integral part.