NLQ - "We're not freejinger" - mods going a little crazy

[Brainsample]

I disagree a bit with the above, (maybe only the wording) simply because it makes it sound like online people were bursting into their living room. Everyone involved was splashing information here, there, and everywhere.

My information about it all is very limited, essentially to what I heard directly from Vyckie, because I just don't read that kind of thing. I generally don't read people's personal stories. I read very little of Vyckie's personal online saga, just enough in the beginning to see where she was coming from, and I then disengage. (I have read everything I could find on some of the leaders at different times, but that was to expose some of the hypocritical garbage, not due to personal interest.) Lewis Wells is another good example of this. I know what he's told me personally offline about his experience with his fiance, and though I couldn't be more supportive of Lewis, I have not read his personal account of his dealings with his fiance either. It's just not my kind of thing.

With some of this stuff, I don't know that I'd say that strangers burst into their living rooms, but I think that the analogy of standing naked or perhaps scantily clothed at night in the un-curtained bay window in your living room with all the lights on might be a better descriptor with some of this stuff. In most of these cases, I feel like just because they stand their naked, I'm not obligated to look. (Other people find that kind of thing very helpful to them, I guess.)

[lawfulevil]

Hi Jo! I used to talk to you in the chat room. :)

[treemom]

My information about it all is very limited, essentially to what I heard directly from Vyckie, because I just don't read that kind of thing. I generally don't read people's personal stories. I read very little of Vyckie's personal online saga, just enough in the beginning to see where she was coming from, and I then disengage. (I have read everything I could find on some of the leaders at different times, but that was to expose some of the hypocritical garbage, not due to personal interest.) Lewis Wells is another good example of this. I know what he's told me personally offline about his experience with his fiance, and though I couldn't be more supportive of Lewis, I have not read his personal account of his dealings with his fiance either. It's just not my kind of thing.

With some of this stuff, I don't know that I'd say that strangers burst into their living rooms, but I think that the analogy of standing naked or perhaps scantily clothed at night in the un-curtained bay window in your living room with all the lights on might be a better descriptor with some of this stuff. In most of these cases, I feel like just because they stand their naked, I'm not obligated to look. (Other people find that kind of thing very helpful to them, I guess.)

It was closer to knocking on neighbors doors partially clothed and then asking if they mind you coming in and telling you why you and your children are naked and hey let's talk more about the kids,,,and how it is their fault you are naked, but you love them,..they just need to find some clothes and stuff and stop bothering you about it, because for gosh sakes...you need clothes too.

[Austin]

I will say that I don't know who was telli the truth, but I do know Vyckie was the mother and the adult who chose the patriarchy, and then she made everything public and seemed to not get why that was an issue for angel.

If angel was acting out (which is such an anti-feminist phrase) she had every right to. Vyckie might have been hurt by patriarchy, but she also hurt her kids. And that means she needed to be the bigger one...the one who forgave more, the one who loved more, than angel. She owed that to her.

I got the impression Vyckie never felt like she owed angel for fucking her childhood up.

This.

I think that this will take Angel a long time to work out. There may be a pull away/draw closer conflict within her for quite awhile. I agree that she needs a good secular counselor who can help her work through what happened to her and to what extend her relationship with Vyckie is toxic, dysfunctional, etc. I'm not saying it is, but I think a professional can help her work through that. Growing up the way she did, I doubt Angel has a really good handle on boundaries yet.

[Brainsample]

It was closer to knocking on neighbors doors partially clothed and then asking if they mind you coming in and telling you why you and your children are naked and hey let's talk more about the kids,,,and how it is their fault you are naked, but you love them,..they just need to find some clothes and stuff and stop bothering you about it, because for gosh sakes...you need clothes too.

I'm glad that I didn't get involved and that I missed all of it! It all sounds too complicated. ;)

[princessjo1988]

I am not sure how much I should say on this, because I got too involved the first time, and got really hurt. I am in a really good place right now, and I am not sure of how much I can get re-involved without getting hurt again. So...

I will say that I did start the thread questioning Razing Ruth's identity mostly because Vyckie asked me to. But, I won't deny that I did have doubts of my own about Ruth's identity prior to that, and had shared them with Vyckie, and other NLQ/FJian members.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see how my own deep seeded need for praise/attention etc allowed me to go along with it, without really considering my actions and the results it ended up having. For me, when the dust finally settled, it was like beginning again, from scratch. I had nasty emails/blog comments, and I was banned from NLQ - a forum that I had felt very passionately about, and had held a lot of hope for. I still do - the escaping fundamentalist women and children do need all the support they can get.

At the time, I was also having private conversations with a few NLQ members in the chat room (in the private messaging section, so not the public chat room), about information that Angel had shared with me, that I was concerned about. Vyckie ended up confronting me one day - I hadn't realised the so-called private chat, was so tightly overseen, to say nothing of the fact that I could not discuss, even privately, information that to me, directly impacted her reliability and whether the role she was creating for herself, was one that she wasn't ready for (aka, hadn't finished healing, getting her family back on track etc). As I have explained before many times, I really firmly believe there is a big gap between the Adult/child generations of fundamentalism. And I admit, I chose Angel's side and did defend her, mostly because our stories were so similar, and I understood the turmoil Angel was going through at the time. I was one of the child generations, not the adult. The resulting implications of the 'incidents' only made that divide all the more obvious.

My own personal thoughts are that Vyckie took too much on too quickly in the community - and didn't really give herself the time to let herself and her family heal, without the stresses that the publicity etc that the blog inspired.

Perhaps, this story is the biggest example of how damaging fundamentalism is, even after leaving. The wounds go deep, and take a long, long time to heal, and sometimes, if at all. And even if they do heal, they leave long time weaknesses and faults - and this is true, even in my own family and self.

But again, this is just my perception of events. Others might see my actions differently, and that is fine.

_____________

Lawfulevil, I am coming over to the US next year. If that is where you are, I would love to catch up for a quick coffee or something - I have started a thread in Chatter detailing our plans - The Great US Roadtrip!

[Guest Anonymous]

I will say that I don't know who was telli the truth, but I do know Vyckie was the mother and the adult who chose the patriarchy, and then she made everything public and seemed to not get why that was an issue for angel.

If angel was acting out (which is such an anti-feminist phrase) she had every right to. Vyckie might have been hurt by patriarchy, but she also hurt her kids. And that means she needed to be the bigger one...the one who forgave more, the one who loved more, than angel. She owed that to her.

I got the impression Vyckie never felt like she owed angel for fucking her childhood up.

Yes - this.

I also get the impression that while Vyckie feels that she herself is 'owed' in a big way - in terms of sympathy, resources, support in return for spilling her family's story over the internet, and she doesn't really get that her kids are entitled to and need their own privacy and space to heal.

I also find it frustrating that she 'writes and runs' so often. If a piece of her writing, or a forum thread receives criticism, she'll get sick or overwhelmed and bow out while her mod team take on the detractor.

It seems like NLQ may well be a good place to pass through for those on their way out of the fundiehood, but a really bad place to stay and fester.

[Constance Vigilance]

AD,

I heard only Vyckie's version of events, and she was quite distressed over all aspects of things. I would say that Angel was "acting out" in ways that quite literally put Vyckie's other minor children at risk with legal implications which still constrain Vyckie from openly talking about what happened. I understand that Angel or Angel's supporters came here to FJ to present what was described to me after the fact as a one-sided view of Angel's experiences, something that sounds like typical acting out that many young women engage in when they are at this stage in life. That's not to say that either side was right or wrong, and perspective and age and complicated family issues make that all impossible for outsiders to sort out. Coping with this kind of conflict in public and having the dirty laundry aired on the internet greatly aggravated the situation, shall we say.

It sounds like it was all quite sad, and the whole exit from patriarchy is difficult enough to do without the public scrutiny muddying up the issue. Some were protective and supportive of Vyckie, vilifying Angel (and FJ). Some were protective and supportive of Angel, vilifying Vyckie. I guess that FJ got caught in the middle of that mess of conflict.

I lurked through the whole of this, and as an objective observer (no real feelings regarding NLQ/Angel/Vyckie previously or now) I want to say this is a very one-sided account -- which it would be if you got it from Vyckie, so this is not aimed at you Brainsample.

The very strong impression I got was that the aftereffects of the patriarchy Vyckie got them into was continuing to mess with everyone's lives, as it will, but Vyckie basically refused to acknowledge that that might have anything to do with the difficulties she and Angel were having, or the problems Angel was having in her life. Angel was doing things that seemed to be perfectly normal reactions to coming out of such a fucked up abusive situation, and Vyckie was basically characterising her -- for the whole internet to see -- as a bad, lying, wicked child who'd always been a problem etc etc.

It was all really weird. We'll never know the truth of it, but I don't support the theory that Angel was "acting out" in a way "typical for someone her age" based on what we could see or what Vyckie was describing. That's a very condescending way of describing what she was doing -- dealing with the after-effects of horrific abuse. Vyckie seemed to be very "poor me poor me"/blaming the victim (Angel) about the whole thing, and it went against a lot of what she's said before about being sorry she dragged them all into that mess, accepting that she had messed up their lives, etc. When you drag your entire family into a patriarchal nightmare and one of your children is having serious issues living with the after-effects, I think it's very self-absorbed to act like you are the real victim in the situation, and I think it's very wrong to put it all on the internet in an effort to prove yourself right.

As for the things said by the younger girls -- I really really hope they weren't true, but we have no way of knowing about that either. :(

As I said, overall I have no feelings about either of them either way, but I think it was only fair to present the other side.

ETA: Oh, treemom already said this. Sorry, I'm just up and not quite with it yet.

[margiebargie]

I bowed out of the NLQ forums because I felt like a gawker. I'm interested in fundies, but I've never been deeply involved in fundie-ism myself. A lot of the ladies at NLQ really seemed to be hurting and it felt wrong to be looking in at them.

I discovered FJ through NLQ though. So its all good.

[apple1]

It was closer to knocking on neighbors doors partially clothed and then asking if they mind you coming in and telling you why you and your children are naked and hey let's talk more about the kids,,,and how it is their fault you are naked, but you love them,..they just need to find some clothes and stuff and stop bothering you about it, because for gosh sakes...you need clothes too.

Treemom's word picture here really nailed it.

I am so done with the whole Vyckie thing. The only differences in the Vyckie of today and the Vyckie of "patriarchy" is that she divorced and she claims to be atheist instead of claiming to be Christian. But nothing else changed. She is still a user, looking for a way to make a buck, just off a slightly different (or maybe not so different) group. She is a narcissistic, everything is black-and-white, person who manipulates others. She, for all her lack of writing and communication skills, knows how to pull media strings and has been extremely successful at positioning herself, previously as a spokesperson for the patriarchal community, and currently as a spokesperson for the ex-patriarchal community. (This is how she makes the money that she lives on; they would all be better off if she would just get a job). On both the patriarchal and ex-patriarchal sides, her kids were/are just pawns she uses to accomplish these things. A therapist could have a field day trying to elucidate exactly what those mother/child relationships are- detached, lack of attachment, whatever. (I was going to say the whole throw-Angel-under-the-bus scenario finished it for me, but after all, Angel was thrown under the bus a long time before Vyckie left patriarchy, now, wasn't she?)

[keeperrox]

I had a really bad experience with NLQ - I got banned because I was supporting Angel, and being open about some the stuff Vyckie was asking me to do, like starting threads here about Razing Ruth. It might be better now, but I can't draw that conclusion, because I am no longer a part. Nor do I really feel the need to be a part either, I am happy with what I have done and accomplished with my blog as part of that community. I do wish I had walked away from NLQ on my own terms at least, but I recognise that Vyckie is Vyckie and it was her space and choice to make that decision. I am not bitter about it, but I can say that I don't think it was handled well.

That's really fucking shady. It just goes to show that Vyckie is a manipulative and egotistical psycho, with or without the Patriarchy.

[LeatherCouch]

Treemom's word picture here really nailed it.

I am so done with the whole Vyckie thing. The only differences in the Vyckie of today and the Vyckie of "patriarchy" is that she divorced and she claims to be atheist instead of claiming to be Christian. But nothing else changed. She is still a user, looking for a way to make a buck, just off a slightly different (or maybe not so different) group. She is a narcissistic, everything is black-and-white, person who manipulates others. She, for all her lack of writing and communication skills, knows how to pull media strings and has been extremely successful at positioning herself, previously as a spokesperson for the patriarchal community, and currently as a spokesperson for the ex-patriarchal community. (This is how she makes the money that she lives on; they would all be better off if she would just get a job). On both the patriarchal and ex-patriarchal sides, her kids were/are just pawns she uses to accomplish these things. A therapist could have a field day trying to elucidate exactly what those mother/child relationships are- detached, lack of attachment, whatever. (I was going to say the whole throw-Angel-under-the-bus scenario finished it for me, but after all, Angel was thrown under the bus a long time before Vyckie left patriarchy, now, wasn't she?)

I was all ready to post this exact same thing, but you did it better than I would have. I "knew" Vyckie from online communities from way back when, and she's always been a narcissist. Not much has changed with her.

[apple1]

I was all ready to post this exact same thing, but you did it better than I would have. I "knew" Vyckie from online communities from way back when, and she's always been a narcissist. Not much has changed with her.

Thanks.

Now I will make a prediction. It will only be a matter of time until someone will show up here telling us how awful we are.

[Guest Anonymous]

Thanks.

Now I will make a prediction. It will only be a matter of time until someone will show up here telling us how awful we are.

ITA. My money is on the person with the google alert.

[Deleted12]

My interpretation of Vyckie is slightly more charitable than some people here are being.

I think she had a seriously messed up childhood where her own mother failed to nurture her and protect her from predators, and she's still on some level acting out that family model.

What looks to us like a series of really bad choices totally seemed to her like great choices at the time.

[Deleted03]

ITA. My money is on the person with the google alert.

no but the person with the google alert was someone who was introduced to the lifestyle by Vyckie, and then left but was interested in seeing what happens with her, because she was kind of distraught by the 180° turn she had taken.

I think the whole family should seek help, and I hope they are.

[apple1]

I think she had a seriously messed up childhood where her own mother failed to nurture her and protect her from predators, and she's still on some level acting out that family model.

I don't doubt this. But at some point, one becomes an adult who becomes responsible for her own choices. She made choices.

And responsible to do whatever it takes (hopefully, including getting responsible counseling) to avoid carrying the same dysfunction to her own children. And yes, I realize that everyone carries some degree of dysfunction, and that no one is a perfect parent, but-

Once we bring a new generation into the world, we as adult parents are responsible to provide their needs, and I don't mean only physical needs.

[fundiefan]

I gave up on NLQ before the mother/daughter drama started. It rubbed me the wrong way in a lot of areas. On the surface, it seemed a good idea and probably is in general - a place for people who are changing their lives to share experiences and support each other. But to me, it became a performance. Someone upthread said it - same Vyckie, same issues, different cause.

I felt horrible for Angel when that drama was going on. Regardless of the real story and what is and isn't known, she didn't have a choice in her life and she is suffering from her upbringing. There is nothing that makes it acceptable for her mother to take that public. She obviously has a ton of baggage from the way she was raised and the life she lived. She's also obviously trying really fucking hard to make sense of it all and figure herself and her life out. She needs to be allowed to do that, in her own way, without her mom using it against her. My sypmathies lie entirely with Angel, no matter the story. She's the one in that situation who was broken and is doing her best, with what she has and knows, to fix herself.

And, just reading here - really? Vyckie asked someone else to post here and question Razing Ruth's identity? That is manipulation and passive-aggressive behavior if I've ever seen it. I haven't really followed Ruth, but it is not up to Vyckie to question someone else's story. That is just wrong.

[treemom]

My interpretation of Vyckie is slightly more charitable than some people here are being.

I think she had a seriously messed up childhood where her own mother failed to nurture her and protect her from predators, and she's still on some level acting out that family model.

What looks to us like a series of really bad choices totally seemed to her like great choices at the time.

Oh I think that is true too. But I remember this whole post about her pencil smell headaches where her therapist basically said the kids need to leave her alsonr.

Yeah she had a shitty childhood....lots of us do. But at some point, when you discover you made bad decisions you do something about the kids and the shitty childhood you gave them.

[LeatherCouch]

Thanks.

Now I will make a prediction. It will only be a matter of time until someone will show up here telling us how awful we are.

Meh. Might be fun ;)

[fundiefan]

Meh. Might be fun ;)

I can see that happening without any effort at all.

[Guest Anonymous]

Vyckie's daughter, Angel, is going home for a visit this week: angelreneene.blogspot.com/

[Crackedeggs]

I tried it over there - but there are too many people who are extremely harsh, quick to judge, and can use whatever they want on you... however, if you fight back, you are " hostile" etc.. the moderators are the worst offenders. No one seems to get that one person's quiverfull exposure and damage is different from another - shades of their old QF lives and that style of " you have to do x y and z or your not a christian", that same black and white thinking. A sense of humor is seriously lacking as well.

I think the site is a good idea, people stuck in the various flavors of patriarchal christian cults need an exit point.. but my god, get over yourselves and lighten up.

[annalena]

Here's my take- I think both women are traumatized, need intensive therapy and hopefully can heal eventually. I remember reading both blogs when they were still open. Angel wrote about how her stepfather had molested her and Vyckie wrote about how angel's husband (?) had molested 2 of her sisters.

Both were in complete denial of what happened, although I think both is true. Having been a victim myself, I know people do not just come up with stuff like that.

Both were apparently not healthy enough to reflect what was going on around them and protect the ones that they should have protected. It's just soo sad. :(

The primary responsibility is on Vyckie, obviously, because she is the one who got the family into this in the first place. But It's no better for Angel to not critically look at her husband.

[Guest Anonymous]

Having been a victim myself, I know people do not just come up with stuff like that.

I don't want to speculate on whether or not the Garrison children were molested by Angel's boyfriend as there is virtually nothing out there to point clearly in either direction.

I am sorry for your experience, Analena.

I just wanted to note though, that sometimes young people do make false accusations about molestation and sexual abuse, for all sorts of reasons. One of my male family members was arrested and questioned over a long period, on suspicion of the rape of another young person. Eventually, following DNA testing and extensive interviews on both sides, it came clear that the girl had had non-consensual intercourse with someone else on that night, but because of fear of the consequences of exposing whatever went on, made up a story to try to cover up for what really happened. My relative happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as he became embroiled in that story and he was devastated by the accusations of something he had not and would not ever do.

I don't say this to downplay the seriousness of any young person's claims of sexual assault. I don't believe that such claims are made lightly, and I believe they should always be investigated thoroughly. But just because 'people do not just come up with stuff like that' it does not automatically follow that the accused is guilty. That is why we have a justice system.