PaulMarshall
JoinedI was born into the truth and left after dissociating myself when I was 21. Like many people who are members of this site, I know you will understand the isolation I felt during my formative years. Growing up in total emotional isolation is incredibly damaging and affects your feelings of self worth at a very core level. I am 40 in August and have spent my entire life so far battling with what I actually believe and what I was nurtured to believe. My memories of the loneliness I felt in my own private prison of turmoil, I believe will always be there to a degree. Outwardly my training has given me many advantages, inwardly the damage runs deep. My earliest memory is sitting in the garden when I was about three, clutching my knees to my chest with my eyes closed, listening to the birds singing and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. It is a lovely memory to have and cherish. Yes I have lived, I have loved and I am still here going strong. I have built a life for myself, and have a successful career. My daughter from my marriage within the truth has also left the organisation and did so soon as she was old enough to have her own sense of self. She is 20 next birthday and we have a bond that is very strong. My ex-wife and the brother she married very soon after we divorced, made it hard for me to nurture a relationship with my daughter. The bond of parent and child is a very strong one, and has thankfully survived the separation we both endured. I moved away from my small hometown at the age of 22. I had little choice really. I had spent all my life to that point wrestling with my sexuality and my overall identity. I came out to the elders. These were people that had known me all my life, so this was not easy to do. I then started to get to know myself. I still have doubts about my identity and suffer from what a deep-rooted sense of emotional isolation does. Id love to hear from people that grew up in truth who had a similar experience to me. It is so hard to explain to anyone who has not been there, what it is really like. Paul - London