without charity

I grew up in a cult.

It has taken me years to even be able to say those words. Even now I rush to qualify, "Well, mostly a cult. A quasi-cult. And not my whole life. Well, most of my life, but in 2 different cults." I have thought over and over about going into counseling to discuss this very issue, but so far I cant bring myself to admit that I need it.
Instead, Im going to turn to my old stand-by therapy, writing. If it doesnt eleminate the need for counseling - well, at least my thoughts will be nicely ordered by the time I get there.

In both the cults where I spent my growing up years, the KJV Bible was believed to be the only true holy translation of God's Word. In that translation, the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 read:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Those verses aptly describe the experience of my years in cults that lacked a true understanding of Christian charity/love.
(theres also some irony involved, because one of those cults happened to be named "Charity." more on that later.)

my family
I am opting not to name the members of my family. This is going to be my best shot at an honest recount of some very painful experiences, and I dont feel its fair or necessary to identify my family members to the whole world here. On the other hand, Im not changing anyones gender, age or birth order to hide their identity either. If you know my family in real life, you'll know who Im talking about.
I am the oldest of 8 childern (more on that later, too) and here's our birth order:
myself
Brother 1
Brother 2
Brother 3
Brother 4
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother 5

my parents
Im sure there will be many, many more posts about my relationship with my parents. One of the questions I struggle with is: Were they victims of the abuse in the cults? Or were they enablers for it?
Let me say first of all I do believe my parents absolutely made the choices they did with good intentions. I believe they genuniely love their children and wanted us to grow up in the best environment possible. I know they made financial sacrifices to raise us the way they wanted. I dont take that for granted.
I know they were deeply hurt by some of the things that went down in both of the cults. They were lied to and manipulated just like we kids were.
On the other hand, I believe in both cases, they stayed in the situations after they were aware of the problems. They failed to protect their kids from the emotional, physical and spiritual abuses of corrupt leadership. After escaping from 1 cult-church, they wound up very shortly more involved in another one, and actually would have gotten into a third (had it not imploded at just about the time they showed up.)
To this day I have not heard my parents acknowledge that the organizations they were involved in qualify as cults. I do understand how that can be debated (thats another post.) They have said they were "cult-like" or that outsiders may have viewed them as cults. I can understand how it might be difficult to acknowledges the degree to which those places were messed up. To admit that those places were cults would be to admit how misguided they were in becoming involved, and that would take a great deal of humility. After all, I have a hard time say it, and I wasnt even responsible for being there!
There will probably be posts where I am angry at my parents, and others I have sympathy for them. Our relationship to this day is very complicated. I do think some of those issues stem from our family's time in the cults. I am hoping that one of the things to come out of this writing will be an untangling of some of those threads, or at least uncovering their root so I can deal directly with them.

Ive opted to leave off a traditional introduction of myself because I think most of what I would say will become apparent as I blog. For now let me say I am a woman in my mid-20s, a college graduate, and married. When you look at me I generally appear normal. Even when I talk about my childhood you would not know how unusual it was. I have figured out ways to talk about it so some of the more difficult subjects dont come up. Sure, it comes out pretty quickly that I have a lot of siblings and didnt watch much TV, but only people that have known me for a long time could tell you about some of the other stuff.