I have tried to write about the affects to a person who has been brainwashed...how it appears that the mind has been changed. But, what I am coming to believe, is that when your choices put someone/something first....you, yourself,aren't clearly defined.
For instance, in the religion I was raised in, the churches rules took preference...it was consulted first. "Is this okay with the church?" Not, how do I feel about this and what do I want to do?
Brainwashing isn't so much about changing the mind, but changing the allegiance.
Instead of going within and feeling your way...you consult the outside authority first.
I see the coorelation between strict religions and abuse, in that it takes away the power or self control.
When we turn our choices over to someone else, we are losing ourselves bit by bit.
What was most unsettling when I discovered my father was a pedophile, and I abused, was not that shocking fact, but the horror....that I had no sense of self.
No self beyond what the church created and the abuse demanded.
The sheer free fall into nothing left me breathless.
I didn't know a self beyond being a compliant member of both church and family.
I had seldom rebelled and done my own thing.
Or, the things I did do, didn't define me as much as being a good daughter and christian had.
Brainwashing...should really be called self washing....or wiping yourself clean of self. Making the individual self disappear.
To me, the scariest thing is to see a person totally controlled by a church or an allegiance to family...minus their discerning mind. To feel the absence of a thoughtful self....and instead see the machine like motions of their lives.
The difference between the me without a me and the one with one is completely different.
I know that sentence is odd.
To live a life separated from what the church decrees as right and wrong as well as what the family needs or doesn't need, is quite spacious in its choices. I am no longer constrained to their preferences.
I lived for so many years as a tool of each.
Now, my self is free. I am not sure it was my mind that was in prison...but I know my self had disappeared.
Without a self...the church and abuse can have its way.
