A place to snark and vent about CoC doctrine and/or our experiences in the CoC. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their experience and feelings are wrong, or why we disagree with them.
Ivy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:15 am
I am so thankful my parents didn't even think to helicopter my college life.
I feel my parents helicoptered my life so much that I was unable to make any decisions of my own as a young adult. Even deciding whether to turn right or left.
I watched a youtube video recently about a young woman who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult. I do not remember the name of it, but it was very strict. She eventually went to college when she was 18 because her family said, they'd send her if she agreed to return back home and use her knowledge to homeschool her own kids. One thing she talked about really struck me: she said she was stalked by young men in college which became worse because she didn't know how to set any boundaries with them. I had the exact same experience. I was stalked by 2 or 3 guys (to varying extremes) at Harding. One even obtained my class schedule from the admin building, they'd give it out to anyone who asked. Anyway, when asking for help I just got winks and "oh that's so cute". And my mother thought stalking was romantic. One of these guys came to our house a year after I graduated, without calling first; just showed up and walked around the house through the back door which was open at that time, unfortunately. My mother moved aside to let him in. To her this was just normal behavior, to show up on someone's doorstep unexpected. Then years later when I got married, in my 30s, he tracked me down and just showed up at my apartment where I lived w/my husband at the time. He insisted I let him in, and I just showed him my wedding ring and then told him to get lost. A creepy afternote to all this is, I looked up his residence history online and found out that after college he had moved to Lubbock the same year I did and moved away the same year I did. And lived in dallas the whole time I did. (He's from Illinois and never had any career reasons to move anywhere).
SolaDude wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:32 pm
Wow, faith, that is really creepy....not just the guy, but your Mom as well,
Yeah. She just didn't get it, neither did my dad. They did not teach me to set boundaries with anyone and people were running all over me for a long time.
How can I sum up my time at Harding U? It was neither awful, nor was it all great memories. It was sort of a mixture. But the best way to describe that place is creepy.
That is so scary, faith. Did you ever notify the police? Do you ever feel unsafe even now? I hope you feel safe and secure at this point.
What a creepster.
I had poor boundaries as well, and also some poor safety awareness...not paying attention to my "gut instincts", since that was not considered really a thing. I was very naive, having been so sheltered. So many examples I could discuss, but I won't go into it. It took me years to learn to set them[boundaries], and I'm much better these days. I remember making a likes/dislikes list because I wasn't sure what my preferences were in many areas. It's part of being out of touch with our emotions, I think. And just conflict / anger avoidance, not wanting to rock the boat or draw attention to oneself.
Ivy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 4:07 pm
That is so scary, faith. Did you ever notify the police? Do you ever feel unsafe even now? I hope you feel safe and secure at this point.
What a creepster.
I couldn't identify what was going on as being wrong. When I talked to people about it they felt sorry for the young man who's heart was "being broken". Nobody really talked about stalking back then. The movie Fatal Attraction came out sometime in the late 80s and it was only then that this kind of behavior was being brought to light and some states started passing anti-stalking laws.
When I talked to people about it they felt sorry for the young man who's heart was "being broken".
Oh, boy.
I truly "get" what you're saying. This is one good example, I think, of how we learned to doubt our intuition, telling us something is very wrong...people ignoring the victim and empathizing with the perpetrator. "That poor broken hearted hearted 'boy'" is a stalker, and potentially dangerous. You knew it, and felt unsafe, but your concerns were discounted. So you doubted your own wisdom.
He may have gotten himself in trouble with the law by now. I would guess he has done this to others.
