With almost 20 years of exposure to the WCG some deep scars developed and one of those was the loss of my anchor in life. It took years to build a new one, one built on believing in myself and standing up for my ideas and beliefs. That inner anchor is the most important thing in your life, without it you will get lost. It’s a compass on the one hand and in the other your tower of strength.
The tragic part with the WCG was it’s ability to split families apart and leave massive scars that in some cases never heal. Divide and rule was the motto, splitting family and friends apart and isolating whole communities of people form the rest of the world. Closed and confined and denied the access to the world outside.
I didn’t choose this path but the path was chosen for me. By isolating me form the rest of the world and focusing on trapping me into a life that I keep struggling to get out of, only made it that much clearer what would happen after escaping the clutches of this poison. The poison sticks to your skin always there to remind you of the years lost in endless confines of a mentality that never stops dictating endless rants of all the evils in you and the world around you. But what am I to say I had it easy, I knew I wasn’t going to converted.
So the day it all ended was a day of rebirth, a rebirth with all the joys and pains that go with a rebirth. Freedom, pure freedom, absolute freedom and more freedom. Isolation, more isolation, a long road of isolation with no end in sight, but worth every minute of it because I was free! The weight off my shoulders wasn’t enough to release the shackles on my feet of knowing absolutely nobody outside this closed world. No friends, no family and no social life. ZERO. A clean slate so to speak!!! An absolutely clean slate!
Naked and exposed ready to step out into a brave new world. Who do you trust in this new world? The first steps in a new beginning, one open in all directions. The exposer was slow to start but I pushed on and slowly new friends came into this virgin world. One door leads to another and suddenly you have a whole bunch of new friends that are all excited with life and ready to explore it all. You get swept up in river of possibilities.
Then came the problems and the conflicts with my family, that began to realize that I was succeeding at coping with a world they had left. The cord was cut, the ties severed the bridge was burned and there was no way back. I was building a new anchor in life for myself. For the first time in my life, I decided for better or worse, what would be best for me and my interests. They were left behind.
You move on, the time between the past and the present grows ever longer strengthening your will to push forward. You leave home, start your own life in your own four walls and build your own home with your own rules. Nobody to step in and tell you what to do and what not.
It’s the most difficult thing in the world to have to rely solely on your own anchor, it’s scary especially when you know how hard it was to build and strengthen. Today other problems come that are just as hard to deal with, that often includes death, death of close friends or loved ones. Your life gets shaken and you have to work hard at staying strong. Some of those around you have also become your new anchors. Those anchors can also be taken. Thats the hardest thing of all.
Hats off to all of us who succeed in building a new life, a life of freedom, a life built out of personal anchors.
Raymond Baumgartner
