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charlie, I'm so sorry. And be comforted at least that I think all of us (or most of us, anyway) are horribly embarrassed about stupid things we did when we were Pentes and now we wonder what we were thinking. The guilt of participating in some things can be awful, but remember that at the time, I'm sure you really believed it was the right thing to do. When we are deceived and brainwashed, we do things we wouldn't normally do. It's sort of like if you agreed to have the doctor amputate your arm after he told you that it was the only was to save your life, and then later, you found out that the 'doctor' got his degree from a crackerjack box and there was nothing wrong with your arm--a foolish decision to let the quack take your arm off, but one made at the moment trusting someone who you thought knew better than you. These Pentecostal leaders set themselves up in a position of authority and teach everyone not to question. We believed them, and so we did stuff that we thought was right, only to realize later that the joke was on us. Don't beat yourself up too much.

I hope things work out for you, and that at least you can find peace in this. The ones that haunt me the most are the ones that I don't know where they are anymore and so I can't apologize. I'm glad you had a good conversation with your friend. I have found that those that I have apologized to are surprisingly forgiving. Some even started sending me Christmas cards. lol.

I agree with Luth that it is usually better not to share with just anyone these stories, but for those who are close, it is sometimes helpful. I have found that it helps people understand better sometimes if you let them watch a video, because they find it very hard to picture otherwise. The movie 'Marjoe' is fantastic in this regard, and I have given it to several good friends to illustrate what I am talking about. For very close friends who know about my PTSD, I have sometimes let them watch the Hallelujah Prayer Center videos. I guess I do that because I am afraid they won't believe me.

(For those who are relatively new to the board, when I was a teenager, I used to go to a place called Hallelujah Prayer Center where a woman 'healer' would do healings by cutting people and pulling bits of tissue out of their bodies that she claimed were 'cancers'. This was done without anesthesia and the effect was ... well, mostly, what you would expect when people were being cut with no anesthesia. Screams, blood, crying ...)

I can only say to those who ever do want to share their story (or even if you don't, because you might change your mind) ... if you've got photos or video, keep it. There's always a tendency for people to think, "Oh, surely it wasn't really like that ..." But there's no arguing with videotape.