Poker face

I find it hard bumping into former Mercy people sometimes, whether they be staff or client.

For a long time after i left, i felt the pressure that many other former clients felt...

"Yeah, i'm great! Oh, it was amazing. Praise God. Yep, i'm all better now. I'm just like one of those girls in the videos".

It was hard to know that any other girl besides myself was struggling (or "making bad choices"), but a number of years on, even the girls i thought were really 100% on top continue to struggle with the issues that brought them to Mercy.

As i am one of the girls who fought for their client files, my name is known to their Lawyer. I am also part of the Mercy Survivors network, an attendee at CIFS meetings (a cult watch support group) and the author of a blog that discusses Mercy amongst other things.

Mercygate

Since around the beginning of the year, myself and some other fellow survivors have been involved in a struggle to have our respective client files released to us.

(Some coverage of this can be found here, compliments of Sean the Blogonaut).

As this is public domain, I will speak only for the situation involving myself.

When all of this began, I fasted and prayed my heart out, considered scripture and discussed the issue with a few wise friends.

After much delay and Mercy’s subsequent refusal, a bunch of phone calls, intervention of a Lawyer and the Privacy Commissioner and further delay, I received an incomplete file.
Prior to my appointment on Tuesday evening, I did not expect that I would feel troubled by its contents. In fact, I did not expect to feel anything at all.