40 yrs with my mother addicted to MLM(Vol#0 Ryo Asahi)

Mother became a business member

My mother became a MLM business memember about one year before I was born.

It was so long ago that none of my relatives can remember in detail how my mother became a member.

Mother met her later boss M and asked to my father, “Can I buy a few things with my allowance?” and he agreed.

When I was small, I don't remember any particular damage caused by my mother regarding MLM as far as I can undersand.

When I was in elementary school, we gathered all my friends around us at home for my birthday parties, and we went on a family trip once a year. We were such a happy family.

It was when I was in the upper grades of elementary school, about 10 years after she become MLM member, that I saw a change in the situation.

My mother began to talk about her dream of living in a two-family house where my grandparents could also live, and a large loan was taken out to build a new house that would cost tens of millions of yen (far beyond our incomes).

Around this time, she began to talk about her dreams; I will take you on a trip to Hokkaido I will take you on a trip abroad ... etc

I was excited about the new house and the trip.

I imagine that my mother was told to talk about her dreams, as anyone was asked so in MLM group.

After moving into the new house, my mother visited MLM company's overseas headquarters, and from that time, she became addicted to MLM business.

One of the reasons for her addiction is that she was physically injured during the moving process, which gave her hope of earning an income without working hard.

Most of the products in our house turned into MLM products - water purifiers, air purifiers, pots, supplement, seasonings, detergents, and so on.

The first trouble regarding my relatives was with my father and mother-in-law.

My father told me that my mother wanted to give two air purifiers to my mother-in-law.

However, my mother-in-law refused it, and then my mother was very dissatisfied with it and began to speak ill of my mother-in-law frequently.

Later, she asked my father to help her with MLM business, and my parents began attending business meetings together every Wednesday night from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. They also practiced demonstrations and marketing at home.

On weekends, they visited my father's business customers to introduce MLM products and/or business. My mother asked my father how much he should set as his goal for the next month.

Additionally, the company my father worked for went bankrupt at that time.

Combined with the disagreements caused by MLM, my parents fought every day. Even as a child, I thought it was only a matter of time when my parents would get divorced.

What made me suffer

In the wake of the recent problems with the former Unification Church, there has been a lot of attention paid to the damage caused by the second generation of cultists, so as a second-generation of MLM, I would like to write about some of the things that were painful for me as I was a child.

1. Supplements and protein at every meal. It was so simple, they didn't taste good. I was always sobbing when I drank. But I didn't even rebel because I had seen my mother yell at my siblings when she found out that they didn't drink.

2. Meals Since the MLM company's pots were created to cool all dishes with them, my mother cooked rice and anything with them. We did not have a rice cooker and did not use a microwave oven (I think because she trusted the stories about electromagnetic radiation being bad for the body). After the rice cooked in the pot and got cold, I ate either cold rice or rice that had been re-fried in the pot (it burns easily). Simply to say, I wanted to eat warm regular white rice, not stir-fried rice.

3. Money We really didn't have any money, so we didn't have an allowance after we bought the house. Basically, things were hand-me-downs from my siblings.

   I used goods for club activities that my friends gave me. I was a little miserable.

   We rarely ate out as a family.

When I entered college, my parents got divorced.

The children were taken in by my mother, and she continued to pay the mortgage on the house.

As for the MLM, I was taken with water purifier and other products to the house where I lived alone.

The cost of replacing the filters was too expensive for the college student and the puifier was too big to put for a single person's small kitchen, so I never used it.

My mother's boss Mrs. M gave me a gift for entering college (kitchen scissors) and I was taken to M's home party.

My mother worshipped M and frequently talked about her but I hardly knew her, and I have nothing but disgust for her as a person who mind-controlled my mother.

Just recently, my mother said to me, “Mrs. M is very important to me, so please take good care of her, since her nutritional knowledge is the foundation of mine. I have nothing but gratitude.”

After that, through 40 yrs of her experiene in MLM, my mother never made any enough money, and she was continuously tormented by loans.

Part of my scholarship money, my three children's annual gifts, and other savings disappeared to pay off the loan.

After becoming business person

After I entered the workforce, I was regularly asked for money.

My brother gave a certain amount every month, but I would only pay when asked by my mother.

It was obvious to me that if I continued to give her money constantly, she would demand more and more money, so I refused to give money to her on a regular basis.

The total amount we've given to our mother was about at least 10 million yen (3 million yen for me and 7 million yen for my brother). We have not received any repayment until now.

When she built the new house, she also borrowed money from her parents-in-law and her parents as well, so my whole family was really troubled with money.

I was in a state of resignation at that time and felt that I had no choice but to pay if my mother asked me to do so in order to avoid any troubles.

I often received letters from my mother.

However, even when started out as a story about happy birthday to you, etc., in the second half of the letter was about the importance of health and the need for supplements and/or water purifiers, or enclosed was a health newsletter that M distributed to my mother and her team members, or a piece of presentation paper by my mother to others.

I always felt that what my mother care about is MLM business ONLY.

I had left my parents' home to work, but one day when I visited home, my mother took me to see a friend of hers.

I had a bit of a bad feeling about this, but I met a classmate of my mother's from high school and we had dinner together. Then, I was taken to a clinic run by Mrs. M's son.

It was a MLM company's business meeting using the reception desk of the clinic on a holiday.

"I was cheated", I thought.

To be honest, I don't remember much of what happened at that time.

There were about 10 participants. They were obviously MLM members.

The session consisted of a discussion about the need for a system that would allow people to earn income automatically without having to work (such as right income), DVD viewing, and finally, a declaration from each participant about what he or she felt after the event.

In the final declaration by each participant, I felt that everyone only referred to MLM and I really understood that MLM was a cult. It was my first time attending a meeting, and it was a truly unpleasant sight.

Marriage

Later I got married.

When I stayed at my parents' house the day before the wedding, my mother asked me to become a MLM business member. I thought to myself, “Please don't tell me at this timing, since it's the day before the wedding!!!"

Finally I've signed and become a business member there because I did not want to interfere with the wedding.

However, I cancelled it one year later because to avoid the annual fee and I did not purchase any products after that.

My mother used to invite my friends to her house for cooking and MLM demonstrations.

I thought that after marriage, my wife would surely be invited as well, so I told my mother that she should definitely talk to me when my mother wants to talk to my wife. I thought this was the only way to protect my wife.

After that, my mother constantly asked me, "Please give me 100,000 yen.”

After marriage, it was no longer my own money alone, so I started discussing it with my wife, saying, “My mother asked me for money, so let me pay for her."

One day, my wife asked me, "Why? You shouldn't pay for her."

I was paralyzed by my sense of money, so we've decided to seek counseling.

During counseling, after I totally explained our family situation, I was so surprised to hear that the counselor told me “it was your mother's fault, not your fault."

I felt that for the first time that this situation was strange, and I felt a weight was lifted from my shoulders, and I could not stop crying.

Selling the family home

After talking to the counselor, I decided to find a solution regarding the financial problems.

Since it was clear that the main cause of the financial problems was the house loan, I decided to consult with my siblings, grandparents, and aunt without asking my mother and seek my mother decision to have the house sold.

Since it was easy to imagine that she would oppose the sale, we spent several months among the siblings making preliminary preparations.

We checked my mother's income including MLM, the appraised value of the house, simulations of future finance, potential places to move to after the house was sold and we discussed the process of persuading the mother.

Since it was possible that persuasion from the children alone would be difficult, we asked the grandparents, aunt and uncle to attend the persuasion meeting as well.

Finally, after persuading many times, she decided to sell the house....(It was the hardest negotiation I've experienced ever..)

After that, my mother moved into a small apartment with the money she received from the sale and stopped asking us for money.

Conflict between my mother and my sister

Around the same time, my mother and my sister had a confrontation.

The reason was that my sister did not use the MLM product that my mother had given to my sister as a gift.

My sister lived very close to my mother's house and my mother often checked if my sister uses MLM product and my sister takes supplement every day.

My mother escalated her behavior and one day, said to my sister, “You can't raise children by yourself, and I will instead raise my grandchildren by myself."

My sister finally decided not to see my mother as long as she continues MLM.

Recognize as social issues

In 2021, a book was published in Japan describing that one man got divorced his wife because she was addicted to MLM business.

I read that book, and was shocked to see situations that were very similar to what my mother had said and done to us.

For example, we were forced to use cloth diapers, shown pictures of rusty water pipes and the importance of water, and not allowed to use the rice cooker or microwave oven. Letters from his wife were also hard to read , and it was also the same as our situation.

I finally recognized that the series of troubles from the past related to my mother were caused by MLM.

That’s why I've created MLM Victims Association.

It is very difficult to convince my mother, who has believed in MLM, Mrs. M and the founder of MLM company for almost 40 years.

It will probably also be difficult to repair the broken family relationship.

I would like to work to help as many people as possible who suffer from similar situations.