I ran into your blog a few days ago while browsing for anti-Amway sites in a desperate attempt to find SOMETHING my mother would listen to and I found it great. The fact you're trying to help people get out of Amway and your tips on how to live with Ambots are awesome. :)
My Amway story started 14 years ago when my mother joined Amway along with my uncle and his friend. They went on a "meeting" or something. My uncle and his friend (who were 17-18 y/o back then) realised immediately it's a scam and they gave up on it. But my mom didn't. She believed all that crap (sorry 'bout that, but honestly, it's crap) and started making phonecalls. To her friend, acquaintances and everyone else. Nobody wanted to join it, not even her closest friends. (This is a good time for me to mention that she was a very sociable person and had a wide range of friends.)
Nevertheless, she continued buying tapes, CDs, motivational books and other Amway products. She regurarly attended meetings.
She met other Ambots there and became friends with them. She made plans in our home and brought those people in our home.
I remember when I was 5 y/o and my sister was a newborn.. This one time, it was raining, and she left me and my sister with our dad and went on a meeting. I was sick and my sister wouldn't stop crying, but she left anyway, thinking that she was doing the best for the family.
Of course, that caused even more fights and eventually, after a couple years, they got divorced. (Here I must mention that Amway was NOT the only reason. There werw many others, such as personality incompatibility, different mentalities and so on.)
I was glad they split up because that meant no more fights. But still, I wasn't the happiest girl on Earth. (I mean, who wants a broken family?)
My mom still praised Amway and told me that it is going to build a future for us. (Here insert all the Amway promo stuff.)
I never bought it. Even when I was 8-9 y/o, I was clever enough not to buy it.
Her relationship with her mother is now horrible and Amway is the cause. It made my mom a robot, a brain washed person who isn't capable of thinking for hereself anymore. My grandma tried a lot to stop her from ruining her life with Amway, but she never did.
I tried too, but no success either.
My mom thinks that everyone is negative and she's the only person that thinks positive. She tells me taht if I think positive, everything can happen. When I'm sick, that's because I didn't take Nutrilite vitamins. If I have dandruff, it's because I use Nivea shampoo and not Satinique. If my sister has a rash, it's because grandma's soap fell into her washing machine and mixed with SA8!!
Her way of thinking is not normal. It's not just Amway, it's the whole mindset. I'm having a hard time living with her and I even tried to make her let me go live with my dad. But now that I'm older I realise not only that it's not going to happen, but also that even if I had a chance of doing that, I wouldn't. Because I can't leave my little sister there alone, with her. She would f**k her up completely, like she did to me. I was an adult at the age of 10, and I won't let that happen to my sister.
Sometimes I think I'm going to have a mental breakdown, but then I calm down and realise I have a whole life to live and it's not worth it.
I have to pretend 24/7 that everything is okay, when it's actually not. And that makes me tired. Really tired. But it won't help if I tell her everything because I already did that. Several times, actually. And it didn't help. Au contraire, it made it worse. She didn't hear what I was trying to say and turned it all upsiede down. She made not-quite-normal conclusions out of it. (I don't love her, I hate her and don't respect her are the lighter ones.)
So I gave up on her. But I didn't give up on my sister, and I never will. I'm looking after her and won't let the same things that happened to me happen to her.
The tension at home is sometimes unbearable, and sometimes I have multiple emotional shocks in one day. But I'm used to it.
I'm in high school now, so I spend less time at home and that's great, because I don't like being at home.
Wow, I wrote a lot of stuff down. I just wanted to share my Amway experience with people who understand. I have other problems too, but I'm not here to talk about that. (I think that I will need a shrink in the future, but I kinda don't like them. Or trust them. So my family..well, some of them and friends will have to do.)
If this post turns one person quit Amway, then I did what I was planning to.
Sorry for the long post and grammar mistakes. :)
wow - i had the same exact experianece with my husband. except i got depressed and alomost became an alcoholic - thank goodness i snapped myself out of it. he still believes in the dream and working tirelessly away at scamway. sometimes i wonder if they will ever wake up........
ReplyDeleteYour comments ended up in the spam filter. Got you out of there now.
DeleteAnonymous - sorry to hear about your husband and he still believes in the Amway scam. And sorry to hear about the health issues Amway has brought to your life. You didn't say how long you've been stuck inside this hell hole but I hope it's not too much longer for you.
DeleteThank you for sharing your story. I hope some parents see it and stay away from Amway.
ReplyDeleteOur "sort-of-adopted-son" has only been an IBO for about a month but is already going on about how glad he is he didn't waste money on a college degree, and how he can't wait to show people how small their brains are, and that one of his "good friends" (who we've never heard of before although we know most of his longtime friends) dropped pro golf for the business and is making 1/4 million a year already. His Tuesday night meetings last until midnight. Sad as it all is, I'm fascinated by the psychology of Amway and how the exact same lies and brainwashing techniques keep working over the years!
Hi Mom. Sorry to hear about your sort of adopted son. Part of the teachings in Amway is that you don't need a college education to be a commissioned Amway salesperson. The underlying message is why spend all that money on college when you could be tithing your Amway cult leaders and spending your college money buying overpriced shitty Amway products. Part of being a good Ambot is insulting everyone you know. That "good friend" of his in Scamway will shun him once he quits. And yes he'll eventually quit once he runs out of money or maxes his credit cards or gets tired of being abused by the assholes in his upline.
DeleteI can't help but break down to these stories. That "A" word is forbidden in my house-hold. I know this will sound cliche, but...will someone PLEASE think of THE CHILDREN!!!!! If you're single and you wish to ruin your life...that's fine, go at it! However, if you have a family...PLEASE consider the damage this will do.
ReplyDeleteI just don't know in what way to say this anymore, that dreaded scheme is WAY out of control. Some one in congress needs to step in and dismantle these FREAKS!!!!!
Hi Anonymous. Yes this young lady has a very good grasp of things that no child should ever go through. People in Amway destroy their lives and the lives of everyone around them. People take to the Internet and share their pain and hope they can prevent others from making the same bad decisions. Join up with the Scamway cult and it will rip your family apart.
DeleteIm on same page as 2.23. This thing cant work. Nobody makes money at it. Yet it still grows double digit each year.
Delete