I wish I didn’t see this coming…

So I’m a new member of this community, which I’m surprised because I’ve been a frequent flyer here for some time. I just received some heartbreaking, yet unsurprising information regarding one of my employees from a previous job. I worked in 2020.

I live in a small rural community, which is surprisingly not as religious or MLM as one would expect, so when this first came on my radar, I was quite jolted and surprised. I was hired on his management once the very beginnings of the pandemic subsided, and without giving away too much identifying information, I was much younger than most of the rest of my company. Majority women who knew my parents or were about that age, so closer to the 45+ age range. This was a group of people who had mainly done factory for monotonous work, such as packing orders, making closing, etc.. I had one employee who was the sweetest woman, I knew she went to one of the new churches, which was the only nationally affiliated church in our area at the time which caused me some pause, but she was sweet as can be, and I am not judgmental in that area at all. At that time, it had only been a few months since she and her husband discovered he had an aggressive form of the big C. Our hearts all broke and we rallied, the company had for the first time split into a multi shift system, so I was no longer her direct management as she took the early shift where this would free up more time to make sure her husband was OK. He was of course, doing the traditional route of handling this form of cancer, and my goosebumps tangled earlier than I wish I could say they would, as at her station she had a slew of doTERRA and YoungLiving oils. As a generational “hippie”, love me some good essential oils, but was also never going to buy them from a company that shield out lies and overpriced products. Fast forward, five months to hearing through others on my shift that were close with this employee, that her up lines convinced her to talk her husband into stopping any medical treatments and embrace the utilization of these oils to cure his cancer. Many of us were concerned and, in the most kind, but honest way a lot of us tried to convince her otherwise. At the time, he was not on board and she was not going to aggressively pursue this. So here we are now, and this is late information to me, unfortunately, but I have reconnected with some of my old coworkers who have informed me that that person did convince their husband to attempt using those two MLM companies products to cure his then discovered stage four cancer. Apparently within four months, after much worry and dismay from the medical team, he passed away after trusting the information that was provided to his wife that they both genuinely thought would save his life. I am torn with a mixture of rage, disgust, and hate for these companies that pray on weak people during their most vulnerable time, as well as genuine sadness and slight pity for her. As someone who was once very close to being deeply sucked into MLM, as well as knowing the desperation and vulnerability of watching someone you love disintegrate, it breaks my heart. I would never say to her or anyone else that knows me “I told you so”, but how many times has this story been told?

I just needed a safe space to express my conflicting emotions and frustration regarding how sick a lot of these companies are, not just for taking advantage of struggling people, whether it be financially emotionally or healthwise, but also towards anyone who doesn’t truly try to learn and comprehend what they are buying or selling, or suggesting to others… Especially if they can have such impactful consequences, including further illness and death.