A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
"I don't know what's wrong. I just can't do anything. I lay on the couch for hours everyday. I'm afraid to go out of the house. I've tried four different meds, but nothing touches my depression. It's like the world turned black the day I left my cult. They warned me my life would turn to [crap] if I ever left the group. Maybe they were right."
Read on for personal stories of a world I hope you are never unfortunate enough to experience.
I am a psychotherapist specializing in recovery from cults. This is only one of the thousands of stories I've heard over the past 13 years. The thread that connects them all is grief. Grief for what happened in the cult. Grief for the hole that was left after leaving the cult. Grief for the opportunities we missed while we spent years, even decades, chasing dreams of salvation, enlightenment, world peace, entrepreneurial success.
I'm at the end of my rope. My husband meditates. He says it calms him down. All I know is whenever anything the least bit stressful comes up, he avoids it. If we fight, which we are doing more often now, he goes to his room to meditate. Or sometimes he just sleeps for hours — even in the middle of the day. Sometimes he gets lost in a conversation and just "spaces out." There are things we need to talk about for the good of our marriage. I'm afraid we will lose our relationship if we can't deal with them soon.
Let's get one thing out of the way from the start. I won't be offering a list of cults to avoid. Cult definitions are controversial in academic circles because frequently they are so broad as to include all "new religious movements (NRMs)."
How do I define a "cult"? To be honest, as a psychotherapist, I do not concern myself overly much with defining which groups are cultic and which are not. My concern is with my clients' understanding of their experiences.
I tend to focus on "cultic relationships." I define a cultic relationship as a relationship between any group and an individual in which the individual experiences such high-intensity demands on their time and resources that they experience dysfunction in one or more core life areas: relationships, career, finances, community, physical or emotional well-being. Using this definition, you could define a "cult" as any organization that knowingly encourages cultic relationships to meet the goals of the leader(s). (The big 4 cult goals are power, money, approval, and personal gratification, such as sex or drugs.)
I focus on the cultic relationship because, in psychotherapy, personal responsibility is a more powerful concept than blame.
"Blame" is largely about the past: Who did what, to whom, when. It's clear that the blame for cultic abuse lies largely with the cults. They stand ready to exploit the vulnerabilities of their members — vulnerabilities — such as loneliness, depression, idealism, gullibility, fear, ambition — that all humans are subject to at one time or another.
"Responsibility" is largely about the future: Who will take the steps necessary for change in a positive direction. In psychotherapy, responsibility always lies with the client. Only the client can make meaningful change to improve his or her life. The cult may have encouraged dysfunctional behavior, but only the client can end that behavior and move on.
What kind of challenges do former cult members face? One of the first exercises I ask my clients to do is a list of losses from their cult: things they lost in the cult, things they lost after leaving the cult, and "opportunity costs" — opportunities that one missed because of cult involvement.
Things lost in the cult might include huge sums of money, from tens of thousands to millions of dollars; years from one's life; relationships with family and friends; independence and personal freedom; physical and emotional health.
Lost after the cult might be an intense sense of purpose, relationships with family or friends who now shun you, an even worsening financial situation because you now can't hold a job, the spiritual certainty you once had.
I feel dead inside. Nothing seems to matter. I've tried going to church, but it's the same there. Being around church people trips me out. Maybe God Himself is dead.
What are some symptoms former cult members might experience? Depression. Anxiety. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Stress-related conditions, such as fibromyalgia, sleeplessness, chronic fatigue syndrome. Dissociative states (uncontrollably "spacing out"). Eating disorders. Problems with intimacy. Compulsive behaviors, such as workaholism, gambling, shoplifting, promiscuity, spending sprees. Crippling perfectionism. (You can find a more detailed list of cult recovery symptoms here.)
"I'm such a loser. Nothing I do is ever good enough. All I can think about are the mistakes that I made. I can't take pleasure in my work.
As to opportunity costs: What would you have done if you lost 20 years of your life?
Before I joined [the group], I wanted to be a doctor. But they told me that financial success would never give me a personal relationship with God. So I dropped out of pre-med to work in the [church]. Now I'm [in my late 40s]. I can't see myself going to med school now. I feel like I've wasted my life.
Former members may experience rage. Or depression. They feel like strangers in a strange land. Others can't understand the extremity of their experience — or disbelieve them or judge them. Family members may tell them to "just get over it and move on."
And overwhelmingly, they feel grief.
Even an outsider can understand that rape or domestic violence is an overwhelming experience — that may take years to recover from. And that ultimately one's life is never the same after. Many people involved with cults experience that level of trauma.
But the suffering doesn't stop there. It extends to family and friends of cult members as well.
I need your help. My daughter has gotten involved with [an insurance company.] But it's not like any company I've ever known. They have her working 100 hours a week getting new recruits. She's cut off contact with us because we won't "invest" in her insurance plan. She doesn't talk to her friends. She quit school. The only thing in her life is the group. We don't know what to do. Can you give us any advice?
Perhaps those who suffer most are the kids who grew up in a cult. "Annie" grew up in an Eastern meditation cult in which children were often left unattended for hours at a time while parents meditated or attended group meetings.
My parents divorced in 19XX [when I was 8]. My father moved in with a fellow [member]. We spent weekends with him and his roommate, "Steve."
Their house had two bedrooms and an office. I was happy because "Steve" really liked me[....] He would ask my father if I could sleep in his bed with him at night. My father always said yes. Sleeping naked was the thing to do, and being tickled naked was fun, being on top of this man with his hard penis rubbing up and down my body was fun too[....]
I awoke one night to the sounds of heavy breathing. I looked and there was "Steve" on the bed with a grown woman, who I learned later was a prostitute.
"Steve" asked me to come to bed. I went, but in the middle of it I got sick to my stomach. I ran out of the room to the bathroom, puking.... I wasn't used to the taste of a vagina[....]
[T]here are a couple points I want to make clear. The movement set up an environment in which abuse could and did thrive. Sexual, physical, but even more damaging and manipulative . . . emotional abuse.
A lot of people may be wondering why I never told my mother, a teacher, or someone else who could help me. First, I was not aware that what was happening was not normal. From such an early age men molested me. I did not know there was something wrong with it[.... G]rowing up I was always told that meditation was protection, that nothing bad could happen to you if you meditated. We were the "chosen ones" we were lucky to have this protection. And most of all, we were better then everyone else.
Second, within the movement [...] there was no room for any sort of anger, sadness, or even questions. Thinking of anything negative or asking questions that were of negative nature was cause for judgment, ridicule, and most important, shame.
To be thought of as "bad," to have your state of consciousness judged daily does not set up any sort of environment for growth, only denial[....]
Imagine being a child in this environment. If you are told you were special, that you had the power to CHANGE THE WORLD through your behavior and meditation, that your level of consciousness was superior to the rest of the world, how is it that a child is to grow into a healthy adult with this sort of pressure put on him/her?
There was a man at the [....] center [....] who must have seen that I was in need of attention and love. This man took me to movies, played with me like I was a child, and was very nice to me. Every time that we would go somewhere or were alone together I was waiting for him to become sexual with me. He never did.
Instead of being relieved, I felt like he didn't like me. As I said before, sexual abuse was so common I thought it was normal.
I would like to thank you, [Mark], for never touching me.
A couple of final notes. First, back in the 70s, most cult groups had an Eastern or psychological connection. But these days, most of my clients are leaving bible-based groups or abusive churches.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I, too, am a veteran of cultic abuse. I was a member of an Eastern meditation group for 23 years. You can read about my experiences or contact me here.
Working with my clients is my current spiritual practice — and overwhelmingly satisfying.
And writing this diary brought a fountain of feelings — a healthy expression of my personal grief.
Thanks to Dem in the Heart of Texas for making this possible. And thank you for reading this rather long diary.
Here's a link to all previous Grieving Room diaries