#Cult survivor

[jesusinstilettos]

I’m about to save you thousands of dollars in therapy by teaching you what I learned paying thousands of dollars for therapy:

It may sound woo woo but it’s an important skill capitalism and hyper individualism have robbed us of as human beings.

Learn to process your emotions. It will improve your mental health and quality of life. Emotions serve a biological purpose, they aren’t just things that happen for no reason.

1. Pause and notice you’re having a big feeling or reaching for a distraction to maybe avoid a feeling. Notice what triggered the feeling or need for a distraction without judgement. Just note that it’s there. Don’t label it as good or bad.

2. Find it in your body. Where do you feel it? Your chest? Your head? Your stomach? Does it feel like a weight everywhere? Does it feel like you’re vibrating? Does it feel like you’re numb all over?

3. Name the feeling. Look up an emotion chart if you need to. Find the feeling that resonates the most with what you’re feeling. Is it disappointment? Heartbreak? Anxiety? Anger? Humiliation?

4. Validate the feeling. Sometimes feelings misfire or are disproportionately big, but they’re still valid. You don’t have to justify what you’re feeling, it’s just valid. Tell yourself “yeah it makes sense that you feel that right now.” Or something as simple as “I hear you.” For example: If I get really big feelings of humiliation when I lose at a game of chess, the feeling may not be necessary, but it is valid and makes sense if I grew up with parents who berated me every time I did something wrong. So I could say “Yeah I understand why we are feeling that way given how we were treated growing up. That’s valid.”

5. Do something with your body that’s not a mental distraction from the feeling. Something where you can still think. Go on a walk. Do something with your hands like art or crochet or baking. Journal. Clean a room. Figure out what works best for you.

6. Repeat, it takes practice but is a skill you can learn :)

[undying-doll]

trying to talk about cult trauma is so frustrating.

I say "I was in a cult" and people think of basement rituals and human sacrifices not an unassuming church right down the road. not of blue chairs in rows and coffee tables and children's play areas. my cult looked so happy, so average. it's so easy to gloss over the pain that place inflicts on everyone who walks through those doors.

I feel like I can't call myself a cult survivor to most of the people who I know because they don't fucking understand. the word is too sensationalized.

[defire]

Fun things about trauma bonds I learned in the cult

(Specifically talking about the bond between victims of the same abuse)

Content: real-life scenarios, ptsd, trauma bond, forced labor, doublethink, emotional repression

Feels like they are the only ones that could ever understand you

Having similar conditioned responses

Having similar extreme responses--things that should be just funny become choking-hazard hilarious, things that should get a chuckle get a synchronous shrug

On that note, often saying the exact same thing in the exact same tone

Specific things like whumper's tone of voice when they say a certain thing, would be a joke when they weren't there

Singing to cope with many hours of forced hard labor, immediately going silent when whumper entered

Talking about the trauma was OFF LIMITS, only code-speak that whumper couldn't understand could be used to warn each other

Only certain feelings were allowed to be shown because we had been conditioned that some feelings were "not safe"

Openly admitting to each other that it wasn't safe inside the house with whumper and then telling outsiders that we were totally safe and thinking we were telling the truth both times

All saying exactly the same lines to strangers (example "we are all wretches" *shrug*)

Married-couple-level nonverbal communication.

"do you want this extra food? I'll sneak it to you under the table." "Give it to [other victim]." "Watch out, whumper's looking." All happened nonverbally with eye and head movements right in front of whumper.

Working together seamlessly (or else!)

As soon as you leave the cult, the pressure that forced the bond in the first place, the trauma-bond relationship can fall apart

No good relationship ever feels as intense or close as the trauma bond, and you wonder what you're doing wrong. Till you realize you aren't panicking constantly--that's the main difference

[deconstructingchabad]

Hey just for the record, this blog believes in the right of Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland and believes that antisemitism, wherever it happens, is a bad thing. Don't know why you'd follow me if you didn't believe that.

[creature-wizard]

A warning for trauma survivors looking for online support

You may have come across the acronym "RAMCOA", which stands for "ritual abuse, mind control, and organized abuse."

If you search the Internet for RAMCOA, you might come across a result like this:

If you click the link, you'll be taken to a site that briefly describes what RAMCOA supposedly is, with content like:

MC - Mind Control. A shortened form of TBMC, standing for Torture Based Mind Control. MC is also known as programming, where victims are repeatedly tortured starting at a very young age to intentionally cause a system of dissociated parts that function perfectly to suit the abusers' needs.

alpha : a base program, one of the very first implemented. it trains the victim's mind to accept every order given by handlers willingly. parts with alpha programming will often have no will of their own, and very little personality outside of following orders.

aiw : alice in wonderland. typically split into 3 different sections : black alice, white alice, and crazy alice. ideally, a system scripted with aiw would have all three. white alice makes sure the system forgets the trauma, black alice makes the system feel like theyll be a danger to others if they remember the trauma, and crazy alice makes the system think theyre making it up or going insane if they ever remember it.

Literally all of this comes from a conspiracy theory - specifically, the Project Monarch alter programming conspiracy. It was developed and pushed by far right conspiracy theorists. Most of what people run into specifically traces back to Fritz Springmeier, a man who claimed in the 90's that the fight for gay rights was part of a plot to enthrone the antichrist in the year 2000. The Project Monarch conspiracy theory was always adjacent to the Satanic Panic, if not a somewhat niche part of it. If you start checking citations, you will find many of these people citing Svali, a conspiracy theorist who gets a lot of her material from Springmeier. (Example 1, example 2.)

This is no accident. The term RAMCOA was created by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), which was created by and for psychologists who believed in the myths promoted during the Satanic Panic.

The RA part comes from "satanic ritual abuse," which was coined by Dr. Lawrence Pazder of Michelle Remembers (cw for descriptions of horrible abuses) fame. Lawrence Pazder is the man who effectively started the Satanic Panic. It cannot be overstated that Pazder, now a known malpractitioner, was considered the expert on ritual abuse during this time.

The MC part comes from "trauma-based mind control," which was coined to refer to the alleged abuses inflicted in Project Monarch. Parts of this conspiracy theory that can't be traced back to Fritz Springmeier can usually be traced back to Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips, two other (really racist) conspiracy theorists.

Ultimately, the entire conspiracy theory is constructed from tropes that go back to The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (a known antisemitic hoax), blood libel, and early modern witch panic.

Searching the Internet for RAMCOA resources, ritual abuse, or trauma-based mind control will always bring you to conspiracy theorists.

(Also, the term OEA, which stands for "organized extreme abuse," will lead you to conspiracy theorists as well.)

So yeah, if you're looking for support, be very wary of this stuff. It will absolutely not help you heal; just the opposite.

[cultsurvivorsafe]

Cult survivors, you don't lack intelligence. You don't lack morality. Your abuse was and never will be your fault.

[thecorvidforest]

sometimes DID is screaming crying hellish agony and sometimes it’s trying to figure out WHO THE FUCK DOWNLOADED 117 PICTURES OF SHARKS ON OUR PHONE

[notaplaceofhonour]

I was raised in the People of Destiny cult (later renamed, and more well-known as, Sovereign Grace Ministries, now Sovereign Grace Churches).

The valorization of martyrdom and The End Times was so ubiquitous it was ambient noise. We stood in the church lobby theorizing about who the antichrist would be, we argued about whether Jesus would rapture us all before, after, or during the Tribulation Period where Satan would be given free reign over the earth. There was a strong Christian Zionist fixation on Israel as the final battleground and capital of the coming Messianic Age. But the one thing we were all certain of was is that we were in the End Times, that we were not of this world and couldn’t get too attached to our lives here.

We were raised to believe our sin nature made us undeserving of life, that we deserved death and eternal conscious torture.

My parents read us the Jesus Freaks books (a series by Christian Rap group DC Talk about martyrs). I spent “devotional time” reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs. We had guest speakers from Voice of the Martyrs, their pamphlets were often stocked in our church’s information center. We grew up with our dad listening to right wing talk radio and making us listen to songs about how the Godless atheists were outlawing Christianity in America, that we could all become martyrs soon.

The group’s theology was damaging & traumatic in a lot of other ways that contributed to the suicidality I have continued to struggle with for the rest of my life. For a long time I did not believe I would live past 20. There are times when the idea of giving my death meaning by using public suicide to make a political statement has appealed to me.

So now, seeing so many social media posts glorifying the suicide of a US Airman this week, I have been furious. Reading his social media posts, I recognize so much about the way I was raised in his all-or-nothing, black-or-white mindset, the valorization of death-seeking & martyrdom, and the apocalyptic fire-and-brimstone imagery of self-immolation. The moment I saw people I followed celebrating his self-immolation, I said to myself “this feels like a cult”

So when I learned he was raised in a cult too, nothing could have made more sense to me. His political orientation may have changed, but his mindset did not—it was no less extreme or cult-like.

I’ve talked about so many of the reasons this response from the broader left scares me, including how it’s laundering that airman’s antisemitic beliefs, but I cannot think of anything that would hit me in a more personal place than this specific response to this specific situation has.

When I see the images, I think: that could have been me. That scares me, and what scares me more is that so many prominent people are overwhelmingly sending the message to people like me that there is nothing else we can do that would have a more meaningful impact than killing ourselves for the cause.

I do not believe that. I will not even entertain it. And having to see his death over and over and over again, to argue against people who are treating this like an intellectual/moral exercise or a valid debate we all have to consider has been immensely triggering and fills me with a rage I rarely feel. It’s unconscionable that we are even putting self-harm on the table, and that pushing back against that is somehow controversial.

There is hope. Our lives do have meaning. There are far more effective means of fighting injustice. And the world is a better place for having you in it. Don’t fall into believing this is a way to give life purpose.

[imsoglitter]

I don't know what atheist needs to hear this but when someone tells you they're a cult survivor, telling them that all religions are cults is both untrue and unhelpful 😌💕

[vandersprodigyy]

i feel so chronically online for getting pissed and triggered over fandom spaces being called “[insert fandom] cult” but i’m just sick of being reminded of my trauma in the one space i feel safe to connect with and talk to people interested in the same things as me.

can we stop calling things cults? thanks !! it’s super insensitive to people like me who are cult survivors.

cults and cult survivors are a lot more common than people realise !! there is a 99% chance you have a friend who is a cult survivor without even knowing.

i think everyone should be a lot more sensitive to the topics of cults. it’s serious and causes life long trauma that i will never be able to heal !! so don’t make jokes about it, don’t generalise it and honestly, if you’re about to say something about cults that you think might be insensitive, just don’t say it.

[olskuvallanpoe]

*in the ice court*

the other crows: fighting for their lives, puking up bombs, getting blood sucked out of their bodies, picking fights with every guard, blowing up a lab, seducing generals

matthias: having the Worst™️ religious trauma experience of his entire life

[wizardsaur]

Hey kids,

Let's talk about "woo-woo" people red flags, shall we?

If you've been in the occult, mystical, witchcraft game for long enough, you've probably seen your fair share of weirdos.

You know.

The ones who think the antisemitic conspiracies are real. The essential oils can cure cancer types. The guy who seems cool at first then seems convinced that the hand of God is in the Sahara desert.

There's more to being grounded in this community than avoided the racist norsepagans.

You are intelligent. You are wise. You have a world of resources and knowledge at your fingertips. And yet!

YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO CULTS

It never starts out feeling crazy. It never feels crazy in the moment. Believing aliens built massive structures to channel energy around the world DOESN'T SEEM WEIRD. And it sure doesn't change when the entire group's thoughts collectively devolve into situations like Heaven's Gate.

No one who cut their hair and had their last meal at Marie Calendar's thought they were wrong.

YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO CULTISH THOUGHT. YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO MISINFORMATION.

Be so careful peeps. It's human nature to want to belong, to want to learn more. Speaking as a 3 time cult joined, it is so fucking easy to lose yourself in online forums, threads, group chats...

[judgmentbytheh0unds]

you. you made me out to be something special, your prized possession, your protégé, and i trusted you with the deepest parts in my mind.

you just left me like everybody else.

i’ll forever wait for you to return with my collar still intact, じま.

[ghosting-bats]

having religious trauma from the most boring of churches is such a unique experience. stained glass and high ceilings dont mean anything. but dingy basements and hotel bibles mean everything. my religious trauma (and i would assume a lot of others) isnt as pure as what is shown. its gross basements, hand-me-down bibles, wooden chairs that look like theyre at least 50 years old, vhs tapes and big box tvs, ugly carpet, and "god bless you" instead of i love you.

[huntersroses]

Cults in media: 12 guys in robes in the woods chanting as some random is pulled into the circle to be stabbed as a sacrifice to Satan or something

Cults irl: Why does our meeting up location have no windows? Why am I so sleepy. Why is everything monotone? Why is it all multi-hour long repetitive, simplistic rhetoric and parts of acting out or repeating back near exact language? Why can't I go to school or play with other kids? Why are you showing me images of outside people dying in fear and panic and blood, of us being attacked and tortured for our "faith" any day now. Why do I have to be happy about that? Why is it always any day now. Why am I so sleepy. Why is the air-con set so weirdly and why can't we change it. Why is my stress response in life to smile.

[creature-wizard]

PSA: If you're searching out resources to help cult survivors, check their citations and look out for these names - and if you see them, leave immediately - because these people are all far right conspiracy theorists:

Svali

Cisco Wheeler

Fritz Springmeier

Cathy O'Brien

Mark Philips

Lawrence Pazder

Michelle Smith/Pazder

Lauren Stratford

Texe Marrs

Bill Schnoebelen

Rebecca Brown

Mike Warnke

Literally all of these people were (or in some cases, still are) pushing far right conspiracy theories derived from early modern witch panic, blood libel, and The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Literally do not trust anyone or anything that cites them.