#cult recovery

[cultsurvivorsafe]

I know that it’s a hard day for many survivors. Wishing you all peace and happiness.

[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.

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hello everyone,

I've added these to the website:

Spiritual Harm and Abuse Scale Spiritual Abuse Questionnaire Emotional Abuse Questionnaire

They can be found here.

Take care,

Oz

[fyodere]

another life update lmao (sorry for the lack of smut content)

content warning for disturbing topics, especially religious cult ones

here i go

my family had been part of a japanese cult for several years and i was basically raised there. thanks to some blessing my mom and my grandpa woke up and stopped the madness

i had so many traumatic experiences there (as i said before, i was raised in that place) i can make a whole post telling my story if you guys want lol i don’t mind sharing my experience

but that’s not the point… i decided to check some stuff about this cult on internet to see if other people had a experience similar to mine, and oh… oh. there’s so many. like, so, so many. the amount of bad experiences is insane.

but that’s not even the worse part… 💀 i just found out (with proof and everything) that this cult is related to war crimes (specifically the nazis)

im severely disturbed. remembering all the stuff i went through all those years is wild. happily, i can say that im free now

[moonogre]

Damn group therapy is crazy because it’s really you getting so mad about how these people who you’ve just met got done SO DIRTY.

Like I wanna fight all the people that hurt and punished the survivors in the cohort 😭

People don’t deserve to feel ashamed or cut off from their loved ones or like they can’t think for themselves just because they believe something different or want something different for themselves.

Anyway exhausted from all the rage and sharing and cuddling Jazzy now zzzzzzzzzzzz

[drafthorsemath]

.

Things were going so well and then my dad related the evangelical support of Isreal to end time prophecy from my former cult. He went on about how this is showing the world God has abandoned the church. Without going into more detail, he's so arrogant and he's so blind to it. Thankfully the discourse passed, we're more focused on cooking and eating now, and we're watching A Muppet Christmas Carol this afternoon.

[aprilssparelife]

Lost in time

floating

what did you say?

sorry I wasn’t here

there

got me again

remembering the feeling

of being told what to feel

how to think

what to do

submitting

to authority

remitting

my own story

denying

all reality

to stay put

to stay good

to be saved

to stay

alive

[ghostjelliess]

Anyone else grow up in a culty denomination and get very specific songs stuck in you head? The kind that aren't hymns cus not enough people know them? You think people will know, so you ask, but then are reminded that your off brand Christianity was the second-star-to-the-right kinda special.

We're adults now, we can do what we want.

[leeholtwrites]

Baldurs Gate 3 has led me to starting my high-control group (cult) recovery, and that is so strange to me.

Whatever works, I guess.

[lavendercoatedangels]

How to Spot a Potential Cult / Cult Leader

Trigger warning for cults / cult manipulation down below.

This list is based on research and also personal experience.

What really defines a cult?

To me, it is a community's extreme reverence to a leader, person, or ideology.

Cults are not limited to being spiritual, although spiritual cults are the most commonly known. Cults can be political or otherwise community based. In the modern age, celebrity fandoms often act cultic, and need to be held back.

Why is the ability to recognize a potential cult / cult leader so important?

Cults often strip away any sense of autonomy from the person, and does so little by little. Many people don't recognize how they've been manipulated and harmed until it is much too late, and by then the person finds themselves trapped in a situation that is very difficult to escape.

Here's how to recognize a high control community and person, in no particular order. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

The community reveres a particular target. The community often looks to and / or worships a particular person or ideology. The person can be a celebrity, a God, or a particular political ideal.

Only information from the leader / ideology is deemed true or correct. This is important. If one is in a cult, more often than not the only information that is seen as the "correct" information comes from the cult leader / the ideology. Critical thinking is not encouraged and is often punished. Things are seen in black and white, and any sort of middle ground is discouraged. In some cults, the only information about the outside world that they receive is filtered through the cult, leading to distrust of the outside world.

People that have left the group and / or have questioned the leader of the group are seen as evil. Did someone that was in the group leave? Did someone that was in the group have a falling out with the leader? That person is more often than not labeled as evil incarnate to extreme degrees. A person should get to hear both sides to a story, and a person going against the cult ultimately goes against the leaders' narrative. A cult leader usually has an incredibly sensitive and fragile ego. Any critical thinking tears down holes in their doctrine. If you question the cult leader, you are seen as an "other", discouraging any discussion, growth, and ideological discussion. Labeling a person as evil effectively silences any dissent, creates fear, and gives power to the leader.

Love bombing. How is a cult leader able to create and instill such trust from the people in it? A cult leader is able to hone in on each person, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. The cult leader heaps on tons of praise - often very quickly after meeting someone - and makes them feel special. This makes the person feel warm and less likely to question the cult leader / cult's doctrines. People do not recognize a cult at first because they believe things are going so well, and makes one feel as though they belong. They're often cut down later, criticized and made to feel terrible. Affection that was there before is withdrawn, or only given intermittently. The high from the affection very much becomes addictive and makes one more loyal to the cult.

The leader / cult demands absolute loyalty. Any slight against the leader is taken as disloyalty, and thus could lead to a falling out, which would loop back into point 3. You cannot question the ideology or the cult leader, you cannot do anything that counts as disloyalty. You no longer have a life because whatever was left of "you" has now become the cult and / or a part of the cult leader's life.

The leader has instilled fear. This is all done to keep the cult leader in control of you. Whether it's fear of the people that were disloyal / questioned the leader, fear of evil supernatural forces (like in my case), fear of the outside world / the outside world being declared as evil, the cult creates fear as a means of control and to keep you loyal. It is another tactic used to silence critical thinking. The leader may also say or imply that bad things will happen to you if you leave / question the cult, be it harm coming from supernatural forces, harm coming from the outside world in some way, or harm coming from other cult members, fear is one of the top control tactics in a cult. There is always something to be afraid of and something to be on guard for. In the cult I was in, the fear was always there that demonic forces were going to hurt me. The fear was also there that if I questioned the cult leader that I would be publicly humiliated and shamed online like I was prior to that. This fear did not end until I went into therapy and began to rebuild life on my terms. This took a good 4 and a half years after the cult started to really feel like I had any control over my life.

All thoughts that are considered negative are stopped in some way. I struggle with self admittedly difficult mental health issues, and when I was in the cult, there was a motto that went on after I talked about it - "no bad shit". Negative emotions are not encouraged in the cult, as it takes away from the cult and the cult leader, and is thus considered oppressive. There is a difference between having boundaries and suppressing negative emotions, which are a part of life. These emotions are often stopped with meditation, with chanting, with prayer of some sort.

Sleep deprivation is used as a control tactic. People who haven't slept are more emotional, more confused, and easier to control. If your emotions are worn down, if you are worn down, you are far less likely to question the cult leader. I know that I was often awake late into the night talking to my cult leader, at one point awake for - and I'm not kidding you - forty hours trying to help this person. It was insanity and I literally felt as though I was losing my mind. The more that sleep deprivation occurs, the worse off a person's awareness is, making them more likely to go along with what the cult leader wants.

Encouraging separation from people in a person's life & isolating someone. I remember that, while I was dating my ex, I would talk to my cult leader about some of the issues we were having (as I saw her as a friend). She pretty much immediately labeled him as toxic and encouraged me to get rid of him. As I continued to struggle with friendships and with people in my life, I was slowly but surely encouraged to get rid of them. As one becomes further isolated in the cult, the cult leader uses that as a go ahead to have a person devote more and more time to the cult, sometimes giving the person more duties than they had before. If a person is isolated from those around them, they don't have time to question the cult. They don't have people around them / the closeness to people around them to escape, thus creating more dependence.

Drugs are used to manipulate members. This does not apply to all cults, but it applies to several. While I wasn't given drugs from the cult leader, I was on drugs while I was in a cult and it made me easier to control and more suggestible to ideas that, if I were sober, I would have said no to. The cult leader was aware of the fact that I was not sober at the time as well. Drugs in cults are used to induce trance like ways of thinking, and used to induce psychedelic / spiritual feelings of connection, thus making other people feel bonded to others in the cult. In some cases, drugs are continually given to people in order to create a dissociation of reality and to make a person more susceptible consistently.

There's so much more that goes into it, but this covers the main parts.

A lot of this, while worded to add hypotheticals and my own experiences, has been borrowed from Steven Hassan's BITE Model of control, which you can read more about here. This is the main model used to identify high control groups / leaders and their tactics, I highly recommend you check out more of Steven Hassan's work for more examples on how cults control and harm others!

Please keep yourselves safe and keep an eye on how others act / revere someone, especially online. If something is too good to be true, it likely is. Do your own research on these ideas, and know when someone is kind out of the goodness of their hearts vs. when someone is kind for show. Knowledge is the best resource you have against cults. Manipulation in cults is very subtle, to a point where you don't even realize it is happen at first because you feel as though you belong to a loving, caring community. Your cult leader is seen as someone who has all of the answers to the universe / political doctrines, and as someone who is making the world a better place. The destruction that comes at the end often destroys lives.

This is not an exhaustive list of experiences and things to look for, and if possible I'd encourage people to learn about cults as well in order to gain knowledge on the subject.

Critical thinking is your best friend in this situation as well. Stay safe out there.

[cultsurvivorsafe]

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

[creature-wizard]

"I'm in a bad place and need to get out, what can I do?"

I figured I'd make a post with all the resources/tips I've collected to help people get out of shitty situations so far, since it's easier than linking to a bunch of posts each time.

Seek out appropriate resources. This can include support groups (online or offline), helplines, and the like.

If you're in the US, you can call 211 to help you find resources.

Crisis Text Line offers services to the US, Ireland, Canada, and the UK.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is a US service offers a lot of information for sexual abuse survivors.

The Trevor Lifeline is a service for queer youth in the US.

If you're a minor, you may wish to read How To Escape Abusive Parents: A Guide For Minors.

If you're an adult, you may wish to read How To Escape Abusive Parents: A Guide For Adults.

You might search on Qwant for like something like "resources for people in abuse" or "abuse resources help" or "domestic violence survivors resources".

Ask people for help in finding resources. If you can't find anything on your own, there are other people who know where to direct you. It might take awhile to find what you're looking for, but keep asking.

A WORD OF CAUTION: there are many predatory spiritual groups and conspiracy theorists out there who prey on abuse survivors and mentally ill people. You will often see these people claiming that channeling or hypnosis can help you remember past life memories or repressed traumatic memories. This is nonsense and quackery.

Relevant posts of mine:

Hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know.

False past life memories among the starseed movement

Here’s the trouble with hypnotic regression…

If you're on a website that claims to support cult survivors and you see any of these names in the citations (and make sure you check the citations!), leave immediately - all of these people are far right conspiracy theorists. (Unfortunately, many people today are unwittingly perpetuating the BS of Fritz Springmeier in particular. See this and this for more info on that.)

Change who and what you surround yourself with. Start associating with different people/groups as much as you can. Get hobbies to fill your time. Unfollow blogs that reinforce the beliefs you're trying to get away from, and follow blogs that provide a healthier alternative.

You might follow blogs like:

A Kind Place

Trauma Survivors Helping Trauma Survivors

Compassionate Reminders

Trauma Survivors Activities

Reasons For Hope

Bluest Fluff

If you're trying to rebuild your worldview without conspiratorial/culty elements, go take a look at my Resources page.

Remember that your first job is looking after yourself. You don't owe the group. You aren't responsible for the group, or for anyone in it. It might feel that way, but it's vitally important to acknowledge when you're unqualified or suffering burnout. You might feel like bad things will happen if you leave, but that's a fear, not a fact.

You also don't have to justify your departure to the group. You can just leave. If you feel that you must give a reason, you can offer something as simple as "I need to take some time to focus on my mental health" or "I'm really busy lately and don't have time to spend here." If they throw a fit over this, that's honestly just more proof that you need to get out.

If any practices the group taught you actually helped, you can keep doing them. If doing affirmations helped you, keep doing affirmations. If listening to so-called healing frequencies actually made you feel better, you don't have to stop listening to them. If you were practicing something like the Law of Assumption, you can carry on with a lot of that under a psychological model rather than Neville Goddard's wacky metaphysical model. (See this video for an example.) If it genuinely helps you and doesn't hurt anyone else, by all means, keep doing it.

You might look at my Manifestation Without Woo posts:

Manifestation Without Woo: Changing Your Brain

Manifestation Without Woo: People React To Your Projections, & Your Projections Affect Your Perceptions

Manifestation Without Woo: Setting Reasonable Goals

Manifestation Without Woo: Make It Fun!

Manifestation Without Woo: What If It's Not Working?

Get some critical thinking skills. In order to keep yourself from falling into another bad group, it's important to develop your critical thinking skills.

Learn to apply the Five W's (who, what, when, where, and why) when encountering any information.

Learn common logical fallacies.

Learn the difference between fact, opinion, belief, and prejudice.

Don't equate emotional reactions with some kind of innate or higher moral guidance.

Ask yourself if you're "thinking for yourself" or being led to believe you're thinking for yourself.

Know what emotional manipulation tactics look like.

Watch out for these behaviors in any new group you join.

Yes, there are ways to confirm the age of an old text without having the original text itself.

Learn how propaganda works.

Watch out for these red flags in spiritual groups.

And watch out for this red flag.

Understand that belief doesn't have to be binary.

So yeah, hopefully this'll give folks some actionable advice. I can't promise it's going to help each and every person out there, but hopefully it'll give a lot of you something that will help.

[unwelcome-ozian]

After Growing Up In A Cult, Lauren Hough Freed Herself By Writing The Truth

Hough was 15 when her family left the Children of God cult. Afterward, she struggled to face the trauma of her past.

[faggotfungus]

Some Witnesses came to the door.

And as they were speaking to me caused me to have a panic attack. I did NOT know that could occur. The man was standing next to me and I was uncomfortable but fine, but the moment he showed me a bible verse on his phone... my mouth dried up, my body started tingling, and I couldn't breathe.

I literally said to them, "This situation is making me have a panic attack."

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Still Learning with India Oxenberg

18 August 2023 • EPISODE 1

Diane Benscoter: Cult Survivor [ex-Moonie] Turned Deprogrammer

In this episode, India is speaking with Diane Benscoter on how to identify psychological manipulation and emotional vulnerabilities in ourselves and others, using their own stories.

India Oxenberg:

“You just don't know enough about the horrible people who are out there...

I was so naive to the fact that there were people out there who would want to hurt me and not care.”

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Resources for Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships