BREAKING THE CHAINS

I’ve not written in a few years. Since I last posted, I’ve recovered from cancer, written a novel (released in June this year) watched my children get engaged, get married, have babies etc... I’ve kept processing and talking about my cult experiences and I’ve done some healing.

Some of the things I’ve spoken about in other blogs have come to a head, although none of it is fully resolved. There have been multiple investigations and reports printed. There have been denials and acknowledgements made by cult leaders. There have been changes made but, for the most part, this has been box ticking, in my opinion. I write that with a heavy heart. I know the leaders involved believe they have done their best, but honestly, I’m more interested in whether the victim/survivors agree. The ones I am aware of or am close to, do not feel that the leaders have done their best. They feel betrayed. They feel overlooked. They feel lied to. They’re still traumatised by what has happened to them and their families. They don’t feel justice has been served.

The same men/ their mentees are still running the show in the cult I was in. Those men have publicly stated that “spiritual abuse is a highly contentious term,” even though experts have investigated them and reported that they need to adjust their spiritually abusive practises and teachings. I guess it’s easier to discredit experts by saying you don’t agree with them than it is to actually take on board criticism and change.

              So why am I prompted to jump back into the maze?.....

I recently came across an interview with a third generation cult survivor, a young person who has left the cult I was in, but who continues to advocate some of its learned behaviour, albeit perhaps without being fully aware. They are exercising their right to free speech which naturally I’m in favour of.  After all, we’re allowed to think what we like, right? I’m not here to argue, but I did notice a whiff of something, (misogyny is too strong a word); perhaps a faint battle-cry to gird one’s masculine loins against the world, the flesh and the devil? It was reminiscent of the teaching I received in the cult, the same teaching this person grew up around, with its stereo-typed gender roles, binary thinking and distorted interpretations of the Bible.

On top of that, I also recognised a very familiar self-stripping in their words, an annihilation of self under the guise that human beings are inherently ‘selfish’. And I heard an oblivion to the full suffering of those who’ve been abused in the cult, how unresolved some situations are, and how scarred some survivors are by the way that leaders dealt with them. Even though this person has left the cult, a fundamentalist and edging-toward-extreme approach has definitely left its mark. It caused me discomfort and unease. It prompted me to go public with another part of my story.

In 2009 I was struggling on multiple levels. I had left the group, but try as I might I remained conflicted and confused about many aspects of faith, morality and especially the path I felt my family were on. On the one hand I was glad we had got out and that our children were no longer influenced by what I had begun to realise was toxic and distorted teaching. On the other hand, I missed the sense of belonging and the focus for my life and my children’s lives. I was constantly terrified for my three kids because I felt they were being led astray by “worldly influences”. I did not know (as I’ve highlighted in other blogs) that I had been spiritually abused. I did not know that my spiritual membrane was in tatters. I had no help for my very particular undiagnosed trauma.

              One of my children hit a challenging stage and we could no longer control their decisions. They were seventeen and living the typical life that a seventeen-year-old with an adventurous spirit and love for excitement would live. It was nothing unusual or extreme but at the time I was terrified. I found my brain resorting to old habits, old ways of thinking, panicking, coming up with extreme solutions. One night, I found myself looking up local hostels and wondered if forcing my child out of our home would be the right solution for them. Tough Love. If they couldn’t abide by our house rules, they would need to leave.

      I hope that you’re as shocked to read that, as I am to write it.

              Thankfully the thought was in my head for about ten minutes, because eventually a huge alarm bell went off for me. This had been my dad’s solution when my brother had been similarly ‘out of control’. My brother, aged sixteen and in the middle of his GCSEs (national high school exams in the UK) was forced by my parents to leave our family home, because he wouldn’t ‘tow the line’.  My parents chucked him out with a single suitcase and put him in a hostel for homeless men. Thankfully, my eldest sibling, got wind that my parents had taken this extreme decision, and he picked up  my brother and gave him a sofa to sleep on where he stayed for a number of months, until the council/ UK authorities found him a flat.

My parents’ bewildering decision to take this drastic step came directly from the vigorous counsel of cult leaders and I know that other young men suffered a similar fate from similarly irresponsible advice, often given by men who did not have children or even wives themselves.

      In the end I’m glad to say I didn’t follow my parents’ example, and we took a different approach with our kids. But when I think about that time I realise how close I have come on many occasions to making the same mistakes my parents made. Now, I suspect some reading this will think I’m wrong for publicly criticising my parents’ decisions. My dad passed away in 1994, but my mum is still a member of the cult and is elderly and frail. But because they are Christians, and in the cult, I’m supposed to see them as beyond reproach.

I must say here that while I love and respect my parents, and am grateful for the many things they’ve given me, taught me and sacrificed for me, I know they were vulnerable and only doing their best. Happily their relationship with my brother was restored and became much healthier, and decades later my brother and my mum are close. But, saying that, my parents did make some less than helpful decisions that have affected our family in negative ways. And while I wish to learn from the good things they’ve taught me (being generous to others, enjoying and celebrating creativity, being fun-loving) and celebrate the incredible people they are/were, I have never wanted to emulate their sometimes less than sensible choices (joining a cult, staying in a cult, refusing to acknowledge they are in a cult, and not realising how brainwashing has affected all their life choices and decisions.)

I had promised myself not to share publicly about what I consider to be my parents’ errors until my mum had passed, but I feel this is too important a message to stay silent on.  It has taken me years to unpick the many teachings and learned behaviours within the cult that have underpinned my thinking for decades, but which don’t actually align with any of my values or beliefs. So, here are some thought patterns that I’ve become aware were lurking under some of my thinking:

·       As a mother, daughters are more important and need more attention than sons.

·       A mother-daughter relationship should always be close and if it isn’t there’s something wrong with you.

·       Emotions are unhelpful. No decisions should be made based on any emotions.

·       Expressing myself with passion and emotion will discredit me. Passion is immodest.

·       I should always do things I don’t want to do, especially because I don’t want to do them. Not wanting to do them is usually ‘God’s’ way of testing my faith. Those two things (‘God’s’ will and my will) are separate things.

·       I shouldn’t say a bad thing about a person, even if they really hurt me and I see them repeatedly hurting others.

·       My parents are beyond reproach because they never meant to do any deliberate harm.

·       If I question my parents’ choices I am being disrespectful.

·       I should always put myself last. God first, then others, then myself.

·       I need to prioritise the opinion and advice of my spiritual leaders above my own understanding and values because of their sacred role.

·       I shouldn’t be demanding and I don’t deserve what I really want.

·       Asking too many questions leads to confusion which leads to rebelliousness.

·       Speaking about things publicly is unwise and akin to gossip.

·       Children are naturally prone toward evil/ doing bad things. Without strict parenting and left to their own devices they will become wayward drug addicts.

·       My husband is cleverer than me.

·       What I do, the efforts I make, are never enough. I am not enough. I am selfish. I am lazy. 

·       Critical thinking will lead to confusion and loss of faith.

·       All of the above is in the Bible and comes from God Himself.

All of this (and much, much more) is behaviour-based teaching and learned behaviour, also called introjects, that have infiltrated my thinking for decades. Don’t even get me started on the actual God stuff.

I have come some way to identifying my introjects, unravelling them and deciding if I agree with them, but it is a work in progress.  It’s been a long process of replacing those things with truths with which I am in agreement, which I’ve researched and thought about and talked through with others, and which feel more authentic to who I am today:

·       Sons and daughters deserve equal amounts of my parenting attention.

·       Some women are close to their mothers. Some aren’t. That’s life.

·       My emotions will help me understand better what my needs and wants are in decision-making, alongside research and discussion.

·       I am passionate. So what?

·       If I don’t want to do something I don’t have to. In fact, if my instinct is that I REALLY don’t want to do something, it’s enough of a reason not to do it.

·       If I see a person wronging someone else, it’s ok to call them out on it.

·       My parents are/were human and fallible and made some serious mistakes, that they don’t necessarily consider to be mistakes. I may not wish to confront them about those things, out of compassion, but equally, I don’t have to minimise their impact on me.

·       Worrying about being disrespectful to my parent sometimes means I fail to prioritise my own wellbeing.

·       I may lose connection temporarily or permanently with my family members who are still in the cult as a result of processing spiritual trauma. There are many other reasons I could lose connection with my family (illness, death, disagreement, moving away) that are an inevitable part of normal life. Does being connected to family members still in the cult take priority over my own mental wellbeing and other relationships outside the cult?

·       Does it make sense to take marital, parenting or grandparenting advice from a celibate man who has neither a partner or any children or grandchildren?

·       If I don’t prioritise myself, I will have nothing left to give others. I need to love myself to the same standard that I love others. Matthew 22:36.

·       I’m allowed to have wants and needs.

·       Asking questions will lead to further understanding.

·       Speaking out publicly helps to inform, and to create discussion and change for the better.

·       Children are wonderful, exciting little people who need my love and protection through intelligent, informed, expert and healthy research, education and common sense. My children/ grandchildren need me to have a full understanding and acceptance of my true self, in order for me to be the best parent/grandparent I can be.

·       I am intelligent and capable. Sometimes my husband’s perspective is also helpful.

·       I'm not convinced that loss of my faith is something ‘God’ is as worried about as everyone else around me. It’s nothing to do with them anyway. An increased spirituality has been the result of acknowledging, listening to and taking better care of my deepest self, a deeper connection with the natural world, and a deeper curiosity.

·       The stuff that was brainwashed into me over decades, came from a very ordinary, repressed man who is now dead. His legacy continues to be prolonged through other ordinary men and women. Just because current cult leaders and members refuse to admit he was their guru because he wasn’t a charismatic personality, his influence is undeniable and an integral part of the current government of the cult.

I feel for second and third generation cult survivors and members who continue to live under the decisions made by their parents, without realising the impact it has had on them detrimentally. My advice to anyone reading with whom it strikes a chord, is this: If you think you’ve been in a cult, or question whether you might be in one, you owe it to yourself and to your children to investigate that properly, through talking therapy etc.. with an expert in the field. Not with your parents, or your pastoral leader or your sharing group or even your priest. Find a qualified specialist. On top of that, you owe it to yourself and everyone around you not to jump onto a different theological band-wagon, new flavour of church, new leadership position or role with any spiritual influence, without fully understanding how you have been affected by brainwashing, normalised coercive control and spiritual abuse, as a result of growing up culty. If you are third generation, then at least one of your parents has never known very much different, and no matter how seemingly aware they are of the big wide world, no matter how independent they seem in their thinking, their own introjects (based on decades of family culture, cult teaching, and learned behaviour) will have impacted yours.

Thanks for reading.

Jess