Tag Archives: cult

For the team

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This job was a good and a hard experience.  I’ve been wondering why I put up with sexual harrassment.  First it was a whistle in the hall.  Then it was winking.  Then he paced outside my office a couple times trying to get eye contact-which I refused to give him.  Then the last time in the coffee room, I was standing next to the coffee maker and he wanted next to the creamer and he (I guess) shimmied me out of the way. But it was a full body side contact that was excruciatingly uncomfortable.

I confronted him a million times in my head, actually I did every morning on my drive to work.  I thought about how I would say it.  I didn’t feel like I could go to my boss without confronting him first, because I’m a “big girl” and I should be able to fight my own fights.

The other problem was logistical.  We rarely ran into each other.  So, I would be ready, and then ready, and then ready and then finally relax and then he would be there.  Since it was both of our jobs to be out of the office pretty much, we rarely crossed paths so when we did it was an issue.  You just couldn’t time it.

I was retisent to confront because at every corporate job I have ever had, I have dealt with sexual harrassment.  And since I am obviously the common denominator, I wanted to know if there was something in me that attracted this.  But, should I start lopping off parts of my personality?

Last night, I was thinking about it and there were like 40 guys there and three women.  The guys had this great comaraderie.  I didn’t want to spoil it.  I knew that if I told that it would be a big deal, there would be paperwork and drama.  And I didn’t want to be the new girl who changes the culture.  The feminist in me was having a rally and trying to burn my own bra in protest, it was itchy.

I thought about all the women empowerment speeches I’ve given and I felt really ashamed.  I sure feel powerful when I have a microphone, where is my voice without one?

I realized how much I had emotionally invested in keeping the peace amomg the men-folk, at my own risk.  I realized how much punishment I still take (self imposed) to keep peace, even when there shouldn’t be peace.

There shouldn’t have been peace.  I didn’t need to get bothered at work because I’m female and then not talk about it and be nervous and hypervigilant about it because I’m me.

Next time, and I’m sure there will be a next time.  I’ll just try to tell the truth.  But the truth makes me wanna hurl, I’d rather just take the cathartic beating and get the confrontation over with.

call for work

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I’ve been feeling itchy and creative, wanting to write and express and purge my innards out through the arts.

Then I found this, “If you are a former member of a cult or high demand organization, we invite you to participate in this upcoming exhibit to present art, musical, and literary (English or French) work related to your experiences while in your group or during your recovery…..  

Creations may be in any art form, including but not limited to: literary (such as poetry, drama, short story, or other writings), music of any kind, dance, and the visual arts (such as paintings, drawings, collage, sculpture, fiber arts, photography, film, video, or multi-media).”

I emailed and told them I had writing, art and dance submissions.  I am so excited!!!

http://groups.google.com/a/icsa.name/group/freeinfo/browse_thread/thread/b40830ff863892cc?tvc=2&fwc=1&pli=1

 

 

This entire post is copied from refocus dot org

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http://www.refocus.org/open-letter-to-clergy-helping-ex-members.html

An Open Letter to Clergy regarding helping former members of abusive churches or cults 

By Carol Giambalvo

As both the Director of Recovery Programs for the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) and a co-founder of reFOCUS, a support and referral network for former members of closed, intense organizations or relationships, I’ve had inquiries from clergy about how to help former members when they come to them. I’ve also had remarks from former members that clergy don’t seem to know how to help them. As a former member myself, I’ve had my own personal struggles addressing spiritual and religious issues. Hopefully I can give you some useful information and suggestions.

First, some background information. People don’t join cults. They are deceived and purposefully recruited. The majority are in some sort of normal human transition stage in life such as leaving high school for college, leaving college for the “real world”, breakup of a relationship or marriage, loss of a job, moving to a new location, retirement – and along comes a group of what seems like the most wonderful people from the most wonderful group with the most wonderful goals who show them love, acceptance, and a “higher purpose”. Many people have the mistaken idea that only troubled people from troubled families get involved in these groups. Cults don’t want troubled people. They want bright, dedicated, idealistic, energetic people to raise money, do the work of the group, and recruit new people.

So how do you help the former member? Here are some suggestions:

  • Encourage them to get information to help them understand what happened to them in the group and to help them recover from it (sources of information listed at end)
  • Understand that you will need to earn their trust – they have had their trust violated so badly by a group that looked good 
  • At times they may be triggered by words that were “loaded” in the group, by the use of some scriptures that the group twisted and emphasized, even by some hymns that were sung in the group, by dynamics – normal things that are found in healthy churches can be a source of a trigger to them. Just understand and make it okay if they need to leave a service, meeting or conversation if should this happen.
  • Understand that they may not want to share their story – they need to build healthy personal boundaries. Respect their boundaries. The groups build unhealthy boundaries between members and the “outside” world and tear down their healthy boundaries and encourage them to bear their souls and confess all to other group members and leaders. It takes time to re-establish their healthy boundaries after leaving.
  • When they need to talk, listen to them. They need a voice, on their own time.
  • Encourage them to ask questions and let them know that it’s okay to disagree.
  • They need respect and love as they struggle through their recovery issues

What are the recovery issues facing former members?

1.    Identity Crisis

  • Who am I now? For those born/raised in high demand groups, who am I?
  • What do I believe?

2. Feeling disconnected, sense of purposelessness

3. Grief

  • For the people you left behind
  • Loss of a cause
  • Loss of “belonging”
  • Losses you had to give up in order to join group
  • Loss of innocence
  • Loss of career goals; finances; belongings
  • Missing the “buzz”, the feeling of a “high” and looking for it elsewhere
  • Anger

4.    Boundary issues

  • Rebuild healthy boundaries  — creating a safe place to heal
  • It’s okay not to divulge everything to everyone
  • Learn how the group tore down your boundaries between you and other group members/leaders
  • Learn how the group built up unhealthy boundaries between you and the outside world in order to discredit outside information and feedback and make you more dependent upon the group/leader

5.    Trust issues
·      Test the waters, build up a relationship before you trust someone – develop healthy boundaries

6.    Magical Thinking of cultic group, spiritualizing everything. One needs to learn or reconnect with their critical thinking skills.

7.    Varying symptoms of post traumatic stress

  • Panic attacks
  • Floating/triggers
  • Nightmares
  • Sleep disorders
  • Inability to make decisions
  • Inability to concentrate
  • Fears not grounded in reality, fear the group was right when they told you something bad would happen to you if you left
  • Hypervigilence

8.    Difficulty with relationships and authority figures

9.    Underemployment 

Resources:

International Cultic Studies Association:  http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_topic_collections/tpcol_exmember.asp

Again, I copied everything from refocus.org, because I wanted my readers to see this website.  This letter was very helpful to me.  Thank you Refocus.org for being there!!!

meh

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I feel stunted, halted and blocked.  The burning cinder block on my heart that I want to show you is harder to show you because it’s somebody’s current situation that is triggering my past (well, my entire life).  And it’s a hard decision to write about it.  Cause it’s about me, but it’s about them.  But they read this and I’m putting their business on the internet…

Or I’m not and this firey cinderbock stays lit and burns a hole through my chest and my gut.  I feel angry and I feel robbed and I feel hurt and I feel sorry and I want to help and I can’t and I am grieving so much.

The natural consequences of a life and a cycle can be so hard to watch.  And mindfulness is so exhausting.  And you can be learning to be mindful but still have done a lot of damage in the world and have a lot of karmic bills to pay, like I do.

Mather 10:29.  “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”

But they still fall to the ground.  I don’t know why people do what they do.  I know that people need community fiercely.  What has to happen in a life or in a generation to make it so that staying in a cult is the right thing.

How can you hand over all of your self preservation?  I know I was learning to.  How can you hand over your children’s well being, your physical well being and your financial future.  Then I look at the ways in which I am blind to my own situation and how I do the same thing.  Goddamn cycles everywhere I look, and I have to break them all.

Will I get over this, ever?  Seems like there are people I grew up with that seem so happy (on facebook) and I really hope they are.  More than anything I hope they are.  I hope they don’t feel the cellular level betrayal and abandonment that I do.  The rage and the theft.  OK, gotta take my brain pills and get ready for work so I can be happy.

Spiritual Self Abuse?

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A lot of veterans with PTSD can’t stop watching war movies.  It is very common for people with PTSD to have trouble avoiding media that involves the subject of their trauma.  If I see a documentary on cults or religion or bible history, I will watch it obsessively.  I can’t watch movies like “Passion of the Christ” because I can’t watch violence without becoming seriously upset inside for hours.  So, I generally stick to documentaries, etc.

This is compulsive behavior for me, and since I got dealt OCD from my PTSD and have been living in a lot of stress with a new job and no stuff…  It’s been acting up.  Like my eating disorder and trichotillomania (2 not 1 for those keeping track at home) have been acting up.  I’ve been really angry for this mess of wiring in my head, and I’m still hunting for a good fit in a therapist.

“Well, you’re in the Bible belt”, is something I hear a lot at work.  And I need to learn to not let my compulsions out of my mouth via words at work.  Because one of the most successful industries here is the “church industry”, and I have been tasked with a project involving the “church industry”.  I could have turned it down in the beginning, but I didn’t want to and I was so intrigued.  But it would have been the most self-loving thing to do.

While working on this project, it’s brought a lot of churchy energy around me.  People see me working with media and iconography.  I am really into it, because I am marketing to churches and I can’t wait to see if it works.  I am so fascinated by this challenge, you know and nauseated.  People come into my work space and talk and then they talk to me about their faith.  I should probably put up some kind of boundary, but I don’t because I am sickly fascinated by how every one of them has translated and integrated a book differently.  It’s so interesting.

Yesterday was a hard day though.  I got whistled at in the hall.  I believe this was meant as a compliment.  I almost lost my shit.  To me it feels like.  Don’t forget that someone is always watching you.  Even when you think you are alone in a hallway, someone is watching you and sexualizing you.  Don’t forget you are never safe.  I told my coworker and he said that was an awesome compliment and he wishes he would get whistled at.  So that sucked.  Yesterday when this coworker said, “well you’re in the Bible belt…”  I told him that I never wanted suspenders so bad.

Then when wrapping up phase 1 of my project (yay I get a break!!!).  Someone was talking to me about their beliefs and it was ok.  He’s an animated talker.  I was sitting, he was standing.  He was talking about how people think that god the father will punish us forever in hell.  Then he said, “would a father punish a child forever?”  When he said that he was moving his arm for dramatic effect, his arm was over my head and I was looking up.  This had the effect of making me very small feeling.  His arm was coming down repeatedly (like ten times) and his hand was in the exactly grip that Pastor’s was when he was holding the PVC pipe.

I didn’t cry.

I talked to him about his loving views.  He smiled and went away.  Defense systems passed the test and all was well.  I came home about 5 hours later and lost my shit.  It was a bad day at work.  I didn’t want to go to bed, because we can’t sleep together and I really wanted to snuggle up.  So I’m up after 4.5 hours sleep ready to bang out the last day of the work week.  Tired, fragile.

Minimum frictional losses thus saving in pumping cost

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LOL… Best spam ever.  If you blog in WordPress, the app Akismet is a great spam blocker.

It just blocked a comment from the company TRIMURTI, who manufactures and sells PVC pipes.  They want my readers to only buy the best PVC pipes in the business.

Unfortunately the spambot didn’t decipher that I was writing about being hit with them as a child and teen.

I’m not going to approve the spam message, but if you want good PVC pipes maybe you should give them a try.  Just not in your church discipline plan.  http://www.trimurtipipes.com/pvc_pipes.htm

Their minimal friction will save you loads in your pumping costs!

Here’s a new feeling

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Rage.

I have to say that I’ve done a lot of work to peel off the whys of abuse.  I’ve walked many paths.  I’ve marveled at so many people’s rage.  I didn’t get it.  Now I do.  In the last month, starting in the middle of the road trip, I do.

Rage.

So many friends have had rage because they couldn’t protect me.  I said it was fine.  But from a different vantage, from this different angle, I see different pathways and how history that I thought I knew – form different pictures.  I want to throw up.

Now I know more and can see patterns and history and a much larger picture is coming together.  And this picture is not redeeming: I am learning how some families struggle with certain demons for generations.

The more I speak out, the more I can see back and am aware of what created the environment that makes a family susceptible to a cult.  A family is taught shame and secrets.  A family is taught that they are so flawed that there is no hope for them.  I want to know where this dark mythology started in my blood.

I have deep compassion.  But I have rage.  Because these lies have scarred just about everybody I love.  And now that I see the patterns, now that I am 3,000 miles away – I can see clearly.

Rage.  It took a lot of therapy to find mine.  And it was hard to name, but I drew a straight line to it in a cliche shower epiphany this morning.  Now that I know it, I can’t unknow it.  I’m straight up pissed off.

It’s not just why me and why my family.  It’s why anyone.  I want to start with me and mine.  Only love and compassion will fight this.  This is beyond morality and judgement, they doesn’t exist in this level.  There is only love, non-judgement and compassion.

I have to dig deeper, ask questions, publicly gut myself and write about it.  I have to be someone who sheds light and helps it stop.

Demons are coming out to play

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I moved away.  My therapist is 3,000 miles away and the demons are coming out to play.  Dissociation is rampant and the harpies are swirling, I am trying not to feel like I’ve fallen two years into the past.  I miss my therapist.  She would ask a question that would piss me off and then the world would reknit together in a new blanket that would carry me again.

Working with her was such a great experience.  I am struggling to find a therapist here who meets my criteria:  works with expressive arts, PTSD specialist, eating disorder specialist.  I am coming to terms with the sexual abuse I’ve dealt with: covert and overt so maybe that goes on the list.  But so many of the therapists here advertise as Christian and that really triggers me, since I am recovering from spiritual abuse at the hands of a Christian cult.

Sometimes I’m really glad that I have the luxury of not being a mom right now.  I mean, I’ve been pretty miserable to be around.  If I had kids it seems like it would be worse, I know it’s had an effect on E.  How would it effect kids?.  Or would I just get over it faster because there was stuff to do, put on some kind of mom game face?

I think a lot of it has to do with exhaustion from aches and physical pain, it’s been wearing me down…  Why does it hurt so bad?  Because we’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for the last two weeks since we got here.  Because our crap was hijacked by bastard pirates when we moved across the country.  Did I not mention that?

That deserves it’s own blog post.

ever since June 3rd

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I’ve had an email in my inbox that I’m terrified to read.  Turns out I’m not the only one who writes about the pain of the church.  One of the other people wrote their story and emailed it to me.  And I’m totally gonna read it.  But I’m scared.

I guess, I feel that their pain will be more real if I read it.  Maybe, it’s easier to think that it’s easier to contain if I’m the only one talking.  Maybe it’s cause I’m a Leo.

A double click will keep my commitment.  I feel like such a hypocrite, publishing tomes of my memories and not being able to read theirs.  But when I was showering, I thought about something else.  It’s bigger than me.  I think that reading their story will make mine times two. And open an exponential door into a monstrous house of pain.

If I hurt this much and they hurt this much – and there were 40 families.  That’s just too much.  It’s too big.  I feel like it’s opening the front cover of a really big book.

I also feel like this whole thing is a mystery.  I hear so many stories about how the church ended, how it crumbled.  But I don’t know 100% because I’m the one who walked away.  I got disowned by my family and excommunicated, yes I engineered it.  And yes that played a big part in exposing a lot of the BS going on.  But I’ve learned there were so many other factors at play.

So, after walking away from rubble it’s scary to walk back in and excavate and see what really went down and what the damage was.

But, dang I feel like a hypocrite for not being able to read that email.

outside talking to the outside looking inside

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Recently, I had a phone conversation with somebody who is the best friend of one of the people from the church.  (You found my blog online.  Now you are in it… Hope you don’t mind…)

But she’s been friends with the woman from the church since before the church.  And she knew all of these things that had happened.  She knew people, names, had socialized with some of us.  She knew my mom.  I heard what it was like for her to be the best friend of someone in a cult.

How scary, it must have been for her.  She walked a delicate balance because she didn’t want to drive her friend away.  She was a delicate anchor.

It made me think of the person I met before I left the church who told me that what I was experiencing might be abuse.  She was very gentle.  She knew that if she came at me passionately that I was freak out and shut down and run away.  I am forever grateful for her intuition that helped me find a way out of the church.

It was amazing to hear her talk about it.  Validating in a lot of ways, because what happened was so weird.  And sometimes it feels like a bizarre dream that took up the first half of my life and haunts the second half.  She talked about the cult de sac where so many people from the church lived and how some realtor listed it as hot property because it always sold so fast.  They didn’t know all of the demand was driven  by a cult trying to buy into the same area, and that once the church was gone the demand dried up as the families dispersed.

She talked about one of the women in the church, who has a very special place in my heart.  But she saw a completely opposite side of her.  And of course she would.  Because she doesn’t know that that woman was my very first dance teacher when I was five years old and she’s the one that gave me the keys to my soul’s freedom.  She was also my brother’s first art teacher and although the Army crushed my brother’s arm, he’s still an amazing artist.

There was anger in her voice and that made sense too.  The same anger that is in the voice of a lot of my friends.  The anger of “WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO SOMEONE I LOVE”.

It was a good talk.  It was a hard talk.  I was proud of myself because when it got too triggery, I set a boundery and we moved on.  That for me is progress.   But, it really opened my eyes to the damage of the church.  The friends and family that were cut off from loved ones because of this cult.  Because of the spiritual abuse and the forced isolation.

I still have so much trouble reaching out to my blood family, because I see them as a them and not a me.  I am trying so hard to change that in me.  That and something called ambivalent attachment disorder, which is something you get when the people who are supposed to keep you safe do so only some of the time so it’s not reliable.