411- Traumatic nature of cult experiences

Upon watching this video by Drew, aka Genetically modified Skeptic, about MLM's and comparing their modus operandi to that of cults, it occured to me that I often post about my traumatic upbringing in my father's religious cult, but needed to expand. 

This is how my double blog series was born. The first is a set of 4 entries about the BITE model, which stands for the 4 types of control that cults use, and mirrored them with the way my father had coerced and controled me, in 4 other entries, showing either similar or different expressions of these controls. 

Let's recap a bit :

The introduction to all of this long series was in entry 396, cult(ish). I chose that title as I discussed both cults, and how and why Drew used the BITE model with MLM's. 
Cultish would be about those acts and rules that are used in groups that aren't religious cults, but do exert and hold certain grips over people's decisions, or manipulate them in similar ways.

In 397, cult(ish) II, the topic covered control and conditioning, two very important terms to fully understand the nature of cults and similar controls, before delving with cults and religious dogmas. 

Then, I broke down the BITE model into 4 separate entries, mirrored in 4 others, comprising the sub-series Being Bitten, about my own experiences. Each corresponds to its specific family or type of control that are used in cults.


BITE = Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional controls.

Thus: 
B, as in Behavior control, presented in entry 398, followed by 399, my own experiences.
I, as in Information control, presented in 400, mirrored by my own in 401.
T of Thought control, presentation in 402, reflected in 403, my own. 
E, for Emotional control, commented in 404 and echoed in 405, my own experiences. 

A few months prior to this double series based on the BITE model, I had actually posted 5 other entries in another series, that I had called Living In A religious cult.  That series was comprised of entries published at various dates, numbered 257 ; 334 ;  362 ;  364 ;  and 370. 

I invite you to read each of these series and return to the present entry afterwards.  

Today's topic is about the traumatic nature of these experiences in cults. More to the point, I want to show that leaving a cult doesn't clearly cut the cord to one's past and that the experiences have lasting effects, probably for the rest of one's life. 

In a sense, this is my 6th entry in the series Living In A religious cult; hence the double title in my image. 

Indeed, if you assumed that once out, the ex-cult-member is fully in touch with reality and can integrate or reintegrate society, you are guessing it wrong, because this is simply not the case. 
I can speak from personnal experience that neighther of these assumptions can come true unless the cult didn't exert much control, or that the person was a member for a very short time before leaving. In all other cases, the damage is quite hard to undo. Parts or all may take years to recover from, unlearning lies and deceit, before learning truths and trust. 

In my own case : I left this cult over 2 decades ago. In all these long years, I had to reevaluate the damages to all life sectors, because, at first, my immediate concerns were too short sighted to really notice some of the issues that I would run into over time.

I'll highlight a few consequences after my life in this cult, in the BITE order.

B as in Behavior : 

• Ever since I came back, I struggle with self-care, self-image and self-worth, often offering or accepting requests for chores, not always respecting my own limits and refusing to render services that I cannot or don't wish to do. On the one hand, the positive trait of being helpful to others is, on the flip side of this coin, a negative trait, based on the slave-like life I lead as a disciple, follower, in the cult. 

• Interpersonal relationships, romance and the like have been highly impared, delayed and otherswise irregular, because of the controls, warped values and fears that were instilled in me.

• Recognising feelings have always been an issue, which may be partially due to this, or mixed with a possible undiagnosed Asperg's Syndrome. Either way, it took me some time before I bonded with friends, clinging to some very toxic ones before I could learn to set barriers and request some kind of respect. I needed extra time to find romantic love, and married a bit later than a lot of people. 

• Authoritiy figures scare me. 

• I have low pain-threashhold and feel any kind of pain in excess

• I'm low self-achieving 

I, as in Information + T for Thought :

• Studies and education had been severely impaired during my cult-years. I had no diploma in hand, nor any professional experience to rest upon to build a career path. It took some time before I could.

• I managed finding jobs three times and have had increasing symptoms from my various mental illnesses, all steming from my trauma and comorbid with my cptsd's (plural, you read this right). 

• Lack of studies and basic knowledge is another damaged portion, resulting directly from my trauma in a cult that lied about truth and knowledge. I had to take many hours to relearn my own birth language, to learn skills and trained for a job that I managed to fulfil on 3 different contracts, before finding myself back at square 1 in any professional endeavour : lack of academic degrees and experience, being low achieving and struggling with increading symptoms of my mental illnesses as well as physical issues, all combine into a poor access to jobs, to the point that I am now in the process of filing a request for disability, based on my psychological trauma. 

• My innate curiosity had helped plant seeds of rebellion in my youth ; I'd gone to libraries and book stores against the rules, and read enough material to sprak my eventual departure from the cult into which I was born, and reunited with my birth mather after many years of being apart. There are are two important aspects to this mixture : separation anxiety (see Emotional category bellow) and, concerning the present Intellectual & Thought caterogies, the ongoing processes to unlearn the lies that were ingrained into my belief system, which includes the inevetible questionning and eradicating, slowly, of all unnecessary misinformation and lies - most importantly the ones imbeded in the faith I was supposed to have, the religious dogmas, New-Age thoughts and pseudo-scientifc magical beliefs, to replace with critical thinking, and having gone from a believer to non-believer, from a religious pion, to an atheist who can think for myself about certain truths and relaities. 

E, as in Emotional :

• Due to the fears that were ingrained into me in the cult (but also due to specific political crisis in those times), I've struggled with multiple anxiety disorders (social anxiety/phobia, GAD, cptsd), phobias, and chronic depression, more or less for over 3 decades, but all their individual symptoms increased since my return home, to my birth city. You can read this anywhere on this blog, whose very existence testifies to the damages of my trauma on my life and daily routines have had. 

I'll grant that traumas is multiple here, and that I cannot, in any way, quantify which % of damage and struggle stems uniquely from the specific trauma in the cult, as opposed to % from trauma outside of it. 

• My emotional growth was stunted, delayed. The fears and resulting anxiety disorders set me back in moving out from my mother's home, into adulthood and married life awat from her. 

• In many ways, I find it tough to grow up, to mature - although, of course, I have done so prematurely under necessity, for survival needs. On other aspects, I remain somewhat blocked, locked in adulting. 

• A major concern which is a logical biprodcut of depersonnalization is the struggle in defining my person. The question that a lot of people ask themselves  "who am I", is exacerbated, creating a constant identity crisis, much tougher process than what I recognized in others. It is still going on to this day. I managed to define parts, such as, partially, my gender identity, some intellectual pursuits, emotional needs, likes and dislikes, passions and values, but I cannot separate the person I am from my mental illnesses and trauma. 

• My innate curiosity had helped plant seeds of rebellion in my youth ; I'd gone to libraries and book stores against the rules, and read enough material to spark my eventual departure from the cult into which I was born, and reunited with my birth mother after many years of being apart. There are are two important aspects to this mixture : separation anxiety and other issues regarding my mother on the one hand, which falls in this Emotional category and the other has been said above (I & T section) 

• Experiencing the betrayal that was my father's towards me (the entire story of his kidnapping me and then abusing me to his own grandiose, narcissistic plans) created a unique set of difficulties : trust is never a guarentee with me. I may entrust a lot of pepple and talk openly about my past trauma, my private conversations with friends are easy, but I take very poorly to any signs of duplicity and once trust is broken, I don't tend to give it back - with one exception that taught me not to do it. 

I've lived with these side-effects longer than the experiences that lead to developping them : 

15 years in the cult, 24 out. Based on these past couple decades and how my symptoms evolved, I expect these to last the rest of my life. 

Finding inner peace is near Mission: Impossible after undergoing the various coersions religious cults exert over you, especially when you're born into it. Healing from this trauma seems to me an arduous task, simply because so many factors have been set in motion even before my birth, and that I had to endure until I was at the end of my teens. 

I came back to my birth country, reunited with my mother whom I hadn't seen for 15 years, and in the past 24 years, have strived to improve my life quality, to break the shackles of the prison that I was carrying with me everywhere. I tried to find friendships, jobs, and any portion of healing that I could muster.

I delved into therapies as well as personnal research into various psychological and psychiatric books and articles, in an intellectual pursuit of understanding my traumatic past and how it influenced my various struggles with mental illnesses. I have been in a perpetual quest for healing, breaking the barriers between my own Self and my past ; between my unknown potentials and effective achivements ; trying to define the unknown parts that comprise the whole Self. 

The image that comes to mind can be illustrated in an activity I never learned as a child: puzzle building . Rebuilding my Self tantamounts to trying to solve a puzzle solution, without the end picture in sight, and with all the puzzle pieces reversed. To make this futhermore complex, in illustrating my task, this puzzle's pieces are comprised of billions of shatttered glassbits, scattered all over the flat. I'll discuss this in a separate entry.

My life in the cult left undeniable, everlasting marks on my life. Each of the coercive controls I was subjected to lead to a host of personal struggles. 

In conclusion, let me remind why I systmatically use the term "trauma" when I post about my life in the cult, and what precise meaning I use from the various dictionary meanings you can find anywhere.


Trauma can be physical, such as in cases of physical injuries, or it can be, in the context here, psychological. 

There are several, similar ways to describe Trauma or Psychological Trauma :

A deeply distressing or disturbing experience. 
Severe emotional shock following stressful events. 
An extremely upsetting experience. 
Events that overwhelms the person's ability to cope with the disturbance. 

The official DSM-IV TR definion of psychological trauma can be read on Wiki's page about the term, whilst the changes in the DSM-V can be seen in this PDF  from the ISSTS (International 
society for Traumatic Stress Studies).

In my own words, I'll say that having been born into my father's religious cult ; having been physically, mentally, verbally abused ; witnessing his domestic violence towards my mother (repressed memories that undoutedly left their marks) and again towards my step-mother (vividly remembered) ; have all been traumatic, overwhelming situations for my psyche. 

Without guidance, nor support, nor understanding of what I was going through at the time created my initial coping mechanisms, and which became my various symptoms and eventually mental illnesses. Some of them can be solely traced back to my life in my father's cult. 

The first series of blog entries about the BITE model explained how cults coerece an individual. The second series, Being-Bitten showed how my own father coerced me. 
Other entries disseminated throughout this blog all show various experiences, symptoms and struggles. 

This 411th mental health blog entry is the 11th part, continuying the 10 previous ones, published back in January and expanding on any other cptsd or religious cult entries that I posted. I doubt that I finished talking about these topics,  even after all of these entries and how many thousands upon thousands of words already online. But, I sure hope that by now you have no doubts about the points I raised, and understand how my struggles came to be, through life experiences that destroyed potentials, whilst building others. Through traumatic events that I endured, day after day, year after year, after each initial overwhelming starting point, and all the resulting, side-effects and biproducts of these submerged feelings, emotions, or overwhhelming memories and their affects that I still see, or think about, consciously or not, day in, day out.

Despite this massive content, there are still entries to come, about finding meanings to these traumatic experiences ; about defining and redefining my person ; about finding silver linings, or making lemonades out of difficult, traumatic events. So, I'll see you soon, when I address one or all of these topics in future posts. Thank you for having read me thus far! 


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