Saturday, January 4, 2020

A Suggested Program of Recovery for a Survivor of life-long Religious Cult Abuse


A Redditor wrote. "I was deeply indoctrinated from birth, but I woke up and got out. Things were great for a while, but then I regressed psychologically. I’ve been attempting to self-deprogram with the help of books/online resources and a standard talk-therapist, but its not enough. ... I want order and stability and peace of mind....but I’m realizing I don’t know how to obtain those things by myself...I don’t even know what those things look like in the real world. Will I ever feel grounded again?" And more. At the behest of another Redditor, she approached me for suggestions. So here we go:

Buckle your seat belt. But also figure that just reading through all this and looking into the "rabbit holes" at each of the links will likely begin to deprogram your mind to some extent. Because information IS power, especially when it comes to climbing out of the trance set in place with mountains of DISinformation.

"...disturbingly intrusive thoughts (and occasional night-time audio-visual hallucinations)..."

Yes. These are two of the symptoms of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder often conferred by exposure to the cult's manipulations including intentional confusion to create never-ending cognitive dissonancedouble-bindinggaslightingemotional blackmail, invalidation of what the child can see, hear and sense, relentless criticism, shaming (for "sins"), ridicule and embarrassment via public confession, scapegoating and non-stop conditioning, in-doctrine-ation, instruction, socialization, habituation and normalization to Learned Helplessness, Dread & the Victim Identity.

"...this entirely different person living inside me [and] they’re just torturing me for fun..."

Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems Model and the concept of Dissociation developed by Richard Kluft, Frank Puttnam and Ono van der Hart are in play here: All forms of repeated, relentless mental trauma (e.g.: being a prisoner of war, which is very close psychodynamically to having been raised in a thought control cult) grossly distort the normal IFSM into "dissociated," "split off," mutually unconscious, internal parts on Stephen Karpman's famed Drama Triangle. The cult-controlled child is forever the Victim of the cult's Rescuing and Persecution in a set-up that keeps that child locked into Learned Helplessness & the Victim Identity.

"...there’s nothing left of me underneath it all..."

Actually, there is, but the cult has buried the child's innate ability to use its eyes, ears and senses in general to see, hear and feel what IS vs. what is NOT (which is what the cult in-doctrine-ates, instructs, socializes, and and normalizes in the child's mind to the overwhelm and exclusion of those genetically conferred sensory capacities.

Can the process be reversed? Fortunately yes. But it will have to be done with the hands-on -- or at least published -- assistance of those who understand the cultic coercion process, and how it is applied by the particular type of cult involved (e,g,: Asian-style meditation, Fundamentalist or Pentecostal pseudo-Christian, high-tech "human potential," political extremist, etc.). As well as Complex PTSD and mind-scrambling via intentional Cognitive Dissonance and resulting Dissociation. To that end, please see the following:





How can I Recover from Complex PTSD caused by a Hindu Cult? (which includes a detailed explanation of a particular method across several replies)


Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (see also not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there)





It is also helpful to understand the following:










Why charismatic Pentecostal “talking in tongues” is rejected by most other Xtian sects in not-moses’s reply to the OP on this Reddit thread

The Unquestioned Power of the Priest or Guru... ...as explained in Eric Fromm's classic Psychoanalysis and Religion

I suspect that several of the books in A Basic Cult Library will be helpful, as well those in section six of this Reddit post on recovery from Complex PTSD in general.

But if I was asked to tell you which three books are likely to provide the most immediate benefits for you in particular (not necessarily anyone else looking on here), I would answer...

Bonnie Zeiman's Cracking the Cult Code for Therapists: What every Cult Victim wants the Therapist to Know,

Janja Lalich's Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships

Alice Miller's The Body Never Lies and The Truth Will Set Your Free, and

Arielle Schwartz's The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control & Becoming Whole.

(I am, btw, in the 16th year of my own recovery from having been raised "spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child" Pentecostal with childhood conditioning to masochistically codependent submission to authority... and having been a participant in three major human potential cults including est and the CoS. If interested, see my reply to the OP on this Reddit thread.)

1 comment:

  1. What are a few books you would recommend on this subject? I come from a highly controlling Pentecostal background. I joined a fundamental Baptist church later in life and have recently left.

    ReplyDelete