Addendum: cults

[vaneramos]

I know how addicts feel. Years later they might one day crave the feeling of relief from a cigarette or a glass of liquor.

In a cult you are addicted to belonging. You're not an individual, and your mind feels safe in its communal way of thinking. You can count on others to tell you how to handle any circumstance.

Breaking away is like a birth, learning to breathe for the first time.

Years later you meet someone at the grocery store or at an art show, and it reminds you how alone you are. There's no question of going back, but from the bottom of your solitude you feel a tug of insecurity. You crave belonging.

A cult denies your individuality. To recover from its control, you must embrace both your self-identity and its attached loneliness. You have no one to answer all the questions for you. You have to make your own decisions. Being a human means being separate from other people. We may share profound intimacy, but the healthy soul recognizes boundaries between itself and others, and knows it must trust ultimately in its own resources.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Oddly I feel the same way about the kind of skepticism and negativity my parents brought me up with - an answer for everything, certainty about the world, no need to questions the truth of one's convictions. My dad never understood me when I said to him, negativity can be just as naive as pollyanna optimism.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

My parents were similar. Despite their agnosticism and wide reading, they taught me, "Do what you're told." That prepared me beautifully for the church experience. If I had learned to think critically in university, I would have been much better off. Instead I spent those years subjecting myself to religious indoctrination.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I hated the cult experience, and I still feel the dangerous pull of it, the same way reformed drinkers talk about feeling the pull of the bottle.

Intellectually I know that I don't want it and never did--that I fought to keep my individuality in the only way I could as a child, and that some of the abuse I experienced as a child was due to the fact that my parents received the institutional support of the church to continue behaving as they did. But emotionally, I remember the way the people in it were so certain. Their simple-minded attitude toward life made them so happy--they were told what to do and what to think, and they did it, and they were told that because of that, they were going to heaven. I am not that certain about anything.

This isn't something I've ever said before. But it sounds like you know what I mean.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I do, and these words I posted are ones I had not put together before today. Life is a spiral, coming back again to the same place. When I ran into the guy on Sunday, I didn't anticipate that meeting bringing new insight. Today I realize how much my anxiety problem relates to the loss security.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

People who leave the Worldwide Church of God tend to suffer from agoraphobia, inability to relate to others, and their language skills suffer--poor grammar and spelling, mostly. Some also begin stuttering or having other stress-related physical phenomena.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's amazing. I just did a little research on Great Commission International, the movement I was involved in. Apparently they have reorganized in the past decade and are not consider as abusive as they once were. However I see the local church is still led by the pastor who was abusive to me.

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

interesting entry

somedays i realize that my actions are often based on fighting to express individuality. rather than the group mind I find myself acting out completely without being honest to how I feel, just to prove that I am not compliant, not part of that group, rediculous and ironic.

very insightful entry Van

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I can relate to that to some extent, though I am naturally the other way. Not wanting to make waves or cause trouble, I just go along with things. If I feel the group mind is wrong, it takes tremendous exertion on my part to break away.

There's no inherent value in being either a follower or a rebel. It's best to know what's right for ourselves and do it whether we're conforming or not. What seems right for me is quite different from what's expected of most people, and this is a major source of anxiety.

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

There's a memory I have, of a friend's funeral, a great big church-do. There was a lot of good in that service, but of course for someone who is not Part of The Family, well... it's not a great place to be, especially while mourning a friend. (However much the main celebrant was also sensitive to the needs of those parts of his congregation that day... although I did like how he really got the whole point of the Nexus in one of the Star Trek movies: such understanding from outsiders is rare...)

Sometimes, the only thing that helps, as it helped in this instance, was to simply wrest, Jacob-style, from the universe what I needed, even if I couldn't say it was mine by right. In that particular moment, another dear friend, a pagan woman (as opposed to my devout-but-agnostic searching self), was standing at the church door and looking lost. Very lost. I could guess, it was because she was, like I was, feeling excluded. I thought, "What loving parent would allow that?" So I gave her a hug, there, and told her we had just as much right to the comforts of our own, as the congregation felt they had by right of their beliefs.

It seemed the right thing to do at the time.

You, and your individuality, are gifts. Thank you for sharing them.

Crazy(and still learning the art of solitude!)Soph

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that was an interesting comment. I have similar difficulties relating to most religious services nowadays. Wresting from the universe what you need, that is a good insight for me to remember.

[mattycub.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a fundamentalist background, and what you've put down here rings very true to me. I'm so thankful that I was able to break free from that world. But there's no denying the very powerful sense of belonging, safety, comfort that it provides you. The price you pay for it is great - your individulaity, as you say. But there have been moments of weakness in my life where I thought I would willingly make that trade.

And, like you, those moments have often been born from seeing people from that former life who appear to have a sense of peace to their lives that I don't always have. Then I remember what they gave up to get it....

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for adding your comments here, Matty. I grew up in an agnostic home, so I don't know what it would have been like to be more deeply rooted in belief.

It strikes me that when we give up the security of certainty, we also open ourselves to change. Our lives may become more confusing, but also more dynamic.