Re: cult thinking


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Posted by long time exer on September 06, 2012 at 22:03:37

In Reply to: Re: cult thinking posted by sergey on September 05, 2012 at 18:21:13:

Were you in TFI/TF, and then you found yourself drawn to another organization/group/cult that has similar controling characteristics? Or you are in another organization now (or got out of another one) and relate to the post? I know that in my experience, I was afraid to leave because I had learned that any negative thoughts about the group were "of the devil" regardless of how crazy the doctrine/practice/oppression was within the group that I was fighting. It seems to me that HDO's/Cults of different flavors have a lot of the same dynamics of using fear to control and breaking down a persons' gut feeling as being evil or "of the devil" if it is not in synch with the cult/high demand organization leaders thoughts/doctrines. i.e.: Gut feeling says to me that something being demanded or suggested that felt "wrong" inside, would be interpreted as me being wrong or weak for thinking badly about any suggestion from leadership. This means, if I would start to think about something being off track, wrong or oppressive that was coming from leadership, I'd automatically stop my thinking along those lines, "rebuking the devil". It seems so stupid now, but it was very painful when in.
Also, when in, I would often be "dealt with" about my "rebellion" or resistance to something with verbal lashings and some pretty hard drilling and threats of what God could do to me if I didn't change my ways and basically get with the program. I learned to identify gut feeling as being a bad thing when it went against cult thought, teachings.
I felt very much like (but even more threatening in TF) I did as the child of an alcoholic father who learned to watch and sense mood, body language, the way things felt, in order to determine my next reaction to survive. Then at times, an alcoholic person can be "fun" but you never know when the shoe is going to drop- so I was always walking on eggshells, keenly aware of any shifts.
Looking back at coming out of TF, I can see clearly now- how disasterous and damaging that experience was. Most of these groups have a person that is the top dog who is revered as God's chosen person/prophet, and fear is paramount in reinforcing control. There are so many groups out there now like this, many of them not yet identified as "cult" or HDO. That is what I meant about being drawn to something similar- maybe different doctrines, different direction, but very oppressive.
Something similar can be a non religious movement, even some therapy groups. One therapy group I ran across was vary controlling and I am glad I had some recovery before coming across them. Then there are groups like "The Forum" or what used to be called "EST".
Some local churches may be structured to run like that, where people are marginalized according to what they give to the group, how much they participate, how the tow the line in funding, recruiting, etc.
I don't know if you watched the movie "The Beach", but if you haven't. It's a story you can relate to.
Anyway, glad you are here and hope to hear more about your story, Sergey.


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