I recently came out of an SDA based group. I was raised with apocalyptic stuff and got sick of all the fear. I can see how ludicrous the fears are, but I can understand them, having had them. As a kid I used to dream at night about the things that were going to happen to us. The big enemies were the government, the Catholic Church, former family, and the SDA church structure which would eventually turn on us. We saw Jesuit infiltrators everywhere. Life just revolves around the constant paranoia.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is an SDA group?

One thing that started to set off alarm bells for me in the group I was in was that a few months after 911, the guru started talking about nuclear destruction, and there were suddenly plans being devised for the group to move to Canada and all buy houses together in this one little backwater town up there. Supposedly so that we would remain "safe." She had never said anything about wholesale nuclear destruction before 9/11. It made me wonder if she was harnessing the collective fear of the group to manipulate them. SHe even tried to use the threat of imminent nuclear war to scare me into leaving my husband and staying with the group. That didn't work on me, since I personally don't fear dying in that way. I have always believed that if we blow ourselves to bits, it really wouldn't be that much of a tragedy. And if it is going to happen, I'd rather die with my husband than them, anyway.

I knew that I wasn't going to move to Canada with them and I think the guru knew it, too, and it pissed her off or something.

The thing is, is that there are no guarantees no matter what. There is no group that's going to keep us safe and no "special place" we can move to where we're going to be protected from the potential of harm or death. I knew that. So her threats didn't have any power over me.