I was part of a high control group which preached New Thought doctrines such as Emmet Fox and A Course in Miracles for 18 months. As a result I ended up on a psychiatric ward completely delusional about my relationship to God, who I was, and who I thought the people inside the group to be. I’d had many past life revelations during which I’d come to believe that I was St Paul and two of the prominent members of the group were Moses and Aaron. I was telepathically communicating with members of the group along with celebrities off the TV and we were all part of an important community who had been sent to preach the new gospel to the world. All of this had started 6 months prior to my institutionalisation when I had been with the group for 1 year. At first the revelations and the attempts at telepathy (which I believed were successful) did not interfere too much with my daily living. I was able to be functional and sane in my everyday life and just hold the belief system as part of my makeup. It wasn’t until I attended a retreat to spend some time alone with God that the voices started to become intrusive, hallucinations began and before long my world was consumed by messages and signs from this other realm.

The problem with the group was not so much the texts that they preached from and recommended to all who came in to contact with them; I still to this day hold a fondness for some of the authors and the books still sit on my shelf. What was wrong was the dogmatism surrounding the message - this way is the only way and other paths less worthy. There was also a strong anti-therapy and medication stance taken by the group. Many of the individuals who were part of that group, both those who have since left and those who are still there, were immensely troubled individuals who were looking for something to grasp on to. Some black and white belief system that promised all the answers; offered a quick fix and did not delve too much into an individual’s troubled emotions rooted in the past. The group was and is, designed for those in denial of their childhood trauma and the effect it has had on their adult life. It has become for some, religious addiction; a way to avoid their problems and to ‘use’ on a message that dismisses an individual’s needs and wants.

I have been out of that group for what will be 4 years this August. I am still deeply affected by my time there and how I was treated. There are still some days when I wonder if I have ‘fallen off the path’, that perhaps the members of the group have it right after all and I have been polluted by the ways of the world. Sharing a belief system with a tightly knit group is a powerful thing and I wonder if I will ever be completely free of it. I also care deeply about two of the individuals who are still very much inside the group’s dogma and are showing no signs of leaving. I wonder if it was possible to truly know them inside the group, I knew their cult version of themselves. It would be interesting to see if they ever ‘got real’ how much of a connection to them I would still feel. It could be the traumatic bonding which takes place inside an abusive environment, or it could be genuine care and affection. I am not sure. To break with black and white thinking let’s say for sake of argument it is both. It hurts and is immensely triggering to see them still there. For as long as that group remains intact, the experiences I went through when I was there; being excluded, having my feelings dismissed, yet all the while being held in the grips of fear about leaving, all these experiences are invalidated. To them my psychotic break was a sign I had fallen off the path, gotten sick, wasn’t practising hard enough. Perhaps what I seek from those still in the group is validation, an apology, acknowledgement that it was a screwed up environment that would have made anybody mad. It’s not something I think will ever come. Perhaps I will never have peace until I accept that.

I find it hard to exist in life now without such a strong set of beliefs that I once had. I have tried to replace them since I left that group with different schools of thought, mainly those rooted in therapy. This has also been detrimental to me as it has involved attempting to come off my medication in the belief that I can manage well without it if I would only deal with the issues that lead to the psychotic break in the first place. I perhaps haven’t given up the ghost on that one yet. There is much research to suggest that psychosis is not solely a chemical imbalance in the brain present from birth, but is an extreme reaction to life circumstances that have been traumatic. I am not fully healed from my time in the cult or from my earlier life experiences yet so I cannot say if making a full recovery from my ‘diagnosis’ is possible. What I do know is that that time is not yet, and every time I have tried to lower my medication I have a relapse. So I am safer on it for the foreseeable future. Each psychosis for me is littered still with New Thought doctrines and telepathy with people from the cult. It seems to be the thing I still yearn for the most - acceptance back into that group and finding out that their ideas were ‘right all along’. I have met people along my journey who have been in similar cultish environments and they have all told me it can take years for the magnetism to go. In the words of one of my friends ‘then one day I saw him (the cult leader) and I just thought ‘my god you’re mad!’. I hope that day is not too far around the corner for me. Until then I can only carry on with my recovery as best I know how. By steering clear of the texts I read in that group, having therapy and continuing to educate myself on the cult environment. It is a powerful mind-set only truly understood by those who have been in it. I hope to break free as others before me have done.

JULIE S:

Any environment that is not LOVING is not of GOD, no matter what the advertising. The world is replete with 'our way or the highway' groups. Fortunately, you recognized it before going completely over the cliff--even though it required hanging on for a time by your fingernails.

As far as individuals you may still care about, they will have to have their own epiphany and land on their side of the fence. You landed on yours and you will have to walk from there.

kBOY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JULIE S:
>
> Any environment that is not LOVING is not of GOD,
> no matter what the advertising. The world is
> replete with 'our way or the highway' groups.
> Fortunately, you recognized it before going
> completely over the cliff--even though it required
> hanging on for a time by your fingernails.
>
> As far as individuals you may still care about,
> they will have to have their own epiphany and land
> on their side of the fence. You landed on yours
> and you will have to walk from there.


It definitely wasn't a loving environment. It was abusive, cliquey and exclusive.

(Glum)

There are families where sarcasm, nastiness reign behind closed doors, but are charming and delightful when guests arrive. After the guests depart, the misery resumes.

The guests take things at face value and never imagine that the charm, the sparkling conversation, delicious food and drink are just a front, a disguise.

Too many groups are like this.

One way we get sucked in is that as newbies, the recruiters behave nicely towards
us.

We are trusting; we are in good faith, we assume the recruiters are in good faith.

After we become emotionally and socially dependant, the initial loving kindness is gradually replaced by abuse.

Meanwhile, we keep hoping for a return of the good times. It is so painful to
imagine that people we trusted were dishonest.

You're lucky you got out.

Yes that's a lot how it was. I was love bombed initially as a way to draw me in. Then when I expected the love to continue it was shut off. The only time it came out again was when I showed signs of leaving and being fed up. So I'd get drawn in again, only to be shut out again.
It has left me feeling empty even when I am now around genuine affection. It is not as intense and painful and somehow I was using on that intensity.

Julie,

A relative had a psychotic break at the age of 25 and his mom was referred to Dr. Abram Hoffer and his use of orthomolecular medicine. Another search topic is epigenetics in psychiatry. The current interest is in L-methylfolate and DNA modification according to mom. You may already be aware of this info, but if not I wanted to pass it on in case you want to research it. You are so fortunate that you got out.

I relate to this strongly. I was deeply involved in a group that held some similar beliefs to a course in miracles for 10 years and am honestly contemplating going back. Same exactly as you shared--anti-therapy, anti medication, quick fix.. We addressed childhood trauma to a point of invalidating its effect because "it's just something playing in the brain--not happening now, and you can be free and well now!" On some level this is super true, and on another, it's injurious, insensitive, dismissive.

I probably don't really want to go back. I don't entertain it much but had a stressful experience today and can't sleep and it's probably just fight or flight kicking in.

I had an experience of returning to the group like your friend shared-- "oh my god you're mad!" regarding people I thought had the answers big time. And even with that, I still saw some good and think "well maybe if I just went back longer, the mirage would lift and I could feel the goodness here again."

Nobody there means to be abusive, I am sure.. Everyone really believes that this is the way. I kind of wish I still did. I feel lonely and have a really hard time connecting with other people. I'm not on meds or anything but I feel like something's got to give.

I work with a therapist who suggests I set my short term happiness on the back burner, work on self-regulating and try to set my life on track. I honor these ideas but feel scared I may not be strong enough. I appreciated reading your post, Julie. I feel slightly less alone.

I actually had to scroll up and check I hadn't written this myself :)

What am I realising is that having an extreme reaction to psychological manipulation is much healthier in the end than most peoples reactions. The games these groups play require a 'stable' mind that will justify, rationalise and normalise what is unjustifiable, irrational and unacceptable. And there is no way to see it when you're in it, and the ability to see it gets weaker and weaker with time unless the cognitive dissonances and abuses increase to twenty-stupid (e.g. a growing number of Gold Rolls Royces).

Only twelve months on for me but already seeing each day how that creepy feeling I had in the beginning was right. And remembering that is good for me. Because everything that happened after that was about undermining self-trust.

Thanks for your post