If your counselor is saying you're stuck in the past, I have to wonder if he really understands cult issues. I saw many counselors who helped me with other life issues but never helped with recovery.

You might want to take some info from this site into your counselors. Also, counselors who have experience with spousal abuse issues are often able to help with cult issues.

You absolutely can heal and move on.

There is now this small voice inside that stay with me. It only bothers me when I pay attention to it. I guess I really don;t have any way to silence the voice permanently. I do get scared that somehow it is a spiritual connection that cannot be broken. The experience I has with him was so powerful I was convinced that I turned anti-christ. Of course this is that last thing I want. So, I still struggle everyday but some days are worse than others. Could I have done permanent damage to my soul?

Hi Akita
i want to wish you the very best for your healing and recovery from this. I believe that God/the Universe - whatever you call the force of Love and goodness in our hearts and in the world is undoubtably stronger than anything else, stronger than any anti-christ or evil. For me there is no question that good is stronger than evil. You could say that evil is only a misunderstanding of good. Ultimately in some sense I think goodness is all there is. I dont want to advise you to follow my opinion at all, but I do want to really send you love and support in finding your own way.
It sounds to me like you are sincere and genuine about wanting to recover and be your own person. That says to me that God/goodness is already stronger in you than anything else.
I also think it is important to see the right counsellor/pyschologist or support person. I have personally had one counsellor who really helped me but before that i had several that didnt help and even discounted my experience. They did not know anything about cults and I felt like I was making it up in a way becos they didnt realise the extent of the effects on me.
Also is there any excult members support group you could go to and get support from. With something as difficult as this, support from others must surely be important
Love
Pegasus

Something else I thought of to share with you:
When I left my cult leader, he had indoctrinated me to believe that if I left him, terrible forces of evil would destroy me in some way. I thought whatever he said was true and he was more powerful than God.
I remember walking on the street when I was in the cult and feeling really safe, that he was protecting me. Then after I left I remember walking on the same street and I could feel a real difference in the air, it felt completely unsafe. I thought I may get run over or attacked. i could really feel this difference and I thought it was true. I was very scared for a long time especially of being attacked in some way.

But of course this was not true at all, it was my thoughts that made it feel true - that cult indoctrination that was so strong in me that it made me feel things that I believed to be true that were not true at all.

I also could see my cult leaders face in my head and felt controlled by all that. But he is just a man, he is not God and I now know that he has no power over me. I can now see how things have worked out for me, for my recovery and to give me a much better and free life now. Now if anyting I just feel angry at him for abusing my trust and I think he is a lost person himself who has a lot more to learn, to say the least! Im not frightened of him at all now.

In my case I prayed really hard to God to show me answers and bring me what I needed and I did get what I needed over time. So this cult leader was not stronger than God.
I am not of any particular religion at all now, but I do pray if I need to to God/goodness or whatever you call it. I believe that our prayers will be answered given time.

Of course if you met my old cult leader you would not think anything of it - he is just a man, whilst to me I believed he was more than that. Im sure it is the same for you - your old leader does not have any power over you now, he is just a man. At the same time, it does take time to undo all those cult beliefs etc and I know it is hard, so i wish you all the best

akita 777
"There is now this small voice inside that stay with me. It only bothers me when I pay attention to it. I guess I really don;t have any way to silence the voice permanently. I do get scared that somehow it is a spiritual connection that cannot be broken. The experience I has with him was so powerful I was convinced that I turned anti-christ. Of course this is that last thing I want. So, I still struggle everyday but some days are worse than others. Could I have done permanent damage to my soul?"

Dear akita 777,

FYI; I really appreciate Pegasus' comments, and IMO they can apply to me as much as you.

If your former cult bears any resemblance to the group that I came through I can say one thing to you with my whole heart;
IT IS NOT YOU WHO HAS DAMAGED YOUR SOUL IN ANY WAY, IT IS YOUR FORMER CULT AND CULT LEADER WHO HAS LED YOU TO THIS PLACE WHERE YOU NOW FEAR TO BE LOST.

Cult leaders like my former one play with biblical concepts such as "anti-Christ", "still small voice", "spiritual connections" , and many such things and then force a psuedo-spiritual version of these things down our throats and into our hearts that bear no resemblance to the freedom and peace I believe God intended us to have.

I am glad you are out and I sincerely wish you every blessing life holds.

I know you have a lot of things to sort out, but YOU CAN DO IT! I hope you have or are developing a good support system of friends, family, and professionals too. The kind of biblical topics you refer to are heavy duty things that are very, VERY hard to bear all alone IMO.

Love Jeff

Hi Akita and Jeff,
So it looks like we have all had male cult leaders who dominated us and whose influence we have to recover from and claim our own life back again, free of their unhealthy influences. You could say it is taking our own personal power back or realising that we already have that power and they cant hurt us.

Jeff, I would be interested to hear more about your experiences in your cult, leaving it and what you have been thru to heal from it, if you feel like sharing anything more at all that would be cool.

I left my group about 8 years ago now and some of the beliefs still impact me and I have to work on things everyday to see them without cult judgements and rules. But it gets easier and freer all the time doesnt it?
best wishes
Pegasus

Hi Akita 777 and Pegasus,

I have been at another online site for a while and I will give a couple of links if you wish to read more.

This is the thread where I put together things I had shared on other threads and they can be traced back to the original thread for more context. I think it shows the change in my attitude as time passed by nicely, but it may be a bit disjointed of a read for your taste.

[www.greasespotcafe.com]

I'm just chomping at the bit to see just how much my little group is similar to yours Akita. :) Your posts sound like familiar territory for me as you describe your cult leader and I read all your biblical centered references.

Sorry I have not responded earlier to your answers but to be honest I have been struggling so much that I don't know what will help. My situation is a little weird because I only knew this fellow for around 2 months. During that time online and extensive phone conversations he was able to do major damage to my mind, will and emotions(soul). It's hard for me to explain what happened because I very quickly fell for this guy as someone that was safe and extremely smart. I wanted to believe what he was teaching was true. I fell for it. I did debate him at first because this all started out as me trying(failing) to witness to him about Jesus Christ and his love. I was very quickly brought to his way of thinking and then really evil things started to happening to me. This man had me say out loud that I would kill myself if I did not move to his cult in a small town in PA.No one in their right mind would say something like that! If it was not for my wife and others I would be dead today for sure or I would be hurting others as I was hurt. That is what brings me so much pain is that I have a hard time discerning whether I am now like him or am I really still me. Does that make any sense to anyone? I don't know much about his group. I do know a lot about his beliefs. Even though he would say it is not his belief it is truth no matter what others believe. Matter of fact his teaching was to believe nothing and you will experience the truth. Very weird stuff but very powerful in a negative, manipulative, evil way. Any thoughts would be great.... Akita777

Akita777,
What will help you is to sit down in front of a real person, will the skills and knowledge to help you work through this--a counsellor or other professional that you can trust.

The help that you can get from anonymous people on the internet or over the phone, however well intentioned, is limited. You need a real live person who can listen to you, in depth, and help you make some sense of what has happened.
Have you noticed how much influence this man, that you only know from the internet and over the phone, has had on you? Time to find some different, better influences, I think.

Quote
Stoic
Akita777,
What will help you is to sit down in front of a real person, will the skills and knowledge to help you work through this--a counsellor or other professional that you can trust.

The help that you can get from anonymous people on the internet or over the phone, however well intentioned, is limited. You need a real live person who can listen to you, in depth, and help you make some sense of what has happened.
Have you noticed how much influence this man, that you only know from the internet and over the phone, has had on you? Time to find some different, better influences, I think.

Thanks Stoic and Hi Akita777,

If it makes any difference I absolutely support you and will in any way I can, but Stoic is right.

Even before he posted I thought of many ways I could make things worse for you even with good intentions and not any way that I can substitute for a qualified and in the flesh person.

JEFF