Give Me That Mountain

If leaving a high control group was difficult, the steps afterwards are equally difficult, and trust me, they are. Taking that scary first step out will be the hardest and most emotional decision you will ever face, even if it is always the absolute right decision in leaving a controlling group, church or relationship. But the days after successfully making that exit are just the beginning of a long and sometimes tedious journey. 

Recently during a conversation on trying to navigate life post-cult, the statement was made that every decision, every obstacle is a mountain. Something simple and ordinary to most individuals can seem as a mountain and one that, in order to move forward, a cult survivor has no choice but to climb.

I've climbed a lot of mountains in my life.

I've made that heartbreaking feat of surviving abuse, of fighting for a sense of justice. I told an unsavory character just recently, "I stared down my abuser at 12 years old, you don't know fear." Certainly that time in my life was a mountain of fear, and I climbed it. 

There was the death of a parent following a dark valley of wide awake nightmares and then, grief. And, I climbed it.

I remember well the days of being an outcast even in my community, begging for a way out and for three years straight, I continued to put one foot in front of the other, making that unsteady ascent. 

There was the mountain of leaving my childhood church of 15 years, the place that baptized me, buried my mother, married my adult siblings, where I held nieces and nephews in my arms sometimes for the first time within its walls. I gave a comical highschool speech with my twin by my side, swapping lines and fooling our guests, our navy blue matching cap and gowns making us appear even more identical. Saying goodbye was a mountain climb for survival, and shattered and crumbled, I made it to the top with a view for me to glance down at all that I left. 

Wandering in a deep depression of loneliness and confusion, I stumbled up the summit of finding other cult survivors out there, helping me gain my bearings.

I waded through the dark and murky waters of watching those I once knew fall far, far beyond grace as I started to learn their true character throughout collecting and cataloguing crime after crime. 

I struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel with each victim whose light was stolen, feeling my own light dim in the process, prompting those thoughts if I shouldn't just forget it and snuff it out early? 

I overcame emotionally and physically losing my ability to walk due to injury, before starting to painfully doing so again after six months. 

I lost my inability to live in the moment, to breathe in fresh air, to feel the sun on my face. 

Yeah, I climbed all those mountains.

It's the mountains of making that step out and asking for help, for a chance to not only live but thrive. Just surviving is a life we all have lived in too long; we deserve more. I'm still climbing it, and although often difficult...God, the view is more beautiful the higher I get. 

The funny thing was I grew up in an environment that revered that proverbial mountain climbing, quoting Old Testament Caleb saying, "Give me that mountain!" On the outside, the mountains may look different, but the climb has never been more worthy and its victory never sweeter. In the overcoming of these trials, we learn how strength always lived within us. The climb didn't steal it from us, it simply was on reserve until it was absolutely needed. 

It's in the digging my toes in the sand on a hot beach day, blue sky above and water all around that I'm reminded of the mountains I've climbed to get me to that point of standing, being a part of the living. Or my hand floating on the wind with the windows rolled down with an anthem blasting that I think of those journeys. It's in rewarding myself with a peanut butter shake for pushing past the embarrassment of taking a driver test twice because after the first time I shut down shortly after. It's saying to hell with the fear of judgment, I have done enough self judging to compare with others' unkind opinions that don't mount up to a hill of beans. It's in saying to hell with that negativity and in setting that boundary that I'm reminded of those mountains. It's in choosing my family of choosing, not my family of origin that I am choosing myself and what's best for me. It's honoring the pain, tears, gut and grit of climbing those summits in the first place and holding onto those victories.

You see, all of those things, every single last one, may have convinced me in the moment that I would never make it up to the top, never be able to take a deep breath and let it go, knowing without a doubt that relief is also part of the victory. That I came into this world and I'm not going out any time soon. It's in the whispering of my truth and the screaming for my ability to do just that. It's for my journey, this crazy and sucky, wonderful and beautiful path I get to make and call it my own. 

I want that mountain. It's mine. Watch me conquer it. Because above all, leaving a cult taught me one thing that I have never forgotten: It just takes one step and you're on your way. 

The first step out is the step that changes everything. I'm learning to slowly, but surely, embrace the change, each and every Everest, for the beauty at the top is worth the climb.

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