Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

  Trigger Warning: Abuse, religious trauma, childhood abuse, sexual abuse I openly share about a lot of difficult things that have occurred in my life as someone born and raised in a toxic religious environment, that I feel fits the criteria of a cult. I don’t throw that term around haphazardly. I’m careful for a few reasons, including trying to prevent misinformation from being sent out into cyberspace and also because my experiences, like many other cult survivors out there are real stories that should never be taken lightly. When you are one that hears a lot of tough accounts of those who have survived trauma, it is easy to be desensitized. This is part coping, part exposure. But down deep, compassion and empathy are there. You understand what it’s like to walk in the often-unique shoes of those who recognize that there are two worlds if you survived a cult: the real one and the cult’s. I was in a cult. Like I said, I share that publicly. And like many other cult survivors of ...