As a Cult Survivor, Here's Why I Don't Always Want Your Curious Questions

 

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 every stripe, my cult was my only world. A small backwoods church, with a pastor and his family, along with members devoted to the same leader and it got murky quite quickly. I loved my pastor and the members of that church with everything I had. I had my community, one I was raised in, that I understood on a level that I’ve yet to understand any other aspect of my life since.

I was born into the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, but it was also what I lived and breathed for. My heart was dedicated fully. Even when I was a child being abused, I knew Jesus loved me. And why? Because, duh, “the Bible says so,” I would answer as that same child, likely rolling my eyes in the process. I was a Christian. I was an Independent Baptist, I was fundamental in my beliefs, and I knew I was in God’s will just being in church and forsaking the secular world.

Today, because I often share publicly my cult survivor status in writing this blog, articles, or volunteering with a nonprofit that helps victims of religious abuse, I often have many reactions from those that read about my experiences that differ, but I’ve learned to predict. There are the nonbelievers of my experience, which are either unkind, skeptical secular people or the current cult followers that have to protect the church and their brand of Christianity. Then, there are the believers, often survivors who also “get” what it’s like to have been in a cult and who share so much of my own experiences, whether or not they hailed from the IFB or another group. And finally, there are those who think I am fascinating and have a lot of curious questions around what it was like being in a cult.

That last one is the hardest if I’m honest. Here’s why: I’m a cult survivor, which means I survived the trauma of a cult. Questions can be disrespectful, hurtful, and honestly very triggering when they are not from the trusted individuals in my life. Yes, I survived a cult, but it’s important to realize that by surviving, I literally walked away with years of religious trauma to combat while outside of the cult’s control. If I’m real here, that translates into nightmares sometimes nightly, PTSD attacks in public by large crowds of people, seeing people in clothing that looks like what I was made to wear in the cult, or even religious signs or simply passing by a church with a steeple. Every day, there is likely at least one reminder of the terrible times I survived. Like I said, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and those are classic symptoms of the disorder.

Another reason why these questions are hard to deal with is that they bring up the old distressing feelings I felt in the cult. I recall the terrible emotional turmoil that was prolonged for years. I was terrified for my soul, the people I love and even complete strangers. The burden on my shoulders was so, so heavy. I also had to accept at a very young age that even my family who refused to join the church or a similar church with the same beliefs would burn in hell eternally. I grew to hug on them as if it were my last chance to do so. I treated them as if they were already dying and about to be dropped into hell. Because I also experienced the death of a parent, this was made that more real for me. And believe me, because I believed the teachings so thoroughly, I grieved those future deaths before their time.

Then there are the distressing feelings of being stuck in a world I was so afraid of. I was doomed to stay there, in a church, in a movement that controlled everything. I couldn’t experience things that seemed so innocent, that made me happy. I couldn’t crush on a boy my age because it was sinful. I couldn’t dream about a marriage that was safe and happy because I witnessed only the complete opposite. I couldn’t be someone who had a voice, couldn’t write what I wanted, couldn’t share it as I do now, because I was a girl and my opinion, my very existence, was not valued. My identity was forbidden; I continued to fight and feel the conflictions of just existing.

So, when you ask me, “What was it like being in a cult?” here is what I want to tell you, but likely won’t:

It was terrifying. It was sexual abuse. It was a decade of being sexually molested and then years later of trying to battle that fucked up trauma. It was believing in a God who you loved but also hated but were too scared to admit to it. It was losing family: relatives who were nonmembers and those who would shun you for simply trying on makeup.

It was a war. I was at war every single day of my life. I was trying to stay away from my abusers every minute of the day. I couldn’t go to the bathroom at night without being pulled into a dark room to be violated. I couldn’t be hungry and tell anyone. I couldn’t be sick and tell anyone. I couldn’t sing a song I made up if it wasn’t about God, even though I loved singing about birds, flowers and trees. It was not being able to look up in the sky to bask in its beauty because I was scared of the rapture, being sucked up in the air and having no control.

It was feeling guilty for failing at being a Christian. It was soul sucking to be a sinner even though I lived sinless. It was grieving when I couldn’t be a normal kid. It was feeling alone and unseen in a store of people. It was cringing while being mocked by secular people, getting odd stares, being bullied about my long skirts and being cornered in public places by teenage boys that talked about stealing my virginity.

It was being scared of losing my virginity. It was being scared I would be married to an abusive man. It was being scared I would never get married at all and be ridiculed. It was having grown men sexually groom me as a teenager, pulling my hair, giving me hugs that pressed their chests to my still developing breasts. It was being sexually harassed while a young adult, being forced to watch porn, or sent suggestions of porn, or compared to a woman in a lingerie of a witch and knowing I was banned for celebrating Halloween and cringing as an older man shared that he thought I was that woman.

It was being sick to your stomach, terrified to pass by a pew with a sexual predator. It was watching out for minor loved ones so they wouldn’t be assaulted on church grounds, at family gatherings, and at home. It was having my imagination being shut down. It was having my music stolen from me. It was pouring out my soul and PTSD symptoms onto piano keys to keep me alive.

It was gathering information surrounding my childhood abuse case when an imprisoned abuser tried for parole and knowing I would have to fight as a victim and against the pastor and church. It was digging through detective notes and reading that my abuser abused me because I was “annoying.” It was having another abuser show up after 9 years and family taking him in, allowing him around their children and sheltering him while they never sheltered me from his molestation as a child. It was experiencing that same abuser’s physical beatings, his near drowning me on more than one occasion, of the times he threw me into walls, into the ground and threatened to murder me and those I loved if I dare said a word.

It was having an abuser threatening suicide from prison, while I was already contemplating suicide in the mental prison, he created in me. It was becoming a shut in, unable to go near windows or doors, too terrified that I would die. It was missing the simple joys like seeing the sun, feeling the wind on my face, of curling my toes into fresh cut grass because I was in such a deep depression that I couldn’t leave my bed only to lay on the couch. It was losing my health because I was in depression.

It was not experiencing prom, of going to a movie until my late twenties, of shopping at a mall until that same time. It’s the intimidating and helpless reality of not being able to start my life until much later, with no license, no car, no income, no education and no idea on how to become independent.

It was fighting to survive.

So, if you ask what it was like to be in a cult, I want to say all of that. All of it… and then some.

What you’ll hear instead though? “It’s a very tough experience. There are thousands of cults in the United States, even today according to research. There are a lot of people who are out there who have experienced the same thing. It’s just very tough.”

Growing up in a cult isn’t a brave thing; it’s a horrendous experience. It wasn’t always horrendous; it was also my home. I had my community until my community no longer had me. Those are my roots, ones that I had to pull up in hopes of freedom and a new beginning. It’s also heartbreak, because I lost a huge part of my identity. And although I can speak about the abuses that occur, I cannot listen as non-cult survivors “bad mouth” the cult I survived because I love people that are still held hostage in it.

I survived a cult. That’s it. Please don’t ask beyond that. It was trauma and your curiosity will never warrant a PTSD attack or the hurt it brings back to the surface again. I’m not an oddity; I’m an overlooked human being out of many. We don’t need your curiosity; we need your compassion. We need your support. We need food stamps, mental health support, educational help, job opportunities, healthcare, and often housing. We need a hand, not a handout, but a helping hand.

I did not survive a cult to offer you entertainment. I survived a cult for me, for my younger siblings, so I wouldn’t leave a suicide note for my family to find, so I would not be raped instead of molested the “next time.” That’s the honest, raw, and vulnerable truth. I survived trauma. I survived the trauma that is a cult. Please don’t ask what my trauma was like. It was traumatic, period.

By speaking up, I’m not seeking attention. I’m trying my best to advocate, to share some of my scars so that others spot the wounds that are occurring to many in church pews. I cannot regret sharing, I just can’t. It’s part of my journey, one that has been surreal, but also vastly beautiful. I’ve learned that a whisper can become a mighty chorus when you’re not only speaking on your behalf, but when your voice is joined with others that are trying to raise awareness to help victims. Ironically, it’s kind of like having one movement to call for the accountability of another.

But on some days, I’m just Lydia. I’m not advocating. I’m not writing. I’m living and recovering, healing and thriving. And some days, I’m just that cult kid that doesn’t need the questions about what a cult is like. I’m thankful that with healing, that surviving a cult is not my identity. It’s certainly a huge part of my story today, but I know it won’t be the only story I tell. It may be my proudest one though.

Photo courtesy: Unsplash