Celebrating 3 Years of This Blog & My Journey After a Cult

 

When I look back at the beginning of this blog and where I was, in that moment of my healing journey, I’m left in awe of how far I’ve come not only with this blog but as a person. Revisiting the day I started Once Upon a Time in My Oceania, looked like staying up all night to craft the first draft of my blog while crashing on my couch. I had just experienced major burnout and my health was against me. I had spent eight months steadily researching both a personal initiative with my twin sister to see how many crimes were connected to the IFB, along with providing that data to a reporter who I now consider a friend (that series was published late 2018 actually).

My inbox was filled with victim after victim sharing their story, and then, also frantic family members who were looking for relatives who had been sucked into the more isolated churches in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. I was exhausted adding more abuser names to an ever-growing list and having little to no resources to share with families who were desperate. I had read my fair share of abuse stories, realized justice was rare, and churches rarely helped victims. I stepped back from advocacy to process my own traumas as working with victims and those who were questioning leaving the IFB had brought up a lot of buried memories. I didn’t realize then what seeds I was planting or the people who would eventually reach out to me to thank me for being a part of their journey leaving the IFB, some who had close ties to me. There are no words to express the overwhelming joy that floods you when you see someone make that brave step out of control to freedom and healing.

In that moment of creating this blog, I wanted to take my passion for reading to also dig into my roots, the IFB, fundamentalism as a whole and the surreal moments I had not only witnessed, but also lived. I started by sharing the environment and how the control had impacted every area of my life. And then, I started tackling subjects that arose and I needed to vent about.

It was during this time that I faced one of the toughest decisions and that was to blow the whistle on my former church for harboring an accused and credible abuser. This was especially difficult because I knew that my hands were tied and could pretty much predict what the outcome would be. All those months of researching crimes and understanding the patterns when it came to abuse in IFB churches taught me a lot, after all. It had prepared me for so much, but the pain was still overwhelming. In the end, my former church is still unsafe, but blowing the whistle was the right call. I sustained more shunning from family and found that former members who had said they supported me, in fact, didn’t.

That time, in 2019, I decided to step back from all advocacy, except for my personal blog. With this decision, it became the best one to date on my healing journey. I took care of my health, starting the long tedious road on both my physical and mental health journey. I started living for me, not willing to waste another day to a cult that stole way too many from me. I started celebrating every moment, big and small: going to a doctor, learning to drive, getting health insurance, and opening a bank account. Slowly but surely, I started building for the life I know today and I’m still building a castle out of the stones thrown at me.

Through writing this blog, I’ve learned that many people have had the same or similar hurtful stones thrown at them, too. I still get emails and private messages on social media from readers who have survived the IFB or similar groups. I read the words of strangers and feel that they’re not really strangers at all. We all know what it is like to live the life that is a cult and leave it. We know that living a life later is harder, but so very worth it. And we all know that the wounds can still be very fresh, but healing is also possible.

Tonight, while driving down the road, I tuned the car’s radio to a station that was very familiar. It was one that I listened to as a child, because it was very fundamentalist as well. I listened and sang along to one of the many hymns I remembered so well. I sang at the top of my lungs, unlike what I would have been allowed to do in the church I grew up in. I sang, I smiled, and I changed the station. I’m no longer there. I’m free.

I won’t sugarcoat it. (I’ve never done that once with this blog, anyway.) Learning to live a life after a cult is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Surviving abuse was so incredibly difficult, but I had always known how to survive. Learning to thrive? Now, that took some guts on my part.

Three years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined that life would be this beautiful. Even with its challenges, the blessings are outnumbering so many of the tough things I’ve endured. The perfect moment that really sums it up for me, is Disney. I travelled to Disney World with my significant other last year and took in all the beautiful things that were banned to me as a child. I felt the magic as an adult who valued imagination even more. I remember crying, smiling while I did so, at the fact I was there, I had overcome so much and yes, I belonged being in that moment.

I was taught that the bad things in my life were meant to happen, that I should be grateful for them, not allowed to process those traumas as they should have been. I realized in that moment that some things, good things, are meant to happen. But they happened, because I decided to fight my way past all those horrible things that were done to me. I didn’t have the say on the abuses I endured, but I did on being happy.

And I think beyond everything else, that is what I’m most selfishly proud of with this blog. That I’ve documented so much of learning to live now, heal now, just "be" in the now. I’m grateful that all of you have been a part of this journey with me. I’m thankful for the messages, words of support and encouragement. While often, I hear you say I helped you feel a little less alone, you did that very same thing for me.

We’re truly in this together. I’m cheering you on. Here’s to three years together!

X,

Lydia Joy

Photo: Lydia Joy Launderville