Do you often find yourself questioning your own decision-making? Do you often have negative thoughts about an experience you had when you were in a toxic group of one form or another? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then you probably suffer from trauma from being in a cult of some kind and would do well to read on.
Cults Are a Big Problem These Days
We live in a time when having a group to belong to has perhaps never been as important as it is now. Many people find themselves in social groups that are destructive in terms of how they focus on them being the ‘in’ group and everyone else being the ‘out’ group. This kind of divisive thinking contributes to many of society's ills.
Just What is a Cult Anyway?
The word cult comes from the larger term culture, and is a social subgroup that focuses on looking at individuals from an unequal viewpoint when harmful. This is true both between members of the group and those outside of the group, as well as those who are involved in the group all the way up to the leader of the group. According to one expert in the field, the way to distinguish between beneficial and harmful cults has to do with their effect on the individuals within the group, as well as society at large.
How Trauma Comes Into Play with Cults
At the beginning of people’s involvement in a cult, it can seem very happy and wonderful. The mechanism of love-bombing is a way to draw people into an experience that makes them feel valued and special. There is an inherent degree of coercion in cults that gets the trauma experience started. It becomes a matter of sacrificing one’s own values for those of the group, and particularly the one or ones who are at the head of the group. From that point on it becomes somewhat of a ‘death by 1000 cuts’ experience where people have to develop a way of dissociating from the incremental harms they are experiencing in order to survive psychologically.
The Crash With the Cult
For those who wind up leaving the cult, there is often a crash of sorts in which the individual somehow becomes the target of the rest of the group and is somehow branded as being not one of the “true believers“ as such. At that point, tremendous amounts of shame, self-reproach, self-hate, fear, and all other kinds of negative emotions can come flooding in. As painful as this is, it can be a necessary traumatic wound that leads to the person eventually leaving the cult. It is a positive development simply because at this point, the person now realizes how harmful the cult has been to them and what it has cost them.
What To Do If You Have Been Caught in a Cult
It is certainly important if you have been part of a harmful cult, or one that’s done harm to you somehow, to consider getting professional help. While I’m not an expert in working with individuals who have been in cults, I can certainly attest to the value of getting good therapy help to recover from the effects of being in a group like this. I encourage you to call me or another qualified therapist by using the phone number at the top of the page, clicking on the schedule consultation button above, or filling out an inquiry form below to get a free 15-minute phone consultation to see if I might be able to help you with your own experience of cult trauma. Regardless of what you do, do understand that any effort you make to take care of yourself in the wake of an experience with a harmful group is time well spent on the road to eventual recovery.
Visit our page on trauma therapy to find out how Scott can help you recover from trauma from a cult.
About the author: Scott Kampschaefer, LCSW is a private practice therapist in Frederick, Maryland. He has an extensive background in working with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder at a clinic for older adults with these disorders in Austin, Texas. He now works with adults and adolescents 14 and up in private practice. His most recent book is titled The 5 Pillars of Addiction Recovery and is available for purchase on Amazon and in paperback on this website.