How to get out from a cult
Practical advice to avoid being dragged again.
When I was 5 years old, two women with long skirts knocked on my door and talked with my dad about god. My dad sent my mom to hear them and a few months later my family joined their church. I remember as a little kid, having to go to the church for 2 whole hours, 3 times a week, hearing different men talk about the bible.
As I grew up, I got my life limited in a lot of ways, I couldn’t celebrate birthdays, Christmas, new year, Halloween, or pretty much anything. I couldn’t make friends that weren’t from my religion, and I didn’t have friends in the church, so I grew up very lonely. Relationships with other people that weren’t in the same religion were also limited for family, which resulted in my family cutting the strong relationship we had with cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and whatever family we had.
At the age of 17 I tried to get out of that religion multiple times, all of those resulted in my family crying or forcing me to face the men in charge of the church called “Elders”, they used to explain to me that was normal, that I was just a teenager and I had to go back and serve God who loved me very much. My mom used to cry and scream loudly that she didn’t know what she did to deserve a daughter like me (obviously in a bad way), my dad told me that I was hurting my family and that I was being selfish, and my sister stopped talking me for years.
I never meant to hurt my family, and the point of this article is not to point any fingers at religion or anyone at all. For me to take the life I actually wanted and that I never believed I could actually have, it was something impossible, I resigned myself to die without enjoying anything at all because I grew on those circumstances, and I know a lot of people think of that as well. The point of this article is to give the advice that I needed back then.
Your life is actually yours to live
I grew up thinking that if I got out of religion I would be the cause of pain and shame for my family, when I finally got out and my family resented me in a lot of different ways, I felt very guilty because I thought I was who was making them feel that way, my mom even had an asthma attack so badly in one of her rants screaming at me that I thought that she was going to chock to death, and is a traumatic event that I still have with me.
The truth is, I wasn’t responsible for all that and it took me a while to get it. As long as you are not taking away other people's freedom to live or harming them, your life is yours to decide and to do whatever you want to do. If you actually want to serve a god through religion, that’s alright, but you have to be the one to make the decision, don’t allow others to take away your life from you, not even your family.
How to get out
When I first try to get out, it took me a lot of time going back and forward between disappointing my whole family and finally starting living my life away from the cult. I still have nightmares about me going back to the church for some reason, but eventually, I got my freedom. Here are a few tips that helped me through the process:
- - Be mentally prepared to deal with your family’s or friends' dissapointment. Remember, that is not your responsibility, they are choosing to feel this way.
- Avoid meeting with “Elders” or people from the cult for a while, they are going to try to get you back. This was probably the best advice I had back then, every time that I tried to get out, they talked me out of it until I didn’t let them.
- Stay strong on your decision, remember, you are not hurting anyone, you are just taking control of your life.
- Get support from loved ones beyond the cult. One of the reasons for me to get out, was that I met my high school friends, I loved to spend time with them and it was very helpful to have them in the process.
- Set up a goal, whatever you want to do, take piano lessons, go to college, get a job, travel to another country, learn a new language. For me, going to college was very liberating, I choose to get a career and to live my life the way I wanted.
Don’t worry if you relapse, or if you even decide to go back and enjoy serving god. Whatever you choose to do with your life (as long you are not hurting others) you are free to chase it. Just remember, this is your life, and the power to be free is yours to take.
What is freedom, you ask? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms. And on the day when I know that I have the upper hand, her power will be naught. When I have death in my own control, shall I take orders from her?
- Seneca
