I've already mentioned how being in a continuous state of submission actually causes neural degeneration. As I look back to the period immediately after leaving TFI, I can see what a weakened state I was in mentally and emotionally.
Finding out that the cause I gave my life to was nonsense was a jolt, but the true horror of it all took a few years to realize. At first, I was just paralyzed by the guilt of how my life-choice had affected my children and desperately wanted to do what I could to improve their future prospects. The first step, I felt, was to get them to the US (the country of our citizenship) where they could attend college more easily.
My paper-thin optimism, my willingness to take risks, and my wishful-thinking (in the jargon of the cult, "full-of-faith") attitude was mainly still intact, and I expected doors to open and things to work out for us - as I had felt things had so far in my life. Not so. My time spent in the US that year was the lowest of my life. I learned what it was like to be poor in the US, and it wasn't pretty. I was not prepared for the social stigma nor hardship.
I had no idea how weak I had really gotten and how easy I had become to take advantage of. My "trust everyone" philosophy was sorely tested. My brain was muddled, my self-confidence became virtually nonexistent, and I was a mess. True to the Dunning-Kruger effect, I had no idea how little I knew.
The advice I would give now to my former, just-out-of-the-cult, self would be to not make any moves, not make any big decisions until spending a at least a year or more studying, learning, and planning.
No comments:
Post a Comment