Moving On

It's been over a year since I last posted anything on this blog, and I guess you could say I have moved on.

In the intervening time, my focus has shifted and with that, new life has been breathed into me. I have latched onto a new vocation and my energies have been directed into new fields of study. When first entering this new field, I was shaky, lacking in confidence, and unsure of myself. Gradually, as I learned more and received considerable sincere praise for my work, my assurance grew. I have reached the point where I no longer need hear praise to prop up my self-worth. Although there is always more to learn, I know I am smart and good at what I do. That is saying a lot for a former "Bible woman" to whom "any sense of self [was] abhorrent to the Lord," to quote Berg. Or better yet, "I am a worm and no man," as the much-lauded Psalmist, David, wrote. (What a bizarre religion where self-worth was sinful!)

Having a strong focus seems to have caused everything in my life to fall into place. It has given me a sense of security and purpose, as well as engendering strength and confidence. I have noticed that I am relaxed now, freed from my former rushed mindset, where I was always feeling I was doing too little too late, carrying the weight of the the many wasted years in the cult that I wanted to make up for. This freedom has affected many aspects of my life, one of which is being on time. Now I delight in the lack of pressure I feel when early for appointments, trains, buses, etc. I leave in good time, so that I can enjoy all of the journey. I have found that I can be more in the moment, having rejected the mental storm of busyness, and mostly letting go of thoughts of the past and future that so eagerly war for attention in my head.

I dare say that we all need to have some sort of focus—a purpose or a goal—in our lives in order to be mentally sound.

See also, Hope.

The Past is for Education, not Self-Reproach

I think I am not alone in the undesirable mental habit of beating myself up for saying and doing stupid things. I woke in the night and as my mind slid into the familiar berating, I stepped aside and considered why.

My thoughts went back to my years in the Philippines. Each year on Good Friday, we see can a physical representation of this mental habit. Filipinos walk down main streets flagellating themself with whips until they collapse. Some go as far as to have themselves nailed to crosses for several hours. To my mind, this is absurd. What good can come of this?

Yet isn't that just the same thing I have been doing mentally? Self-flagellating as if it would do any good. Did it earn me merit? No.

The past is to be looked at for education, not as a breeding ground for self-reproach. Understanding, accepting, and honestly facing ourselves is vital to having compassion on others, not to mention essential for our own mental health.

To quote the Dalai Lama,

"When we treat ourselves with compassion, we accept that there are parts of our personality that we may not be satisfied with, but we do not berate ourselves as we try to address them. When we go through a difficult time we are caring and kind to ourselves, as we would be to a friend or relative. When we feel inadequate in some way, we remind ourselves that all people have these feelings or limitations. When things are hard, we recognize that all people go through similar challenges. And finally, when we are feeling down, we try to understand this feeling with curiosity and acceptance, rather than rejection or self-judgement."

See also: Guilt.

Apologies

Dear Children,

The subject of apologies is vast and overwhelming. It is probably easier to try to sift out the few things I did right from the haystack of wrongs. But that wouldn't be an apology. 

Although I have apologized privately to you and to other young people I have known over the years, I would like to make a public statement. For what it's worth, I am deeply sorry for the following:

• raising you in a toxic cult with twisted sense of normalcy
• subjecting you to reading—and memorizing—Mo Letters and the Bible in lieu of more useful books and information
• not ensuring your safety from abusive treatment
• failing to provide you with a carefree childhood
• having you pass out tracts, sell posters and tapes, and other embarrassing "witnessing" ventures
• leaving two of you as nursing babies to go away for "training," per leadership orders
• striving to be a Bible woman and thus setting a terrible example as a mother
• remaining with a man who was physically and emotionally abusive to my children, necessitating walking on eggshells to try to avoid his tirades over petty perceived offences, angry outbursts, and beatings
• raising you in a dysfunctional stressful household
• dodging confrontation instead of facing and working through the conflict
• not allowing you older ones a normal opportunity for socialization
• not ensuring you got the education you deserved
• limiting your opportunities by raising you in a foreign, rural backwater
• allowing one of you to go work for evil cult overlords who subjected you to unwanted sex, and for not insisting you come home immediately when you called me upset about being there
• and to all the young people who grew up in TFI, I am sincerely sorry for closing my eyes in denial and remaining in a cult that advocated pedophilia, child abuse, and medical and educational neglect

There are probably more things that you deserve an apology for, but they escape me now. 

In spite of me and all my failures as a mother, you have all overcome your difficult childhoods, pulled out of dark places, and have grown into mature, good-natured, intelligent adults that I am deeply proud of. 

Love,

Mom

All cults are alike; each cult is unhappy in its own way

I just finished reading Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. I had never heard of Leah Remini, never seen her on TV. I was in a cult. We didn't watch TV. Then after leaving, I had no interest in television, as I had such a hunger to study and learn after years in the intellectual desert that was life in the Children of God. Like Leah, I needed to rewire my brain. But unlike Leah, I had no support system, no therapists, no friends nor family nearby, just my own large brood of children that needed care and attention and money.

Reading Leah's story, I marveled at the similarities. Groupthink, which I.L. Janis defined as “a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures," is an essential feature in all cults. Scientologists, just like their COG counterparts, are “the enlightened ones,” the ones with privileged insight into The Truth. This privilege obliges members to spend hours and hours “improving themselves” through daily reading, frequent counseling, self-criticism, and criticism from leaders, with its resultant required confessions and, in the COG, united prayer sessions. Voicing doubts or criticizing leaders was cause for censure and punishment, demotion, hard-labor, humiliation, silence restriction, and/or wearing headphones listening to group publications.

I was horrified to read of the extent of the abuse that was heaped upon adults in Scientology, and its accompanying psychological warping so that the victims believe they are deserving of such ill-treatment. In the Children of God, although adults were subject to various types of abuse and constant exploitation, the real victims were the children. Especially the first generation born in the COG were subject to physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, coupled with educational and medical neglect. Like Leah explained about Scientology, the group's publications were deemed more important than mere academic education.

Scientology, with its courting of rich and famous celebrities, is wealthy, yet the rank-and-file members can find themselves bankrupt because of the amount of money the cult requires them to pay. Children of God members lived in poverty after giving up everything to the cult, being forbidden to hold regular jobs because they were too busy “doing the work of winning the world, that only they, as the chosen of God, could do,” and tithing at least 15% of the donations they raised. The very dedicated gave more.

I feel a kindred spirit to Leah, and I commend her strength and resolve in coming out of such a strong mindset as was instilled during her formative years growing up in Scientology.

Luck or Merit? More thoughts on the Just World

Human nature is a funny thing.

"My son is attending his dream school," said the mother.

"What a lucky boy!" I said a little too soon.

"He worked very hard and is passionate about his art," she coolly replied.

Of course he worked hard. But not everyone that works hard gets into their dream school. Good things don't necessarily come to people who work hard. Nevertheless, working hard is important.

Taken in reverse, would that mean that kids who do not attend their dream schools just didn't work hard enough? 

This woman's son is the only child of wealthy parents whose grandparents are footing the bill for his university education. This, imho, makes him lucky. What of the son who is accepted to his dream school, but whose parents, for whatever reason, cannot afford the tuition? Did he just not work hard enough?

There are many reasons that kids have to settle for second or third best, or whatever they can manage. Granted, ex-cult members like myself are outliers, who often have many children, minimal higher education, and are playing catch-up financially after making no provisions for their old age nor their children's education. We obediently, "took no thought for the morrow," and "considered the lilies of the field."* 

Highest praise should go to the less-fortunate who struggle to overcome poverty, hardship, and lack of education, like so many second-generation cult members are doing. Let us never fall into the thinking that the world is just and life is fair. Bad things happen to "good" people, and good things happen to "bad" people.

And plenty of good things happen to rich people.

*******

*Matthew 6:28-34, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
"Therefore take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

"Just get over it" — Words are Cheap

During my brief time in the US, a new friend, who had left the COG about twenty years prior and had since grown into the most wonderful Christian I had ever met, convinced me to try prayer with her prayer group. 

I sat in a chair in the center of the room. People gathered around and laid hands on me. I'd been through this before. Many times. This was commonplace in the cult. Praying the devil out of me for various sins and my failings and weaknesses. This time was supposed to be different.

I was told to "forgive myself." "Breathe out and let go of all of that."

It was just not so simple.

It is not easy to pull out the tendrils that had grown within me for thirty long years. I couldn't "just get over it" and move on. The effect was too much a part of me. I needed time. And what I didn't know then, I needed knowledge and understanding.

I could have compartmentalized, fallen into blind denial, claiming, "it was all in the past," and "Jesus looks at my heart." But I couldn't. I knew it was a cop-out.

I looked to self-help books, but the advice I got to "love myself" went nowhere. "Stand in front of the mirror, look yourself in the eye, and say, 'I love you.'" Uh. No. It seemed a stupid, childish bandaid — and impossible. I had messed up my life and my kids' lives. That's a lot of guilt with not much room for "self-love."

Aware that I couldn't stay in this cloudy limbo for the rest of my life, I started to study - mainly audio courses when I drove, did housework, or walked, and those became my salvation — real salvation.

The realization of how I had been used and exploited began to dawn. There was a lot of anger that I needed to get out, and I had no one to tell. I wrote it down in a notebook.

As time went on, I gradually was able to understand, and through understanding began to lay aside the crap that I carried from those years. I finally started to grow and mature — which maturity had been stunted in the cult.

Only through understanding could I begin to find freedom from my past.

Why Education?

Why does someone who leaves a cult or high-demand religious group need education?  

1) To make up for lost time.

For me, it was 30 years of starving my brain for input, only feeding it cult publications and the King James Bible — my poor neglected brain! There is so much in this world to learn, and I learned nothing of much use for those 30 years. 

2) To stimulate brain growth and restructuring.

The need to constantly submit to the will of "God" and your leaders, the arbitrary corrections and public humiliations, the ever-present financial struggle, the virtually non-stop work because of "the shortness of time," the utter lack of space to call your own, and the countless other stresses of cult life all compounded to rob the brain of its ability to produce new cells.  

To undo this damage, the brain needs stimulation and exercise. And not just any stimulation, but serious concentration and study. New pathways need to be forged, and that requires focused mental effort.

3) To "unlearn" cult intuitions and reactions.

Living in a delusional bubble develops intuitive thoughts and natural reactions that are simply wrong. These need to be "erased" and replaced by more common-sense reactions.

What cult intuitions? For example:

• I brushed off conflicts with a "Let's pray," telling myself that "God will work it out," instead of learning to negotiate and deal with disagreements and disputes. 

• I dismissed any encouragement, "If anything good comes of me, it's only Jesus. I am bad." The brain already has a negativity bias, so this one slides by easily without question and can develop into self-loathing.

• I was besieged by guilt if I were to do anything outside of the prescribed behavior of a cultist; that proclivity towards guilt needed to be shed.

Being aware of the multitudinous unnatural, knee-jerk reactions developed during cult years is the first step to laying them aside.

To actually "unlearn" these intuitions, a complete rewiring of the brain is needed. Because neural-plasticity is competitive, we need to put forth effort to learn in order for new connections to be built. In so doing, the old pathways will gradually fade and the space they had taken in the brain will be rechanneled by the new, fresh brain maps. That conscious focus on learning stimulates new cell growth in the particular area of study, as well as vitalizes the entire brain.

4) To understand.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." (Socrates)

I made bad decisions in my life. It is deeply painful to realize yet must be faced. How did this happen? Why did this happen? What can I learn from this experience?

To deny the reality of years wasted is to continue to live in a bubble of delusion.

Know Thyself

When I first broke ties with TFI, it was as if my head was filled with mist. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time. As I wrote in Adjustment, my mind was dominated by the slow realization that I had wasted years of my life, and worse, given my children a godawful childhood. The overwhelming guilt of these actions was growing by the day. On top of that, mental confusion.

As I look back now, I shake my head at my naivety and foolish efforts. I realize though, that we only know what we know at the time. We cannot know what we don't know. And I surely didn't.

What do people need, then, after they leave a high-demand cult (or "New Religious Movement" as TFI likes to call itself)? Education. Concerted efforts at concentration and learning. The strength to face up to the reality of the bad decisions made. 

Recently, I've spoken with a few still-loyal cult members. How do they view their pasts and the abusive history of the group? "It was in the past!" alluding to the verse, "Forgetting those things that are behind..." (Philippians 3:13)

Even many ex-First Generation Members (called in cult lingo, FGA's) use that same tactic of denial, which is simply the refusal to face reality. I can see why ex- and current cultists would not want to stop and examine their lives. The horror of a life wasted is too much for the psyche. Their self-narrative of being a "good person," a "sacrificial missionary," won't hold up. So we tend to hear excuses from the ex-FGA's, such as this all-too-common justification, "My heart was in the right place. God looks at the heart." As if intention is all that matters.

But it isn't.

Hope

I recently came upon some information that was quite encouraging. A psychologist named Dean Simonton discovered that what had been thought as age-related cognitive decline was not actually a function of age, but rather a function of disciplinary age, in other words, how long a person has been in a specific vocation or area of study. People who change careers or foci are able to rejuvenate their brains. 

Another psychologist, Marian Diamond, confirmed this. Further, in her research on aged rodents, she found that a rich environment made for more synapses, stronger connections, and even more neural growth.

Interestingly, this finding also ties into research on addiction. Rats given two water bottles, one with just water, one with water laced with heroin or cocaine, would generally choose and continue returning to the drugged water. Researcher Bruce Alexander found, though, that addicted rats that were moved to new cages containing toys and tunnels and friends seemed to become "happy" and voluntarily left the drugs, choosing to drink only from the water bottle. Meanwhile, the "unhappy" rats, alone and unstimulated, continued on with their drug use.

In short, he found that lonely, isolated rats turned to drugs; happy, social rats had little interest in them. This overturned the conventional wisdom on addiction.* 

Exercise is also a factor in brain plasticity and growth. According to Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold, "Voluntary exercise can increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and other growth factors, stimulate neurogenesis, increase resistance to brain insult and improve learning and mental performance... Thus, exercise could provide a simple means to maintain brain function and promote brain plasticity."**

Of course, I regret all the wasted years in the cult, but I am heartened that all is not lost. My brain has not deteriorated beyond help. By devoting myself to new areas of study, exercising daily in a variety of ways from walking and climbing to swimming and weight training, and opening my mind up to a vast variety of input, I can still make progress and not necessarily become a doddering old fool.

* Addiction:  The View from Rat Park, Bruce K. Alexander, 2010
** Exercise:  a behavioral intervention to enhance brain health and plasticity, Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold, 2002