How Did I End Up in a
Spiritually Abusive Group?
People don't knowingly join spiritually abusive groups. Deceptive, exploitive leaders offer innocent seekers a trade, but the long term results can turn out to be devastating.
HIDDEN: To put or to keep out of sight; secret; concealed; to keep from being seen by covering up (If the abuse is "hidden," then someone becomes the unknowing target. You cannot take the blame.)
ABUSE: To use wrongly; to mistreat; to deceive. ("Abuse" tells us there's a perpetrator involved.)
Noble things you may have been seeking before you were deceived:
- A Purpose
- A life purpose; a commitment; significance in life; a cause
- A family
- A place to belong; a group of friends; intimate confidants; new brothers and sisters
- A Systematized Belief System
- Need some kind of a philosophical, religious, political ordering of life
- Promises (eastern worldview)
- Higher consciousness
- Finding the god within or meeting your "spirit guide"
- Reincarnation
- The Promise of Spirituality or a Relationship With God (a Christian worldview)
- A true search for meaning
- A spiritual grounding
- Knowledge about God and the universe
- The Promise of Personal Growth (a humanistic worldview)
- Success; fulfillment; personal strength; confidence; wisdom; creativity and high productivity
- The Promise of Power (a variety of worldviews, including occultic)
- Power to cover up a painful past
- Control
You may have thought you went into your group open-eyed, but you ended up finding abuse inside.
The long term results (abuses) of trying to find:
- A Purpose
- Lack of purpose (because of assuming the leader's purpose)
- Don't know who you are anymore or what you're to do
- Confusion, depression, anger over lost years
- Limited career growth
- Broken marriages
- Impaired health
- A family
- A demagogue that demands more and more of your life.
- Feeling used
- Realizing the caring and love in the group was only conditional
- Boundary violations (can even include deviant sexual behavior)
- Cultic dysfunctional family
- Empty, lonely and unable to trust people; hard to make a commitment to others
- Obsessing with never finding a place to belong again; suicidal; depression
- Rejection of all authority
- Problem with independence and dependence
- Socially immature
- A Systematized Belief System
- Feel you can't trust any system of doctrinal teachings anymore
- Confused and angry
- Left with myriads of triggers from religious ceremonies
- Being dominated by core teachings that you haven't rejected yet (it takes a lot of time and study to challenge the content of the teachings you've been taught)
- General mental instability
- Promises (eastern worldview)
- Brain processing problems (unable to read and retain)
- Memory problems
- Lack of ability to concentrate (slipped into the sub-cortical level of sub-conscious altered states)
- Addictiveness (to altered states)
- Inability to focus on job tasks
- Psychic breakdown
- Impaired health
- Dissociative disorder
- The Promise of Spirituality or a Relationship With God (a Christian worldview)
- Finding the leader's interpretation of the "truth" with the leader at the center of it
- Harmful and/or false experiences (altered states; feverish tongues-speaking; endless spiritual warfare exercises)
- Spiritual maturity and discernment not attained
- The experience becomes addictive
- Feel you have left God when disfellowshipped, or exiting on your own (the relationship between the leader, the teaching and God is very intertwined)
- Reinforcing addictive relationships to yourself (your goal previously was to bring or evangelize people to "God's Kingdom")
- Trying to figure out what you believe and who you can trust as a spiritual authority
- The group preached grace but lived the law (the leader twists Scriptures)
- A real search for who you are and feeling significant again (the group made you feel elite and special)
- Guilt, depression, anxiety, obsessing over particular passages of Scripture (leading to despair, suicide attempts and nightmares)
- Inability to make simple decisions without spiritual leaders being consulted (frustration, confusion, frozen behavior)
- Inoculation against anything spiritual (loss of interest in praying, Bible study; worship of any kind)
- The Promise of Personal Growth (a humanistic worldview)
- Psychotic breakdowns
- Dissociative problems
- Breakdown of trust in authority figures
- Loss of personal boundaries with regard to family secrets (boundaries were violated inside)
- Realizing you were defined by success or lack of it
- Empty and self-worth impaired
- Financial or marital instability
- History of illegal activities
- Lack of trust with the therapeutic community
- The Promise of Power (a variety of worldviews, including occultic)
- Violated conscience
- Ravaged body
- A mind full of unforgettable scenes
- Memories and massive triggers
- More pain
- Nightmares
In spite of any abuse you may have gone through, the very fact that you are reading this means you are a survivor and that you have the strength within you to make it.
~Outline from ESN tape: Hidden Abuses in Cults.
Also read: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing [offsite link]