Netflix’s new psychological thriller Unchosen might be a fictional tale about a young woman caught up in a reclusive cult. But the plotlines are actually based on true stories from people who have escaped cults across the UK.
Cult life is more common than some of us might think. The International Cultic Studies Association estimates that more than a million people are involved in a cult at some point in their lifetime. Many victims have no clue that something odd is up because manipulation is exactly how cults operate. But for the lucky ones who do manage to escape, there's often a turning point, or defining moment, that pushes them to leave.
Someone asked, "For those of you that escaped cults... what was your 'I need to get the [heck] out' story?" and over a thousand survivors came forward with their stories. From the creepy to the shocking and the downright heartbreaking, Bored Panda has put together a list of the best. Many are proof that even if we think something will never happen to us, it actually just might.
#1
Went to a church that had a night where a faith healer came to visit. He "healed" a teenager of very severe asthma. As a sign of his faith, the teenager goes out on the bike trails without his inhaler the next day and almost passes away. The pastor visits the family in the hospital and tells the heartbroken parents it was because they didn't have enough faith. And with that, I exit stage right. I say that because that's when I realized the whole thing was an effing show.
45points
There could be up to 10,000 cults in the United States alone. That's according to international cult expert Steve Eichel, who is the president of the International Cultic Studies Association. But it's difficult to pinpoint an exact figure.
"Most cults are extremely small and very deliberately try to stay under the radar," says Eichel. "Unless they commit a crime, unless they do something that draws attention to them—negative attention and criticism to them—we generally don't know about them."
#2
When I divorced my toxic ex and realized that I wasn't free to have ANY more relationships after that if I also wanted to maintain my relationships with my family and entire social system - friends, acquaintances, everyone I knew. All because that cult masquerading as a religion controlled practically every part of my life. You're not allowed to remarry, date or even flirt. Completely humiliating.
It's the Jehovah's Witnesses, in case you can't tell. The second wake-up came shorty thereafter when Australia revealed that they had a massive pedophile problem that they refuse to address. To this day, they are the only religion in Australia who refuses to apologize, reform or work with the authorities on how they can change anything, when they clearly are the worst of the bunch when it comes to systemic child mistreatement.
It is a horrible, repressive cult. Never join them or even study with them unless you do your google homework first.
It's the Jehovah's Witnesses, in case you can't tell. The second wake-up came shorty thereafter when Australia revealed that they had a massive pedophile problem that they refuse to address. To this day, they are the only religion in Australia who refuses to apologize, reform or work with the authorities on how they can change anything, when they clearly are the worst of the bunch when it comes to systemic child mistreatement.
It is a horrible, repressive cult. Never join them or even study with them unless you do your google homework first.
41points
#3
My cousin and I talking on the phone when we were 16 and he had just gotten diagnosed with cancer. We were Jehovah's Witnesses and they don't allow blood transfusions. To live, Trent was going to need blood transfusions. I can still hear him saying "I don't want to anger Jehovah but I want to live. I'm just a kid!"
And all at once I went from being a good little JW kid to only doing what I absolutely had to because I still lived with my parents.
And all at once I went from being a good little JW kid to only doing what I absolutely had to because I still lived with my parents.
36points
In a previous interview, Eichel told Bored Panda that cults vary tremendously in the content of their beliefs and rituals.
"Most people have heard of religious cults, but there are political cults, therapy cults, marketing cults, and cults that blend all of these together," he said. "However, their processes are usually very similar and that's how we recognize cults. Not by their 'crazy' beliefs, but by how people are treated in the group, and by the psychosocial processes they use to recruit and keep members."
#4
I was raised in a Christian church that was borderline cult status. No music. No movies. We were told never to get close to anyone who wasn’t from the church. And it isn’t uncommon for 16 and 17 year olds to get married before they graduate high school. And I knew I had to leave when during the sermon the preacher told the congregation that it was a sin to think too much about what they told us. Most of my family still goes to that church so I’m kind of an outcast. People outside the church don’t care to know me because I’m so much different mentally and people from the church barely will look at me because I left it.
Edit: thanks for the upvotes. I’ve never really talked to anyone about it before but I’ve always wanted a chance to share so thank you for this.
Edit: thanks for the upvotes. I’ve never really talked to anyone about it before but I’ve always wanted a chance to share so thank you for this.
36points
#5
I was in a 'wellness community' for 3 years. They started by telling us to drink special green juice every morning, but it got darker. Eventually, they isolated us from family, took our phones, and made us work 18-hour days in their 'healing gardens.' The leader claimed she could cure cancer with meditation. Got out when I saw them forcing a diabetic girl to stop her insulin. Called my sister at 2 AM from a gas station payphone and never looked back.
31points
#6
Former Mormon, and when I was about 13 and couldn't get any satisfying explanation as to why women couldn't hold the priesthood- ie. Have any position in the church above a Sunday school teacher. Everything we learned and did revolved around becoming a good housewife.
30points
The word "cult" gets thrown around loosely nowadays, but Eichel says there are some ways to identify whether you're caught up in one. The first is pressure. "Any kind of pressure to make a quick decision about becoming involved in any intensive kind of activity or organization," the expert notes, is a red flag.
Eichel also warns that you should be wary of any leader who proclaims him or herself as having special powers, special insight, or divinity. Another giveaway is if the group is closed. "In other words," says Eichel, "although there may be outside followers, there's usually an inner circle that follows the leader without question, and that maintains a tremendous amount of secrecy."
#7
Former Mormon. Ever seen the South Park episode wherein Joseph Smith “translates” the Book of Mormon using a hat and a rock? The entire episode is factually accurate.
Mormons are historically racist and extremely sexist to boot. Their entire dogma reads like the insane ramblings of a hateful, exclusionary, lustful snake-oil salesman. Because it is.
Mormons are historically racist and extremely sexist to boot. Their entire dogma reads like the insane ramblings of a hateful, exclusionary, lustful snake-oil salesman. Because it is.
30points
#8
After 47 years of strict adherence, I was sitting in church one day looking at Facebook on my phone, came across an article and begin reading it, jaw hitting the floor, while in church (using the church Wi-Fi as I read this expose on the same church I was sitting in) which led to 2 1/2 months of intense research that opened my eyes to the lies and hidden history of the Mormon church. Despite how badly I wanted to avoid the awakening bc it would mean that my entire life up until that point had been hijacked from me by a fake religion and fraudulent founder, the mounting evidence eventually overwhelmed me and I stopped believing. That was 2 1/2 years ago and I cannot express through words how much it means to me to now have the rest of my life to be my own, not a series of decisions that I will make under the false teachings of the Mormon church. The most difficult part? None of my close friends or family, except for one of my five children, will talk to me about any of it or read any of the articles that could wake them up, despite many of the articles being found in official church literature and sources the church accepts as true.
25points
#9
I grew up in a sort of fringe protestant religion and went to boarding school for high school. One Wednesday night they herded all of us students into the chapel where they showed us a very long documentary on the evils of music like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. You know the drill, playing everything backwards, sacrifices to Satan, etc. I was kind used to eyerolling this tbh, since I had always loved rock music and my mom kinda programmed to me to be skeptical of the church anyways.
I just remember my friend Jake sitting in front of me starting to look around at all the other students who seemed to be kind of hypnotized by the whole thing. He caught my eye and said something like, "Whitewolf! What is this? Isn't this weird? This is wrong!" - and just for that something we had accepted as normal behavior became the launching point for seeing everything else they did from another perspective. Just to have another person in there with me that confirmed my eye-rolling and even alerted me that we actually were sitting in a Wednesday night brainwashing session.
I just remember my friend Jake sitting in front of me starting to look around at all the other students who seemed to be kind of hypnotized by the whole thing. He caught my eye and said something like, "Whitewolf! What is this? Isn't this weird? This is wrong!" - and just for that something we had accepted as normal behavior became the launching point for seeing everything else they did from another perspective. Just to have another person in there with me that confirmed my eye-rolling and even alerted me that we actually were sitting in a Wednesday night brainwashing session.
25points
Eichel told Bored Panda that cultic groups typically demand excessive commitments of time and money. "They engage in intensive 'education' classes (sometimes disguised as 'Bible study') that are basically indoctrination classes," he said.
They might also isolate their members. "Many cults cause estrangement or even total alienation from families of origin," he says. "They are deceptive in not being transparent about agendas, finances, the amount of coercion or control involved (e.g., you now have to give up your romantic life and only marry someone approved by the cult)."
#10
This will get buried, but this hits home hard. My realization that I needed to get out came when I found it was easier to tell my parents that my girlfriend was pregnant rather than tell them I didn’t want to go on a Mormon mission as a 17 year old. It’s been 10 years and looking back it makes no sense, but it lead me to a beautiful life and I’m immensely grateful. Now I’m the father of the two most incredible children and I haven’t looked back.
22points
#11
I don’t love talking about it, because I’m embarrassed I ever fell for it, but I was briefly involved in a MLM about 11 years ago, that in ways I view like a cult now. I’m talking meetings all the time, peer pressure to give up info on your friends so they can be pestered to join. These people’s whole friend groups revolved around the MLM.
So we went to a big weekend conference and on Sunday morning they had church services for each religion that went on simultaneously before the last day of “business training.” I’m not a religious guy so I asked my group to just get me after church, and they agreed. So Sunday morning, someone comes to grab me from the hotel room and we head over. Low and behold it’s church (the Christian service) and they’re like “surprise! We thought you could use the good word!” And I was PISSED.
But the real deal breaker is what the “leader” of our MLM said, which I’ll never forget.
“We have business partners currently worshiping in our Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist services. And we love them and support them...even though we know they’ll be in hell, because they can’t join us in the kingdom of heaven.”
I told them I was out on Monday.
TL;DR: Joined a MLM, went to a conference, got tricked into going to a church service, where the MLM leader essentially condemned people of other religions. Quit.
So we went to a big weekend conference and on Sunday morning they had church services for each religion that went on simultaneously before the last day of “business training.” I’m not a religious guy so I asked my group to just get me after church, and they agreed. So Sunday morning, someone comes to grab me from the hotel room and we head over. Low and behold it’s church (the Christian service) and they’re like “surprise! We thought you could use the good word!” And I was PISSED.
But the real deal breaker is what the “leader” of our MLM said, which I’ll never forget.
“We have business partners currently worshiping in our Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist services. And we love them and support them...even though we know they’ll be in hell, because they can’t join us in the kingdom of heaven.”
I told them I was out on Monday.
TL;DR: Joined a MLM, went to a conference, got tricked into going to a church service, where the MLM leader essentially condemned people of other religions. Quit.
20points
#12
When they wanted to install Covenant Eyes app on all of my devices including my work issued computer which contained access to multiple local celebrities information.
They flipped out when I nope'd out.
They flipped out when I nope'd out.
18points
One of the scariest things a cult leader might do is threaten members who want to leave.
"A very important aspect of cult is the idea that if you leave the cult, horrible things will happen to you," Eichel told us. "This is important, and it's important to realize that people outside of a cult are potential members, so they're not looked upon as negatively as people inside the cult who then leave the cult."
#13
I am a Former Jehovahs Witness. It was a a lot of things, but a big one was that I never felt like I could do enough, it was constant, never ending guilt. I used to think there was a problem with me, but I finally realized that no matter how much I did I would still feel like I wasn’t doing enough and that this wasn’t an accident, they wanted you to feel guilty and inadequate. I reached a breaking point and knew I had to get out for my own well being. Now I know more about cults and realize that this is a cornerstone of cult manipulation.
17points
#14
Two instances stick out to me, although I was just a child. My family was very involved and we didn’t get out until I was a teenager. My mom is still a member.
1: My first time sitting in a crowded room while the elders or leaders of the group publicly announced someone being “disfellowshipped” or ex-communicated. Meaning they did something wrong and nobody was allowed to speak to them until they were reinstated. I just remember feeling so sick for them. They were publicly shamed and humiliated, and their family was also treated poorly usually. Everyone knew about their perceived wrong doings. Even as a little kid it just seemed so wrong to me. Shouldn’t we have been extra supportive and loving to people when they were struggling with bad choices? Shouldn’t we be encouraging? It felt so gross and cruel. I knew then something was wrong but I was only about 5 years old and if you questioned anything it meant satan was putting lies into your head so I always just kept my mouth shut. If you tried to get out you’d be shunned too and lose everyone you loved.
2: When I was 8 years old, struggling with my parents divorce and my dads subsequent exit from the “congregation”, and an older family member sat me down and told me that if I wanted to have a dad I needed to convince him to start going back to “meetings” and being a good member of the congregation otherwise he would be taken at Armageddon and I’d never see him again. What a messed up thing to tell a child.
These are just the two biggest instances that come to mind, but I have a whole lifetime of trauma from my years in the cult.
1: My first time sitting in a crowded room while the elders or leaders of the group publicly announced someone being “disfellowshipped” or ex-communicated. Meaning they did something wrong and nobody was allowed to speak to them until they were reinstated. I just remember feeling so sick for them. They were publicly shamed and humiliated, and their family was also treated poorly usually. Everyone knew about their perceived wrong doings. Even as a little kid it just seemed so wrong to me. Shouldn’t we have been extra supportive and loving to people when they were struggling with bad choices? Shouldn’t we be encouraging? It felt so gross and cruel. I knew then something was wrong but I was only about 5 years old and if you questioned anything it meant satan was putting lies into your head so I always just kept my mouth shut. If you tried to get out you’d be shunned too and lose everyone you loved.
2: When I was 8 years old, struggling with my parents divorce and my dads subsequent exit from the “congregation”, and an older family member sat me down and told me that if I wanted to have a dad I needed to convince him to start going back to “meetings” and being a good member of the congregation otherwise he would be taken at Armageddon and I’d never see him again. What a messed up thing to tell a child.
These are just the two biggest instances that come to mind, but I have a whole lifetime of trauma from my years in the cult.
16points
#15
Would an MLM be considered a cult?
It was when my then-husband decided that he could do as he wished with me, even if I was asleep. Our upline/mentors had been pushing the idea that he was the leader in our home and business. He made the decisions. I awoke a few nights to something I did not approve of or ask for and finally decided to cut and run.
This is putting it very simply, as I don’t want to relive the details.
It was when my then-husband decided that he could do as he wished with me, even if I was asleep. Our upline/mentors had been pushing the idea that he was the leader in our home and business. He made the decisions. I awoke a few nights to something I did not approve of or ask for and finally decided to cut and run.
This is putting it very simply, as I don’t want to relive the details.
16points
Those who do manage to escape cults are often left with post-traumatic stress because of what they've experienced.
One study found that cult survivors in the United States experience PTSD at rates of 61.4% in men and 71.3% in women. Bear in mind that, according to the National Center for PTSD, the average rate of PTSD in Americans in general is around 6%.
"Grappling with your sense of self after a cult is another area where many ex-cult members suffer," reveals Ashlen Hilliard, a cult intervention specialist and founder of People Leave Cults. The expert says it's important to seek professional help after leaving or escaping a cult.
#16
Not me, but my aunt is a Jehovah Witness. I was 12 years old and was interested in gothic/emo culture. After watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” she pulled me aside and told me if I didn’t stop messing with the occult, I’d be attacked by demons.
Yeah.
I’m an atheist now.
Yeah.
I’m an atheist now.
13points
#17
I was in the cult known as “Amway” for two months. I learned that they love to dress up in formal business attire and sit and listen to “successful” people talk for hours. They put on this facade about how much they care about you and creating a friendship with you until you open your eyes and realize they only “care” about you because you can help them earn more money. God forbid you miss a phone call or else they think you aren’t committed to your business. They try to brainwash you into believing that if you listen to 3 audios of people talking a day that you’ll become successful. Once a week you meet up (in my experience it was in a hotel conference room) at like 7pm until 10pm listening to the same exact pitch and they expect you to take notes every. Single. Time. Then every month they’ll host these gatherings called Night Owls where they’ll meet up at a location (for us it was Pizza Ranch), you pay $10 to get in and you sit and eat and listen to the so called “successful” people talk until 3am.
The moment I realized I needed to get out of the cult was when I was giving my pitch to a buddy of mine via text and he said I sounded like I was using ChatGPT to text him. Needless to say if anyone ever approaches you asking if you’re open to making additional income SAY NO.
The moment I realized I needed to get out of the cult was when I was giving my pitch to a buddy of mine via text and he said I sounded like I was using ChatGPT to text him. Needless to say if anyone ever approaches you asking if you’re open to making additional income SAY NO.
12points
#18
I didn't "escape" so much as avoid a cult, but I'll answer.
When I met Julie, she and I were both young, college-age students. She was a little bit spacey, a little new-agey, but hey, it's Maui, it's hard to find anyone here that *isn't*. And despite that, she seemed smarter about it than most people, even about most skeptics I've known. She used to do some meditation, and had some little hindu deity images and stuff, and she explained to me, in sort of an embarrassed way early on that she didn't really believe in the stuff and felt silly about it, but she felt like the meditation helped her, and that the trappings of the belief system helped her to keep it up. Sort of in the same way that runners having a morning routine helps them to get out the door for that morning run every day, her routine helped her to keep up this habit that she found helpful.
Now, the fact that I'm describing all this in past tense means you're seeing it with that wonderful clarity that hindsight brings, but at the time, the *craziness* of her beliefs were completely shrouded. We transferred off-island to a different university together we moved across the country and back together, and we lived together for another six years after that--eleven years together in total, before I found out that she was in a cult, and had been since before I met her.
I won't say there weren't *any* red flags. She could be remarkably stubborn about some surprisingly odd things. The one that jumps to mind immediately was when some radio show brought up the issue of human cloning, and she insisted that there was no reason ever to do it. I disagreed, and said that it could have medical benefits that didn't simply result in organ harvesting from a captive, living host or something horror-movie esque like that, and she insisted that she would never see it as worthwhile, no matter what. Just weird stuff like that, with no context.
During our time together, I wound up working at a hardware store to pay bills, and injured my right eye in such a way that I have permanent double-vision. It has become a struggle in my life, but it's one I work around and try to make the best of.
One night, at about 3:30am, I woke up in my dark bedroom, with something warm on my face, and the sound of chanting. Not like, demonic growly chanting like you hear in the movies, it sounded closer to someone trying to sing along the falsetto part of an 80's song on their headphones, where you just hear their awkward voice and not the music that goes along with it, or the tune that they're trying to match. It was Julie, and she had her hand on my face, chanting an invocation to the Medicine Buddha. Yes. The Medicine Buddha. My girlfriend of eleven years was trying to cure my eye with faith-healing.
So I tried having an early-morning talk with her. It turns out, she believes she's successfully done this before, healing an injured bird that she found. Let me tell you the story of that bird. She found it outside our home, and it was clearly sick or injured. She put it in a little box, but didn't bring it inside (because our cat would probably not help its health). She would give it food and sit outside with it, and I found out later that she would similarly chant over it. One day she woke up, and the bird was gone.
"And you think you healed it and it just flew away."
"What else could it be?"
I rattled off a list. Maybe the neighbor's cat found it in that box. Maybe its normal biological processes healed it, and it took off. Maybe a neighbor kid found it and took it home and convinced his dad to take it to a vet. Maybe our landlord found it outside and got rid of it. Etc. etc. etc. She wouldn't hear any of it.
And that's when she told me the whole story. When she was younger, she met a dude named Mark. Online, of course. Mark made her feel appreciated, which she didn't at home, and invited her to visit him in Toronto. When she got there, it turned out Mark is a key figure in a "religious group." His grandfather is the leader of said group (I think his biological grandfather, though I'm not sure on this point), and Mark himself "channels the voices of the deities." Julie told me that she herself had witnessed him channel the voice of the deity responsible for the creation of humans, and she was utterly convinced.
What's more, the group has a mission. You see, the deities speak to them through entertainment media, primarily movies and such, which I mean, why bother when you have a kid who can channel your voice directly, but what do I know? Anyway, what they've informed the leader of, is that China is working to develop a soulless clone army (ah-hah! That's why she was so against cloning!), and that they would use this army to take over the world. The group was set to be the resistance against them, and the ones who would rebuild after this apocalyptic war. She told me all this thinking I would be grateful for finally hearing the truth.
Instead, I tried to talk to her about critical thinking, and she wouldn't listen to any of it. She *could not believe* that I wasn't even considering the truth of what she told me, and basically shut down completely. We went from a mostly happy, ordinary couple to complete strangers in *two days*. It was wild.
We broke up very shortly after that. I couldn't be with someone who exercised no critical thinking at all, and she, apparently, couldn't be with someone who exercised any.
Julie went on to sabotage the budding relationship with the woman I started dating afterward as well, using my old passwords (which I'd never told her, but she had snooped out) to access my accounts and invade my privacy. So yeah, I lost eleven years of my life to a real winner, there.
When I met Julie, she and I were both young, college-age students. She was a little bit spacey, a little new-agey, but hey, it's Maui, it's hard to find anyone here that *isn't*. And despite that, she seemed smarter about it than most people, even about most skeptics I've known. She used to do some meditation, and had some little hindu deity images and stuff, and she explained to me, in sort of an embarrassed way early on that she didn't really believe in the stuff and felt silly about it, but she felt like the meditation helped her, and that the trappings of the belief system helped her to keep it up. Sort of in the same way that runners having a morning routine helps them to get out the door for that morning run every day, her routine helped her to keep up this habit that she found helpful.
Now, the fact that I'm describing all this in past tense means you're seeing it with that wonderful clarity that hindsight brings, but at the time, the *craziness* of her beliefs were completely shrouded. We transferred off-island to a different university together we moved across the country and back together, and we lived together for another six years after that--eleven years together in total, before I found out that she was in a cult, and had been since before I met her.
I won't say there weren't *any* red flags. She could be remarkably stubborn about some surprisingly odd things. The one that jumps to mind immediately was when some radio show brought up the issue of human cloning, and she insisted that there was no reason ever to do it. I disagreed, and said that it could have medical benefits that didn't simply result in organ harvesting from a captive, living host or something horror-movie esque like that, and she insisted that she would never see it as worthwhile, no matter what. Just weird stuff like that, with no context.
During our time together, I wound up working at a hardware store to pay bills, and injured my right eye in such a way that I have permanent double-vision. It has become a struggle in my life, but it's one I work around and try to make the best of.
One night, at about 3:30am, I woke up in my dark bedroom, with something warm on my face, and the sound of chanting. Not like, demonic growly chanting like you hear in the movies, it sounded closer to someone trying to sing along the falsetto part of an 80's song on their headphones, where you just hear their awkward voice and not the music that goes along with it, or the tune that they're trying to match. It was Julie, and she had her hand on my face, chanting an invocation to the Medicine Buddha. Yes. The Medicine Buddha. My girlfriend of eleven years was trying to cure my eye with faith-healing.
So I tried having an early-morning talk with her. It turns out, she believes she's successfully done this before, healing an injured bird that she found. Let me tell you the story of that bird. She found it outside our home, and it was clearly sick or injured. She put it in a little box, but didn't bring it inside (because our cat would probably not help its health). She would give it food and sit outside with it, and I found out later that she would similarly chant over it. One day she woke up, and the bird was gone.
"And you think you healed it and it just flew away."
"What else could it be?"
I rattled off a list. Maybe the neighbor's cat found it in that box. Maybe its normal biological processes healed it, and it took off. Maybe a neighbor kid found it and took it home and convinced his dad to take it to a vet. Maybe our landlord found it outside and got rid of it. Etc. etc. etc. She wouldn't hear any of it.
And that's when she told me the whole story. When she was younger, she met a dude named Mark. Online, of course. Mark made her feel appreciated, which she didn't at home, and invited her to visit him in Toronto. When she got there, it turned out Mark is a key figure in a "religious group." His grandfather is the leader of said group (I think his biological grandfather, though I'm not sure on this point), and Mark himself "channels the voices of the deities." Julie told me that she herself had witnessed him channel the voice of the deity responsible for the creation of humans, and she was utterly convinced.
What's more, the group has a mission. You see, the deities speak to them through entertainment media, primarily movies and such, which I mean, why bother when you have a kid who can channel your voice directly, but what do I know? Anyway, what they've informed the leader of, is that China is working to develop a soulless clone army (ah-hah! That's why she was so against cloning!), and that they would use this army to take over the world. The group was set to be the resistance against them, and the ones who would rebuild after this apocalyptic war. She told me all this thinking I would be grateful for finally hearing the truth.
Instead, I tried to talk to her about critical thinking, and she wouldn't listen to any of it. She *could not believe* that I wasn't even considering the truth of what she told me, and basically shut down completely. We went from a mostly happy, ordinary couple to complete strangers in *two days*. It was wild.
We broke up very shortly after that. I couldn't be with someone who exercised no critical thinking at all, and she, apparently, couldn't be with someone who exercised any.
Julie went on to sabotage the budding relationship with the woman I started dating afterward as well, using my old passwords (which I'd never told her, but she had snooped out) to access my accounts and invade my privacy. So yeah, I lost eleven years of my life to a real winner, there.
11points
#19
I happen to have an exact moment. Let me start with it was not a confirmed cult, however I was listening to “Beautiful Anonymous” hosted by Chris Gethard. And a person on his podcast was a cult survivor. The more she talked the more scared I got. I was going to a met up with some other members. I threw two of them in my car and made them listen. We all quickly figured out what I had realized. We decided to stick it out, we had a trip at the end of summer, during the trip we made sure we were all in the same car, and we never came back.
Without listening to that podcast I would have never in my life thought it was possible to be in a cult (or more in my case a cult like environment) but you can.
Without listening to that podcast I would have never in my life thought it was possible to be in a cult (or more in my case a cult like environment) but you can.
11points
#20
When they changed their name. I had been sketched out for a while, but they made me alienate myself from all my friends outside the cult. So I stayed because I was worried I wouldn't have anyone. One day the pastor announced that they were changing their name and "going their own way". The other church they were partnered with dropped them because their views were getting too out there. A cult church got dropped from a bigger cult church because their views were too crazy. Sitting there that night I decided I had to go. It sucked loosing so many friends but now I'm in school and have a job I enjoy, had I stayed with them I'd be married to whatever guy there was closest to my age and pregnant with my third child.
11points