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Leaving a cult

From Take Back Your Life

Leaving a cult

After cult involvement, some people carry on with their
lives seemingly untouched; more typical re those who
experience a variety of emotional or psychological difficulties,
ranging from inability to sleep, restlessness, lack of direction,
panic attacks, memory loss and depression.
Professional, who work with cult survivors note that it can take
from one-two years for former members “to return to their formal level of adaptation.”

Assessing the damage

Why do some people have psychotic episodes or attempt suicide
after leaving the group while other are able to restore order to their life?

*Before cult involvement
-Age Children who had no choice
Certain Life crises, divorce, unemployment, re-location, marriage

-Prior History of emotional problems

*During Cult Involvement
-Length of time in the cult and intensity of indoctrination, access to medical care

Specific indoctrination methods will also very in their effect.
For Instance, an intense workshop over a week or weekend
that includes sleep deprivation forms of hypnosis, and
self-exposure coupled with high degree of supervision
and lack of privacy is likely to produce rapid changed.
Some cults also use intrusive methods that effect members
on an intimate and or/sexual level. For example, there might
be mandated relationships, with either leaders or other members,
which can be a source of great discomfort and misery.
[“truth teachings” or “weddings” anyone?]

-Poor or inadequate Medical care
For example, one young man left a cult that was intensely homophobic,
with the leader continually deriding lesbians and gays.
After he left the group, this young man contracted HIV,
but denied himself any of the new medical treatments that
could have saved his life because of the residual guilt he
carried from his involvement with the cult.

In yet other groups severe illness, either medical or psychological, is cause for ejection from the group with ill members being deposited in the emergency rooms of local hospitals or shipped home.

To date, there are no studies on the morbidity or mortality rates in cult groups or in the former member population. Many medical journals and psychological journals, suggest that involvement in cultic groups and relationships has produced a number of preventable casualties, including suicide. For example, former members of one well-known group count at least 31 suicides in the past thirteen years, including two adult children of top leaders,

Calling for a public health response to the cult phenomenon in our society, psychiatrist Louis J. West aptly writes, “Existing data now suffice to convince any reasonable person that the claims of harm done by cults are bona fide. There are a good many people already dead or dying, ill or malfunctioning, crippled, or developing improperly as a result of their involvements with cults. They are exploited, used and mis-used, and their health suffers.”