I escaped from a cult.
Not the kind that kidnaps you, brainwashes you and demands a ransom from your family. This one was far more sinister.
When my family moved back to Pennsylvania from Tennessee in 1999, we were broken. Our marriage was in shambles, my husband was struggling at his job and our kids were young and needed a lot of attention. We were living in his parent's house while we looked for our own, sampling churches along the way.
Once we knew the area we were going to live, we narrowed our church search to those close by. In one church we went to, no one greeted us, or even acknowledged our presence. In another, we just happened to be there the same day the pastor announced his resignation. So, when we happened upon a small, overly-friendly congregation, it seemed like a great fit. At least to my husband. He went to the altar for prayer. He cried and cried. When we got home, he said being at that church made him "feel like he was home".
I didn't feel the same.
Something just seemed a little too good there.
I sat back and I watched. That's what I do. Size people up. See if their walk matches their talk. I hang back in the shadows, watching, trying to be unnoticeable. I began to make friends on the fringe, but never quite considering it *my* church.
After we'd been there for about a year, I began to slowly let my guard down. I became involved in things. I attended women's bible studies and outings. I was assigned a mentor. It seemed like the more I shared with her, the higher I rose in the church. This brought jealous whispers behind my back and strange accusations. It didn't make sense to me. I was just being me, trying to improve myself.
I joined the prayer team. I became the administrative assistant to the pastor. I was in the inner circle. The whispers continued. But I was confident in my position, knowing I was not doing anything wrong. And as I felt more comfortable, I shared more and more of me. My past, my hurts, my struggles. The problem was, I was sharing those details with the wrong people.
The pastor was charismatic. Fatherly. Disarming. He seemed safe, maybe even trustworthy. For me, that was a giant step. The way he asked questions seemed caring, not probing. I began to tell him more and more, thinking he was helping me deal with my past, sort out current issues, deal with people. Instead he was grooming me. Using my hurts, my quirks, my pasts to manipulate me, to further entrench me in their *system*.
Things were good there for a long time.
We established strong friendships. Our house was often filled with people and laughter.
We experienced healing in our marriage, even having a ceremony there to renew our marriage vows.
I began to have healing in my life, starting to deal with scary, hurtful things from my past.
To let people *in*.
Then things got strange. It began to fill uncomfortable. We began to question things being said and done. That was the beginning of the end. I'd seen what happened to people who disagreed: how they were punished, ostracized, talked about, forced to leave. Suddenly I was that person. My worst nightmare was coming true.
The next 14 months were basically hell on earth for my family. I watched my children's friends be torn away from them. People quit talking to us. I was forbidden to talk to the "pastor", and was assigned a handler who was supposed to be my liaison. He took his job very seriously, using every opportunity to remind me of his place of power over me.
Fourteen months of pain and bewilderment.
Fourteen months of watching our friends drift away, choosing to sacrifice their relationships with us in order to maintain their position in the church.
Fourteen months of no one praying for us.
Fourteen months of crying every. single. day.
When we finally left there, I was totally broken.
My physical health deteriorated to the point that I had to stop working. Some days I couldn't even get out of bed. I was in constant physical pain. The emotional pain was immeasurable.
I was diagnosed with complex PTSD.
I lived in constant fear of running into someone from that leadership team. The few times i did see people at the grocery store, they made eye contact then turned and walked away.
I felt like a pariah.
We've been away from that for seven years now.
In some ways, I feel like I'm back to the broken woman I was when we first started attending there. The guard is so much stronger now, more impenetrable than it was before.
I'm more alert and cautious.
I'm slower to let people in, and quicker to let them out.
It's a lonely place to be.
I'm looking for the ways that I'm stronger now because of that experience. Those are harder to find. I feel like the areas that I'm stronger in are negatives.
I'm more cynical.
I'm more guarded.
I'm even more untrusting.
But I'm alive. I got out.
The cult, that man, did not break me.
