By Jayne Lyons
Jessica, be safe, stay safe, find a safe place to recover for a while.
Post-Cult Trauma Syndrome
After leaving a cult, an individual may experience intense and conflicting emotions. She may feel relief to be out, but also may feel grief over the loss of friendships, a sense of belonging, or feelings of worth generated by the group’s stated ideals or mission.
The emotional upheaval is characterized by “post-cult trauma syndrome”. It’s symptoms are
spontaneous crying
sense of loss
depression & suicidal thoughts
fear that not obeying the cult’s wishes will result in God’s wrath or loss of salvation
alienation from family, friends
sense of isolation, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who have no basis for understanding cult life
fear of evil spirits taking over one’s life outside the cult
scrupulosity, excessive rigidity about rules of minor importance
panic disproportionate to one’s circumstances
fear of going insane
confusion about right and wrong
sexual conflicts
unwarranted guilt
Like any great change in a person’s life, leaving a cult involves passing through stages:
Disbelief/denial: “This can’t be happening. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Anger/hostility: “How could they/I be so wrong?” (hate feelings)
Self-pity/depression: “Why me? I can’t do this.”
Fear/bargaining: “I don’t know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want.”
Reassessment: “Maybe I was wrong about the group’s being so wonderful.”
Accommodation/acceptance: “I can move beyond this experience and choose new directions for my life” or…
Re-involvement: “I think I will rejoin the group.”
This is seldom a smooth progression. It is typical to bounce back and forth between stages. Not everyone achieves acceptance.
Some return to cult life.
For those who do not, they may experience for several months:
flashbacks to cult life
simplistic black-white thinking
sense of unreality
suggestibility, i.e.. automatic obedience responses to trigger-terms of the cult’s loaded language or to innocent suggestions
disassociation (spacing out)
feeling “out of it”
“Stockholm Syndrome”: knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is criticized, even if the cult hurt the person
difficulty concentrating
incapacity to make decisions
hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticizes the cult or toward the cult itself
mental confusion
low self-esteem
dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake
loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks
dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult
hang-overs of habitual cult behaviors like chanting
difficulty managing time
trouble holding down a job
Most of these subside as the ex-cult member mainstreams into everyday routines of non-cult life. In a few cases, the symptoms continue.
This information is a composite list from:
“Coming Out of Cults”, by Margaret Thaler Singer, Psychology Today, Jan. 1979, P. 75; “Destructive Cults, Mind Control and Psychological Coercion”, Positive Action Portland, Oregon, and “Fact Sheet”, Cult Hot-Line and Clinic, New York City.
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