Why Leaving A Cult Is Hard
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Since sharing my Jesus Boot Camp story when I was attending a Christian college, I'm often asked, “Why didn't I just leave?” I'm going to answer that question and bring up a few points from being completely isolated, brainwashed, and being held against my will.
When I was in a cult – I didn't realize I was. It's taken a long time to process - what happened. Even now, this is something that is still hard for me to talk about. I didn't fully grasp before how isolated I was.
Looking back, I was the perfect candidate for joining a group like that. I was never allowed to have non-Christian friends. I also grew up being indoctrinated from the time I was 5 weeks old when I was adopted. I even went to a Lutheran school in elementary and middle school and was taught creationism there. In elementary school on Wednesdays, we had chapel and every morning we had prayer. This was all that I knew. I didn't know any different. I didn't know any better or any other way of living. The only world I knew, my network, was the church and it seemed that my only option going forward academically was going to a Christian college. Which is funny, I mean, little did I know there would be hardly any academics involved. I was extremely gullible and had just turned 18 when I attended the school for only less than 3 months. Other students who tried to leave weren't so lucky. I think two others left after I did. There were 34 students that attended the school.
The schedule was draining. At 7 am until 9 am, we were in a chapel praying. The whole day after prayer we were doing work around the church, had very minimal classes... the pastors were our teachers and I don't think a single one of them had a teaching degree.
We also did armor-bearer work. What is that? In the Bible, it says an armor-bearer is “One who carried the large shield and perhaps other weapons for a king” (1 Samuel 31:4).
At the school, Armor-bearers a.k.a. students a.k.a. unpaid laborers, fulfilled a wide variety of duties, depending mostly on the leader's needs. Men would serve other men and women would serve women because assistance with personal issues can be part of the armor bearer's duties. We were told we would help out a pastor's family with housework at least once a week for a few hours and this was one of our services to the lord.
My entire day was filled with church. I barely ever called my parents, I never had time to, I was completely sucked in. When you're being brainwashed, you don't realize you are, you don't realize that it's happening to you. It's not obvious, esp. when you're surrounded by your friends or family. I didn't have any friends on 'the outside' to give any perspective. You don't recognize abusive control, you don't even think to criticize the person with authority. Rationalizations are given to you to explain away anything contradictory. The common use of the term implies a blind spot where you cannot see an opposing point of view because of some control or conditioning. Contradictory facts cannot be processed, or are warped to fit into a form that no longer contradicts. There's cognitive dissonance and a lack of insight.
When the group you're a part of opposes critical thinking, they seek and imply inappropriate loyalty to their leaders, they emphasize special doctrines outside of scripture, they isolate members and penalize them for leaving.
Someone recently said to me, it sounds analogous to someone who is trapped in an abusive relationship. “Someone plays tricks to “test” the relationship, claims they hurt you because they love you, demands you do as they say without question – if you behave or think in a way they disapprove, they threaten you with some form of harm. They isolate you from anyone who disagrees, they tell you this is what true love is."
Why didn't I just leave?
I didn't have a car, there wasn't Uber or Lyft then, and I had no idea how to live in the world. I just turned 18, I didn't have a job, didn't have any money. I thought maybe I could live on the streets until somehow I got a job... where would I have gone? Without help from anyone?
Leaving a cult is hard because you don't have access to any help from outside of the group.
If you talk about leaving, you're looked down upon and shamed for even considering leaving. I didn't know how to live or function outside of these ideas that were forced upon me and simply leaving wasn't an option. What I thought I could do was talk to my family - I first told my parents that this was a mistake. Something about this school felt wrong and I needed to leave. I wasn't believed. They saw it as a difficult transition and that I just needed to give it more time because I had moved away from home to another state. After that, I told the pastors, nothing happened there, so I told a Christian counselor I was seeing at the church. I told her I needed to leave, that I was thinking of self-harm, I was feeling really, really low. Her response was that Satan was putting these thoughts into my head and that I just shouldn't let him do that.
I was trapped. When you're in a cult, you don't realize what you've gotten into until it's too late and it's like there's no way out.
I was being held against my will.
After doing all I thought I could do, tell my family, talk to the church, talk to a counselor – no one was listening to me. I thought my only other option was self harm. If no one could hear me, maybe I could show them I needed help. I needed to get out. If you saw my other video, you'll know that didn't work either.
So what else can I do? Threaten suicide. I don't want to go back into the details of that part of the story again, if you want to know about it, click here.
Even when I threatened suicide and later stayed at a hospital, I realized I never wanted to die. I remember being in the bathroom stall the morning I ran off, crying & thinking there has to be a way out, there has to be. If I just hold on a little longer, maybe I'll find a way out. It was like a mental ticking time bomb about to go off and when it did my plan was to run head first into this stone wall in the bathroom – but I kept waiting... and someone found me.
When I was at the hospital after my suicide threat, I spoke with a psychiatrist and started telling him my story. He flat out told me, “I think you've been brainwashed.” When he said that it really pissed me off. It pissed me off because I didn't want it to be true. How could I have possibly been brainwashed? I thought, 'I'm not someone who falls for a scam. That's something that you hear happen to other people, but not me'.
I was delusional. I wish I would have been able to talk to that psychiatrist. Him and the other people at the hospital were “the outsiders” I didn't trust - but they were trying to help me. When you're brainwashed, you don't even know where to look for help.
Fortunately – I recently found an organization that helps people get out of abusive institutions. They're called SIA.
I've come to learn that the school I attended is only one of many.
If you are someone who is suffering from this kind of abuse, know that here is help, there is hope. And you are not alone.
-Sarah
