Leaving a cult (and its side effects) behind

If there's one thing I learned from being in the Jehovah Witnesses for 19 years, it's that what people like to refer to as the truth, is very often just misguided hope. The actual truth, considering how little we can actually know about it, usually turns out to be slightly less convenient. Hear my story?

As early in life as I can remember, I had to attend boring religious meetings, three times a week. About one-hundred persons in a "kingdom hall" would proceed to read a few pages from a book or article written and printed by the organization. Someone would read out loud, others would take care of carrying a set of microphones along the rows of seats. People would raise their hand to get a chance to share their "personal" answer to one of several questions they were supposed to have prepared for in advance; pretty one-sided questions. This could last up to two hours (including some depressingly repetitive monologues). At the end, we had to stay for a while still, to fraternize. Little could I know that what I was witnessing was not Jehovah, but the mind-control tactics of a religious cult. It's not as if back then I had any choice; but it taught me quite a bit about patience...

I was made to memorize prefabricated answers to provide when teachers or other children would question why I wasn’t celebrating holidays or why I didn’t want them to sing me Happy Birthday. I was told that the end was near and that every single person on Earth was about to die, except us and those whom we could manage to save. Around the age of 6 or 7, I was warned against making friends with pretty much anyone around me. The reasoning was that if I became emotionally close with non-Jehovah Witnesses, I would be very sad watching them die on the day of Armageddon; and Armageddon was coming soon. It’s still coming soon. I’m not afraid about God murdering my neighborhood anymore, but it taught me about what careless wording can do to the mind of a child.

Being a teenager wasn’t easy either. Before I even knew what an erection is, I was warned against the dangers of homosexuality, masturbation, pornography and adultery; therefore, most of my sex ed came from porn. Years before I could even grasp the concept of flirting, I was warned that flirting is a very bad and dangerous thing to do. Useless to say, I was never to have a girlfriend; never to hang out with chicas without adult supervision. One day, I could get married with one single, virgin female, and that wasn’t anywhere close to happening, therefore, I did what humans do best: I adapted; and felt guilty for it. So here I am, almost 30 years old, in a 10 year old relationship. Never learned much about flirting but I have learned how simple honesty beats skillful manipulation.

Instead of going out and learning many social skills I could now benefit from as an adult, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours going door to door, every Saturday morning (and other days of the week too). At each single door, I would grab all my courage and knock. If given a chance to talk, I would repeat what I was indoctrinated into believing. Thanks to this, I have probably faced more rejections during my teenage than people should face in a normal lifetime. With a few exceptions, it was systematic door-after-door rejection. I missed out on all of the peaceful awakenings, and morning cartoons, but I did come to learn that courage and social phobia aren't mutually exclusive.

It was near the end of my teenage that I finally started to rebel. Seeing how I was questioning her faith and refusing to attend church, my mother became frightened, even terrified that I might not be granted eternal life after all. The abominable idea that she could spend the rest of eternity living "happily" in a terrestrial paradise, having failed to save me from her loving God's wrath; that she just couldn't handle. Looking back, I now suspect that my mom was probably already suffering from emotional trauma. Having been abused herself, she must have been a perfect target for cults at the time. I realize that religion cannot be blamed for all our psychological issues; however, it probably acted as a catalyst and worse, it also prevented her from seeking some professional help.

In most religious cults and even larger religions, public image is unfortunately much more important than anyone's health. Think about the Catholic Church and how they handle cases of children abuse. Even today, I'm forced to admit that although I was able to escape by developing some basic critical thinking skills, the mind programming was still partially successful. I’m not always happy but somehow, I stay under the impression that I should always look as if I am. In social situations involving more than two people, I am often so worried about external judgment that I just shy away from opportunities to make new friends. Social anxiety/phobia appears to be a common issue among people who have escaped from mind-control based religions. 

Overtime, I have come to be a person who loves irony, but it does sometimes make me mad that even though I've completely changed my mind, and try my best to view things rationally, I still sometimes find myself acting exactly the way I was conditioned to, as a child. Developing (let alone maintaining) critical thinking just isn't as easy as I wish it were. I can very well see how people would allow others to tell them how to act or think; mind-control schemes can seem attractive when considering the arduousness of having to account for our own decisions.