Recovering from Aesthetic Realism
How to deal with the after effects
Last update: May 2012
Anyone who's spent any time in a mind-control cult will be impacted psychologically by the experience, and AR is no different. This shouldn't be a surprise: The purpose of a cult is to get its members to believe that the group is the most important thing in the world, and to do that they have to get inside your head. They weaken your ego, so they can induce powerful feelings of guilt. You get criticized a lot. And any time you question the group at all, they tell you it's because of a personal failing inside yourself. Anything bad that happens is your fault. If they're successful then you wind up blaming yourself for things even if the group leaders don't. That kind of experience is incredibly damaging.
Could anyone come out of that experience and not be
affected by it?!
Maybe you think that now that you see your group for the cult it was, everything's better now. If so, then great. But for a lot of people, simply knowing that their group was in fact a cult isn't enough to erase the damage. Your mind can know that you have nothing to feel guilty about, but that doesn't necessarily mean you won't feel it anyway. You can't choose your feelings.
Here are a couple of (non-cult) examples. My mom took me to see Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory when I was three years old. There's a scene where a little girl eats some purple candy she wasn't supposed to, and she balloons up to be ten times her normal size. That scene freaked me out and I started crying and screaming, and my mother had to take me out of the theater. Years later when I was in high school I saw the movie again, and when that scene came around, I wasn't scared, but my stomach knotted itself anyway and I certainly felt uncomfortable. Even though I knew I had nothing to fear, I felt it anyway. As another example, there's something from my childhood which I know wasn't my fault, but to this day I still have dreams about it.
Margaret Singer, who pioneered research into destructive
cults, came up with some characteristics of post-cult trauma
syndrome. Here's a partial list:
- fear of going insane
- confusion about right and wrong
- sexual conflicts
- unwarranted guilt
- spontaneous crying
- sense of loss
- panic disproportionate to one's circumstances
- depression & suicidal thoughts
- fear that not obeying the cult's wishes will result
in God's wrath or loss of salvation [or in AR, the
ability to know the truth and to be happy]
- 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
She supplemented with some other effects that ex-members often experience:
- simplistic black-white thinking
- disassociation (spacing out)
- difficulty concentrating
- incapacity to make decisions
- 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
- difficulty managing time
- trouble holding down a job (see Singer's
complete list)
Cult experts recognize that people who leave cults have special challenges for getting over their experience. Most counselors and therapists aren't equipped to help ex-cult members in this way. If you seek counseling, it's crucial to choose a counselor who has specific training and experience in helping ex-cult members. Here's a list of some resources:
Books
- Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (Janja Lalich, 2006) Exactly what it says.
- Recovery
from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and
Spiritual Abuse (Michael
Langone, 1995)
- Cult
Survivors Handbook: How to live in the material
world again (Nori Muster, 2001)
- Releasing the Bonds: Empowering people to think for themselves (Steve Hassan, 2000) A handbook for those trying to rescue a loved one from a cult. It doesn't have a lot about recovery, but the explanations of how brainwashing works can help former cult members make sense of their experience.
- Cults
in Our Midst: The continuing fight against their
hidden mennace (Margaret Singer, 1996)
This is a landmark book about how cults use mind
control.
Counselors & Therapists (rates per session
as of Jan. 2017)
- Rosanne Henry (Littleton, CO) ($120)
- Rachel A. Bernstein (Encino, CA) ($225)
- Sara L. Crain (Alameda, CA)
- Jim Moyers (Berkeley, CA)
- Colleen Russell (Kentfield, CA)
- Marlene Winell (Oakland, CA)
- Steve Hassan (Somerville, MA)
Articles
- AR's favorite
mind control trick. Learn about one of the ways
that AR got its hooks into your head.
- Common issues in cult recovery by Carol Giambalvo
- Carol Giambalvo's list of articles
- How mind control works. A list of tactics, on FACTnet.
Conferences & Workshops
- ICSA: "After the Cult: Recovery Workshop for Former Group Members"
- ICSA:
Workshop for those born into cults ("Second-Generation
Adults: Surviving and Moving On After a High Demand
Group Experience")
Live-in programs
- Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center (Albany, Ohio)
- MeadowHaven (Lakeville, MA)
Videos
- Steve
Hassan (10-17-10) One of the most
well-known experts on cults talks about how he got
into the Moonies, and then out.
- Recovery
from Cults (Margaret Singer, 1991)