Escaping Utopia

by Lalich, Janja; McLaren, Karla;

  Samantha

  Everything was different from The Family. Just the fact that I didn’t have to have sex with everybody I saw, that was different. It’s stupid, but it’s a concept I had to learn. It really wasn’t necessary to have sex with absolutely every male or female you saw.

  Jessica

  Some days it felt like everything surprised me, and I find it hard to make a list of things that were different, as there were so many things. I think largely I was aware of physical things like, say, being able to eat in restaurants or watch television. But what was a surprise after I left was how people related to one another. Parents loved their children to the extent that they would always put their children’s needs first, and they expressed horror at the actions of my parents when I explained that my parents were not allowed to have much to do with me because I had left the Brethren. Friends expected loyalty above issues of right or wrong, which I found completely at odds with what I had grown up with.

  Joseph

  I grew up with people in the TM compound committing suicide and going psychotic around me. That was normalized. It wasn’t until years after I’d left when I was in a graduate school study group that I learned it wasn’t normal. Some people were talking about some weird things that happened to them, and I casually mentioned one kid who’d died and his skeleton was found in a cornfield. And someone got really upset and said, “Have you ever noticed that no matter what we say happened to us dramatically, Iris can always outdo us?” And literally, years and years later was the first time I realized that most people don’t grow up with that high percentage of psychosis and suicides happening around them.

  Iris

  Landing on an Alien World

  When Janja’s radical political cult imploded, she was alone, penniless, and filled with a distrust of outsiders that had been hammered into her for a decade; as a result, she wasn’t fully able to access the social support she needed to recover. She struggled for years, as did Karla. When Karla was seventeen, her New Age healing cult kicked her out for breaking rules and speaking her mind. She had nowhere to turn because the group had isolated itself as a way to increase group cohesion and protect themselves from outsiders; as a result, she spent many rootless years without money, a plan, or a sense of her future. All of our narrators have similar tales to tell—of losing everything and everyone they knew and landing unsteadily on the alien planet that most people know as the regular world.

  For many of our narrators, leaving their groups meant leaving behind everyone (including family) and everything (including clothing and money, if they had any). After their escape, their groups excommunicated and condemned them—and, tragically, their own families followed suit and abandoned and condemned them as well. Without friends, family, money, or support, these young people struggled to make their way in a world they had been taught to view as flawed, deceitful, or even outright evil. Most of the cult survivors Janja interviewed were utterly unprepared for the outside world—many had no education, no job history, no computer skills, no understanding of finances, and no idea about how to apply for jobs, apartments, social services, or even a driver’s license.2 Many became homeless, turned to drugs, or engaged in risky behaviors and abusive relationships. Many of them contemplated suicide, and some attempted suicide. All of them felt lost, confused, and hopeless. So how did they survive? What and who supported them? And what would have helped them?

  Some of our narrators managed to find church-based or social-service programs, and many slowly built a network of support. Others were lucky to find groups of ex-members of their own cult, and were able to give and receive support from people who truly understood the extent of their needs, their reactions, and their deep sense of loss, anger, fear, anxiety, grief, and confusion. Nevertheless, because most people—even people in helping professions—don’t understand the unique needs of cult survivors, many of our narrators did not receive the help and support they needed. There is a serious problem here of mutual stigma and ignorance; cults often stigmatize the outside world as evil, and many try to keep their members as ignorant as possible. Yet in the supposedly tolerant outside world, cults and their members are equally stigmatized, such that most people—including counselors and social service professionals—are often deeply ignorant about cults, their members, and the true needs of survivors. In Chapter 7, we’ll focus on ways that helping professionals can better understand and meet the needs of people who have escaped from abusive groups, because more and more children of cults are escaping every day.

  Learning that outsiders weren’t evil and that commonplace things like television and forbidden foods would not harm them was a gradual process—as was learning how to trust people. Our narrators also struggled mightily with larger issues of identity, the meaning of life, and their place in the world—and they wrestled with the damaging ways that their groups had perversely twisted purpose into unthinking commitment, love into fear, community into enslavement, and duty into toxic shame. The struggles of people who leave cultic groups are complex and lasting, even though their relief at being free is powerful.

  In this chapter, we’ll return to the stories of the six main narrators you met in Chapter 1: Samantha, Iris, Joseph, Jessica, Lily, and Matthew. You may recall that many of them tried to escape at least once before they finally got out. Leaving a cult is probably one of the most difficult things a person can do; leaving is almost always traumatic and painful, and it often takes people a few tries before they finally escape. Most cults threaten defectors with the loss of everything they care about, and warn them that leaving will expose them to danger, misery, or even satanic possession and death. These messages are powerful features of cultic systems of control, and they can make leaving feel like stepping off a cliff into the terrifying unknown. Leaving these controlling groups takes tremendous courage and a willingness to face an uncertain future looming with possible danger, despair, loneliness, or lifelong shame and guilt.

  Along with these six main narrators, we are now introducing Rachel, who grew up in the Twelve Tribes along with Matthew, and whose story was combined with his in Chapter 1. Rachel’s experience of struggling to integrate—in the outside world and within herself—provides important depth that can give helping professionals a view into the ambivalence many cult children feel about their upbringing. Her story, and the stories of all our narrators, brings awareness to a growing population of second-and third-generation cult members who are leaving their groups. Their experiences and examples provide specific information about the support they found—and the support they needed—as they struggled to adapt to a strange new world.3

  Alienation and Loss

  When someone leaves a cult, especially a very restrictive one (which was the case for most of the sixty-five individuals interviewed for this book), the sense of alienation and loss can be overwhelming. When someone leaves a cult, no matter the circumstances, it is rare for them to be allowed to maintain contact with anyone in the group—yet relationships on the outside can be alienating as well. Even ifnew acquaintances or coworkers know nothing about a survivor’s cult past, the survivor knows, and it sets her apart. Ex-cult members experience a dual separation— both from their former friends and family and from people in the outside world—and this can create intense loneliness. There is also a powerful sense of loss— lost time, lost life experiences, lost emotional growth, and, of course, lost friends and family.

  Eighty percent of the people interviewed in this study had no relationship with their group, and they used terms such as “hostile,” “have been declared an enemy by the group,” or “don’t want one” to describe their own or the group’s current attitude. Yet many missed their family members or the deep friendships they formed in the cult, especially with other children. More than half still had siblings in the group, with whom they could have no contact.

  Joseph (Exclusive Brethren, EB): I missed my family enormously, and would make up for the fact that I couldn’t actually talk to them by having imagina
ry conversations with them in my head. I still have them now, but mostly they turn into arguments about whether I was right or wrong to leave. So I have to remind myself that it’s not real, and put them out of my head again.

  Iris (Transcendental Meditation, TM): The way people on the outside treated me wasn’t abusive. It was just stigma. It was stigma and being ostracized. So it was more subtle than obvious abuse. Discipline or outward abuse would be easier to identify. Plus, I didn’t know how to make friends. I didn’t know how to do small talk. And I’m still not very good at it. I just didn’t know how to interact with people at all. There was this inner separation. I mean it clearly was inside of me. And it’s still awkward for me socially. And it took me a long time, a really long time to make friends. Over time I think I started making friends who became a support, and made me feel that I could pick apart my life in TM. But even now, I feel that every year I become more and more socially capable and comfortable. I think it took me a long time to really feel completely comfortable in normal social group settings.

  Matthew (Twelve Tribes, 12T): Well, I missed my parents. I missed my brothers and my sisters, and the commune wouldn’t allow me to see them at all. It was forbidden for me to see them. They didn’t want me to have any contact by phone or by writing to my brothers or sisters at all. They cut me off from my family completely, and that was really hard for me because I was really close with my brothers and sisters. To totally disconnect from them was a struggle. That part was difficult.

  Rachel (12T): I felt really isolated all the time. Just very alone. I wanted to reach out, but every time I reached out, I felt like my hand was slapped away. Then, of course, I had to deal with the kids in the world who totally rejected the person I was in the community because I was different. I used these big words because the community used words differently than the world did, so even if it was the same word, it had a different meaning. So I used words kind of wrong, or the world would think I used the words wrong. So kids didn’t really understand me. And of course, they were all talking about Michael Jordan, and I had no idea who Michael Jordan was. I had never even seen TV or a newspaper or heard the radio. I didn’t know what country music was. So I was totally ostracized—and I was being told that everything I was was not acceptable.

  Now I realize that trauma really binds people like nothing else, and I realize that’s why my friendships were so deep and so committed in the community. That’s still something I’ve never found in the world. That kind of bond, that connection; I really miss that and I miss being with people who understand me, who grew up in the same sort of environment, and so they understand all these little things that are still a little bit weird about me.

  Lily (College of Learning, COL): If we had had a friendlier environment, an environment where my parents helped me, I could have had a chance at going to an Ivy League school. I really believe that. But they just kind of left me in COL and expected me to get good grades and do everything myself. Had my parents paved the way and said, “We’ll help you,” and had I had a little more direction, I would have at least had a shot. I wanted to do a lot of things. I wanted to figure skate competitively starting as a teenager. I had interests, but I wasn’t allowed to have my own interests. I was only allowed to really think about Tae Yun Kim and martial arts. I think I could have had a shot, and it’s affecting me now. And I’m trying to start all over, but I’m twenty-seven. You know, it’s different than when you’re a child and when you’re a teenager and you have more of your life ahead of you. But now I’m out and my parents and the whole group, they’re against me. My mom was like, “You can’t call. Don’t call ex-members anymore. Don’t come around. You know, they’re uncomfortable with you.”

  Samantha (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints, FLDS): It wasn’t until probably my junior year in high school that I started hanging out with the more popular kids, but I still didn’t feel like I could relate to them, like I could talk to them. Because they would be worrying about their clothes, their hair, and here I’m still worrying about my salvation and having troubles with my foster family. I remember one friend telling me that she wanted to kill herself because her parents had grounded her and her boyfriend had broken up with her, or something like that, and I was, like, “Oh, my God, I can’t even relate.” I was just in a completely different place from the people around me.

  Jessica (The Family, FAM): I bummed around for a little bit, and I went to Belgium. And I was singing in bars in the countryside and stuff. I was going around with a couple of these musicians, and sleeping in their vans, and singing in bars for a little bit. I finally made my way to be with some others who had left The Family, and stayed with them for a while. But I was really quite lost, you know. I didn’t really know what to do or anything. So I just started doing little jobs, and I panhandled a lot because it was pretty much what I knew how to do. What I didn’t really want was to be a stripper. Most of the girls I knew from the group ended up being strippers. And I also did not want to work in McDonald’s. Because when I left, they said I would be a failure and end up flipping burgers my whole life. So I refused to work at McDonald’s. Absolutely not. I think that one reason I never told people about my childhood is … it’s really weird, but I kind of had the sense that I’m actually an alien and my insides are blue and I landed on this planet a few years ago. And people will probably look at you with the same look when you say, “I was in a sex cult.”

  Beyond this shared sense of loss and alienation, our narrators dealt with multiple internal and external challenges. The indoctrination and abuse they experienced in their groups destabilized them—and the fact that they were so unprepared for the outside world strongly affected their ability to heal, move forward, and build new lives for themselves.

  The Roller-Coaster Ride of the World Outside

  Children of cults, for the most part, are not allowed to experience the outside world. When they leave, they often struggle to figure out how to survive, or even how to function on a daily or hourly basis. Leaving their restrictive or abusive groups is necessary; yet landing in the outside world brings countless challenges, both good and bad. Many experience a melding of their fear of the unknown and their joy at being free—and this can make their transition an emotionally intense experience. For instance, the overwhelming majority of people Janja interviewed were astonished by how nice everyone was in the outside world. Their groups promised them that everyone outside was threatening, corrupt, and evil—yet our narrators found the opposite to be true, and many were shaken by the experience. Leaving their groups was a big push that took courage, but then they found that their courage was still needed as they encountered surprises and shocks in response to seemingly mundane aspects of the outside world.

  Rachel (12T): You know, we weren’t allowed to have things like favorites in the community. No favorite colors, no favorite people, no favorite foods, which to kids in the world is like a staple, right? You have to pick out your favorites. So, my parents would do that with us: okay now, you have to pick out your favorite this or that. But I didn’t know how. My mind didn’t categorize that way and I didn’t know how to pick anything, so I would just arbitrarily pick things. For example, I knew that my dad liked pineapples and he bought me pineapple lip gloss when we first left. So I said, “OK, pineapple is my favorite scent.” Somebody liked the color black in my class, so I said, “Black sounds good. That will be my favorite color.”

  Joseph (EB): I quickly realized that although I thought I didn’t believe any of the Brethren’s teachings, I had picked up a lot of unconscious assumptions about the way things are supposed to be from them, and these were being challenged left, right, and center every five minutes. Sometimes the sheer number of new things or weird things felt like sensory overload. It felt like a roller coaster ride: one minute on top of the world, the next in the depths. It was scary not knowing what society expected of me, and every new friend wound up getting the full story from me within about five minutes of meeting because it was easier
than pretending I was “normal”! But then I had to learn how to relate “normally” to other people as an adult after I had left the group, which I found very difficult. It seemed contrary to everything I had been led to expect. For example, Brethren always have a circle of social acquaintances, as everyone within the group is expected to socialize with everyone else, and being openly unfriendly to any member would be considered a misdemeanor. Thus, there is little effort required in making or keeping friendships as compared with outside the Brethren, where it seems to me that even having something or a lot in common with someone is not enough to guarantee that they will even like you to start with! And I finally learned that people generally expect privacy, something that I often accidentally violated by asking questions that were considered inappropriate or too inquisitive.

  Jessica (FAM): I could eat chips! I could drink beer. It was huge just being able to go to Kmart, to make a phone call, figure out how to do that, you know, figure out how to use a computer. But honestly, at that point, I wasn’t looking for any kind of comfort or anything. I hadn’t come to terms with what had happened. I didn’t talk about it all. I just pretended it never happened. I just was having a good time doing stuff I always wanted to do, like wear clothes that were in style, not just communal sarongs or somebody’s shoes that had been worn by twenty people already. It was just really great being able to not get smacked around for wearing earrings if they weren’t the ones we were supposed to be wearing that day. I could do whatever I wanted. It was great. I could listen to music. I always got into so much trouble for listening to music in The Family. I thought that it was fantastic that I could say and do whatever I wanted when I was in my own house and in my own space. You know, the difference between that and basically having a live-in boss who also happens to sleep with you and your mom, is, is huge.