Breaking Free
– from the Jehovah's Witnesses
In the overall picture it took many years to break free from the mind control that took place at the ripe age of ten years old. First the doubts and uncertainty crept in in my late teens and after two years of marriage in my early twenties, we ran from it, never to return to that world. This led to a kind of limbo-land in my thirties and then finally, after divorce and a new life – true freedom of my mind.
Cults create a need in the individual through a combination of fear and love. The love, of course, is conditional — love this God Jehovah, obey his commandments, and you'll be loved in return. Disobey and death without resurrection will occur. You'll miss out on all God's gifts, now and in the future. Immortal life on a paradise earth after Armageddon dangled like a carrot to keep one obeying, practicing, preaching, and afraid to step off the path. Doubts crept up to be swatted away. Questions went unanswered. It's a cult. Cult-speak becomes the norm, you address each other 'Brother' and 'Sister' thus grouping yourselves and separating yourself from the 'world' out there. You are one of God's children who follow the Truth. The cult-self is created little by little until you no longer remember your pre-cult or authentic self. It's buried.
The gradual process of freeing oneself is a sort of stripping away the 'power-over' the cult leaders create. Separation is physical at first, stop attending meetings, seeing fellow members, for example, but then the real challenge begins with the mental or psychological. If open-minded enough, one can read books or search the internet for alternative beliefs, explanations, or words that refute the cult's teachings. It's a slow process if you been trained to not believe anything outside the cult's literature. Your authentic self will recognize the truth and it's path to freedom, but your cult-self will be determined to quash it – all at the same time. It's a battle. And the authentic self often loses.
What's hard, at times, is to keep at it. The cult creates such an atmosphere of safety, an illusion, for sure, but this sense of safety is hard to leave behind. That's their modus operandi – making one feel safe because the answers are all there in the bible, in the Truth. You don't have to think for yourself or worry about the gray, it's all there in black and white. So when the doubts begin and one starts reading thoughts and ideas outside the cult literature, a battle commences. The war on the mind of the believer, the cognitive dissonance, often overtakes the member and retreat is necessary. Retreat into the safety of the cult's thinking is a source of relief from the thoughts that resonate on a deeper level to one's authentic or pre-cult self.
It's like static on the radio you need to tune back into the familiar clear message. But as you try again and again it becomes easier to handle the 'static' of cognitive dissonance, and to feel into something that resonates on that deeper level. This takes time for the believer, often years.
It wasn't until I was in my early forties that I finally became comfortable with my own thoughts; trusting in them and feeling relief I had a mind of my own. I had the gift of a great college to help free me. I graduated after four years with a memoir as my thesis. The healing power and support of Goddard College; the teachers, the students, and the mission freed my mind from the influence of a cult that began at the ripe age of ten years old.