Random Stories of People Who Joined and Then Escaped Cults (14 items)

• (#9) Redditor Asks to be Saved From Quiverfull Cult

  "I grew up involved with the Quiverfull movement, a type of Christian Fundamentalism that involves having a bunch of children, home education, extremely modest dress including headcoverings, the practise of 'courting' and 'bethrothals' (basically semi-arranged marriages taking place as soon as the girl was old enough to marry), and something called 'Christian patriarchy,' wherein the father is viewed as a sort of mini god.

  I grew up attending a small Christian school run by the local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, where every student was Quiverfull. We were required to wear extremely modest clothing (ankle length skirts, hemlines that covered the base of our necks, etc. We had wardrobe checks multiple times each day.)

  Each morning we pledged allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Bible. It's been years, but I can still recite both pledges by heart. Then we recited the chapters of the Bible we were working on. Yes, I did say chapters. We memorized several books of the Bible (Jonah, all of Paul's epistles, most of Genesis, Daniel, a decent amount of Leviticus and I think the Gospel of Mark.)

  Our schoolwork was primarily books published by Abeka, BJU Press and ACE. Our textbooks claimed that:

  no transitional fossils had ever been found
  the Loch Ness Monster had been proven to be real and was a plesiosaur
  the Great Depression never happened but was just a myth made up by the socialists
  slavery was a win-win solution for all involved
  dinosaurs breathed fire
  the KKK were great dudes who got a bad rap
  the trail of tears was actually super great
  outer space wasn't real because if you blew on a pile of baby powder, a new planet wouldn't form (this was demonstrated)
  the Liberals don't believe in personal responsibility
  the world is about to be attacked by the floating Space Jerusalem

  We never covered much actual math, science, etc. Learning the truth about the government's plan to kill Holocaust the Christians [sic] was seen as much more important.

  For one year the girls also took Christian Charm. This was primarily about how God really, really cares about whether your chest is 10 inches largest than your waist or not. Girls were forbidden from standing with their feet parallel, 'like a man's', instead having to keep our feet at ridiculous and painful angles. We couldn't walk without being careful to 'glide gracefully' and avoid 'swishing' our knees. We were forbidden to not smile, but our smiles were never big enough, or they were too big.

  There wasn't much time for real schoolwork anyway, since we were all so busy being punished for having an ungodly facial expression, and forced to spend the rest of the school day standing on our tiptoes on one foot in the corner.

  In fourth grade my parents chose to pull me out and homeschool me. We joined a local homeschool group filled with Quiverfull homeschoolers. My parents had gone to a different church, one which was very Charismatic (we spoke in tongues, exorcised people, 'healed' with prayer) but not necessarily quite so extreme as the IFB school I had been sent to. However, as my father became more violent (he had a lot of mental issues and was an extreme hoarder), my mother (who was a borderline hoarder and very depressed, so much so that for the first ten years of my life she barely left her bed except to use the washroom) became more and more heavily sucked into this subculture.

  My parents had already gotten rid of most TV channels over concerns about evil spirits and only allowed us to read a few classic books, but after this my mom first stopped allowing us to read anything non-Christian, then banned novels altogether. We began being forbidden to see anyone who did not go to our church or homeschool group. Since my parents never really started teaching, and I had little access to books and at the time no internet, this left little to do all day aside from copy out Bible verses and stare out the window for hours. Time sort of stopped meaning anything.

  We became more into the Biblical patriarchy thing, where my father was seen as the head of our household and a sort of direct representative from God who women were to serve and obey in every way. You weren't supposed to express any kind of wishes or desire, but leave it up to your husband/father to make all decisions for you. (If you were his daughter, this included selecting your husband - girls were expected to be stay at home daughters, serving their fathers, until marriage). Biblical femininity was emphasized, which in this case basically meant long skirts and not having opinions or desires, except to serve whatever man God chose as the best 'helpmeet' possible.

  For a couple of years my mom, who was herself a nurse, stopped allowing us to take medicine, believing it to be witchcraft. She became more and more crazed about the idea of demons trying to attack her and our family.

  Unfortunately, I was born with a birthmark on my leg. She believed that this made me Satan. My father and mother both searched for ways to fix this. I've been exorcised, had oil poured over me, had everything I owned burned, etc. It apparently didn't work.

  After my father died we were at least spared his extreme violence, but my mother became only more unhinged and depressed. We shifted from being Quiverfull to being Charismatic - we'd been both for a while, but my dad's death pushed us all the way from one to another. She mostly gave up on her idea of me as Satan, but became absolutely obsessed with the idea of Satan attacking our family. This belief is reinforced by our church and all the Charismatic material she reads. She even abandoned our homeschool group, believing it to not be concerned enough about how demons are possessing everyone.

  Our church is obsessed with spiritual attacks, which are seen as stemming from absolutely everything. Anne of Green Gables? Witchcraft! Christian music? Actually sung by Satanists, filled with subliminal Satanic messages! Cabbage patch dolls? Demons who stay still when we look at them! (I'm 100% serious) The only way to ward this off is speaking in tongues, making prophecies, etc. A few people in my church believe they hear the voices of demons in their head, and said demons are chasing them. I've been there as we've all laid hands on people and prayed for them to be liberated from the demonic oppression in their lives.

  I still live with my mother and sister. I still go months without seeing anyone who isn't from my church. I still have no real education."
• (#13) Church of Satan is Too Emo for One Member

  I briefly joined the Church of Satan as a teenager/early 20-something. The doctrine of the CoS is designed to draw in people who feel disenfranchised, ostracized, or otherwise 'shoved aside,' and leave them feeling like they're as good as everybody else - but only if they follow LaVey's philosophy. It's every bit the collection of immature freaks and misfits that it sounds like it should be.

  I met a 30-something EMT, a man who at least claimed to be a police officer, and another who claimed to be a lawyer (Lawyer in the Church of Satan... it's almost TOO perfect). They sounded like what I'd now refer to as 'emos,' a term I wasn't familiar with in the 90's/early 2000's. There was a lot of whining about how society didn't understand/ hated/ was afraid of them. There was a lot of furious gesturing towards the doors leading out of the room in which we met, as though people were waiting outside to stone us. Ironically, one time, there were a few protesters outside, at which point everybody threw up their hands as though they'd had to deal with this all the time for years.

  The food was terrific. Junk food orgy. I think there was an episode of Robot Chicken, a while back, which parodied the CoS meetings: a bunch of very fat Satanists chanted "OmmmNommmNommm" as they gorged on delicious, processed fat and sugar. I sometimes wonder if the people who wrote that episode knew just how close to the reality they were. College is ultimately what got me out of this; I actually felt like I had a future for a while, and hanging out with a bunch of people twice my age who acted like they were about half my age suddenly became pretty exhausting.

  That, and my particular grotto had a loud and obnoxious male member, somewhere in his thirties, who was borderline obese and (not unusually, for this lot) loudly emphasized perceived and/or imagined social oddities as making him somehow superior to the 'less unusual,' the inversion of what everybody felt 'on the outside.' In his case, said oddities included his supposed bisexuality. One too many hover hands from him."
• (#5) Father Saves Daughter From Being Inducted into Scientology Sea Org

  "Ok, so my mom got involved and brought us into [Scientology]. One of the first Christmases my mom was married to my step dad, he got my sister and me the scientology communication course. You need a partner for the course, so my sister and I partnered up and had a blast with it. One key thing they teach in the course is a lack of response to upsetting words. During the course, my sister and I took turns saying purposefully funny or nasty things to each other in order to get a response. The other had to look straight ahead and not respond at all. This is called bull baiting.

  For another holiday, my step father bought me a 'group processing' (no kidding) auditing session. This is auditing meant to bring you into the present time. Basically, our auditor stood at the front of the room and said 'look at object A. Thank you. Now look at object B. Great job!' for 3 hours straight. You feel really great afterwards because you're literally being hypnotized.

  Now, onto the Sea Org stuff... My sister was really excited to dedicate her life to scientology at 13 years old. My mom and dad split custody of us, so when my sis expressed an interest, my dad asked to check it out. We drove down to Clearwater, FL together (divorced parents, me and my sister) to check everything out. They showed us where my sis would sleep (a motel owned by the org with 3 sets of bunk beds in each room), where she'd go to 'school' (they assured us she'd get a HS diploma, but most school was learning scientology stuff), but they never mentioned where she'd work. (You could be placed on a boat, work in the hotel scientologists came to stay at, or pretty much any other placement.) They said it'd ALL be free. Not only would she be able to do all the course work and auditing she wanted, she'd also be getting a small paycheck! All my parents had to do was sign away their parental rights and my sis would sign a BILLION YEAR contract. (Yup, that's actually what it says on the contract.)

  My incredibly analytical father started doing his research as soon as we got home. He researched for weeks and ultimately made the decision to not sign away his parental rights. He showed my sister and me 20/20 videos, stories from ex-scientologists, etc. I left after that. My sister was devastated. My mom was pissed. The great relationship my parents had turned very sour. And my mom had to pretty much force my sister to go to our dad's house on his custodial time. My dad even took my mom back to court and changed the custody agreement they'd been using for YEARS to include 'all decisions about school, religion, and medical procedures must be agreed upon by both parents.' Soon after, my dad spotted people going through his mail, watching his house, calling and immediately hanging up...

  My mom started getting frustrated with the church when their promises of helping her get sober didn't really pan out. She'd been an alcoholic for years and scientology said they could help that. The final straw was being held against her will. My step father had asked her to take a course in Cincinnati - he'd pay for it! And pay for her travel! AND pay her to take it! Though she was separated from him, she was tight on money and went. Once in Cincinnati, she was locked in a room. She still hasn't opened up to me about the whole story, but she has said she kept asking to use the phone and they said no. They did call my grandparents, though, to ask for $10,000 to 'help' my mother. Once released, she said 'f*ck this sh*t' and hasn't been back.

  They still call my mom and sister occasionally trying to get them back in, but the calls have slowed over the years. Also, my mom and step dad did have a child together, who is being raised semi-in the church. We have to be careful about speaking about another sister's depression and ADD meds around her. If she found out and told her dad, he may not let my youngest sister see us at all."
• (#11) Jesus Army Causes Girl to Develop Eating Disorder that Lands Her in the Hospital

  "My best friend is part of the Jesus Army in Britain. I don't know a lot about other Jesus Army groups throughout the UK but this particular one forced her to drop out of college - she is extremely clever and wanted to be a nurse - and come and work for their church, an office job of some sort.

  So she dropped out, moved in to their large community home and I visited a lot. She didn't get her wages, they were pooled into a communal pot sort of thing, and she had to ASK for HER money from the head of the household to go buy things, but only things the Jesus Army permitted like modest clothing or ingredients for the cooking (it was automatically assumed if you were a female and lived with these people, you cook meals for 20+ people every night, but you can't sit at the same table as the men, and you aren't allowed seconds but the men were), but say if she wanted to go buy a chocolate bar, this wouldn't be allowed.

  Anyway, it was just a really extreme sexist outdated sort of living, like she wouldn't be allowed to pursue a partner unless she told the head of the Jesus Army and then they would set them on a date, and if they got on they would have to spend a year apart to 'pray about each other', and if they still liked each other after a YEAR of no contact, they can marry.

  Anyway the whole ordeal stressed her out and now she's in hospital because she has developed anorexia, her food being the only thing she feels she can control. She doesn't live at the community home anymore, which I see as a good thing. Lots of other shady stuff went on but those were the things that made me the most angry. She is still pretty deluded about all of this."
• (#12) Manipulative Guru Asks Member to Hand Over Phones, So They Research Cults on the Internet

  "I grew up in a 'Hindu' cult. It was the Truth, exemplified in our guru, with his lifestyle of 6 cars, 2 mansions, 3 businesses, and international vacations in first class, together with annual celebrations of his and his family members' birthdays. All of which we were solicited to pay for and sponsor from the bottom of our pocketbooks and into debt, to prove our devotion. We were the elite, destined for self-realization, and were only to have limited association with the rest of the world, even our own non-believer families.

  Disobedience meant shunning and expulsion. We celebrated our birthdays only by decorating the guru's home and giving gifts to him and his family. I was homeschooled and attended university by distance learning, all so that I could stay in the group with our strict timetable of daily morning and evening prayers, communal meals, and morning and evening sermons by the guru (unless you were 'spiritual enough' to work unpaid in his businesses or doing chores at his home). We had mandatory purification baths every morning and evening, and if we touched something 'polluted' (a menstruating woman, an unbathed person, old food, dirty clothes, a thread from these clothes, had marital relations, etc.) we had to bathe and change clothes all over again. Menstruation meant seclusion for 3 days; birth or death in the family, 11 days.

  We asked the guru's permission for every step in our lives -- going to the doctor or into town, buying appliances, visiting family and hiring someone for home repairs, to education, career, marriage. Vaccines were frowned upon and if you got chicken pox or cancer, or had an accident, it was due to your bad karma or ego. Girls had to wear their hair long and both sexes had to wear old-fashioned traditional clothes that covered us from shoulder to ankle. We had to be vegetarian. It was easy to control people -- we lived in rental accommodation owned by the guru's organization, overseas disciples had visas sponsored by him, and he handled our utilities, phones and internet. These were occasionally cut off or destroyed (once or twice by bulldozer) to discipline erring disciples, in addition to the public shaming during the sermons, yelling at or 'blows' that also included physical 'correction' aka 'purification' (being hit) by the guru -- which was considered a blessing as it was his guidance and sacred touch.

  Teens were strictly supervised; we got in trouble after a group of teens went out (chaperoned) to a local temple's dance and music program, and more seriously when we went the beach, since the cult provided 'everything we needed in life'. Romance was forbidden and marriages arranged by the guru between group members. The more the couple was opposed to each other, the more ideal, 'to put the guru first always in your marriage'. Even those young people who vomited in disgust, or swore they would rather die, were gently coerced into marriage; gays, too, with the opposite sex. Several disciples were encouraged to and did break off their engagements or divorce their significant unbelieving others who would 'block the light' and 'drive them insane'. Two girls eloped and no one, including their families, attended the wedding.

  We were also told that natural disasters and manmade tragedies were due to our impurities. To offset these we made huge donations to the guru's temple. He even had a (badly) hidden camera to film worshippers who thought they were alone. We were told that in fact nothing would be immoral if the guru 'the living Truth' asked it, whether financial transactions, plagiarism, lying or stealing.

  Information was strictly controlled: gradually, movies were banned and our library was disbanded. People were told to stop talking to one another 'gossiping'; new babies were secluded at home. Disobedient disciples were sent out of town and shunned for several days as punishment.

  Around the point when we were told to cut off our mobile phones (both private and group-sponsored contracts) give up our wifi and Facebook, and abandon our pets ('do not try to understand the guru's orders but just trust'), I read up on cults on the internet and decided to get out. I sold my jewelry to finance my plane ticket, driving lessons, return to university classes, and cult recovery workshop. In my recovery group I discovered how similar our cults were. My friends and family in the cult have cut me off; my other family and ex-cult-members have welcomed me with open arms."
• (#3) Girl Tells Cult About Her Abortion to Get Kicked Out

  "I was forced into a cult around age 8 by my extended family, after my parents were pretty much convinced to let them partially raise me....

  We'd attend a group for girls once or twice a week, where we learnt to be good wives, were forced into very strict gender roles, and had to make snacks or put on Bible skits for the boy's group. We were told that they'd end up our husbands, and to little kids we didn't really question it much. We were pretty tame, and going to a hippie school, my life had this big rift between what I was taught there, and what I was taught at church. I remember getting into an argument with my teacher on an assignment about world religions about how Christianity was fact, and spouted off a bunch of my beliefs, and everyone looked at me like I was f*cking crazy except a few girls who were in the group as well. We discussed it at the group, about how I stood up for the church in the face of scorn, etc etc.

  My parents probably thought it was just normal Christianity, but as my parents got deeper into poverty and drugs, my extended family tried to take me from their custody to further indoctrinate me into it. It was not normal religion, and I sort of knew it on some level. I said no to going to live with them, as they scared me, a bunch of family bullsh*t ensued, it happened again, I said no, but eventually I was just given to them unofficially because it was 'good money' to do so. My in-laws were rich. They were not.

  I was given to a boy my age, at the Age of Mary, which is when I went to live with him, and he raped me for four years. I still attended school, sporadically. I lived an entire double life. Young '80s/'90s teen, and the woman to birth an effigy of Jesus, a reincarnation of the Lord. 

  I mean, imagine sitting on your best friend's bed, who is clueless, thinks you live with your parents (you only stay with them for a few days at a time, rarely), and is blasting Metallica while drinking cokes on a hot summer day, and not being able to tell her that you are being raped, abused, and threatened daily by a boy we both went to school with, because no way in f*ck would she believe you. I did tell her eventually, when we dated in the late '90s/early 2000s for six years. She said it made sense in terms of the weirdness that was my cluelessness about things like fast food or pop culture.
  
  I did get pregnant, at 16, and ended up enlisting a friend to help me get an abortion, as it was legal to have me married to my rapist due to the pregnancy, with court permission (or so I was told). I was kicked out immediately after informing them of it. I walked home to begrudging parents and a little brother who had no clue. I never saw anyone from that place again, besides my aunt, and it's dissolved since."

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