I was in a group therapy cult. Ther therapist was a devious psychopath who combined therapy, narcissistic abuse, brain washing, cult tactics, group dynamics, bad life advice, Attack Therapy, and his own psychopathy. 15 years later, I still think about this guy and his group every day and still copy and emulate his anti-social detached fake induced behavior with people. It has permeated every area of my life form family interactions, to going on dates with girls (I repeated something he said which made my date feel unsafe and cringe with emotional pain in response), with coworkers and even friends.

Am I going to be like this for life now?

Someone’s therapist kept you for years in detachment from reality and prevented from realising abuse and upheld psychotic beliefs of the cult/family about the world and yourself?

Has anyone here been to the ICSA conferences before and would they recommend?

I'm 6 years out of a cult, but only began to understand it as such and the spiritual abuse I underwent in the last 12 months. I am keen to continue learning from books and podcasts, and wonder whether attending a conference like this might be a valuable experience.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Watching The Handmaid's Tale was rough, but it was still a movie that I watched from the outside. I'm less than one episode into The Testaments and it is a whole other experience for a woman and a cult survivor who was raised in it. I have lived my own version of this. I understand these girls in a way that you can't without having live it. I just keep thinking about my own teenage years. How controlled I was, the level of brainwashing that made it feel normal and even easy. The way I could step back into that world even now 2 decades later and I would know exactly how to speak the language. I am Agnes.

Hi, I am new to this sub but as you can see from the title I think my friend is in a cult. She went through a devastating breakup over a year ago. Instead of moving on, she is completely obsessed with this ex, still referring to him as her absolute "love."

​She claims she is seeing a "marriage therapist," but I know it's actually a Twin Flames Universe (TFU) coach. She is single, completely broke, couch-surfing, and in total housing instability. Despite having no money, her coach is giving her daily "vague tasks" to work off her therapy fees.

​The Major Red Flags:

**Family Estrangement** She has recently completely cut out her family, framing their concern as toxic/negative energy.

**​The Mirror Exercise** She uses the TFU 4-step Mirror Exercise constantly, blaming herself for everything.

**​Word Salad** She speaks in incredibly abstract, odd spiritual jargon whenever she drops into a trance-like state.​

**Signs Everywhere** She is constantly talking about seeing his bday or other things associated with him.

**Total Compliance** She frames all of this financial exploitation and isolation entirely as her own "personal, spiritual choice to heal."

**Marriage Therapy** She mentioned seeing a marriage therapist but she is single. She said she wants to prepare for marriage. I am pretty sure this is one of these coaches.

I’ve seen the documentaries and know how dangerous this group is. She is losing her entire real-world safety net in real time.

​How do I remain a supportive friend and keep a backdoor open for her without driving her away? How do I respond when she drops into that abstract word salad in front of me without triggering her defenses? Any advice, strategies, or resources from ex-members or experts are desperately appreciated. Thank you.

This is her story from the beginning if you have TT. I’m so proud of her and wish I could do more to support her in her goals. What do yall think?

I grew up both undiagnosed with autism and in a cult. I believe that this is part of the reason why being in, and attempting to deconstruct from a high control group, was so difficult. Cults have rigid and tight rules that can be difficult for neurodivergence to understand, so even when I was in this "community" that I "belonged" in, I was still the odd one out that was considered the challenge for the rest of the group. Additionally, the group I was very non individualistic, as many cults are, therefore I was expected to conform to the extreme. I already sucked at normal interaction and fitting, so you can imagine how off it was whilst I was in the group. When it comes to leaving and processing that you're in one as well, it was another level of confusion for me. It seems like I'm constantly in a battle between my identity linked to my autism and my identity that was molded by the cult.

Any other neurodivergent cult survivors? What was your experiences like?

I need help, and I am incredibly scared.
I escaped an ultra-orthodox, extremist Jewish family in Israel. For years, I endured severe religious coercion, trauma, and control from my mother, who used religious manipulation and occult rituals to try and force me into submission, marriage, and childbirth. My parents hold a position of power here, and even after I left, the harassment didn't stop. I've had to deal with false reports made against me and systemic gaslighting just for choosing freedom.
Due to severe financial distress, I took a job at a hotel that provides employee housing because I couldn't afford a place to live or even food.
Despite the hotel knowing I am no longer religious, they paired me in a shared room with a woman who suddenly turned our room into an intense, triggering environment. Overnight, she filled our space with religious icons and candles, and she stays up all night, hovering over my bed and exhibiting deeply unsettling behavior.
I have recently discovered that she doesn't even work at this hotel, yet management allows her to stay in my quarters. I strongly suspect my parents used their financial influence to plant her here to continue harassing and monitoring me.
I am traumatized, exhausted from sleep deprivation, and I have absolutely nowhere else to go. I am terrified for my safety. If anyone has resources, advice, or can help me find a safe haven or legal aid, please reach out.

TLDR: I was abused and bullied as a child in the True Jesus Church, and no adults protected me. The harm wasn’t just from boys in my branch, it came from a high‑control church culture that silenced problems, minimized abuse, and prioritized image over children’s safety. I’m not saying every branch is identical, but the system creates the same risks everywhere. Leaving saved me in ways the church never did.

Note: the True Jesus Church (TJC) originated from China in 1917 and has global branches across various continents. Most members are of East and South East Asian decent (with the exception of Africa, perhaps), which in turn brings a lot of traditions and hierarchy into the environment. It claims to be the one true church of God and has a high-control culture. It teaches outsiders are evil and if you leave, you are deemed as weak in faith, tempted to sin, or some other illogical reasoning the church comes up with.

I’m naming the church in the title because my experience didn’t happen in a vacuum. I’m not saying every branch is identical, but the doctrines and culture are shared across the organization, and that’s what shaped what happened to me.

---

The one and only

I grew up in the True Jesus Church, which teaches that it’s the only place on earth with the full truth and the only path to salvation. You’d think a church that claims that kind of authority would at least know how to protect its members from harm. Reflecting back, I’m shocked and saddened at how little anyone cared about safeguarding or basic emotional safety.

-----

Being targeted by church bullies

When I was between 7 and 10, I was bullied by a group of 5-6 teenage boys in the church. They’d laugh and point at me whenever I walked past them in the hallways, trying to trip me up. At one point, I suspected they defaced my desk in my RE class and I noticed mine was the only one that was affected. During choir practice, one of them pulled my hair while another encouraged him, laughing like it was pure entertainment. I was so shocked that I froze in horror as they kept yanking my hair. I was so scared of them, I would walk different routes within the building to avoid bumping into them, where possible. I was a little kid and they were teens. Nobody (not even adults) stepped in to protect me.

I still to this day have no idea why they targeted me. One of them is even the son of a prominent deaconess who should know better. That same boy also joined in in mocking me in person at the same high school we went to when I accidentally knocked something over (like seriously).

-----

Charades

The moment that still sticks with me happened during a youth fellowship at someone’s house. We were playing hymn charades, and my hymn had the word “heaven” in the title. I pointed upward but nobody was understanding what word I was trying to convey. Because of this, those same boys immediately started laughing and mocking me in front of everyone. I burst into tears and ran to the bathroom. The whole room went silent and I think my reaction shocked everyone.

Later, two members who were in that fellowship gave me a card saying they hoped I was okay, but one of them wrote “it was just a game,” which felt like a slap. It wasn’t “just a game” to me but years of being targeted by bullies in a place that was meant to be a safe haven. That comment basically told me my feelings were an overreaction. After that day, the bullying stopped but none of the boys ever apologized. I never received closure. It's something I still reflect upon as an adult...

-----

Reflection

Now that I’m older, I can see the bigger picture. This wasn’t just kids being kids, I was physically, emotionally, and mentally abused by these boys, and it was a complete failure of a system that claimed divine authority but couldn’t handle basic child protection. A church that preached holiness and righteousness but ignored cruelty happening right in front of them.

What hurts the most isn’t just what the boys did. It’s the culture that let it happen: adults who looked away, the minimization, the lack of accountability, the way the church’s image mattered more than a child’s wellbeing... The way the responsibility to not make a scene fell on me (a child!) instead of the people who were actually causing harm.

Before TJC members who read this say, “not all branches are like this,” I’m glad if your experience was different but mine still happened. Two completely different things can co-exist at the same time. When the same doctrines, the same high‑control culture, and the same silence around harm exist across continents, the patterns repeat themselves. Some may be more prominent in certain branches than others. My story isn’t about one “bad branch”, it’s about a system that gives adults no tools or incentive to protect members and especially children. Just because some branches behave better doesn’t mean the system is safe. The culture that failed me exists across the entire organization.

-----

I have no regrets leaving

I left the church years later for a lot of reasons, but this was one of the earliest signs that something was deeply wrong. A church that claims to be the only true one shouldn’t be a place where a child learns that their pain is inconvenient, or that adults will stay silent rather than confront wrongdoing. It shouldn’t be a place where safeguarding is basically nonexistent.

I’ve carried this for a long time, and I’m finally going to say it plainly: the True Jesus Church is an awful place to be in. It’s awful not just because of what individual people did to me, but because the entire system is built in a way that allows harm to happen and then pretends it never did. I’m not saying every branch behaves identically, I’m saying the doctrines, teachings, practices, and culture create the same risks everywhere. It teaches you that your suffering is your fault, that abuse is misunderstanding, and that speaking up is causing division. It convinces you that you’re safe while quietly abandoning you the moment you actually need protection.

The structure itself is high‑control, insular, and dismissive of harm. It prioritizes doctrine over people, image over accountability, and obedience over safety. Any institution that claims exclusive truth while refusing to safeguard its own members and especially children is fundamentally broken. No child should have to learn that lesson in a place that claims to represent God and claims to be superior to other churches.

Leaving was the best choice for me and that saved me in ways the True Jesus Church never did.

-----

Read my other posts about my True Jesus Church experiences

• Escaping the walls of the True Jesus Church
• Reflecting on cult‑like dynamics inside the True Jesus Church (TJC/真耶穌教會
• The grief of watching my siblings stay in church (True Jesus Church/真耶穌教會)
• Reclaiming my identity after leaving the True Jesus Church
• What leaving the True Jesus Church looked like through a child’s eyes
• The challenges of local outreach in immigrant churches (True Jesus Church)

There’s a good amount of debate over whether or not the group I was in is a cult. Ive been out for at least a decade. Something on Reddit cued me back to the memories of being pressured into standing on street corners trying to hand out recruitment items and materials. Like other times these memories are cued up, I had a wave of strong disgust and disbelief that I went from college educated modern woman to covered head to toe recruiting for the group on street corners. How do I get over that visceral shock and disgust? Ive been in therapy and made so much progress but some memories, like this one, still have so much charge.

You can skip the next paragraph, it’s just context and thinking out loud.

The more I tell the story to people unaffiliated with the group or the religion the group is housed within, the more culty it sounds. I was groomed and recruited as a vulnerable teenager, leaving an abusive home and away in college. I was swayed with “scholarships” to their education programs, travel, free meals, a home like environment with people who “cared” about me and my spiritual well-being. Slowly I was isolated as people from the group became my friends, coworkers, landlords, etc. I studied in their seminaries on scholarship, moved to their enclave, and started the semi-arranged marriage process— thankfully got out before marriage and babies. I was afraid of losing my job and housing and community if I wore the wrong clothes, ate the wrong food, or asked the wrong questions. The charismatic leader was dead, but a smaller faction within the group believed he was secretly still alive and waiting for us to be “good enough” and to recruit enough people to then reveal himself as the messiah and usher in the messianic era. I wasn’t told this until halfway through my full year in seminary, but suddenly my scholarship that covered room and board was contingent on going out on street corners with materials about the group and approaching people to recruit them. I am so shy and introverted, and so remember literally shaking and feeling nauseous but eventually dissociating and feeling echoey and like I was watching my body from above as I put on a sociable mask and began approaching people, trying to offload my materials sooner so we could go back to the dorm sooner.

I spent 35 years of my life deeply devoted to the Mormon religion, aka, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My experience was borderline cultish. I’ve been out for a couple of years and feel like I can see the world for the first time which is both liberating and terrifying.

Does anyone have any information on this cult? I have been recruited by a tattoo artist and my life and psyche have been destroyed in the process. Him and others are basically recruiting everyone in my orbit and I have been no contact with them all for only 5 days but have been attempting to get away for a year- deleted all social media and left my job where they are recruiting everyone. I was clueless to this type of thing and the moral injury I have endured has left me in a complete and isolated fog. Knowing they are continuing to recruit and exploit is harming my soul and I feel there is nothing I can do. I know it’s not a lot of info at all but I feel like getting this out somewhere in case someone out there sees it that has also been affected.

In light of me trying to get a better understanding of my upbringing in a small cult in Europe I’m looking for tips on information. For a couple months, if not years by now, I’ve dived into the past of the leader and it’s been very helpful in to piece the puzzle, but now I’m stuck where to look. Since he has mentioned the Great White Brotherhood (or Universal White Brotherhood) I’m trying to gather more insight. I’m looking for tips and information about the groups listed below, as they seem to have influenced my cult or are affiliated with the group I grew up in. I’d also love to get in touch with (former) members too! Off course in private and confidential.
\- Transcedental meditation
\- Maharishi mahesh
\- Rosicrucian
\- Drunvalo Melchizedek (flower of life)
\- Merkaba
\- the summit lighthouse
\- church universal and triumphant
\- universal white brotherhood (or great white brotherhood)
\- masters of the ancient wisdom
\- I AM
\- keepers of the purple flame
\- Gary Smith (as far as I have found out he was part of several organizations; Sacred Merkaba Techniques, The True Jesus Organization, the 10th Jesus Organization, Christ Light Techniques, the 144000 organization, love expos, love energy centers and aidsbabies)

DM’s are welcome too! Many thanks

Hello everyone. I'm a researcher from the University of Leeds (UK). My colleague and I are conducting a major research project attempting to understand what individuals experience when they leave new/minority religious groups or cults. To that end, we've opened an anonymous 10 minute survey, which the mods have kindly allowed us to share: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/leeds/ex-membership-in-new-and-minority-religions

We would be very grateful to anyone willing to take the time to complete it! On the landing page, you'll find a participant information sheet, which outlines the purpose of the project, our contact details, and our commitment to ethical practice. If you have any questions please get in touch. All responses go a long way in helping us understand the lived experience of former members.

Many thanks!

I grew up in this church, live with my parents so I'm still forced to go.

We can't read the Bible, we have to cut our hair because evil hides in hair, if you leave the church witchcraft will affect you and you won't be under God's protection. We all wear white when we meet, its a mix of a little Christianity and African spirituality, I recently started braiding my hair and growing it out and they said if I die the church will not raise up funds to bury me and I am vulnerable to demonic attacks. They prophesied sicks which is to come on me and apparently I have a spiritual husband and one of these days I will leave home ans not come back.

I found two posts on reddit about the cult I grew up in, but the comments are disabled, because the accounts are deleted.
Probably because they got in trouble for posting them.

Ive left, a long time ago, but every one of my extended family members still attends.

If youve heard of it, chances are everything you’ve heard is true. People on tge outside called us the “kissers”, because we greet eachother by kissing on the mouth. If you refuse, you get reprimanded. They also called it “the baby killing cult” because of the copious amounts of infant death because we refuse medical intervention.

I will be blunt about some of the stuff that has happened, because no legal action has been taken against it because, 1. many don’t see it as a cult and 2. because no legal action has been taken against them because of legal loopholes.

One toddler of a family was crushed by a television. He died.

I remember people mentioning him but nothing serious from them.

Ive been reprimanded several times for refusing to kiss people on the mouth. I thought it was gross. It is gross. I had no friends because I was “weird”. I was lucky enough to go to public school, the only place I had friends. But we were allowed to socialize outside of the cult, meaning I only got to see my friends in school, the weekends were hell for me. verbatim my grandmother told me people outside “weren’t real people”. Fucking weirdos.

My YOUNGER cousin, has been engaged to a 21 year old man since she was 16. she is/has gotten mart this year at 17. But Oregon had just changed their laws about minor marriage. meaning they went out of state to marry her at 17. My first cousin. My mother’s, sister’s daughter. Me and her used to be disgusted by marrying young. But i can’t say im surprised.

My other cousin, my grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s daughter, just married her first cousin. They share a grandma.

I have family members with my surname on both sides of my family. Though I was lucky enough for my grandpa to have been adopted.
They do that sometimes, adopted, to clean out the gene pool or because of infertility.

I left when I was 14, when my parents got divorced. which is very taboo. My mother is a schizophrenic and they didn’t disclose it to my father before they married. After the divorce I was still going for a while when we were living with my grandma. I hated it. I got into screaming matches when I refused to go.
Theyve known I was gay since I was about 11. my mom thought I was the devil.
When we lived with my grandma, I wasn’t allowed to shut my door because they were always convinced I was hiding something. I dressed in the bathroom or else they’d come in while I was naked.
My mom tried to hit me one time, and I shoved her. She told everyone I hit her, and everyone told everyone.
My aunt, who was really my cousin, took me shopping because she was “the cool aunt” and they were convinced she could fix me because Id listen to her. Driving home she had mentioned the hitting thing. Asked me why Id hit my mom.
Now i know i have severe mental issues and anger management problems.
When we got back, she had told everyone I was angry because I couldn’t get a pair of pants I liked. They told me to wash the dishes while they talked about me right in front of me. I told my grandma to shut up. They didn’t like that.

My mom wanted to go on a shopping spree to spend my dad’s money after the divorce. I had a lot of fun. When we got home I wanted to show everyone the clothes I got. But they had decided it would be easier to watch me dress and undress. Even after my disagreement. My great grandma liked to grab my butt sometimes. This wasn’t a new development though, She’s done In church before.
I told them I needed to go to the bathroom where I would cry, silently, and throw up.

Because of my mom’s issues, the divorce was hard on her, especially after having recently gave birtg to my baby brother. She couldn’t care for him, so I did, because Im her oldest. I bathed him, changed him, took naps with him, because no adult was going to. He’s my baby, for years hed only behave when I asked him to. He only learned when I taught him. but I get no credit for raising that baby. Im not his mother, im not his father.

I wanted a nap. My grandma wanted me to give him a bath. She grabbed my thigh and shook me to wake me, it made my skin crawl, so i asked her not to touch me that way. She was angry with me, asked me if my dad had assaulted me and if that was why I was acting the way I had.
My dad is a manchild, an infidel, but he never touched me, always knocked before coming into my room, was never angry with me when I hid things from my mom and grandma when they would go through my things. “find a better hiding spot”, “don’t let them find these things”. I don’t get along with my dad, he thought he was entitled to my respect, but not my privacy.

This place beleived in sleep related demonic incidents. for this reason I never told anyone what I was going through. Im afraid I may have inherited my mothers psychosis. I used to see a shadow man when i woke in the middle of the night. I had a timeslot when he paced at my bedside to run into the lit hallway. They never knew why I wanted to keep the hallway lit and my door open. I prayed every night for him to go away. I thought I was being tormented by the devil for being bad. God never saved me, so one night I took matters into my own hands, and beat him until he faded away. He never showed up again. In sleep dazed incidents, I used to hear women’s voices outside my door sometimes, thinking they were trying to lure me out of my room, so I would surround my whole body with my stuffed animals. Im pretty sure my dad was just on the phone with other women.

I also used to wet the bed. my dad used to aswell so he never minded or got me into trouble. but my mom did. They just never knew why I did it, bit I wasn’t allowed to leave my room at night either because I would linger outside my room. for reasons already described.

leaving, at 14, after my grandma kicked me out after I told her she was weirdly prejudice. The whole cult is racist. I had never felt free before. I had never felt normal before. But then I finally got to experience life. I finally got to live for the first time in my life. I had a life.

Im not perfect, Ive made mistakes and made problems for myself but rumors wouldn’t be started about me for being a teenager. Not everyone would somehow find out about my life.

Many more things involving my parents happened after that, but I never had to go back there again.

I was a naive blabbermouth and stood on my morals. when I saw abuse happen, I always pointed it out to others and tried to help. I'm autistic and I didn't realize I was always painting a massive target on myself until i left. I'm dealing with the aftermath of that, and always carrying that massive target. I wonder if it gets better. I've rejected hiding, and I'm open about leaving. but the levels of "I'm in trouble" feelings and shame in everything can be suffocating. I've been treated like a disruptive psychopathic manipulator for half of my life, and had it hammered into my head that the group should be my utmost priority, and I should never be myself, look out for myself, or my well being. I committed the ultimate sin of never believing any of it, pointing out everything, disagreeing, always sharing my true beliefs and feelings. I'm told every day by health professionals and loved ones, that those are my best traits and things I should be proudest of. But i feel crushed under the weight of the target every minute of every day. The shunning and smearing is almost nothing compared to the feelings I inflict on myself. The logical part of my brain is screaming to be glad that I'm out, that I did the right thing, but it's drowned out by the narrative version of myself.

I have escaped for five months now and am about to graduate from UK university, but last December I was studying the Bible with members of the ICC church. While studying the Bible, I felt suspiciously denied presumption (I felt it was an attack that I was denied because I was a Presbyterian), preached that they were a "true church" and even urged me to give up my dream by telling them to be my student instead of a historian. At the time, I was on winter vacation after the first semester of my senior year in England, and I was about to write my thesis for the second semester, which begins in January of the following year. Eventually, I had a fierce argument with them before Christmas, and I finally got out of it by telling the pastor of my existing church. Frankly, I felt like my life was being denied because I had been walking with God since birth while studying the Bible with them. I have attended church with my family since I was a baby, and they have denied my life and told me to "be baptized again at our church." I was so angry about it. Fortunately, I didn't go to the church in person, and I ended up conducting Bible study online, but has anyone else's life been ruined since I actually went to the church in person? And the ICC church members ask me every morning if I read the Bible and wrote a notebook, and it felt hard for me because it was winter vacation back then, because I wanted to take a break. I'm busy ahead of graduation, but I need time to rest, right? Reading the Bible is good, but at that time I had time to study before I wrote my graduation thesis on Central Asian History and sometimes I couldn't sleep until dawn. Oh, and I got out of them because I couldn't give up my faith in the Lord, but as a Presbyterian, I was so hurt that they made logical errors and attacked me with gaslighting. I felt so hurt because I felt denied my faith. Although I came out of studying the Bible with them for less than a month, can I say that this is a situation as a victim when I have had such an upset experience?

As I've been working through my departure and working through the harm, I keep thinking about a fresh start and not including family (still members). I'm considering a brand new identity and wondered if anyone here has gone through something like that.

Because of the complexity of things, I now have cPTSD, am disabled, and now that I'm in therapy trying to heal, I am having a hard time seeing any use in keeping in touch. My family ignored the signs of it as a child despite my teachers questioning abuse. Any experience on the best ways to cut all ties with that life (including family)? Any tips on subtle things to be aware of so I can prevent boundary violations? Any information that could help me decide what's worth doing and what's just a waste of time is greatly appreciated.

Staying in a cult even after you have mentally left is a very strong way to protest quietly. This opening is very clear. It gets straight to the point.

When you stay as an "ex-member" inside the community, the leader starts getting very annoyed. To them, you are like a "ghost." You occupy a seat, but you don't give any "fuel" to the group—meaning no spiritual energy and no money. Now, even the local management have realized what is happening. They see that you are just sitting there like a dead weight that they cannot push out.

Their anger comes from a very practical reason: they feel you are "freeloading." They think you are using the halls, the electricity, and the facilities they built without giving anything back. You use everything, but you don't give any donations or tithes. This financial loss has made the leader so upset that he can no longer hide it. The irritation is now public; he has started shouting about "useless" or "unproductive" members during his regular speeches. Using "shouting" or "lash out" makes the leader's loss of control feel very real.

What hurts the leader's ego the most is that you are secretly following your own path. You live within their walls, but for your own peace of mind, you follow your own heart or even another religion. Usually, they use threats to stop people from leaving. But now, the leadership is actually telling the "ex-members" to go away and follow their other religions elsewhere. You are there physically, but they cannot touch your spirit. By just staying in this middle ground, you have shown everyone that the leader’s power is actually a failure.

I was recently a victim of an online cult that meet through telegram. They play sick games with others lives in a very calculated and planned out way. Through social engineering, they learned about me. They got into my computers and phones. And most of it was done by a pedophile I knew named Steven Faw. His old online persona was called Austin Majors. They had someone from the FBi in their group who sent experts to hypnotize me against my will. And they sent experts to trade my medicine with pesticides. They killed my dog with pesticides. They also are trying to set me up to go to prison. They want me to die in prison. I overheard one of them call me a human experiment and they said I was just part of a game they play. And they were going to livestream my destruction on Telegram. I live in Roanoke VA. If anyone knows what this group is called or how to find them, please email me at joshua.r.england@pm.me. I don’t use Reddit a lot so I’m sorry if I violated any rules but I really need help.

In June 1992, I had my Sidewalk Exit from the cult University Bible Fellowship (UBF). After ten years of the group managing my life, the leader told me he "wasn't ready" for me to transfer schools to finish my Master's degree. That was the moment the hold shattered; I turned and left him standing on the sidewalk without replying to his stupid comment.

What followed wasn't a miracle — it was the hard-won process of becoming a man with a life of my own.

Relational Autonomy: Meeting My Wife

In August 1992, just two months after leaving, I went on the first date with the woman who would become my wife. I was so nervous I drove 50 miles in my dad’s car just wandering around before picking her up. On November 14, 1992, we were married. Our partnership was entirely our own, formed outside the management of a cult leader. For over 30 years, she has been my anchor.

Professional Continuity: From Sheep to Office Manager 

The group exploited my labor; the real world respected it. I chose not to finish my Master’s so I could find steady work and support my new life.

• The First Steps: In 1994, I started working as a membership coordinator for a professional association, where I tripled the size of their referral service through individual attention to the service’s participants.
• The Corporate Years: I spent 13 years at a major insurance carrier as a Senior Administrative Secretary from day one. I supported executives and large teams, eventually training others who were promoted beyond my own level.
• Academic Integrity: In 2012, I earned a second degree in Management Information Systems while working full-time. I made the Dean’s List and built database tools that impressed my managers.
• The Publishing Era: I spent nine years at a major textbook publisher, as a Content Licensing Coordinator in their Content Licensing department. It was a community of Pi Day potlucks and mutual respect—a place where I made an appreciated contribution.
• My New Job: I’m now the office manager for a wireless communication company. They hired me because of my administrative skills and adaptability.

Why this matters 

I’m sharing this because for a long time, I was ashamed of my time in the group. I thought it was my fault I was recruited as a recent high school graduate in 1982.

But documenting these decades of normal life proves that I took my life back. I replaced their antiseptic thumbnail sketch of me with a reality where I am the one at the keyboard.