[ot][personal] cult reading notes

[Undiscussed Groomed for Male Slavery, One Victim of Many]

- the website has informational videos for professionals

- people counseled out have help and information
- they may still have psychological challenges they are working
through, especially if they were deprogrammed, which itself can cause
ptsd
- people who were exit-counseled and voluntarily engaged in
intervention do better

the author may be distinguishing between their approach and competing
approaches.

- regardless, full recovery takes time and good support, including
understanding of mind control from family and friends

- today, much more is known about undue influence and cults, and there
are many more professional cult counselors who are former members

- unfortunately ex-members tend to turn to therapists who are not
aware of mind control. this is quite unethical.
- a therapist should make an accurate diagnosis by doing a thorough
interview, then refer the client to a professional with the proper
training.

i start disagreeing around the interview, as interviews have triggered
me, and it makes sense it would trigger anybody who else who was
influenced to not discuss something. but i am not aware of what
interviewing approach is taught here. i also appreciate it when people
don't avoid important things (which can extend for months and years),
it's just hard to respond rationally and relevantly.

- most common psychological difficulty is depression, especially for
the first few months after leaving a cult
- pain of realizing one was deeply enslaved by what one trusted more
than anything, and lost decades of a potential life, is severe

many ex-members have no spouse, partner, children, education,
relationships with relatives, or friends.
this sounds discouraging, but if one is in those situations
themselves, it means there are many other people in a similar
situation probably also looking for the roles to be filled.

i would like to request of the organisation that they provide channels
for people to connect via. i am not really in contact with them quite
yet.

- strong sense of personal violation. people identify with the concept
of rape whether or not they experienced literal sexual rape.

in the TI community people also identify with rape, whether or not
literal and sexual.

- because of the intense depression, recently-ex-members can come
across as very negative, seeing only the bad
- former members need to acknowledge and work through their paint, and
go through the necessary grieving period
- it seems to help ex-members to realise that some positive things
came out of their involvement, and they are or can be much stronger
because of their experiences
- it can help to encourage ex-members to put their experience in a
manageable and hopeful perspective
- there are almost always examples of ex-members with worse
experiences, who then thrived

- ex-members also demonstrate the problem of learned helplessness,
depending on others for basic things like decisions. this is bad,
notably producing low self-esteem and undermining healthy personal
development

in my opinion, this also makes a funny rescue situation. if somebody
becomes dependent on you, this both means they can be easy to
influence, and that things can go haywire if you disappear or if there
is something important you are unaware of.
kinda big thing!
it also can sometimes seem a little silly to tell somebody in an
obedient trance to thnik for themselves. this is somewhat possible,
but during such an experience if used to strong influence there may be
little to base a decision on, and it could be a pretty important
situation. i always say: if somebody's being enslaved, it's our duty
to be the person doing it, so we can free them. could relate to me
being a little braindead. not something i still consider personally
doable.
this group of writing seems more crazy than most i've written here.

regarding the author's personal experience of demonstrating decision
making ability when leaving, it's notable how this engages that there
are so many experiences out there, and it's so hard to engage cult
recovery, that there are a lot of gross summaries that are not
individually accurate. this is harder in an environment where cults
are trying to counter-message recovery information.

- decision making becomes easier with practice. people learn to resume
control over their lives. gently and firmly instructing ex-members to
make their own minds up can speed this up. bolstering the ex-member's
self-esteem and confidence, dependency issues are usually overcome.

- "floating" is when the cult identity returns after a long time away

i describe this as flashbacks.

- triggered by being exposed to something that was present during conditioning
- popular music is often used for indoctrination

i was sad to learn the latest "stranger things" movie had a song as a
main thematic component, after my own exposure to the use of music to
anchor memories with a trance. i have not seen it myself, but it is so
common to see the media depicitions of things support the slavers
rather than the escapees, that i am hesitant to watch it.
the thing with music, is that a simple phone call, payment, or
compromised system, can cause it to play somewhere, triggering a state
in anybody within earshot. it also produces states randomly at a great
distance.
i hope the movie addresses the dangers of music feeling "special"; it
was great to see some other things it talked about. but it is
obviously a pop-media work, and the real ongoing stories are much more
important.
still, people watch those movies, and think about what is in them.

maybe things that deserve real specialness are things that are
personal, not things from massive pop culture. things that represent
real unique moments in our shared lives. i mean music is great but i
heard a song played a special role in that movie and i was worried and
paranoid.

- condition process part flashbacks are called "floating"

the author describes their own floating. i wonder how it feels to
them. i guess it would be however they were feeling when the events
they float to, happened.
i experienced really incredible urgency, and i guess i've read that's
common in cults. urgency can be really intense. i failed to act on a
lot of my urgency. i really want to understand it.

one thing i experienced was attempts to disrupt some of my floating,
maybe so i would know less about the group and what they were doing.
this is pretty unpleasant. it does indeed change the experience but it
also changes who i am. i'm still quite upset about this, but i've
gotten somewhat good at bantering with people or things that are
repeating warped variations of things that trigger me. for triggers
that aren't too severe.

this is the end of the section i posted so i'll send this to defend
against glitches and work on getting the next text over.