“We Were Suffering”: Ex-Cult Members Are Sharing The Moments They Realized Something Was Wrong, And I’m Shocked To My Core
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A while back, we shared stories about the moments former cult members realized they were, well, in a cult. Then, some readers decided to share their own stories. Here are the most interesting ones:
Some responses are also from this Reddit thread because they’re just too good not to share.
Stories include topics like sexual assault.
1. “I was raised in a Catholic family with nine children. My mother scratched around to make ends meet every week. I believe my father made $100 a week. She would pay her tithes to the church every week. At the end of the year, a report was made available for public viewing, listing the amount each family donated in descending order. Such a humiliating thing to do. Left the church at 18 and never turned back. This stuck with me.”
—Anonymous, 73, France
Person wearing a dress shirt and tie, sitting at a desk, looking focused and thoughtful, with hands clasped in front of their face
Colin Hawkins / Getty Images
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2. “I was engaged to the youth pastor. A few weeks before the wedding, I found out that he had fathered a child with a ‘friend’ while we were together, and I called off the wedding. All of my ‘friends’ from the church told me I was wrong for ending the relationship, how I should have forgiven the infidelity, and helped raise the child. Meanwhile, my ‘heathen’ friends and family helped me pick up the pieces. A few months later, I was in the ER with a ruptured cyst, and one of the church elders was there and completely ignored me. Turned out the optics of my forgiveness were better than the optics of an unwed youth pastor with a child out of wedlock.”
—Anonymous, 45, US
3. “I stopped believing in religion when they told me it was a sin to be gay. My dad is gay, and they told me that he won’t be accepted into heaven by God because of who he loves, which made me stop believing in the Bible.”
—Anonymous, 31, Georgia
Read more https://www.buzzfeed.com/laurengarafano/cult-stories
Content retrieved from: https://www.buzzfeed.com/laurengarafano/cult-stories.
