r/cultsurvivors

I need to get this off my chest, recently I decided to bite the bullet and look up signs you've been indoctrinated into a cult, and it hit the markers. I just didn't experience all of it because I wasn't there in person. It was the love has won cult. I was indoctrinated 5 fucking years ago. It took me this fucking long to notice. I keep having these automatic thoughts of "truth". It's just fucking mind control, I was so deluded to where I thought there was a fictional character that was me.

I saw a video of Jason threatening and spitting on someone, and heard of the dude who was left naked in the forest. My sense of self was changed, stopped doing things I enjoyed from them not being "high vibe". Even went by a different fucking name. Controlled food was there and I was told to stay up one night. Including being told not to say certain words.

Getting these things out of me is like when Spiderman is pulling off the venom symbiote, except it's lies, manipulation, and control. I thought, " why was this done to me? Why can't I stop thinking you're god? Why can't I make myself? Why can't I just let this go?!"

I feel lost, I feel depressed, idk if heaven or he'll exists anymore, or if it all just goes black. I dont fucking know anymore. I feel lost but ik my life is just gonna keep going on and I just need to deal with it.

Thinking she wasn't god, or Jason wasn't either made me feel guilty, like a traitor, and I was afraid to question it, to ask them. I was indoctrinated at 16 or so, I'm 21 now. I feel like apart of my life has been robbed, like I've been doing nothing. Like that time was stolen from me, and I still can't help but wonder, what if she is? And it's hard to keep pushing these thoughts out of my head. I honestly feel like crying and apart of my life has been a lie. I thought I was doing such "amazing" things. But look at what they did?

Fuck. What do I do? I've considered therapy.

I was around 10 when I was introduced to a group called the Soulful Journey. As a teenager, I ended up living in the cult leaders basement, barely sleeping, going to constant late-night classes and “channeling” sessions for a being called “G.” We were taught about things like another dimension called “The 99,” and at the time it all felt completely normal.

There is now a food truck connected to the group. I spoke about it in an interview with Sarah Steel from Let’s Talk About Sects. (linked above, also available on Spotify)

Posting in case anyone recognises anything similar, or has had overlapping experiences. Happy to answer questions!!

If anyone in Minnesota has come across this group (or the food truck), I’d be really interested to hear.

I spent 34 years inside a high-control religious group called the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. When I finally started naming the harm publicly — the abuse covered internally, the shunning used as a weapon, the doctrine applied to everyone except the people enforcing it — the response followed a pattern so consistent it couldn't be accidental.

First they denied it happened or reframed it as something else.

Then they attacked my character. I was bitter. I had an independent spirit. I was offended and hadn't forgiven. My credibility became the subject instead of the claim I made.

Then — and this is the part that took me longest to name — they positioned themselves as the victims. My accountability was persecution. My questions were an attack on the true church. The institution that caused the harm was now the suffering party bearing its cross with patience.

I didn't have a word for this until recently.

The word is DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It was developed by psychologist Jennifer Freyd to describe how perpetrators and institutions respond when held accountable.

Once I learned it I couldn't unsee it. Every conversation I'd had with people still inside the church followed that exact sequence. Every time I raised something specific and documented, the conversation shifted from what I said to what was wrong with me for saying it.

The thing that makes institutional DARVO different from individual DARVO is the total control the institution has over your reality. They controlled my family relationships, my social world, my economic connections, my information environment. When an institution that controls all of those things deploys DARVO against you, you have almost nowhere to stand outside the system to evaluate what the system is doing to you.

I've been writing about this and other dynamics in high-control religion for a few months now. The response has been overwhelming — mostly from people saying they finally have a word for something they lived but couldn't name.

If any of this resonates I'd be glad to talk about it.

​I am standing at the edge of my 30th birthday, and the grief is suffocating me.

​Most people celebrate this milestone, but I look back at my 20s and they are just gone Vanished Swallowed up by survival mode in a prison built by my own blood.

I was raised in a cult in a third world country.

My family are true believers What they don't know, what they can never know, is that I am an atheist. An agnostic. An unbeliever.

​If the mask I wear ever slipped for even a second, if they found out who I actually am, I would be killed. And the most terrifying part isn't even the death it's that nobody outside these walls would ever even know I existed.

I would just be erased.

​My situation isn't an accident it’s by design.

I was intentionally stripped of the tools I needed to build a way out.

I was denied a formal education and the right to work. They made sure I couldn't survive on my own so that I could never leave.

Every day is a struggle of forced hiding, knowing that the penalty for my honesty is being crucified by my own blood.

​There are days the horror of it all sets in and I lose hope. I am so tired of waiting for an escape that feels impossible.

I catch myself wishing for magic wishing a stranger could just reach down and teleport me to a life where I can just breathe. I crave a life of my own so badly it physically hurts.

​But I’m still here. I am still fighting in the only way I can. When they shut the doors on my future, I became my own teacher.

I have fought for my mental freedom by educating myself about the world in secret.

They trapped my body, but they haven't been able to police my mind.

​I find my rebellion in tiny, quiet things. I study new languages in the dark, practicing words that connect me to a world they can't see.

I find a little peace in the flowers I grow on my balcony or the music I listen to from across the ocean.

These are the small, hidden pieces of my soul they haven't been able to touch.

​I don't know how to get help.

I don't know how to find a route out when I have no papers and no money. I am just deeply, deeply sad for the decade I lost and will lose to this cage.

​I don't have the answers. I just needed to cast this into the void today. Before I turn 30, I needed someone, somewhere, to know I am here. I am alive. I exist.

And maybe somehow I shall taste freedom one day.

hi, I met a 30M at work. he works in HR and I'm a doctor in the same hospital. he's a catholic and associated with a ministry. I'm a different religion. Hindu.

he initiated the texts... constantly texted me and I didn't understand why he would want to talk to me being in HR. anyway, I responded to the texts since they were consistent and I gradually began liking talking to him. he would flirt too and compliment me. the strange part was he seemed very interested but never asked me for coffee.

I asked if we could grab coffee. he declined but continued to text me constantly. I didn't understand what he was playing at.

he said he'd never dated anyone in his life...slowly, none of his stories seemed consistent.

I thought he just needed time to warm up to the idea of dating?! I don't know why I was making excuses for him.

but what came next, confused me even more. please help me make sense of this. mind you he kept complimenting me incessantly throughout.

So eventually

He said he'll enter the arranged marriage market when they've finished re-building his family home in his hometown, which would take atleast another year. then he said his family wanted to introduce him to a match.

So I asked him if he saw the lady's picture then. He said why would I? I will only get interested if she's sensitive, beautiful like you....

in the beginning before we even got close, he said he had a crush where he was doing his MBA. But that girl left and got married to someone else. she gave him enough time to step up and find a job or get settled.

he would share videos of his church sermons etc and ask me if I go to a temple...and if I perform pooja on festivals.

after a few weeks...he began sexting.

Then he revealed he had an ex-gf of 6 years...who is looking for matches herself. And this happened exactly after the sexting. I felt cheated.

Before then it was the cousin he liked...the nurses...the matches....never an ex gf!!! How did she magically appear?!

Nothing makes sense with him.

Then I stopped talking to him and blocked him for a week. I said if he still had feelings for his ex while sexting me, I can't have that on my conscience especially if he hopes to get back with her.

So after a week he says he's not at all in touch with her and she may have gotten married. He said the same thing again when I asked after two weeks just to confirm.

Then we got into a fight about not meeting. I told him I felt like a virtual p\*rn machine and someone without a face. I asked him how come he has no desire to meet me after being so intimate on text and calls? So we met for dinner. and when he met me...he said his ex-gf is still not married and he's trying to tell his father about her....

he still won't meet me and says he's scared someone will see us.

what does he want?!

Now in no way am I saying that I, or any other survivor, are "special" for having this kind of trauma but I do find that it can be difficult to find others to relate to sometimes. Like whenever the topic of abuse is brought up many times it's seen in the form of domestic violence, child abuse from parents, an unintentional cycle, and things of that sort which of course are completely valid and life altering and should be taken seriously. But when it comes to organized abuse and the complexity of healing from cults, it's definitely a bit harder to find others who have gone through something similar. Like no, the abuse wasn't from my family, it was from the cult, and many people in this cult thought they were doing "good" while others knew they were being exploitative. So basically what I'm saying is that it can be a bit isolating at times, which I'm sure everyone here is familiar with.

Hello,

The following is pretty explicit, would love any recommendations of other reddits to try searching for this on.

For context here's some background.

When I (27F) was 16, I was groomed, SA'd, and "kept" by a man 27 years older than me. This went on for 7-8 years. I escaped him and fled to a different state in the last couple years and I'm doing my best to heal and build a life. I've been going over a lot of things that happened to me and I remembered this event.

At the start of our "relationship" I caught him "cheating" on me. I saw a text on his phone from a woman asking when he would like to meditate next. I asked him about it just curious, and he got very defensive and didn't want to talk about it. The text didn't seem strange to me until he started acting that way and so I pressed him about it until he told me the truth. We stayed up all night fighting about it, driving around in his car, because I was a minor and we couldn't go inside anywhere.

He was apart of what I now define as, a sex cult. He described it as a group where people would gather and perform a practice in order to break through mental sexual barriers. He described different tiers of membership, with the higher tiers getting more and more sexually "liberating". It was something you paid into and they had merch and everything. And the more you paid the deeper in you got.

Lower levels described women just jacking off men. Like- a room full of people and everyone did it in front of eachother. But there was rules. You never picked your partner, everyone wore gloves, everyone took turns on eachother. There was an opposite gathering as well where women laid down in a "nest" made out of pillows and blankets the group sold while men tried to stimulate their clits. Gloved. Higher tiers were described as women blowing men, with all the same rules. You didn't pick your partners, you had to do it to whoever you were assigned.

And this may sound like it could be, yknow, consensual orgy behavior or something- but it wasn't. This group was a pyramid type membership you paid into that promised sexual revelation. It was very secret. It was advantageous and manipulative.

The question I've been trying to find an answer to is, what was this group called? This was again, around 8 years ago. I don't know if it's still active or what.

Supposedly after I confronted him he stopped going. And details of this could be fabricated by him. The "meditation" this woman was asking for was one of the private sessions doing one of these things. He had his own "nest", it was one of the rules that the men provided the nest for the woman. And I asked him to get rid of it because it upset me but he refused our entire relationship saying "I'm not going to get rid of it because it bothers you. You should be strong enough to not let it bother you. It's meaningless." He never got rid of it. Never made practical use of it. Nothing. Just sat there in my face for 8 years. The nest consisted of 3 grey soft throw pillows inside a large woven beige tote. There may have also been a blanket in there or something but I never looked in it to see. That's just what I could easily see from the outside. It took up a lot of space.

Thank you.

I experienced that! Totally! It was like legitimate therapy + narcissistic abuse + Scientology-like tricks. The dude was licensed, taught Harvard students, was married to another therapist and the college Dean of Social Work and similar people send clients to him for receiving vetted 'gently guided maturity' and kept patient for 2-30 years.

Present or past, good or bad… Noticed some warning signs and wondering if anyone knows what’s up in that space! (please comment if you can but feel free to dm at least!)

Hi, I’m Angela. I spent 12 years in a high-control religious group in Portland, Oregon, starting at age 12. I was taken into the group as a child and didn’t leave until I was 24.

The group operated across Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii under at least nine different names. It ran a human smuggling pipeline, forced marriages of minors, and produced four indictments and a conviction for eight counts of child sexual assault. It operated out of normal residential houses in Northeast Portland. Nobody knew what was happening inside.

I recently wrote an academic paper documenting the group’s structure, criminal network, and psychological mechanisms. It’s the first time this case has been examined in academic literature.

I’m not a credentialed researcher. I’m a survivor who decided to put it on the record.

You may have already seen me drop the link earlier with zero context like a gremlin.

Thank you for accepting me in this community!

Angela

If so, DM me with 1-2 sentences on what you would like to discuss and which day of the week is best for you. If you have questions, naturally DM me them too.

Look, I’m posting this here ’cause the whole Jason Shurka / TLS / EES court fight got me thinking less about YouTube drama and more about how cult-ish influence works online now.

The release I found points to a Clark County case, A-25-910216-B, and a Zenodo record, 10.5281/zenodo.19389516. Per that release, the court denied an anti-SLAPP motion, and it also points to a forensic analysis about “The Light System” hardware and the gap between alleged parts cost and what buyers were charged.

What gets me is the vibe of the content. A lot of it comes off like he’s got some special mission or special insight, like he’s the one people are supposed to trust over everybody else. To me, that’s where it starts feeling cult-ish. Not just because of the claims, but because of how easy it is for followers to get locked into one person’s version of the story.

It also makes me wonder if the new version of cult-like influence ain’t mostly face-to-face anymore. Maybe now it’s YouTube, repeat messaging, loyal fans, and a setup where outside criticism gets brushed off like proof the creator must be onto something.

For full transparency, I’ve watched a lot of his conspiracy stuff, so I get why people binge it. That’s part of why I think people really gotta background-check public figures before going all in. Check the docket. Check outside sources. See if the story lines up with the record.

So I’m curious what this sub thinks: when does a strong online following cross over into something more cult-ish?