Post-Cult Trauma Syndrome*
After exiting a cult, an individual may experience a period of intense and often
conflicting emotions. She or he may feel relief to be out of the group, but also may feel
grief over the loss of positive elements in the cult, such as friendships, a sense of
belonging or the feeling of personal worth generated by the group's stated ideals or
mission. The emotional upheaval of the period is often characterized by "post- cult
trauma syndrome":
- spontaneous crying
- sense of loss
- depression & suicidal thoughts
- fear that not obeying the cult's wishes will result in God's wrath or loss of salvation
- alienation from family, friends
- sense of isolation, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who have no basis for
understanding cult life
- fear of evil spirits taking over one's life outside the cult
- scrupulosity, excessive rigidity about rules of minor importance
- panic disproportionate to one's circumstances
- fear of going insane
- confusion about right and wrong
- sexual conflicts
- unwarranted guilt
The period of exiting from a cult is usually a traumatic experience and, like any great
change in a person's life, involves passing through stages of accommodation to the change:
- Disbelief/denial: "This can't be happening. It couldn't have been that
bad."
- Anger/hostility: "How could they/I be so wrong?" (hate feelings)
- Self-pity/depression: "Why me? I can't do this."
- Fear/bargaining: "I don't know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can
still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want."
- Reassessment: "Maybe I was wrong about the group's being so wonderful."
- Accommodation/acceptance: "I can move beyond this experience and choose new
directions for my life" or...
- Re-involvement: "I think I will rejoin the group."
Passing through these stages is seldom a smooth progression. It is fairly typical to
bounce back and forth between different stages. Not everyone achieves the stage of
accommodation / acceptance. Some return to cult life. But for those who do not, the
following may be experienced for a period of several months:
- flashbacks to cult life
- simplistic black-white thinking
- sense of unreality
- suggestibility, ie. automatic obedience responses to trigger-terms of the cult's loaded
language or to innocent suggestions
- disassociation (spacing out)
- feeling "out of it"
- "Stockholm Syndrome": knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is
criticized, even if the cult hurt the person
- difficulty concentrating
- incapacity to make decisions
- hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticizes the cult or toward the cult
itself
- mental confusion
- low self-esteem
- dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake
- loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks
- dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult
- hang-overs of habitual cult behaviors like chanting
- difficulty managing time
- trouble holding down a job
Most of these symptoms subside as the victim mainstreams into everyday routines of
normal life. In a small number of cases, the symptoms continue.
* This information is a composite list from the following sources: "Coming
Out of Cults", by Margaret Thaler Singer, Psychology
Today, Jan.
1979, P. 75; "Destructive Cults, Mind Control and Psychological
Coercion","Fact Sheet", Cult
Hot-Line and Clinic, New York City.
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