[SERIOUS] Ex CULT members share their CREEPIEST experiences (r/AskReddit) reddit stories

[Music] our /as credit by reddit aliens posted by user cactus bloom - serious ex cult members what was your oh [ __ ] I'm in a cult moment googled my cults name for the first time which I thought was just the name of the church and saw many articles about how the leader was charged for raping / sexually assaulting women I showed my fellow cult members and they told me the leader said that all those articles are lying and that we shouldn't believe them I reflected some more and realized that weekday services at 4 a.m. and Sunday services that lasted 7 hours were absolutely not normal edit damn since this blew up I hope nobody I know finds my reddit profile low that's pretty much a lifestyle at that point I get up at 4 a.m. to hike for 10 hours I guess that's not normal either but no one is telling me to do it I was in a cult that was run by a family member it was a small group and we were to give 100% loyalty to this family member financial and everything it escalated to be my whole life for a good five years and I didn't know what normal relationships were I met a guy and he showed me what love actually is he told me that this relationship I had with this family member wasn't loving and I immediately knew told him everything and was out since then it was so hard to say I think I might be in a cult but I did blacklisted family member and other members and haven't looked back I hate to ask but was the cult relationship with a family member inappropriate sexually for just all the other stuff that we come to expect from a cult cut ties with non cult members hand over some percent of your money pledge blind allegiance to these underscore weird beliefs etc never inappropriate sexually and luckily that was never apparent in any of the other members either it was more about finances and manual labor / time commitment cutting off other family members and vowing to never speak of your beliefs to any of them when I was stationed on Okinawa late 90s I went to this church that seemed to be the pretty generic Christian Church but they met in a small room above a store didn't think much about it until they got a new pastor they owned a house in town and always invited everyone over for some cookouts and Bible study the new pastor was actively encouraging the enlisted service members to move into the house and get the housing allowance to support the house then he wanted to see rles think pay stubs to ensure we were supporting the church enough I think the final straw was when they started taking attendance for their seven days yep you were expected to attend some church thing seven days a week of services and trying to shame anyone that didn't make it to something I didn't tell them I wasn't going anymore just stop showing up they knew where my barracks room was and sent soul savers to get me back to the church the last time they talked to me they again went with the shame route that no other Church would get me into heaven and I told them I think they proved I made the right decision how do they have access to base other service members yes they had other military members who were in their church Drive the mountain base when the second guide took over their soul saving became way over the top they would go to all the barracks and knock on every single door to recruit new members when I told them I didn't think that was allowed so wouldn't do it the pastor said I had to decide whether the military cared about me or the church I think abandoning their church was the best and I know they weren't the only Church doing things like this across multiple bases I've talked about this before on Reddit and was surprised because so many people also went to these schools but had no idea the see edu boarding schools were founded by a high-ranking sin a non-member named Mel Wasserman if you guys don't know what Synanon is here you go there's about a dozen of these schools and they are still open edit here's the school's wiki I went to Boulder Creek Academy 2001 to 2003 they kept all the teachings but dumb them down for kids every few months we would go through a workshop called prophets where they would do weird-ass [ __ ] things like make one person sit on a mattress in the middle of the room and have the rest of us pretend like it was a life raft and you have to scream out all of the reasons you have to live in beg for your life staff would walk around going you live you live you die pretty much all down to favoritism if you get picked you get on the life raft if you don't you drown which was a little touchy for me because my older brother had just died from drowning less than three years earlier but I had to act it out regardless otherwise I would fail the profit and I would be pushed back and then I would be there another three months until the next one rolls around also sleep deprivation was a key part the last workshop was seven days and the whole time you have to refer to yourself as me I don't know how to explain this but pretty much if you told a staff that you didn't want to do something they'd be like that's right I doesn't wanted to do this but you're me doze this was right before they dropped you off at a mall keep in mind we were all kids who were in the middle of nowhere in Idaho who have been away from the world for almost three years and you had to one by someone food to get someone's address three talked to someone of the opposite sex and some other [ __ ] but you couldn't tell other people why you were doing it think about that next time you're in a mall if anyone even goes to malls anymore you would have approached random strangers and do that after being shut away for almost three years when you graduate that profit summit the whole school about sixty kids at once time gathers around the main room in the house they played this [ __ ] song and the kids walk one one by one with a rose and walked through the crowd and touched their hands and cry and Jesus Christ what the [ __ ] Lowell just clicking on that song to link it made my heart start beating and really took me back I can go on and on and on I was there for two years and this doesn't even scratch the surface of all of the weird [ __ ] when did I find out like ten years later when I really started thinking about it it all felt totally normal and I just remembered friends and stuff that's the scary part this was not normal and to all the see edu kids and here sorry you were in a cult just really take a minute to think about it all of the weird sayings the agreements the smoosh piles the bands the wraps the jumpsuits the repetitive music the scrolls the workshops the monitored phone calls the mandatory positivity letters the let's the peace talks the inner circles all of it and this was all centered on that's not even including the profits my dudes I still have my profit journal around here somewhere let me update this in a bit edit some other things disclosure circles we had a thing called wraps where we would sit in a circle for three and half hours four times a week and just share or get yelled at or have to rat other kids out disclosure circles were like raps on crack and they lasted up to six hour that's where the staff would have to share stuff about themselves - I learned that one of the staff [ __ ] an unconscious girl who drank too much so that was nice none of the staff there had any kind of certification or degree or was qualified to teach therapy - kid I don't even think you had to have a high school diploma and this was North Idaho in the middle of the woods at the end of the fifth profit staff and your friends would hold you down as he struggled to get up and it would give you this weightless feeling and they held you up to a light afterwards that was your rebirth as you shed your shadow self away you looked back at your shadow and told it goodbye and then it was someone else's turn edit the shadow self is something that was connected to the first prophet you had to draw an ugly image of yourself and then face a wall and stare at it also during that prophet you had to put your head between your legs and scream out confessions at the floor if you couldn't think of anything you just had to scream at the top of your lungs there were only about 14 kids - a peer group so imagine a room full of 14 to 17 year olds just screaming crying and yelling out the most horrible things that had happened to them while staff paced around them making sure they did a good job again I can go on and on another edit they were able to keep you there until you were 22 if you were enrolled when you were under age one of my best friends there was there for four years if only you can see how just utterly lost he is right now I'm afraid to even reach out because he's so far gone last headed thanks for the gold and all that just remember that this is still going on as you read this and not a damn thing is going to be done about it this is just CED you and their countless other schools out there way way worse hell in Provo Canyon if you really screw up you get sent to its expansion in [ __ ] Guatemala and parents are on board with that because the schools all seem so caring to the naive and ill-informed what else can you do except let people know holy [ __ ] that was an enlightening wiki whole my brother-in-law was sent to one of those tough-love abusive wilderness camps for out-of-control teens with drug problems that was apparently inspired by Synanon he ended up with dysentery he almost died I had no idea they did that level of cultish brainwashing slash breaking down the personality but that explains a lot how do you feel after having dealt with that [ __ ] for two years do you have problems with self esteem was it ascent that's where we would go if we refused or just got in a lot of trouble did he say anything about climbing a tower it's mandatory and a kid died a few years ago falling off of it I heard that place is really rough and I dealt with it a lot better than most kids because it wasn't my first boarding school my mom must have seen Dead Poets Society and was just determined to make that me because I got sent a place identical to it and just failed miserably and was abused a lot so I purposefully got myself kicked out and just came back traumatized and pissed off so I got sent to see edu and oh yeah my self-esteem is totally [ __ ] Lowell luckily I'm that creative type and cope with a self-deprecating sense of humor so I have way way too many outlets and I'm the funniest person I know so ie it's all good I was born into Scientology even though I internally questioned a lot when I was younger I had learned very early on not to actually question anything my aha moment was when I was ready to go on to the next step and one of the other members who not so surprisingly is also an ex-member now asked me why I was planning on doing what I was doing and my answer was it's what's expected of me I went home and really thought about what I wanted and realized I didn't actually agree with most things in Scientology I started to process to leave shortly after I had to leave the right way since my dad and sister are still very involved and I don't want to lose them for my life edit so I wrote this comment and went to bed thinking I would get a few votes but not so many questions so I'll answer the what is the right way one here and as many individual as I can over the course of the day sorry to leave you guys hanging now this all happened 15 years ago so I'll do the best I can but there is some info I just don't remember or remember incorrectly so leaving the right way depends on where you are within Scientology there is public who go in donate take courses go to events but are under no contractual obligation Class V org staff the place most public go to get their services done and those on staff work there it's more like glorified volunteerism you are typically under either a 2.5 year or a 5 year contract and you're expected to work at least 40 hours a week when I was a senior in HS and told them I couldn't work all those hours and it was insane the amount of pressure I had put on me to drop out of HS to go work for them full-time and by full-time I mean MF 9:00 to 10:00 Saturday and Sunday 9:00 to 6:00 and there would be events for the public on a lot of Saturday nights that would go until past 11:00 I did not drop out of school but it was a point of contention the entire time I was there the Sea Org this is the highest level of commitment ything Scientology and within it there are more levels but I don't know much about it since I was never in I do know that you have to sign a billion-year contract you get housed and fed on their dime but the rooms are essentially closets with a bed and a dresser no real personal space and would sometimes make about $50 a week for working 80 plus hours a week you didn't really get time off if you were there you were expected to be available for anything since you really had no other obligations so how I left as I stated above I was on staff at a class v org and when you do that you don't pay for any services you get so I had finished one of my services and was talking about what the next one I was going to do was when one of the other staff members asked me why I was choosing the one it did and essentially I had already started down one of several different paths so my answer was basically it's what's expected of me when I said that he told me to go home and think about what I had said I did think about it and over the next few weeks started opening my eyes to things that were happening that I didn't agree with I realized that I really wasn't happy and that wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life so I decided I was done and was going to break my staff contract I don't remember who I told but they started the ball rolling right away you need to have a leaving staff back basically a super-intense very expensive exit interview that takes days or even weeks to complete once that is complete you're supposed to essentially make amends with anyone you feel you have wronged by leaving then to get back in good standing you have to pay your freeloader debt so any of those services I told you we're free while you were on staff well now that you're off of staff you have to pay back the org for them and it can be thousands of in thousands of dollars my dad paid for my sect check because I said I wasn't spending any money on them and he wanted me to be in good standing I had some money saved up from when my mom had passed away and used that to pay off my freeloader debt trust me I wish I hadn't done that but then after that I essentially make sure to not say anything bad about Scientology round members I know are active as far as my dad is concerned I still think highly of SCN but that it just isn't for me I think my sister knows better but we just don't talk about it I've been out for just about 15 years at this point and I still get mail I still get phone calls it is still awkward when I see Scientologists are used to be close with but I am much happier now I love my life that I have made for myself most of the stories you hear of people escaping and needing to hide etc are from the Sea Org I really don't have experience with that to know how difficult it must have been for those people I will say that I have watched most of the Leah Remini show and most of the stories do not see made-up or exaggerated to me I can see how a lot of them would have really happened and it's extremely unfortunate that others don't see the abuses happening right under their nose a tattoo thanks for the silver my first when the leader wanted to split up all the marriages and take the wives for himself and when he wanted to give the husbands of those wives different women to be with basically sharing the women except nobody had a say in who they were to be what many people were deeply unhappy and pained by this but they had to submit to the Holy Spirit as they would say and do what they were told I was a teen at the time my family and I left his cult so thankfully I was not pawned off on some random guy what cult was this a relatively small unknown one in Alberta can they mainly refer to themselves as the group this will get buried but whatever I grew up fundamentalist evangelical Christian my dad saw the Duggars on TV and decided we were gonna be like then long skirts modest clothes courtships all of it my mom had gone through early menopause due to cancer treatment but that was merely a small roadblock I went to church every damn day I was not allowed to question the doctrine I was not allowed to study for the SATs because my mission in life for God was to get married and have babies I was responsible for the impure thoughts my male counterparts had it was my job to dress in such a manner that they weren't tempted I got my 17-year old ass beat with the belt because I wore jeans to school I was told that women shouldn't have a voice in their reproductive care because that's what God is for so no sex until marriage no birth control also women who had sex before the Holy bonds of wedlock were compared to use scotch tape I'm out now I had sex before marriage my dad refers to my daughter as a bastard we don't speak I'm tapping this out wearing a tank top and shorts I hated my life in that cult I love it now okay I'm sorry the religion I was forced into as a kid sounds scarily similar to that women are for making babies no sex outside marriage or you'll go to hell birth control is a sin don't dress him honestly or whatever happens to you it's your fault because you were tempting boys etc etc I was mentally out a long time before I could leave because I managed to see that friendship was conditional on being an unquestioning sheep and I'm so glad I saw it early because it is undeniably a cult and the reason I was shunned by the only people I knew as friends was the sheer audacity to ask questions that's it I wanted to know why and because God and the Prophet said so wasn't enough for me they've managed to have a few things pan out they ban smoking in like the 1800s so when the whole smoking causes cancer things started they went aha you can't deny the prophetic wisdom bla bla bla but for the most part they are on the wrong side of history and they never apologize they can never be wrong oh and don't forget to give at least 10% of your gross income to them or else you can't see fam members get married which they had very recently reneged on or participate in things like blessing your own baby because you're not worthy and don't get me started on the garments people strangers no less will literally feel your upper arm to see if you're wearing them and if you're not you're instantly treated as either a second-class citizen or a target for conversion and no matter how many times you ask they will not leave you alone you have to do something extreme a lot of the time to get them to stop harassing you and yes it is harassment sometimes that's something as simple as getting a tattoo other times you practically have to call the cops in short I'm glad I'm out and I wish my family was less brainwashed the Mormon cult I realized Mormons treat people who leave like absolute [ __ ] and families are torn apart because a family member stops believing Mormons kids are pretty much forced to join the church at 8:00 and go on a mission at 18 if they're male you also have to pay 10% of all income before taxes to the church in order to get in the temple there's also sexual repression teaching false history and any information that doesn't come directly from the church is labeled anti-mormon congratulations on getting out South Korean cult I attended but thankfully didn't join in the end I had just moved to Korea at 18 years age and didn't really know anyone I was just starting to learn Korean conversational but still low level and didn't really have a lot of friends yet someone invited me to go to church with them and they were really nice and I wanted to meet people I had a lot of fun at this church the people would take me out to eat help me with Korean and even help me with my homework / test prep it was 100% the nicest Church I've ever visited and I felt like a had a place to fit in now this is how they suck people in also there was a female pastor who was super hot and would sometimes let people always younger men stay with her if they needed a place I always wondered if this was an intentional tactic to try to learn more young man in because this specific church one location of many seemed to only go after men eventually they started pressuring me to make myself unhealthy saying that there was a balance between physical and spiritual strength I loved bodybuilding so me being physically strong was an issue they were pressuring me to lose muscle and try to make myself sick if possible to make my body as weak as possible they said if I didn't my soul would grow restless and crawl out of my mouth when I was asleep I repeatedly said I wasn't interested but wanted to continue attending this church this was not acceptable at all they strongly pressured me to start making myself sick I stopped going to the church and they waited outside of my school for me and followed me around for what seems like a couple months they knew my class schedule and were always outside trying to talk to me eventually in the end they backed off and I never heard from them again another guy from the church also got creeped out and left and were still good friends to this day this will be controversial and I don't know if I describe it as exactly a cult but at least within my specific upbringing nobody thinks you can leave the faith there are swaths of the world that believe leaving doesn't happen or even should lead to physical punishment and harassment like Scientology you could even die a lot of people believe you should die I legitimately didn't even know you could leave it the media around you is highly controlled it praises converts to it especially white and even people from outside the faith group massively fetishize it to the detriment of people who don't fit within its orthodoxies women have huge amounts of pressure on them to control their body's purity culture is rife abstinence is taught at religious schools and the craziest thing is again a lot of people who don't even belong to it protect and fetishize it a lot of its adherents to be fair to them just don't know what their religious figures even did or believed so often the people leaving it know the darker side of the generally well packaged exterior that is presented by preachers earning millions and targeting particularly vulnerable people TL DR I was raised Muslim specifically Sunni slightly more orthodox than the norm but pretty normal and upbringing most people can never openly leave [Music]

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Id: LDEUhALTWFw

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2019