Reclaiming Authentic Voice – An Invitation to Free Speech

Many former cult members hesitate before sharing their experiences. I get it—there are good reasons! That said, I’m writing to encourage you if you are feeling the need to share and are constrained for whatever reason. I welcome your comments here!

I had many epiphanies after my misadventure. But the most foundational insight was this: free speech is essential to sanity. Silencing people through threat—whether implied or overt—is psychological violence. It’s abuse.

The cult that hijacked my voice survives only because of its secrets. It must stay in the shadows to continue bilking targets. It has shapeshifted, migrated, recruited, and destroyed lives to stay profitable since the '60s. It is scouting targets today. Some targets contacted me as recently as last week.

Losing your voice is losing yourself; it’s a figurative death. I lived this slow death for five years.

Boiled down:

• First, a “new friend” love-bombed me into an “exclusive school.”

• Then, the institution insisted on “staying invisible” to outsiders. I was required to keep it secret—that meant its ever-growing secret demands.

• Over time, it rolled out rigid rules of engagement about how and where members could interact, and what we could talk about.

More time in this group meant more secrets and growing silence (not to mention, expense). The longer I participated, the more the group demanded and took. This is how cults operate.

Over five years, my silence hid “the invisible world.” Shrouded in its rules, my life became a cave of shadows. I shrunk as a person, while uncertainty, insecurity, and dependency grew. I subdued my authentic voice and lost connection to my authentic self. I became unglued. That is how cult indoctrination works.

Boiled down: authentic voice is authentic identity. Reclaim it and you reclaim yourself.

Thankfully, the dawn literally woke me up one morning. It yanked me out of bed. I took a walk to watch the sunrise. In the quiet, I heard my lost voice and saw the cave of fear. Fear was my only shackle to the cult. I thought, “If I’m going to f**k up my life, I’d rather do it on my own terms.”

My personal policy became: No More Secrets. I started telling everyone. The floodgates opened. Every confession restored more of my voice and myself.

Other epiphanies came fast and furious—a firehose of truth. I shared them all and restored my authentic life.

I don’t know if America’s Founding Fathers understood how critical personal free speech is to a healthy psyche—as opposed to the political necessity—but when you give your voice away to a grift and then take it back, that reality hits hard.

So, it is in that spirit that I urge you to reclaim your voice, your life, and yourself.

With this caveat: do so when you’re ready and on your terms. No one can dictate the process to you. It must unfold from within you. That’s the recovery—or what I prefer to call, reclamation—you decide what, when, and with whom to share.

Secrecy is cancerous, and life is short, so please don’t carry your story to your grave.

In the meantime, my blog will carry on. If the posts resonate, I’d love to hear from you!

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash