on january 1st, 1892, irish immigrant, annie moore, stepped off the gangplank, exiting the steamship nevada and stepped on to ellis island. twelve days earlier, she had boarded the ship with her 2 brothers, leaving the the emerald hills of the only home she'd ever known to be reunited with her parents whom she had not seen nor spoken to in four years.
annie moore was the first immigrant to ever land on ellis island. she was warmly greeted by the press and was presented with a gift by the citizens of the united states of america, a 10 dollar gold coin.
it was her 15th birthday.
as i stood in the vast open space of ellis island's great hall with my wife on one side of me and my daughter, tightly clutching my hand, on the other side, i imagined what it would be like for a child to leave the only life she'd ever known—to travel to a new land, a different world with different customs and norms, escaping poverty or tyranny, possibly, but also entering a world of new and exciting possibilities.
what did ellis island look like through annie moore's eyes? what were her thoughts as she first spotted lady liberty, her torch held high, clutching the tabula ansata...tabula rasa, treading on broken chains, standing tall over the horizon? did she imagine the possibilities? was she able to quell her racing thoughts and consider her own potential as she approached this great land?
surely, she was comforted by the fact that she would be reunited with her parents. it was the sole reason she'd come to america. but was the promise of a new life sufficient to eclipse the sadness of leaving her friends, her culture, her home?
when we had first arrived in pennsylvania, several months earlier, we were welcomed by some of the kindest, warmest people i'd ever known. like refugees, we had arrived with few resources, few possessions. we lived in a room in the finished basement of a relative of one the program's supporters. our belongings were stored in the warehouse of a man who owned a trucking company. the families who had brought us to pennsylvania provided meals (and company) for us on many nights.
racheal had screwed up the withholding on our pay, so most of the money i'd saved prior to leaving arizona went to pay our taxes. it took several months to get the program licensed. as a result, we were unable to generate income for quite some time. one of the men who'd helped bring us to pennsylvania put me on his company's payroll. this helped to provide some income, while i worked with kids and parents, finished the licensing requirements and found a suitable place to to house the program.
we eventually leased a facility to house the program. it was half of a duplex on the main street of a small borough. it had previously housed a mom and pop style counter restaurant, so it was mostly an open space in need of a lot of internal construction. a local contractor volunteered to lead the construction project and several families from the local community worked long days framing, painting and hanging drywall. they built the facility while i counseled kids and parents out of the glass enclosed patio of one family's home.
the home in which we were staying was on a large piece of forested land with 3 other homes, all owned by members of the same family. on the property, there were running streams, hills, a golf course, soccer and baseball fields, and a large pond-style in ground pool.
in the off season, the pool was home to turtles, frogs and tadpoles. my wife and daughter would go to the pool each day, sometimes collecting tadpoles. they would go on long walks exploring the land. we often spent the evenings with one of the families who had brought us to pa and lived in another house on the property where we were staying. we would have dinner and long talks. sometimes, we would walk the paths which meandered throughout the acreage.
at night, i had nightmares. these nightmares continued increase in frequency and intensity. it was the first sign that, although i had left the cult behind, it hadn't left me.
*****
complex post-traumatic stress disorder c-ptsd is defined by susan roth, ph.d., et al as: a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the victim.¹
c-ptsd is characterized by the same symptoms as post-traumatic stress disorder, which may include anxiety, depression, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares and the avoidance of reminders of the traumatic event.² but, it is differentiated from ptsd in that it describes the pervasive negative impact of long-term, chronic, repetitive trauma and includes the elements of captivity, loss of trust, sense of safety and self-worth, as well as the loss of a coherent sense of self.³
cult victims frequently suffer from c-ptsd. in addition, they may have difficulty making decisions, since, while in the cult, decisions were always made for them. they may also be preoccupied with thoughts of their abuser, the cult leader. thoughts of the cult and it's leader may change frequently. for example the victim may attribute absolute power to the leader, then they may become preoccupied with revenge, then a desire for the perpetrator's approval.
cult victims often experience a sense of helplessness, guilt and shame, distrust for others, loss of the ability to sustain faith, hopelessness and despair, and a feeling of being completely different from everyone else. they may find it difficult to relate to others and may be unable to establish meaningful relationships. some will isolate or withdrawal from others completely at the first sign that they are being judged or that their trust has been broken.
former cult victims often search for a rescuer, someone to tell them how to act, how to be, someone to give them approval. many end up being re-victimized. in cultic-studies circles, the act of falling in with another perpetrator is sometimes referred to as cult-hopping.
one of the most devastating effects of cultic trauma concerns variations in consciousness. cult victims may lose touch with their emotions, repeatedly relive traumatic events, experience episodes of explosive anger, and have periods of dissociation, where they become detached from their mind and body.
i had nightmares. i had had these nightmares while i was still in arizona and, though i'd experienced a temporary reprieve, i continued to have them after moving to pennsylvania.
in time, we found a town home to lease and moved in. roxanne had started school, but, although she had always loved school, she began to cry every morning, begging us to let her stay home. we realized that her life had been turned upside down. she had lost all of her cult friends and family and had moved across the country. we decided to let her stop going to school and begin again at the start of the next term.
we enjoyed our new freedom. we took frequent trips to new york city, philadelphia, and washington d.c. roxanne eventually started at a new school, where she excelled. she developed friendships with other children.
my wife and i became increasingly more intimate. i loved our new life. the program opened and we began to have a steady stream of clients. i was enjoying my work and feeling a sense of success. i did some good things. i also made a lot of mistakes.
and though the program would be successful in many ways, it would also prove to be the greatest block to my recovery from the trauma i'd endured in the years prior to my arrival in pennsylvania.
so,
so you think you can tell
heaven from hell
blue skies from pain
can you tell a green field, from a cold steel rail?
a smile from a veil?
and did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
hot ashes for trees?
hot air for a cool breeze?
cold comfort for change?
and did you exchange
a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage? ~ roger waters
somewhere in the distance, i could hear the ring of my cell phone. the ringing sound seemed closer and closer, until...snap. the mental fog cleared and i looked down at my right hand, resting on the shopping cart handle and holding my ringing cell phone. i hit send. “hello,” i spoke into the phone.
“where are you?” it was my wife.
“i'm at the grocery store.” i was slightly irritated. i had just left the house. she had sent me to the store to pick up a few things. in my other hand was an index card. vanilla extract, hot dog buns, lemons, milk, eggs, provolone—there were just few items.
“you've been gone for over an hour,” she said.
i looked at the cart. it was empty. i looked at my watch. i had entered the store an hour ago and had become lost, detached. i had wondered around the grocery store, stopping and starting, drifting off, in and out.
this was my first dissociative experience. it was strange, but i rationalized. i had simply become lost in thought, i told myself.
a few days later, i was certain that i saw bob and george driving down cedar crest boulevard in george's black mercedes. the car was turning right and i was in the left lane. my heart began to race. i flipped my car around and took a hard left on the road where they'd turned. though i was on my way to work at the time, i spent over an hour driving up and down the winding rural roads, trying to find the black mercedes.
later, i came to terms with the fact that there was absolutely no chance that they would have driven george's car all the way from arizona to pennsylvania.
a few days later, i worked up enough courage to call a number that was listed in the back of the book combating cult mind control. it was the number for the international cultic studies association (formerly american family foundation). it was a help line.
the phone was answered by carol giambalvo. carol is an expert on cults and thought-reform. she is also a former cult victim. she was/is the director of icsa's cult recovery program's and co-founder of the recovery, support and referral network, refocus.
when she answered the phone i said, simply, “i was in a cult.” i immediately broke down and began to weep. i was also terrified. my heart was pounding. i began to perspire.
i was driving my car when i made the call. i didn't want anyone to know i was calling. i had the feeling that, in calling icsa, i was doing something gravely wrong.
carol was nurturing and empathic. since i had difficulty speaking, she filled in the blanks. she shared her experiences and told me that she too had become part of the leadership of her cult. as we talked, i began to become a little more comfortable. i was feeling relief, though i was still weeping.
i looked up just in time to see a yellow toyota stopped in front of me. i hit the breaks, but it was too late. i crashed into the yellow toyota with tears streaming down my face.
i was immediately overtaken with the realization that this crash was the result of my phone call to icsa...my betrayal of bob. i was immediately consumed with fear. it was total.
what was i thinking. i knew the terrible things that happened to those who'd left bob's program...and to tell the program's secrets to an outsider, worse a “cult person.”
i had a sick feeling, the kind of feeling you get when you impulsively do something that causes devastating and irreversible damage. the kind of feeling a drunk driver gets when he realizes he has run down and killed a child. “they must have tapped my phone,” i thought. then, “they don't need to tap my phone. she (bob's wife) knows. she knows everything.” i was so sorry. i wanted to take it back. i had used “the c word.” i told secrets. i had sought council from someone who was outside the circle.
i couldn't get out of the car. i wanted to disappear...to cease to exist.
my car was undamaged, though the yellow toyota was smashed in. i pulled it together enough to exchange information with the woman driving the toyota. then, i got back in my car and sat there for a while before driving off.
my thoughts raced. i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. then an involuntary mantra pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. i pounded on the steering wheel. i pulled my hair, grabbed my stomach, wanting to rip my guts out.
i took a hard left, drove my red t-bird to the fish hatchery and parked. i was breathing rapidly. i made a conscious effort to slow my breathing, to stop my racing mind. pleasepleaseplease. i'm so sorry. i promise. i promise. i promise.
i needed forgiveness, absolution.
i didn't dare pray.
******
my friend lives in a house
lives in there all alone
with locks on every door
windows are made of stone ~seeking in tongues (1992)
he did things to me that i'll never tell. not because i'm afraid of him, but because they are too painful to recollect.
in an instant, without hesitation, without remorse, he snuffed out flames that had ignited and inspired me since childhood. i won't even think about these things. they remain hidden, stuffed deep down in the inside me, in the places where the fires once burned.
the most damaging, however was the systematic induction of phobias deep within my psyche. so as i made an attempt to start a new life, to build a treatment program, i faced recurring nightmares, flashbacks, false sightings, and periods of dissociation.
i was lost. i didn't know myself. i didn't know which beliefs were mine and which were planted by the cult. as i worked with kids and parents, i was constantly struck with the thought that i wasn't even certain that i believed in what i was telling them.
i instructed kids to avoid their friends they had been using drugs with. was this sound advice or just a way to isolate them so that they would become more pliable? i had told young people to “stick with winners” for years. i couldn't be sure that it was the right thing to do as opposed to a step toward indoctrination that i'd learned in the cult.
to be sure, much of what i did was cult-inspired. though my motives were pure, i perpetuated the legacy of my abuser on many occasions. one of my greatest violations was that of hiring former clients to work with me. i had always subscribed to the idea that, to help a drug abuser, one had to be a reformed drug abuser. no one else could understand as succinctly where they were coming from.
i would later realize that this was a mistake. it rarely turned out well for the client/employee.
perhaps my greatest transgression was my insistence that the 12-step approach was the only acceptable path to recovery. as a result, many kids adopted the identity of addict/ alcoholic when they were simply normal teens who liked to blow off steam by smoking pot and drinking booze. others, who really did have a drug problem, were denied opportunity to enlist an approach that may have been effective where 12-step recovery had failed. they were often blamed for their failure by those within the 12-step community who claimed that they were unwilling to “turn it over to god.”
one thing i'd learned all too well while in the cult was how to shelf my thoughts and feelings in order to “perform.” so, even though i struggled to find myself, even though i often lacked confidence, i was able to present as though i was solid. i don't mean to say that i was proposing ideals that i knew to be false, only that i sometimes struggled to parse truth from my cult mindset. it is common for cult victims to drift in and out of the cult mindset and it was no different for me.
in time, i worked up the courage to again call carol giambalvo. she was able to recommend several therapists who specialized in cult recovery and, fortunately, there was one who lived about 45 minutes from our house.
my wife and i met with him together. the experience was liberating. he talked about bob's wife by name. without hesitation, he said, “she has no power.” he told us that she couldn't enter our dreams or read our minds—that she had no psychic abilities. he explained how she and bob had used eriksonian hypnotic techniques as part of an effort to plant fears deep within us.
he also described many of the symptoms i was experiencing. he taught us about floating (or dissociation) and the internal panic that often accompanies it. he also directed us toward literature that would help us in the recovery process.
i began to devour this material. my understanding of cults and thought-reform increased. it helped me to gain some degree of control over my state of being.
on the other hand, i was working everyday in an environment that was full of triggers. without fully realizing it, i was being retraumatized on an ongoing basis. the language, the slogans, the issues, even the act of sharing openly with the young people and their families triggered floating episodes and continued to reinforce cult doctrine. even attending aa (which i don't consider to be an inherently dangerous organization) would cause me to become lost in the cult mindset. there were too many similarities, too much of bob's doctrine consisted of ideas, stolen from aa and then twisted or amplified to be used as a means of dispensing my sense of self. i eventually stopped attending aa meetings.
as a family, we began attending church on sunday mornings. it was a large, mainstream, evangelical-free church. the people were friendly. i liked the staff and began seeking counsel with two of the church's ministers.
in time, i was asked to audition for the church band. they needed a new drummer. i ended up playing drums for the band and we performed in 2 services every sunday morning. we also did cantatas and festivals several times each year.
playing the drums again brought me tremendous joy. i hadn't played in years, but the task of learning new music every week enabled me to get back some of my musical skills. i also began to return to my christian faith.
it started like this. i was in church one sunday and thinking about my past, the trials i'd experienced and also my daughter. i remember saying to myself, i'd give my life, without hesitation, to spare my daughter the emptiness, the separation from god that i'd felt. instantly, another thought popped into my head: “don't you know that jesus feels the same way about you?”
i couldn't shake that thought. was god speaking to me? i had struggled with feelings of worthlessness. i had felt unlovable. damaged. though, since leaving the cult, my life had improved in so many ways, i'd also left behind a sense of purpose in life.
while in the cult, i had believed that i was a player in a higher cause. i could rely on the stated mission that we were saving the world and the ongoing reinforcement provided by the cult's doctrine, its leaders and its members. the transition from being a major player in “the” divine movement to change to world to that of a piece of cosmic dust, floating through space and time with little or no substantial impact often left me with a sense of emptiness.
at times, those who counseled me would point to the idea that, through my work as a drug rehabilitator, i was, in fact, making a difference. but did it matter if a kid stopped using drugs? would it save his soul?
in the cult, drug use was the root cause of all that was wrong with the world. every crime, every broken home, every injustice, from the fall of the roman empire to the failure of the united states to prevail in vietnam, to the high divorce rate, to child abuse, to spousal abuse, to illness and disease, despair and death, lifelessness and loneliness could be blamed on the use of alcohol and other drugs. drug use was the original sin and sobriety was the quintessential step toward physical, mental, emotional and spiritual ascendancy.
now, sobriety was just sobriety. and i was just a guy trying to help people achieve it.
but this idea that god loved me (in fact all of mankind) the way i loved my daughter, my family, spoke to me. i knew something about sacrifice. i loved my wife and daughter enough to endure ongoing, long-lasting, excruciating pain--to place dominoes.
was god willing to do the same for me?
so it was on this simple idea, god love me like a father loves a child, upon which i began to rebuild my faith. i stripped away all of the doctrine and dogma associated with religion and focused on one simple concept.
grace.
(to be continued)
notes:
1. roth s, newman e, pelcovitz d, van der kolk b, mandel fs (1997). "complex ptsd in victims exposed to sexual and physical abuse: results from the dsm-iv field trial for posttraumatic stress disorder". j trauma stress 10 (4): 539–55. doi:10.1002/jts.2490100403. pmid 9391940.
2. american psychiatric association (1994). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: dsm-iv. washington, dc: american psychiatric association. isbn420610.
3. herman, judith lewis (1997). trauma and recovery: the aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. basic books. pp. 119–122. isbn 0465087302.
