Recovery Issues

What Are the Recovery Issues following a Cultic Experience?

1. Identity Crisis
   1. Who am I now?
   2. What do I believe? (Take your time with this one!)
   3. Integrate cultic experience into prior personality
   4. What are my interests? Talents? Relationships? Education? Hobbies? Even favorite color is a starting point
2. Feeling disconnected, sense of anomie
3. Grief
   1. People you left behind
   2. Loss of a cause
   3. Loss of belonging
   4. Losses you had to give up in order to join group
   5. Loss of innocence
   6. Loss of career goals; finances; belongings
   7. Missing the buzz; looking for it elsewhere
   8. Anger
4. Boundary issues
   1. Rebuild healthy boundaries
   2. It’s okay not to divulge everything to everyone
   3. Learn how the group tore down your boundaries between you and other group members/leaders
   4. Learn how the group built up unhealthy boundaries between you and the outside world
5. Trust issues
   1. Test the waters, build up a relationship before you trust someone
6. Magical Thinking of cultic group
7. Varying symptoms of post-traumatic stress
   1. Panic attacks
   2. Floating/triggers
   3. Nightmares
   4. Sleep disorders
   5. Inability to make decisions
   6. Inability to concentrate
   7. Fears not grounded in reality – fear the group was right
8. Difficulty with relationships and authority figures
9. Underemployment

PATIENCE! PATIENCE!!PATIENCE!