the day I realized I was once part of a cult (part 2)

 I share these photos with hesitation, as these are not epochs I wish to revisit.

These are so painful to look at.

Last week, I outlined my experiences of dealing with what I now consider to be a cult. I've sat with that experience for about a week, and  have been doing a lot more reflection. The more I think about this, the more sick and uncomfortable I feel.

I've been especially uneasy and feeling legitimately sick around the narrative this person built around me behind me back; referring to someone is as a "superfan" seems to just be part of the handbook of those who are has-beens who barely were trying to inflate their own importance. Of course, I know that behind closed doors, the dependency was fostered through love-bombing, devotion was cultivated through the feeling of being needed, wanted, and "special." 

Behind closed doors, I would be called their "best friend," and would tell me how much they needed me. They told other people I was obsessive and a "superfan." I am also not the only person this has happened to. (Let me just say, that bonding with someone of similar worst-ever experiences is a kind of surreal, lmao.)

I look back on these photos, especially the first one, knowing that I was listening to that person's words through my earbuds. I look back on these photos and remember using the music releases (and, to be fair, not just theirs) to chronicle my life and seminal life experiences. I do this more so with my own music now than I do through the music of others. 

I still have my iPod. I still use it occasionally. One of the reasons I stopped using it (aside from its battery issues) is that I could not remove certain music that reminded me of times I would rather never think of again. My iPod no longer has the ability to remove music--anything on this is now there forever, as if preserved in amber. Even if I never listen to music that brings back bad memories ever again, the album art shuffle when you first turn it on loves to remind me that it still exists--because at one time it had been my everything.

I went back and revisited a lot of this music.  Against perhaps my better judgement, I forced myself to go back and revisit this. Just like Brigadoon--I knew it wasn't there, but I just wanted to see where it was. Where it had been. I had been there since the beginning, and I had experienced the excitement of every new release. I went to Borders to buy new cds. I stayed up all night to download the latest. I was, for lack of a better expression, in the room where it happened.

I remember contemporarily thinking that the music was whiny, mediocre, and "off," but I was caught up in the zeitgeist. I very distinctly remember once having an incredibly high fever, and laying on a couch at my friend's house in their office while I was cat sitting for them. I was too sick to leave to go home. I had to just lay there. I had the music on, and as I was forced to listen to it. I was forced to confront a whiny and mediocre voice--both lyrically and vocally. I just told myself that I was being "too picky" again and trudged on through.  I told myself that it was just me, and that I was imagining things. The charismatic leader had satellite's pull.

What I found upon my revisit was something that lacked any organic beauty. I found something unnatural, hollow, milquetoast, artificial. It sounded so hollow and unnatural, so devoid of warmth, I had to DNF most of my revisit. I found fake deep lyrics aside cheap emulations of beautiful sounds, and production that lead you to believe it was greater than it was. It was a whole lot of window-dressing for what would turn out to be wholly unremarkable on its own.

What made me really believe that this was the music that saved or changed my life?

Simple.

It was the sheer cunningness of the charisma. It was the accessibility of the seemingly mutual adulation. it was the artificial charm.

They said over and over and over how great they were, until you, too, started to believe it. 

I officially escaped what I now consider to be a cult about 3 years ago. I am still recovering from my experiences; I am trying to form a life outside of these experiences. I pretend that it doesn't exist. I feel very free without it. No constant fawning, no people-pleasing, no begging to be chosen through constantly having to prove myself "worthy" of my slot. My depleted nervous system is finally re-regulating itself. I am close with a lot of other people who have left. I am forming a life free of and devoid of any connection to it outside of the others who have left.

There is part of this that still haunts, me, especially after revisiting what had been a cornerstone of my life for so long: there was nothing actually there to build on. I feel like I have lost so much of my life, for what basically amounts to nothing. Even completely removed, I still feel like a huge part of this controls me.

I did not have an adverse experience with religion as a child. In fact, I had, by all accounts, intents and purposes, a really wonderful experience that fostered actual community, and instilled a sense of empathy and a responsibility to care for others (my family is Catholic). My church experiences were made up of very fond memories of singing, learning about nice people doing nice things, and taking the examples of nice people they read about and applying it to community service in real life. It was a great time! (I also used to daydream and watch deer and other wildlife from the giant glass windows. Again, an ideal scenario.) I now understand that other people have not been so lucky. I have never had to think about reevaluation or shunning anything like that. Recently, given the content by Exmo Lex and others like her, I have been looking into deconstructionist writings: Not talking about my very lax Catholic upbringing, but directly applying deconstructionist ideas to my relationship with this cult. Most importantly, learning to have a relationship with myself again.

If there is one salient thing I can pull from all this is that I wish I had just listened to myself instead of asking others; I wish I had just trusted my gut instincts. I wish I had not let people talk me out of things, or downplay what I was experiencing--because I KNEW things were happening whilst they were happening, and I KNEW--I KNEW--that they were bad. Like so many other times in my life where I should have just listened to my own gut and my own heart, and gave into my flight instincts--this, as with SO MANY OTHER INSTANCES IN MY LIFE, so many bad things could have been prevented if I just listened to myself and not others.

I think back on the day I was on the leather couch in my friend's old office, with a high-high fever. Delirious, vulnerable, and alone, listening to my iPod. My brain told me something in my rawest and most fragile state because it was trying to tell me something.

Run when you see red flags. When people tell you who they are, believe them.