Newsletter: “I Was in a Cult: How Can I Trust Myself Again?”
How to Rebuild Confidence and Make Decisions After Leaving a Cult
This week’s livestream will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, November 11th, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm Eastern Time.
November 18th, 1978, was the Jonestown assassination of Congressman Leo J. Ryan and a massacre of People’s Temple cult members. Decades ago, we pushed and actually got a bill submitted by my Congressman Barney Frank to memorialize this day as “Cult Awareness Day.” It never passed. But by 1979, it was clear the US government understood Jim Jones was doing brainwashing. We have a vital 3-page excerpt from the official report here (to read the complete 800-page report, click here). Today, millions of Americans and people around the world are being brainwashed online, and only a few of us cult survivor activists are talking about this!
The Importance of Learning To Trust Yourself Again
For 15 years, someone else had dictated her diet. What to wear. What to think. And now, three years after leaving the group, she still freezes at simple decisions.
“What if I choose wrong? What if my judgment is still messed up?”
If you’ve recently (or ever) left a high control group or relationship, you probably know exactly how she feels.
There is a very cruel reason this happens. Cults and destructive relationships teach you…
Your thoughts can’t be trusted
Your feelings are deceptive
Your instincts are wrong
Only the leader knows the truth
Questioning is dangerous
Independence is betrayal
And now you’re supposed to just... make decisions? Trust yourself? Know what’s real?
If you’re struggling with this, I want you to know something important. This is not weakness. This is not stupidity. This is the predictable result of years of having your judgment systematically undermined.
And it IS recoverable.
Why You Can’t Trust Yourself (And Why It’s Not Your Fault)
Let me explain what happened.
When you were in the destructive relationship or group, every time you made a decision independently…
You were corrected
You were punished (shamed, shunned, or guilt-tripped)
You were told you were wrong
You were redirected to the “right” answer
After thousands of repetitions, your brain created a new pathway that told you that when I think for myself, bad things happen, so I should stop thinking for myself.
This is why former cult members often freeze when making decisions. Your brain is trying to protect you from the punishment that no longer exists.
This is why you continue to seek external validation. You’re searching for the authority figure who will tell you what’s “right.”
This is how human brains work under sustained authoritarian control.
The good news? You can rebuild your capacity for independent judgment with specific techniques and consistent practice.
My New Guide For Building Confidence After Cults
This is why I created “What to Do When You Don’t Feel You Can Trust Yourself Anymore: Building Confidence After Leaving the Cult” exclusively for paid subscribers.
This is a step-by-step rebuilding process that includes…
Reality Testing Framework
How to evaluate information independently
Questions to ask before making decisions
Distinguishing between intuition and programming
Trusting your gut vs. when to get more data
The Scientific Method for Everyday Life
The scientific method is NOT just for scientists – you can make it work for building confidence in your decision making through…
Applying hypothesis testing to daily decisions
Creating experiments for low-stakes choices
Building evidence for your judgment
Tracking your “rightness” over time
Common Thinking Errors (And How to Catch Them)
Black-and-white thinking
Catastrophizing
Thought-stopping
Magical thinking
How to challenge each of the above systematically
Calculated Risk-Taking Protocol
Starting with tiny decisions and building up
The “nothing bad happened” log
Expanding your decision range
Protecting yourself while practicing independence
Get the complete Confidence After Cults guide along with years of other content! (paid subscribers only)
The Deeper Work of Healing Beyond Decisions
Rebuilding decision-making capacity is critical. But full recovery means reclaiming your humanity, your creativity, your joy, your sense that life is worth living despite what you’ve been through.
This week’s Cults, Culture & Coercion podcast, “Hold On: Poetic and Art-Based Lifelines for Suicide Prevention,” addresses this deeper work.
I spoke with Dr. Diane Kaufman, a retired child psychiatrist, poet, artist, and award-winning lyricist, as well as the founder of the Hold On Campaign for Suicide Prevention.
Dr. Kaufman and I discuss:
How art and creativity reconnect you to yourself (when words aren’t enough)
Why “doomscrolling” keeps you stuck (and what to do instead)
Reaching young survivors (if you left in your teens/20s, this is for you)
Finding meaning after the “mission” was fake
The role of beauty and hope in recovery
[ Listen on Apple | Spotify | Watch on YouTube ]
Read the full blog post version
Your Complete Recovery Library
When you become a paid subscriber, you get instant access to our complete archive, which includes:
5 Phrases That Push Cult Members Deeper In (And What to Say Instead): What to do when nothing you say seems to work.
Coercion Is More Than a Gun to the Head: Would you recognize coercive behavior if it wasn’t physical?
Breaking Through Thought-Terminating Cliches: Practical advice and scripts to deal with maddening statements meant to end critical discussion.
Unusual Estrangement: Estrangement often signals a rupture in a parent-child relationship… unless it comes from undue influence.
Plus years of previous content, future guides, and exclusive LIVE Q&As.
This is your recovery roadmap for $5/month.
The Best Gift You Can Give Yourself - Time and Space to Heal
You asked, “How can I trust myself again?”
Just as you learn anything, it takes time.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
Join our recovery community here:
As always, please let us know what you think about these pieces or what you’d like to see us discuss in the future. Thanks so much!
💙💙💙
Wonderful article here, you're doing God's Work, Thank you, and will reStack ASAP 🙏