My daughter was in a cult...

I don't know when I realized my daughter was in a cult and she was in it for 30 years. I remember a conversation in a parking lot with one of the other members, at least 15 years after she had joined, where I bemoaned the state of affairs not understanding why our "relationship" was the way it was. I think I was always a little confused because I wasn't cut out of her life completely - the holidays were a big deal and I was almost always invited to the big Xmas dinner, and one time I was invited to the birthday celebration of the leader.

This was a small cult, I'm guessing less than 50 adherents at it's peak, with a core group of less than a dozen. The core group did everything for the leader. I remember my daughter telling me one time, early on, that she believed he had saved her life, when he pulled her in. It's very hard to fight the influence of someone who holds that position - the life saver.

I tried sometimes to "talk some sense into her," and that often resulted in a lack of contact for several years. I didn't really know what went on, on a day to day basis, but it was clear to me that my daughter was being controlled and that she feared what might happen if she went against the leader. I feared that if I pushed too hard I would totally lose contact, and in that way, the leader controlled me as well.

To me what it looked like from the outside was this man had a core group of women who served his every need. There were a couple of men who were part of the core group but I never quite understood their role. I used to think of them as "the eunuchs." I don't know what parents can do short of kidnapping their own child, which I did think about at times. Once a person is hooked, it's like quitting an addiction - they have to want to quit otherwise there isn't any way to make them leave.

And fortunately for us, she did leave and now I have my daughter back. I will never forget the phone call on New Year's Day when she told me she had gotten out.

~Dominique