In April 2003 after living in Colorado for almost 8 years, I ended up moving back east to live with my parents after a tough break up with my boyfriend. I ended up getting a job there and working for a few months while trying to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I then decided that I wasn’t happy living on the east coast and that I missed Colorado, the mountains, and the sun. I also wanted to find a job that was more fulfilling to me, something where I could make an impact by helping others.

I had always been into nature and the outdoors (although being allergic to everything made it a bit harder for me to enjoy sometimes) and had heard about programs like “Outward Bound” and “NOLS” where kids were taken into nature to build confidence and learn survival skills as a way to break the unhealthy habits that they may have been getting into as teens due to more rebellious behaviors and actions.

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In the spring of 1998, at age 12, I was sent to be evaluated by a therapist with supposed expertise in substance use problems after my mom found something written in my diary about drug use and was understandably concerned. I was never told the reason for the evaluation or asked about what I wrote, but rather was interrogated with questions about my drug use and, when I answered honestly, she continued to interrogate me like she thought I was lying.

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Between the years 2011 – 2019, I worked for various children/teenage treatment centers in three different states in various capacities – as a behavioral health associate, a mental health technician, and most frequently as a case manager.

One of the organizations for which I worked was an agency that served as an umbrella for several different services, all of which I dipped my hand in – including school-based services, ECS, emergency shelter, therapeutic foster care, and behavioral health/drug rehabilitation centers; it was in this facility in which I was a case manager. I worked as a mental health technician in another facility for teenagers with mental health issues.

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I got out of a high control, pagan-druidic group after 21 years involvement.

The group, at times called ‘Circle’ or ‘The Sisterhood’, focused on the eight festivals of the Celtic year. from Samhain to Beltaine, Equinox and Solstices and the cross quarter festivals of Lammas and Imbolc. We met every Monday evening to light our altars and honour the goddess, celebrated every full and dark moon by fasting and holding ceremonies late into the night in fields, woodland or back yards.

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I got out of toxic shit.
Destructive shit.
Shit that felt so good in the beginning, but hollowed me out by the end.

It took vulnerable people, young hopeful people, sick desperate people, and turned us into robots, or shells.

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are these thoughts my own
or have they been falsified by
a linguistic virus

can they read my mind?
has my autonomy been shanghaied by these parasitic.. illusionists
They feed on my family’s freedom

each morning I step into the lion’s den
each evening I return to a spider’s web
at least each pneumonia that floods my lungs keeps me cozy and feverish in bed

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not once in my life have i ever felt a sense of shame towards my body for having a birth defect & being an amputee.

truly, not once.

the one part of my body that was deformed &
disabled & needed lots of extra help from prosthetics & orthopedists to thrive—i owned it completely.

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I got out of a spiritual community where I had lived for six years. The community was led by Joseph R. (not his real name), who was a teacher of A Course Miracles. I had always been impressed by Joseph's ability to hear Jesus and the Holy Spirit. His knowledge of the 1200 pages of A Course in Miracles, and his ability to quote it, was extraordinary.

My job was to edit videos of Joseph’s talks, edit his work into books, and spread the course and Joseph’s teachings to both live and virtual groups.

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I was dealing with some past and recent traumas (PTSD) and other mental health issues when I began looking for a support group or a group where I could feel welcome, my issues or myself wouldn’t be judged, but a place where I could have deeper, meaningful conversations and support from others.

I found a group of men who masked/presented themselves as a group of “conscious” men who had these deeper conversations and meetups that wouldn’t take much of my time but held space for me to speak and be heard.

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“Religious Trauma is Trauma” is a fine art photo series bringing awareness to the psychological and emotional effects of toxic religion. This issue has affected me personally and countless others. Many people have suffered in silence afraid to speak out against religious institutions. Marlene Winell a psychologist coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome in 2011, but the topic is finally becoming more popular recently.

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When I was 29, in 1997, I met a group of Sufis in a small town in the Midwest. They were loving. They were radical. They had an organic farm and values that I loved. I wasn’t looking for a guru, but I loved the people surrounding him, so I quit my Ph.D. program and moved to be with them. Finally, I had found people who were willing to do literally anything to help the world heal. These were my people, for sure.

I had been an “out” gay man since I was a teenager, but somehow the environment led me to marry a young, beautiful woman. That is such a long story. But I’m grateful that we were together because we had a child who is now 20.

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I got out of a family that wasn’t mine.

I got out of a power dynamic that preyed on my desperate need for connection and acceptance. That preyed on my need to please others and show myself approved. My need for meaning and order and stability and love. And I think, weirdly, my need for the approval of powerful men. A patriarchy.

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I Got Out

I got out of a highly controlled spiritualistic cult. I was born into this group and was taught that it was absolute truth. I lived and embodied the teachings as best I could.

The leader of the group, “Sri,” was a self-proclaimed channel and identified herself as a direct conduit for God himself. I was taught that the being speaking through her was “the same that spoke to Moses.” In other words, we were speaking directly to the god of the Old Testament. We were chosen. We were the Children of Light.

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My boyfriend was devastated when I told him we were done. So his mother urged him to go back to church. He, then, brought this church’s teachings to me and I was intrigued. I was just a teenager who was leaving for college that summer. And I had always been a Christian in one of the more orthodox traditions. But the church his mother wanted him to return to was – and is – anti-medicine.

I could look back and think, “How strange that I would even have considered such a church!” But it isn’t strange. I had hardly ever been to a doctor my whole life. My family wasn’t against it, but nothing much warranted the trip as far as we were concerned.

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I got out…

I got out of a regime behind a Buddhist veneer. A regime that had me working every day, every night. I worked a full-time job and I worked another full-time job.

When I was home in lockdown I slept. I walked. I made food. I rested – and it felt good.

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“They shouldn’t be asking you about that. You need to work through it with leaders only.”

I had been living with the community for a month or two. I’d moved in with them, in order to escape an abusive relationship with my college boyfriend, and was going through “counseling” with our “pastor”. A friendly couple in the community took me to lunch one afternoon, and asked to hear my story. I felt uncomfortable sharing, but didn’t know it was because I had been traumatized.

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I was recruited into the famous soap company MLM when I was 22 years old by my best friend (we both have got out since)! I was in a vulnerable spot in my life after graduating college. They preyed on my financial instability and naivety of the world.

During the 5.5 years with the company, I spent over $100k on coaching/mentorship, hypnosis, and other business support materials and related products.

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(mention of religious abuse, cultic control; readers be advised)

they made my life a cold, black hole,
their cultic mind, I feared it -
no warmth or safety in their “light”
god the father, god the son, holy hollow spirit

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“Your platelets have dropped to 88, you need to get here right away so we can get the baby out! You have what’s called HELLP syndrome!

I could hear the panic in the doctor’s voice despite her valiant attempts to stay calm.

“But I’ve JUST made it to 35 weeks, that feels early for us!” I immediately grabbed my packet containing my birth plan— the very packet that listed all the reasons I willingly would die before receiving a blood transfusion.

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I first encountered this cosmetics MLM when a young friend added me to her new MLM group on Facebook. I don’t normally like people adding me to groups unasked. I was about to say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, but she was selling a liquid lipstick which actually looked like it worked, and came in heaps of colours, and I wanted to support her. So, I said “OK, maybe I’ll just order one or two things.” I had never heard of the company before, and really didn’t know anything much about MLMs.

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