“They say you’ll die if we don’t stay late and do this timeline”

I open my eyes to look around to see the looks of shock on everyone’s faces only to find everyone, eyes closed, completely un-phased by what just came out of his mouth.

It was a typical practice for him to keep us past the 10pm end time of our weekly class, sometimes until nearly midnight every Tuesday. No one complained, because at level 9.2, which took 8 or more years to achieve, we had learned not to ever question, criticize or complain about anything a teacher at the school did, especially the leader.

“Peace and freedom are worth the loneliness.”

Religion runs incredibly deep in my family of origin. Christianity goes back at least 5 generations on both sides, and if you aren’t a Christian, then you don’t exist to anyone. In the 1990’s, I was born into this family, followed by my siblings a few years later. When I was about 2, we moved to another state. While there, my parents hired a babysitter for us when they both worked.

Who was I supposed to be? I still have no idea, really.  

I thought my home was happy. 

I thought love was just tricky and came with terms and conditions. Especially when it comes to family. They only want the best for you after all, right?

I thought her happiness was my priority. 

I met a psychopathic life coach who ruined my life.

She used every possible psychological manipulation and brainwashing technique to make me her puppet.

It all began when I was 25 years old and left a toxic relationship. I had encountered several physical abuses, but nothing was as bad as the psychological pain I had to endure months later.

I remember my birth date, month and year. My brother came out with an appearance similar to that of my parents and extended family. I have double eyelids and skin that is slightly darker than most of my extended family, making me the black sheep. I had an attachment problem since my birth as I cried every time my loved ones left me and I cried during rainy days when I was young, but now the raindrops do not bother me. I was too young to find out, but I am still working on the reason.

I got out of a cult I didn’t know I was in.

It was my hometown and my place of origin–my ancestry. I lived for perfectionism and greatly achieved it…until I didn’t.

Imagine for a moment, if you could, being engulfed by an invisible sphere.

Now imagine that someone else sneakily got YOU to create that sphere and imprison yourself. A thought prison if you will. A beautiful and simple prison of the mind – no key required to lock yourself in. No need for anyone to check in on you to make sure you are still locked up, after all you are a great prison guard in your own sphere. Why would you need someone to check in on you?

In 2012, I came with a friend to Sweden. I met a guy (in a pub), and fell in love with him. I was a little lost at this time in my life. I’d graduated from college, but couldn’t seem to settle down after a 7-year relationship ended in a very drastic way.

I noticed he drank quite a bit. I drank with him, because i have addiction problems (which i now know have to do with generational trauma).

At the beginning of the fall semester of junior high school in Berkeley California in 1962 I was entering the second half of the ninth grade.  I was a “midterm” student, having begun kindergarten in January due to the overcrowding in public schools of baby boomer children after World War Two.

I was not a happy fourteen-year-old, but that is not uncommon for adolescents.

I got out of a trap.

In 2016, I was a target for a person who preyed upon those going through the muck of life without support and looking for like-minded people to help them up. At first, the predator was hiding; lurking in the shadows of the internet, using search tools to cast a wide net in hopes of catching those in crisis, those in limbo, those like me.

Seeing the phrase “survivors of high demand environments” was the first time I really felt seen in the cult conversation. I am emerging from ten years of intense work in a high demand personal transformation environment that tracks with some of the popular LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings.

If there's anything I've learnt over the last three crazy mind-blowing years, is that it's OK to get things wrong, and it's OK to change your mind.

On that last point, not only is it OK, but sometimes it's healthy, responsible, grown up, and entirely necessary. I've lost track of how many causes and issues I've changed my views on since the early half of 2020, the MLM I joined being one of them. In my experience, this process gets easier in some ways, and not in others.

If you said to me a few years ago that the essential oil company I was working with was cult-like, I would have probably just laughed it off, but now I see things differently.

I was born 6th and 7th generation in an American cult, cleverly disguised as a religion. 

My ancestors on both of my parents’ sides go back to the beginning of the cult.  I was born “under the covenant”, which means, my parents were married and “sealed” to each other for “time and all eternity” in one of the sacred (and secret) temples before I was born.