In the "new Catholic community" in which I grew up, there was a lot of prohibition.
She has been recognized as sectarian ever since.
One of these rules was silence, the ban on discussing, exchanging and questioning oneself.
There were rules imposed such as not going to another member's room to chat. If this was done, denouncement was encouraged. Members who witnessed it had to report it to those responsible.
The confessor was chosen by the sect. So even in confession, we were not free and watched. It was one or more priests sympathetic to the guru who made sure to put our questions back on the right track. And I even wonder if some of the things said were not reported to the guru.
And there was what was also done to prevent any link. Each member was regularly transferred as soon as friendships or reconciliations were made. Every time I made a friend and got too close, she or I had to move ...
The only place we were allowed to chat was during "confessions" with the guru or his wife. The talks seemed at first benevolent and open. And if we had the misfortune to criticize or question there, lightning fell on us ... The guru was making us a "brainwashing" making us feel guilty. Explaining that questioning the rules, our way of life were the work of the evil one. Then a work of undermining to break us, to break our resistance was done on a daily basis by all the members. It was common that if a critical member, he was ostracized, demoted in office, sent abroad, or if he resisted dismissed too much from the sect.
I have seen former members having to leave overnight, with nothing. Their photos were removed from the albums, their existence in our history erased as if they had not existed. If we passed them in the street, we had to change the sidewalk. They were becoming transparent. They had never existed.
During the talks with the guru that I had throughout my childhood, he wanted to know everything about me, my dreams, my thoughts ... Everything. Imagine a child growing up with this model ... Do you understand how destructive it can be? No "secret garden", no privacy ... And moreover, during these confessions I was raped ...
My brain has found a way to protect itself. I have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder. I have dissociative parts. My brain, my life, my memory of what I was going through is compartmentalized so that I can survive in this more than destructive environment.
So I have a "confession" part whose role was to answer the guru's probing questions. This dissociative part loved him deeply like a father. It was a part that took over the function of my life to show the guru that I was docile, obedient and that I was not hiding anything from him. So that he would think he was controlling me. This part has a completely compartmentalized memory with my other dissociative parts. She knew nothing of my moments of rebellion, of the rapes I suffered after these talks with the guru, of my attempts to speak and ask for help, of my critical look at the rules of the sect ... She was very unconscious, naive ...
This part was essential in my survival! Thanks to her, thanks to this compartmentalization, she knew nothing, was not aware of anything ... So could not say anything !!!! I was thus able to develop my critical mind, my objective observation to succeed much later, in adulthood, to flee the sect ...
Whenever I tried to talk and talk about the rapes, and unfortunately I was denounced or my escape plan failed, it was she who was questioned. She understood nothing, knew nothing, cried and swore to the guru that she had done nothing wrong. It was very hard for her. Because many things were incomprehensible ... For example, when after having spoken to my father at the age of 9 or 10 years old she found herself in front of the guru and my father in "interrogation" she did not understand anything to what she was accused of ... When she was then taken to the chapel for a session of "rest in the spirit", she screamed, cried, swore that she had done nothing wrong. ..
It was very difficult. This compartmentalization in my life. Parts to go to school and live my life as a little girl, parts to live the life of the sect and show that we have integrated the rules and that we obey them ... so as not to be spotted or denounced and thus not be in danger or endanger my family (the guru threatened them several times. He could withdraw me from them and send them anywhere ... In a country at war ... C ' is what he was telling me). Parties to survive rape and violence ...
Those who do what is asked of them, those who do not budge and wait for it to be over, those who fight and try to oppose, those who endure unbearable violence ...
Each had its role, function, task ...
I find it incredibly logical !!! No one can be both docile and rebellious, believer and critic on what one says to him ... We can pretend but when in front we have to do with a manipulator who knows how to read emotions, who masters perfectly the mental hold on adults (imagine how difficult it can be for a child who has only known this as a model ...) Pretending is impossible! We get caught or someone from the sect denounces us ... So we had to go further ... Hence my partitioning into dissociative parts with amnesias and a lack of awareness of my other thoughts, actions, experiences .. ..
At the time it saved me.
But now that I have left the sect this operation is very complicated for me!
It was complicated when this dissociative part realized what I had been through. The feeling of guilt, of having felt love for this surrogate "father", of having been in a certain way "an accomplice" of the suffering he was inflicting on other parties, of being attached to me. him ... And to feel a lot of shame too ... And to have to face my internal reproaches, my anger, that of all the other parts which they lived the severities ... my rage to have been able to experience love and affection towards my rapists, attachment ...
It took me a long time to reconcile internally my different experiences, my different ways of acting.
I still have times when this part denies the violence because it's too painful for them. It's wrong. This is all wrong. How would that have been possible? How could people, my family, adults not protect me? How could a man who was adored, admired, praised have done this to me? He said he loved me. He said I was his adopted daughter, his love girl. How could he have done that while saying he loved me? Can a man of faith who believes in God do these abject acts?
It is sometimes too painful, too incomprehensible. So I doubt. I tell myself that I am crazy, that it is impossible.
In these moments, everything explodes inside. When that part doubts, everyone else screams. I feel hate against myself. I want to punish myself, hurt myself ... And the sensorial memory of what I suffered comes back to me. I feel pain, I relive the rapes in my present as if they were happening right now.
Another thing that is difficult to deal with with this dissociative part is its difficulty in keeping a secret. She learned that nothing should be hidden, nothing concealed. And when she is there, I tend to talk too much, to tell everyone too much without realizing that ill-intentioned people can use what I say, without understanding that there are degrees to be put into them. friendships, acquaintances, work colleagues ... Often, I feel guilty, at fault, or lying when I, the adult, try to protect myself and not tell everything about myself to strangers. I feel like I'm being dishonest, playing a role, pretending if I don't disclose everything.
She also believes that if we are honest and say everything, people will love us and be kind to us. Which is unfortunately not the case ...
"Healing" a traumatic experience like mine is long, very long ... I have to re-educate my brain, understand that certain ways of acting, certain mechanisms were necessary in the sect but are no longer necessary ... And this takes time!
Speak, express yourself ....
The rules instilled in me in the cult made speaking for me difficult.
Talking, confiding in others, becoming "intimate", confiding in each other were forbidden. And if we did, we were punished for disobeying. It could go so far as to be sent to a very poor country, at war or to be excluded and die socially, to disappear ...
Questioning and reflecting could only be done with the guru or his wife and it was they who decided what to do, think, believe ... The "training" was done internally with lectures from the guru, from the guru's books ... I have practically no knowledge of the Catholic faith because it is not what I was taught ... Not the one that is practiced outside the sect ... Everything was "in the sauce of" the sect, with their very particular vision. The books I had the right to read were selected by the guru's wife ... When I reached voting age, the guru's wife told me who to vote for ...
And as I have already explained, thinking for oneself was forbidden, repressed by a whole well-established system within the sect.
When I express my opinions, that I give my opinion, I am very often invaded by anxiety attacks and the impression of crossing a prohibition. I have anxieties with the impression that I am going to die, I feel cold sweats, I tremble ...
Expressing myself is a real FIGHT for me. An internal struggle to go against my instincts, my survival or what my brain believes to be survival ...
I feel a lot of guilt in doing it, saying what I think is wrong, is the work of the evil one, is destructive because it divides, is selfish because of the order of "personal need" and not for the good of the group and its cohesion, its continuity ... That's what I was taught ...
Now that I am out of the sectarian grip, little by little, I am trying to re-educate my brain.
It is one thing to be physically free after leaving a cult. It is another to be psychologically free !!! And especially when the whole basis of our construction as an individual has been shaped by destructive thought, the truncated psychic construction of a child who has to learn everything again as an adult ....