Soul Holes

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For years before I left The Way, I was a self-help book junkie. I enjoyed most every book I read.

One of the qualities (to me) of a good self-help book is the author's own story. Whether or not their story directly applies to my situation is often irrelevant to me. I enjoy the inspiration, the tenacity of the human soul, to overcome and to endure...even to endure the mundane.

For years before I left The Way, I journaled and journaled and journaled and journaled. I have at least 14(?) "books" I've written, penned in shorthand and longhand.

For five years before I left The Way, I sat with a mental health therapist, one a psychologist and then another with their masters in counseling. I'd often read aloud from my journals.

All three activities led to me eventually leaving The Way: reading, journaling, therapy.

Which were most influential? I do not know. Cognitive behavioral therapy approaches were a main help in learning to think more objectively. Learning about emotional and verbal abuse (and then recognizing that such was used in The Way) was a main contributor.

If anyone reads my health story, they will learn how I turned to journaling, why I devoured books, and why I sought help from a psychologist.

None of the reasons (on the surface) had anything to do with my involvement with The Way.

The reasons had everything to do with chronic illness, which I learned was in large part (for me) due to my emotional health. I then discovered that my emotional and mental health was, at least partly and I surmise a main part, due to Way indoctrination and the suppression of my own heart in order to conform to what I had indoctrinated myself to believe.

These discoveries all helped me exit The Way. Helped me to again get in touch with my heart. Helped me to see more clearly.

None of these discoveries had anything to do with "cult-recovery" from anyone in the cult-recovery field nor from reading anything in regard to "cult-recovery." I never sought professional cult-recovery help until after harmful experiences within an anti-Way group which I jumped into after leaving The Way. (My experience with the "cult-recovery" counselor ended up one of the most emotionally harmful experiences I've had. My experiences with the other mental health counselors whom I mention in my fourth paragraph above have been and still are helpful, not harmful.)

A year or so before I left The Way, I lived with a vast large hole in my soul. Almost every morning I'd awake crying. This vast dearth of life in my soul was a major theme in my journaling at that time.

After leaving The Way and getting some footing, I came to the conclusion that the emptiness (at least in part) was a result of trying to live with a standard of indoctrination that I no longer believed, but felt obligated to.

My catalyst to finally make the exit from The Way was a statement my then 15-year old son made to me. Prior to his statement, I was already prepared to leave; I'd been doing homework trying to decide who I could trust if I ever made the move to step outside my 28-year loyalty to The Way, outside the one place I had believed for decades that taught the unadulterated "truth."

Lately, I've felt a similar emptiness inside that I experienced before I left The Way. The current emptiness is not near as large as what I experienced back in 2004, a year before I left The Way in 2005. I've pondered as to why the current emptiness? Have I been trying to live by a standard that I no longer believe? Have I again gotten away from my heart? If so, how did that happen? Where is my heart now? Has the area of "cult-recovery" which I became involved with (on a small scale) had similar outcomes as my involvement in The Way?

The current emptiness is a small hole. God forbid I allow it to grow large.

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Part of what prompted the above blog post is a review written by Monica Pignotti, PhD, of the film Martha Marcy May Marlene: Martha Marcy May Marlene: An Echo of Therapy Myths?

Two statements by Pignotti that really caught my attention are: "Confusion and struggling to make sense of unusual experiences is part of the human condition, not a mental disorder." And, "This brings us to an even larger issue, which is the medicalization and pathologizing of human experience and suffering."

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