20 ICSA TODAY
Part 1:
The Role of Intention (by Lorna Goldberg)
After leaving the cultic group into which you were born or
raised, you may have profound anger, resentment, sadness,
and confusion about the people who hurt you, and about the
people who allowed you to be hurt. How can you cope most
effectively with what you feel today?
Some parents have left the group and realize how much harm
they caused you some parents leave but cannot acknowledge
they harmed you some remain in the group. What, if anything,
do you owe your parents after you leave the group?
Whether or not your parents are still in the cult, whether or
not they recognize that they hurt you, whether or not they
apologize, ultimately it will be your decision to figure out how
you intend to deal with the hurt and anger about how you
were mistreated for so many years of your life. What do you owe
yourself?
The cult’s belief in perfection is unreal people are not black
or white, even the people who hurt you. If one’s view of the
world includes only absoluteness rather than toleration
for ambiguities, complexities, and human frailties, that is
problematic. No one answer is right for everyone, and there may
be more than one answer for each of you. You might respond
differently based upon the combination of your own, individual
personality and your particular experience.
What Was Your Parents’ Intention?
It is important to ask yourself the following questions about
your parents’ intention in involving you in the cultic situation:
• What was the intention of my parents in bringing me
into a cultic environment? Did they enter the group as
a way of escaping from the difficulties of their precult
lives? Did they enter the group with altruistic motives
or the desire for a spiritual life? Were they enduring
a crisis in their lives, or was it a time of crisis in the
world?
• Did the cult leader exploit my parents’ naiveté?
• Did my parents use practices in the cult to justify
attitudes they already had? Or did they have difficulty
dealing with the fact that I was being neglected or
abused? Were they dissociated themselves—that
is, enthralled by the cult leader and out of touch
with reality? Or did they throw me under the bus or
callously accept my pain in order to curry favor with
the cult leader?
Knowing the truth of your own story is central to your well-
being. It also is important to attempt to understand the truth of
your parents’ story.
If you consider both intention and the limited abilities of all
human beings, you might begin to change the unrealistic
desire for perfection in human relationships and become more
tolerant of others and yourself, including your parents when
possible, for not fulfilling all that you might have hoped.
In understanding intention, you are gaining a better sense of
the realistic limits of all human beings, including yourself. Doing
this means letting go of the idea that you can or should demand
perfection, no matter what the cost.
Understanding intention also gives you the perspective to
give up the idea of being defined by those who violate your
boundaries (such as might occur with narcissistic and/or highly
dependent and demanding parents). Understanding their
exploitive intentions will help you to feel less obligated to
please them. If you can stop allowing yourself to be defined
by others, you can begin to act in your own self-interest and
establish firmer boundaries.
You have a right to feel angry because of your correct belief
that your parents failed you and you were cheated out of the
possibility of a healthy childhood. However, sadly, you never can
change your past.
Sometimes you may feel angry with your parents but not
with the cult leader because it may be less frightening to
confront a parent than the powerful leader. Even after leaving
the cult, many former members continue to believe (perhaps
unconsciously) that the cult leader has extraordinary powers,
and they fear that to feel angry with the leader will lead to
punishment in this world or in the next. Also, a failure to be
angry with the leader might be an extension of the destructive
dynamic from the cult—that is, always keeping anger and blame
away from the leader and displacing it onto others.
Although cult leaders rarely apologize, parents who have left
the cult sometimes will apologize for their treatment of their
children. Some of you might hold on to intense anger beyond
what seems reasonable, even after those who have hurt you
have apologized. Of course, it is necessary to receive a heartfelt
apology that shows remorse rather than one that is glib and
unfeeling. A heartfelt acknowledgement by the person who
has harmed you can be an important step toward your recovery
from trauma. Receiving an apology validates the fact that the
hurt you experienced really did happen. Apologies by those
who caused you harm allow you to take charge in deciding
whether or not you wish to forgive.
It might be important to understand all that is gained by
continuing to hold onto the intensity of anger you might feel
over time:
• Do I need to hold onto intense anger to protect
myself from mourning the loss of a childhood or a
relationship with my parents that wasn’t controlled by
a cult leader? Experiencing anger can be less painful
than experiencing sadness.
• Is it important to hold onto anger as a way of
protecting myself against getting close to or
becoming controlled by others in the present?
After the cult, your sense of identity in a new world can be
fragile, and anger and suspicion might serve to protect you
against becoming overly influenced by others. Anger might
protect you from being disappointed, hurt, or having to face the
possibility of the pain of loss in a new relationship. Relationships

21 VOLUME 9 |ISSUE 3 |2018
are risky. However, ultimately, if you are unable to let go of
intense anger, you may be prevented from establishing a loving
relationship and enjoying your life.
• Might I be holding onto my anger because (consciously
or unconsciously) I believe that letting go of my rage
would mean that I am forgiving others for their harm to
me?
• Letting go of intense anger does not mean that you
are not remembering abuse or neglect. You always
will remember but if you can, try to find ways to move
away from the intensity of your emotions to improve
the quality of your life today, for your own good.
Your parents failed in many ways: They might have failed to
protect you from being harmed by cult abuse or neglect. They
might have failed to respond with encouragement and pride
when you displayed emerging personal abilities, or to show
empathy when you needed help. They might have stood as
bystanders disconnected from you and under the leader’s spell
when you needed more from them. You may feel they did not
want to see your pain.
Some parents did not have adequate parenting themselves,
which might have contributed to their difficulty in knowing how
to adequately parent you. This knowledge is not necessarily a
reason to excuse your parents, but it might provide a context for
understanding them.
• How conflicted were my parents when they submitted
to the demands of the cult leader? And what do my
parents feel now? Are they distraught and heartbroken
now about how I was treated in the cult? Or do they
continue to hold onto the belief that my cult treatment
was for my own good? Are they such true believers that
they are unable and unwilling to see how they harmed
me?
Your responses to these questions can make a difference in your
ability to process and determine how you will deal with your
parents. Some parents may be so overwhelmed with guilt that it
is too painful for them to acknowledge and face the enormity of
the harm they inflicted upon their children. This is not a reason
to excuse them, but again it might help you better understand
them.
You Can Change Only Yourself, in the Present
You have a right to feel angry and saddened. Your past has
affected you, and you might feel continued hurt, resentment,
and a desire for restitution. It is human to have those feelings.
It also is human and sometimes even helpful to have a desire
for revenge. Wanting revenge allows you to turn the tables, and
this response may help you to feel less as if you are a passive
victim. Revenge can give you a sense of mastery and enhanced
self-esteem. Allowing yourself to feel and fantasize a wish for
revenge on your cult leader or those who abused you may be a
positive step, particularly if you could not allow yourselves to feel
anger in the cult.
Unfortunately, some individuals cannot even enjoy fantasizing
about revenge. They might continue to blame themselves rather
than the true culprits. However, to blame and want revenge
might be a step in the direction of healing. Those who have been
exploited by others might be prone to forgive attacks and hurts
too easily. They do not permit themselves to register anger at
their victimizers instead, they tend to minimize or deny their
anger altogether and are inclined to turn the other cheek. They
are too ready to try to forgive and forget. I believe that true
healing must involve coming to terms with the depth of one’s
feelings about the extent of the other person’s offense. At the
same time, there are crimes so horrible that forgiveness may not
be possible.
Further questions that are important to ask yourself include
these:
• Can I have all these feelings along with an acceptance
that I can change only myself in the present?
• Can I free myself from continual rumination and allow
myself eventually to move on for my own sake?
• What do I owe myself?
• When is “long enough,” and when is the time to move
away for the good of my present life?
In cases in which suffering has been great, there have been few
(if any) positive experiences, and you must avoid further contact
with those from the past to avoid further harm to yourself, the
most realistic result you can achieve might be to make sure you
are in a safe place to live your own life. You can then work to
understand that continued intense rage and resentment might
prevent you from moving on.
• Am I spending too much time focused upon anger
toward those from the past, without resolution?
This hating can become self-punishing and self-destructive if it
consumes you and interferes with experiencing pleasure in your
present life. Continual rage can indicate that your cult still has a
hold on you and you are too attached to the leader and/or your
parents. This lack of resolution and ongoing attachment can
interfere with your ability to love yourself or others in the present.
You cannot change your
past. But by increasing
your understanding of that
past … you might, in time,
be able to change the way
you live your life today.