Recovery from Abusive Groups Page 15
want to allow some extra time so you can stop and relax, if need be. If you'd
like, talk with the nurse and/or doctor before the appointment and explain that
you are phobic toward doctors but would like to overcome your fear. A good
health care professional will take the time to be understanding and accepting of
your feelings. It may also help to have someone show you around the office or
medical center and explain what will be done and why.
The result of taking the time and energy to respond to your fear, rather than
react to it, is to validate your feelings and the experiences that have caused
these feelings and to break down these fears so that they don't encumber you in
the future.
Nutritional Needs
Some cults served healthy food, but not enough of the right foods for such a
stressful lifestyle. (Stress can come from too little stimulation as well as from
too much.) Some cults had followers eating garbage -another good reason for a
checkup. Whatever your group ate, check that you are getting the right
amounts of a well-balanced diet now.
Your body may have different nutritional needs while under the stress of
recovery. If you're not sure what makes for good nutrition, check out the library
or a medical center. Moderate regular exercise, such as walking, is also very
helpful in regulating the body during this stressful time.
Forbidden Foods
Some ex-cultists can be completely immobilized by the presence of foods once
banned by the cult. This can be very embarrassing if you're over to dinner at a
friend's house or out with company. It's okay to be afraid, but you will benefit
from eventually disassembling many of these fears. One way to try dismantling
food phobias is to find out if you're allergic to the "forbidden foods" or if the
foods really do pose a legitimate health hazard to you. If not and if you want to,
consider trying to overcome the fear and any residual control of the cult by
trying the "forbidden foods." The food practices of the cult may have sensitized
your body to certain foods, so monitor your body's reactions if you choose to
expand your food selection.
My body had a hunger for hamburgers when I first returned home. I found
myself eating three big hamburgers a night, three or four times a week for
about a month shortly after returning home. After a while, my hunger for the
additional meat subsided. Others have told me similar stories.
You can and should hold onto the good that you acquired in the cult. This may
include changes in eating habits. Some ex-cultists' eating habits improved in the
cult. Some became vegetarians while in the cult and chose to remain so after
leaving. Whatever your eating habits are now, make sure you and those who
left with you are getting the proper nutrition. It will help you heal.

Recovery from Abusive Groups Page 16
More Information, Please!
The mind has the capacity to do some amazing things (Ornstein &Thompson,
1984), such as reason, deduction, assessment, judgment, and evaluation. These
abilities enable the individual to take conflicting and/or related pieces of
information and process them. The cults place inhibitors in the mind during the
conversion process to stop these functions from operating and to stop the
internal flow of information. These inhibitors have been implanted by ideas or
false reason. Without proper counseling, these inhibitors can remain in the mind
and distort a person's thinking for years.
One of the toughest jobs in recovery is to reclaim or develop these mental
faculties or learned skills of thinking. One way to teach yourself the art of
thinking is by asking "gray" questions, questions which do not have a black or
white or easily recognized answer (see Where is This on the Gray Scale?, p. 40).
This process of reclaiming, rebuilding, and strengthening one's mental faculties
takes discipline. It takes discipline to reclaim the mind after the cult has driven
it into a deep freeze.
Doing Your Homework
Information is the food and thinking is the exercise with which you can
strengthen the mind. Thinking will enable you to wade through all the issues
leaving a cult can raise. When I returned from the cult, my father kept saying
"do your homework, do your homework." I did, though not as extensively as he
had wished, and it is this same advice that I pass on to others: do your
homework. (See Appendices B and C, and the Recommended Reading and
Reference Lists.)
In my years of working with ex-cultists and their families, I have seen one
common problem that keeps tripping them up-they don't study mind control
techniques thoroughly. They read articles and books and watch videos, but do
not really study and work the materials as if their life depended on it, yet it
does. Ex-cultists need a very high level of competence with the materials in
order to break free of the residual mind control and cult-induced phobias. The
family needs this level of competence to help the ex-cultist continue to break
free once home.
Parents want to get their child out of the clutches of the cult, assuming
everything can then get back to normal. Once out, the problem is solved. Right?
Wrong! Remember, intervention is only the beginning of the recovery process.
The more the ex-cultist and the family do their homework, the faster and more
thorough the recovery can be.
Talk with other ex-cultists, if possible, consider a rehab facility, watch videos, go
to lectures, give lectures, take a course or two, get information about mind
control techniques and how they work as well as information on the cult itself.
At the end of this book is a recommended reading list. I have found it is more
helpful to read a few books very thoroughly then to read every book on the
subject. I have read and reread at least a few chapters each year since I left the