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b. Arranging for initial and follow-up job interviews
c. Interviewing skills
d. Appropriate work clothes, expectations, and behaviors
4. Finding health care. These skills might include:
a. Assessing a doctor, specialist, and dentist
b. Setting up initial and follow-up appointments
c. Getting regular exams
d. Processing an insurance application and claim form
e. Taking medication
f. Learning and practicing good dental, nutritional, and exercise habits
5. Managing money. These skills might include:
a. Setting up a budget
b. Opening a savings and checking account
c. Reconciling bank statements
d. Paying bills
e. Establishing credit
It may be very painful for you to see your forty-year-old family member
overwhelmed, even immobilized, at the idea of a doctor's appointment, getting
an apartment, or opening a checking account. The questions may seem so basic
to you, but remember he has been in another world for a long time.
You can help with this potentially overwhelming array of basic skills. Take the
time to teach the necessary skills without judging or criticizing.
Teach with patience, humor, and encouragement. Avoid being controlling or
overprotective and encourage self-reliance.
Respecting Their Accomplishments
When I was deprogrammed in 1980, the theory was that to let the loved one
admit anything good could come out of the cult experience was to encourage
them to return. Those who work with ex-cultists have since realized that this
theory was wrong. Ex-cultists need to be able to take the good with them from
their experience. There may not have been much of it, but there was some, and
the ex-cultist is entitled to it.
Like many other ex-cultists, I was exposed to people, places, skills, and ideas in
the cult that I probably would not have known otherwise. I learned many things,
such as how to survive on $20 a month spending money, how to sleep in a semi
with an overactive wet-nosed dog, how to run large meetings, survive in the
wilderness, shoot firearms, work long hours, and jog ten miles. For every good

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experience, there were hours and hours of verbal and psychological abuse, but
there were still some skills and experiences worth keeping.
Nieces, Nephews, and Grandchildren
Many ex-cultists were married in the cult and had children. Whether or not one
is under mind control, being in a marriage and raising children is an
accomplishment. These ex-cultists have their own families and responsibilities to
those families. How they choose to handle those responsibilities during the
trauma of exiting and recovery may or may not be to your liking. But your
support is needed. You can be most effective as a sounding board:
• Listening
• Gently raising questions
• Offering advice, if requested
• Being supportive
Remember, ex-cultists need to learn to make their own decisions and to carry
them out. Nieces, nephews, and grandchildren will survive these difficult months
and years better, if the extended family is supportive and non-argumentative.
Covered in Bruises
A visual aid that might help is to imagine your loved one covered with dark
bruises. Remember, the pain is psychological and may not be
visible on the outside, but the wounds can run very deep. Will it help to add
pressure to these bruises or to step back and simply be there? As ex-cultists
relearn how to use their badly bruised mental faculties and reconnect with long
frozen emotions, will it help to do the tasks for them or to encourage and
applaud them? You may not feel as if applause is much of a contribution, but it
is!
Honor what they have accomplished while they were in the cult and give them
space to work out their new challenges in their own way and in their own time.
Recovery can take years.
Will My Loved One Go Back to the Cult?
After escaping from one deprogramming, all my mother wanted to know the
second time around was "will Wendy go back again?" She had read about
"floating." She knew that even after all the work to get me out of the cult's
clutches, I could float and go back again. (See Floating, p. 36.)
Family members should be aware that abusive groups use powerful
psychological controls on their followers. The longer these controls are in place,
the more difficult it may be for ex-cultists to regain a hold on their pre-cult
identity. Certain stressors, such as cult language, phone calls from cultists, and
meditation, can cause a floating experience. Ex-cultists may appear glassy-
eyed, nonemotional or agitated, or disoriented. Usually, simply being aware that