Guilt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  I ask. “It feels that way,” he answers softly, not looking at me. “It feels like the end of your life,” I repeat his statement. “Yes, since Jenny was born I’ve been thinking about death,” he says. I realize that the beginning of Jenny’s life might feel like the end of Jon’s life, in the same way that the beginning of his life was the end of his sister Jane’s life. “When one is born, the other dies,” I say, almost whispering, and Jon raises his head to look at me. “That’s how it feels.” He nods. “But it’s wrong, I know. There should be enough room for everyone.” I feel a wave of sadness. Is it possible that in Jon’s mind only one of them could stay alive? Does he believe that Jane died because he was born? Is this the hidden narrative of his family? “I’m here, in therapy, because I feel guilty,” he says. “And I’m devastated by the idea that my daughter is now having the same experience that I had as a child. I’m worried that like me, she now has a sad parent who can’t function. I don’t want to be like my mother.” I’m curious to hear more about his mother. I imagine her sadness, her guilt, her emotional withdrawal. Jon tells me that his mother died about five years ago and that his father died a year after that. “Both of my parents have died, and now I have no one to ask about my childhood.” “Do you have any memories at all?” I ask. Jon hesitates. He thinks for a long moment, then says, “I remember the porch of our house. I remember the entrance. I would come home from school and it was dark and I couldn’t tell if anyone was home. I never liked that house.” “There are no people in this memory, did you notice?” I ask. “We were four boys but I mostly grew up alone,” he answers. “My brothers were older, and they left home one after the other. I left home relatively late, when I was in my mid-twenties. It’s like I felt responsible for my parents and had to stay with them. And then, when my mother got sick I took care of her. I remember the last few days of her life, when she was in the hospital. It felt like she was waiting for death. I would sit next to her bed for hours, and it was the first time I heard her talking about Jane. It sounded like she couldn’t wait to reunite with her.” “What did she say to you?” I ask. “It wasn’t me she was talking to,” Jon clarifies. “I sat there but she ignored me and kept talking, maybe to herself, or maybe to Jane.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  The immediate survivors are overwhelmed with conflicting feelings of devastation, sorrow, anger, and shame. It leaves them with so much guilt that in order to cope they project it outside. The guilt turns into blame, and the question—whose fault was it?—is often the main pathway to releasing the intolerable guilt. Suicide is traditionally explained as a redirection toward the self of a murderous impulse originally aimed at others. That act of destruction leaves a loaded inheritance for the next generations, who will remain to hold the ghosts of suicide. They will struggle with the darkness of the soul, with buried secrets from the past, and often with their own suicidal wishes. Many of them will excessively invest in the well-being of others as a way to compensate for the unprocessed guilt. Their fantasy might be to save others in ways they couldn’t save the person who killed himself. Suicide can become a family myth, usually filled with unanswered questions. I wonder out loud, “What is the story behind your grandfather’s suicide? Why did he do it?” “I often ask myself that question,” Leonardo answers. “I’ll tell you the craziest theory I have,” he says, but then he pauses and falls into a long silence. “It feels like you are holding a secret,” I say. Leonardo smiles. “I wouldn’t call it a secret. It’s something I used to joke about with Milo, a wild thought that I always had, that Grandfather was actually gay and that his suicide was not the real secret my family kept, but his sexuality.” Leonardo leaves and I am left with the feeling that there are layers of truths unrevealed, unspoken facts from his family history as well as a hidden identification he has with his grandfather and with what he believes led to his death. That underlying identification sent Leonardo on an unconscious mission, which I locate in his dream—to liberate the family from shame and from a destiny of self-destruction. IN THE FOLLOWING sessions, Leonardo and I dive into his family history, trying to explore his secret identification with his grandfather: the feeling that his dead grandfather lives in him and that Leonardo needs to live out something for him and for the whole family.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  I heard the siren of an ambulance behind me and I panicked and tried to run even faster, to get there before the ambulance. When I finally got home I found Mom on the floor, Jenny alive in her arms.” I hear him referring to Bella as Mom, but I don’t interrupt him. “She was sobbing: ‘I got so, so scared. I didn’t know what to do. Jenny fell from the high chair and she didn’t move. She didn’t even cry. I thought she had died. ’ “I looked at Jenny. She seemed okay but I couldn’t calm myself down. I sat on the floor next to Bella and felt my body shaking. It’s like I lost control of it and I cried and cried and couldn’t stop. From that moment on, I stopped functioning. I couldn’t get out of bed. I cried all day. I considered killing myself.” Jon pauses. He looks at me and repeats, “I felt that it was all my fault. The voice in my head said that I should be the one dying, not her.” There is so much guilt in being the one who stays alive. I think about Jon’s sister, Jane, and about his wish to bring her back to life in his daughter, and this time, to kill himself instead. Jenny’s fall was traumatic because it represented both his sister’s accident and also his own childhood trauma of being emotionally and physically dropped, of being the one who stays alive but unconsciously believing that the accidents were his fault, then and now. Jon experiences the feelings he couldn’t put into words, process, or even remember: the tragedy of the baby who stayed alive, the baby who fell apart. His breakdown isn’t only about his sister’s death; it is, in fact, the ongoing experience of disconnection between the baby he used to be and his mother. The feeling Jon grew up with—but that he never let himself know—was the profound injury of maternal rejection. His unconscious anxiety was that she had dropped him because she didn’t want him. That is the reality that was too devastating for Jon to let himself know. His solution was to please his mother and to make sure that he would disappear from his own life. Jon struggled to engage in life, constantly confronting suicidal thoughts and feeling conflicted about his right to have anything. It was through his daughter’s accident that the traumatized child within him was awakened.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  From among many sorts of failure each selects the one which least compromises his self-respect: which lets him down the lightest. Mine had been in art, in religion, and in people. In art I had failed (it suddenly occurred to me at this moment) because I did not believe in the discrete human personality. (‘Are people’ writes Pursewarden ‘continuously themselves, or simply over and over again so fast that they give the illusion of continuous features — the temporal flicker of old silent film?’) I lacked a belief in the true authenticity of people in order to successfully portray them. In religion? Well, I found no religion worth while which contained the faintest grain of propitiation — and which can escape the charge? Pace Balthazar it seemed to me that all churches, all sects, were at the best mere academies of self-instruction against fear. But the last, the worst failure (I buried my lips in the dark living hair of Justine), the failure with people: it had been brought about by a gradually increasing detachment of spirit which, while it freed me to sympathize, forbade me possession. I was gradually, inexplicably, becoming more and more deficient in love, yet better and better at self-giving — the best part of loving. This, I realized with horror, was the hold I now had over Justine. As a woman, a natural possessive, she was doomed to try and capture the part of myself which was forever beyond reach, the last painful place of refuge which was for me laughter and friendship. This sort of loving had made her, in a way, desperate for I did not depend on her; and the desire to possess can, if starved, render one absolutely possessed in the spirit oneself. How difficult it is to analyse these relationships which lie under the mere skin of our actions; for loving is only a sort of skin-language, sex a terminology merely.

• From Wild (2012)

  The next morning I dressed in my hiking clothes—the same old stained sports bra and threadbare navy blue hiking shorts I’d been wearing since day 1, along with a new pair of wool socks and the last fresh T-shirt I’d have all the way to the end, a heather gray shirt that said UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY in yellow letters across the chest. I walked to the co-op with Monster on my back, my ski pole dangling from my wrist, and a box in my arms, taking over a table in the deli section of the store to organize my pack. When I was done, Monster sat tidily loaded down next to the small box that held my jeans, bra, and underwear, which I was mailing back to Lisa, and a plastic grocery bag of meals I couldn’t bear to eat any longer, which I planned to leave in the PCT hiker free box at the post office on my way out of town. Crater Lake National Park was my next stop, about 110 trail miles away. I needed to get back on the PCT and yet I was reluctant to leave Ashland. I dug through my pack, found my Strayed necklace, and put it on. I reached over and touched the raven feather Doug had given me. It was still wedged into my pack in the place I’d first put it, though it was worn and straggly now. I unzipped the side pocket where I kept my first aid kit, pulled it out, and opened it up. The condom I’d carried all the way from Mojave was still there, still like new. I took it out and put it in the plastic grocery bag with the food I didn’t want, and then I hoisted Monster onto my back and left the co-op carrying the box and the plastic grocery bag. I hadn’t gone far when I saw the headband man I’d met up at Toad Lake, sitting on the sidewalk where I’d seen him before, his coffee can and little cardboard sign in front of him. “I’m heading out,” I said, stopping before him. He looked up at me and nodded. He still didn’t seem to remember me—either from our encounter at Toad Lake or from a couple of days before. “I met you when you were looking for the Rainbow Gathering,” I said. “I was there with another woman named Stacy. We talked to you.” He nodded again, shaking the change in his can. “I’ve got some food here that I don’t need, if you want it,” I said, setting the plastic grocery bag down beside him. “Thanks, baby,” he said as I began to walk away. I stopped and turned. “Hey,” I called. “Hey!” I shouted until he looked at me. “Don’t call me baby,” I said. He pressed his hands together, as if in prayer, and bowed his head.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  The loyalty to the people we are attached to often keeps a part of us with them even when we leave. Our parents tend to live inside us without our permission. Our relationships with them are the first we have, and our future relationships exist only in dialogue with them. Guy had to move away but he still struggles with the guilt of leaving—and living. As I have come to learn from him over time, he hasn’t been able to create a safe-enough home in New York or to have an intimate relationship. He isn’t sure that he can love or trust others, and he certainly doesn’t trust himself to protect the people he loves from his legacy of brutality and abuse. Being alone feels like the best way to hide, and hiding, after all, is the only way to survive . In our first session, hiding behind his gray winter coat, Guy told me that he had researched me, wondering about who I was and about the people I had left behind. He questioned if therapy was even for him: Could he have an honest relationship, where he felt known, without being too vulnerable or threatened? Could he heal the abused boy he once was without feeling humiliated and ashamed? Could he ever love and be loved? On a snowy day, one year after Guy started his therapy, he walks into my office, nods, and says softly, “I think I’m getting used to this weather.” He takes off his coat and smiles. We both notice the difference. 11 THE UNEXAMINED LIFE A lice looks younger than her age. Maybe it’s her long black hair, or maybe it’s the sweatpants and sneakers she wears to our first session that make me think of her as a girl. She comes to see me right after celebrating her forty-fourth birthday. Very quickly her age becomes a topic. Alice was in her late thirties when she met Art, I learn. It was right after she got divorced, and she was worried that she might be too old to have children. “I don’t care about marriage,” she tells me in that first session. “My parents separated when I was five years old. They had a messy divorce and after my father officially remarried, he was not in the picture anymore.” I ask her what she means by “officially remarried.” Alice rolls her eyes. “It’s not why I came to therapy, but I guess it’s all relevant to what I’m dealing with,” she says. “I had a shitty childhood. Again, it’s not why I’m here. ” “Why are you here?” I ask. “We are about to have a child,” Alice says, and I’m a bit surprised because she doesn’t look pregnant at all. “We tried to get pregnant for years. Between you and me, from our first week together we knew that we wanted to have children, but I couldn’t get pregnant. I tried everything. Many cycles of IVF.”

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  “You know that in my family being gay was never a big deal. I always thought my mother was actually happy about me not bringing girls home, and my father, until his last day, was so accepting. He used to say that as long as I’m happy, that’s what’s important.” Leonardo thinks for a moment and then adds, “I honestly think that it was because his own father committed suicide when he was a child. He just wanted me to be happy. He was afraid of sadness.” I know what he is referring to. Leonardo’s grandfather had died by suicide when his father, Jim, was a child. A few days before his fortieth birthday, he had locked himself in the bathroom and hanged himself. His nine-year-old son, Jim, knocked on the door and then ran crying to his mother, who found his father after it was too late. “For years this was our family secret,” Leonardo says. “My grandmother never told people the truth. She would say that he died suddenly. If someone pushed her, she would lie and say that he had died from a heart attack that he’d had in the bathroom and drowned. They were so ashamed of it, as if it meant something terrible about us.” “What a secret to carry,” I say, and Leonardo nods. “What do you think this dream means?” he asks me. “In your dream, it is Milo who knocks on the bathroom door,” I say. Leonardo looks a bit puzzled. “Yes, he begs me to open the door, exactly the way I imagine my father, as a child, had. How strange. What do you think it is? How is my breakup from Milo related to my grandfather’s suicide?” I don’t know the answer yet, but like Leonardo, I, too, recognize that in this dream his father is replaced by Milo knocking on the bathroom door. I ask him to tell me more. “I think my father knew deep inside that his father was unhappy and didn’t want to live,” Leonardo says. “I’m not saying he thought he would kill himself, but the truth is that for years my father felt very guilty, as if he could have saved him. He told me that story many times; even in the last years of his life he still talked about it. Unlike my grandmother, or maybe in reaction to her hiding it, my dad refused to keep it a secret. I think I was maybe five years old when I asked him how his father died, and he told me the truth. I guess he didn’t want me to grow up with secrets.” “Can you tell me that story again?” I ask. “Tell me what your dad remembered about that day your grandfather died.”

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Ultimately, as a reflective person (which you must be or you wouldn't be reading this book), you are now trying to make sense of it all. What was going on in your cult? How did it affect you as an individual? How might it still be affecting you? What was your role in the group and its activities? Why did you do the things you did, or believe the things you did? Such questions are an important part of the healing process. Cults are complex social organizations that are structured so as to institutionalize social controls and social influences that tend to benefit the group and/or leader. In order to fully understand your experiences, reactions, and behaviors, it helps to examine the social structure of cults, the social interactions that take place, and your role in that social world. But first let us address the guilt and shame attached to that burning question: Why didn't I leave sooner? And those other burning questions: Why did I go along with it? Why didn't I speak out? What was I thinking? And on and on. Sound familiar? Let's try to unhitch you from that particular whipping post. To begin, there is not just one answer to that question. There are at least ten major factors or conditions that influence a person to stay in a cult, and they are outlined here. BeliefAmong the many factors that make leaving a cult difficult, belief is probably the starting point. Belief (and one's sense of commitment to that belief) is a remarkably powerful force-whether the belief relates to a specific god or religion, a certain brand of politics, a particular lifestyle, a type of family, the existence of magic, or whatever it might be. Being able to carry out one's beliefs and ideas about the world is a most appealing thing. It is the human condition to want to belong, to be part of something. Belief helps us make sense of our universe. In the world of cults, belief is the glue that binds people to a group. You begin to go along with things-no matter what group you are in-because you believe in the group and its professed ideals. You believe in the goals and in the people who work with you to achieve those goals. You believe you are going to accomplish something. You believe in the leader. In most cults, members are told that in order to adhere to the group's beliefs, they must make certain changes. As a devoted member, you agree; "Okay, I accept that. I believe this, I agree with it, and I'll make those changes." Slowly those changes begin to have a radical effect on your thoughts and actions, though you may not be highly conscious of that. Belief has consequences for your everyday behavior and actions, or nonaction, as the case may be. Decency and LoyaltyA second major influence that keeps people in cults is that most people are decent and honest.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  The victims, instead of only feeling threatened and helpless, try to make sense of and control reality by adopting the abuser’s beliefs and behaviors. By impersonating the aggressor, the child turns passivity into action and instead of being just the victim, she becomes the one who hurts others and/or herself. These children, in identifying with their parents, believe deep inside that they deserve the parent’s anger and punishment. It is not surprising, then, that like Guy’s father, many violent parents were once abused children. Guy doesn’t only feel angry; he is still trying to make sense of the world around him and to figure out who is bad and who is good. Unprocessed abuse keeps the intergenerational cycle going. Each generation identifies with the previous one, and Guy is at a point where those intergenerational conflicts have come to the surface. He is torn between his loyalty to the past and the hope for the future, between the connection to his ancestors and the chance to have new and different kinds of relationships. As in his childhood, he is imprisoned again, but this time he is the one who locks himself in. Healing—breaking the cycle of abuse—is often filled with resistance to the possibility of change. That possibility intensifies the conflict between the part of the self that strives for future liberation and the part that is connected to the past and to previous generations. Healing is a journey filled with ambivalence, guilt, and shame. It is a painful process that brings the ghosts of the past to life and challenges our internal identifications on the way to setting us free. Guy stops and glances at his watch. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he says. “What’s the point of talking about it now? We can’t change the past.” He starts gathering his things from the side table. Holding his keys, he looks at me and says, “Galit, at the end, I did save my life. I’m here in New York almost twenty years now. I was able to run away.” I know that it will take time to process all the feelings that are brought up to the surface. Guy moved to New York in an attempt to survive, but his past chased him—as it always does. He puts his keys back on the table. “We still have five more minutes,” he says. “I have to go to jury duty again tomorrow. I wish you could come with me.” He starts laughing. “I’m just joking. I wouldn’t want you to have to hear that girl describing her childhood. It’s brutal.” “I know our session today was brutal,” I say, “and I assume you always wished for a mother who could come with you and protect you, make you feel safe, and help you to be brave.” He glances at his watch again. “Our time is up. Maybe I should come another time this week,” he says, taking another step toward rather than away from his pain.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  • Analyze your group through Janja Lalich's four-part framework of charismatic authority, a transcendent belief system, systems of influence, and systems of control. (See Chapter i.) Once you can admit that you were in a cult, you can begin to recognize the complexities of your involvement and the unfairness of having been betrayed or exploited. The feelings that may result are normal responses to trauma, including shock and denial, then grief responses: hurt, guilt, shame, fear, and anger. There is no magic wand to make these feelings go away quickly. Healing cannot be rushed, but it will take place. Attempts at self-numbing through alcohol and other substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, cult hopping (seeking a quick fix by joining another potentially destructive group), and suicide attempts only extend the period of denial, delay healing, and compound the problems. Cognitive difficulties involving awareness and judgment are common among former cult members. In this chapter, we describe some of the major cognitive difficulties and challenges encountered by former members, and in the next chapter we outline some useful exercises and aids to help you overcome them. As you identify the mechanisms of influence and control that were used in your particular situation, you can learn to disarm their unwanted, lingering psychological effects. The Cloud of IndecisivenessSome former members have problems making decisions. Deciding something as significant as "what to do with the rest of your life" may seem impossible, yet even smaller choices may feel overwhelming or paralyzing to ex-members. By dictating all rules and norms and eliminating choice, cults create childlike dependency in their members. Often that degree of control is even higher in abusive cultic relationships and families. In some groups, dependence is increased through a system of "disciplers," "one-helps," "control officers," or overseers who approve or disapprove of all aspects of daily life and report members' so-called progress to their leadership. Other groups use self-monitoring techniques that require members to keep diaries or reports (or self-criticisms) of all negative thoughts, behaviors, or actions that lead to doubt or rule breaking. Typically such diaries and reports are turned over to the group. Most cults punish small mistakes or any attempts at autonomy. This may result in reprimand, or rebuking, as some call it; sleep or food deprivation; physical punishment or hard labor; group denunciation and humiliation; threats of expulsion, damnation, or possession by demons; death threats; and in some instances, actual death. Whether overt or covert, these control mechanisms promote dependence on the group and prevent personal decision making and autonomy. Even after people leave their cults, this ingrained behavior may linger. One former member coped with her inability to make decisions in the following way: Sharon Y. left a Bible-based group after four years of intense speaking in tongues and devotion to her pastor, who guided her in all facets of her life. She described herself as a fish out of water, flip-flopping on dry land, unable to make a decision and stick to it. Thoughts felt slippery.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Can we continue to desire the people we feel most safe with? Mitchell asks. He suggests that it is the delicate balance between security and danger, the familiar and the novel, that is the secret for long-term love. In her innovative book Mating in Captivity, psychotherapist Esther Perel elaborates on that paradox of domesticity and sexual desire and works to help couples open a playful space for adventure and therefore sexual excitement in their relationships. Perel further develops those themes and others to examine the complexity of infidelity. A psychoanalytic investigation is a complex and nuanced journey into one’s delicate heart. Danger and security, destruction and construction, life and death, and the plight of multiple generations appear, in different ways, in each and every one of those journeys. During our first session together, Eve doesn’t take off her sunglasses. She sits on the couch with her legs crossed and sobs. “I messed up my life,” she says. “I don’t know, maybe I already destroyed it. I’m not sure what to do.” She tells me that her husband is a good man and that she has a satisfying marriage. “I actually love my husband,” she says. “We have such a sweet family, my kids are so wonderful, and they are everything I have always dreamed of. I have everything I wanted and maybe I’m just too greedy.” She then tells me about the night that made her realize that she had lost control of her life. “We usually meet in his office, but that weekend was different because both his wife and my husband were away, and we thought it was a good opportunity for us to spend the night together. We never did that before and I think both of us were excited but also anxious.” She asked her babysitter to stay the night with the kids, and Josh reserved a room in a hotel across the street from his office. Eve tells me that if her husband looks at the app where they can see each other’s location, he could easily find her. They had installed the app earlier in the year so they could keep track of their daughter, who had just turned twelve and had started walking to school on her own. “The app became a huge problem, as I was aware that my family could always see where I was. I know this doesn’t sound believable, but I really hate lying,” she says, almost apologizing. “I would rather not give any explanation than to have to lie. I decided to turn my phone off that night, so I wouldn’t have to lie about where I was.” She sighs. “Oh God.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  But that doesn’t mean he is not allowed to try to repair it with a loving act. Art thinks my father is trying to give me money as a way to tell me that he wants to make up for everything he did wrong, to find a way to be a father to me and a grandfather to our daughter, and that my rejection is a way to control him and not the other way around. “Honestly, I never thought about it that way. I never thought that by refusing to accept money from my father I control him and make sure he isn’t too close to me. It reminded me of something you said about how money and sex are areas that people are most dishonest and hypocritical about. I mean, my father supported my mother and me financially all those years. I never thanked him, even though I knew he wasn’t wealthy and therefore had to sacrifice. I didn’t thank him for the gifts he sent me, not for the summer camps or the college tuition he paid, not for the big trip I took after I graduated. I didn’t want to feel that I needed him or to give him that power over us. I felt that it was his responsibility to pay. The truth is that sometimes I felt that I was doing him a favor by letting him give me money, as if it was something I gave him and not the other way around. Now I want to do it differently, to be able to give him something by accepting his money and to feel appreciative for what he gives me. What do you think, Galit, does it make sense to accept his offer?” I think about the betrayal of her mother, wondering if Alice is aware that it was her conflict of loyalty that prevented her from thanking her father for anything he gave her. If she let herself know that she missed her father, that she needed him, she might be breaking her mother’s heart again. She had to make herself forget about her father. Now she is asking for my permission to let him in and to forgive him. Alice’s emotional growth is as speedy as her speech. I witness her picture beginning to be filled in with nuances, as she adds more colors to what used to be a black-and-white split view of her parents. She can now let herself see both of them as humans who struggle to be happy. She acknowledges the different ways they each used her in their divorce, treating her as a valuable asset that they were not willing to share.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Share this list with someone you trust, someone who will not judge you. Talk it over with a therapist, exit counselor, clergyperson, or another former member. It helps to have someone else's perspective and objectivity. It helps to get it out of you. 3. Look at the list and see if you can make amends to any of the people involved. This should not be done if it causes pain to another, or puts you at risk of re-involvement. 4. If you find it helpful, ask for forgiveness from God or your spiritual source. 5. Don't forget to forgive yourself. This is both the most challenging and the most important part. So long as you are operating on guilt or shame, you are emotionally handicapped. We can seek forgiveness from those we hurt, from God, and from ourselves, but forgiving those who so deliberately hurt us is a different matter, and a highly personal one. As more than one former member has said, "As a fellow participant, I can forgive those in the group who hurt me. They were as much under the influence of our leader as I was. As for the leader, because he shows absolutely no remorse for what he has done to me, what he continues to do to others, and what he would still do to me if he could, I do not forgive him." It has been said that success is the best revenge. Becoming functional and happy outside of the cult (rather than getting sick and dying or becoming a complete loser, as your cult may have predicted) is the best manifesto of your success, and the greatest exposure of the cult's lies about life outside the group. [image file=img/img0016.jpg] This chapter explores two major areas that may have been neglected or corrupted in a cult or abusive relationship: first, physical and health issues; and second, interpersonal issues involving old and new relationships with family, friends, spouses or intimates, and children. Taking Care of Your BodyIn many cults, the last thing members are permitted to care for is their own health. If you were in a situation that didn't support or provide proper nutrition or exercise, medical or prenatal care, or regular dental hygiene and health care, you might have special health problems that need attention. At the very least, now is the time to have a general medical checkup, including eye, ear, and dental examinations. Children and adolescents who lived in a cult environment most likely need a complete physical and also may need to be updated on all their childhood vaccinations. If you are over fifty, there are also numerous tests women or men should have, such as a mammogram, a prostate exam, and a colorectal exam (for both).

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Afterwards I spat his spendings out upon the cobbles, and he thanked me very graciously. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, buttoning himself up, ‘perhaps I shall see you again, in the same spot?’ I could not answer him - the fact was, I felt almost ready to weep. He handed me my sovereign; then, after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped to me and kissed my cheek. The gesture made me flinch; and when he felt the shudder, he misunderstood, and looked wistful. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t like that, you soldier-boys, do you?’ His tone was strange; when I studied him, I saw that his eyes were gleaming. His excitement had stirred me to strangeness, before; his emotion, now, made me terribly thoughtful. When he turned and left the court, I remained there, trembling - not with sadness, but with a creeping kind of relish. The man had looked like Walter; I had pleasured him, in some queer way, for Kitty’s sake; and the act had made me sicken. But he was not like Walter, who might take his pleasure where he chose it. His pleasure had turned, at the last, to a kind of grief; and his love was a love so fierce and so secret it must be satisfied, with a stranger, in a reeking court like this. I knew about that kind of love. I knew how it was to bare your palpitating heart, and be fearful as you did so that the beats should come too loudly, and betray you. I had kept my heart-beats smothered; and had been betrayed, anyway. And now I had betrayed another, like myself. I put away the gentleman’s sovereign, and walked to Leicester Square. This was one place which, in all my careless West End wanderings, I had tended to avoid or pass through swiftly: I was always mindful of the first trip I had made there, with Kitty and Walter, and it was not a memory I cared, very often, to revisit. Tonight, however, I walked there rather purposefully. I went to the statute of Shakespeare, where we had stood that time, and I leaned before it, gazing at the view that we had looked on then. I remembered Walter saying that we were at the very heart of London, and did I know what it was that made that great heart beat? Variety! I had looked around me that afternoon and seen, astonished, what I thought was all the world’s variety, brought together in one extraordinary place. I had seen rich and poor, splendid and squalid, white man and black man, all bustling side by side. I had seen them make a vast harmonious whole, and been thrilled to think that I was about to find my own particular place in it, as Kitty’s friend. How had my sense of the world been changed, since then!

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  I ask her to explain. “It was as if my mother and I had a secret contract that we were the family. Even when I got married the first time, my marriage was similar to hers— not a big love but what she thought a woman should do. I was married, but I was still hers. We planned that if I had a baby I’d move to live closer to her, and she would help me raise my child. It was like she was my partner. But then I met Art, and it was a double betrayal.” Alice looks at me to see if I can put it all together. “A betrayal because you actually fell in love with him and he became your partner instead of her,” I say. “But what else? Why double?” Alice closes her eyes. She speaks without looking at me. “When I met Art he was still married. That’s why. I had just gotten divorced and Art had already left his marriage, but he was not legally divorced. One thing I thought I knew for sure was that I would never, ever be with a married man. It was against everything I believed; it’s wrong, as a principle. So I tried to stay away from him. But it was hard. We worked in the same company and at some point were assigned to work on the same project. We had to speak every day and ended up spending hours on the phone. Our conversations became more and more intimate. Art told me about his separation and how hard it was for him. He had Lili, who was five years old at the time, exactly the age I was when my father left, and he talked about how painful it was for him not to spend nights with her. I told him about my father and how he cheated on us and left for another family. He was the first person I shared all the details with. I even told him about the ceremony my mother conducted.” “The ceremony?” I ask. Alice opens her eyes and looks at me. “Right, I forgot that I didn’t tell you about it. It’s a weird story. I was in first grade, and my father had already left but they were not yet divorced. One Sunday evening, my mother drove me to his office. I had been there many times before with my dad, but that evening was different. She opened the door with a key that she still had from when they were together. His office looked exactly the way I remembered it.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  This dependency may continue long after the leader is gone. Rationalization is common when the leader's personality and behavior are erratic. Thus members may regard the leader's leaving as one more admirable action rather than a betrayal. The following is an illustration of such rationalization: Dr. D., the leader of a psychotherapy cult, was highly admired by his followers for his unique style of therapy and his glamorized, adventurous lifestyle. A selfproclaimed millionaire and entrepreneur, he stated that success such as his was possible for all his clients who followed his teachings and example. When Dr. D. announced his retirement, he claimed he was exhausted from his tireless work on his clients' behalf and needed to recover in a warmer climate. Turning his practice over to others, he made vague comments about returning someday. His clients, trained over the years to accept his lengthy vacations and unpredictability, accepted the news with ambivalent feelings. They rationalized their loss and looked forward to the day when they would be "healthy" enough to follow his example. They envied his apparent freedom, taking the announcement as new evidence of his highly evolved life instead of the desertion it truly was. Fortunately, through sessions with an ethical therapist, most of the followers were eventually able to see Dr. D. for the con artist he was, and consider his departure a blessing rather than a loss. Waiting for the return or rebirth of the leader or for the promised salvation can go on for long periods of time. Cult members may wait indefinitely for the leader to reincarnate or inhabit the body of a living member. Groups that pro claim the coming of the Last Judgment may postpone that fateful day over and over again once their leader is gone. Followers will often blame themselves no matter how their leader left. Devotees may feel that they were not spiritual enough, did not honor the leader enough, were not worthy of the leader's efforts, caused the leader's illness or death by their bad behavior, were selfish, and so on, as this example illustrates: Guru frequently told Ruth V. that in other lifetimes she had failed to become enlightened and this was the last time he would come back for her. When he left for South America without clarifying their relationship, initially she felt abandoned. She had failed him, she was sure; everything was her fault. The reality, she later learned, was that guru was bored with the responsibility of the group, which he also felt was not profitable enough. He was seeking an easier, more lucrative way to earn a living. Gaining such knowledge, although hurtful, helped Ruth put the experience in perspective. The death of a leader may leave a group in crisis, particularly if it is unexpected. Struggles for control of the group may start up among various secondlevel leaders or members of the inner circle. Sometimes another powerful figure takes the former leader's place and gathers some of the followers around him.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  “I looked at Jenny. She seemed okay but I couldn’t calm myself down. I sat on the floor next to Bella and felt my body shaking. It’s like I lost control of it and I cried and cried and couldn’t stop. From that moment on, I stopped functioning. I couldn’t get out of bed. I cried all day. I considered killing myself.” Jon pauses. He looks at me and repeats, “I felt that it was all my fault. The voice in my head said that I should be the one dying, not her.” There is so much guilt in being the one who stays alive. I think about Jon’s sister, Jane, and about his wish to bring her back to life in his daughter, and this time, to kill himself instead. Jenny’s fall was traumatic because it represented both his sister’s accident and also his own childhood trauma of being emotionally and physically dropped, of being the one who stays alive but unconsciously believing that the accidents were his fault, then and now. Jon experiences the feelings he couldn’t put into words, process, or even remember: the tragedy of the baby who stayed alive, the baby who fell apart. His breakdown isn’t only about his sister’s death; it is, in fact, the ongoing experience of disconnection between the baby he used to be and his mother. The feeling Jon grew up with—but that he never let himself know—was the profound injury of maternal rejection. His unconscious anxiety was that she had dropped him because she didn’t want him. That is the reality that was too devastating for Jon to let himself know. His solution was to please his mother and to make sure that he would disappear from his own life. Jon struggled to engage in life, constantly confronting suicidal thoughts and feeling conflicted about his right to have anything. It was through his daughter’s accident that the traumatized child within him was awakened. He had to get in touch with his deadened self to be able to start the process of living. Jon and I understand that the experience of his early childhood reappeared in his breakdown, and we are determined to go back to that time to find out what that early experience felt like, to live through it so Jon can rejoin the world. Weeks pass and Jon feels a little stronger. We meet every Tuesday at 11:45, and he now arrives exactly on time, sometimes a minute or two late, but never early. He makes sure I am the one who is waiting for him, and not the other way around. When I open the door, Jon walks in and always makes the same joke, “Hey, did you expect me?” he says. We both know that he is referring to the anxiety that knocking on my door might evoke in him, the worry that I won’t remember the session, that I have forgotten about him or maybe even hoped that he wouldn’t show up.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  That autumn, when we struck camp and returned to the city for its winter season, nothing had been decided; the feeling of crisis had even diminished. We were all held there, so to speak, in the misty solution of everyday life out of which futurity was to crystallize whatever drama lay ahead. I was called upon to begin my new job for Scobie and addressed myself helplessly to the wretched boustrophedon upon which Balthazar continued to instruct me, in between bouts of chess. I admit that I tried to allay my pangs of conscience in the matter by trying at first to tell Scobie’s office the truth — namely that the Cabal was a harmless sect devoted to Hermetic philosophy and that its activities bore no reference to espionage. In answer to this I was curtly told that I must not believe their obvious cover-story but must try to break the code. Detailed reports of the meetings were called for and these I duly supplied, typing out Balthazar’s discourses on Ammon and Hermes Trismegistus with a certain peevish pleasure, imagining as I did so the jaded government servants who have to wade through the stuff in damp basements a thousand miles away. But I was paid and paid well; for the first time I was able to send Melissa a little money and to make some attempt to pay Justine what I owed her. It was interesting, too, to discover which of my acquaintances were really part of the espionage grape-vine. Mnemjian, for example, was one; his shop was a clearing-post for general intelligence concerning the city, and was admirably chosen. He performed his duties with tremendous care and discretion, and insisted on shaving me free of charge; it was disheartening to learn much later on that he patiently copied out his intelligence summaries in triplicate and sold copies to various other intelligence services. Another interesting aspect of the work was that one had the power to order raids to be made on the house of one’s friends. I enjoyed very much having Pombal’s apartment raided. The poor fellow had a calamitous habit of bringing official files home to work on in the evening. We captured a whole set of papers which delighted Scobie for they contained detailed memoranda upon French influence in Syria, and a list of French agents in the city. I noticed on one of these lists the name of the old furrier, Cohen.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Now, as you begin to get in touch with or create your own moral code, you may feel guilt and shame, specifically if your cult participation included actions or activities such as these: • You may have hurt or disappointed your family, causing them worry, pain, and anger • You may have recruited friends, relatives, or other members • You may have participated in cult-related activities that went against your own sense of integrity, such as begging, lying, spying on friends and other members, or engaging in criminal acts, including fraud, drug usage or trafficking, stealing, assault, murder, or prostitution • You may have witnessed physical, sexual, or emotional abuse that you did not try to stop or prevent • You may have left behind or mistreated your own children • You may have attained a position of power and authority in the group, and used it to support the leader and control or abuse others, thereby perpetuating the "victim chain" It is normal to feel guilt when we do something we believe is bad or unethical. Only the sociopath feels no guilt about his own behavior, though he is often skilled at using that emotion to control others. As a former cult member, you are most likely an expert at feeling guilty. In all fairness to this emotion, however, guilt can serve uniquely noble purposes. It causes us to rise above our pettiness and selfishness as we extend ourselves to others. Occasional twinges of guilt (or conscience) encourage us to be better, more caring human beings. Cult leaders or abusive partners who lack that capacity are truly inadequate and unworthy beings. Shame is connected to guilt, and we usually feel shame when we perceive ourselves as bad in the eyes of others. Gaylin notes, "Shame is the sister of guilt and is often confused in usage with guilt. They serve the same purposes: both facilitate the socially acceptable behavior required for group living; both deal with transgression and wrongdoing against codes of conduct and are supporting pillars of the social structure. But whereas guilt is the most inner-directed of emotions, shame incorporates the community, the group, the other.... Shame requires an audience, if not realistically, then symbolically. Shame is a public exhibition of wrongdoing or the fear of being exposed in front of the group."4 These following vignettes exemplify how guilt and shame operate and are exploited in cults: In a rapidly growing commercial cult, members were encouraged to work in high-paying fields. During monthly instructional meetings, each person had to state what she earned. Members were exhorted to earn as much as they could, with income serving as a measure of their dedication to the leader. Naturally, the more a person earned, the more money she was expected to pay for instruction. Those deemed to be poor earners were shamed before the group and made to feel morally inferior and unworthy of further instruction. In a Bible-based group, Ann 0.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Mrs Milne looked grey. She sank into a chair and put a hand to her throat. ‘Oh, Nance ...’ ‘Now don’t,’ I said, with an attempt at jollity, ‘don’t be like that; now just don‘t! I’m not so special a boarder, heaven knows; and you’ll soon find another nice girl to take my place.’ ‘But it ain’t me I’m thinking of so much,’ she said, ‘as Gracie. You have been so good with her, Nance; there’s not many as would understand her like you do; not many who would take the trouble over her little ways, the way you have.’ ‘But I shall come back and visit,’ I said reasonably. ‘And Grace -’ I swallowed as I said it, for I knew there would never be a welcome for Gracie in the stillness and richness and elegance of Diana’s villa - ‘Grace can come and visit me. It won’t be so bad.’ ‘Is it the money, Nance?’ she said then. ‘I know you ain’t got much -’ ‘No, of course it ain’t the money,’ I said. ‘Indeed -’ I had remembered the coin in my pocket: a pound, placed there by Diana’s own fingers. It more than covered the rent I owed, and the fortnight’s warning I should have given. I held it out to her; but when she only gazed bleakly at it and made no move to take it, I stepped awkwardly to the mantelpiece and laid it softly there. There was a silence, broken only by Mrs Milne’s sighs. I coughed. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I had better go and get my things together ...’ ‘What! You ain’t leaving us today? Not so soon?’ ‘I did promise my friend I would,’ I said, trying to suggest by my tone that my friend might have all the blame for it. ‘But you’ll stay for a bit of tea, at least?’ The thought of the dreary tea-party we would make, with Mrs Milne so ashen and disappointed, and Gracie in all probability in tears, or worse, filled me with dismay. I bit my lip. ‘I’d better not,’ I said. Mrs Milne straightened, and her mouth grew small. She shook her head slowly. ‘This will break my poor girl’s heart.’ There was a flintiness to her tone that was more frightening, more shaming, than her sadness had been; but I found myself, again, vaguely piqued. I had opened my mouth to utter some dreadful pleasantry when there came a scuffling at the door, and Grace herself appeared. ‘Tea’s hot!’ she sang out, all unsuspecting. I could not bear it. I gave her a smile, nodded blindly towards her mother, then made my escape. Her voice - ‘Oh, Ma, what’s up?’ - pursued me up the stairwell, followed by Mrs Milne’s murmurs.