My So Cult Life

There's a Monty Python skit called "The Four Yorkshiremen" that is reminiscent of a common feeling among cult survivors.     Four rich sophisticated men sit around and discuss the hardships they faced growing up in poor working-class families. Each one trying to outdo the other three with increasingly elaborate stories as to which of them had the worst childhood.   That sketch feels oddly familiar to people who were in cults. The media's penchant for salacious sadistic stories makes living as a cult survivor much more awkward than it ever needed to be.  [Which, let's face it, is pretty damn awkward even without animal sacrifices and elaborate robes]   Me:  I was raised in a cult. Them:  How horrible was it?? Me:  What do you mean by horrible? Them:  Did you have to like, kill babies with a special kind of spoon, or something? Me: Did I WHAT?!??? Them:  Were there orgies every day?  Me: Why would you even.....

If you were to talk to my and other family members of Armstrong Cult Survivors who still hold strongly to that faith, you'd hear the same argument over and over again. "I love them too much to ever hurt them. None of what they say is true. We aren't in a cult, we just have the truth." But being "loved" by family members loyal to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong is often a very painful experience. For some, that "love" was even LETHAL. Sometimes it's easy for people to forget that CHILDREN of cult members are often the ones who suffer most. Below are some highlights from firsthand accounts of what life was like in the WCG and its resulting splinter groups. I don't know what it's like for you to read these, but for me it has a kind of reassuring comfort coupled with intense fear and dread. Like wrapping up in your favorite blanket and watching the scariest movie imaginable alone in a pitch black room. The familiarity of the blanket ...