If you’re wondering what it’s like to be in a high control group or relationship, the first thing to know is that words cannot actually give the experience. It is an all-consuming way of life that impacts your being on every single level: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and physiological – all at the same time, perpetually and relentlessly. Scientific study has shown that being under long periods of coercive control and manipulation (also known as brainwashing) actually alters the brain on a physical level. The effects of this way of life are not theoretical – they are very literal, physical and intensely destructive.
Some of the longterm effects for victims of abusive mind control may include memory issues, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, suppressed immune system, autoimmune disorders (and other physical maladies specific to the forms of physical control used in that group), disorientation, suicidal tendencies and difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy. That list of side effects is just one of the reasons why I am so intent on my education and recovery from this way of life. If you haven’t already experienced it yourself, you must employ your imagination and your empathy to derive a sense of how and why life in a high control group would lead to these long term effects. It is a living prison with invisible bars, stronger than any iron–they have to be to keep you there.
When I began to write out a typical day, I realized I couldn’t do so without going into lengthy explanations and definitions for tactics and vocabulary used in our little group. Therefore, this is going to be another multi-part post broken down into morning, day and evening segments and including the necessary definitions and explanations as they arise. In addition, I’ve decided to give my faux teacher a name in order to make following the details a bit easier rather than constantly referring to him as my “teacher” (with quotation marks to denote his fraudulence). Henceforth, we shall refer to this man as Keefer or Keefy, depending on how the mood strikes me, but they are the same person. So, without further adieu…
A Morning In The Life
It’s 6 am and my alarm is calling me back to waking life, unfortunately. The less sleep I get, the earlier I have to rise because the more time it takes me to get through my morning routine. Most nights, I finally get to go to bed between 1 and 2 am, sometimes later. The weariness and mental fog takes its toll. I’ll spend the next 2-3 hours preparing for the day: It’s time to shower, dress, drink coffee, throw something pre-packaged and fast-to-eat into a lunch bag, drink more coffee and do my worksheets. The most time is needed for the worksheets. I do two worksheets every morning and each one takes me anywhere from 35-60 minutes to complete.
What the hell is a “worksheet,” you ask? One of the most important and pervasive tools Keefy taught me within the first year of my work with him was the Forgiveness Worksheet. The purpose of these worksheets is to “dismantle my painful realities” so that they can be “replaced with the Truth.” Worksheets could be done on anything in the world, but the idea was to use the worksheet to transform any thought or experience that was a source of pain into a “Loving (happy) reality” by “choosing to see it differently.” It was a very literal application of the popular spiritual/self help concept “change your thoughts, change your life.”
At one point, Keefer decreed that a minimum of two worksheets a day was required to make any serious progress on our spiritual path and I had taken that decree to heart. At times, he would assign a client the homework of five worksheets a day for a month or more at a time. It was supposed to fast-track a needed change or shift in their issues and it was a time consuming endeavor. Since I was forever the consummate student, when I committed to my spiritual education with this “teacher,” I took it just as seriously as I had any academics. That’s why I started every day with my two worksheets.
Keefer claimed that doing a worksheet should only take 10 to 15 minutes, but I knew no one who could routinely complete them successfully in that amount of time. It required a mental and emotional process of listing, feeling and releasing specific thoughts and emotions, and in order to genuinely complete these steps, I’d spent up to 2 hours at a time working through a single sheet in some rare cases. I’d worked hard to get my time down to 35-60 min per sheet while still completing it successfully. My perpetual physical and mental fatigue certainly contributed to the time it took me.
Under healthy circumstances, these worksheets could likely be used to assist in emotional and psychological health and in a shorter time frame. However, under extreme circumstances, they could also be manipulated to excuse and enable any form of abuse. The forgiveness worksheets, and Keefer, taught us there is no such thing as victimhood – that it is all a matter of perception. To be a victim is to be powerless, we learned, but the spiritual Truth is that we are all-powerful beings and the creators of our own realities, so any experience of pain was ultimately our own responsibility. As the arbiters of our realities, we had solely ourselves to look at when our reality was unpleasant or outright painful. To blame someone or something outside of ourselves was the ultimate act of ego and self-deception.
This philosophy is riddled with what I would call ultimate truths from the foundations of universal spiritual and metaphysical teachings. Enough of it rings true and enough of it feels empowering that it works perfectly to hook any seeker of the right mindset. However, in the wrong hands, it can also be used to control and oppress while enabling ongoing abuse. For example, if someone else’s actions cause you pain, your responsibility is to take ownership of the experience and change your perception about it. Perception, we were taught, creates reality; So, if you don’t like your reality, all you have to do is change your mind (thoughts/perception) of it! Keefer used to love to say that trying to change external factors in the world, such as other people, in order to create more desirable circumstances or experiences in your life is like “rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic in order to save yourself”–a futile and downright stupid act. So if you’re not happy for some reason–any reason–just do a worksheet! See it differently!
How convenient to keep people chasing their tails and blaming themselves when they’re suffering from the effects of longterm mental and emotional manipulation, coercion, mind control and indoctrination to servitude. Blaming others, or our circumstances, was one of the most egoic, weak, un-evolved, plebeian stances we could take on any issue, as rigorous spiritual students. This teaching was constantly reiterated and highly effective in preventing us from ever looking at, much less accusing, our “teacher” of any faults.
So what is “ego”? This is an important question because different groups have different definitions for this term. In psychoanalysis it is used one way, in popular slang, it is used another way. So in order for my use of the word to make sense here, I have to delve into explaining a little bit of the philosophy on which our group’s beliefs were founded. In our group, the understanding of ego was derived from its definition in A Course In Miracles and then twisted with the shadow Keefer cast on the term through the manner in which he spoke of “the ego.” [**Insert thunderbolts and lightning here**]
According to A Course In Miracles (the metaphysical spiritual text that was misappropriated and used by Keefer for his own purposes in our group), the ego is a completely neutral thing, but it is a false identity. It is the “who” and “what” we identify as, as separate human beings. On the surface, the ego is your gender, your age, your name, your body, where you are from, your entire personal history and every thing that informs the way you see the world as a small, fallible, mortal being. On a deeper level, it could be likened to a computer program that is running in the background but which is responsible for the very fabric and makeup of our conscious, physical reality. If that sounds like The Matrix, then you’re on the right track, along with numerous other similar analogies that have sprung up in pop culture media. The Course teaches that this ego/program is just a mask we (unconsciously) use to cover up our true identity as equal, loving, perfect children of God.
But our ego doesn’t want us to recognize our true selves because that would result in the death of the ego, and like all beings, the ego’s ultimate goal is to stay alive. The Course goes to great lengths to explain why the ego is so harmful to us, but it always does so in a neutral, fear-free manner. Keefer, on the other hand, spoke of the ego in malicious, sinister terms. In our group, to be acting “egoically” was a truly vile and disgusting behavior. The term was basically a slur. To be egoic was not just to be arrogant or haughty, it was to be base, cruel, disconnected and all-around the opposite of that which is good, holy or loving.
So my morning worksheet routine was a calculated, methodical attempt at undoing my own “ego.” In truth, worksheets often provided me with a temporary form of emotional relief and I would routinely feel better after doing them which partly accounted for my loyalty to them. In the end, worksheets did help me to cope with the abusive environment in which I lived, but they also contributed to keeping me there by preventing me from holding others accountable for their degrading and detrimental behavior.
In retrospect, I can see how it was not the worksheets themselves which advocated this abuse, but how Keefy presented them and dictated that they be used. Anytime there was a disagreement or he became unhappy with me (or another close follower), we were told we needed to “go do our work” (aka worksheets) on it. Right then. In that moment. So that we would fall back in line. I used them to numb the constant pain of my situation and environment so that I could tolerate it another minute, hour or day.
It’s interesting to also note that, while Keefy often compelled others to go do a worksheet, in my 14 years of knowing him, I never once saw him do a worksheet himself. By the last 5 years of our group, he simply claimed that he had evolved beyond the forgiveness worksheet and that he now just did the process mentally, going through the steps in his own mind. But I never saw this done either. And of course, none of the rest of us were at that level yet.
I also want to take a moment to point out that, while worksheets were the primary tool in our group used to walk us through through the “forgiveness process,” they did not come from the Course. A Course In Miracles, as a metaphysical guidebook, is almost solely focused on the importance and process of forgiveness, which is how our worksheet practice was justified. However, the forgiveness worksheet is nowhere in A Course In Miracles. Keefy ripped it off from a metaphysical teacher named Michael Ryce and put his own name on it instead.
Back to the subject at hand:
Most of my self-talk while in the group focused on guilt and self-blame. Many mornings, I required these sheets like others require drugs, just to make it emotionally through my day. Depending on what had taken place on the email exchange the night before (we’ll get to that), I would often be wracked with guilt or self-loathing. Anxiety stayed at a general high because I never knew what was coming next or what I might do wrong that day to upset ol’ Keefer and land me in the hot seat (in addition to many other constant anxiety producing factors that we’ll cover). Conversely, I also never knew if that would be one of the rare days that I did something right to earn approval and acknowledgement of my personal progress – that rare occurrence which kept me hanging on.
I obsessed over what emotional state Keefer was in during all my waking hours, using all my energetic feelers to navigate the perilously rocky road of relationship with this man whom I had given ultimate authority to rule my life. Just as it had been with my father, I knew I could only feel safe when Keefer was in a happy, approving mood. He was the judge and jury of my character and my spiritual growth. I believed that his view of me was tantamount to God’s. Over years and years of gradual indoctrination he had methodically and completely elevated his status through both his self-appointed role as a “teacher of God,” as well as my personal God-assigned teacher, that I came to believe God Himself spoke through him and whatever my teacher thought and felt must be parallel to God’s thoughts and feelings. Keefy would often lament how we (his clients and followers) all projected the God Figure onto him. He would mourn what a difficult position he held because he had to absorb all of our anger and rebellion toward God along with all of our love and adoration for God, alternately. And even in spouting this concept over and over again he was indoctrinating us to see him as God. [Oh, poor Keefy.]
In hindsight, the wildly egoic and narcissistic nature of such a statement is overwhelmingly clear. But at the time, when I was still in it, his claims made sense to me in the context of the spiritual teachings I was studying. I believe the worksheets were a form of self-hypnosis that often, though not always, helped me to talk myself down off the ledge of terror and despair that resulted from living under the rule of such a mercurial, angry and punitive version of God while continuing to function in every day life. After all, I loved my “teacher,” as I had my father, with a fierce fear.
Many a morning I sat at my desk, sipping instant coffee and staring down at the page, waiting for my mind to clear enough for the words before me to make sense. The first blank to fill in on the worksheet is the object or source of your perceived pain. Over the years, the subject matter for my worksheets had narrowed dramatically. Most often, I filled in this blank space with one of two names – either my own or Keefer’s. As the years went on, 8 times out of 10, the first blank on that worksheet would be filled in with Keefy’s name. My anxiety, my sadness, my anger and my fear of him became the overwhelming focus of my forgiveness worksheets, day after day after day. His raging temper, his unbridled contempt and his wholly damning judgment of me and/or us (his little inner circle), filled me with extreme anxiety and depression. The worksheets enabled me to keep going…for years. I used them to find mercy and grace for myself, in all my disgusting unworthiness and damned ego, and to find the ongoing ability to cope with my intense fear of my teacher whom I thought I equally loved and adored. (Such is the power of coercive control.)
So. After I finished my morning worksheets, I would pull on some baggy clothes so as not to “entice” anyone. This was one of the teachings that had developed during our group’s late night email exchanges. Keefy decided that any attempt to make the body attractive was an egoic attempt to entrap your brother. Naturally, as it so often goes with these types of leaders, this lesson was directed by and large to the women. To wear clothing that accentuated our figures or makeup was deemed incredibly egoic. SO, I stopped wearing makeup. I wore loose, plain clothing. I did my best to forget that I had a body at all. It seemed a small sacrifice considering it freed up more time in my morning routine and I had no hope of ever actually being in a romantic relationship again anyway. There were no single men in our group and the likelihood of any outsiders being accepted into our tiny community, especially of the single male variety, was beyond the scope of my imagination — it was that unlikely. So I gave up on seeing myself as a unique, autonomous human being with a body that required any care or attention.
Once dressed, I rummaged through the freezer or cabinets for a pack of crackers or a frozen entree to throw into my lunch bag. Because my work and my time within the group consumed every waking moment of my day, and any rare free moments were overshadowed by exhaustion, I’d eventually given up on any cooking or food prep, an important activity I had once enjoyed. Now, I bought whatever was convenient and fast to prepare and eat. Since my body didn’t really matter anymore, it was easy to justify, and I simply had no time or energy to make any other choice at that point. Canned soup, frozen meals, crackers and bagged salads made up the majority of my diet. We all learned to do whatever was necessary to survive within our new confines.
Showered, dressed, forgiveness worksheets clocked and lunch snacks packed, I was finally ready to go face another endless day of toil at the holistic pet food store. The pet food store which, by this point, was now owned by none other than Keefer himself.
More to come on day-to-day life in the pet store in Part 2: Work Days In the Life.
The Journey 
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