The Journey

[We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this special anniversary post.]

June 4th, 2023

It’s 7 pm on a Sunday evening and I’m sitting in my arm chair, laptop in my lap, candle flickering across the room, easy tunes playing in the background. My little apartment is tiny, but so cozy, and the natural light is still flooding in through the windows since it’s early June. I take a deep breathe and feel the calm move through my body as my shoulder blades relax a little further down my back. There’s absolutely nothing I have to do right now at the end of a day which I have drifted through with ease, from morning yoga class to midday laundry chores to an afternoon of visiting and laughing with friends. There’s no other word for this life I now know but absolute luxury.

On this day one year ago, I was horribly sick with an intense bout of Covid 19. I worked through most of the day. When I finally made it home, I collapsed into my bed where I remained for the next 36 hours. Although I lived with others at that time, I was more isolated than I’d ever been during any of my solitary years, and while I was sick, I was left completely alone.

In my sickness, despite the deep aching throughout my body and the feverish sweating, I still found pure bliss in the entirely foreign opportunity to simply be still, to sleep and to rest. I knew it wouldn’t last long and the anxiety of resuming normal life once the worst of the illness had passed loomed over me. I felt guilty even in the midst of it, as if I had no right to lay in bed with a 101-102 degree fever, as if I were somehow playing hooky. That’s how foreign and how unacceptable the idea of being still and resting had become.

One year ago on this weekend, I lay in bed between dozes off, dreaming waking dreams of freedom, waking dreams of escape, waking dreams of a life worth living. There was no more denying the fact that the life I’d been leading for the past decade was not a life worth living. It was a nightmare with no end and someone else’s life altogether. I’d completely forgone my own life, my identity, the very core of my being many, many years back.

I’d only recently been introduced to the idea that maybe escape was not only possible, but even more attainable than I’d imagined. Maybe it wasn’t too late for me to have a life worth living after all. Maybe my fate was not as sealed as I thought. Maybe I had more strength, more determination and more to live for than that which I’d resigned myself to: mere survival and pressing on. Maybe easy Sundays and lazy mornings, the pursuit of passions and the experience of pleasures, the taste of freedom and the excitement of personal purpose, a body free of anxiety and exhaustion, the joy of true and intimate connection with another human being were not out of my reach forever…but just, maybe.

June 6th, 2023

It’s just another Tuesday in my new life. Well, almost — except for the fact that it’s the first week of camp season at work, a two month long period which I am now traversing for the first time. I’ve been warned about the craziness of camp season for many months, but like everything else at my new job, it’s all done in loads of fun and positivity. I have not yet stopped marveling at the fact that the most stressful of days in my new work life pale in comparison to just an average day in my old life. Sad fact is, the most stressful of days in my new work life are usually just a byproduct of held over fear and anxiety from my old life in the first place.

An otherwise pleasant and purposeful day has been cast with a shadow. It started from the time I was getting dressed in the morning as the memories persisted in resurfacing. Truth is, I’m not particularly resisting them. It’s the first time I’ve walked through these days from the other side: the first anniversary of my last days in the cult. I am overwhelmed by the contrast between then and now.

I’m so happy and so grateful for the now. So much relief, so much joy and so much enthusiasm surfaces. But today…today, so does the grief, the trauma and the pain of the past. Today is a PTSD day and the flashbacks have cascaded through my consciousness to the point of feeling physically ill.

One year ago on this day, despite the Covid, I made it into the office of the new (real, licensed) therapist I had just started seeing, for only my fifth appointment. Although Keefy had originally supported the idea of my seeking a special form of trauma therapy (from which he would personally benefit if it succeeded), he grew increasingly uncomfortable with the idea when he realized it was taking more than just a couple of sessions. For this reason, I didn’t mention my session on that morning; I simply slipped out while everyone else was at work.

I was worried about showing up ill, but my new therapist wasn’t phased; she just welcomed me back. She had recently learned, in my last one and a half sessions, about the real living circumstances of my current life. She was the one who reintroduced me to the idea of a life worth living. She was the one who suggested that I could do anything I wanted, that I was the author of my own life, that I had a right to do or feel whatever I chose and to make any decisions that I like – such simple ideas but remarkably foreign to me by that point. For the first time, I realized I could just pack a bag and leave, if I chose, simply by virtue of her calm and matter of fact manner about it. For the first time, I saw the full reality of my situation through someone else’s eyes, for no other reason than her open, accepting and judgment-less witnessing of my story.

I made my way home after my appointment with a stop at the grocery as my cover for having been out. I slowly attempted to grapple with the new reality that had entered my consciousness: the reality that I did not have to live this way any longer. Now, it just became a matter of when and how to take the next steps toward a life I chose.

Today, I find my mind similarly swimming, grappling with the reality of my new life and the disparity from my old one. To an overwhelming degree, this past year has just been surreal. I’m still waiting for it all to hit me, to realize I’m not going to wake up from this dream, to fully integrate and accept my freedom and the endless possibilities of a life that I get to choose and enact of my own accord. I recognize the anxiety coursing through my veins as an old holdover, as if buried pockets of emotion have surfaced and broken open to be purged and released – perhaps because it’s safe enough now to do so.

June 7th, 2023

Standing in Mountain Pose, I take a deep breathe and bring the palms of my hands together in front of my chest in Prayer Pose as the yoga instructor invites me to set an intention for my practice today. I do. It’s the same one I focus on during the majority of my yoga sessions: To reconnect with my real self and feel the essence of me again. This isn’t some super spiritual goal or anything. It’s actually the most basic thing I can think of, something the average individual takes for granted. After years in a high control environment, you forget what you feel like because the leader’s identity and needs overwhelm your own. I just want to feel me again. I’m starting to.

As I center into myself and focus on reconnecting with myself again, I marvel at the simple fact of my surroundings. This place, this practice, just the ability to go to a class like this, was completely out of the realm of possibility in my world only one year ago on this day. In fact, I’m here again today because I am doing my best to recover from the emotional hangover left by yesterday’s grief. This hot yoga practice I discovered only a few short months ago has become a saving grace for my mental and emotional recovery. I recognize that it has become a sort of addiction, but I’m okay with that.

By the time I’m home and showered and there is no further activity in front of me for the night, a fresh new wave of sensations overwhelms me on every level. Yesterday’s grief has morphed into today’s irritation and the low-level aggravation that has been bubbling under the surface all day begins to turn to outright anger. I can’t tell you what or why exactly, it’s just rage against all the pain and difficulty and struggle that I have experienced in this life. Anger that gives way to tears and then hardens back into rage. It’s a bitter roller coaster tonight.

Odd as it may sound, remembering the past helps to ground me back down, even when the memories are unpleasant. It gives context and reason to the emotional waves. It helps me to feel less crazy. I remember one year ago today…

I returned to work because I had no fever, but I was still weak and far from recovered from the bout of Covid. It didn’t matter. I’d had two full days to rest in the midst of the sickness, so I was due to return. Besides, it was necessary for me in order to keep it together. Wheels were in motion and although I didn’t yet know when or how, I knew I had to make a change. I needed to stay busy in the midst of the enormous upheaval that was taking place within me.

Still dragging from the illness, not to mention the intense emotional drain, I let my coworker know that I couldn’t make it through the full day and excused myself from work a few hours early. I spoke to my best friend since high school on the phone that day. I’d not talked to him in five years. He picked up the conversation with me as if it had only been a matter of months – no anger, no bitterness, just happy to reconnect.

As we spoke, I drove to visit my friends, the ones who were in the group with me but had reached a similar breaking point and who had offered me their support if I chose to make a change. When I got to their house, I discovered that their feelings were more intense and urgent than I’d known. They wanted out and they wanted out NOW…but they were going to wait for me. I sat on their living room floor listening to their perspectives. The whole room swirled around me as a makeshift plan fell into place. I was going to leave. I was really going to leave. Not just someday, but soon, now, in only two days time. This was actually happening.

I wanted to stay there with them, but I had to leave before my absence from both work and home would be noticed and questioned. I had to go “home,” back to the place where I laid my head at night. The 48 hours between me and freedom felt like an inestimable gulf of time. My mind couldn’t even comprehend anything beyond that point. It would take every last reserve of strength within me just to make it through to there.

June 8th, 2023

Deep breath in, deep breath out. That’s been the mantra today. Extreme nerves are taking their toll.

A little over a year ago I got a well known psychology book called The Body Keeps the Score written by one of the leading researchers in the department of PTSD. I managed to get through a few chapters before the total upheaval struck my world and have not yet gotten back to it. The title says it all, though, and I am experiencing it to be true this week.

It feels as if I am re-processing the same week from one year ago all over again, physically and emotionally. I feel much the same today as I did on this day last year. It is bizarre and unsettling to be experiencing it so vividly once again.

I thank God for my current workplace and the incredible people now in my life. They have been the grounding, balancing, safe space for me as I transitioned back into the real world and today was no exception.

One year ago, I worked my way through this day in agonizing slow motion as I counted down the hours. It was my last full day in that life, but the terrain I had yet to traverse before I was out felt overwhelming. I had to arrange for a surreptitious grocery parking lot meeting to borrow a duffel bag which I then had to smuggle into the house that night so I could be ready to leave in the morning. Every cell in my being fought against the fear of the confrontation that was to come. What a ridiculous circumstance.

Tonight, however, my world is completely different. Tonight, I came home to my safe, tranquil home and I baked a pie just because I could. Tonight, I visited with my sister in person, still a novel experience for us after all those years apart. My former cult friends are now former cult members along with me and STILL my friends. Few are so lucky as we and I do not take it for granted. Tonight, I got to video chat with those old friends and reflect on how far we’ve come. Tonight, I got to sit with one of my new friends, who has held my hand through this whole week, and laugh and joke until all the nerves and anxiety had melted away and I could finally go to sleep.

What a difference a year can make.

June 9th, 2023

Independence Day has arrived! And I intend to celebrate it fully.

I’ve had very little sleep, in keeping with the theme of this week and this unexpected reliving of the past. But just as it was one year ago, this morning I do not care. At that time, I was fueled by the adrenaline of what was to come and sheer survival. I endured excruciating levels of intensity and terror as I walked right through some of the greatest fears in my life.

But today…today I will celebrate. Today, I pay homage to all of those who have helped me on this path of recovery, of reclaiming not just my life but a life truly worth living. Today, we recall the story of slaying the beast, and today, we feast.

Today, I flowed with ease from work to a recovery discussion group to a low-key evening celebration with one of my dear new friends from my new life. Today, the mounting waves of anxiety finally broke as I celebrated one full year of complete freedom from from narcissism, coercive control, doom and terror.

Last year on this day, I enacted my last minute plan to remove myself and essential belongings from the household where I’d lived as a secondary member of someone else’s household for years. I confronted Keefy directly, in person, and let him know that I was no longer going to live in this toxic environment and relationship. He used his usual, played out tactics to try to “talk” in circles and endlessly until I would give in and give up my plan, but this time it didn’t work. This time, I knew all of his tactics and could see them coming a mile away. I just said “no more” and I left. I didn’t run and hide. I didn’t crawl away in the middle of the night. But I didn’t stick around to talk or fight, the standard go-to modus operandi for a narcissist. In the end, he didn’t really fight it. He knew I was done. I stood up to his rage, his manipulation and his abuse for the last time. I stood up for myself…finally.

That night, I shared my decision and my victory with my closest friends in the group. For the first time, we all began to talk to each other and to tell the truth about how we felt. We all began to share our stories of fear and panic, dread and misery. The more we talked, the more we woke up to the mental and emotional brutality we had been cumulatively enduring in silence and isolation. Shock and rage gripped us alternately, but for myself, I was mostly overwhelmed by fatigue and burn out.

Tonight, I am also extremely fatigued from the emotions of this week and lack of rest, but I am calmer and happier than I could have imagined being at this point. The days, weeks and months to come after getting out were harsh with challenges and with facing the process of recovery, rebuilding and starting a new life. I’m still just at the beginning of that process, but the clouds have parted and I can finally see the sun. For the first time in my 42 years, I can say with confidence that my life is going to be good.

June 10th, 2023

The day after I left my cult group, I had to go straight back to work under the surveillance cameras of the stores owned by Keefy. I spent two more days working under his invisible watch. After living this way for so long, it was just par for the course, but this year is totally different.

Today, I went hiking with a wonderful friend who wanted to ensure I had the best one year anniversary weekend ever. We went chasing waterfalls and we found them. It was glorious. I ate foreign foods for the first time and explored an incredible little town I’d never been to before. I allowed myself to be taken care of, to adventure and to enjoy this new life and I loved every minute of it. I came home with souvenirs of my day and completely worn out, but worn out from play rather than duress.

Tomorrow, I take another significant step forward in the process of reclaiming my life and recovering my self, as I continue to rediscover who I was before my life was taken over and who I want to be now. After a decade away from one of my earliest and truest passions, I am taking my first ever On Camera Acting class. I am both nervous and excited about what awaits me and so deeply grateful to have been placed somewhere that I feel completely safe to venture back into this part of myself.

When I first got out, life was so hard and daunting. While I never once, at any point, felt any desire to go back, there were times where it felt like life was just getting harder rather than better. Cult survivors far and wide assured me that it would get better. I held onto their words with hope. I still maintain that the worst day outside of a cult is far better than the best day inside of it, but that’s not to say it’s sunshine and rainbows straight out the gate. Today, as someone who is one full year out from cult life, I can join the chorus of voices singing, “It does get better! Just hold on!” It has been worth every ounce of struggle to reclaim a life worth living.

To quote the personal motto of my dear coworker and friend, which I am now adopting for myself,
“Keep your fork, the best is yet to come!”

#igotout #itgetsbetter #thejourneycontinues