Cults love me, and court me, but they will never win me. Boyfriends feel the same. I’m an independent, authority-defying, wild woman cult leaders would love to tame, but can’t. Ditto boyfriends.
In the past, when a certain cult-like group identified by initials that start with E and end with T tried to reel me in, I’d heard their reputation. No bathroom breaks, keep you from leaving the room, etc. I went into the initial presentation with a chip on my shoulder the size of the banquet room we were in.
Why was I there? I wish I could say as an investigative reporter — that would have been way more fun — except I couldn’t have left. I was a lowly advertising executive whose boyfriend had gone through “the program” and wanted me to do it, too. Love makes me do stupid things. Like get married, but that’s another story.
I lasted 15 minutes. Slightly less than one of my marriages.
When my tolerance for BS reached the tippy top of my head and was about to blow right out, I told my boyfriend I was leaving and headed for the door. He — flustered and anxious, which convinced me even more to leave — stayed seated and watched with trepidation as I stomped toward the exit. He’d seen me at my most stubborn. He feared for anybody who tried to stop me. Which, of course, someone did.
An acolyte quickly pursued me and leapt in between me and the door. I let him live.
He began reasoning with me as to why I should stay. I tried reasoning back. It was like the Titanic talking to the iceberg. He wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t staying. Classic stand-off.
As in all good boundary setting, I stopped arguing and said, “Get out of my way, I’m leaving.” Apparently my tone of voice, or the mad — as in “I’m crazy and will take you out with me” — determined look in my eye convinced him to let me past and out the door. My boyfriend soon followed, and made no more effort to get me to join the daddy of all “programs.”
It isn’t as if I’m not impressionable. I walked down enough various church aisles at revivals that the gossips had me the worst sinner they knew in our tiny town by the time I was fifteen. I wasn’t — not by a long ways — I just couldn’t resist a good altar call. The song “Just As I Am” was a siren call to me — like the snake charmer’s flute music is to the cobra.
I didn’t join those churches, mind you. My own was liberal and social justice oriented and I fit in there.
In college another “Christian” group tried to reel me in. I was lonely and far from home, which is how most cults get recruits. I joined for a hot minute. When they told me the nerdy — and not in a good way — dudes in the group were authorities over me — well that didn’t end well for the cultish group.
Take me to an MLM rally and see my sardonic, contrary side come out. Why others don’t see through the rah-rah hoopla is something I’ll never understand, and I’m a therapist.
You either want to sell the shit, or trick — um, sign — others up to sell it, or you don’t. Why the need for pumping up? This isn’t a MAGA rally.
Oh yeah, those side hustles didn’t stick either. I’m sure many people bow out — even the most rabid — eventually. So they keep the reward centers of the brain lit up with inspiring stories and music, and the anxious animal brain stoked with competition and fear. No thanks. I can do that all on my own and not alienate family and friends. Usually.
Want to guess how active I was in pep rallies as a teen? Let’s just say if I hadn’t adamantly opposed the idea of those of us in the pep squad “bowing down” to the Homecoming Queen, and hadn’t won my point, I would have been laughing from the stands while the rest of them kowtowed to one of our buddies who happened to have a crown on her head for the night.
. . .
Avid anti-authoritarianism can only get you so far out of cult situations. What if I had used humor to get out instead of ire and orneriness?
Now, after being inspired by Amy Sea’s story linked below, I would laugh instead of getting full to the tippy top of my head with disdain.
I picture Amy and me sneaking into the back of any number of cults and causing havoc.
Me, raising my hand:
Amy and I giggle and high-five.
Amy and me at a Doomsday Cult:
Amy, at an MLM:
Amy and I guffaw and go table to table giving out our Medium handles. You know, where they can join Medium through our link and we get paid when they do? Booyah.
How about it, Amy Sea? Road trip?
. . .
Much gratitude for her cultish devotion to swooping and editing to Holly J See.
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This post was previously published on MuddyUm.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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