The Beginning of the End

A Story by Rachel

What would you do if you found out you were in a cult? Do you think you would be able to walk away?

I know what you must think of me. You have to understand, if I knew what I know now I might have done things differently. Maybe I would have been more cautious or had the strength to walk away or listened to those who knew me best. But truthfully, I won’t ever know what that path may have looked like. Living in a fantasy world and wondering “what if” only works until you open your eyes. I do know that I wouldn’t have told others to join. That is the one part of this story that I regret. Bringing the people I trusted to the Devil’s doorstep.

No one intentionally joins a cult, and you don’t realize you’re in one until you’re out. I became part of something I believed in and then was too afraid to leave it. We weren’t the type of people you read about at Jonestown or Waco, Texas and there are still days when I wonder if I was truly part of a cult or if the media sensationalized us for just another front-page story. It’s on those nights that sleep comes easier though, when I can delude myself on what the past 2 years of my life were. I momentarily forget about the words that spill on the screen in front of me as articles and stories come out about the organization. But then the distorted mirror shatters in front of me, leaving pieces of sharp glass in its wake that act as the painful reminders of all that went on and all that I turned a blind eye towards. To start putting the pieces of that mirror back together to reflect a person I want to smile back at, I need to tell my story and I need to tell it from the beginning.

All I ask is that you wait until the end and then ask yourself, would you have done the same?