Leaving a Cult and Dealing with Religious Trauma - Knitting Cult Lady
Ironically, this video crossed my feed yesterday shortly after I opened the NY Mag Gaiman article. In it, she talks about how getting out of a cult is a first step, but is not the end of what you need to heal. That there's a Decade of Deconstruction necessary to fully be present in and enjoy the new life you build for yourself.
It dovetails with some issues swirling within the ex-Scientology community right now that I'm sure are about to collide with the parts of the NYMag article about Gaiman's roots in Scientology and the traumas he has failed to deal with appropriately.
I'm not super deep in the ex-Sci community, though YouTube likes to suggest certain videos to me because I watched Leah Remini's show. In general, it seems that many of the younger people who left the cult and have chosen to be public are constantly beefing with the elders who've been out for years or decades. Most of these younger folks have YouTube channels, and they're playing out all their personal dramas there in public in ways that are deeply unhealthy. Every time I see or read about the newest development, all I can think is: They're acting the way Scientology taught them to act while maybe not realizing it.
Based off of what Danielle says in the video, they have not fully deconstructed, and appear not to realize they need to do so. They think that because they are Out, they are fine.
Narrator: They are not fine.
It makes me wonder how little deconstruction from Scientology Gaiman did. Makes me wonder if he did any. Because the high level of compartmentalization that appears to be going on with him feels very close to what we've heard people who left Scientology talk about needing to do to survive, and how those still in the cult engage in it.
This isn't constrained to Scientology. In the reading and watching I've done, it's a part of any high control group/cult. Which is why getting out involves more than just not believing, anymore, and physically escaping. There must also be deconstruction so that you don't carry these destructive ways of existing and relating to people out into the world.
This is in no way any kind of excuse or apologetic. In the end, Gaiman is responsible for the choices he made. He had the money to get help, he had friends and family and community to lean on, and even if the tools weren't all there when he was a young man, they've been available and talked about for many a year.
He learned all the wrong lessons from Hubbard.
