My last post was about starting to feel love again. Regaining an ability to feel and sense seems like a common theme for those coming out of cult-like environments.
I recently watched a documentary on stress via Netflix. One of the points in the film was that in monkeys who are under extreme stress they can directly measure decreased brain activity that produces pleasure. As such, the more stressed a person is the less they actually feel.
So for those involved in cults with high stress and pressure to perform and to also suppress their own genuine feelings and thoughts on the matter, over time this could produce a lack of a sense of feeling and ability to enjoy things in life. Maybe there is a connection here to the observation that fundamentalists are so afraid of anything that produces great pleasure?
This evening I was sitting here and – for the first time in a long, long time that I can remember – I felt truly lonely and wanted to just interact with someone. It felt bad and good at the same time. Let me explain why.
What was unique is that it occurred to me that in the past couple of weeks I had not been feeling lonely. That is what floored me. Because then it occurred to me that a feeling I had gotten used to for so long (loneliness) had actually been gone for a decent amount of time! So when I felt a little bit lonely again my first reaction was shock. Whereas in the past my reaction to feeling lonely – which was all the time – was just to ignore it. For the most part, I had stronger emotions to deal with (anger, doubt, bitterness, frustration, trying to suppress thoughts, etc.) rather than trying to genuinely and intimately connect with others around me.
Because this lasted for so long, I reached a point where I never recognized my loneliness. Honestly, I just got used to it. All through middle-school and high-school the deepest things I cared about or thought I could not share with others or connect with them on. After a while, I just got used to thinking I was close to people when in reality the ideas of intimacy that I built up in my head were rather strictly controlled.
Thing was, our church did not really set itself up to produce intimate friendships. In fact, the way things work now at our church back home is almost like a police state. If someone is caught in sin, their entire reputations can be destroyed and everyone is taught to confront them or expose it. As such, a general sense of paranoia and suppression prevails.
How can you develop genuine intimate and open relationships in an environment like this? You just can’t.
For one, you all know the elders at the church put a tertiary elder under church discipline and then ousted him. To make matters more frustrating, my brother (a deacon at 23, good lord freaking Jesus) insisted that another friend (mentally challenged 20ish year old) never contact that elder ever again. So not only do we have people who are willing to completely obliterate a friendship and cut off contact with a friend of 12+ years they go so far as to keep others from contacting him.
Basically, nobody is close friends. Loyalty does not exist unless it is loyalty to the church. As such, close friendships are always secondary to the letter of the law. I don’t think any of them really know what love is. Quite frankly, having grown up in that, I think I have a pretty damn skewed view of love myself. I have, to my chagrin, hurt many of my secular friendships because I have employed the same tactics I learned from the church. Thankfully, my secular friends have been very patient (go Katy!)
But as I muse, I realize I’ve had a really, really hard time feeling the love others express toward me until recently.
And it has just been nice to feel like I am connecting with other people who will still care about me even if I am not perfect or disagree with them on something. Not only that, but they won’t require me to change my beliefs or whatnot in order to be friends again. Friendships genuinely come and go naturally, rather than being controlled. There is no cutting off friendships because a person is not up to Jesus’ standards and there is no being forced to be friends with someone because they are my “brother in Christ” even though they annoy the living shit out of me.
That is an incredible feeling. Knowing others won’t just shun me, turn me in, or judge me because I’m different. And it is equally freeing knowing that I can treat others the same. I don’t have to constantly monitor my friendships for signs the person could be tempting me to sin or signs they are backsliding or for reasons I should confront them about sin or for “openings” in the conversation to try and lead an unsaved friend to Christ.
Basically, I feel like I’m still being deprogrammed.
And somehow, being able to recognize that has helped me recently to begin to just connect with people who are different – even some Christians. And because of that, I’m beginning to feel a strong sense of love toward others and of intimacy. And because I have those moments where I do not feel alone anymore, I am beginning to recognize when I feel alone and to respond properly by seeking out human interaction.
Isn’t it sad that such a simple, natural, human need can be so suppressed by ones beliefs?
Because before, whenever I had felt lonely, I could not speak up about my concerns for fear of retribution or judgment. And silence does not cure loneliness, it only exacerbates it.
- Josh
