AMA Response: How Have I Worked Through Healing From My Cult Experience?

[@personneici2595]

There's no untraumatized version of us. They don't exist. But we exist and we deserve all the happiness - anger is so important! ❤

[@JaneAustenAteMyCat]

Hmm. I wonder if I'm still detached from my anger?

[@snowflower64]

You want to hear something funny? The psychological process of deconstruction you are describing is really similar to what I went through and have seen others go through when we come out as transgender and start transitioning. It’s a really validating thought, especially since my father accused me of joining a cult when I came out. I’d like to say I worked through that, but when my relationship with him fell apart and my partner of 8 years got blackmailed into leaving me I fell into another group which was, in retrospect , a cult of personality centered around the person I married when I was seeking safety and stability. I just got out of that group, quite violently I might add. It’s helpful hearing you talk since I’m still recovering from that experience.

[@soniaoliveira8207]

I went back to school for psychology. That actually kick started my deconstruction process. I had planned to continue my education to become a therapist however i am now realizing that inorder for me to be an effective counselor i needed to consciously and actively deconstruct and make my practice a deconstruction and trauma informed one.

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@soniaoliveira8207 yes, that’s a really good realization to have

[@soniaoliveira8207]

On a side note i love the velvety jacket.

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@soniaoliveira8207 thanks I love it too❤️

[@beverlybauer3820]

Seven words to boost the algorithm. Thanks!

[@katherines144]

Why fit in, if you born to stand out? 😮 Wow!!! I've struggled with this my entire life

[@ani1344]

I knew it! First time I watched I said to myself “she must be ND”. Thanks for confirming - it’s helpful to all of us on the road to healing

[@weaviejeebies]

Lady, I'm just in awe of how fast you knit! I grew up in a narcissistic family, kind of a micro cult full of abuse and neglect. Then I joined the Mormons, and was really disappointed to find a larger narcissistic cult. Then I left them. I had kids and raised dogs and worked secretaria jobs and knitted a whole bunch of stuff (just never that fast, yarn in the right hand, too, dang!) At 45, I experienced total burnout, went into therap6 and discovered the trauma/cptsd community. I'm neurodivergent, too. At 50 with the therapy and meds and taking care of myself first finally, I'm healing well. I have no idea what I want to be now, except it can only be things that spark the joy and keep the burnout in the rearview mirror. I'm still hella angry at the stolen time, the stolen developmental progress, but I've at least learned to trust myself to listen to that anger when it shows up relative to choices I make now, and I've stopped pouring myself out for causes other than my own.

[@FollowmedowntheNumberWhole]

Can relate ❤

[@TheDespoiler-l8l]

Thank you very much for these videos. They help a lot and are greatly appreciated.

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@TheDespoiler-l8l thanks so much for saying that

[@TheDespoiler-l8l]

@KnittingCultLady is there any way that you can do a video concerning the poor working class living in their vehicles and what to expect from the homeless purge. I understand it's off topic and I apologize but history seems to be repeating itself.

[@emmelinesprig489]

This is really helpful. I’m currently 4-5 years in. It sucks. Really looking forward to the slope down to some stability 😮‍💨 Thanks for sharing 🙏

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@emmelinesprig489 yeah thanks for being here. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

[@Mallowolf]

I have trouble letting myself feel anger. Like I would be tapping into this well of rot that I carry around and I fear spilling it onto others, or liking the feeling and becoming one of the adults I feared as a child. So instead I become paralysed. Do you have any tips on how you managed to allow yourself anger without hurting people? If that’s something you had a problem with of course.

[@emmelinesprig489]

I really relate. Listening to music helps me process my anger (recently I’ve been listening to angry music and dancing/jumping around alone), drawing, journalling my rage and expressing my urges to lash out onto a page then burning it, therapy techniques (by myself or with a psychologist when I had access to a decent one). Hope that maybe sparks some ideas for you. It’s rough! Sending you some sparks to start burning that anger well so you don’t have to carry it around forever ✨✨✨🔥🔥🔥

[@athenavo627]

My way was martial arts. Learning and acknowledging my mental and bodily boundaries. With knowing and feeling my body I was able to feel my anger without fear of hurting someone (me or another person) and verbally expressing my anger. Because I had spent years in training learning how to deal with frustration, anger at lack of progress in a safe environment. And since I now feel safe in my body, better know my triggers and boundaries... Not a problem anymore.

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@Mallowolf I think in the beginning, it was running, and being super obsessed, either with school, or with being a soldier, so no time to think, but no time for anger. Then I just kind of broke, so I had to kind of approach healing from putting myself back together. I came to anger, kind of late, and a lot of it has to do with raising a kid and truly realizing everything I lost by being born into a cult. I like the exercises and music ideas. And also remember that all of this takes time and you can’t handle everything at once.

[@JaneAustenAteMyCat]

I'm wondering if this is partly what triggers my chronic illness. I'm sure it's a trauma response, but obviously not anything I have any control over. However, Internal Family Systems Therapy has been incredible, so I don't know if that's a possibility for you but if it is, please look into it

[@Mallowolf]

@@emmelinesprig489thank you for sharing your experience. I’ve tried writing things down and then destroying the paper, but I just ripped and threw mine away. I will try burning them, that sounds really cathartic, thank you for the sparks.

[@SuperHappyNotMerry]

8:45 not sure if it's possible for families to be cults but I grew up in an abusive family system (angry drunk dad, enabling mom, scapegoated into believing I was the problem, that kind of family) and even though I do think I've made some pretty significant steps towards healing (the first one was just… realizing that BOTH my parents were abusive. that much as I considered my mother just as much a victim as me, she was the adult and that, hard as it would have been for her, she _could_ have taken me out of that situation whenever) I didn't even realize it was possible to one day not be wishing for a do over. I feel like that's something I've been stuck on since childhood. just wishing for a do over. I do think I'm currently in my "I'm very, very, VERY angry" stage and even though it doesn't always feel nice to be this angry, I do consider it a step forward. I have no doubt I'll someday reach that peace with what happened but sometimes my trauma makes me backslide and regress so it's good to remember it's possible

[@KnittingCultLady]

@@SuperHappyNotMerry yes it’s definitely possible. We call them single-family cults.

[@katrina917]

During that decade did you ever experience feelings of agoraphobia or anxiety around socializing because all of a sudden you felt "bare" mentally and found yourself not knowing how to act or think around others and would become too overwhelmed? How did yiu work through that?

[@KnittingCultLady]

No, but during that decade I was mostly at war, in a hospital, pregnant or raising a kid mostly alone because spec ops husband. So I didn't socialize all the time, and appreciated it when I did. However, pregnancy for sure made masking much harder in many ways, so I find it more exhausting and overwhelming now.

[@joan.nao1246]

Love your style! Your openness is comforting & empowering. Off topic - which lip color/brand are you wearing here?

[@KnittingCultLady]

It's my one and only, Mabeline super stay lip pencil, it's #145, and it's name is break the ceiling, which I only know because you asked me this! which is amazing, since I was totally part of helping crack a pretty significant glass ceiling for Army women :)

[@joan.nao1246]

@KnittingCultLady lady, you are AMAZING & I'm going to binge on your channel ASAP❗ Thank you SO much for replying ☺️

[@kimlr-herring]

I want to help boost your message so I am making a requisite comment. 😊 Thank you. I hope to have a chance to read your book(s) ☮️

[@RR-kz4hq]

I feel stuck in the anger phase

[@CherilynHolter-wz9hb]

Generational trauma... survivors guilt... thoughts?

[@jndenton1]

🩵🩵🩵

[@JaneAustenAteMyCat]

Oh I love this channel! You're awesome ☺This _so_ resonates with me, coming from an abusive childhood and first marriage (and also neurodivergent). I had my early years, but I am currently reconstructing(?) my later childhood, my teenage years and my young adult life up to about 30. Only by then I was the mother of three children, one with severe disabilities (AuDHD+) requiring a lot of care, so I still didn't get to find out who I was and only now in my 40s, when my children are grown up (because I started very young - literally coerced into motherhood so that I would be trapped), only now am I figuring out who that teenager and young adult would have been and are today! I'm still a carer for my adult son, which has made progress slower than it could otherwise have been, but it is what it is. You have to work with what you have. People who haven't experienced this stuff take it for granted that you already went through these developmental stages. That *really* pisses me off. Oh, the privilege! I am unashamedly enjoying exploring being a kid, with the help of my amazing therapist who specialises in Internal Family Systems Therapy, which I cannot recommend highly enough. My therapist is like my guardian angel 👼