Don't trust a religion
that makes you abandon
your kids
-- "Daughters of the Cult" docuseries

I often tell people I was raised in a cult. It explains a bit about who I am, why I am how I am, and gives me some sense of control over a past that was beyond my control. But every now and then, I question the validity of my claim. 

Was I really raised in a cult? Or am I just being melodramatic? Just villainizing a faith that I didn’t agree with? Remembering my teenage years and romanticizing typical teenage rebellious behavior as prompted by something more sinister? Was the Fellowship that radically different from any other random, nondenominational, fundamentalist, evangelical, Pentecostal, roaming hotel-conference-room-meeting-place church body? I mean, did it really do me or any other members any harm?
Well, it did do what the Daughters of the Cult said so plainly in their documentary. It did cause two intelligent, God-fearing adults to give up their daughter in favor of their faith. It made my parents abandon me.
I was driven, at sixteen, under cover of night, to a house twelve hours and two states away, and deposited on the doorstep of a grandmother (who I really didn’t know that well since we’d pretty much quit visiting except for every few years because of... religion) because the elders didn’t like that I wouldn’t change my ways.

We don’t want you to conform, we want you to change was one of the last things I heard before falling under their attack. And just what exactly were my ways that needed changing? Well..
I loved to read Agatha Christie mysteries.
I loved to write my own mysteries set back in Jane Austen’s day.
I loved to watch Humphrey Bogart black-and-white films.
I loved the Dallas Cowboys and hung their clippings on my school cubby walls.
I loved my friends in the fold, the only friends I was allowed to have.
I loved to watch the neighborhood kids come and go and play kick ball and drive their cars.
I loved to sneak and listen to Casey Kasum’s American Top 40 countdown.

But I did not love the endless church meetings hosted so many days and nights of the week.
I was terrified of “deliverance,” the laying-on of hands to cast off demons.
I was terrified of the speaking in tongues, which would go on for hours and render up prophecies.
I was terrified of the prophecies, so often targeting “sinners” like me.
I was terrified of not being allowed to go to college because advanced education “ruins” a good woman.
I was terrified of serving in another elder’s home until I was fit to have a husband of my own.
I was terrified of the bearded elders who targeted me, who wanted me spineless and weak.
I was terrified of being controlled like I was already being controlled for the rest of my life. 

But I had no independence, no autonomy, zero self-governance:
My writing was censored, my storyline controlled – the preacher can’t be the killer, I was told.  
My Cowboys scrapbook was removed – football isn’t feminine, I was told.
My friends and I were separated by the headmaster at school – bad influences, I was told.
My top 40 music was taken away -- secular humanism would destroy me, I was told.
My life was not mine for the choosing – I must give my life up to their keeping, I was told.
My body and mind were possessed by demons -- I must be delivered, I was told.
So I fought being possessed by the Fellowship the only way I could, by maintaining a tenuous emotional distance between them and me. I was scared and alone with an innate understanding of what is right and what is wrong – and everything around me felt so very, very wrong.
Am I being less-than-truthful about who I was and what I was really like? Maybe. Because by the end, I did try to escape my invisible shackles by being rebellious. I snuck out my window to see what happens outside the iron fist of the Fellowship’s rule by talking to a couple of neighbors a couple of times. Just how evil is it, the outside world? I wanted to know.
I did this twice -- that’s the God’s-honest truth. And the second time, a neighbor drove me a couple blocks away after our garage door opened and my father came searching for his wayward daughter. If I’d been caught with that neighbor, there would have been hell to pay. There definitely was hell to pay in the form of a whipping afterwards. But before that, my neighbor talked to me about how to get help, how his parents could help, how there were agencies that could help me get out. But by the next week, I was gone.

So yes, I was rebellious and obstinate. I was saved from a cult by the skin of my tenacity to hold out, to reject its tactics, until finally I was dispossessed by the Fellowship -- or as the Daughters of the Cult documentary calls it, abandoned by my parents because of their religion.

Does that make The Fellowship a cult? Was it harmful? 
There weren't sexual crimes that I know of, unless you consider the subjugation and control of women a sexual crime. There wasn't violence that I know of, beyond the tying and beating of children naked on chairs, and the stripping of members' voices and rights, and the traumatizing deliverance of demons inside living rooms and conference rooms and office conferences.

There was definitely control. There was definitely isolation from outside influences. There was definitely zero tolerance for the questioning of leadership. There was definitely an eternal quest to win favor from higher-ups, and there was a definite hierarchical pyramid structure. Service and obedience and unquestioning loyalty were demanded at all times.

And the Fellowship definitely did me harm. Without a doubt I suffer from PTSD. I was exposed to mind and body control tactics for a prolonged period of time, with those tactics getting much more targeted and intense as I matured. 

As a result, I vigorously avoid things that remind me of that traumatizing time:

I resist organized religion and often spiral into feelings of shame and blame when I walk into a house of worship.
The sounds of speaking in tongues sends my hair standing on end and my stomach in knots.
I resist conflict and confrontation because I have a fear of being abandoned if I dare disagree. 
I don’t let a lot of people get too close to me.
I don't trust a lot of people’s motivations. Sometimes I see them for who they truly are -- and sometimes I likely project old patterns and behaviors onto people without warrant.
I am completely and unequivocally afraid of films about demon possession.
And I am completely and unequivocally drawn to cult documentaries and docuseries, even when I can’t sleep for days afterwards. Even when they stir up the feelings of shame and anger and blame and fear of my past. 
Because I am always looking for affirmation and for permission to exorcise past demons from my life. 
That's also why I write, and why I'm so profoundly and exquisitely attuned to pattern recognition... and why my hackles rise whenever I sense danger on any personal, political, pedagogical, theological, patriarchal, or societal front. 

So maybe that means the Fellowship did me harm.
Or maybe that means the Fellowship did me some favors.
Or maybe that means it did a bit of both.

Regardless, I’m pretty sure it means I was raised in a cult.