#deprogramming

[eastofelysium]

#exfundamentalist #deprogramming #cult deprograming #escaping religion #exreligion #exvangelical

[apostatement]

Suffering is not virtue. Suffering is not inherently good. You deserve to be comfortable and content.

#apostake #exmo #exmormon #ex cult #ex christian #sometimes I need a reminder #deprogramming

[spiritualseeker777]

#wisdom #deprogramming #manifesting success #manifestation #You Can Do It #you can have it all #go for it #spiritual awareness #spiritual awakening

[dosiadove]

it is crazy to me that if you tell your child their whole life that they are evil, broken, inherently awful human beings its considered emotional abuse.

but under christianity its just freedom of religion.

no child should belive that about themself.

d.d

#deconstructing christianity #deconstruction #mental health #deconstructing religion #deconstructivism #ex religious #ex christian #ex fundie #ex fundamentalist #ex evangelical #tw abuse #emotional abuse #religion #religious trauma #religious abuse #toxicfamilly #deprogramming #mentalhealth #self worth #agnostic #atheist #atheism #agnosticism

[tbmc-education]

Things that have Helped our Programming Long Term

Obvious disclaimer that these are things that have worked for us and may not work for every system. We are in therapy with a specialist who deems all of this safe for us, take your own safety into account before trying any of these.

1. Respecting the boundaries and limits of other parts. This is the biggest one because a lot of our parts have been through a lot of trauma around disclosing what happened to us and respecting what those alters are/aren't ready to share has helped us not experience silence, spin and other punishment programs nearly as much as we did in the past. We also respect what our higher ups and other trauma recreating parts are/aren't ready to stop doing. Yes, this means a lot of trauma is still happening internally but forcing those parts to stop will only cause problems, this brings me onto my next point.

2. Finding ways for parts with harmful urges a safe outlet for those. A lot of our parts who recreate trauma were forced to perpetrate and have those urges towards others, letting them do so internally avoids potential harm to others while we work on deprogramming. They also have their own blogs and spaces to complete unmask where they will not be judged when they talk about their urges. This includes parts with paraphilias who are allowed to talk about their urges however ours do so privately to avoid triggering any other survivors.

3. We don't expect parts to deprogram. This may sound counter productive but a lot of our parts have been forced to do things they didn't want to their whole life, we do not want to add to that. Processing their trauma and deprogramming or even communicating with us is their choice and we have no expections for anyone to change even if they choose to front in therapy and/or communicate with us. What deprogramming looks for each part will be different and they get to choose what that looks like for them.

4. Changing the language we use to refer to each other. We went from using the body to our body and the system to our system, that deepens our connection because we are united and it is our life, our body and our brain. We also don't use any demonising language: no alters are harmful, they have harmful urges. No alters are perpetrators, they are keeping us safe by recreating our trauma, etc.

5. Encouraging some seperation. This one can be harmful but we've found a lot of our alters with subsystems are helped by separating specific parts/groups of parts. For example alter A is a subsystem and within alter A there is Ab and Ac , Ac introjects a character from a media we enjoy and becomes a seperate alter from A but they still have high integration. We find encouraging this can help us process trauma better because our subsystems tend to be highly traumatised to the point they get very muddled and confused.

6. A lot of visualising. From comforting other parts to creating a whole safe area in our innerworld that has set rules and protections for the safety and comfort of everyone in there. We frequently add things to it that would aid parts such as AAC devices, sensory rooms, specific clothes, etc. We can visualise taking apart certain structures once we process the trauma that caused them or even add things to make them more comfortable and less scary before we process the trauma fully.

#programming #deprogramming #hcdid #ramcoa #tbmc #trauma based mind control #hc did

[torturedpoetemotions]

The thing about conservatives and their conspiracy theory that "the libs" are trying to brainwash their children is that a) it's entirely 100% projection and assuming everyone operates the way they do, and b) what is actually happening is more akin to deprogramming than brainwashing.

Speaking from experience, growing up in a conservative family and community was a continuous, painful process of having my natural compassionate and empathetic responses stamped out of me.

I was constantly discouraged from seeing the humanity in others who didn't share my race, class, religion, or my parents' political beliefs. I was shamed and punished for every thought and action that didn't align perfectly with said beliefs. I was taught to avoid any information that contradicted those beliefs, and to fear and mistrust it if I couldn't avoid it completely.

And this wasn't done by providing all the teachings and then holding me to them, mind. I never recall having anything truly explained to me. No, the method of instruction was to wait for me to do something that fell outside of the narrow guardrails no one had ever shown me, then yell and pearl clutch and bombard me with horror and disappointment that I had said/done/thought such an "awful thing." Again, without ever explaining why it was awful.

This process gradually taught me to view the world primarily in terms of my own emotions, and to view those emotions as the voice of God--as long as they aligned with conservative values. And since I was being trained like a dog to experience discomfort, shame, fear, and distress whenever I encountered anything or anyone that didn't align with those values, I was basically innoculated against critical thinking and basic facts.

The result of all this was twofold. Firstly, though I didn't stop having questions or doubts about the ideas I was being taught, I felt intense guilt and shame whenever I had them. Secondly, I began to perceive anyone else questioning my beliefs as an attack on everything I was.

The last thing that was done to me--by parents, teachers, preachers, and eventually friends, because we all learned to do it to each other--was to make me acutely aware and terrified of how my community would see and treat me if I ever strayed from the beliefs we now shared. After a lifetime of being trained to hang my entire self-worth and moral compass on how conservative authority figures reacted to me, I was presented with an image of lifelong shame and disappointment. Utter loneliness. A chasm between myself and everyone I knew that would never be bridged. And of course, eternal suffering and separation from them after death.

Yeah, the death-cult of Christianity was a whole other can of worms on its own, but its lessons and methods ultimately reinforced the conservative brainwashing, and vice versa.

In contrast, becoming a "liberal" (read: someone whose beliefs are rooted in facts and who cares about people more than ideology) was a very internal, very self-guided process. Nobody was actually pushing me to believe one thing over another. What actually happened was: I got distance from that community and their constant reinforcement; I got access to the information that I was kept away from as a child; I encountered people with different views and backgrounds and saw that they weren't evil monsters; I was encouraged to decide for myself what I thought, and learn to defend that thought with information.

And yes...that did lead me away from the conservative beliefs of my family and childhood community. Because those beliefs could not stand up to the smallest amount of critical thinking or actual facts.

It still took me over a decade of being separated from that community to unlearn all of those trained responses. Hell, I'm still unlearning some of them. I still struggle with the loss of that community. I still have an intense emotional reaction I have to work through before my thinking kicks in, whenever I am presented with information that contradicts what I thought I knew. I still come across thoughts or negative associations I have with various people, ideas, etc. only to realize those are unexamined holdovers from my upbringing. Like moving a piece of furniture and finding all the crumbs and other nastiness your vacuum's been missing.

But the key thing here is, the process of becoming who I am today wasn't brainwashing. It wasn't even, now that I lay it out, true deprogramming. It was more like recovery. A long and arduous process for which I often needed support, but which was ultimately completely led by and up to me. I had to want to get better. And I did. So I did.

Which is why I can say for certain that what conservatives are doing now is absolutely 100% about removing as many avenues as possible for doubts and questions to lead to critical thinking. That's why they're hamstringing teachers, banning books, pushing revisionism in the teaching of U.S. history, attacking queer children, doubling down on anti-intellectualism, deregulating child labor. They know that exposure to diversity and access to real information and education is a tried and true path out of their cult mentality. And they can't allow that path to exist.

#ex conservative #exvangelical #recovering christian #deconstruction #brainwashing #deprogramming #recovery #us politics #conservative values #lizawords

[thisisthinprivilege]

A bit of a taboo observation about thinspo, and what we can learn from it.

This will be a bit of a taboo observation in the fat liberation space. People have EDs for many reasons, and ED-related content, particularly thinspo, can be triggering and is problematic. ymmv on this. Don't pass go if it doesn't pass the vibe check.

That all being said, thinspo content can be incredibly eye-opening to just how pervasive thin privilege and the quest for thin privilege is. People know at quite a young age just how privileged thinness is relative to fatness. EDs distort this, of course, but thinspo content contains the "kernel of truth" that thinness is incredibly privileged. The hopes and dreams expressed by the text posts in thinspo tags is often of the form of how becoming thin will finally allow the dieter to be a main character: get the romantic partner they want, get the job they want, wear the clothes they want, get the respect they deserve.

I will always be flabbergasted by people who claim thin privilege doesn't exist, or who cast it as some "fat consequence" of a grand morality play, when thinness is so blatantly aspirational in our society. To the point where it's killing people, all the time.

I'm happy to say that people have DMed over the years to say that TITP and blogs like ours saved their lives. I hope that existing in the same social media soup as thinspo might draw some people over, occasionally, and away from the quest for thin privilege.

For those of you who are coming to terms with liking your fat body more, or hating fat bodies less regardless of whether you are yourself fat, I recommend my deprogramming post.

-ATL

#trigger warning #thinspo #thin privilege #deprogramming #fat liberation #fat hatred #fat acceptance #fatphobia

[weirdcultstuff]

A talk by Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, where she explains the mental processes she went through in order to leave the group and shares her four strategies for effective communication with people in high demand groups:

1. Assume good or neutral intent

2. Ask questions

3. Stay calm

4. Make the argument

#how cults work #ex cult #deprogramming #survivor solidarity #resources #Youtube

[marlbor0gold28]

Everything feels better now that I’m a lesbian. I know I always was, but I tried my damndest to not be. I claimed bisexuality because I gave sex to men I was attracted to platonically. I was taught that sex is love, and that my role as a woman was to give this to men. My role as a child was to give it to them.

Anyway, I always was fighting to figure out if I like boys or not. I chose to be with them, and chose to like them. I chose everything. But what I don’t choose is the way I feel about women. That is natural, organic to my core. How good I feel being with a woman. How good it feels to please her and meet her needs and treat her like the goddess she is. It is romantic.

I feel romance with women. And I tried to live the fairlytale I was spoon fed about men that the cult and patriarchy I was raised in said life was. What I was supposed to make it. That my worth was based on the men that chose to involve themselves with me. The cult and state decided what was best for me. But I know the truth of my authenticity.

I am a lesbian and I feel so fucking free.

#lesbian visibility week #lesbian visibility #good luck babe #gay #lgbtq #lesbian #icccult #icoccult #international Christian church cult #church or Christ cult #deprogramming #personal #tw #fuck the patriarchy #cult survivor #recovery

[infinitysisters]

“The first thing to notice is that the student in the video pretends to be asking for the teacher's opinion but is in fact probing to find out if his teacher has the right opinion. That is, he's trying to find out if his teacher is part of "the people" or an "enemy of the people."

Bc of the power dynamic (the student is alone, particularly), he's unlikely to be able to initiate a struggle session, though he could deliver "criticism," in line with Mao Zedong Thought by accusing his teacher of being out of step with "the people's standpoint" on the issue.

His opener, though, where he pretends to be interested in the teacher's take or opinion is actually a test as to whether or not criticism needs to be delivered for having a wrong opinion. In other settings, it's the basis for shunning and even outright struggle sessions.

Struggle sessions were a form of psychosocial torture used by Maoist activists to humiliate and shame people who had the wrong opinions, trying to force them into conformity or into a process of thought reform ("ideological remolding"). Alternatively, it would just destroy them.

It's crucial to understand that this video opens with the student probing to find grounds to initiate criticism and struggle against the teacher. Had this gone differently, it's possible the teacher would face MANY students going after him later bringing vicious criticism.

You will find that with Maoist activism, the style is often to seem to probe what you think as a justification to rain opprobrium (struggle) down on you if you don't think what they want. It's very Hundred Flowers: let people speak so you can crush ideological enemies.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign (baihua qifang) was a time in the late 1950s when Mao encouraged free speech against his regime for a while then rounded up everyone who outed themselves as an "enemy" and sent them to be reeducated or die in the countryside (gulag).

The next thing to notice from the video is that the student hasn't formed his opinion about JK Rowling on the basis of any facts. It's what other people are saying. He's in the "outer circle" of the cult, like most people. He's locked in socially and emotionally ONLY.

You can tell this is the case for three reasons:

1) He presents it as such, lacking any substantive evidence;

2) He doesn't actually agree with the people's standpoint perfectly himself but defers to it;

3) He cannot articulate (intellectualize) WHY she's "transphobic."

If he were intellectually committed in addition to socially and emotionally locked ("inner school" of the cult), he would have been able to spout off any number of BS rationalizations for how Rowling is "transphobic" by stating the reality of sex. He can't, though.

This is important to recognize when it happens because people in the "outer school" of a cult are the most rescuable, as we see by the end of the video. They believe it because their social and emotional identities depend on it (so, hijacked psychosocial valuation schema).

A psychosocial valuation schema, by the way, is a method by which people evaluate themselves as good people (psycho-) or good members of a community (social). It's a fascinating subject, but Maoist "unity" through criticism and struggle (peer pressure) hijacks it, as seen here.

In short, the student is perceiving that if he has the wrong opinion about Rowling, he'll be a bad "community member" (ally), which means he's probably a bad person, worthy of shame, guilt, and exclusion, demanding he "do better." This dynamic is crucial to the cult brainwashing.

The teacher skillfully picks apart that this "outer school" cult member student doesn't know why he believes what he believes and forces him to think for himself, breaking him free from the Maoist psychosocial valuation schema for the duration of the exercise.

The next thing to observe is that the student later confesses to the fact that he personally sees nothing wrong with the statement but can see how others would find it problematic. That is, the psycho- part is breaking away from the -social part of the evaluation schema.

What he's expressing there is actually that he has adopted "the people's standpoint," as Mao called it. Wokes would call it "positionality" or "the standpoint of the oppressed" (yes, for those who know, "standpoint epistemology"). He knows he's supposed to see the world that way.

Psychologically for the student, this is the most dangerous and most important moment, and kudos to the teacher for effecting the deprogramming well. The reason is because the Maoist brainwashing program of "self-criticism" depends on the psycho- and -social being out of step.

The guilt and shame cycles in Maoist brainwashing, together with "leniency" or "love bombing" when people uphold the "people's standpoint" and criticism and struggle when they don't, are most powerful when the psycho- and -social parts disagree, not when they align.

The dynamic is to make the target feel like they're the only person who doubts "the people's standpoint." The student, in the wrong setting, would immediately feel alienated, alone, and ashamed that he knows "the people's standpoint" but secretly disagrees with it. This is key.

Maoism as a psychosocial brainwashing phenomenon requires "milieu control," such that the social group around you all publicly seems to perfectly hold to "the people's standpoint" so that each person believes they're the only one who thinks it's probably bogus.

In that state, you will "self-criticize" because you think something must be wrong with you. Indoctrination is external criticism. Conversion is self-criticism. Now note Robin DiAngelo saying "antiracism" is a lifelong commitment to self-reflection, self-critique, and activism.

In the end, the teacher breaks through, and the students sees not just that he was relying on "the people's standpoint" (psychosocial valuation) instead of his own critical thinking, and the teacher gives him space to feel accepting of "feeling like an idiot." That's very good.

In the Maoist environment, so with Woke teachers, the "people's standpoint" is pushed from the top, the interrogated "student" is urged to confess his sinful private doubts with increasing sincerity, and the social environment reinforces it all (to avoid their own struggle).

After breaking people down psychosocially this way and getting them to half-adopt and fully profess "the people's standpoint," the process enters another phase, xuexi, which means "study." That is, "outer school" cultists are pushed to become "inner school" cultists.

The point of "study" is to lead psychosocially locked people into intellectual rationalization, where the student would have been able to rattle off a litany of robotic-sounding theory (thought-terminating cliches and rationalizations) for how Rowling IS "transphobic."

That not only keeps them hermetically sealed (iykyk) in the cult, making deprogramming FAR harder and rarer, it also creates a demonstration for "outer school" members who can be convinced that their beliefs have intellectual foundations they just don't understand yet.”

- James Lindsay

#maoism #intellectual high jack #cult brainwashing #deprogramming #identity politics #authoritarian groupthink #critical thinking #ftw #release your mental adolescence #growth #fuck ​socially regressive ideology #fuck pseudo intellectualism #think for yourself #free yo mind and yo ass will follow #freedom #society #education #mala educacion #si se puede #gender ideology #pseudo community #communism #propaganda #james lindsay #Youtube #struggle sessions #we got a long way to go #the REAL resistance #how to escape brainwashing

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"It’s insane, it’s just insane,” Valerie Haney kept saying as she emerged from her first day undergoing the Church of Scientology’s top-secret “religious arbitration” process. Haney’s outfit that day—a tight black minidress and thigh-high leather boots complementing her long, curly hair and spiky sharp fingernails—was as different as possible from the drab Sea Org uniforms she had been forced to wear for decades.

Her two attorneys, Guy D’Andrea and Graham Berry, were ready with their notepads, and all eyes were on Haney, who was set up in front of a portable backdrop in a hotel room at the Commerce Casino, just a mile away from Scientology’s massive printing plant warehouse southeast of Los Angeles—where she had just spent the past several hours reliving the most traumatic events of her life. “How did you feel going in there?” D’Andrea asked after a privately hired court stenographer had put Haney under oath.

“Scared,” she replied. “I was shaking.” Seven years after escaping from Scientology in the trunk of a car and taking her fight against the church all the way to the Supreme Court, Haney had been forced to go crawling back to the place she had never wanted to set foot in again. Valerie Haney was born to parents who had already signed Scientology’s billion-year “Sea Org” contracts by the time she arrived in 1979.

In a new 54-page sworn declaration, Haney explains why spending the first 33 years of her life in Scientology—raised by the church rather than by her parents—helps to explain how she got where she is today.

#Secret Adventure Club #Church of Scientology #brain washing #deprogramming #Scientology #grifters #religious cults #cults

[apostatement]

Thinking about straight sex? - normal!

Thinking about gay sex? - also normal!

Never thinking about sex? - that’s normal too!

Want to reproduce? - normal!

Don’t ever want to be a parent? -normal!

Have a kink? Yep, it’s normal. Go look at any human mythology and go with peace that people have liked what you like!! It’s normal!!!

As long as you are not causing harm, your sexual desires are morally neutral! Totally fine! It’s normal, you’re fine, god isn’t peeking over your shoulder.

#exmo #exmormon #apostake #apostate #ex cult #exlds #pimo #deprogramming #exmormon deprogramming

[leavingthepcg]

Lifton's Eight Criteria helps to identify high control groups, or cults. The eight criteria include:

Milieu Control Perhaps the most important aspect of what makes a "high-demand group" is information and communication control. Members are often isolated from "outsiders", including outside sources not approved by leaders within the group, and family or friends that are not part of the group. Members are often made to "cut off" family and friends that are considered hostile toward the group.

Mystical Manipulation High-demand groups, particularly religious ones, will often use or manipulate events in order to further their message and bolster their doctrine. Examples of this are making prophecies or predictions that get repeatedly altered or forgotten about, or pointing to past predictions as being confirmed by a current event.

Demand for Purity Humans are flawed, and high demand groups exploit this fact by demanding perfection of their members. Sometimes, groups will even acknowledge that perfection is unachievable, but that individuals are perpetually at fault for being the only reason they cannot achieve it. This enhances feelings of guilt and shame, leading the member to feel as if the only way to improve themselves is to seek help from the group.

Confession High control groups exploit their members emotionally by having them "confess" supposed wrongdoings to another member or members. This makes the member vulnerable and constantly alert to their own and others' "sins". It is the promotion of hyper-policing of self and peers.

Sacred Science The group's ideology is held as the ultimate, capital-T "Truth"; it is the one standard by which all aspects of life must be measured. This often leads to science-denial, conspiracy-minded thinking, and isolating oneself based on the belief that others are unenlightened.

Loaded Language Members of cults will often reveal that they are a member of an in-group in the use of language. The group creates unique vocabulary, or changes/enhances the use of a term in order to create a doctrine of thought. This tactic helps to reform the member's thought process by embedding concepts into their minds that can be easily repeated and recognized through the repeated use of a simple phrase or word.

Doctrine Over Person Group belief is held as the ultimate "truth", trumping personal experience, beliefs, values, or reasoning. If the member feels or believes that something about the group is "off" or "untrue", they are taught to dismiss those thoughts and to internalize guilt about having "doubts".

Dispensing of Existence This describes the portion of thought control that creates an "us vs. them" attitude in the member. The member may be convinced that those outside the group are "sinful", "damned", "unenlightened", "ignorant", etc.

#cult awareness #cult survivor #excult #armstrongism #high demand groups #deprogramming #lifton's eight criteria #support network #support group

[tbmc-education]

Becoming Yourself by Allison Miller

Book written by a therapist who worked with programming survivors with advice and information about programming and deprogramming.

Keep in mind that despite this book doing a lot of good it is not 100% reliable and quotes some problematic sources. Despite this I endorse this book because the information about deprogramming and programming as a whole is very good.

#resources #ramcoa #hc did #hcdid #mind control #tbmc #deprogramming #trauma based mind control

[lolitslloyd]

Talking about being raised catholic in therapy is so weird sometimes. When you look at pieces of the bible, they sound beautiful. But when you look at the full text, it’s so confusingly contradictory. I don’t want to go back in churches. Stained glass windows are beautiful. My mind latches onto Christian imagery in media. Certain bible verses trigger a deep upset in me.

#my deity is an angel #it’s funny #ex catholic #deprogramming #lloyd babbles

[aboatwithlegs]

DID YOU KNOW

The USA is ACTUALLY MEXICO. If you think you're a USA citizen, I'm sorry to break it to you but you've been Mexican this whole time 💔 🌮 💔

Let's look at the evidence:

The founder of "USA" is none other than George (pronounced WHORE-HAY) Washington. "Washington" is a not-so subtle nod at brainWASHING us a TON.

"USA" and Mexico both celebrate independence from a European power around the Summer Solstice.

"Gringo" descends from the term "Redcoat", used to refer to European enemies in the independence war.

The traditional USAn food of Pizza is made with tomatoes, a food exclusively originating in Mexico.

The USAn motto of "Remember the Alamo" comes from a man named Raul Hernandez who was trying to remember what country he was in, and thought back to the great big "MEXICO" sign in Alamo Hills. It has been co-opted by Mexico deniers to TRICK YOU.

The name "USA" comes from the constellation "Ursa Major", the national constellation of Mexico.

The term "America" ACTUALLY refers to the continent of America, not a national identity. A continent that just happens to contain MEXICO.

The birthplace of Taco Bell, supposedly a USAn invention, is CALIFORNIA. According to Google "... California is a Mexican state on the Baja California Peninsula.", and it's capital is MEXICALI.

Both "USA" and Mexico have flags with red and white stripes and worship an eagle as their patron deity.

The facts are indisputable. WAKE UP, OVEJA

#truth seekers #factsmatter #mexico #conspiração #conspiracy #the truth is out there #dereality #deprogramming #news usa #sexyboys #unintelligible goblin noises