When You Stop Blaming Yourself: Recognizing Cult Influence

I didn’t join a spiritual community because I was naïve. I joined because it finally looked like someone understood what I was trying to understand. There was a clear path, a teacher who claimed to know how to end suffering and attain eternal bliss, and a community that treated those claims as fact. It felt like purpose. It felt like truth. And I was willing to work hard to show I was committed to it..

In environments like that, the devotion becomes the proof. If you question something, you’re told it’s resistance, ego, or fear. If you have doubts, you’re told your faith isn’t strong enough. You learn to treat discomfort as a spiritual problem — your problem. So when the leader says something that feels controlling, you assume you misunderstood. When the community acts like obedience is love, you assume your heart isn’t open enough. You keep adjusting yourself — smaller, more agreeable, more “aligned.”

There’s a difference between trusting someone and needing their approval to feel safe. I didn’t see that difference at first. I believed that proximity to the guru meant progress, that being noticed or praised meant I was becoming the person I was supposed to become. When the approval wasn’t there, I felt defective — ashamed, anxious, desperate to get back into good standing. That’s how power works in these groups: you don’t fear punishment, you fear disappearing.

The shift didn’t come as a lightning bolt. It showed up as irritation. As fatigue. As confusion I couldn’t smooth over. I started noticing how much effort it took to agree with everything. How people who asked real questions were quietly frozen out. How the person I was trying so hard to be was actually moving further away from myself. And once that awareness showed up, it kept showing up. Not as a crisis — as simple facts I couldn’t explain away anymore.

Admitting something is wrong isn’t disloyal. It’s not rebellion. It’s not a failure of devotion. It’s the moment you stop treating fear as spiritual wisdom. It’s the moment you let your mind be honest again. Because the truth is, you were never the problem. You were reacting to something real — you just weren’t allowed to trust your own reaction.

If you’re noticing that tension now — still wanting it all to be true, still hoping you’re misunderstanding, but finally aware that some of this doesn’t hold up — you’re not losing your path. You’re recovering your instincts. The part of you that sees the inconsistencies isn’t your ego trying to sabotage you. It’s the part that wants you to be able to think freely again.

You don’t have to say anything out loud yet. You don’t have to leave. You don’t have to call it a cult. You don’t have to explain or justify how you feel. Just stop automatically assuming the doubt is a flaw in you. Sometimes the doubt is the only honest thing left in the room.

Recognizing cult influence is the first step toward healing.

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