Floating

Up, up and away flew the balloon, and with it went all my cherished doctrines and "truths" that I had believed in and that had become my reality, in the Worldwide Church of God.

My new reality moved in and was clear as a deep dense fog. As I struggled for support and equilibrium, I kept falling into the pillows of that dense formidable fog. I struggled to find a sitting position, only to have thought after thought bounce off the walls of my damaged grief stricken mind. Again and again I fought drowning, in the density of my new reality.

It felt so disconcerting, that feeling of suspended animation as I was caught between two "realities". My cult reality of 15 years duration, had just ascended out of my life, and I visualized it as a helium balloon. My reality went out of my life as fast as a helium balloon exits. (another term that fits this stage, is called: Cognitive Dissonance)

My "new reality" could be compared to being immersed in a soft jelly type consistency (physically) where there is no support anywhere for the body. The feeling is weird. The cult fighters call it, "floating". (I did not know that while it was happening to me, I only discovered that much later.)

All the "anchors" of my false reality had been removed. Everything I had believed in, had been a lie. I had no knowledge, no "anchors", no direction, no support, nothing but this weird lost feeling. I didn't know who I was, where I was going, what I believed in, what was truth, or why any of this was happening to me. I didn't even realize at this moment, that this was my new reality. I had to get accustomed to not knowing and feeling o.k. about not knowing, and not having all the answers, like I had back in the cult.

I believe that in this process of "floating" lies the most dangerous pitfalls for the post cult victims. It is so easy to go back where one felt safe, familiar and comfortable, or in another words, replace the cult with another cult or controlling entity.The real test of recovery demands courage and curiosity. You need both to look backwards to understand what really happened to you. There begins the healing process. We must first understand our lives backwards in order to live them forwards, in true personal freedom and choice.

Hopefully, we find our "anchors" in what is our true reality, so that it can never again go "up, up, and away", like it did for me the day when I was faced with all the lies. I had a choice that day, deny my own mind and accept the lies as truth or face the fact that they were lies, thus destroying 15 years of illusion carefully built by the cult. I chose to face the lies and whatever reality was. ( Little did I realize at that moment, however, that I had been living in a "reality" built upon illusion.)

The cults build our alternate "reality" out of our awareness with mind control and hypnosis. Once we become aware, we have the choice and difficult task of getting through the fog of mind control, coming out of the mire of that jelly like substance, and finding our own anchors of family, friends, jobs, churches, or going back into the familiar illusion.

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