Help me pull myslef together please

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I don't know if it would be helpful but the book "Going Clear" by Lawrence Wright goes into how cruel and brutal cults can be.

Thank you. I'm not much on reading these days, but I searched and found a documentary to watch called "Going Clear" (not sure if it's based on or associated with the book).

I think the thing I was involved with is very different from Scientology, but admittedly I don't know a lot about Scientology and perhaps if I did I would see more similarities.

I really disliked it when I was first introduced to it and it actually took me several years to gradually get interested in the material and get hooked on it. Now I understand, there is something about the language in it, the way it is phrased, that is designed to more or less reprogram the way you think. Someone else who studied NLP explained it to me and I can't really explain the technical aspects of it very well myself. But I know how it affected me and how it changed the way I thought about things over the years.

What drove me crazy is it got to the point where I realized I was constantly rephrasing my own thoughts to match what the material said. I hated it, but it was so ingrained in me, it became a very difficult habit to break. Plus whenever I talked to people in these groups, they reinforced it because they talked to me in the same language. And if I talked about myself, my feelings, my experiences, etc., typically someone would rephrase it back to me in language of the material and put a different interpretation on it. I'm sure from their point of view, they thought they were being helpful when they did that, but for me it was just infuriating.

Then the comments would go along the lines of...well if it's not for you, why not just stay away from it? Well I tried that, I tried to just leave it behind, but the problem was it was still in my mind, constantly shaping and reshaping my thought processes. Kind of like what happens if you have a virus infecting your computer.

I tried to analyze and dismantle each one of those concepts I noticed running through my thought processes, and that helped some but still didn't really free me of it. I'm not sure what finally did it, I guess it was a combination of things, but a big part of it was I finally put plenty of distance between me and these other people and just flat out stopped talking to them. Part of the problem is that anytime I would talk to them, even on the most casual basis, I would notice myself getting tranced out again and reinducted into the language.

I also had to get over the feeling that I might be missing out on something good in it if I left it behind, which was extremely difficult since I had some strong attachments to other people in it...however I had to get to the point where I realized, NOTHING in the world is worth the negatives having something like this take over my mind and my thoughts this way.

I think it's part of why groups like this have a hold over people, they have a mystique where it can make you feel like you are part of something rare and unique that you just won't find anywhere else. Plus when you get indoctrinated into the language, and it gets inside your mind, it gets harder to talk to people who are outside of the group because they don't use the same terminology.

I don't think I would have been susceptible to any of it to begin with, if I hadn't been put through some intense religious mind programming as a teenager.

I wonder if NLP falls under mind control. The site Wikipedia has some information on NLP, including brief criticism.

To have some peace of mind, maybe a therapist of old school, traditional sort could assist you. I like psychodynamic psychotherapy. It just seems like it is overwhelming you and maybe some assistance would be beneficial.

Absolutely not.

Since I figured out my mother is a narcissist, I have read a lot of articles about it and listened to a ton of youtube videos where people talk about NPD (I especially like this guy's videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU9xNc ... afmAcNVi6g)

Thinking back on past relationships and friendships...a few people would probably fit the profile of a narcissist. There was one ex-boyfriend in particular, who I suspected at the time was a narcissist, but now I think he far more likely had borderline PD and DID (and might have had a narcissistic alter). He threatened suicide constantly, and he would beg me to stay up late at night talking him down from it...only to then "disappear" for a day or so with me having no idea if he was alive or dead. When he would finally get in touch with me again he would act like nothing whatsoever was wrong and actually sound peeved at me for being concerned.

After awhile I caught on that he had amnesia about some of the things he was saying and doing...like I'd repeat a comment back to him immediately after he said it and he would flat deny having said it. And I got the impression he wasn't in psychological denial, or lying, he truly just didn't remember. In his more lucid moments, he knew he had a serious mental illness and told me to stay away from him. I really have to give him credit, he cared enough about me to try to protect me from his own insanity. I think back on that and just can't even put into words how I feel about it...something like gratitude but with deep regret and sadness. No, he wasn't a narcissist after all.

Later on after we broke up I found out that there had been other "targets" before me...and one had written about him on different websites warning other women to stay away from him. It gave me a cold shock to read the things he said and did to her, because it was all the same, except worse...so if anything he was probably on his best behavior with me, which was just staggering to realize. But anyway I'm just so grateful to have that other woman's comments on record, because otherwise I might have doubted my own perceptions of the entire thing.

This relationship really f****d up my mind...before that I was like a different person, and I just never imagined I would get into an emotionally abusive relationship like that. Now that I am seriously researching narcissistic abuse, and hearing about what other people have experienced at the hands of cluster B personality disordered people, it rings a lot of bells. So I'm understanding a lot more about how that relationship affected me and how I got into it in the first place. That was over 7 years ago, so this is long overdue.

That was around the same time I started getting more involved with the cult group, actually it came immediately that relationship ended. I was in such a weakened state, it was like I literally had no defenses left whatsoever.

It seriously was a matter of pride to me before that, I thought I was the kind of person who would NEVER get into an abusive relationship, and certainly NEVER get involved with a cult. lol

Of my 3 ex's who were bipolar, one had a lot of narcissistic traits and behaviors, however as I understand it that is a common feature with bipolar mood swings and it's different from having narcissism as a personality disorder. But as for the effects it had on me? It's more or less the same either way.

What I'm left dealing with presently is like a well-worn groove in my mind where I constantly anticipate certain things happening. And I know those aren't necessarily inevitabilities. But as much as I still care about one person or another, and would like to hear something from them, the slightest hint of that possibility immediately gets my guard up. And I mean to the level of a war veteran who thinks the enemy is about to set upon them.

The sad thing is...going with the war analogy...I'm the kind of person who never really wanted to go to war to begin with, just got drafted somehow and would have rather made friends with the enemy than had to fight them. And I've never had that ability to just write someone off forever. I never really give up on anyone, no matter how much they've hurt me.

My grandfather had PTSD from WW2, and he would have flashbacks where he became very threatening to other people (which is part of how my dad had such an abusive childhood, he was fleeing in terror from his father's flashbacks). But the interesting thing is, I don't think he ever actually saw active combat. This was a major point of contention with other people, because no one understood how he could have been so traumatized. I feel kind of like I'm in a similar position.