Post Legion & Regnum Trauma

Post-Cult Trauma Syndrome*
Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
After exiting a cult, an individual may experience a period of intense and often conflicting emotions. She or he may feel relief to be out of the group, but also may feel grief over the loss of positive elements in the cult, such as friendships, a sense of belonging or the feeling of personal worth generated by the group's stated ideals or mission.

The emotional upheaval of the period is often characterized by "POST-CULT TRAUMA SYMDROME":

-spontaneous crying
-sense of loss
-depression & suicidal thoughts
-fear that not obeying the cult's wishes will result in God's wrath or loss of salvation
-alienation from family, friends
-sense of isolation, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who have no basis for understanding cult life
-fear of evil spirits taking over one's life outside the cult
-scrupulosity, excessive rigidity about rules of minor importance
-panic disproportionate to one's circumstances
-fear of going insane
-confusion about right and wrong
-sexual conflicts
-unwarranted guilt

The period of exiting from a cult is usually a traumatic experience and, like any great change in a person's life, involves passing through stages of accommodation to the change:

=Disbelief/denial: "This can't be happening. It couldn't have been that bad."
=Anger/hostility: "How could they/I be so wrong?" (hate feelings)
=Self-pity/depression: "Why me? I can't do this."
=Fear/bargaining: "I don't know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want."
=Reassessment: "Maybe I was wrong about the group's being so wonderful."
=Accommodation/acceptance: "I can move beyond this experience and choose new directions for my life" or...
=Re-involvement: "I think I will rejoin the group."

Passing through these stages is seldom a smooth progression. It is fairly typical to bounce back and forth between different stages. Not everyone achieves the stage of accommodation / acceptance. Some return to cult life. But for those who do not, the following may be experienced for a period of several months:

/flashbacks to cult life
/simplistic black-white thinking
/sense of unreality
/suggestibility, ie. automatic obedience responses to trigger-terms of the cult's loaded language or to innocent suggestions
/disassociation (spacing out)
/feeling "out of it"
/"Stockholm Syndrome": knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is criticized, even if the cult hurt the person
/difficulty concentrating
/incapacity to make decisions
/hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticizes the cult or toward the cult itself
/mental confusion
/low self-esteem
/dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake
/loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks
/dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult
/hang-overs of habitual cult behaviors like chanting
/difficulty managing time
/trouble holding down a job

Most of these symptoms subside as the victim mainstreams into everyday routines of normal life. In a small number of cases, the symptoms continue.

* This information is a composite list from the following sources: "Coming Out of Cults", by Margaret Thaler Singer, Psychology Today, Jan. 1979, P. 75; "Destructive Cults, Mind Control and Psychological Coercion","Fact Sheet", Cult Hot-Line and Clinic, New York City.

Cult Expert Reviews "Our Father,..."

Link to bestseller

ONE BRAVE FORMER PRIEST

By Joe P. Szimhart (Douglassville, PA USA)

Would you, as a loving parent, send your seventeen year old son to dedicate his life to a highly manipulative organization controlled by a sexual predator? Of course, you would not and neither did the loving parents of John Paul Lennon but...it did happen. As told in this book, what happened was a culturally motivated, naive young man from Ireland accepted the glowing promise of Catholic recruiters to help form a new religious movement in Mexico in 1961. Lennon felt drawn to the adventure with holy men who would guide and protect his journey. What could be better? Despite lingering doubts about everything from his sexual expression to the existence of God Lennon signed on and served eventually as an ordained priest in the Legion of Christ for 23 years. He formally left the "congregation" in 1984. This book answers the question, why?

The Legion was founded by a young Father Marcial Maciel in 1941. In many respects, the Legion of Christ and its lay subsidiary Regnum Christi closely resembles Opus Dei, the Catholic organization maligned in The Da Vinci Code. Both are controversial, conservative, hierarchical Catholic groups formed ostensibly to provide members with rules for a saintly life and a way to serve others. Both groups target wealthy donors and aggressively seek favor from the Vatican. Indeed, Opus Dei's founder was a canonized recently. The same beatific fate may not befall Father Maciel as long as strong evidence continues to appear regarding his mismanagement of the Legion and his decades' long legacy of sexual abuse of young men.

J. Paul Lennon's self-published autobiography is the second significant exposé in English of the Legion and Fr. Maciel, the first being Vows of Silence (2004). There are many exposés in Spanish. Lennon's story brings the Legion experience into intimate focus through the lens of his life, his dreams, his sins, and his struggles. Lennon broke with the Legion after confronting the leader publicly about mistreatment of relocated members. He was also fed up with the double standards regarding vows of poverty while the leaders basked in favors and food from wealthy donors. Though Lennon never encountered sexual abuse personally while a Legion member, he documents what he learned after he left the group. Be prepared for specificity regarding Maciel's controversial behavior toward the end of the book. (The title refers to Fr. Maciel's dubious illnesses that required frequent time-outs for days in bed complete with injections of Demerol and erotic massages from boys).

'Our Father, who art in bed' reads well enough as a self-published effort by a first-time book writer. I enjoyed Lennon's anecdotes about his life in Ireland and Mexico. The reader finds a sense of place and culture as Lennon reflects on his struggles to make sense of his psychological isolation while serving others. The Legion restricted every aspect of a member's life including friends. "What friends" asks Lennon on page 111? "I had to have a motive and objective to contact outsiders; all activities not sanctioned by the very detailed rule had to be approved by my superior." He was able to visit his family only five years after he joined. Lennon would not know the songs of Bob Dylan or the other John Paul Lennon and The Beatles until after 1984. Lennon served as a priest in the Washington, DC area for 5 years after he broke away. He applauds the open kindness of Catholic clerics there who restored his faith in the Church. Nevertheless, Lennon requested and was granted a release from Holy Orders in 1989.

Lennon eventually recognized that his Legion experience matched many stories of ex-cult members from any number of other controversial groups. He and other ex-Legionites eventually formed a helping network called REGAIN that has a website. As his book documents, Lennon and REGAIN were sued last year by the Legion of Christ over violation of allegedly confidential information. This book is in part an appeal to the Church, the Legion and the public to recognize the truth of the matter. If nothing else, Lennon's legacy is set as one brave former priest that took on a festering cult that the Catholic Church has yet to adequately lance and to heal from. As a Catholic myself, and a professional consultant about cults, I can sympathize with Lennon's account thoroughly.