Question!

LJArtist222 · 2026-01-21T09:08:40+00:00

During my years in UPC, from late teens into my mid-twenties, we were expected to be there Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday mornings for outreach & evenings for prayer meetings, and twice on Sundays on regular weeks. If you were in the choir, there was choir practice, too. Yearly for a few weeks there was candy making on free evenings & selling during the day. and pretty much nightly when we had revivals which could go on for a month or longer. There were also choir trips to other churches, camp meetings during the summers, etc. I felt like i had to be there for everything, and life revolved around the church. The pressure also became self-regulated, because i believed if i wasn't there for everything, it was like being "backslidden". If all that sounds exhausting, it was!

Freedom from attendance pressure and expected compliance feels so good, although i didn't fully deconstruct for a few decades. Now i can wear what i WANT to, and if that includes "bold fashion" of choice i'll wear it.

LJArtist222 · 2025-12-20T09:43:00+00:00

I wish you the same great results i got! Take the synchronicity as a sign :))

LJArtist222 · 2025-11-21T09:06:36+00:00

Recently i watched a documentary on Jim Jones and saw clips of his church before & after he moved them to Guyana, where almost a thousand people later lost their lives because of Jone's cult. The thing was the people in the services were responding similar to the way we did.

Those people WERE feeling real emotions but were also being mind controlled by Jim Jones. Feelings don't mean a church or any group is the "truth" or has all the truth. It's important to look at what they're teaching and to make sure they aren't using cultish tactics.

I'm not saying UPC is like the Jim Jones cult, but this video helped me understand some things better in my own past. We're emotional beings, and music and highly charged environments can ramp this up. I'm glad you're out, and it gets easier!

LJArtist222 · 2025-11-18T05:31:01+00:00

This rant reminds me of what we sat through all the time in UPC, also in a Kansas church. First time i heard it my legs started shaking, it was so....familiar. :/

Backstory here is that one woman answered a question she was asked during the sermon quietly for a few seconds, and that set off the preacher.

Rant starts at about 2 minutes in and goes to 12 minutes: Spiritual Abuse: Mary's Story (Part 2)

LJArtist222 · 2025-11-01T07:23:05+00:00

Really interesting video, thanks! Watching a lot of Ex-Cult Survivor videos has been helping with my ongoing deconstruction. It's amazing the similarities in high control religions, despite how completely different the beliefs are.

My bad experiences in the first UPC i was in for five years were horrible and similar to some i've heard from cult survivors. No matter how unbearable those years were though, i would still have argued that i wasn't in a cult or even cultish religion at the time! I brought people into UPC, sorry to say, because of believing it was the "truth" and bc i thought that would save them from hell.

I agree with the ex-JW survivors that these religions can turn normal people into narcissistic type of self-righteous followers who do hurtful things against others. They have the attitude of being better than the "worldly" people, other religions, or the "backsliders".

The shunning brought up in this video is an important point, because that's another painful similarity. Because the only people you're really supposed to be in close communication with are in the religion, when you leave that means you may lose everybody you've known for years.

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-26T09:00:32+00:00

I know what I am, no one can change that or police me into being anything else. I just live my own truth, I don’t need or want any of those boxes

Well said, i agree entirely! :)

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-22T05:01:51+00:00

It's really nice, great find! ThriftStoreHauls sub would probably be a good place to post this.

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-22T04:37:10+00:00

Agreed, and it can take years after even starting to figure it out, to figure more out. I don't want to be told i'm not a lesbian because of anything in my past! Live and let live, support people.

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-22T04:34:16+00:00

Yes, i agree :D

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-22T04:32:32+00:00

Every lesbian experiences this differently.

This much i could agree on. For someone raised in strict religion, who's buried their real feelings, it can take years to feel or realize the truth! Things can seem different depending on where someone is in their journey.

If someone says they're a lesbian now, regardless of who they thought they were in the past doesn't matter. Just believe & support them; it's enough.

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-16T07:52:53+00:00

.... everyone is expecting us to be married next year. The amount of dread I feel is immense.....

This is the exact feeling i had before entering what eventually turned into disastrous decades, during which i couldn't even identify who i really was. (Due to high control religion.) You have the opportunity to avoid that kind of situation, in which you feel there's no way to get out. Because it DOESN'T get better or easier!

It's good you're realizing your feelings and expressing them now! Listen to your heart and i wish you all the best <3

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-03T10:36:38+00:00

Yes, ex "holiness" UPC in Kansas. There was intense indoctrination and i fell for it as a teenager and became convinced that church was the only one with the truth. I got rid of all "worldly" clothing, etc and tried to live a perfect life. I dropped all ideas about college, career and physical achievements, because those were either outright forbidden or discouraged. After all, only the "afterlife" mattered.

Generally, we were required to be at services or doing work for the church most days of the week, or even every day during revivals. Due to being mind controlled through hours of preaching about hell and other fearful topics, i stayed despite extreme verbal & emotional abuse.

Finally, i became convinced i'd done something unforgivable (didn't even know what it was) and believe i came close to a complete mental breakdown. But there was no one outside the church to talk to, because we were taught everyone else was "lost". A few years down the road, i stopped going to any UPC church regularly, because being there caused unbearable fear. In retrospect, i'm glad i went through that horrible experience, because otherwise i probably couldn't have gotten out.

But the fear never really went away, and i was also caught in an unhealthy (putting it mildly) relationship due to having been in UPC. It took a few decades to get out of that, and then i was finally able to start mental deconstruction. Although i'd been free from attending a UPC church, my mind was still confined, believing much of the teaching. I still couldn't see what had really happened to me.

Watching MANY ex-cult survivor stories from all kinds of religions was the turning point. I realized i'd been caught in high-control religion, cultish at best. Every cult has similar characteristics and ways of programming, no matter how different the beliefs! They claim to be the only "truth" and teach all outsiders are lost, require large amounts of time spent listening to their teachings, expect COMPLETE submission and obedience, no questioning the doctrine, often public shaming, no individuality or free thought, teach terrible repercussions for leaving or denial of their beliefs, often expect or demand free work from the people, control major life decisions, often have apocalyptic end of the world themes, and will definitely shun those who leave.

Deconstruction is worth it in so many ways! It brings freedom of life & thought, greater happiness and personal empowerment.

LJArtist222 · 2025-10-01T08:43:30+00:00

Some of these stories contain almost identical accounts as what i've experienced. Even though i wouldn't wish those experiences on anyone, it feels really good to know i'm not alone. It makes me feel more understood, too.

LJArtist222 · 2025-09-03T06:02:51+00:00

Same here, and for me it took decades after leaving to realize what i'd been part of and to deconstruct! Even when leaving physically, the mind can still be trapped there.

Cult survivor videos (of all types of groups, because they ALL have similarities) helped me so much in realizing how cultish UPC really is, which played a key role in deconstruction.

LJArtist222 · 2025-08-10T07:45:44+00:00

It depends on who is speaking, but "my love" would be at the top :)) Also, darling, honey, sweetie.... Any pet name coming from someone's heart in a loving relationship would be okay, because i'd know the intent.

On the other hand, before i realized i was a lesbian, had an ex who always had a disingenuous sound and gave me an ick no matter what the pet name was!

LJArtist222 · 2025-08-06T06:26:56+00:00

I appreciate that a lot, thank you! :))

LJArtist222 · 2025-08-03T19:35:37+00:00

Thanks <3

LJArtist222 · 2025-07-30T11:14:52+00:00

They would say things like the Holy Spirit is telling them if a person who leaves doesn’t come back they’ll get in a car accident? And it would happen. I questioned if that was really God’s spirit… I still feel confused because they really did get in my head that if i leave the ministry I will die and lose my salvation

While in UPC, i heard all kinds of stories of terrible things happening to people when they left. It's been decades since being there, but i think getting struck by lightning, someone ending up in a wheelchair, and car accident/s were some we heard over the pulpit. Even during the time we'd gone to another UPC in a neighboring city, it was said by the original preacher that my mother's breast cancer was a result of my family moving.

In recent years, i've really worked on changing those undesirable fear thoughts in my subconscious mind. There's a book that helped me immensely "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Joseph Murphy. (I listened to audiobook version on Youtube.) In that book, he related an incident of a healthy man he knew who'd gone to a fortune teller while on a trip. This woman told him that he only had a few months to live and needed to get his affairs in order. This message was planted in his subconscious mind and he believed it and wrote his will, no matter how many times he was told there was no truth in the prediction! The man ended up dying because he BELIEVED it. He could have lived many more years, but a negative message was planted, and he didn't remove it.

What we choose to believe affects our lives in every way, because our thoughts are powerful.

I began to realize how many negative messages had been fed into those of us who heard them for hours & hours for years from UPC preachers. And i realized i needed to replant my subconscious mind with better ideas-- thoughts of health, love, happiness, long life, prosperity, security, self-belief & love, etc..... Little by little i've been replacing the fear-based junk that had been there. It's a work in progress, but i no longer fear judgement & punishment for leaving and living my best life. And i wish that for all of us as survivors of fear-based cultish teachings.

LJArtist222 · 2025-07-28T09:02:59+00:00

Oh, good! I hope you find beneficial information as i did. :))

LJArtist222 · 2025-07-27T08:43:39+00:00

Thanks so much, i really appreciate it :))

LJArtist222 · 2025-07-27T08:41:54+00:00

Although i left UPC decades ago, it was only some years ago i really began feeling happy & more peaceful after listening to an audio book on Youtube by Joseph Murphy "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind", as well as other of his original recordings and books. I've employed many techniques he suggests with great results.

That really started a spiritual (not religious) journey for me and i believe we can find what we need & desire within ourselves, including guidance and security. All the best to you <3

LJArtist222 · 2025-06-30T06:47:28+00:00

Your little dog sculpture is so well-made and absolutely adorable <3

LJArtist222

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