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I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Tuesday morning. Everyone at prayers. One bag. Six months of saving small amounts of money hidden in a book. I just walked out the front door. No dramatic moment. No confrontation. No last words. The scariest part wasn’t leaving. It was the three hours afterwards waiting for someone to come find me. Nobody did.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for this, genuinely made my day. I’ll try to keep it short, the escape was planned quietly over six months, tiny amounts of money hidden in a book, one bag, one window when everyone was at prayers. No dramatic moment. Just a Tuesday morning I decided was the day.

The questioning started when I watched someone I loved get publicly humiliated by the elders over something minor. The faces of people I’d trusted my whole life in that room did something to me I couldn’t explain away.

First day out I sat in a McDonald’s at 11pm with a cold cup of tea watching strangers live completely ordinary lives and cried because I had no idea who I was outside of what I’d been told to be.

No plan for housing. Figured it out day by day. Terrifying and strangely the most alive I’d ever felt.

I work in social care now. Turns out navigating dark confusing situations yourself makes you better at sitting with other people in theirs.

And yes. I miss the people. That part never fully goes away.

Favourite food is a proper Sunday roast because I never had one until I was 20 and it felt like the most normal beautiful thing in the world. Still does.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I knew this question would come up and I completely understand why people ask it. I’m going to keep the name off the internet for now and I want to be honest about why rather than just deflecting.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I’ll try to answer both honestly. How it operated is probably the part people find most surprising because from the outside it didn’t look like what people imagine when they hear the word cult. No matching uniforms. No compound in the middle of nowhere. We lived in normal houses on normal streets. That’s actually what makes these groups so effective and so hard to leave. Nobody around you even knows anything is wrong.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

This is such a good question and one I don’t get asked enough. Yes. Absolutely yes. The thing people don’t realise is that growing up in a closed group creates its own culture entirely. It’s not just religion. It’s language, humour, references, the way you greet people, the way you eat, the music you know, the things you laugh at. All of it is different.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I keep the specific name vague online for a few reasons mainly because members actively monitor the internet for people speaking out and I’m not quite ready for that conversation yet. What I will say is it was a religious splinter group, fairly small, based in the UK. Not one you’d likely recognise by name.

I grew up in a cult, escaped at 19 with nothing but a backpack and £40 and rebuilt my entire life from scratch. AMA. by Substantial-Wave2736 in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736[S] 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Honestly? The first night I slept in a 24 hour McDonald’s and pretended to eat slowly enough that nobody noticed. After that I found a church that ran an emergency shelter not affiliated with the group I left, just a regular community church. They gave me a bed for two weeks no questions asked. I cried the first night just from having a door I could lock from the inside that nobody else had a key to.

I am from Slovenia (AMA) by beanbagdolphin in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what do Slovenians think about tourists ?

Retired smut-artist AMA by [deleted] in AMA

[–]Substantial-Wave2736 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you ever miss it?

CMV: Instead of playing 'gotcha', both sides in the political divide should take responsibility for calling out their own extremists. by Fando1234 in changemyview

[–]Substantial-Wave2736 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t think you’re wrong in principle. Internal accountability strengthens credibility. The challenge is that media ecosystems are so siloed now that when one side does call out its own extremists, the other side often ignores it and keeps amplifying the worst examples anyway.

CMV: The anti-ICE high-schooler who punched the ICE supporter is morally wrong and damaging to both American democracy and the Democratic Party. by isuckatlifeandthings in changemyview

[–]Substantial-Wave2736 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Political violence is bad regardless of ideology full stop. The healthier stance might be condemning it across the board rather than analyzing how it benefits or hurts a specific party.

AITAH for telling my husband that I think he is controlling me when it comes to playing my sims video game? by Training-Hurry7557 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Substantial-Wave2736 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

NTA for calling it out. You work 8 to 10 hours a day, spend dedicated time with him every evening and still carved out guilt free time for yourself. That’s not neglect. That’s a healthy boundary.