That Gen Z cult post has inadvertently caused a flood of the worst takes I’ve ever seen on the cult survivor tag by people who’ve never been in a cult
I’ll keep this short, you don’t join a cult. Nobody joins a ‘cult’. You join friends, you join a movement, you’re born into it, you get invited by your neighbour who’s always been so good to you to go to a meeting. Most people in cults don’t know they’re in a cult until a certain point- if they ever get to that.
For me personally I didn’t even consider the cult i was in a cult until a year after my excommunication. And even then i still whole heartedly believed the doctrine up until August of last year, 3 years after said excommunication.
Anybody is susceptible for the exact reasons I just stated, you don’t consciously join a cult and therefore anybody can get involved. Thinking you’re the exception is dangerous for your own sake.
Cults are inherently abusive, they are a form of abuse and cult members are abuse victims. We are not something to be laughed at as ‘insane’ or to harrass if you see we’re still involved. In fact, harassing a cult member will push them further into a cult because most cults have the narrative that an individual is only truly safe and accepted in the group and they’re being harassed because they have the truth that outsiders don’t.
Listen to ex cult members and what we say, listen to our voices and experiences, educate yourself on cults.
Op is absolutely correct. You join a community, and then the cult in that community indoctrinates you with a very purposefully skewed reward system that forces you to learn how to accept and justify ur own abuse . A good way to find out if ur community is actually a cult trying to indoctrinate u is by questioning a bunch of stuff. Seriously start questioning everything u can, because a cult will not allow you to continue to ask questions. A cult might just straight punish u or they might try to be sneaky/guilt trippy about it, but if most of ur questions go unanswered and u start to feel like asking those questions is a Bad Thing then u are probably dealing with some kind of cult and u might want to start looking for/considering exit strategies.