Just last night, I had another nightmare about some people I knew from the IMT. There is no understating just how damaging membership in a cult can be to your mental health. My mental health was terrible at university, in large part because of my membership of the IMT and horrific treatment and shunning from members of my branch. I had an identity crisis and a serious mental breakdown halfway through my course which would have destroyed a lesser person. I made it through and graduated with a good grade, but I would have done so much better had I not been a member of this toxic organisation and had to deal with the distractions that resulted from being a member. I still cringe at the preposterous essays I wrote in which I dogmatically pushed the IMT party line, and consequently did not do as well. I cringe at how I, a naive, ignorant youth, arrogantly assumed that I knew better than seasoned historians and political scientists. The IMT falsely claimed that it had all the answers. I now know that this was all a sop to my adolescent vanity. I waged a daily battle in my mind between my critical faculties on the one hand, and Marxist dogma on the other. More often than not, my critical faculties won out, so I was able to flourish intellectually and score well in my essays. However, this was not always the case.
Sometimes, to cheer myself up, I would listen to old ‘friends’ on YouTube, like Christopher Hitchens. I developed a fanatical obsession with country music and rediscovered a voice from my childhood, Gentleman Jim Reeves, a favourite of my father’s. I would listen to Johnny Cash, Dean Martin and Jim Reeves daily, and be soothed by their voices. It just as well they existed, or I would have gone mad. Being in the IMT was a lonely experience. I was surrounded by fellow ‘comrades’, but it was an illusory feeling of connection, which made up for my actual isolation.
After leaving the cult, I read cult expert Janja Lalich’s excellent book Take Back Your Life. I recall her saying in this book that despite a cult supposedly being all about fellowship with other cult members, the real experience of being in a cult is one of isolation. The relationships you have in a cult are not real ones – they centre around dedication and loyalty to the cult and its doctrine. They will be broken off if you dissent from the doctrine or – heaven forfend – leave, as I found to my misfortune.
The process of healing takes time. I may never fully heal. But at least I can do as much as possible to recover mentally from cultism. Doing everything I can to expose the sinister nature of this sect and advance the cause of the forces of freedom over the forces of totalitarianism can only improve my mental well-being.
Cults do not give a damn about your mental health. What cults care about is using and exploiting you. Cults do not want people with mental health problems. You are there to take care of the cult, not the other way round. The result is that cults burn you out and leave you for dead when you are no longer able to provide them with the loyalty and dedication they require. It is so important to look out for yourself and protect yourself from these organisations. Your sanity and mental health is more important than any false cause.