A lot of people have written and asked questions such as, “When did you go to meetings?” or “What about your children when you were in the group?”, and even “How did you divide the cult activity from your normal life?”
This article is an attempt to answer these questions and to better promote understanding of how dissociation works in the person who is cult active. This “day” is based on over 12 years of therapy, and is a collage based on several different memories of what life was like roughly seven years ago when I was still active in the San Diego group. Hopefully it will help those who are support people and therapists understand better how severe the amnesia is between cult activities and daily life, and will explain how a member of an abusive and occult cult can be a kind Christian person in their day life.
7:00 a.m. I wake up tired, as always. It seems as if tiredness dogs my steps even when I go to sleep early. I wake to the buzzing of the alarm clock, and get up. I am already dressed, because over the past two years my husband and I have started going to bed with our clothes on. We laugh and say it saves time dressing in the morning. I am in the uniform of every American housewife: baggy sweat pants and matching top, and tennis shoes with foam soles. I change into a nicer outfit for work.
I get my two children up and prepare breakfast, which is simple: cereal and toast. Afterwards they prepare for school, and I drive them to the small Christian school that they attend. I am the teacher for first grade there; my daughter is in fifth grade. I have a nagging headache that I ignore as we arrive at the school.
8:45 a. m. School starts. I teach first, second, and third grade at a multigrade Christian school that my children attend. Before this, I had home schooled my children for several years. I was asked to substitute at this school when one of the regular teachers left, and soon was asked to teach fulltime. I enjoy teaching and I multitask well; I go from first grade to second to third, giving each activities to do. I have lesson plans set up for the whole semester.
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