No cult ever hangs a sign outside telling you they operate as a cult. They often present themselves at first as the opposite of what we think cults are supposed to look like. This is what makes them so dangerous that even celebrities and the most intelligent individuals can get caught up in one. Cults can grow to operate on a mass scale or hide in a small group. Sometimes they might be as unassuming as a family system. But all cults have common characteristics that make them what they are - a vehicle in which people are brainwashed and exploited, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Recognizing you're in a cult, leaving it, and the journey to recovery is a courageous one. It is not easy to reconcile the betrayal or grapple with the insidious infiltration of how core parts of you were pulled into its grip.

Coming out of a cult can bring with it many different feelings: anger, shame, guilt, depression and a deep loss of trust in yourself and in others. Leaving a cult means leaving an identity built on ideals you believed in, and often taking every resource you had to give perhaps for years or whole decades of your life. Leaving a cult can mean leaving friends, family and a community behind. You might feel conflicted, isolated, scared, and uncertain of your future and theirs.

This is not a straightforward going back to the way things were before or even who you were before. It takes building you from the inside out, perhaps even for the very first time in understanding the who that you really are and to make sense of what happened to you. Unpacking the coercive persuasion of control that gained undue influence over you and letting go to claim your agency as your authentic you isn't something that happens overnight. It's a multi-layered process that takes time, patience and support.