A few years ago someone commented on one of my social media posts, asking me to explain why I felt that growing up in a cult was such a bad thing. So I wanted to take the time to answer the question fully. And to be clear, I don’t think that it should be the survivor’s job to take on the emotional labor of educating the public about childhood trauma in cults. But this is an area that I’ve been diving into a lot lately, and so I wanted to create content that other survivors could direct the curious public to, in case faced with a similarly impertinent question.

Cyndi H. Matthews' study referenced in this episode can be found here: Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors

And I also mentioned Alexandra Stein's book “Terror Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems”