Swallowing Our Words and Ourselves

Comment now » // September 19th, 2010

Eight years after I’d left the cult I was involved with I had a dream that involved some of the members of the group. In the dream I was arguing with one woman whom I felt particularly betrayed by. At one point I had to leave the room where I was arguing with her in order to both compose myself and to pull my tongue out of my throat.

I had swallowed my tongue.

At this point in the dream I woke up agitated and upset and feeling like I was choking. The next morning as I wrote about the dream in my journal the metaphor was certainly not lost on me.

Belonging to a cult or high demand group requires that we “swallow our tongues”, swallow our words, our truth and eventually ourselves. We cannot remain in a cult and continue to be our most authentic selves. Mostly this is because the only qualities of ourselves that matter to the cult leader are the ones that serve the cult. It is our obedience that he/she values, not our independence or our individuality.

This is one of the brain-twisting paradoxes of life in a cult. On the one had we have a powerfully cohesive community and such a strong sense of purpose. On the other had we have the gradual silencing of our individuality and our authenticity.

The good news is that the flame of our authentic selves is never, NEVER extinguished. No matter how long we were involved in a cult or how horrifying the circumstances were, that unique, central part of each one of us resides so deep, and is completely impervious to destruction. It is always there, even if it has been temporarily silenced while we swallow our tongues.