Being “weird” was part of their brand. In a way, it worked. It drew people into these Evangelical groups, who felt like outsiders. Their loneliness took low effort to manipulate them. Evangelicalism shaped vulnerable individuals to serve their purposes. What happened under the radar, occurred in plain sight. The strangeness of it all was widely ignored by people with secure attachment styles.

Conversion therapy practitioners understand something very important about human psychology: disgust is powerful. It’s fast. It’s visceral. And once it’s learned, it can stick around for a very long time to control a person’s behaviors.

The beginning of joining a cult often feels like you’re the luckiest person in the world. You find friendship and/or romance with ease. Conversation flows easily. You don’t have guessing games in social situations anymore because you experience certainty that everyone around you shares the same values. It’s not just a one-off connection either. You get to see your favorite people at least once a week. Having this experience with one or two people would feel like a full-life for many. Now multiple that experiences by 10… 100… 1,000… 10,000… 100,000 people. Serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin ruches at high levels for people in these cults to experience what feels like the dreamiest life— until one day.

With my first couple of years in therapy, I expected my therapists to give me life-changing benedictions in our sessions and transcendental experiences of performing the ritual of self-care outside of therapy, but that didn’t happen. So I began to question, “Is therapy actually working?”

Abuse is not the same as conflict. And for those who experience family conflict rather than abuse, maybe going no contact isn’t the best decision for them. As for people who have been abused by their family members, it is important to take abuse seriously.

When euphemism is stripped away from Purity Culture, we can see the sexual harm for what it is— the precursor to The Rape Academy.