A cult

The best con artists are the ones you don’t suspect. So in the Lonestar State, where fierce independence is required and the most successful people have to pretend to be self-made, a religious commune wouldn’t be a successful cult. But do you know what does work? I do.

I was raised in a cult. A non-profit with steep membership dues, it kept plenty of members out of the cult part in order to keep up appearances and to keep the coffers full. To the public, it looked like a happy place where young girls bloomed into proper young women while learning discipline and structure through music, traveled the world on the merit of talent and good behavior, and received the chance to move in social circles they might otherwise never know. But the cost for many of us was too high.

I was brought in at five years old. While it was my older sister, E, who joined then, I was the one who caught the eyes of the leaders. My fate for the rest of my youth – the rest of my life in too many ways – was sealed. I didn’t get out of their clutch until I was twenty-two when I flat out refused, for the final time, to become one of the leaders. In the years since then I’ve realized a lot about that place.

The women who founded and ran the well renowned organization were narcissists who demanded complete control of our lives, inside and outside their walls. They meddled in our home lives (obviously attaching themselves to the most vulnerable of us) and dictated our educations. What we wore, who we interacted with, what our grades were, what extracurriculars we took and when, and how we behaved in every setting was theirs to control. They sexually groomed me for years and actively molested others. To many people the leaders were untouchable things with whom speaking with was an honor, while those of us in their inner sanctum spent more time with them than with our own parents. I see no reason to go into specifics here, but suffice it to say, a cult can take many forms in appearance from the outside but they’re always dangerous within.