
Cults have a very repetitive nature. They offer the promise of a family, play on people's sense of loneliness and isolation, then trap them. Very predatory behavior. There can be a turning point for members, a sense of wrongness, and once you feel it the urge to flee a cult can be overwhelming.
Reddit user, _SxG_, wanted previous cult members to share:
Redditors who were raised in a cult, when was the first time you realised something was wrong?
Odd, Repeated Branding
When I realized all the books at our home were from the same obscure publication house. And I wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter.
Well, My Reasoning Is...Because...?
Calling it a cult might be a stretch, but I was raised in an incredibly religious household and went to a pretty intense evangelical church most days of the week. My parents put me in just about every club/ group the church offered. Between youth group, bible study, church services, young adults group, AWANA, etc. I was there pretty often. Anyway my parents didnt have enough money for a private christian school, so public school was really my only escape from my super christian environment.
Sophmore year of high school I was taking a government class and we did this exercise to see where people stood on certain issues where the teacher would say heres a topic, go to the left side if youre for this and right side if youre against it.
Then someone in the group would have to give some reasons why they thought that way. I stood alone on one side of the room on probably 3 out of 4 issues and when I had to defend my choice, there were just too many times when my only reasoning was " because god/my parents say so".
That gave me some pause to think about why / if i really believed those things at all. It didnt instantly shatter my faith but it was definitely the moment my opinions started to change and I began to analyze why/what I was being told. I realized I didnt actually believe/ care about most of the things I was standing for.
Target The Odd One Out
When the only non-baptised kid in my school appeared.
I didn't even know baptism was not compulsory in the entire world or that other religions and no religion at all were things that existed. Also, he was so relentlessly and violently bullied that he had to leave school.
Suddenly, No One Else Is Like You
My mother was an avid follower of Niscience. She made my sister and I attend the meetings for Niscience. Part of the meetings was that you used your own Niscience name (my sister thought of it as a second middle name) and during certain prayers you had to use proper arm motions to salute the particular direction. I was 8 when I realized no one else had a different church name or did prayers with specified motions. I stopped going to the meetings, told my mom and sister it was a cult. Within a month they both stopped going as well, although my mom prayed and practiced daily at an alter in her bedroom for another couple of years before quitting.
I Still Can't Hear...
I'm Pentecostal still, (NOT APOSTOLIC PENTECOSTAL) but the UPCI one is I consider a cult. UPCI guy was praying for me to remove the "demons" from my head that were causing a ringing and loud blaring in my ears. I would hear a constant "WOOSH" and experience moments of deafness. He kept saying, "They're going. They're gone. You'll feel it soon."
I was like OK. Nothing happened. I got prayer. I should be fixed. Then for weeks I kept praying that God would "remove the demons." Then I had a dream that I was freaking out about demons and the blaring was incredibly loud my parents were yelling at me something about "It's Your BRAIN. It's medical."
Well, I woke up and realized that I actually had just started taking a new form of birth control for my skin called Tri-Sprintec, which sounds like something out of Black Mirror, and so I threw it out and I was fine again. About a week later the ringing and temporary deafness stopped and I was able to go back to ordinary life.
My grandmother was part of UPCI as well. They refused to baptize her because she was wearing earrings. (Totally unbiblical.) I should have noticed something back then.
[usernamedeleted]
You Could Say Anything, So Long As It's Okay For Me
When the leader, whom claimed to be freedom of speech, started suing people who said stuff he didn't like.
Pay To Keep Us Going To Keep Us Helping You
When the pastor talked like a stereotypical Kickstarter campaign to fund the church (which was not poor to begin with), with obscenely high goals expected of middle class at best people.
All You Need To Do is Look Around
whenever I figured out that my friends at my school were having birthdays, and Christmas, and halloween, and how I wasn't allowed to go my friends house... because my parents didn't want me to see a functioning normal life. (Grew up in a cult-like jehovas witness religion) got out of it around 11. Now 15.
But, Science?
My parents and their cult maintained that stars could no longer be born because 'god was done creating' - I'd just done some stuff about stellar formation in school. Mentioned it in passing, and the denial was astounding.
"They are lying to pull you away from Jehovah" (what they call god). Typical.
I said "A new star is born every 10 minutes or so, and some of them are visible through a telescope. You can look at it for yourself." - for which I was accused of blasphemy. It was not a pleasant experience.
When you choose to silence someone instead of looking at the evidence they have, you are only showing how much you fear what they have to say. Their desperation to avoid hearing undeniable science was the tip I should have seen years earlier.
Have No Other Plans
I don't know if you can call them a cult, but a lot of people I talk to about my childhood compare it to one. I don't know if I'm biased because I was raised in it or not.
I realized something was wrong when I was about 12 and I was being told that my whole life was gonna be get married, have kids, be a housewife. Oh and if you can do that by 19, great. I've always been creative, mainly writing stories, and they started taking that away. My whole purpose was to make babies and serve a husband. I wasn't allowed school after 5th grade and I wasn't allowed contact with the outside world.
It was rough. I'm out now, though! And if you're reading this and you think you need to escape from something like this, whoever you are, message me. I escaped August of last year. It took me 5 years, but I did it. You can too.
Unanswerable Questions
Oh there was little doubts all the way. But I guess I found it most odd that full grown adults couldn't answer simple questions. "Why does God kill babies" "why did god hate black people until society changed their mind" "if God is humble why do we praise him" ect. Me and my friends were like 12 or 13. We would constantly ask questions like these and never got an answer that wasn't "God works in mysterious ways" "or you should have faith. I was Mormon. It's straight up a cult. The members are so brain washed they can't even see it. Looking back it's all so f-cking creepy.
I'm Not Going To Be Destroyed?
When I smoked weed for the first time and realized nothing was wrong with it. I eventually went down the rabbit hole and read as much as I could about mormon church history. I know the Mormon church isn't as culty as many other "religions," but it does at least have many cultish aspects to it.
Thank You, Spider-Man
When I remembered that as a younger child I had seen an episode of the 90's Spider-man cartoon. There was a scene where a culty organization had members calling each other "brother" and "sister". At the time I thought I never wanted to be in something like that. Fast forward a decade and there I was in an organization exactly like that.
Other honorable mentions were when I attempted to read the bible the first time and things didn't add up, and when I saw a few documentaries about cults and how creepily they fit to my situation.
Listen Up: Everyone Else Is Different
Where do I even start?
I guess the whole not speaking in tongues make me a sinner, regardless of any other factors.
That if I have any depressive thoughts I must be possessed by a demon.
That any impure thought I had meant I was going to hell and needed to drop to my knees and ask for forgiveness
Any other of denomination of Christianity was going to hell specially those Methodist and Catholics.
Was not allowed to have friends because they might bring some kind of sin into my life.
And Then She...
When I heard the story of how my mom was refused a blood transfusion while giving birth to me and she died......
The Math Doesn't Check Out
Raised JW. I'm not going to split hairs over whether it's a cult or not, but it's definitely has cultish elements and could be considered a high-control group (which you could argue is just a PC term for cult.) For context, they teach that the "Last Days" began in 1914 and that Armageddon would come before that 1914 "generation" died out. The problem here is obvious. Everyone alive in 1914 is dead. Maybe there are a few stragglers, but definitely not a generation.
The answer to this problem, in their eyes, was to revise the term generation to, in this context, include two overlapping "groups." Now not only where the people alive in 1914 part of that generation, but so are the people who where alive when that first "group" was alive. Essentially, you could be born in 1990 and by their new definition be apart of the 1914 generation.
When they introduced that teaching, I didn't believe it. It's plainly ridiculous. Slowly I began to reexamine other things I was taught as a child, and eventually I realized how monsterous much of what they teach is, such as disfellowshipping and prohibiting blood transfusions.
Something That Stays With You Forever
I was raised IFB from age 9 to 18. In the summer of 2003, my parents let my sister and I the freedom to walk to the library together and get books. My sister and I dominated that kids reading contest. She read Harry Potter and I was reading Stephen King. One day during that summer, my sister, mother and I go visit another sister a few hours away. On the way home, my mom gets a call and she goes white as a sheet. I remember seeing her eyes in the rearview saying "Sarah, how could you!"
We both were afraid. The life most children in the IFB have is similar to prison where your property and space gets flip searches on a regular basis. My dad was searching her room and found the book. He beat the sh-t out of her, took her down to the library, where he berated the librarians for allowing her to check out the book without calling for permission. He said "Dont you know who I am and how this makes me look!" I wasnt caught. But I was scared enough to return my books. I was still to afraid to read Harry Potter until 2012.
Dating and the search for love and companionship... What a nightmare.
This journey plays out nothing like in the movies.
Every Prince or Princess (or everything in BTW) seems to have a touch of the psycho.
The things people say during what should be simple dinner conversation can leave a dining partner aghast.
Like... do you hear you?
Redditor detroit_michigldan wanted to discuss all the best ways to crash and burn when trying to make a romantic connection. They asked:
"You're on a date and it's going really great. What can another person say to ruin it completely?"
I once had a guy ask me if I was willing to follow him into the woods, depending on the price of the meal.
Yeah. No steak is worth that.
Plans After...
"Thanks for the ride but I have a date with someone else, I figured you wouldn't drive me if you knew I was going on a date with someone else and I really needed a ride."
"Online dating, talked to her for a while, finally got the courage to ask her out and then she said that as we got there."
iareyours
Mirror Image
“'You look just like my wife!'”
catalinachild
"I did have a guy tell me I reminded him of his son. I don’t believe English has a word to adequately describe my feelings at that time."
UnicornMagicRainbow
"That would definitely do it."
chaotica78
Third Wheel
"'Hope you don't mind if my mother joins us.'"
ofsquire
"Actually had a girl do this on a first date because she had anxiety issues. Honestly wasn’t bad except that 90% of the time she was silent and her mom talked over her."
"I didn’t mind that much and wouldn’t have minded trying again when she was more comfortable except that she was let go at the company we worked at and she deleted her social media profiles and she never responded on her number. Ah well."
Seightx
Liar
"'Hey bro aren't you gay? I made out with you last night.'"
"Random dude I've never seen before in front of my (f) date."
JHXC16
Was he lying though?
Filter Issues
"'You looked better on Tinder.'"
waqasnaseem07
"Isn’t it basic knowledge that everybody looks slightly worse than the worst picture you can find?"
no_user_ID_found
The Past
"'My ex used to do that too.'"
xxIvyOF
"Yep. I’ve definitely had two otherwise-decent-guy date-situations sour because the ex-comparisons just would not stop flowing. No woman wants to be seen as interchangeable—I’m not here to perfectly fill that ex-sized hole in your life. Focusing on the present moment and a future we could build together is a courtesy we need to grant each other in earliest dates of dating."
LarkScarlett
Powerless
"'I'm an alpha, you cant handle my top energy.'"
Midnightgay28
"I actually left a dude in the middle of dinner, in part, for saying this. I ordered an Uber under the table while pretending to listen to him. Went to the bathroom, and never came back. That was when I was young. Now I’d just say, 'How about we enjoy this meal in silence, before we head our separate ways.'”
UnicornMagicRainbow
Mommy...
"'Mother says I should be back by 9.'"
"Saying 'mother says' just feels weird."
bunnyrut
"That gives me Norman Bates vibes."
Werewolf_lover20
"'Mother says alligators are aggressive because they have an overabundance of teeth, but lack a toothbrush.'"
sodaextraiceplease
Obvs...
"'If you were going to be murdered, what method would you prefer. Purely hypothetical. Obvs.'"
Specific_Tap7296
If it looks anything like a Dateline NBC episode... RUN!
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Despite the advancement of technology rendering people left to their own devices–literally–to entertain them, there are some leisurely activities that will never go out of style.
Or so you would think.
Do people still knit to pass the time? Are people actively collecting stamps?
It depends on who's asking.
Curious to hear about hobby trends, Redditor gizehgizeh asked:
"What are once popular hobbies that are slowly dying these days?"

Before we've become conditioned to living on our phones, these activities used to keep people occupied.
Before Texting, There Was This
"Letter writing."
– littlekingMT
Literal And Tangible Joy
"Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise."
– skyburnsred
Model Trains
"When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online."
– Hairy_Effective1172
Pretty Rocks
"Don’t see anyone playing marbles anymore, I had an awesome collection in school."
– sheeple85
"I had some marbles as a kid in the 90s. My grandma got them for me and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them. I always imagined them as a thing kids in the 40s played with."
– Ryoukugan
People Were Moving Canvases
"Paintball has been dying a slow death since 2006. Sad, really."
– hobo_recycler
Before the general population began hating clutter, collecting was once a "thing."
Precious Coins
"Coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because 'no one under 70 collects coins anymore.'"
– ThatFishySmell99
Post It
"Stamp collecting."
– spooky_scully_mulder
"Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have."
– iuytrefdgh436yujhe2
What A Gem
"Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades."
– filthy_lucre
People once enjoyed making things.
Admiring The View
"Stained glass. I learned how to make it from my old man, and my junior high art class teacher also taught it. Very few artisans are still around."
– brobeanzhitler
Metal Vocation
"Black smithing."
– kenworth117
"I bought a forge to try. It’s insanely hard work, and crazy expensive. I still haven’t finished a piece."
– DSentvalue
Scrapbooking
"Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons."
– Phantasmai
I envy people who have jobs that are basically their hobbies.
Not everyone gets paid doing what they actually enjoy and have a profound level of passion for.
If they do, kudos to them.
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When we first meet someone–whether through mutual friends, at school, or in a new work setting–we generally feel people out to determine if they're worth getting to know.
While the process could take time, some people make our jobs much easier after spotting instant red flags.
Curious to hear about our general radar of people, Redditor xxFluffie asked:
"What is something that makes you immediately dislike someone?"

Some people just think they are absolutely hilarious and never realize they're the only ones laughing.
Next In Line
"They laugh about having screwed someone else over. If you think you're not next, well, you'll learn."
– whiznat
Unfunny
"when you mention you don't like a thing and they immediately do that thing 'as a joke.'"
– wayfinder
Playing Devil's Advocate
"Kneejerk contrarians. People who, no matter what you say you like or believe, just have to dismiss it and say they like or think the opposite."
– BubbhaJebus
People who put others down get slammed here.
Bad Parents
"When they treat their kids sh**ty in public. I don't mean handling tantrums, setting a rule, having to hurry to the train etc. I mean perfectly normal-behaved kids getting in trouble for trailing along peacefully, looking at things, asking questions etc."
"If you don't like tiny humans who learn the world, why have them??"
– raxeira-etterath
Public Humiliation
"Treating people sh**ty in public for laughs. Like being rude to service workers because they think it’s funny. Big red flag."
– Ok_Personality_1080
Simply Uncalled For
"Someone who is a d*ck to other people or animals for no reason."
– xebt1000
Those with ulterior motives rubs people the wrong way.
The Scheme
"If they try to get me to join their MLM scheme."
– spazmcgee1
Hard Sell
"A guy I used to be friends with in high school reached out a couple of years after graduating about a business opportunity he wanted my opinion on because 'you've always been smart', then he set up a Skype call and brought some other dude into the call and they started trying to sell me on what was clearly an MLM scheme. The guy went from friend to 'I'm never talking to you again' in a matter of 10 minutes."
– Mental-Afternoon-164
A Timeline
"Good gawd, this! I've had more than one exposure to this abject bullsh**tery..."
- Back in the late 80's/early 90's I was invited to a meeting of literally the OG "Pyramid" where you're recruited to pay in, and then you go out and recruit others to pay in, and the last in line got f'kall.
- In 1995 I had a coworker try to reel me into Amway, which was a hard no.
- In 2000 it was Pampered Chef, though to be fair they did have useful products.
- In 2009 a coworker tried to get me into some stupid video calling service that was obviously stupid from the description. He even got offended when I called bullsh*t.
– Mystical_Cat
Too much ego is a no-go.
I Can Do Better
"Being a b*tch just to stroke their own ego."
"We get it, you can lift 5lbs more than the 12 year old, you don't have to rub it in their face just because you're slightly better"
– Livia_Pivia
Can't Top This
"Oh, you did <story that's been told>? That's nothing! I did <implausible story>.
"I get the whole empathy through relating common experience, and I'm someone who does that (which drives some people crazy on its own), but there's a big different by empathising through common experience, and one-upmanship."
– Tisarwat
Lacking Conversational Etiquette
"Starting to talk over me when I was already talking."
"Stop it you rude, arrogant jerk."
– R33Gtst
If one or more of these traits sound familiar to you, you're not alone.
We don't have time for braggadocios, pyramid-schemers, and conversation interrupters.
And that's just for starters.
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Children tend to believe just about anything they hear.
That there are monsters under your bed, watching too much TV will make your head explode, and silly faces will be permanent if you make them too often.
The sky is truly the limit when it comes to silly things that children will believe.
Some call it naivitée, other's youthful innocence.
But it's hard not to look back with embarrassment on certain things we believed as a child, that today might simply seem dumb.
Redditor Disastrous_Toe_6548 was curious to learn the multitude of silly things people believed when they were children, leading them to ask:
"What's the dumbest thing you believed as a kid?"
Pleading to deaf ears...
"My dad told me he had hearing loss and couldn't hear me if I whined because my pitch would get too high."
"Would completely ignore me until I asked him questions in a normal voice."
"Trusted him implicitly until I was 12 and he yelled at my younger brother for whining."- Tyrion_Stark.
Get it while you can.
"That they took everything off the shelves when the supermarket closed."- fgyfddg.
Silly superstitions.
"My grandfather used to tell me that if I played with the fire, I'd pee the bed."
"I believed him for a while, until I got older."
"I think he was just trying to protect me from the fire."- teddypa1981.
"Rain, rain go away..."
"That if it was raining where I was, it was raining everywhere in the world."- morningshartz.
Age is just a number.
"My parents used to seem really old to me, so much so I believed they grew up like cave people as children, wearing giant leaves for clothes and what not."- Laleena_.
So that's how they're made!
"That smokestacks from the power plant created clouds."- Scaniarix.
An instant cure.
"The sun gives you sunburns, therefore, moonlight should heal them."- velocipeter.
Better safe than sorry.
"Don't drink and drive meant all drinks."
"My dad was super confused when I told him he wasn't allowed to have any soda until we got home."- hulagirlslovetoparty.
Don't believe everything you see on TV.
"There was an episode of Mickey Mouse where Mickey couldn’t reach something at first, so he tried again and somehow his arm was long enough to reach it."
"As a small kid I believed that if I couldn’t reach something, I should just try reaching for it again and my arm would then somehow be long enough to reach it."- That-Dutch-Person.
The miracle of childbirth.
"That babies are pooped out."
"When I was like 7 I was listening to my aunt as she explained that childbirth was pretty intense and painful for her, and I was all solemnly like, 'yeah, sometimes just my poops are painful, I don’t think I could get a baby out' and she went 'um, WHAT?' and her reaction made me realize real quick that I had f*cked up somewhere and I tried to change the subject while my mind was just reeling lol."- thesoundingfurrows.
Oh to be a child again.
And to believe literally everything you're told.
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