Running head: REFLECTIONS ON MY LIFE EXPERIENCES

Reflections on my Life Experiences: My Familiarity with Privilege and Oppression Growing Up as a Member of a Cult. Brenda L. Caballero Winthrop University

Brenda L. Caballero, MSW Program, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES Abstract In this paper the author describes the major components of the peculiar world in which she was raised: a religious cult in Puerto Rico; reflecting on the way she experienced privilege and oppression, and how her experiences can be utilized to serve others in the field of social work, across all social systems. The author analyzes potential ethical dilemmas and identifies

personal/professional areas of discomfort related to such personal experiences and the practice of Social Work with an empowerment approach. Finally, the author describes the process to resolve the identified dilemmas in the service of oppressed populations.

Keywords: reflection, use of self, oppression, privilege, power, internal blocks, selfawareness, empowerment, ethical dilemmas, social work practice, cults.

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES Reflections on my Life Experiences: My Familiarity with Privilege and Oppression Growing Up as a Member of a Cult. My upbringing was a little less ordinary than that of any average Puerto Rican girl in the Seventies and the Eighties. My maternal family was member of a well-known religious cult

in the Island, known as Mita Congregation or commonly called Los Mita. Los Mita is a religious group, originated in Puerto Rico in the year 1940, when its founder, a Puerto Rican woman named Juanita Garcia Peraza, left the Pentecostal Church after receiving a personal revelation to start the work of the Holy Spirit on earth. Los Mita, preserved many of the beliefs and practices of the Pentecostal Church, but developed, over the years, their own Doctrine centered in the person of the founder, who they believed was the prophet and instrument of God to bring salvation to all those who believed in her message. The Mita Congregation is not a secluded community. Its members interact with the rest of society on a daily basis. However, the nature and extent of those interactions are controlled by a doctrine that is fundamentally elitist and separatist. Growing up in a Cult My life in the cult was characterized by extreme control of every aspect of my life, personality and behavior: indoctrination, coercion, mental control and manipulation was exercised in every area of the members life to guarantee their conforming to the ideals of their doctrine. I was indoctrinated, since I can remember, to believe that I did not belong in this world that was seen by the cult leaders as evil and doomed to destruction. I was brought up as a chosen one, someone special, separated by God from the rest of a sinful humanity to live a life of utter chastity, holiness, and obedience to our leader. I was forbidden to try to identify myself with the values of society at large. It was frowned upon to even desire to fit in with my

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES classmates at school or other children in the neighborhood. Even the way I had to dress or wear my hair was established: long skirts, long hair tight up in a bun, braid or pony tail, no pants for women, no make-up, no jewelry of any kind. What we were allowed to do or say, where we were permitted to go, the people who were acceptable to associate with, and what we could read or watch on TV, was controlled by our family and the cult hierarchy. Any sign of rebellion, and

any resistance to comply or conform was punished. This was not only demanded of children, but it was the discipline imposed to adults as well. One of the consequences of committing an offense to their laws was to stand in front of the entire Congregation, hundreds of people, and confess what they had done. People learned to denigrate themselves publicly, saying in front of everyone that they were a sinful person, a nobody, a lowly worm of the earth, filth. The worst the self-deprecation, the more acceptable to the leader was your act of humiliation, and you had a better chance of being forgiven. There were times when you were unjustly accused, but depending of the standing and eminence of the person accusing you, you might have not stand the chance to defend yourself; so it was best to admit your fault, even if it was a lie, humiliate yourself, and be done with it. That was if the fault was not of grave matter, in which case, the accused could have faced being ostracized by the Congregation for a long, long time. Needless to say, I internalized their belief system on my early formative years. As a result, I grew up guilt-ridden, terribly insecure, and feeling as an outsider in my own country. Everywhere I went people could easily tell I was different, odd and I felt misunderstood by the outside world; so I did my best to secure my place in the cult, the only place on earth where I really belonged. Isolation was always a very common feeling even among my brothers and sisters in the Congregation. Creating close friendship bonds with each other was also

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES discouraged. It is common for cults to promote emotional dependence of their members exclusively in the person of the leader: the only human being deserving of our trust, friendship,

affection and devotion. This ultimately means that you are taught not to create attachments with any other person that would take precedence over your love and loyalty to the leader. You learn to subordinate any other affections or loyalties, even if it takes disowning your own parents or children if they leave the Congregation. I grew up in a subculture within the Puerto Rican culture, a micro cosmos where time had stopped, and people got to live according to the societal values of the forties. It was my grandmothers decision to join the cult, but she was only 15 years old when she did; she was vulnerable and scared, just having arrived from her parents home in the country. Her father had kicked her out of the house when she became a young woman. My great grandfather decided he did not want to deal with her coming of age, which to him meant she would be attracting men and getting in trouble. My grandmother found in the leader of the cult a substitute mother, and Los Mita, became her family. She willingly abandoned her Catholic Faith and assimilated completely into the cult subculture in which she ended up raising all her children. I am part of the third, of four generations of my family in the Mita Congregation. The International Cultic Studies Association adopted a definition of Cult: A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques (Szimhart 2009). I have found extensive literature about Cults: defining the phenomenon, exploring social and psychological implications and proposing treatment intervention for people who abandon cults. These studies describe what it takes for a person to break from the rigid ideology of those systems. I fully intend to continue to explore this subject in greater detail as part of the personal process of self-reflection

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES introduced in this piece. I am aware of the influence of my past and the elements of my upbringing in the line of work I have chosen. The cult I grew up in was structured in a strictly hierarchical way, with the leader (the male successor of the founder) at the very top, followed by those appointed by the leader as Officials, the ones ruling the Congregation according to the Doctrine. The leader was

divinely selected and therefore, considered infallible and perfect; and those closer to him, were the ones that had succeeded, so to speak, in imitating his perfection. Position and privilege was ascribed by the leader and officials, leaving the rest of the members striving to become closer to the leader, the dispenser of spiritual and material benefits and graces. The Authority of the leader was absolute and being accepted by him and the Congregation demanded unquestionable submission to his authority. There was the belief that the leader and some special people with prophetic vision in the Congregation could discern what others were doing or even thinking privately. We lived in utter terror of being discovered of even thinking in a rebellious or unworthy way, knowing we could be accused and humiliated publicly. People with little knowledge of the cult phenomena, could question who in their right mind could join a movement like that. They ignore that to outsiders and potential new members, these religious groups look completely normal and legitimate. The teachings of cults are structured in many levels: the teachings that are most benign and socially acceptable are the ones everybody is allowed to see. Indoctrination is very careful and gradual. The spiritual progress of the members and their readiness to be introduced to a more advanced level of teachings is closely monitored by the pastors assigned to care for them. Members are assimilated to their ideology in stages. By the time the person is introduced to their most questionable and anti-social

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES teachings and practices, this person had already relinquished most of their free will and individuality to adopt a pseudo-personality that is accepted in the Cult. The Mita Congregation is not a little group of people. It is an established religious

organization, with thousands of members in Puerto Rico, and other places around the globe; they enjoy the recognition of the Puerto Rican government for being law abiding people and for the many ways in which they contribute to Puerto Rican society. Los Mita are viewed as a model of a community, free from the perils of modern society such as: criminality, addictions and violence. Los Mita also have a substantial economic power in Puerto Rico, and therefore, great political influence. As a religious organization and community, they have an impeccable public image, and the leadership works very hard at keeping the appearances that guarantee their legitimate status in society. As part of preserving that public image, some (not all) young members are encouraged to pursue academic goals and excel in their studies in schools and centers of higher learning. I was part of the group of young people in the cult identified as showing great promise in the academic area and encouraged to go to college. When the moment came to choose our majors, the custom was to go to the leader to either obtain his permission to choose our desired profession or have him decide our careers. I knew I wanted to become a psychologist, a career in law was out of the question, a Mita young female would never want to join a profession in which one sometimes have to lie. I went to the leader and spoke of my desire to become a psychologist, but he had other plans. The Congregation had opened in the recent years the Office of Orientation and Social Assistance and needed licensed social workers to operate. I considered it a privilege to be thought of as a candidate to work close to them in their social missions. I was given access to the elite of people close to the leader and trusted by him; a cherished, advantageous position.

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Little did they know that attending social work courses at the University of Puerto Rico involved being exposed to radical ideas and opening myself up to the dangers of critical thinking, possibly more so than in the case of any other college major. In the years that followed, a whole new world opened up to me, which felt both dazzling and terrifying. Leaving the Cult It certainly required the development of critical thinking to question for the first time what I always thought was unquestionable. The unlimited access to information, sources of knowledge, and the influence of my brilliant college professors was bewildering and exciting. But then it posed an overwhelming challenge for me. It took little time for me to start identifying the dysfunctions in the life my family was leading, the absurdity of their belief system, the oppression, spiritual and psychological abuse, and extreme mental and social control I had being submitted to throughout my childhood and adolescence. I would also learn about the real objective of having an office of social services within the Congregation. I discovered the way they have licensed professionals concealing and covering any situation of domestic violence, sexual abuse or child abuse that would threaten to damage the public image of the Cult. The members were dissuaded by social workers from calling in the authorities in such cases and were counseled in ways that oftentimes violated their basic human rights. I had no other choice at that time but to keep my little discoveries and new insights to myself as much as I could, but inwards I would never be the same girl. I could not contain inside my feelings and ideas for too long, and began to externalize them in ever more perceivable ways. My family, and the people of the cult began to notice changes in my behavior: I looked angry, unhappy, and I stopped fitting in. I had a defiant look in my eyes, which they perceived as

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arrogance and rebelliousness. I had a way to respond to their questions that was threatening and unwelcomed. I had become contaminated with the world and needed to repent. This was not just a suggestion, people started to spread rumors about me that I was undisciplined, unruly, defiant, fresh, immoral, and that I might be going insane. My mother, ever so zealous, tried to expel the spirit of rebellion out of me with brutal beatings under the shower. I went to the leader pleading for him to intercede and put an end to the abuse, and was censured by him and ordered to keep silence about it all. I remember turning to the Counseling Center in college for help. The psychologist who heard my story was horrified, but could not fully understand why I did not just take off and leave; I was 21 years old, an educated adult, I did not have to put up with that. She was ignorant of my emotional dependence to my captors, associated in the literature about cults with the Stockholm syndrome (Szimhart 2009). On the other hand, I had not developed the most basic skills to survive in the real world, where you are expected to think for yourself, make your own decisions and strive for independence. Naturally, I still held on to many of the beliefs instilled in me in my formative years, however incongruent they were to the larger reality of society I had recently discovered. I was genuinely afraid of losing my soul and being punished by God for leaving Mita. There was a dichotomy between my rational thinking processes and the ideas of the Cult, which were internalized not just by the process of socialization but by the described practices of coercion and mental control long held by the cult authorities. There were no known professional experts that would help and guide me in the process of leaving the cult. Neither did I trust anyone to understand the dynamics of my reality: how could they possibly know about something that was so private and secret, and so different to the experience of people living

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES normal lives outside of a cult? At that time I didnt even know I was inside a cult or how it

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was defined, and there was no one to define it for me. It was only after the patterns of abuse and control became a threat to my own emotional and even physical survival that I left. Life after the Cult Leaving Los Mita meant being shunned by my family and all the people that mattered to me. I was renouncing their love and acceptance, their support and their presence in the rest of my life. Abandoning the Cult represented the loss of my own roots to become a wanderer in this vast world. To say that I felt lost is clearly an understatement. These traumatic moments brought many terrible repercussions that affected the next 15 years of my life. I suffered severe symptoms of depression, anxiety and panic attacks, very similar to the symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress. For the most part, I always struggled with a sense of feeling out of place and terribly inadequate in every social group I have associated with. I distrusted the world in general and was incapable of building healthy, supporting relationships with others. My social schemas were extremely distorted. My notions of right and wrong had to be sorted out, purged, and tested under some new paradigms paradigms that I was trying on as outfits almost every other month I needed to develop a brand new identity, I simply did not know who I was; to survive in a cult you develop an artificial identity, a way to be imposed by their internal structure of power. Put in other words: I left the Cult but the Cult did not leave me. Their values were imprinted in my personality and my world view, and I still encounter traces of those values every day in my thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams. I struggled also with an inability to trust people and circumstances. If everything and everyone I believed in and trusted turned out to be a fraud, how could I ever trust anything or anyone again?

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES Knowledge and self- awareness are the best tools of which I made use to heal and deprogram myself, gradually and incrementally, at deeper levels. I realize this is a process that can take a lifetime, but it has been, so far, totally worth the pain. Because I experienced oppression in such a magnified way, I have grown to be more aware of its presence and impact than people that have experienced it in a more subtle manner. I am very familiar with the

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process of deconstructing reality and looking at all the pieces to find and keep only the ones that are more authentic and congruent with who I want to be. I have had to re-create myself in order to build a life for myself that is both meaningful and worth living. Self-reflection has become a second nature for me and has allowed me to watch for those pervasive, invisible, inner blocks that I have had to remove, climb on, or simply jump over. This lifetime self-reflection has helped me to identify my many biases, mainly, my difficulty tolerating all forms of religious fundamentalism and very rigid conservatism. However, I have found that I work well with religious-fundamentalist clients, mainly because I am very familiar with their world-view and their language, and I am sensitive to what motivates them and what they value the most. I have learned to recognize, yet separate the essential in people from their mind frames and ideologies. I know that human beings are so much more than the sum of the beliefs they have internalized, and that individuals are capable of developing a selfidentity that truly reveals their authenticity. I acknowledge that being academically successful, put me in a position of privilege over other members of the Cult and provided me with access to a different kind of life. The awareness of the degree in which I experienced privilege in my life, has helped me deal with the natural resentment I sometimes feel towards my family. They simply have not been exposed to any other kind of thinking, they are terrified of the great unknown, and I represent the possibility

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of discovering a reality that they have worked so hard denying. I understand how essential it is for the professional to be gentle in the process of helping people approach their circumstances in a critical way; how people only change when they are ready, and how this change must happen at their very own pace. I have recently worked in the creation of a support network for former members of the Mita cult all over the world. We have seen the benefits of sharing the experiences we have in common and the value of helping each other make sense of difficult and painful memories. Telling our stories, we have learned to identify the common elements, demystify our pasts and validate our shared feelings of anger, impotence, frustration, and indignation. We have also started to educate people using social media about the phenomena of Cults, helping people identify such groups and denounce practices of mental control, manipulation, and coercion. We have received e-mails from members of the Cult afraid to face the consequences of leaving, but finding it comfortable to have someone talk publicly about things kept in secrecy for decades, things they were afraid to even admit to themselves. Conclusions My life experience is a story of empowerment, and I know it has prepared me with the sensibility and the firsthand knowledge to facilitate the process of empowerment of the individuals, groups, and communities I serve in my professional practice. In my use of self, I can offer my experience with oppression, as well as my process of liberation, as a road map or guide, with tools I have proven to be useful, time and time again. I recognize the need to educate the community on identifying dangerous Cults and how psychologically and socially damaging their practices can be. Mental Health professionals need to have the knowledge to help former members of cults heal their wounds and reconstruct a positive self-identity.

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES Unfortunately, practices of indoctrination, coercion, and mental control are not found

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exclusively inside dangerous religious cults. In various ways, it is used by oppressive groups in society, perhaps in more subtle and sophisticated ways, to ensure people conform and adjust to the status quo. People are kept entertained with media, consuming passively the ideas of political leaders and dominant groups, never questioning or challenging their validity. It is imperative to encourage the learning and use of critical thinking skills if people are ever going to be in the position to effect changes in society and claim their own lives. For years, I thought I could free myself from my past by refusing to go there and by just moving on with the rest of my life. There are still people who would criticize me for deciding to revisit and confront those memories. It took me years to finally understand, that just by walking away I was not leaving the past behind; that no person can truly heal what they refuse to confront.

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES References Szimhart, J. (2009). Razors Edge Indeed: A deprogrammers view of harmful cult activity. Cultic Studies Review,8(3),231-265.

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