21: Wait. Am I in a Cult? with Chris Wilson
Today’s discussion is about high-control groups. If you aren’t familiar with this phrase, think of it as the clinical term for a cult, and most of us are familiar with that word. Let’s talk about it with my guest, Chris Wilson, who has spent many years studying this topic. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, a Master’s in Religion, and is working on a Master’s in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Join us to learn more from Chris!
Show Highlights:
Why a high-control group is usually toxic, with the abuse of power and control that induces trauma in people
How Chris witnessed abuse and experienced trauma in her religious upbringing–and became passionately determined to help others
KC’s story of teenage drug addiction, rehab, and exposure to high-control groups
How a recovery group that helps a person can also be a high-control group
What makes a group a high-control group
They use control tactics and don’t teach coping mechanisms.
They prioritize predatory collectivism.
Why not all religions with strict rules and regulations are high-control groups
How high-control groups function with behavior control and punishment
How high-control group tactics can show up in the toxic workplace
How high-control groups implement information control and use thought-stopping cliches to stop people from evaluating what is happening to them
How high-control groups remove a person’s ability and opportunity to make all decisions about even the most mundane things in daily life
Tips from Chris and KC for joining a group and being aware:
Balance your passion with rationality.
Connect with others in the group and ask specifically about the “downsides” of the group.
Beware if the group touts themselves as the ONLY ONE doing things right.
Beware if the group leader claims to be clairvoyant, infallible, or claims to know you better than you know yourself.
Resources:
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey
KC Davis 0:05
Hello you sentient balls of stardust. This is the Struggle Care Podcast, the self care podcast by a host that hates the term self care. Welcome back. And today we are talking with Chris Wilson. And what we're going to talk about today is something called a high control group. And if you don't know what that means, you've never heard that term. It's basically and Chris, you can correct me on this. It's basically like, the clinical term
Chris Wilson 0:28
for a cult. But it's one term for it. Yes.
KC Davis 0:31
Okay. How would you describe what a high control group is to someone that doesn't know, I would
Chris Wilson 0:37
say that the word cult specifically is a toxic form of high control. There are forms of high control in religion or other groups that may be welcomed, or even functional. But when we think of high control, most of the time, we're thinking toxic, we're thinking about abuse of power, abuse of control, and the things that truly would induce trauma in people.
KC Davis 1:05
I have so many questions to jump off from there. But before I get too far ahead, why do you know all this stuff,
Chris Wilson 1:11
so I have a long history of studying these kinds of topics. I am autistic and ADHD. And so my special interest started, when I was about seven, I wanted to understand the world around me and understand people knew I was kind of different. And I therefore systematically hid the Dewey Decimal System in the library. And I found metaphysics and psychology, and I haven't left there. Now, looking back, of course, I can sit there and say, Wow, the fact that I did that does point out some slight differences between me and the average person. But psychology has always just fundamentally drawn me to understand even the problems within that framework. And I have a background being raised Southern Baptist and a conservative form of the Episcopal Church. And I grew up with a lot of religious trauma. And I left the church for many years, I also got involved in a lot of new age and Neo pagan groups, and I saw the same kind of abuses happening there. And I survived some really extreme things in my life. And so when I had the chance to finally go to college and figure this stuff out, that became my passion, helping people identify these red flags, helping people see the abuse, regardless of what you believed, regardless of your framework, or lack of belief, because these things can show up even in corporate policy, you know, we can see those anywhere. And so that became a study of interest. I have a bachelor's degree in sociology, a master's in religion, and I'm working on my Master's in industrial organizational psychology now. So that's where I'm at.
KC Davis 2:52
That's awesome. And so you and I met on Tik Tok. We were Mutual's for a long time. And the reason I've always been interested in high control groups is because I had kind of a unique experience. As a teenager, I had a really severe drug addiction. When I was in high school, and my parents tried to help me, I went to a psych ward for a little bit. And eventually they sent me to residential treatment. And I went to a teen rehab for 18 and a half months. And when I left there, I left like, I'm healthy, I'm sober. I am the star client, I genuinely learned a lot of healthy coping skills. I genuinely emerged with a really meaningful spirituality. I genuinely learned to be honest with myself and others I shared, you know, all the things I was ashamed of, I found belonging, I found love, I found acceptance, I found growth, I found a lot of maturity. And I continued to have nightmares that I was being sent back to treatment, even though I was sober. And every nightmare was the same. I get to treatment. I say, I don't need to be here. I'm sober. And they say, that's what everybody says, We know you're lying. And in the dream, I'm over 18. So I can just like sign myself out and leave. And I continue to say, I don't need to be here. And they say, Yes, you do. You're very sick. And i The dream ends the same every way, which is me saying I could sign myself out, and then deciding not to, because I'm unwilling to leave unless they are convinced that I'm healthy. Like I can't cope with sort of the mismatched reality where they think this thing of me and I started seeing a therapist and sort of trying to figure out why I had such conflicting feelings about my rehab experience. And really what it came down to was, there was some really intense psychological interventions used that I Now know our tactics of high control groups. And so when I first found, you know, high control group as a term,
I would look at the things that were like the criteria, and I'd go, oh my god, this is what happened to me. And it was even more confusing, because I didn't feel like it was like some horribly damaging experience. But there was some sort of weird trauma that I was really angry that somebody locked me up for 18 months, and like, basically used these like heavily coercive, psychologically coercive tactics to like, quote, unquote, treat me. And I ended up when I left that treatments that are joining a 12 step group that was actually very similar. Like I was told who I was allowed to date, where I had to be every night, I had to send an email every night about any kind of selfishness I had done in the day, we were the only a group that knew to good 12 Step, like how to get sober and all the other groups were wrong. And fast forward, I decided to leave that group. And when I left, I was told like, if you leave, you will get high, you will relapse and die. And I left, all my friends stopped talking to me, my roommate broke our lease and moved out. They told everybody I was dangerous. So I had this sort of back to back experience of being in high control groups. And that's how I became fascinated in high control groups, especially trying to piece together, how can something that I can point to ways that they genuinely helped me also created this weird underlying trauma. And I've talked to other girls that went through the same process that are the same place. So I think it's interesting me coming from a recovery background, you coming from a religious background, and I just kind of wanted to talk about it, I wanted to talk about what makes something a high control group, how does that affect people, you were one of the people that actually really helped me piece together what was going on. And it was when you finally said, regardless of whether or not they are trying to bring about a good and healthy outcome for you. The actual tactics themselves are damaging, they're coercive, they ignore consent, and they create damage, even if like basically the ends don't justify the means. So I will stop babbling about this, but also what makes a group a high control group.
Chris Wilson 7:27
So when we're looking at groups, and I think, you know, hearing more of your background in this story connects to a lot of the things that I have done research on when I was doing my master's thesis and religion because I really focused in on cult indoctrination tactics and high control groups within American Christianity. But one of the things that came out of this and from connections on Tik Tok, and from talking to other people in the field, was how it started getting involved in a lot of the mainstream Christianity was the youth intervention programs. It was the troubled youth industry of those tactics were initially meant to try and bring people back from the brink of self destruction in many ways, but one of the things that we have to recognize is that in taking these extreme tactics, we are enforcing an external control upon individuals, we're not teaching them coping mechanisms, a lot of the times we are still making them subject to other people's opinions, other people's feelings, other people's idea of who and what they should be. So when we're looking at what makes a high control group, we're looking at any organization, any group of people that are prioritizing, a kind of predatory collectivism is the best way I can put it. Because when we're looking at a high control group, we're looking at the kinds of in religious organizations, the prayer that actually is gossiping, oh, we need to pray for Suzy, who's having this problem with gossip, gossip, gossip, gossip, right? It's a really common thing. A lot of people will see that. But as I've said, a certain amount of control is not necessarily bad. And we might think of this in terms of let's talk about like Judaism has a lot of regulations as part of their faith practice. And inherently those regulations might be considered to be very high control. If you're going down to the bite model from Hassan's high control groups measurement, you might look and go, well, they have a lot of regulation. It's about their food, it's about who they're friends with. But is that something that is fundamentally toxic? And the answer is no. In most of the situations, that level of control is not actually passing a threshold of toxic engagement. Similarly, a Christian church might have a similar baseline they might have, okay, we don't want you to drink, we don't want you to smoke, we don't want you to consume these things that may not inherently be toxic for everybody in that situation.
KC Davis 10:12
I also it reminds me of like school, right? Like my kids are in school now. And like there's a lot about school where there's a lot of regulations, a lot of control a lot of hierarchy, a lot of authority, but like not every school is a high control group, or is toxic, or is damaging, right,
Chris Wilson 10:29
exactly. And so if we're talking about the school system, there is a lot to be said about how schools are implemented. Now, we know from the history of education, that there is a tendency to regiment school in a similar way to prisons. And there is a whole school to prison pipeline with, especially in marginalized communities. And one of the things that happens is the lower class of the school, the less funding the school has, the more likely it is to engage in toxic forms of high control with an idea that those with privilege fundamentally know better. That kind of paternalism that I know better than you, I am smarter than you, I am more financially successful, and therefore I am better. And I know what you need in your life. And so there's a wider theme here of society telling people, what is best for them.
KC Davis 11:26
I also think about when you said that it originated with the teen industry, we were trying to bring people back from the brink of death. And I will be the first to admit, like I was delusional, like I truly needed some sort of like reverse brainwashing because like, in effect, like I already was indoctrinated into this subculture, I was already kind of delusional, I was very sick. My therapist, friend and I talked about this all the time, how do you respect the autonomy of a person whose autonomy is dead set on killing themself? Right. And so I don't even know that I feel like oh, they never should have used these things. I mean, I wish they hadn't. But at the same time, even if they were to say, some of these coercive tactics, and we'll get into, like, some examples are necessary to prevent someone who's not in their right mind from hurting themselves. I think at that point, what I recognize is, nobody ever built an off ramp for me though, like, if I were the couldn't just go into me when I was 15. do too much of cocaine of like, just learn to trust yourself, because like, I didn't have a good internal compass, right. So there was sort of this like breaking down of my ego and taking away of my identity. But when they rebuilt all that stuff, there never was a point where it was like, Okay, now let's learn how to trust yourself. Again, now let's learn how to find your identity. Again, it was just take it off of the drugs and put it on us as a rehab. And you mentioned Steven Hassan, I think that's probably the first thing I saw, he has this bite Model B I T E for like, the criteria. And the first one is behavior control. And so for me, like, it's different to say lunch is at 11. And you need to be done with lunch by 1130, right? Like, that's whatever. And my rehab lunch was at 11, you had to sit at the tables, you were only allowed to talk to the person directly in front of you, you could not talk to the people to the left of you, at when the last person had their meal, you had to sit down, you had 10 minutes to eat at the end of 10 minutes, you had to be done. You had to have one protein, one starch one, whatever. Once you've eaten that, then you can go and get a peanut butter sandwich if you want to. If you're on phase one, you're not allowed to talk to other phase ones without somebody else listening to you, if you right, so like the behavior control is like a whole nother level. And when I look at my 12 Step example, it seems like there's a difference between like you said, like a church saying, like, we don't want you to drink, we don't want you to smoke. But there's like an element of consent to that versus how are we going to react? If you aren't? How are we going to find out? If you are can you talk a little bit about what that looks like from the behavior control perspective?
Chris Wilson 14:07
Well, and it's about punitive baselines punishment, right? Fundamentally, the idea that if you do not then you will, XY and Z, like it is a form of shunning. You see this in different groups. And you explain that when you left the 12 step, that there was a shunning which we know in terms of resiliency studies in terms of what people helps people actually cope with the hardships of life, and what makes things traumatic, because it's very subjective person to person, right? Resilience is based off of internal baselines, right, your internal resiliency, but also your support your external resiliency, the people you have there. And so shunning is one of the worst things you can do to somebody in a lot of ways, because it fundamentally removes all of it. ability to cope socially. And that is that kind of punitive repercussion of behaviors that shows up in a lot of toxic groups of, there's a difference between a boundary. For example, if the group says, if you are engaging in abusive behaviors to other members, we have to exclude you from the space, that is a role that you can set, it's a boundary of behavioral expectation within that space with that is about your engagement with that space, right. So that's a healthy thing to have, if I'm holding a ministry group, I need to make sure that I have behavioral standards for what's happening here. But if I then move that to a behavioral control, where if I find out that you went and had a sip of alcohol somewhere or went even went to a bar with somebody else, and I, you could have been thought to have alcohol, then that's me extending a level of control to your life outside of your voluntary association, your voluntary association with this group, and shunning and that kind of rejection. And that kind of cutting off hits what is called Terror management theory, which is the idea of isolation is death within our psyche, within our brains, that if we are by ourselves, evolutionarily, we cannot survive. And so when you have that provoked by groups doing this kind of behavioral control, you know, thou shalt thou shalt nots, to a degree that they're really holding you to this extreme, you're going to have psychological stress and trauma that can come from that. And as you were talking about, you can't talk to the person in front of you, you can't, everyone has to stand around that and then sit together and have a certain time, that was basic training. And a lot of these things we understand is from military training. Now, this is where it gets complex. And where this is a really nuanced and difficult thing to talk about. Because this kind of training in the military actually provides group cohesion and resilience in the face of known expectations of danger, it actually is more helpful to have them go through a trial experience together, and then be able to work as units. What was
KC Davis 17:13
wild is that it was that experience that may be bonded forever to these girls that I went through, it was that experience that made it where we're sharing our deepest, darkest secrets, and we're looking at each other going, I'm broken, you're broken, I'm broken, maybe everyone's broken, I'm gonna decide to love you anyways, oh, my god, like, I came out with a totally different experience of vulnerability, and wholeness and wholeheartedness, like, all that kind of stuff from that experience, right. So I saw that like, quote, unquote, cohesion that it brings to kind of go through a war together with someone. And but the other thing that really hits me is when you said, like, protecting the space versus controlling your every life, right? Like, I A lot of times people will hear about high control groups, and they'll be like, oh, man, that sounded like my school. That sounds like my dad, that sounds like my family. But like, even in the military, you can leave the military, I'm not trying to make light that that's an easy thing to do, or a hard thing to do. Right. But like you can leave the military, you can go home from school and potentially be in a different environment than what they're doing in school. And I think my experience with being in high control groups, is that the way they extend it past, because a lot of people, why didn't you just leave? Why didn't you just go to a different age group, but well, because there's this existential backstop to leaving, which is, you're going to drink and die. We are the only people that understand sobriety, we're the only people that understand you, we are the only people that can protect you from yourself. And if you leave us leaving is an action that reflects that you are not healthy, and you will drink and die. Right? So that's how it was summed up in sobriety. And it's different. Like sometimes AAA groups will say, like, man, if you leave a you'll drink and die. But that, to me, even still is different than someone saying, if you leave this group, this one group that leads on a Tuesday night, right, and I know religions will do it with. If you leave this church, you'll go to hell not. And so we're not talking about if you leave our religion, but like literally controlling what actual subgroup you belong to.
Chris Wilson 19:24
I would agree, I think, in order to not diminish how toxic it can be even at a workplace, for example, because in a workplace, yeah, you could find another work. But can you context matters so much nuance matters so much in these in the sense that there are wider social expectations. If you were in a small town, and you are dealing with a toxic workplace, and that's the only place that you can get a job in this town. That's going to be a different situation. Then you actually have the personal resources and ability to find jobs, maybe in a city or maybe the city is so expensive, you don't know if you can afford to change jobs, or you're worried that if they find that you're even searching for a job, they're gonna get rid of you. So it's all about leverage points. But I do agree when we start moving towards the term where most people would say, Colt, we're talking about the things that you're talking about that intense subgrouping, that puts so much in group out group like connection, that it is us, or death, it is us or nothing. And so that's really where we start seeing what would typically be called a cult. The reason I don't like using the term and most people have abandoned that is because there was so much obsession with brainwashing and cults in the 60s and 70s, that pretty much was a lot of very mainstream conservative folks going anything that is not our wonderful whitebread view of the world is bad, and is a cult and our children choosing to do this must mean that they are being brainwashed. So a lot of the term cults, it's really difficult to use that term these days. And one man's cult is another man's, you know, renew religious movement. So there's so much nuance and even when we say this group, definitely like this is a life like, and death kind of cult group that is so high control and is so toxic, that is going to be different for every person in that group on whether or not that high level of control is damaging to them. Because some people thrive in higher control environments, not necessarily toxic ones, but some people need that regulation and want and crave that regulation, whereas for others, it will be profoundly traumatizing. And the same is true in that whole spectrum.
KC Davis 21:47
So B is behavior control is information control. And what does information control look like in the context of a high control group.
Chris Wilson 21:56
So information control is I can put this in a religious context really easily, because a religious institution might say, you can only read these approved books, you cannot consume secular media, you cannot. And it might be even in something like in a 12 step program, you are only allowed to read the materials we provide you, you are only allowed to engage in with people who are also members, you know, in terms of the because even the control of behavior can stop the flow of information, because everybody is bought into the same program.
KC Davis 22:37
That was my experience. Like with what I wasn't allowed to read certain books. When I was in rehab, I wasn't allowed to read certain books when I was on a 12 step group. And like, all of our letters were read, going in and out. We had approved people we were allowed to talk to, we had things we weren't allowed to talk to with each other, even in the back rooms. There were just subjects that we weren't allowed to talk about. And then we also had what I now know are called thought stopping cliches. Oh, yes. Right. So like, you start to wonder like, wait a second, why? And you start to like question the whole thing. And then they would give you this thought stopping cliche, can you talk about those for a minute, when I found that term, I
Chris Wilson 23:19
was like, oh, that's what those are called, you know, it's example would be something like it's all in God's hands. Everything happens for a reason, every positive, like spiritually bypassing phrase that stops the conversation that stops you critically evaluating what's happening. It's a lack of control. Like even sometimes I see this in the 12 step programs as well. Like, it's in God's hands, it's in my higher powers hands. It's when we talk about like, taking responsibility, one of the biggest things that we see is there is a weird dynamic between what you were supposed to personally be taking credit for and responsibility for, and what you put on to a higher power, divinity, God, fate, whatever, you know, it is in your particular path. But a lot of times, it puts the anything bad and shame written on you. And it puts anything good as an external attribution. That is not you and often of the group. Yeah, it was the group that got you there. But if the bad thing is that's you failing, and it's a really awful dynamic, yeah,
KC Davis 24:29
ours was always something related to like running on self will. Right. Like we were told that our addictions were because we ran on self well, and so if you started thinking like, well, this doesn't make sense. Well, why can't and it's like, Hey, your best thinking got you here. So stop thinking just follow directions. Going back to like, I mean, that's kind of right, like at my best thinking did get me there. But again, there wasn't enough knowledge about the impact of some of these things. So speaking of behavior, and informing Motion Control. And what's the TF are out with a T is thought thought control. So that's kind of like a scary thing, right? We think of thought control, we think of like, mind control as some sort of like psychic thing. But what does it look like for real?
Chris Wilson 25:15
So when we look at, like thought control, everyone's like, you know, we do have this kind of sci fi, you know, in indoctrination, it's more of the an idea of like rightness of thought, when you've controlled the behavior and you control the information. Now, internally, there is a kind of the term panopticon is one of the ones in the social sciences of social control. So the idea that God is always watching Santa Claus as watching the elf on the shelf is watching the, you know, big brother, whoever you want it, you know, you're being monitored. And therefore, you must control your own internal processes due to this. So the idea of the 1950s housewife, for example, who can't leave the house without a full face of makeup and everything perfect, because what would the neighbors think? And I have, I can't even talk about these topics. I can't think about these topics. It's inappropriate, it's taboo. And it takes the taboo not only to an external control, but you must internalize this, you must control how you think you must have it's usually a very bad cycle of shame and compulsion, oh,
KC Davis 26:35
that really hits me that was every single one, I was in recovery, and a 12 step recovery and rehab. And I'm actually a fan of the 12 steps, it works really well for some people. And they were like, really great gems in it. But it really was manipulated in some ways, especially around what is there's like a step that talks about, like, critically reviewing your day to look at, like, how was my behavior today? Did my behavior match up to my values Was I being honest, was I beat like all these things, which is like, by itself, like a great little practice of introspection, and insight, and accountability, and kindness and all this kind of stuff. But the way it got used in my life was, if you are not, quote, unquote, cleared out, right, like, if you haven't, like, confessed, whatever misstep, and it could be as something as simple as a selfish thought you had that day, it could be something as simple as I said something. And I said, because I wanted attention. And that's selfish. And if I don't go to my sponsor, and tell her that so that she can kind of like finger wag me and be like, okay, moved on. And in my mind is like, now it's absolved. Now it's out there, now, it can't trip me up and make me get drunk. But if I don't do that, so and it's similar, I think with some religions, where it's like, I could sin in my thoughts and prevent me from going to heaven. And so that same thing with my recovery, it was like, I could be thinking selfish things, I could be doing things when no one's looking. And that's somehow metaphysically connected to whether or not I'm going to stay sober. And so again, it's like a nice concept that can make you be like a better, more mature person, but it got used for thought control. Like, you have to tell us all your secrets and and we weren't allowed to quote unquote, gossip, which literally meant we just weren't allowed to talk to our friends about like, things we were struggling with you were only allowed to talk to one person about that, so that they could kind of control your, like thoughts about it, and what you thought about it.
Chris Wilson 28:44
Absolutely. And this is actually what we see a lot of times where there is an element of like overshare, forced overshare into it keeps you dependent, and very often it makes you not just like in you're familiar with all of the psychology elements of like, we have frameworks for understanding, we have schemas, we have ways of moving forward, to figure out how to evaluate and grow and there's all different sorts of modalities of how that plays out for each person. And then how a therapist might help you through this. But in a toxic format, we are in some ways, changing those, we're bastardizing them to a degree in the sense that we are taking this idea of you know, getting out what is within us, like we are taking it to the point where you are making and fostering dependency upon the group upon the program. And that is often so toxic, because again, that compulsion shame cycle happens. I compare it very often to diet culture, so your body needs food, and we need social engagement regardless of neuro type. We need some sort of people who care about us we are a social species, either On through neurodiversity, we need people to support us back and forth. And that is how we thrive. But what happens is in something like diet culture, we tell that people that they are wrong for being how they are, we tell them that they need to have a certain body type a certain way of being a certain way of thinking a certain way of, you know, that thought terminating cliche of like, nothing is tastes as good as being thin feels right? That's another thought terminating cliche that you put into this. What if you die it you are fundamentally dis regulating your engagement with food in a healthy way. And what we see is you resist, resist, resist, resist, you still want those foods, your body is craving those foods, you're still trying to do this. And now, every donut shop, you see temptation, everywhere, everything, every good smell, every anything is taking you to this point of guilt and shame. Because of the thought control, the thought control is I am better than this, and I am failing, you eat these internal narratives, I am failing. If I am even being tempted by this good food smell, I am failing, if I'm around anybody eating so then you're socially isolated. And again, it's like diet culture, you're socially isolated. So you have to spend time around people who are also doing this fad diet with you. And you move into the space where everything is now a temptation, because you've dysregulated how you're supposed to be engaging. The same thing happens with sin. I don't preach be preached that don't think about those sexual things. Don't think about the pink elephant, you know, it becomes this compulsion, the internalized thinking process of shame, internal narrative, then eventually, you are fixated on it. Because you're trying so hard not to you've oriented your entire mindset and mind to not doing the bad thing, that now the bad thing is the only thing you think about, and you compulsively engage.
KC Davis 31:54
And then it just further confirms that narrative that you are bad and without this group, so what is the E. So while you're looking it up, I'll tell you one of the craziest stories from when I was in rehab. So I was, we had this like, honesty group, where they were like, someone's lying, and we don't know who it is. And they would send us into the other room. And we had to sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything that we were lying or being dishonest about. And then you had to write on the back everything you knew that somebody else was lying about. And then you turn the papers in, and the staff would go into the other room by themselves, and they would compare them. And if they didn't match up perfectly, like if you said, I know that so and so's stole a muffin last Tuesday, if her paper didn't say I stole a muffin, right? Like if they didn't match up, they would come back in and say these don't match, do it again. And they wouldn't tell you what didn't match. And so you're sitting there and you're like, is it me? I don't know. So you're racking your brain for like, what have I lied about? What am I not being honest about? So during one of these groups, I said to the girl in front of me, I said, I've been talking to my parents about my old friends. We were not allowed to talk about our outside friends to our parents. And this girl that overheard me say that thought that what I said was I've been talking to my old friends. And for whatever reason, let's just say that talking about your old friends is like a very minor infraction. In Treatment world, talking to your old friends is like a huge felony level infraction, right? And so we're sitting in the middle of family therapy, which was done, by the way with everyone else in treatment, and all of their families sitting around you in a circle. And this girl raises her hand and says, Why aren't you getting honest about the fact you talk to your old friends? And I was like, I don't. And the staff is looking at me like, what's going on? I continue to like, stick to my guns that like, I never talked to my old friends. They call me down to a staffing one day and they say, you're not getting better. You're not getting healthier. And I think it's because you're keeping secrets. And so you need to go to bed tonight and be damn sure that you aren't keeping any secrets. And I was like, Oh God, I'm like racking my brain. Right? I should have been the middle of the night because I have this revelation. And I look at my room and go, Oh my god, I'm cheating on my schoolwork. So the way they did school in rehab was that they would give you these pockets, you would do the work. And then they would give you the teacher's manual and you would check your work. And but what I was doing was in literature class, where they're like, what does the trombone represent? Right? It's like kind of subjective also, I'm very, very good at stuff like that. So I was answering all the questions, honestly, legitimately, and then just being like, it's right 100 And not checking it. I didn't even realize that that was lying. In my head. I was just like, I'm so smart. I don't need this. Like it was arrogance for sure. But like I wasn't consciously registering it as like, that was telling a lie. But as I was like racking my brain I was like, You know what, that is true. Technically dishonest to you, like I am saying I checked this and I didn't. So when I told them that they basically accused me of like, purposely consciously keeping this secret. And my punishment was this thing called being like the decision assignment where they said, like, you can't make your own decisions, every time you make your own decisions, you make bad ones, poor ones. And so what we're going to do is, this assignment is, we're going to have an older client be your decision maker. And what that means is, is that when you wake up in the morning, that decision maker will come into your room, and you will have to run every single decision by them. Can I get out of bed now? Can I put my clothes on? Can I wash my hair? Can I get dressed? Can I go to breakfast? Can I work on treatment? Can I go to group? Can I get my food? Can I eat? Can I talk to this person in front of me, so that you will learn how to let go of control. You're too in control, which here's the thing. Maybe if that was an assignment that I came into with my own consent, that lasted a day, because you know, here's like, like a weird creative thing we're going to do, and I'm gonna learn about myself, okay, whatever. However, I didn't have consent, I was told that I had no choice that I would never go home if I didn't do it. And they kept me on it for six months. So for six months, I didn't make any of my own decisions. And what would happen is that because there are other teenagers were my decision maker, and it changed every day, we would like go through a transition where we were supposed to like leave the dining room and go to group therapy, and they would forget about me, but I couldn't make the decision to get up and go, and my decision maker wasn't there. So I had to sit there until someone remembered me. And when I told that story, a lot of people are like, Why did you just sit there?
Chris Wilson 36:37
No, I get it. You're traipsing across some of the things I've experienced in my own life in this story. And what you may have seen in my expressions, if you're watching the video there that the Yeah, I then had a couple of very, very personal kind of woundedness, I have on these things because of the fact that that level of dehumanization, that happens, I get the you don't make a decision, I'll never get out, I'll never get out. If I don't follow this, I'll never have anything again, if I don't submit to this process,
KC Davis 37:12
and I want to be better. And they're saying this is the only way to do it,
Chris Wilson 37:15
I have a couple of experiences that are almost exactly the same in the sense that it was a very high control, pagan polyamorous group that I was a part of, it's kind of a come here, and that I joined when I was really young, because I have very complex trauma, I joke, it's the made for lifetime TV movie traumatic backstory. And so I didn't have healthy boundaries at all, when I was younger. And I ended up, you know, leaving my home the middle of high school senior year, and finished a different high school, married my boyfriend at 19. And as soon as he we were married, he was you know, became exceedingly abusive and toxic, and pushed to the point where we ended up in this, you know, commune like environment that did that exact same thing to me actually removed my ability to make all decisions because naturally, everything had to be my fault, because I was the youngest, because I was the one who couldn't make those decisions. Because obviously, my choices were so awful. But in coming back from that I look at just how badly those other people were making decisions. They were just human, they were making awful decisions to they were making what they thought was going to save their own tail in that context, they were going through this, they were forgetting about me half the time to like and so I relate to the I just have to get through this I just have to survive. And that does tie back in and you were corrected. He was emotional control for the bite model here. And that actually puts in this the emotional control which is your needs are deemed wrong or selfish. The emotional baseline is you are not supposed to feel certain things. And if you feel those things, you're not supposed to tell anybody that you feel those things except the person you're supposed to confess to and then tell them how awful you are by feeling this particular thing. Not living up to your potential you're deficient your past to suspect your suspect like that it instills fear. And the list here I pulled up was fear of thinking independently fear of the outside world fear of some sort of unknown enemy losing one's salvation being shunned by the group others disapproval like very highs and lows and this is actually one of the things that came up in discussing on tick tock was the talking about cry nights became a big thing for a while where you have that whole like amalgamation of control through cultivating highs, emotional highs and lows together like this sort of like you are depraved. You were awful. You were you know you're going to hell. These are all the things you know the cold reading. I know somebody in this room back slid over the summer. I know somebody in this room, you know, just things that a normal teenager would feel and think and be. And using that to leverage the fear that maybe you weren't saved. Maybe you didn't actually mean it last year, so you got to go do that altar call now. And then doing that love bombing afterwards. Welcome back to the fold, we love you. You see, this is the true whatever, you know it, whether it's a spiritual thing, or it's any other group, you're seeing this kind of dramatic emotional highs and lows. And we're actually one of the things that one of my professors when I was doing my master's in religion, he was studying people who came from high control groups, and fundamentalist Christianity, and then became more liberal. But were using protests for that same biochemical emotional highs and lows, because that's what they were used to as experiencing the divine, that they were seeking out this protest, you know, kind of high and low this intensity, because they weren't able to feel outside of those things. Yeah, and we do end up
KC Davis 41:07
sort of perpetuating the same things, even if it's for like the opposite ideology, because we tend to lump the ideology or the religion, whether it's sobriety recovery, 12 Step, whatever. If we experienced that within a high control tactics, and we lump them together, and we kind of go, but we mistakenly assumed so then if I leave Christianity, if I leave twelve-step, if I leave that religion, or that commune, we can almost become like, now I'm anti that but I'm now I'm using the same control tactics against my new group who are also anti that and that actually kind of brings us to where I want to land the plane here, which is, I'm still a Christian, I left the churches that I was at, I'm still sober, I left the 12 step groups that I was at. And what I don't want to do here is give the impression that like, the safest thing you can do is just be alone, to not join groups to not join groups that are passionate about causes to not join communities that want to do deep community, because every time I hear someone say, you know, we need to have a real community, real community, if somebody's messing up in your community, the or the community should come around them and kind of, you know, pick them up and collect them. And it's kind of like, Yeah, but I think we need a little more education as people about how we do that without moving into these things. And so I wanted to spend the last few minutes talking about maybe just like three or four, like almost red flag green flag for people, if they're thinking about their 12 Step group, or their church or their local, you know, or the commune or whatever it is, you know, what are sort of two or three things that they can take with them that could help them maybe discern whether they're seeing some red flags,
Chris Wilson 42:50
I think one of the biggest things that I'd recommend to anyone is that you balance which is really hard to, it's easy to say hard to do, balance your passion, with rationality. And what I mean is, if you go into a new community, church, Coven, whatever, whatever you are, right, you go into this new community, and you want to let yourself be part of the process, right, you want to learn about these people, they seem really nice, it seems really cool, you know, put just a little, a little bit of rationality into this, get excited about what they're doing. But keep your eyes open. Watch, you know, the we have a tendency to want to fall in love with organizations, as much as we want to fall in love with other people in our lives. We want to be in love with the causes we have, but it can cause a kind of blindness as well, emotionally and personally, that we're not actually we're giving too much of the benefit of the doubt. So I always recommend if you are going into an order new organization, have a lunch in a coffee date or something, get to know a couple of colleagues intentionally. Now, this one will will be a really helpful thing if you really find that you love this organization, because it will help you build new connections and relationships. But one of the things I always recommend asking is asking the person or people that you do this with, can you give me a couple of downsides of this organization of this business of what's happening here? Because their ability to tell you the truth about what they're frustrated in will actually tell you how much of a control there is, if you get nothing but good. There's a certain level of fear of sharing the truth about that organization.
KC Davis 44:33
That's such a great practical tip. I think from my own experience, I have to to add to that. God that's such a good one. And clever. So minor turn a two fold, which is that like I am now weary of subgrouping. So like I don't have a problem with a religion saying we're the only way and you'll be lost if you're not with us because lots of religions think that that's fine. I can opt in or out of that however I want. Now, obviously, I don't want to opt in and be an asshole about it. But I am really weary of a church saying, We are the only church doing this brand of religion, right? You won't be okay. If you go to other churches, it to me healthy organizations say, Hey, we're not the only 12 Step group out there, if we're not for you, you know, I hope that you will give another group a try, right? Like, we're not the only Coven out there. We're not the only activist group out there, we're not the only commune I hope that if you really want CAMI in life, and we're not the right fit, like you'll try another one, without this sort of existential threat that this particular community is somehow right, the only ones that are right and superior, and you're not gonna be okay if you leave them. And then my second one is, when there is a leader, that's typically charismatic, it's a big red flag. If that leader claims to be infallible, or clairvoyant, absolutely, there's a difference between saying, I'm going to read this text and I'm going to tell you what God wants what it means, right? saying, like, Oh, God wants us to have three wives a piece. That's what this text says. Now, I don't agree with that. Right? And sure, I think that that's probably not what that text says, however, saying, our religious texts say that God wants us to have three wives, here's the whatever is different than saying, Chris, God told me that he wants you to have three wives, and he wants them to be Sarah, Mary Jean, and Beth, here are your new what? Right? Like people who say like specific things about your life, people who also claim to know you better than you know yourself, when it comes to I know your past. I know things about you that you couldn't know. And not just from a like, because I'm a mental health professional. And I can maybe see some dynamics you can't but from like a metaphysical or spiritual standpoint. And here's my caveat on that. I'm not even saying that, like, that's not a real gift. Because I don't know, maybe there are people that are clairvoyant, but what I do know is that someone who is clairvoyant and safe to be around is not going to position themselves in a place of authority above you.
Chris Wilson 47:22
Absolutely. I fully agree with that. I love your additions, because those are absolutely things that I would have added if I thought of them at the time. But yeah, that's really one of the things we have to look at is the fact that if you have a spiritual leader who is speaking about again, I don't really care which belief you are part of. I'm a Jacqueline I, I am Christian. But I also work in a lot of interfaith contexts. And so I don't really care who you say, you know, okay, I believe in this or not believe in this or whatever. But when we drill down to the community dynamics, me telling you what you have to do, because I have some mystical ability to tell you exactly how you should live your life is a major red flag, it is such a huge red flag, because regardless of whether you believe or not, eventually it becomes the argument of, I can control you with whatever my filter my interpretation, my best interest is for you, and I expect you to take that word, and just live with it because you are not as good as I am. There's a power dynamic there that is inherently vulnerable for the people who are part of a community like that, that has a leader. And so we have to be careful. And there are every good framework, every positive psychology framework, every positive religious framework, every belief we can have, can be misused by toxic people to their own ends. That is the biggest thing is these frameworks are not inherently a bad thing. But you have to watch out for the people who are going to misuse them for their own means events.
KC Davis 48:59
Awesome. Well, Chris, thank you so much for making the time and I hope that there are some people listening that really maybe got some tangible nuggets to take away either for their healing or for their escape.
Chris Wilson 49:10
Well, thank you. It's wonderful to be here today.