Interacting with Family and Friends in the Group you Left Behind

Leaving a religious community or cult is very difficult work. You are leaving your community of people, your belief system, and much of what you know. This process is destabilizing, as you uproot and change your life. After leaving your group, you probably have complicated feelings about your relationships with people who are still in the group. In this article, we’ll cover a few different ways to assess what you need and set boundaries to maintain your well-being.

Boundaries

Boundaries are the most important component of interacting with loved ones who are still in the group that you left. You are the expert on your experience, so you know what your group is like and your needs. It might take some time to figure out, but considering what you want in relationships is crucial. Here are some boundaries to consider.

• What topics you’ll discuss: You get to decide what these topics are, and they might change over time. 

• What you will and won’t allow people to say to you: An example of this might be not allowing people to tell you that they disapprove of your choices because of their belief systems. If that’s not how you feel about your choices, you don’t have to allow that kind of comment.

• What types of interactions you want: Maybe you want to spend time with people in person, or maybe you only want to interact with them via text or over the phone. You get to decide what feels right for you.

• How much time you want to spend with people: This one is pretty straightforward.

Reality Checks

You might experience gaslighting during these interactions, making you question your reality. The people who are still in your group might deny your experience, and tell you things weren’t as bad as you say they were. Before interacting with people from the group you left, putting some reality checks in place might be helpful.

• Affirmations: Identify the affirmations that you want as reminders. These might be sentiments like, “I am safe.” “I am worth respecting.” It might be helpful to repeat these to yourself in your head, on maybe even write them in a note on your phone so you can look over them.

• Connecting with safe people: Identify the people that you can reach out to if you have difficult conversations or interactions with loved ones who are still in your group.

Relationships outside of your group

This isn’t exactly having interactions with loved ones in the group that you left, but it’s also important to build relationships outside of your group. No one can replace the relationships that you already have, but your life is changing and you deserve to have relationships in your new stage of life. This might feel intimidating, especially if you left a group that forbids or limits social interaction with people outside of the group, but it’s worth it. You will experience difficult transitions, and you deserve to have support. 

It might be helpful to connect with others who have left your specific group (like finding an ex-Mormon or ex-Baptist group), or just people who can relate to leaving a religious group. It’s also great to build relationships in the spaces you inhabit, like with coworkers or other parents at the school your kids go to. This might also be the first time that you can build relationships with people over the things you enjoy. This could be finding people to hike with, do crafts, watch movies, or other hobbies. You can have relationships that are based solely on enjoyment.

This is a brief overview of some things that might be helpful, but we encourage you to use these topics as a way to self-reflect on what you want and what is right for you.

Survivors: If you are struggling after leaving a religious or culty group and needing more direction, education and support, we have a curated membership just for you. Join us at A Year of Non-Magical Thinking and learn about how indoctrination and cult dynamics work. We walk you through how to make sense of your experience and understand why your friends and family might stay in the group.

Therapists: If you are currently supporting clients that have left a culty group and are mourning and confused because they had to leave their friends and family behind, join us for A Year of Non-Magical Thinking for Therapists to learn how we can better support these clients. This is a curated education and consultation platform to help you feel supported and educated about what your clients are experiencing. Join us todya.