You can believe you are in control of a situation so long as you are peripherally aware that you're observing and monitoring.
Problem is, this peripheral awareness records incidents one by one, but cannot
compute all the incidents over time to form a pattern that gives you the
information you need to either stay or leave.
This peripheral self monitors the leader and group's inconsistencies, unkept promises, acts of ingratitude, the abuses. But, the peripheral self records these as separate incidents.
In an abusive situation or group, this peripheral self with its 'itemizing awareness' cannot add things up. Each incident is recorded, one after the other, then that long scroll of incidents rolls up.
Over time, over years, decades, that list of untoward incidents noted by your peripheral awareness would, if converted into cash register tape, form a list that if laid flat would stretch from the county line downtown to City Hall.
So long as the self - and awareness -- is kept peripheral, abuses, gut warnings, lost friends, misgivings are merely itemized and observed in isolation. Nothing is done to sum them up, look at them together, in context, and over time.
The peripheral self is
aware, but only aware of each incident and cannot see the entire pattern or
of abuses you and others have endured.
Because peripheral awareness itemizes inconsistencies and abuses one by one and
in isolation, there is timelessness - no sense of time passing, no sense of time
being lost or wasted.
Not so. Your true self has been shoved to the sidelines, or as they say in
sports, your true self has been 'benched'.
One can send *years* even decades, just waiting for the right sign to
leave, and all that time you're become accustomed to the very situation
that has led to this self cleavage.
Because this peripheral self cannot add up each incident that self cannot
ever compute to convert all those isolated incidents of abuse into not
incidents but information -- information that you're in a game that does not
even follow the rules it claimed to follow when you were recruited and later
initiated.
So long as awareness is peripheral awareness, awareness of abusive incidents
can go on for decades because in peripheral awareness you cannot compute
those incidents into information that forms a pattern.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Problem is, this peripheral awareness records incidents one by one, but cannot
compute all the incidents over time to form a pattern that gives you the
information you need to either stay or leave.
This peripheral self monitors the leader and group's inconsistencies, unkept promises, acts of ingratitude, the abuses. But, the peripheral self records these as separate incidents.
In an abusive situation or group, this peripheral self with its 'itemizing awareness' cannot add things up. Each incident is recorded, one after the other, then that long scroll of incidents rolls up.
Over time, over years, decades, that list of untoward incidents noted by your peripheral awareness would, if converted into cash register tape, form a list that if laid flat would stretch from the county line downtown to City Hall.
So long as the self - and awareness -- is kept peripheral, abuses, gut warnings, lost friends, misgivings are merely itemized and observed in isolation. Nothing is done to sum them up, look at them together, in context, and over time.
The peripheral self is
aware, but only aware of each incident and cannot see the entire pattern or
of abuses you and others have endured.
Because peripheral awareness itemizes inconsistencies and abuses one by one and
in isolation, there is timelessness - no sense of time passing, no sense of time
being lost or wasted.
Not so. Your true self has been shoved to the sidelines, or as they say in
sports, your true self has been 'benched'.
One can send *years* even decades, just waiting for the right sign to
leave, and all that time you're become accustomed to the very situation
that has led to this self cleavage.
Because this peripheral self cannot add up each incident that self cannot
ever compute to convert all those isolated incidents of abuse into not
incidents but information -- information that you're in a game that does not
even follow the rules it claimed to follow when you were recruited and later
initiated.
So long as awareness is peripheral awareness, awareness of abusive incidents
can go on for decades because in peripheral awareness you cannot compute
those incidents into information that forms a pattern.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Quote
There have been long term victims who have written about a separate or parallel "self," awareness, or consciousness hidden away from the cult "self" that quietly records the real truth and acts as a dump or repository for all the doubts, questions, skepticism, humor, and other un-cult-like thoughts or impulses. They describe this awareness as something they attempt to ignore, though it seems to have a life of its own and often asserts itself in sleep or times of stress. They use cult techniques to silence it, often blaming themselves for their inability to destroy it completely. Religions have taken this "self" as a sign of satan's untiring vigilance and impetus for people to work harder and harder to maintain control of their own (the church's) minds, apparently having no problem with the paradox or hypocrisy. I find the existence of this parallel self heartening. The ones who are most successful at dampening this awareness are in reality the failures, the apparent failures the truly successful, being those who release themselves to a higher truth above the cult or religion's definition. Sad to say, this truth has more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty, and more "unknowing" than most people can tolerate. Too bad the human race is so quick to rush to the safety of answers and certainty. It might be our undoing.
Ellen