Aftereffects of Spiritually Abusive Situations

Common aftereffects of involvement in spiritually abusive churches and cults can be found listed on this site called Cult Awareness and Information Centre. Some highlights:

• flashbacks to cult life
• disassociation (spacing out) feeling “out of it”
• “Stockholm Syndrome”: knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is criticized, even if the cult hurt the person
• difficulty concentrating
• hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticizes the cult, or the cult itself
• dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake
• loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks
• dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult hang-overs of habitual cult behaviors like chanting
• trouble holding down a job