On page 232 of Take Back, a woman named Alexandra Stein describes how writing of her cult experience helped her heal.  Somehow, she was able to begin writing immediately upon exiting.  I find that amazing, because for me, it is 7 years later, and all I am doing is journaling.  Anyway, I want to quote what she wrote about the benefits of writing about her experience:

"1) Writing about my involvement required a close review and analysis of exactly how I had been manipulated, so I relived the whole experience, which, while difficult, helped me understand and integrate it; 2) By the end of writing the book, I felt I could say I was a writer, which was most important in rebuilding a sense of identity that I could call my own; 3) It helped a great deal with the shame I was feeling.  I decided early on to come out about my cult experience because I felt the shame was part of the reason cultic abuse has remained a significantly hidden issue.  I was able to more or less turn this around and, in a sense, be proud and regard my experience as socially useful.  I refused to be ashamed of it.  In that regard, becoming a cult-awareness activist was particularly important to me."

Those words hit me like I was tackeld by a linebacker.  "I refused to be ashamed of it."  ????   What an amazing attitude!!!  How wonderful it would be if I could stop feeling shame and start being proud that I was strong enough to tell this story!!!

She's completing a Ph.D in sociology.  Wow.  What if letting go of shame, is simply a matter of...

1.  Sharing the secret in the right place and time (which I did)

2)  Letting it go  (which I can)

Deciding.  Deciding to no longer be ashamed.  That takes about 2 seconds.  Hmmm...yet I can still hear myself arguing that I SHOULD be ashamed...

Why should I?  When I feel strong, I say I'm proud of my past because The anti-Christ couldn't break my faith in God...but do I really mean that I'm proud of my past when... I think about how I wrote that I was happy to have a man between my legs?  Of course I wasn't happy, it was obvious in the letter that it was a letter describing my torture and then saying I was so happy with my caling,.  But why in my insanity did I write that?  Should I be proud of that?  Or ashamed?

Or simply - fascinated by the workings of my own brain.  I was clearly "doubling."  I'll write about that next time.  It's amazing.

/>I am determined to work through this.