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In Reply to: Re: Brainwashing (Thought reform is different) posted by Chain breaker on July 28, 2005 at 18:41:23:
You've summed up brilliantly how I feel about this.
One of the reasons that the mental prison is so hard to escape is that the prison bars, so to speak, are constantly being reinforced, through the various means you've mentioned. It seems from what I've heard or read that for many people leaving TF was a gradual process, rather than a spur-of-the-moment one.
Like you, I had many breakings and humiliations. It wasn't any one incident, but a series of events over several years, so it's hard to determine what my tipping point was. It wasn't just waking up to the reality of the situation that took time, but it also took me a year or so to come up with and implement a rather complicated plan of escape, which almost failed due to my last minute wavering.
The various professionals I've spoken to on my healing journey have all acknowledged the difficulty of breaking from high demand organizations, and commended me for doing so after being in for so many years, though that didn't cheer me up much.
