Pam Curtis
My mother joined a cult when I was a teen, and now I think my son’s joined one too. There’s an old saying — ‘clogs to clogs in three generations’ — which talks about traits, which skip a generation. Maybe that’s what has happened to me.
When I was a teen, my mom joined a cult, and it changed our relationship forever. She was lonely and miserable in her marriage, and needed something to cling to for her salvation. She also had five children, and a husband who worked a lot. In her search for happiness and escape, she joined a fundamentalist religious movement. Having raised us all as Catholic and attended Catholic elementary school, my mom suddenly announced at the dinner table that we were no longer Catholics. None of us knew what to think. All of my siblings cried.
I know that not all religions are cults; there is nothing wrong with religion as long as it doesn’t consume you, as it consumed my mom. This religion felt like a cult since it took her away from her family. Religion is supposed to build a strong and healthy family, not tear it apart. A year later, my father moved out. She spent all her time reading the Bible, and going to prayer meetings and Bible studies. She told us how much happier she was now and that she wouldn’t have made it without this new group and the new friends it gave her. But we didn’t see a happy woman. Her personality had changed. She was so immersed in this newfound religion, it seemed she had forgotten she had five children. Three were teenagers; I was one of them. My sister and I thought our mom had disappeared and there was a different mom in her place. We kept wondering where our old mom had gone and when she would come back. I didn’t like the new mom. The old mom was fun: she played with us, and she was involved in our lives. The new mom ignored us. She only talked about religion and was totally disengaged.
It did not escape me, even at the age of thirteen, that the other members of this group were ex-addicts, ex-felons, ex-whatever. All seemed to have addictive personalities. My other siblings seemed to follow along with the new religion, whereas I didn’t. My mom’s mission in life then became to convert me, the holdout. It put a strain on our relationship: the more she pushed her religion, the further she pushed me away; the more she preached, the more flaws I saw. However, when I had my son, I realized she went back to being the mom I knew when she was with him. Even though the old mom never came back to me, she was a very kind and loving person and I grew to look past her religious obsession and accept her, the way she was. She also mellowed with age and embraced having grandchildren. My dear mom lived the rest of her life in this religion until she recently passed away. It’s difficult for me to talk about her, because I don’t want to paint her as a bad person. She wasn’t. She just threw herself into something that I couldn’t relate to. I loved her dearly, despite everything. She also re-married and became healthier and happy.
My son was recruited by an online cult two years ago, at the age of 15. He was lonely, and had trouble making and keeping friends. He also needed something to cling to for his salvation. He then spent all his time learning about and researching this ideology, and seemed to forget who he was in the process. He was unrecognizable from the son I raised. I kept wondering when our old son would return. I figured he was just a teen: he would grow up and his old self would come back. I didn’t like the new son. The old son was adventurous, interesting, and happy. The new son was anxious, depressed, and rude. The old son has not come back, but I have learned to accept what he is going through. I still worry that he won’t come back at all.
Cults easily prey on vulnerable people with black and white thinking like my son and my mother. My son always felt he was different and found a group that accepted him. He immediately had new friends, as he didn’t have any doubts about his newfound religion. The other members of this cult dictated to him how he should think, what his favorite color should be, that he should choose a new name, what clothes to wear, and what hairstyle he should have. He was encouraged to cut ties with family for this new religion: they were his family now. He was encouraged to give up his interests and activities so he could fit in with this group. He was encouraged to socialize only with its members. The more he talked about it, the more he pushed me away, and the more flaws I saw. This cult has not brought my son health and happiness.
Both my mom and my son were lonely and looking for answers when they fell into their respective cults. This last year, with Covid, has been very difficult for all of us, especially my mom and my son. Before my mom passed, she was in assisted living and I worried about her being stuck in her room, all alone with only unfamiliar strangers to take care of her. When she moved in, just a year prior to Covid, she was so happy. She loved the new place, the food, the outings and the people. I felt she was in good hands and she would thrive there. I didn’t know that, once Covid hit, she would be like a prisoner in solitary confinement, not allowed to leave her room. The only visitors were the staff and her children on FaceTime once a week. She was so happy to see all our faces, but we had to watch her decline. Once again, loneliness seemed to become a part of her life, allowing dementia to take a hold of her mind.
In my son’s case, I hope his new ideology does not change our relationship forever, as it did my mom’s. It does not get past me that I seem to have lost my mother and my son to this phenomenon. Can cults be hereditary, I wonder, like eating disorders? Are you born with a proclivity towards joining a cult? I often wonder why I did not fall into one, nor struggle with addictions, and neither did any of my four siblings. Do these things skip a generation?
I did not realize how vulnerable kids on the autism spectrum are to cults until it happened to my son. These kids experience life differently. They may be sensitive to physical stimuli and have trouble reading social cues, but they are really comfortable with computers, and my son was a natural. I wish I had known how easily predators and groomers reach vulnerable kids online. Covid has not made it any better. My son has been going to school online for a year now, with no way to escape loneliness or see his friends in person. Just like my mom being shuttered in her room with no way to escape her solitude, my son has had no way out, and is turning even more towards his cult.
My mom’s religion promoted magical thinking and unquestioning beliefs. My son, too, always had magical thinking. He loved fantasy and books and movies on this genre. He played video games that promoted the idea of escape and avatars.
My mom’s religion taught her helplessness. She believed everything would be taken care of for her, and was very impressionable. She followed along with whatever she was told. My son’s helplessness followed what was popular on the internet; he became fixated on anime. I didn’t realize the impact anime has on impressionable minds. It was the gateway drug to transgenderism, my son’s cult. He wanted to transition medically, right away. According to the gender doctor, this was the only direction for my son, or any children who say they are transgender. My son decided to change his name to a girl’s name. He now calls his birth name his ‘dead name’.
In my mom’s day, religion was part of your life and it was something you could always turn to for help. Today, a lot of kids like mine are not raised in any religion. I always thought raising a child in a religion taught morality; but when I met my husband, he was the most moral person I’d ever encountered, and he was not raised in a religion at all. Since religion has fallen out of vogue with a lot of young people, they are turning to online communities to find a sense of belonging. And if they are struggling and looking for an escape, the only answer seems to be transgenderism.
My mom’s religion promoted tribalism. She felt that if you did not believe what she did, then you were not good, and should not be treated equally. My son feels that if you do not share his beliefs about gender, then you are not his equal and are a terrible person: a terf or a transphobe.
The faith, which was at the core of my mother’s religion made her ignore other facts. Lots of people who have religious faith have no problem hearing different ideas, but not her. My son has placed all his faith in hormones. He thinks that they will save him: no science or contradictory evidence will change his mind.
His announcement was just like my mom’s. It came out of the blue, and it changed everything in the process. Just as my mom’s new religion meant that I lost the friends and the sense of community I had, my son’s transgenderism has shown me who my real friends are — and aren’t. I missed the traditions of Catholicism, and there didn’t seem to be a way back to them. And I miss my old son, before he got so obsessed with his identity. I want to find a way back to him, too.
Many times throughout my life, my mom was told — and believed — that the world would end and she would be saved. She would put a date on these events, and tell me goodbye. She thought I would be the only one to remain behind in her family, because I was the non-believer. I knew that I should not lie to her. When the dates passed and she remained on Earth, I asked what happened; and she would say that it was because of all the prayer. It just made her dig in deeper. My son believes that transition will save him, too. If this doesn’t work, will he move onto surgeries? Will it just make him dig deeper? I cannot lie to him either.
My mom’s religion perpetuated power in the institution. She gave all her extra money to the church. My son and many young adults like him plan to take hormones, giving power and money to doctors, surgeons, and Big Pharma.
Most people, like my mom, never leave their religion — but they are not asked to take harmful drugs in order to stay within it. In my son’s religion, the drugs prescribed are not FDA approved, and there are no long-term studies that determine their benefits. My son can’t even tell us why he thinks he is transgender, but the doctor seems to think this doesn’t matter. The doctor also assured us that almost no one changes his or her mind. I’ve met some of the people who’ve changed their minds.
My mom did not die of Covid but of loneliness. I am sad that she was so alone in her last year on Earth. I’m also sorry that my 17-year-old son spent his last year in Covid isolation too. I feel like I lost my mother and my son in the same year. Are they victims of circumstances or of genetics? Was joining a cult a behavior they could not avoid? As difficult it was for me losing my mother to her religion, she was not harmed physically. My son’s religion will harm him. I didn’t follow my mom because my gut told me differently; I won’t follow my son, either.
I feel like I let my mom down; I feel like I let my son down. I couldn’t keep her from dying of loneliness and I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my son safe either. But there is still time for my son, and his old self to come back to me.
Pam Curtis is a pseudonym.
