The Spirit Within

I’m writing this story as “Anon” because the “finding myself” course I took three years ago required  me to sign a contract stating I would never print or have published anything about the course, its contents or my experiences with “the company” and its first three-day forum. But let me say this …

Three years ago my husband and I decided to follow a number of very sensible and hard-working friends who had decided to partake in a life-building “forum” run over three days.

The seminar promised to change our lives and help us strengthen our family ties and our marriage. It seemed to have had an enormously good effect on several friends, although I was disturbed by what I viewed as an extraordinarily good marketing and sales pitch being run via human beings who happened to be my friends.

Of course, there was money involved. But I thought if my husband was willing to take the chance, so was I.

He had to take the course first; I was studying and had exams coming up and couldn’t partake in what sounded like a three-day nightmare until a few weeks later.

After his course was over, and before I took mine, I watched my husband make some uncharacteristically emotional phone calls to his family. I watched him walk around our neighborhood and introduce himself to neighbors we had long decided were not worth knowing. He was using the language they had taught him.

I watched him sell this company and its educational courses to friends far and wide. I watched him use my cell phone to get numbers of people he didn’t usually speak with.

I became scared. But I knew I had to take the seminar to build any credible argument against this cult-like company and its teachings.

So along I went. Friday 9 a.m. sharp. Until midnight. And again the next day, and the next. Of course, I was angry and very anti what they were teaching us. I recognized elements of things I’d learned while studying psychology at university years ago. I recognized the zombie-like staff as salesmen working their way around us, the audience, as they enlisted us for the next course. It, of course, was more expensive, but something you “just had to take”.

Then something happened. I was sleep deprived. I started drowning. Drowning in issues I hadn’t dealt with properly for many years. Issues I later learned needed dealing with professionally. Properly.

Meanwhile, my husband had been coerced into signing up for the next round. He didn’t tell me. I was furious. We fought. We burned each other’s hearts to such an extent that it still hurts today to think about those weeks.

He saw the light eventually. He got his money back, just. But in the meantime, I had what I prefer to call a small nervous breakdown. It involved panic attacks and thoughts of this company we had become involved with coming to my home and injecting me in the foot with a needle to prevent me talking about our horrible experiences.

I became lost one day coming home from the office. Suddenly everything was blurry and I couldn’t breathe. Nothing made sense. I thought everybody was on their cell phones telling “the company” where I was. My husband called an ambulance.

I learned later I had developed a severe stress disorder with associated panic attacks.

I got help. And was relieved to find I’d been sent to a psychiatrist who specialized in dealing with others who had taken the course. He had taken the course himself to find out more.

I had undergone a form of brainwashing, I was told. And I had rejected it. But not immediately, and not entirely, so I was confused and in shock.

It took about six weeks for the panic attacks to stop. We continued to receive marketing calls from “the company”. Friends who’d taken the bait continued to sell to us. They didn’t care about my state of affairs, they just wanted my husband to reconsider doing course number two. They told me I should never have taken the first course, because, clearly, I had issues.

Doesn’t everyone?

My husband and I are no longer together. I won’t give “the company” the credit for pulling my relationship apart. Of course, there was more to it than that.

But I have moved on, and so has he. With much regret and more sadness than I can cope with at times.

Today, I know I need to rely on me. On my spirit and my strength. No one, no religion or forum, can do that for me.

Soon, I hope I will want to use my newfound strengths to help others. Not via a church, a cult or “company”, but through my friends, family and the people who matter around me.

One day, my ex-husband and I will be able to laugh out loud, together, about it all. Until then, we’re still working through it.

+ Anonymous

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