Victim's Mentality
Some people, when they hear about the activities of the Sufi Spiritual Abuse Recovery Assistance Group, object because they believe it tends to encourage a ‘victim’s mentality’. However, this program actually was set in motion to provide people with an opportunity to acquire or share experiences, information, as well as understanding in relation to the problems, characteristics, issues, questions, and dynamics of spiritual abuse –– both with respect to the abuser as well as those who have been abused.
We have found -- and, in addition, other individuals who are involved with trying to lend assistance to the process of detoxification which is required to deal with the emotional, social, psychological, and spiritual devastation that ensues from the growing realization in a person who has been exposed to the destructive effects of abusive behavior –– that a period of debriefing is a necessary part of the healing process. Anyone who supposes that all one has to do is acknowledge that spiritual abuse is present and, then, one can move on to other things, simply does not grasp the truly toxic and insidious impact which spiritual abuse has on an individual –– in fact, there is a very good chance that individuals who think in this fashion are either in denial about the presence of spiritual abuse in their lives, or they look at the phenomenon from a safe, comfortable distance and have no real insight into the nature of just how ugly, cruel, demeaning, callous, and vicious the perpetration of spiritual abuse is.
One will not be ready to move on in a healthy, constructive manner until one understands the structural character of the problem, and until one has had an opportunity to work through the many emotions and problems surrounding this attack on identity, meaning, purpose, and spirituality in a person’s life. Among other things, there are stages of grief which must be acknowledged and traveled with respect to the profound sense of loss which often accompanies experiences of spiritual abuse –– a pervasive sense of loss concerning truth, trust, friendship, sincerity, purpose, meaning, identity, security, community, peace, stability, and understanding.
Although we must all take full responsibility for the choices we make, nevertheless, when people use tactics of: deception, disinformation, manipulation, psychological and social pressure, misdirection, exploitation of emotional vulnerabilities, compliance induced obedience or conformity, undermining of critical thinking faculties, de-stabilizing one’s sense of identity, sleep-deprivation, love bombing, isolation, invasion of personal space, trance-induction, re-framing, stress, neural linguistic programming, and/or dissonance in order to gain authoritarian control over people’s lives, then, an individual often does not know what they are becoming entangled in until it is too late and substantial toxicity already has spread through one’s system.
The foregoing tactics, when used skillfully, have proven to be effective in shaping, coloring, and re-orienting mental and emotional processes in even those people who have been warned about the powerful nature of the spiritual, emotional, social, ideological, and psychological deconstruction techniques which are about to be used. People who have gone into such settings knowing the character of the game that is being played have succumbed to the process in as little as 48 hours. When a person is blind-sided by a collection of such techniques –– that is, when a person is initiated into the transformational process without knowing what is being done –– there are very people who can come out of that set of experiences unscathed ... no matter how intelligent or self-willed or independent they may believe themselves to be –– in fact, in some ways, such arrogant, self-conceit actually is a very exploitable vulnerability by people who are abusive ... as the Satanic Al Pacino character says to the Keanu Reeves character in the movie -- Devil’s Advocate -- “Vanity is definitely my favorite sin.”
It has been said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat such errors. Similarly, people who do not learn –– in a very fundamental manner –– about the phenomenon of spiritual abuse and how it introduces powerful toxins and sources of subliminal influence into one’s system, leave themselves vulnerable to further rounds of exploitation by others.
In fact, some people who are too quick to want to move on and bury the past, are really merely trying to avoid the considerable work which must be done in order to regain control over one’s life. Moreover, unknowingly, some of the people who think they have moved on are merely whistling past the cemetery, or, in fact, some of these abused people are actually still being manipulated, controlled, exploited and used by the abusers in order to try to do damage control or effect a cover-up of what is actually going on in order to muddy the waters and make it more difficult for others to come to learn the truth about what is actually transpiring.
We have known since the time of the Stockholm Syndrome, that people who are taken hostage without consent come to identify with their captors. Similarly, people who have been abused sometimes become the apologists for the abusers (and many forms of spiritual abuse are really instances of taking the minds and hearts of people hostage through non-voluntary means).
When this happens, they make excuses for, or try to re-frame the character of events, or indicate that the abusers are themselves being abused and really can’t help themselves even as all manner of evidence mounts that the abusers knowingly lie, deceive, manipulate, coerce, seduce, and do damage to people. Or, such abused individuals try to persuade others that no real damage has been done, or that there is no evil, or that, underneath everything, the abusers are all innocent, sweet, caring, passionate, loving people who, perhaps, made a few errors of judgment here and there ... but, certainly nothing to get all upset about and let’s just forgive and move on.
However, meaningful forgiveness requires awareness of what has transpired. Moving on -- at least, if it is to be healthy and constructive -- requires an understanding of what has transpired. And, a person who is still caught-up in the emotional turbulence set in motion by spiritual abuse and, as a result, seeks to be an apologist for those who have been and are continuing to be abusive toward others, has neither the awareness nor understanding to able to forgive or move on in any way that is essentially healthy.
Such individuals will continue to associate with the abusers in various ways, under the guise that they (the ones who have been abused) are merely trying to help or assist or be compassionate and loving toward the misguided abusers. Yet, until one has regained control of one’s life, one is not in any position to be helpful, or lend assistance or be compassionate in any but a very superficial and self-serving manner.
First, one must become healthy. However, one will never be able to detoxify as long as one continues to associate with the abusers.
If one places a rock in an outhouse, the rock will absorb the aromatic ambience of the outhouse. And, human beings are a lot more vulnerable and permeable to environmental influences than a rock is.
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