Less-Than Latte Life

Emotional beatdowns, forced humility, and surviving decades of “you’re in trouble, bitch.”

I was raised to ask questions, just not to question. But if you did, suddenly you were questioning, and that was a problem. The end result? I became a “do as you’re told” robot, I shut up.

I’ve spent my whole damn life being infantilized, intimidated, manipulated, questioned, and controlled, so of course I question myself eight hundred and seventy-three times a day.

“Am I the problem?”

Or my personal favourite: “God, I probably sound so fucking stupid,” right in the middle of a sentence.

I’m 5’8” barefoot, but the second I’m in a meeting, any meeting, anywhere, I swear I shrink to about 2’2”. The deacons, elders, and so-called “leaders” of the cult trained that into me, and no matter how many hours I spend in therapy untangling it, that smallness still creeps in.

I was raised to avoid compliments. Don’t accept them, don’t let them explode your head, and if anyone ever found out I didn’t swerve? Emotional beatdown. Humble pie. Modest milkshake. Subservient sundae. Less-than latte.

My therapist says when someone gives a compliment, it’s because they want to. Sure, maybe. But I’ve got a wall so concrete I’ll always downplay it, turn it around, deflect, say no, or just laugh in that painfully awkward way. You know the laugh, right? Or wait, maybe you’re normal.

People invite me to their tables. They want me there, and I’m like… why?

These are my inner rumblings, unfiltered. Maybe oversharing, maybe a little too vulnerable, but hey, that’s me.

Why me? How do people even manage to say the nice things they say about me?! For the love of all things, I’d take negativity any day, it’s comfortable, familiar. But nooo, exposure therapy, growth, yada yada.

The more I grow, the more trouble my trauma thinks I’m in. My brain keeps forgetting it’s 2025, eight years past being kicked out of a cult, and not 2013, being hauled into another goddamn cult slap session.

At work, I sit in meetings, important meetings. People ask for my opinion. My point of view is actually listened to, heard, and still… the stupid cult voice pops up in my head, nagging, “You’re in trouble, bitch.”

I’m not in trouble. My thoughts matter. My voice matters, and yet… I don’t know what it will take to actually believe that.

The wild thing? I’ll preach all of this to everyone around me. I believe it for them, but my trauma? It won’t let me believe it for myself. Fucked, huh? Like, thanks brain, love the pep talk.

I don’t even know what the point of this blog is. It’s basically built-up feelings vomited onto a page. Maybe someone else feels the same? Or maybe it’s just therapy disguised as public humiliation.

Or maybe it’s a message for those who want to tell my story: it’s not the survivors a year or two out who are the most worn down. It’s us - 8, 15, 25, 40 years plus out, still fighting these silent battles, most of the time alone, because our trauma has convinced us we’re alone, and because we refuse to give up the deconstruction fight. Basically, we’re like the annoying cockroaches of cult recovery, survivors that just won’t die, no matter how many times you try to squish us.

A year from now… my brain will probably have found a new, even more ridiculous way to make me doubt myself… or maybe, just maybe, it’ll actually believe.