“I Got Mine-Ism” Amongst Cult and ex-Cult Members

The Unbearable Smugness of Bypassing

I’ll preface this post by saying that, in accordance with the clinical research, I do not believe there are strong correlations between prior life experience and the likelihood that a person will join or stay in a cult (or “totalist”, or “high-demand” group.) What follows is a speculation, based on memory and anecdote, on why people who are already inside such a group may be more prone to the kind of enabling and moral harm that Facebook friend Joseph Teskey has described to me as “I Got Mine-ism”.

I Got Mine-ism is a defensive strategy by which a member who has not (or believes they have not) directly experienced abuse or institutional betrayal within the group deflects stories of abuse within the group by immediately self-referring, saying things like:

“I don’t know about other’s experience; I find/found the teacher/teachings to be profoundly helpful in my life.”

The statement is usually couched within an unwillingness to act on behalf of victims, or mitigate future harm.

In my own two cult experiences, I adopted the defence of I Got Mine-ism to varying degrees, and I remember many others who did as well. In the circle of people I’m thinking of, none of us (that I’m aware of) had prior experience…