Post-Cult After Effects: Floating

I will begin this post with the same warning as the previous one. Not all the ex-members of cults and abusive churches experience all the post-cult after effects. It is normal to experience only some or even none of them. If you did not notice that you experienced a certain after effect or are uncertain whether you experienced it or not, do not try to find it in your experience. Consider it as somebody's else experience, not yours. As I wrote previously, I did not experience any floatings for 3.5 years after leaving, and began to experience them soon after reading Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control.

I noticed quite a serious difference between the descriptions of floating given by Hassan and by Dr. Margaret Singer. Hassan's description is based on his DID (dissociative identity disorder) theory. According to that theory, cult mind control forms a new identity, or personality, in addition to the original one (real identity). Hassan calls this new identity "cult identity." According to Hassan, floating is a switch from the real identity to the cult identity, experienced by an ex-cult member when something (so-called "trigger") reminds him/her of the cult experience. In order to get rid of floatings, he advises to find out the triggers that cause floating and make a new associations. For example, since he was a Moonie, the word "moon" reminded him of San Myung Moon. So, he reminded himself of the real meaning of the word "moon" in order to get rid of this trigger. Then, he gives a list of possible triggers.

Margaret Singer in Cults in Our Midst, chapter 12 describes floating in a different way.

A number of cult practices tend to produce varying degrees of trance states, disrupt normal reflective thought, and interrupt a person's general reality orientation (GRO). After practicing or participating in certain exercises and activities for years, some of these undesirable habits become ingrained. Both while in the cult and after leaving, a number of persons involuntarily enter dissociative states and have difficulty maintaining reflective thinking and concentration. Time goes by without their being aware of it. During these periods, they have certain kinds of memories and slip into altered states of consciousness, which they sometimes call flashbacks or floating. But these are, in fact, forms of dissociation.

Dissociation is a normal mental response to anxiety. A momentary anxiety arises when internal or external cues (trigger) set off a memory, a related idea, or a state of feeling that has anxiety attached to it. This brief anxiety experience alerts the mind to split off - that is, the mind stops paying attention to the surrounding reality of the moment. The person becomes absorbed and immersed in some other mental picture, idea, or feeling. This dissociation occurs unexpectedly and unintentionally and it is this dissociation that can be experienced as a floating effect.

Most of the time the floating is described by former cult members as "how I felt while in the group." Sometimes the feeling is one of nostalgia for some aspect of the cult. Sometimes it is a feeling of fear that the person should go back to the cult. Most of the time, people describe it as being suspended between the two worlds of present life and the past cult life.

Triggers, flashbacks, and floating are part of the normal repertoire of the human mind, but usually people experience them as brief, infrequent episodes. Because certain cult practices tend to produce hypnotic states and are used extensively for prolonged periods, people emerge with years of practice in how to dissociate. What are transient, brief mental moments for the ordinary person become practiced and reinforced behaviors for cult members. The moments of dissociation become intensified, prolonged, and disruptive experiences; they prevent sustained reflective thinking, concentration, and the ability to plan ahead.

Because these dissociative responses are overlearned, they become distracting, immobilizing habits. They often occur when a person has to shift from one task to the next. It's as though the choice of what to do next sets off the act of spacing out. In the cult, that moment of what to do next was stressful: you had to make a decision knowing that all decisions had to be "right" and that you could get into trouble if your decision was wrong. This experience is perhaps the source of the apparent conditioning that causes decision making to trigger a dissociation.

Consequently, great difficulty in making decisions is common among ex-members. At times they do not know what to do, say, or think. It is as though they suddenly become dependent and childlike, looking for direction. In the cult, they followed a predetermined path of obedience. Now they find themselves fearful, feeling stupid and guilty, and not knowing what to do. The newly found independent decision making process becomes riddled with fears and anxieties - all ripe moments for floating.

Floating episodes occur more frequently when someone is tired or ill, at the end of the day, on long highway drives, or doing highly repetitive tasks - that is, when the person feels weary and unfocused but must also think. A period of dissociation and a puzzled moment of wondering, What just happened to my thoughts and feelings? Will arrive at such times. It helps if former members can learn to recognize those vulnerable moments in their lives for the conditioned responses that they are.

The most important differences are:
1. Margaret Singer describes floating as a form of dissociation, not as an experience of the cult identity.
2. Margaret Singer writes that all the people have episodes of dissociation (floating), but usually these episodes are brief and infrequent. Some ex-members of cults experience them as longer episodes because they learned to dissociate in cults through the various meditative and hypnotic practices. Some ex-cult members spent hours in dissociative states when they were in cults. So, there is nothing surprising in their experiencing dissociation after leaving.
3. Margaret Singer writes that dissociating is a normal response to anxiety. So, some ex-cult members experience floating when they feel anxiety, for example, when they need to make a decision. Floating episodes are more frequent when a person is ill or tired.

Then, Margaret Singer gives more recommendations how to stop floating (Cults in Our Midst, chapter 12).

Behaviorally orientated educational techniques are the best methods of counteracting and dealing with floating episodes. The triggers are just associations and memories, and only that. They are not arcane implants put in your mind by others; they do not reflect uncontrollable suggestions. Floating is simply getting stuck for a few minutes, or sometimes hours, in a familiar, detached, and conflicted state, such as you experienced while in the cult.

Three types of remembrances are experienced by ex-cult members during floating episodes:

* Contents from the cult days; jargon, dogma, practices, songs, rituals, certain clothing.
* Feeling states that were vivid and frequent during the time in the group: gnawing inner doubt, inadequacy, unmitigated fear, unending hidden tension.
* Strange wordless states, sometimes given denigrating labels by the cult (for example, "bliss ninny," "space cadet"): referred to as floating, involuntary meditation, and wavy states by former members.

Often former cult members don't distinguish among remembrances from cult life. But learning to recognize and identify the types just described is helpful in the process of getting rid of them for good. It demystifies your cultic experience and the power you think it holds over you. You will no longer feel you are at the mercy of some strange phenomenon that you cannot control.

Some cults even have their own terms, such as restimulation, which they use to predict the recurrence of these episodes (both while in the cult and later). This, of course, sets members up to expect what does occur once in a while. The cult that uses this particular term also imbues the involuntary state with the implication that "you can't help it because it's in your wiring." This frightens members, who then carry this notion with them when they leave. Myths such as this cause former members to become very anxious when the dissociative episodes occur.

Remember, there are no mysterious, mechanical, out-of-our-control events. No cult and no person has the power or skill to implant such things in the minds of their members or to cause these episodes to happen after members leave. There is no scientific evidence, no valid clinical observation that such a possibility exists.

Individuals newly emerging from a cult can almost expect and need not be alarmed by periods of seeming to lose track of time or where they are. It's normal for them to think often about various experiences from cult days and sometimes feel as they felt back in the cult. During exit counseling, families should be told that floating is likely to occur for a time after the cult member leaves the group. They are advised to ex-member to talk about and deal with these episodes.

Floating does not mean you want to return to the cult. As described earlier, floating is most likely to happen when you are stressed, anxious, uncertain, lonely, distracted, fatigued, or ill. Once you recognize when these episodes may occur, you can prepare for them. Then the event will be less distressing when it happens. Realizing that floating is a dissociative moment will help. Once you understand that you are merely temporarily psychologically disengaging, you won't think that your memory is shot or that you are losing your mind. You can say to yourself, "I'm not damaged for life. This is just a momentary dissociation. I can pick up where I was. It's just a thought, just a memory. I don't have to act on it."

Here are some helpful Antidotes:

* Keep a written log of the happenings so that you can talk about them and come to understand what happens. Write down the simple word, event, voice, sound, smell, motion, expression, or memory; that is, trace back and recall what set you off so that you can begin to comprehend what occurred. Why that thing? Why that moment? What was the state you were in?
* Divert yourself when you are about to fall into a dissociative state. Sometimes a friend or co-worker will notice that you are beginning to space out, and she or he may offer companionship or listening time or divert you into an activity. You can also create your own activities that you set into motion when you recognize a trigger or start to float. Turn to the radio, listen to the news, call someone on the phone, write in your journal, play with the dog.
* Suppress the feeling. You do not have to act on it, you do not have to let the cult-related feeling overwhelm you. Push it away and go on to something else. Later, at a more appropriate moment, you may want to talk with someone about the situation.
* Learn to minimize the frightening leftovers from cult days. You might be flooded with feelings, but say to yourself, "I'm not going crazy. I'm just a little anxious." Focus on the present, on today, on getting your life back together.
* If you do fall into a dissociative state, bring yourself back with a scenery change. Pinch yourself. Rub your hand. Do something that will provide sensory input and break the feeling of being in limbo. Focus your eyes on something directly in front of you.

All these techniques will help break up the floods of emotion and emotional memories that come in at you. Taking a down-to-earth and aggressive stance against triggers and floating will propel you to take great leaps forward in your recovery.

Since Hassan supports DID theory, he gives all the ex-cult members the diagnosis of Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DSM-IV 300.15). Margaret Singer wrote that only some ex-cult members have this disorder. I could not find Margaret Singer's description of this disorder, but it is possible that her view of this disorder was different from Hassan's.

Margaret Singer's description of what most ex-members of cults experience is very much different from Hassan's (Mental Health Issues).

Degrees of anomie. The majority reaction seen in people who leave thought reform programs, almost regardless of the time spent with the group, is a varying degree of anomie -- a sense of alienation and confusion resulting from the loss or weakening of previously valued norms, ideals, or goals. When the person leaves the group and returns to broader society, culture shock and anxiety usually result from the theories learned in the group and the need to reconcile situational demands, values, and memories in three eras -- the past prior to the group, the time in the group, and the present situation.

The person feels like an immigrant or refugee who enters a new culture. However, the person is reentering his or her former culture, bringing along a series of experiences and beliefs from the group with which he or she had affiliated that conflict with norms and expectations. Unlike the immigrant confronting merely novel situations, the returnee is confronting a rejected society. Thus, most people leaving a thought reform program have a period in which they need to put together the split or doubled self they maintained while they were in the group and come to terms with their pre-group sense of self.

So, according to Margaret Singer, most ex-cult members experience alienation from the mainstream society and not some induced psychopathologies. She also writes that ex-members' psychological responses to thought reform programs (mind control) are different for different people.