My wife was raised in a ridiculous Evangelical cult of sorts. Her step-dad was abusive (and that was never addressed), and her mom turned a blind eye and put her in the stupid cult in the first place (I can never really get past this when I see her). She was taught women were inferior in their one-room school house, and suffered lots of “monkey” references by her teacher and father (she is half-black).
Despite how bad all this is, she was incredibly smart and strong-willed. She ended up being offered scholarships to Princeton and Brown, and was accepted at other prestigious colleges based on her SAT/ACT scores without ever applying. At age 16. Her parents did not allow her to attend because she was…female.
She still doesn’t have a college degree at age 34, despite years of taking classes on and off. She left the cult at age 18 and was convinced she was going to be killed by God for it, because that was what she was told would happen. So she entered the world with that mentality, convinced she would die soon but willing to accept that to avoid continuing in the cult.
I’m getting upset writing this. She is a staunch atheist now. She emerged the least scathed of many others. Her “graduating” class was 6 people. 3 of them are dead. Many others she still associates with from then, and frequently their children, are very screwed up. Even the ones that aren’t on the fringes of society with drug, relationship, and mental health issues, are often very obnoxious, weird people.
Not everyone was ruined, there are some that are fine that learned how to deal with the abuse.
I would wish the cult leaders and at a minimum her father would be imprisoned.