Hi everyone,
I am a new member of Treeleaf Zendo and wish to share something about my history with mental health issues with you.
I grew up in Belgium in a family in which was a lot of violence. They were member of a Christian cult that was founded in Norway. Not one like the most infamous ones you can learn about sometimes in the news or documentaries, but bad enough to be a real cult. My father was the leader of the Belgian branch.
The result for me was complex ptsd, which I only found out when I was 30. I graduated as a mental health nurse at that age and left the cult. I was working in mental hospitals with people suffering from many different issues, both accute and chronic, and I was a while head nurse of a rehabilitation center for people with alcohol addiction. I studied psychotherapy in combination with my job but had to stop after 2 years because of my own issues. In 2010 I had to stop working.
After leaving my religion, I read about many different religions and philosophies. The first book was an introduction in Buddhism and I continued exploring Buddhism since that time.
I remember reading for the first time that there is suffering in life but there is also a way out of suffering. That was very different from the doctrine I grew up with since birth, which was that suffering was my calling and that I had to suffer each day non stop.
I read in an other book about the Dalai Lama hearing about people in the West hating themselves. Something he heard for the very first time in his life. In his culture people love themselves. Well, in the cult I heard non stop preaching that I had to hate myself, fight a war against myself each day, that I must kill my human nature, that Christianity is war against yourself etc.
I was speaking many years with therapists until they advised me to give up and accept my traumas. Luckily I didn't listen to them. After 19 years of unsuccessful psychotherapy, I discovered in 2020 that there must have happened much more severe traumatic events in my life that I couldn't remember, but I had almost all of the symptoms and results of it. I collapsed mentally more than ever before, but my journey of recovering began.
I discovered previous years that there is something called Religious Trauma Syndrome. Also that was part of my life. I started to work through that trauma too.
I am not yet fully recovered, but making a lot of progress all the time. I am like the Phoenix raising from his ashes. I am now daily active in the domain of Religious Trauma Syndrome supporting others and preparing myself to start working professionally in that domain. Not as a trauma therapist, but coaching people in their deconstruction of indoctrination and their reconstruction of a new life. Not only with cult survivors but also ex fundamentalists. BTW, after I left the cult I was active in Christian fundamentalism a while but left those churches too.
Buddhism has been very helpful for me. In 2016 I became a member of a Buddhist sangha in the White Plum Lineage which is a combination of Rinzai and Soto. The latter is what I am interested in and therefor I have become a member of this online Sangha.
There is so much I could share about the importance of Zen and meditation and much more of the Eastern wisdom and practices in my life and how it helped me handling my mental health issues, but have written already a long story.
Thank you for reading!
Gassho
Andreas
I am a new member of Treeleaf Zendo and wish to share something about my history with mental health issues with you.
I grew up in Belgium in a family in which was a lot of violence. They were member of a Christian cult that was founded in Norway. Not one like the most infamous ones you can learn about sometimes in the news or documentaries, but bad enough to be a real cult. My father was the leader of the Belgian branch.
The result for me was complex ptsd, which I only found out when I was 30. I graduated as a mental health nurse at that age and left the cult. I was working in mental hospitals with people suffering from many different issues, both accute and chronic, and I was a while head nurse of a rehabilitation center for people with alcohol addiction. I studied psychotherapy in combination with my job but had to stop after 2 years because of my own issues. In 2010 I had to stop working.
After leaving my religion, I read about many different religions and philosophies. The first book was an introduction in Buddhism and I continued exploring Buddhism since that time.
I remember reading for the first time that there is suffering in life but there is also a way out of suffering. That was very different from the doctrine I grew up with since birth, which was that suffering was my calling and that I had to suffer each day non stop.
I read in an other book about the Dalai Lama hearing about people in the West hating themselves. Something he heard for the very first time in his life. In his culture people love themselves. Well, in the cult I heard non stop preaching that I had to hate myself, fight a war against myself each day, that I must kill my human nature, that Christianity is war against yourself etc.
I was speaking many years with therapists until they advised me to give up and accept my traumas. Luckily I didn't listen to them. After 19 years of unsuccessful psychotherapy, I discovered in 2020 that there must have happened much more severe traumatic events in my life that I couldn't remember, but I had almost all of the symptoms and results of it. I collapsed mentally more than ever before, but my journey of recovering began.
I discovered previous years that there is something called Religious Trauma Syndrome. Also that was part of my life. I started to work through that trauma too.
I am not yet fully recovered, but making a lot of progress all the time. I am like the Phoenix raising from his ashes. I am now daily active in the domain of Religious Trauma Syndrome supporting others and preparing myself to start working professionally in that domain. Not as a trauma therapist, but coaching people in their deconstruction of indoctrination and their reconstruction of a new life. Not only with cult survivors but also ex fundamentalists. BTW, after I left the cult I was active in Christian fundamentalism a while but left those churches too.
Buddhism has been very helpful for me. In 2016 I became a member of a Buddhist sangha in the White Plum Lineage which is a combination of Rinzai and Soto. The latter is what I am interested in and therefor I have become a member of this online Sangha.
There is so much I could share about the importance of Zen and meditation and much more of the Eastern wisdom and practices in my life and how it helped me handling my mental health issues, but have written already a long story.
Thank you for reading!
Gassho
Andreas
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