1982: I Was Fished

In the summer of 1982, shortly after my high school graduation, I was profoundly miserable. I had grown up friendless and alone, navigating a home life that felt like a constant weight. Also, I had lost my only friends - from my church youth group - because it was a group for high school students and I had graduated. When I was fished on Ohio State’s campus by Teddy and Richard, I was the perfect target: a young man chewed up and spit out by the world, looking for a place to belong and for anyone who would accept him.

They were from a cult called University Bible Fellowship (UBF). It was started in Korea in 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1977; since then, it has metastasized all over the world. The chapter leader, Peter, lived in the house called the center, where the group’s activities like Sunday services and group Bible study were headquartered.

Teddy invited me to dinner so we could talk about Jesus and Bible study, so he took me out for a steak dinner. He gave me a Bible and we started 1:1 Bible study a week or so later. 

From the beginning of my time there, UBF  portrayed themselves as a spiritual sanctuary - a place where the walking wounded could find rest and healing. I dove in headfirst, a move I now call The Cannonball, moving into a group house and starting a decade of total immersion.

1984: The 115-Page Forced Autopsy

In February 1984, Peter — on orders from headquarters in Chicago — decided it was time for me to share my life story. I was selected to present my life testimony at a regional conference. My "helper" was a leader named James, and what began as a study in redemption quickly became a brutal, forced reliving of every trauma I had ever endured.

I was made to write every detail: the bullying, the misery at home, growing up friendless, and the victimization I suffered at the hands of two pedophiles while it was all still fresh in my mind. James was relentless, demanding more and more details until I finally broke down and shouted, "I looked at myself in the mirror and yelled, ‘I hate you!' Is that what you’re looking for?!".

That raw emotional wreckage — all 115 pages of it — was boiled down to an antiseptic 12-page summary that painted a pretty picture of how 1:1 Bible study had given me my salvation. It also praised Peter and Teddy as the kind shepherds who led me to the green pastures of being a good little UBFer. 

I performed my testimony for 400 people under the title "From Odds to Providence". It wasn’t my own title; Samuel C. Lee, the head of all UBF, hurriedly told it to me just before I went on stage. I still don’t know what the title means. Both Peter and Teddy were pleased with my performance; my life testimony was one of the best of the 7 or 8 that evening. However, when we returned to Columbus, it was like I was a show dog patted on the head before being put back in the kennel.

By “helping” me write that life testimony, James gave me the tools and wood to build my own electric chair. When I went on stage that evening, I demonstrated how well built that electric chair was.

Medics Who Probe and Catalogue the Wounds

The group prided itself on being a spiritual hospital, but their actual "medical" technique was to strip wounds bare, probe their depth, and then file them away as ammunition. They told me that if the pain of the memories from writing my life testimony remained, I lacked faith — that as a "new creation," I should just flip a switch and turn off my past. I spent years thinking I was a failure because I couldn't find that switch.

The 2005 Epiphany: The Marks of Jesus

The realization of how severely I had been violated didn't hit me until 2005, thirteen years after I left UBF for good in June 1992. While visiting Trinity, my wife’s family church, I heard Rev Janet preach a sermon about the "marks of Jesus".

She spoke about how our spiritual wounds leave scars and how people who know about those scars are often tempted to make use of them. That was the click. I realized the group had used my history to maintain unilateral, "make it their business to know all your business" control over me.

Rev Janet explained that because of Jesus’ marks, God no longer sees our transgressions; He sees the pardon. If God Himself chooses to cover a believer’s past, nobody has the right to demand we strip it bare for their management.

When I realized that I was free from the burden of judging myself by the history the group had weaponized against me, the dam burst. I finally experienced the mercy and comfort I had been seeking since 1982.

I love the taste of blood. It’s euphoric. I feel so blissful when I finally get that unique, salty, irony taste on my lips. Around my teeth. Spread across my tongue. God. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s fucking addicting. Just imagining the taste is simply wonderful.

This is called “Auto-vampirism”.

It is one of your body’s natural, but unhealthy, coping mechanisms when your nervous system physically cannot handle any more stress or emotion. I have battled this urge several times, and occasionally I have lost to myself. I have the scars to remind me to be grateful for my body.

Changing coping mechanisms can be difficult and scary. It may take a long time, but now those scars are fading and I no longer feed that urge inside me. It took me more than 8 weeks to just lessen the urge. It hasn’t quite gone away, but now that I am more self aware, I have a responsibility to not allow myself to make that same poor decision. Choose consistency over indulgence. Wisdom over short term pleasure. You will be okay, just as I am working to be now.

I am an open book. I promise you, nothing you say to me or confess here on this subreddit will surprise me. I’ve come to realize just how limiting it is to both parties when I refuse to care for someone that thinks they are beyond help or too far gone. You are not, and especially not to me. Never to me. I will not report anything, I will not try to fix you or change you. I simply just want to support you guys ❤️‍🩹 let’s just exist together and share what needs to be shared with nothing but openness. That’s how healing actually happens. When the person sharing doesn’t have to worry about an adverse reaction. 💛

NOTE: I originally posted this on r/cultsurvivors

The Garage and the Lifeline (1978–1982)

My adolescence was defined by bullying and isolation, making safe spaces a necessity.

Dottie, the youth group leader at my parents’ church, provided a safe place for me in more ways than one. During the summer before my freshman year of high school, she invited me to join the youth group. I had no idea that she was throwing me a lifeline before I even knew that I needed it.

When I rode my bike to school, people always tampered with it. They would let the air out of my tires and take the chain off its sprockets; I started riding everywhere with a set of tools and an air pump. Halfway through my freshman year, I asked Dottie if I could park my bike in her garage during the school day; she lived a few blocks from the high school. She asked no questions; she simply said that it was all right.

The church youth group became my only safe harbor, a place where I had friends and there were adults who didn’t yell at me. During this time, Dottie gave me a cross-stitched bookmark with the first part of Psalm 103:1: "Bless the Lord, O my soul…". She told me every stitch was a prayer for me. I held onto that bookmark for over thirty years, unaware that it was the first seed of the Word that would eventually lead to my freedom.

Youth group retreats were my favorite times with the group. On one retreat, my brother was in a canoe on a pond. Suddenly he said, “Oh, crap!” and sat there baffled as his canoe sank with him in it; it had sprung a sudden leak. On another retreat, Dottie was asleep when some of us were hungry. We found some spaghetti in the kitchen and decided to fix it, but we weren’t sure how to tell if it had boiled long enough. Then someone mentioned they had heard a strand of spaghetti would stick to the wall if it was done. So we took turns throwing clumps of spaghetti against the wall. I can’t remember if we actually ate the spaghetti or how Dottie reacted when she saw the mess the next morning.

Fished into the Cult and the Takeover (1982–1988)

In June 1982, three weeks after I graduated from high school, I was recruited into University Bible Fellowship (UBF). They recognized my vulnerability and used it to create a deep dependency. For ten years, the group dictated my appearance, my academic major, and my housing situation, including dictating who my roommates would be.

Despite this control, I began to reclaim my own path between 1988 and 1990 by returning to Ohio State and working 35 hours a week in the Financial Aid Office. I graduated with a 3.2 GPA in June 1990, proving a level of professional continuity that the group’s narrative of me as a "confused 18-year-old" ignored.

The Delicious Irony of the Word

The greatest irony of my time in UBF was that the Bible — the book they intended to use for my subjugation — became the means of my liberation. While they tried to mold me into a puppet, specific verses began to anchor my identity outside of their influence:

Genesis 1:31: Early on, I realized that when God saw all He made was "very good," that included me. Reading that verse made me think, “And that included me.” It was the first positive thought I ever had about myself.

Philippians 1:6: During the time I was cast out of UBF (November 1985 to Spring 1987), a friend used this to remind me that God wasn't done with me yet.

Psalm 139:16: This verse shattered my sense of worthlessness by showing my days were ordained before I was even born.

Genesis 50:20: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good...". This became the lens through which I viewed the entire experience.

My New Relationship with Dad

This spiritual re-calibration also transformed my relationship with my Dad. In 1988, we started a private Bible study. Although I used UBF guides, I kept our sessions entirely independent from the group's indoctrination process. We shared family histories - including how Dad’s father stayed alive on his deathbed long enough to see me, his first grandchild - and stories of our own teenage joyrides, leading to the first hug with Dad I can ever remember. I would repeat the entire decade in UBF just to ensure this relationship with my dad turned out the same.

The Tide Pool and the Sidewalk Exit (1990–1992)

The atmosphere shifted in 1990 when the house leaders I lived with, Moses and Pauline, left the country. For the first time in eight years, I could breathe. I started grad school in 1991, moved into my own apartment, and eventually met the woman I would marry in November 1992, whose kindness was a vivid contrast to the group's rigid standards.

The end came in June 1992. I was standing on the sidewalk after a Sunday service, telling the chapter leader, Peter, about my plans to transfer to Ohio University. He looked at me and said, “I don’t think I am ready for you to do that yet”. That comment shattered the illusion of his authority. I realized that the lifeline Dottie had thrown me so many years before with a cross-stitched bookmark had finally anchored me in the truth and pulled me out of the cult’s rip tide.

NOTE: I originally shared this post on r/cultsurvivors

The "hook" that drew me into University Bible Fellowship (UBF) wasn't some grand spiritual promise. It was something I had almost never encountered: simple human acceptance.

The Background: A Target from the Start

My family moved to Columbus, Ohio, when I was in first grade, and the bullying started almost immediately. In the apartment where we lived until I was in third grade, a kid named Michael picked on all three of us — me, my younger brother, and my sister — even in front of my visiting relatives.

In 1974, we moved to Grandview, near Ohio State’s campus. This is the house where all four of us grew up (my youngest brother was a baby then), where Mom passed away on Easter Sunday 2025, and where Dad still lives today.

The bullying escalated in fourth grade because of the color of my teeth. I was one of the first babies given the antibiotic Tetracycline, which discolored my teeth from the inside out before they even grew. "Greenteeth" became a label that followed me for years.

Escalation and the Prison of School

I made mistakes, too. In fifth grade, I used my position as a hall monitor to bully a younger kid named John. He eventually turned the tables and spent years harassing me with a group of friends I was terrified of.

By middle school, I was climbing industrial buildings near home just to be alone. One night, some kids from school saw me and dared me to jump. I cussed them out and ran back and forth on the roof until a neighbor brought Dad to get me. The next week, my parents arbitrarily sent me to counseling at OSU's Upham Hall, never asking what had happened that night.

In high school, I was an easy target. I wore a yellow Chevy hat for a year, a denim cowboy hat on field trips, and a Darth Vader shirt for three months straight. I had a mouth that could make a sailor blush, often cussing out people until they got mad and started hitting me. I had a big mouth that I couldn’t back up.

The Breaking Point: Junior Year

The breaking point came in geometry class. The football quarterback, Ted, and his friends constantly harassed me, even egged on by a student teacher who found it amusing. One day, I stood up to hit Ted, but the student teacher threatened to send me to the office. I tried to storm out and slammed my left hand through a glass pane in the door. I nearly severed the main tendon in my wrist and had to wear a splint for weeks — which they also mocked me for. The cut was so severe that I nearly lost the use of my hand; I’m lefthanded.

By senior year, I was escaping through pot and beer, showing up sober to school for maybe 20 days the entire year. I told a teacher I felt like I was locked in a prison with no way out.

The "Sovereign" Entrance

Three weeks after high school graduation in June 1982, I was on my bike on Ohio State’s South Oval when two guys, Teddy and Richard, stopped me. I was resentful at first, but Teddy offered me a free meal to talk about Bible study.

I started going to "the Center" on E 13th Ave — the home of the chapter leader, Peter. I was not a pleasant person:

• I smoked on their porch and dropped my cigarette butts in the flowerbeds.
• I ate Peter's family's food out of the fridge, once polishing off a half-gallon of his favorite ice cream.
• I was tactless, calling everyone by nicknames and asking Peter if he was "in charge".

Yet, no one corrected me. No one complained. I was always welcomed.

The Final Move

That summer, my behavior at home pushed my Mom to her limit. She told me to get out. When I told Teddy, I expected sympathy, but he said: "Move in with me". He shared a house with other UBF men, and they found a spot for me.

For my 19th birthday in August, the chapter threw me a surprise party. No one besides my family had ever celebrated my birthday before. When a dozen people started singing "Happy Birthday," I ran outside and cried, telling the guy who followed me out, "I don’t deserve this!".

At the time, I thought it was genuine acceptance. Now I know it was textbook love bombing. This "hook" of acceptance was so powerful that it caused me to ignore every warning sign for the next four years.

“Enjoy the ride your emotions take you on. Sit down and see where they take you! Allowance for yourself to feel fully, anything and everything, is truly a beautiful occurrence. Be grateful for how much you can feel.”

Hi everyone 🙏
I'm building a free anonymous app where people can share their recovery stories to inspire others who may be struggling right now.

If you've overcome depression, financial stress, heartbreak, loneliness, addiction, failure, or any difficult phase in life and would like to share your story anonymously, I'd truly love to hear it 💙

No personal information is required at all you can stay completely anonymous.

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Even one story could give someone else hope ✨

hey there! i saw u/Bros17911’s invitation to r/growfromtrauma while i was checking out r/religioustrauma earlier today.

my own trauma experience comes from getting fished into a cult when i was 18 and spending 10 years under their thumbs. since i left them in 1992, i’ve been living life on my own terms, focusing on my marriage to my beautiful wife, building a career of my own, and growing in my faith.

i’m currently working on my memoir I Was a Teenage Cult Member and have been posting on r/cults, r/cultsurvivors, r/Exvangelical, and r/ReligiousTrauma for about three weeks now.

although i’m new to reddit, i’d be happy to share my experiences.

Distress tolerance is the ability to navigate highly stressful snd frustrating circumstances in life. It is a part of the human condition to experience low frustration tolerance occasionally. The key is adaptability in the face of distress. Persons with low distress tolerance often self-sabotage their circumstances further. In contrast, a person with high distress tolerance can tap into their resources accordingly.

✨ Distress tolerance tolerance is not the same as repression ✨

“How much can you carry vs how much you can work through while you carry it?”

“How much can you avoid vs how much can you process?”

Example: You hold a basket of rocks with both hands while people add more rocks (avoidance) vs holding a growing basket of rocks in one hand while simultaneously taking rocks out of the basket with the other hand (distress tolerance). Anyone can hold a basket normally with both hands, but using only one arm is harder—just as improving distress tolerance is harder than avoidance. Holding the basket and removing the rocks simultaneously is harder than simply holding the growing basket of rocks with both hands.

In the morning, sit down at a desk or table and grab a sheet of paper. Draw a circle and in it, write: Things I am grateful for… (put the date as well). Then, draw mid-sized triangles all around the circle until your drawing looks like a flower. Put at least 5 or 6 big petals on your flower! Inside those petals, write one thing you are grateful for. You can be as vague or specific as you want, just so long as what you write resonates with you :)

“I can be in distress and still have a high distress tolerance.”

- Being in a state of distress doesn’t mean you are failing to regulate yourself ❤️‍🩹 it’s simply a chance to ‘grow through what you go through.’

- Dialectics can teach you many things. It can teach you about self worth, like the quote above, and it can also teach you to be your own mediator of situations.

“The strongest beings you know can still bleed.”

“I measure my life in endings, not years. Years are meaningless. They are a human measure, small and neat. But life is not neat. I do not remember my existence by numbers. I remember it by what was lost... and by what changed after. More specifically, I mean I have stood at the close of a thousand chapters. Watched the final breath of things that once seemed endless. Kingdoms. Civilizations. Lives. Connections. Beliefs. You will measure your life the same way, in time. Not in how many days you lived — but in how many times the world you knew ceased to be.”

“Sometimes, stillness is not about being stone. It is about listening until you disappear into what is around you. And in that… you find you are not alone.”

“Some truths are meant to be carried, not spoken. They are heavier when they are real to you alone.”

“Stripping away the years to someone’s name takes away all escape from the existential accountability that comes with radical freedom.”

“I believe in active listening, which means one must balance listening with expressing a desire to understand more. The end goal is to be picturing the same image inside the other person's mind. Though, that image is often not quite perfect. That is okay. Imperfection is human."

MOST
- Loss and endurance

“Loss is the most common occurrence throughout time, throughout a lifetime. Friends fading. Stars dying. But the things that endure are as well. Rivers carving valleys. Seeds becoming forests. A single act of kindness outliving the hand that offered it."

———————————————————————————

LEAST
- True peace and mercy

“True peace is the least common occurrence throughout time, throughout a lifetime.
A silence without fear in it. It is rare. So rare, that a being might count the times encountered on only one hand."

"Mercy is the least witnessed choice or gift in the world. Both the least received and the least given. And sometimes, the absence of mercy is inevitable in the end. Both ignorance as well as malice can be causes."

“Acceptance of current circumstances can lead to clarity. Clarity leads to a path forward. Do not fight what you can work through instead.”

“Silence that draws on too long can break a man’s mind. But, if I do not make stillness, the weight of what I’ve witnessed and endured will crush me.”

“Stillness tells me more than motion ever could. When you stop… the world speaks.”

Hey redditors! I want you to know that if you need someone to hear you out, someone to tell you you’re not crazy or sensitive, or if you feel drawn to sharing your story and experiences, this is the place!!! 💛
I felt empowered to start sharing my story, so you can find that post in r/growfromtrauma as well as strategies I have learned to cope. I kinda just felt a pull, like it was the right time for me. Now, I want to post all the therapy concepts I learn here that I find useful and the goal is to have this subreddit be one big collection of people’s experiences and tips! Please share this with people you think would benefit or be interested if you’re comfortable sharing.
Remember, you will heal, even if healing means achieving just stability. That stability becomes your new normal, and the ups and downs will smooth out. The jumps will get smaller and smaller. You will heal 💛