Brazil’s Cult of People and What Freedom Means

A woman watching a television show about Mormon wives found herself stopped in her tracks by a scene that resonated deeply. In the show, a young woman argued with her mother over a long list of rules. The daughter was avoiding church, facing the threat of excommunication, and trying to keep her freedom without losing her family. The viewer saw a struggle between being true to oneself and belonging to a group.

She realized this is a common human condition. People crave connection, but belonging to a group comes with a price. It requires following rules and hiding parts of oneself in exchange for acceptance. This is an unspoken loyalty contract, often signed before a person is old enough to understand it.

The author describes being in a “cult of people” for 43 years. This was not a religious cult with a leader or a compound. It was a subtle and pervasive system of other people’s needs, opinions, and expectations. It involved performing connection, seeking external validation, and organizing one’s inner life around what others could tolerate. The goal was to keep the peace and keep the people close.

Nearly seven years ago, she began to leave this cult. It started unintentionally, as a result of the pandemic, raising a child with special needs, and therapy. She began to see how much she had been reaching, earning, and contorting herself to stay connected to people who needed her to be manageable. The process of leaving involved tears, loneliness, anxiety, and heartbreak. Her circle got smaller, and she questioned if she had caused it.

Deprogramming from the cult of people requires distance. When a person starts to withdraw, it can look like something is wrong. They get quieter and stop performing. Their circle shrinks, and others may take it personally because the group needs participation to survive. However, as the group’s power fades, the person stops lying to themselves to stay connected. They begin to see the implicit agreements they have made, trading pieces of themselves for belonging.

Leaving the cult of people does not feel like freedom right away. It feels like loss and loneliness. Underneath that, a quieter and steadier self begins to grow. This is a process of breaking down and breaking through at the same time. It involves sadness and longing, but also knowing one deserves better.

The author acknowledges she is not fully deprogrammed. She still gets lonely and feels the pull to earn her way back into relationships that cost her too much. She still grieves connections that could not survive her becoming more herself. But she has learned to sit with sadness without fear. She has stopped running from discomfort. The aloneness that felt like abandonment has become an open road. When a person stops organizing their life around what the group can tolerate, they find out what they actually want and who they actually are.