“For myself, I’ve come to discover that holding onto secrets about who I am and where I come from is toxic. My secrets will kill me. If I don’t get honest about my life, I cannot have recovery. I’ve learned that from the 12 steps, and I’ve learned that from my own experience. I need to admit to what I’ve done, who I’ve been. That is how I’ve been able to survive. And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am…because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside, accepting my weaknesses and strengths, not trying to be anyone else, cuz that never works, does it? So my challenge is to be authentic, and I believe I am today. I believe I am.” – Nic Sheff, “Tweak“
“I’m now entering a new phase in my life: a time without secrets. Difficult as it has been to unearth the trauma of the past, I understand better than ever before how my past has shaped my present, and just how lucky I’ve been to have the family that I have. Secrets are dangerous things. If you’re not careful, a secret can take on its own life, sitting in the corner, feeding off your oxygen. A secret takes up space. Sharing it leaves more room for people to connect…or, in my case, to belong.”
– Dianne Lake, “Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties“
I chose to write for myself.
I wrote furiously right after these events took place, before I had a chance to forget the details or the height of the emotion. This would be a reference for my future self. I wanted an answer that was specific enough – like a weapon forged out of this experience that I could take forward with me to defeat similar dragons in the future. I averaged three and a half pages of single-spaced story-telling for 267 days. When I stopped, I finally had some answers.
When you’re three days into a stomach flu, and you’ve finally thrown up for the last time, how is it that you know it was the last time? Why is it that you can tell it’s time to clean the bathroom, wash the sheets, and try a bowl of soup? I don’t know either, but that’s the feeling I had, like a light breeze through my soul, as I put the period on the final section.
Weak and tired, I had a lot of mending to do, but the convulsive expulsion of words had settled. I had created a thing for me. It had done its work. And now I had to decide whether or not to let the world see.
Let’s be honest…
I’m publishing – at least in part – because, quite frankly, like you, I want the world to love my friends and hate my enemies. I want you to think I’m a hero, and – just like you – I feel like if you really got to know me, you would have to think I’m a really great person. But these reasons lead to the deeper truth: just like you, I want to be known, validated, and accepted.
“If we live behind a mask, we can impress but we can’t connect.” – Donald Miller
I know the public square is a terrible place to beg for acceptance. I know I am just as likely to attract hate as I am to find validation. So I am braced for the rejection and open to the connection. I, like most people, would rather connect more than impress, if I can bear the risk and cost.
These are terrible reasons to expose all of your sins, so I guess this is the part you’re not supposed to admit out loud. But that’s just the ugly truth cowering in the corner I had to confess.
But there are other, more important reasons to share my story:
1. Hope
For all the people who feel like they’ve wasted their lives, messed up beyond repair, are too old to attempt a change, and are sure that exiting the planet is the best option…welcome to the club! As it turns out, there’s a lot of us. And it’s not as bleak as it seems. There’s nothing that makes the suffering “worth it”, but there is just as much love, community, appreciation, and shared experience – just as much “purpose” – for those of us who have to press the reset button, as there is for all the “normal” people.
There is a job to be done that only you can do, a story that only you possess, contribution only you can make. There are others who want to hear it, who need to hear it, who need what you have. Stick with us, and at least take advantage of the hellish freedom of having nothing to lose.
Take from my story that it is possible to regain something to lose…and then to perhaps lose that too, but to find meaning in the pain and change rather than futilely wasting your life protecting yourself from loss.
2. As a warning to other almost-cult members
There is a misconception that there are “cults” and then there are “healthy” groups. But almost all “healthy” groups have a tendency toward cult-y-ness. And all cults start at normalcy and provide some real benefit. All groups are on the cult spectrum; all cults are on the normal spectrum. This is an invitation to make a more honest assessment of the cult-y-ness in your “healthy” group.
Religious cults are especially repulsive to me, and I think there are a lot of non-cult churches that have a lot of cult-y-ness to them. And I think if more people shared their stories as a PSA about the system rather than an indictment of individuals, a lot of pain could be prevented.
I wish my story was irrelevant. I wish it was a more unique experience. But there are a lot of people in similar relationships who don’t know the reality of how deeply their happy little local church is messed up. Not all of them are. But all of them are run by humans. And all humans are drawn off track. Our church bylaws should match our American constitution:
“You, the people, are great as long as you don’t force yourselves on each other. But watch out for the f-ers at the top! They’re pretty and they speak persuasively, and you’ll be tempted to think they’re better and wiser than you. But resist the lure of a king! Prevent a ruling class. Be grateful for your leaders, but limit their power. And never, ever let them lead you into conflict with your conscience.”
3. As a warning about personality disorders
I didn’t learn about borderline personality disorder until…much too late. I only knew pop culture definitions of narcissism until recently, and I’d never heard about histrionic personalities. Like the Nigerian Prince email scam, people with personality disorders are either harmless or life-alteringly destructive, depending on how early you recognize them for what they are.
4. I want my pain to be someone else’s benefit.
The stories I’ve appreciated the most were always written by people who were brave enough to share vulnerably through their struggle. People who didn’t present Truth or Wisdom, but their honest experience from their flawed perspective. Dozens of contributors like
- Lori Gottlieb
- Darrell Hammond
- Tara Westover
- J. D. Vance
- Jenna Miscavige Hill
- Kristen Johnston
- Matthew McConaughey
- C. S. Lewis
- Matthew B. Crawford
- Susannah Cahalan
I’ve spent a lot of time and money processing my past, and I’d like to pay that forward by contributing my imperfect best to that body of work.
5. People who were there deserve to know what really happened.
I don’t know what “closure” is or if it even exists. If it does, it doesn’t ever seem to be as relieving as advertised. But validation is always important, no matter the circumstance. There were hundreds, if not more, who left their interactions with the org with only the opposite of validation. Depending on how close they were to the inner circle, they were mocked, ridiculed, gaslit, and slandered. Shunned, humiliated, and worse. Many of them went through years of recovery. Many of them are still suffering through anger, denial, and other trauma-related side effects.
I don’t know enough to be able to tell those people whether or not they were right. I don’t have the power to give them closure. But I can validate that the org they participated in was, indeed, very, very sick on the inside.
6. The relatives of people who were there deserve to know what really happened.
Most of us who were near the top have a similar frustration: trying to explain the org experience to friends, bosses, and spouses, with virtually no success. Except for people who have experienced it, no one understands what it was like or how it could have happened or why it affects us so much.
Unlike most of them, I’ve had about 25 years to think through a lot of the disfunction while I was in it and observing it. That doesn’t make me right, objective, or “recovered”. But I have had the repeated experience of talking with ex-org members, hearing their exasperation, and being able to share a thought that was their same thought, just 4 or 5 steps further down the rabbit hole. I often get a reply like, “Yes! That’s been bugging me for years, but that’s exactly what it was!”
I like being able to help people find labels, clarity, and helpful analogies for their stories. That doesn’t make the pain “worth it”, but it does put the suffering to work for the benefit of a few.
7. My kids deserve to know what really happened.
I wish I knew something real about my parents’ past, and not just about the ways people hurt them, but the real ways they messed up. Most families are aware enough of genetic disease that they share their family medical history, for the good of the kids. But we rarely share our family dysfunction history. Or when we do, we just share it about our least favorite relatives. “Uncle Joe is a kid toucher,” or “Aunt Sally’s a crack head.” It’s a rare and beautiful family that says, “Something I’m still working on changing is my tendency to…”
Well…hey, kids! We have a history of breast cancer, colon cancer, narcissism and anger. Take the necessary precautions, seek professional help where necessary, and let me know if you ever need more details.
This wouldn’t normally require publishing. Maybe it still doesn’t. But I want some truths to exist in the same pools they’re likely to find the lies. I’ll keep the names and details just for them; the things that don’t add to the present topic of:
“How does a place like this come to be, and what are these people thinking!?”
8. A Counter-Narrative
At the moment, my kids only know positive things about my family, Mama, Papa, and Uncle Ryan. Their experience is that those people (Mama especially) are the very definition of goodness and love. They have no place in their experience to house the idea that Mama and Papa have been systematically hurtful and sickeningly invasive, controlling, manipulative, unrepentant, and void of empathy.
My kids will eventually hear the fabrications my family spreads about me with “evidence”, real and fabricated, so as to support their good-guy-bad-guy worldview, where they are the innocent victims and I am the perfect scapegoat. My kids may run into those narratives in the wild, even before reconnection with my family. This is my attempt to have the counter-narrative in the wild as well: while they spread their intentionally altered narrative by mouth, I’m attempting to spread my unintentionally altered narrative by keyboard.
We left, in large part, to protect our kids from the type of relationship that emanates from my family. How do I make it clear, without ad hominem attacks, that Mama and Papa caused a lot of hurt and would, consciously or subconsciously, work to steal their individuality? This is part of that attempt.
9. This Is Me
I’ve screwed up in some unique ways. I could learn my lessons, try to hide them in the past, and move on with a new life. Or I could sit and wallow in pity and bitterness, plotting my vengeance. I’m not better than that.
Honestly, I’ve spent plenty of time doing both. But what I’ve settled on for now is neither. I don’t want to “hit the reset button” – move on and have to hope that no one finds out the truth about my past. But I don’t want to carry my baggage forward either. I do want to carry all my lessons forward. I paid a heck of a price for them. They are my personal treasures to integrate, moving forward.
So this is who I am. You don’t have to like my choices or agree with me. I sure don’t some days! But I love me. I think my experience is valid and my story is valuable. I’ve done some hard work and over-all, I’m pretty proud of many of the decisions I’ve made. And I’m even prouder of how I’ve handled the decisions I’m not proud of. So I’m not going to carry those things to my grave. Someone else needs them. Either as warnings or examples.
10. Self-Reminders
My memory must be terrible. I need concrete reminders from my own memory: at least a lot of things about that place were significantly screwed up. When I forget, I wonder…
“Am I blowing this all out of proportion?”
“Am I crazy?”
“Am I just being over sensitive?”
This writing is, in part, a rejoinder from myself,
“Nope! Here’s 27 clear reasons why. It was exactly that messed up! And maybe you are making too big a deal out of the whole thing, but when reconsidering that, don’t forget to factor in these memories.”
11. There is no point in hiding
Large portions of the most salacious parts of my life have already been hacked into and leaked by my family as a punishment for my sins. (I’ll explain later.) My most intimate moments have been laid out, side-by-side with accompanying lies, forming a narrative that is neither entirely false nor remotely accurate.
I wouldn’t wish that exposure on anyone. But it’s pretty freeing too. There’s no pressure to try to hide anything, because it’s all swirling out there anyway. I might as well fill in the story gaps and lies with some truth and context.
There’s no point in fighting the false narrative. That pee is already in the pool. But there’s also no point in keeping secrets. I think they intended to shut me up with the lawsuits, or at least discredit me with the slander. But they mistakenly left me with no reputation left to lose. That part of me died. In this second life, it seems like I might as well live honestly.
12. The Whore Helps Us
When Jesus interacts respectfully, lovingly with the outcasts in the Bible, it allows us to scoffingly find a crumb of humility upon our throne of arrogance, “Well, if Jesus can find compassion for even her…He can definitely love me too.” So maybe I can be someone else’s leper, whore, beggar, so they can think,
“Well, if even Jamin can…
- …write…
- …process…
- …forgive…
- …move on…
- …pursue [goal]…
- …try therapy…
- …be honest about the embarrassing part of his story…
- …search for better answers…
…then I definitely can!”
Yes. Yes you can. I’ll be rooting you on.
13. Banishing Shame
Lastly, I’m publishing as an “eff you!” Not to any particular people, but to the spirit of silence. I’m publishing because I’m sick of keeping secrets. Throughout my years there, as people came and went through the org, I pulled many of them into my confidence, “This place is crazy, right? I have to get out of here, right?” While they were in the org, each of them sent back a similar message,
“Every family is a little messed up. You’re overreacting. Shut up. Your parents are good people. Don’t be such a pain in the butt.”
“Your parents are good people” should have been a hint. Anyone who wants to excuse someone’s bad behavior because they are categorized as a “good” person…well, get a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 128th opinion. There are no special exceptions for “good” people.
And since I’ve started sharing, the level of opposition from the org has reinforced the importance of sharing. (Be careful about ultimatums with rebels, or threatening a person with nothing left to lose. That might backfire. I work to insure none of my edited words are released in a spirit of vindication, but there’s also very little incentive now to hide important truths.) Now, each of my family members has begged and threatened me to not share my story, from all kinds of angles:
- This is disrespectful, sinful, arrogant and evil!
- Bury your secrets! Take them to your grave!
- If you tell what we’ve done, we’ll tell what you’ve done.
- I’m not telling anyone, so you can’t either!
- No one cares about your story. Just move on.
- Your kids will hate you!
- If you let people know what you’ve done, no one will love you.
- We will tank your business and destroy your reputation.
- We’ll sue you for everything you’re worth!
I refuse to let my most recent mistakes become my new family secret or add to the pile of Coller skeletons. I spent nearly 40 years in a church-family-cult where information was power and the secrets you gave to the few at the top were the keys to your prison. As a member, you were convinced that your mistakes were unforgivably shameful, but that those secrets would be kept by the leaders forever…as long as you continued to let them break all your boundaries, and you never crossed them or disagreed publicly.
But when you inevitably did cross them, you started descending the unstoppable escalator into insinuations, rumors, betrayals, and then outright lies…until they got distracted by another enemy. And there was no point in waiting for them to get bored or tired. They never get bored. Or tired.
So my advice is never, ever repent just for the sake of their reconciliation. There is no salvation to earn, only more control to relinquish. All you can do is hold your ground, stand with truth, and hope a bigger enemy comes along. Or pray for death.
Only one thing shall set you free.
This is truth. This is the breaking of silence. This is my freedom.
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