Why Do We Stay?

How Con Artists, Cult Leaders, and Predators Make It Feel Like Our Fault

Would someone please tell her to stop smiling and make a run for it?

Whether it’s a cult, an abusive relationship, or a predator like Jeffrey Epstein, the same question hangs in the air:

Why didn’t they just leave? Why didn’t those trafficked girls, those battered wives, or exploited cult followers just get the hell out?

Even if you are too polite to say it, I know you’ve asked that about me. I don’t blame you. I have asked myself the same question for more than two decades. Why did I stay so long? The doors weren’t locked, right? Where was my free will?

In the image above, I’m stuffing envelopes for Aesthetic Realism’s weekly publication—just one of many labors. I wrote and edited propaganda, often working nights and weekends on tight deadlines. I handled building maintenance, painting walls and scrubbing floors on my hands and knees. I stood on sidewalks, handing out literature. I taught classes and gave “consultations” designed to reel in more followers.

All the while, I endured relentless criticism from the people whose approval I’d been trained to crave. “Criticism is love,” they said. My mental health deteriorated, and at least twice during my thirty-two years, I contemplated suicide. Yet, I got up the next day and worked as hard as I could.

I have made great progress in forgiving myself since my escape. But I still tortured myself with the question of why I stayed so long.

Finally, last year, I had a breakthrough. I was listening to the wonderful podcast IndoctriNation, hosted by Rachel Bernstein, a psychotherapist who specializes in treating cult victims. She was speaking with her guest, true crime podcaster Javier Leiva, about this very burning question: Why don’t people in cultic and other abusive relationships just leave?

Rachel’s response blew me away.

“I don’t know if it is the right question,” she said. “Because you’re putting the onus on the person who stayed … as opposed to asking the bigger question: How do you put someone in a position where they feel they can’t leave even though they can?”

In other words, why do we hold the victim accountable?

Then I realized it: As long as I keep posing this question, I am still under cult mind control. I am blaming the victim—myself. That’s what Aesthetic Realism did, like all cults and abusers do. They get you to question yourself, not your abusers.

If we turn the spotlight on the abuser, things become clear. What happened to me inside a cult follows a pattern we also see in abusive marriages, controlling families, manipulative bosses, and the schemes of con artists and traffickers. The details may change, but the mechanisms are the same. Systems of manipulation all rely on this single trick: Make you blame yourself.

1) They target you.

It is no coincidence that some people get reeled in. Predators and cults look for targets who fit a certain profile: smart, hardworking people with dreams, but in need of help.

When I first encountered Aesthetic Realism, I was this person. Twenty years old, seeking to rebuild my life after I’d made mistakes. I desperately wanted self-improvement, direction, and meaning. I might as well have had a sign on my forehead that said: Choose me. I’m vulnerable.

At the time, I believed I had simply found something promising. What I didn’t realize was that I had been found.

2) They love bomb you.

Oh, how they came on strong. At my first Aesthetic Realism presentations, people flocked around, praising and encouraging me. “You are doing a wonderful thing by trying to improve yourself,” they said. Soon came the invitations to gatherings and art galleries, coffees, and conversations. There’s a reason they call it love bombing. It nearly knocks you off your feet.

3) They increase demands.

You join. You commit to the thing that promised to help you—the sex work to pay tuition, the marriage that would save you, the cult that would make you a better person. But once you’re on the inside, you learn the commitment is much bigger than was sold. You are told you’re not committed enough. You need to sacrifice even more time, effort, and energy.

I was told to remove all distractions to reach my potential: family, friends, job, and even my acting aspirations.

The commitment kept expanding. And somehow, no matter how hard I worked, it was never enough. I had to work even harder—and be happy doing it.

4) You blame yourself.

This is the final stage—now that you are in, isolated and committed—the psychology of captivity sets in. Nothing can be wrong with the organization or the leader. If something isn’t working, the problem must be you. You are now trained to blame yourself. The leader no longer must enforce control. You enforce it on yourself.

In that podcast, Rachel Bernstein described a photograph of a powerful horse tethered to a small plastic chair. The horse could easily walk away—but it believes it cannot.

That image stays with me. Would we ask, “What is wrong with that horse?” Or, “What did someone do to that horse?”

The most effective predators don’t just steal your intelligence, your loyalty, your labor, and your idealism. They recruit your will, so you’ll use it against yourself.

At this final stage, you are certain that if you leave, you will have failed at the greatest opportunity life has ever offered you. And even when your own inner voice of doubt makes itself heard, you suppress it, calling your own inner truth a form of weakness, because this is what you’ve been taught.

That is why I named this Substack Cults Recruit People. I want to give self-agency back to the true agent and blame to the bad actors, not the victims.

We need a change on an individual and social level. We must reject the idea of “self-responsibility” when it is a tool the guilty use to shield themselves.