Don't have sympathy for me. I'm doing OK now.
But it's hard. Former allies need people to say it's OK, you weren't stupid just manipulated and to be given the language to help express how they have been turned into side out mentally by it.
It's not something you can see when you are inside it. You can only see it when you step away from it's control. Once you do, you can see the power dynamics and you can't unsee it or understand why you didn't.
I think that's part of the problem of the entire thing. You get swept up in it. It's almost intoxicating, to be part of a 'new revolution', to have others around you, sharing that belief.
But its a facade. And once the facade drops its not the same.
The problem for individuals who are particularly caught up - including people like Aimee - is it is their entire life and existence.
Dropping the facade is erasing their existence. But a facade can not exist forever if it is totally at odds with reality and requires a collective group to control the facade and prevent reality from creeping it.
They will defend it to the end, because the facade dropping leaves them lost and exposed and alone.
It's heartbreaking.
All of it is a train wreck. All of it.
But I'd rather be a bystander, watching it in horror than abroad that train. Even if that in itself is traumatic.
No one walks away from this unscathed if you've been near it.