I was going to add some and I was looking for a reference and I found this. So often I think, this had to have been a premie, but really, all cults work pretty much the same.
"Another client spent many years in a very high position in a cult. While with the guru, she had perfected the techniques of dissociation. She stilled her mind to the point of being able to witness and endure abuse without naming or experiencing it as such, and she was thereby able to firmly maintain her complete and total passivity and submission. As her recovery began and she looked back on all those years of complete, unquestioning submission, it was as if all her dissociation broke loose. She was flooded with a lifetime of suppressed terror and rage. She was frightened that telling the truth about her guru and what had happened would somehow bring retribution; she was frightened that maybe she was wrong, and the guru was right. Outbursts of panicked rage were followed by deep feelings of shame, and by fears that she was irretrievably damaged. After painful emotional dysregulation continued for months, her sense of self shifted when she read the accounts of others who were describing their abuse in the group. Her decision to join those online who had taken a stand, and to begin to tell her story, was a demarcation line for her. Shame and fear began to give way to a sense of herself as part of a healing community in which she could play a meaningful role."
https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/articles/the-heart-of-cult-recovery-compassion-for-the-self
I feel ironically that what is gained in leaving is what Prem Rawat promises. We gain the ability to hear ourselves. We won't be special anymore with some bliss secret. We will be able to as much as any human can deal with life honestly.
More corrections -- lesley