Leaving a high-control religious group can bring up crisis-level distress, especially around shunning, housing, or family estrangement. These resources are a starting point, not a complete list.
Call or text 988 anytime, for any kind of crisis, not only suicidal crisis. Free, confidential, 24/7.
A nonprofit research and support organization covering high-control groups of every kind, religious and otherwise, with recovery resources, support groups, and a helpline for families.
Survivor-hosted shows covering high-control groups broadly, not just one tradition. Many episodes include their own content warnings for specific topics, worth checking before you press play.
Hosted by a former NXIVM member, this show covers high-control groups and coercive control broadly, with guests ranging from survivors to researchers. Episodes regularly include upfront content warnings.
Hosted by a former Mormon, this show focuses on survivor stories across a wide range of high-control groups and coercive environments, with a compassionate, anti-abuse (not anti-religion) framing.
Hosted by a survivor of an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, covering IFB-specific dynamics alongside other high-control groups and related media.
Conversations with survivors of a range of high-control religious groups, including several episodes specifically on leaving Jehovah's Witnesses. Explicit listener-discretion notices on relevant episodes.
Covers cult dynamics and coercive control broadly, with several episodes specifically on growing up in the IFB. Casual, conversational tone rather than clinical.
This project started with IFB stories, so these resources are specific to that movement. If your background is different, the resources above still apply, and we're building out this section for other traditions as more stories come in.
A podcast built around first-person stories of people who left IFB churches.
A memoir by a former IFB member documenting life inside the movement and her departure from it. One of the more widely cited firsthand accounts.
A docuseries built on firsthand accounts from IFB survivors, covering patterns of abuse and institutional cover-up across multiple churches.
Look for a therapist who explicitly mentions experience with religious trauma, spiritual abuse, or high-control groups/cults, since general therapy training doesn't always cover these dynamics. Some general therapist directories let you filter by "religious trauma" as a specialty.