Ok this one is tougher than it looks,

I’ve join a cult even though I don’t remotely believe in god or any religious stuff Here is what happened :

It wasn’t a religious cult. I was studying in [ field ] and of all the school in [field] I’ve applied to I was only take in one, with 6 of my classmates. They were all very excited about it and kept telling me how hard that new school was, how much people there worked hard and how everyone who came out of it got a job in [field] they looked really sure about their choice and the impression that school left them « once out of there you are a professional » I didn’t check it myself and followed them.

It was far in the country and very isolated but also cheap so I thought at least whoever opened this private school care about students well being and equal access. The school was cheap because all courses were given by the same teacher (also the director) there were 2 classes (1st and second years, 40 people overall)

the thing is, that guy seemed like he knew what he was talking about because he was good at speech but the info he gave were off and the student didn’t make a lot of progress. Soon he started only talking about himself, his life, where he worked (in [field])how amazing it was, he spent more time talking about himself than giving any class or advice. We were captivated. There was only one class group above us and they were really depressed, working all the time (night and week end included) but not getting any results. The teacher started verbally humiliating that class in front of us, telling us how much better we were than them. Then he started giving us exercises we couldn’t manage and we had to skip sleep for multiple days. He started guilting us and humiliating us too. Canceled holidays, I think that’s the moment we were trapped, 1 student left because of burnout but he guilted everyone about it and explained how the deserter would never be able to work in [field] how anyway he (the teacher) had contacts everywhere and anyone who left was blacklisted for life. He continued humiliating people and only talking about himself. Any discordant voice was shut down by him or by peer pressure, if someone kept talking to someone who left they would get insulted in front of everyone. We slept every 3 days overall. We were constantly thinking about what the teacher would think if we did one thing or another and he reacted randomly between outbursts and congratulations.

I didn’t make a lot of progress but once out of the school people (survivors?) got some jobs in [fields] but it was the jobs nobody from another school would have applied to because it was boring and in small cities so yeah « everyone got a job » but everyone lost the soul they were putting in their work. The guys had deeply brainwashed every student so we were very paranoid for years after the school, making sure no one would hear bad stuff about the school because « he knew everyone working in [field]  so he would know » « it would damage the reputation of everyone who came out of it » etc

It took me a few years to stop the cognitive dissonance and finally admit it was a scam, the guy was incompetent and a liar and no one knew him in the big cities (or knew he was a fucking sociopath)

my therapist explained me that’s how cults work and I was in one. so yeah I lost some time and it took me a while to start working correctly again, I still have some ptsd and I cried when I watched whiplash. It was a bad experience and the worst is that it was completely useless.