The following is a collection of musings from members of the Ex-Christian Science Group on about the difficulty of leaving Christian Science.

I doubt that there is another religious belief system that is so pervasive in the thought that a quick casual conversation will reveal to the participants that both are Christian Scientists.
– Anonymous
Is it the familiarity we defend? Or, is it Stockholm Syndrome? There’s gotta be a name for it…
– Heidi
Imagine a Christian Science Sentinel with a section titled ‘An Opposing View.’ What parent would then let her child attend Principia? What reader whose compassion had not been petrified by his studies would not be moved?
– Marion
I talked with a Unitarian Universalist minister about Christian Science. She said that Christian Science is a ‘closed’ religion that thinks it knows the entire truth already, unlike UU and other ‘open’ religions that allow for questioning, thought, learning, and growth.
– Beth
I’ve read so many comments along the lines of ‘although I was raised in Christian Science, I always had doubts about it in the back of my mind.’ Which, by comparison, makes me feel rather foolish. I had zero doubt, I questioned nothing about Christian Science until I was over the age of thirty. It is part of the puzzle I’m trying to figure out about myself—what made me such a good little unquestioning cult member?
I stopped attempting to practice Christian Science about ten years ago, but for a long time I was in the ‘it works, just not for me…’ camp. Really, it has only been in about the past year that I have realized how dangerous and even evil Christian Science is, the way it shreds families and individuals. It’s only been in about the past year that I have begun to recognize myself and others as victims of Christian Science.
In retrospect though, what a 180. That is actually pretty amazing, that I was able to go from such an extreme to where I am now.
– Ashley
Every breath of a devout Christian Scientist comes through a fog of filtered observations.
– Marion
I always harboured doubts about Christian Science, even from childhood. But, it was a weird sort of comfort zone to me–it promised wonderful, fanciful stuff that anyone would want, but it never really delivered. I desperately wanted it to work, looked for evidence that it worked, and for many years, despite it always coming up short, I stuck with it–it kept a weird hold on me. When I saw the gruesome and fatal end result of lives dedicated to Christian Science, I finally realized I needed to take my doubts out for a walk, and I’ve never looked back.
– Jeremy