Yes, these issues are common. There's also a lot of "learned helplessness", a form of denial where many wait for something to magically fix their lives like the paradise was supposed to. I just made a post about it in my Facebook group that I'll share since you seem to be interested in the subject. I got certified as a life coach and I help a number of ex-JWs to work through their "stuff" and host recovery groups (recovering from the cult, not substance abuse) twice a week. So I come up against a lot of the issues that former cult members face, and here's my post:
An illustration we used to be given as JWs was this (brought up by Kevin McFree's video). There are two families and each lives in a house with a leaky roof. The one family is miserable. The other family is happy. Why? The happy family knows that soon they will move into a new home. So they're happy to wait until that time, knowing that they will eventually be happy.
That really summarizes what my parents did. My dad lived a life of denial, and honestly my mom did too. Neither would take a stand or do anything to really change their lives. They let life happen to them, they never really went for anything they wanted. It was a life spent with a leaky roof (we literally had ceilings that would bubble when it rained and pots everywhere), and nobody was going to do anything.
In psychology that's often referred to as "learned helplessness".
I don't know why, maybe it was my frustration with watching my parents, but I never believed that I couldn't do something or get something if I didn't want it bad enough. Eventually in 2008 after being suicidal I wanted so badly to be happy and I took steps to get mentally and emotionally healthy so I could be happy. I literally studied happiness, among many other things.
My life isn't some fairy tale now but I'm happy. I got there, and if you're not there, you can get there in time. But you have to do something. You can't wait for someone to bring you happiness. There's no magic paradise coming for you, you might not even have tomorrow. That's a sobering reality.
I remember learning in Spanish class the word manana. That it meant tomorrow but was often used as a way of putting things off indefinitely. Don't put your happiness off indefinitely. You deserve happiness like anyone else. Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever cult you lived in took it from you and then made you feel powerless to have it apart from them. It was all a lie. You can be happy. You just have to do something to get there. Nobody else can make you happy, it's an inside game. So please don't buy the lie that something better will magically come your way someday without effort and that it will bring happiness with it while you sit in misery. Take action, reach out, find something better.
