@Terminal Red
 

@JP  
Now that’s an intriguing story for a fanfic!
 
@Background Pony #89E6  
She’s get to meet Screwball! Yay!

@Background Pony #BAFA  
Copper Top: You do know she don’t do this anymore, plus the staff of sameness is be sealed in classified location….You need some serious help!
 
and is how this mare a be put on straitjacket and put to a asylum for 4 years

Uh, I can explain.

Struggle sessions were used by the likes of Jim Jones and communists to break someone’s will in weeks if not days. That’s what they were all afraid of, public shaming and verbal and emotional abuse by Starlight and the mob to keep them in line, to keep them from Questioning.
 
Sometimes all it would take is one struggle sessions to humiliate a potential apostate back into the flock. And ponies are much less mentally resistant and stable to begin with.

@JP  
Actually, that town was only around for a couple months. The Maud flashback confirms this.

Actually, I fully believe pretty much the whole town followed her of their own free will. The Mane 6 were just a special and dangerous case.

SIEG oh h-hi officer

Copper, run! Get backup, now.
 
@Terminal Red  
For years I’ve had this weird headcanon that there had to be more ponies in Our Town than what we saw. Even foals who got brainwashed from early age on. Some of them moved out. Some got exiled. Some ran away. But they didn’t recover.
 
They’re out there. Those foals are now grown up. Completely messed up mentally. A group of unicorns, having improved Starlight’s equalization spell, are now waiting, watching, grouping, gathering new members… cults do not die that easily. They’re hardcore, actually believing in Starlight’s teachings. Nothing fake. No painted on equal cutie marks. Ironically, even as equalized, by their sheer numbers, their combined power exceeds Starlight’s power and maybe even Twilight’s. And one day, they’ll come after Starlight, their “mother”, believing she was “brainwashed” by Twilight. That she must be shown the light of equality again. By force.
 
“Welcome home, Starlight Glimmer. Do you remember us? We remember you. We will make you happy again. This will only take a few seconds.”

One of Starlights victims who never shook off the Brainwashing. Sometimes the struggle sessions are so damaging cult victims never truly regain themselves.