Yes. Unfortunately none of this is easy. Even if you are sure you are not in a deteriorating cult (pleasant one or not) there is still a ton of blind spots not stemming from social environment but your ego for the lack of a better term. Cognitive biases are a real danger and both advertisement and cognitive warfare target those.
This is very much an asymmetric struggle. While you might be a sensible person when you are paying attention to the right aspects, most of the time you arent. Or to quote the Provisional IRA of all people
>Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.
I dont see a way around regularly checking if you have gotten unlucky and carried away. Its really easy to just be opposed to a caricature, figuring out and accepting that you have become one as well as a reaction is quite a lot harder. Mitchell and Webb made a great bit about checking regularly if you and your friends are maybe the baddies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY
If people around you take offense to you doing that, thats a very valuable indicator. If this leaves you with a collapsed reality model, dont worry, thats normal. Stuff is just complicated. Fortunately less bad is often a very reachable bar.