dave9nine

first, use idea of a spectrum or scale to properly give yourself perspective about your experience thus far:
your dojo's is but one form/approach on a big spectrum which, on one end has people killing themselves (literally) to train as if they will encounter armed bandits everyday, and on the other has people barely touching each other who dont train for life and death application but perhaps instead to learn something about subtle relationships of energy, motion, etc.
no need to assign value to either, simply just place your experience somewhere in there, so you can see that there is in fact other approaches.

next, like others here have said, find another place to train.
if this is socially difficult, then maybe it does speak to a sense of "cultishness"; any good dojo worth their salt should let people come and go as they wish--good training should speak for itself.

in the end, it doesnt matter what anyone in the world says; you only have but to listen to your own body.

it is true that it is difficult to find a balance between training hard and effectively, and training safely.
in my view, if we have to kill ourselves to learn something that is supposed to teach us about safety and self defense, what's the point?
we are not 16th century samurai warriors, after all...
just my dos pesos.
-dave