April 21, 2023 • 36 mins
In honor of this episode airing a year ago, we decided to replay this for those who missed it!
In this second part, we learn about DOS, the sex cult within NXIUM. how it came to be, and the manipulating ways Sylvie got roped in. We learn how she met her husband, and Keith’s “rules” she had to follow, what her family thought, and how it eventually all fell apart.
Content warning: Sexual abuse
Sylvie Lloyd is now a mother to a beautiful baby girl. From ages 18-32, she was a member of NXIUM + DOS, described as “an American cult that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor and racketeering.” Her brain was molded by the teachings of the convicted Keith Reineire, and she was the first witness in the federal case. She is a powerful woman we can expect A LOT from in our lifetime.
Surviving a Sex Cult Part 1 HERE!
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Edited by Houston Tilley
Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No, even when times gethard and you feel gin the.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
C see just how beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Life can be when you saften your heart, you can
finally start to live your tu seious life.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Truthiest Life. This
is the second part of the episode with Sylvie Lloyd,
ex member of the cult slash sex cult called Nexium
and Das. If you missed part one, it's linked in
the show notes below this and you're going to need
to start there to have context for this episode. In
the second half, we learn how Sylvie met her husband
(00:53):
through Nexiom and how Keith required his approval and the
rules he put into place that she had to oblige by.
We learn what her family thought of this entire thing,
and we get to understand how dos the quote unquote
sex cult part of this came to be very different
(01:13):
than how many think. We learned what it is, how
Sylvie got involved, and what it meant to be a
master and a slave, and we also get to see
how it all fell apart and Sylvie got her freedom back.
As always, I thank you all for bringing compassion to
this episode to Sylvie, and I think Sylvie for her
strength in sharing her story and of course for choosing
(01:35):
to share it on The Truthiest Life. Here's the rest
of the episode, and just another content warning that we
are going to be talking about sexual abuse and you
and your husband John. You mentioned that he was in
the stands when they were showing the pictures of you
around still your husband, but he was also your husband.
(01:56):
He became your husband through next to him. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And I mean that is one extremely strange.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's not like I say strange because I think I
still have shame around it, which is he is what
it is. But that was all part of kind of
just so entrenched in the cult. I felt like the
only way that I was going to be allowed to
have a relationship was if it was something that Keith
gave me permission to have, because he honestly had I'd
had boyfriends from the UK during that time, and he'd
(02:27):
always give me these ideas that I was just living
out my indoctrination and like this would be a bad
relationship for me and I'd end up ending the relationship.
But he was never saying like because I want to
control you.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But everything he.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Was saying was like, oh okay, like Keith knows best,
and like he's got my best interests at heart, is
the way that I would think about this, And so
I'd end up breaking up with these boyfriends and really
thinking like, the only way I'm gonna because I wanted
to get married and have a family and have children.
Now I was like, the only way I think this
is going to happen is if it's a relationationship that's
kind of condoned by Keith. And so the way that
(03:04):
John and I got together was that I went to
Keith first and said, like, what do you think of
me having a relationship with John? And at the time
I say, I even was like I'm going to ask
him if he'd be willing to marry me, Like would
this be okay if I asked him if he'd be
willing to marry me, and then I can also stay
in Albany.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So it was like this was.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Me presenting it like it's an enticing thing so that
it could be allowed, and Keith said, yes, it could be,
but it would need it should be a business relationship
for the first two years, and there should be no
that I should look at it as a platonic relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And so I was like, okay, but in my head.
I was like, no, that's not what I'm going to do.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
But I've thought great, like this means I can have
a relationship, and so this is the kind of thing
that was like considered pretty normal in esp And now
when I look at like that, I'm like, that is
very not what you'd can said a normal of how
our relationship would start.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Did your family have something to say about this?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My family were.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Very shocked, obviously because they were in England at the
time and they didn't know my plans. So the way
that they found out is I spoke to John and
I was like, hey, like, would you consider marrying me?
I still laugh because I'm like, oh my god, I
cannot believe that this is how this happened, but it
did and was still here so anyway, and he was like, yeah,
(04:28):
I'd consider it, and so then we basically got married,
but literally probably a month later, and I remember there
about four days later. I told my family, after I
had spoken to John about four days after that, that
that's what I was going to do, and yeah, I
would actually would like to go back and really ask
them what they thought, because I think one thing about
(04:49):
English culture too is kind of like they probably had
a lot to say about it behind my back, not
in a horrible way, but just like you don't necessarily
step into other people's lives. I think my dad was like,
we need to meet him on Skype at the time.
That's how they met him. And I remember my dad
saying things to John like, are you sure you really
(05:10):
want to do this? It was surely you should be
saying that to me with us another issue, but yeah,
and then he basically my mom flew out to meet
him and be there at our wedding, which was in
a courthouse, basically signing papers. But yes, that's how she
met John, and it was just all I think it
(05:31):
was so shocking and uncomfortable to them that it was
probably they didn't really know what to do about it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And I was twenty seven, so also, I guess when
you're by.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
The time you're that age, it's not like they can say,
you know, you're not allowed to marry this guy.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Stood to clarify here, you and John were initially first
married so that you could stay in the US. Like
you presented it as a business. Is that what you
meant by a business transaction?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
That wasn't my.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Space and on it, but That's how I presented it
to Keith because I thought that's what Keith would.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Allow, got it? And but you were having feelings for John,
and oh.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, I've been attracted to John for a long time
and he had been married at one point and then
he was divorced, and so I and we had been
working together on a project within ESP for a long
time at that point, so we'd been had speaking every
single day, and we've gotten pretty close and by working
closely together, and so it wasn't like I don't even
know this guy and here we marry me like I
(06:30):
had gotten to know him well and I was attracted
to him. So that's why, you know, I actually did
want to have a relationship with him, but I was
trying to finagle it to be allowed by Keith, and
I felt like that was a good plan, the one
that I came up with.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You and I discussing it now, we call it a cult.
But when you're working, you know, age twenty seven, you're
within this organization, are you referring to it as a
cult at that point? Is your family referring to it
as a cult? No?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
No, they had class is even where like some people
call this a cult. It's not a cult for all
of these reasons, so we were further trying to address that,
you know, defend that it wasn't a cult. So now
for sure people well you went like, hey, I'm in
a cult.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Okay, but you met your husband John through Nexium. You
were part of this big organization working together, and you
were twenty seven years old.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Within Nexium was also DOS, which got a lot of
public attention because of its salaciousness. As the word I
believe you used, and I think it's a really appropriate word.
What is dus and at what age do you begin
your life in us?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So actually, very soon after I married, me and John
got married, literally probably two months maybe a month later,
even I was approached by someone who was a very
close friend of mine within the organization called Monica, who
was like, hey, you seem to be really struggling. You
don't seem like you've been happy since.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You've been with John.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I've got a project, a secret project that I feel like,
you know, could change everything for you, could.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Get you everything you've ever wanted in your life.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It has nothing to do with an Xim or Keith,
but it's a secret and in order to find out
what the secret is, and to join, you need to
give me some collateral.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And that was a word we'd already.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Been introduced to a bunch, like giving collateral to be
able to do things was kind of like already extremely normalized.
And so I was like, oh, what kind of thing
do you need? And she's like, come up with a
story or something that would be damaging to you if
it ever got public. That and like, you give it
to me and I'll hold it and then I'll tell
(08:44):
you the secret, so I know that I have your
trust and that you will not break the secret, because
if you break the secret, we'll make this thing public.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
In the first I've sort.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Of found it funny, but again, this kind of thing
was not that abnormal given everything else that I've been
through near piece, I was like okay, and I came
up with some different stories, and nothing was like strong
enough for her.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
She kept saying, no, this isn't good enough. It's not
good enough.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So you were making up stories they weren't true.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, she said, it doesn't have to be true, and
I was like, how weird?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Okay, But then what we landed on was like some
crazy story of how I was like a sex obsessed
prostitute or something, and I was writing a confessional to
my family and she was like, it has to be
in an envelope with their address on it, so that
I will send it if you ever break the secret.
That was the first layer of collateral for me to
(09:35):
even find out like what this was. Well, it wasn't
even just.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
To find out what it was.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It was to get into the secret project. So that's
how Dars was presented to me. And then once I.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Had given that and she was like, Okay, now I'm
your master and you're my slave, and I was like, WHOA.
I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And again it's kind of finding it funny when she
first told me, because Monica was someone I was really
close with, I kind of really loved and like a lot.
She was a close friend. If you can imagine your
close friend doing this with you, you might be like, well,
it sounds really weird. But like the way she presented
is I'm your master, you're my safe. You have to
do absolutely everything I say, and I'm going to make
(10:14):
you a better person. Like this is some of these
things are going to be really challenging, but when you
do them, you're going to be that person you want
to be, and that was already like a hook for
me and by that point, and so in some ways
I felt like, oh wow, like amazing, She's going to
help me finally be a better partner in relationships, and
(10:34):
like yeah, just like basically I just felt like I
wasn't a good person, and I think that was.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Right from the start of the ESP and I thought,
she's going to make me a good person. So that's
how it was presented.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And yeah, there's so many different ways that you could
go into it, but one of the third she was
like one of the first things that she tasked me
to do because she said, I'm going to give you
these tasks and you're going to need to do them,
and I'm going to collect more more collateral from you
that will ensure that you absolutely do the task. So
the collateral was there to be the incentive that you
(11:09):
would do the tasks and not you know, not tell
anyone what was going on.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You're now part of the Secret Society, right, So.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I'm now part of the secret Society. And the most
I know about it at that point is that she's
my master, I'm her slave. I don't know anyone else
that's in it. I don't know anything else about it,
and never I was never introduced to the word dosin
actually until it all came out afterwards.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And you're married though, So does John your partner, know
about this?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
No nobody can know about this. Apparently nobody can know
about this. This is a completely secret project. And all
my collaterol, which by that point she'd already collected a
couple of naked photos of me. But again she was like,
they're just going in a safe I'm not even going
to look at them. And I was like, okay, super weird.
But they were going to Keith like and I just
didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And then basically one of the first things that I
was tasked to do was I need you to seduce Keith,
was what she said. And I was like, seduce Keith
like what like? And I was like why, Like does
he know?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It was so far out there for me, but she's like,
you just need I was conditioned, like you just need
to do it. She has my collterol. It's for some
reason this is good for me.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Like all these different stories I had around it.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yeah, and I remember I didn't do anything for a
few days, I was like, well, how am I even
going to seduce Keith?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Like what does that mean? And then I was kind
of chied it for it. You know, you need to
act on this.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I told you you need to seduce Keith, and you
haven't done anything. So that's kind of just to give
you a sense of like how whistle started.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
If I could try to understand dus from I don't
think I could, honestly, but if I could try, one
person did this, another person, another person did a master servant? Servant?
Is that the right?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Get slave? Actually?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Okay, master slave? Did it? Just keep kind of continuing.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So what Monica was in the Monica was a slave
of Keith. And so from what I understand in retrospect
what came out in the trial as well is that
it only really just started in twenty fifteen, which is
what the year was of when I became a slave.
And so I think I was one of the first
experimental second line slaves, is what they called it.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Like, could they bring.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In more women on the second level to the first
group of women that were one hundred percent Keith slaves?
Like just knew that they would keep slaves and Keith
was their master, because obviously at that point I didn't
know that Keith was part of this. That was the
initial part. But yeah, the way that you just described
it is kind of accurate.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
But what happened over.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Time was so I was supposed to seduce Keith. Eventually
I sent him a WhatsApp message your glasses look good
or something like that. It was like totally benign, and
he was like, that's not good enough, which was kind
of weird to me because I was like, well, how
does he know about this seducing thing? But again, I
just wish I could go back and give myself like
(14:15):
a hey, think about this, like this doesn't make sense,
but I didn't question anything at the time. So yeah,
he basically groomed me into, well, you need to send
me a naked photo, like this is how you seduce me.
And then there was like more and more and more
and more on naked photos, and I had to send
him a naked photo every day and all these different
things that went on for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And if you didn't want to, were you reminded of
the collateral that they had on you.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, at one point I stopped sending them to him,
and then Monica, as my master, came to me and
was like, why.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Haven't you sent the naked photos?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
So I was like, wow, everybody knows everything in this situation,
and because she had the collateral, I was like, okay, well,
obviously she said, you can't just stop doing it, like
I didn't how you to stop doing it, so you
have to do what I tell you to do. So
Monica and Keith were basically obviously in communication a lot.
(15:09):
But the thing that I was kind of like gearing
up to is that at some point Monica said, I
had to meet with Keith face to face and basically
do well not even basically I had to meet with
Keith face to face and I had to ask him, well,
you take my photo naked like live in person?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
That was what I was tasked to ask that question.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
But what actually ended up happening, and I don't really
want to go into massive amounts.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Of detail about that, but I had to meet him
at a house which is.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Really discussed in creepy little house that he had for
things like this. He took me upstairs and there was
like a bed with white sheets on that were kind
of like stained and disgusting, and I was just like,
oh my god, the most terrified I've ever been in
my life. I asked him, will you take my photo?
He told me to get undressed, and then he basically
(15:57):
abused me sexually and also took my photo and then
told me I am your grand master, like you're in
the circle now, like now you are kind of like
you can ask me any question you want.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I remember him saying that, and I was just so
terrified and.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Disassociated through the whole experience that, for one, my brain
was one hundred percent blank, but also I don't even
feel like I was in my body, Like the whole
thing was so terrifying that I never asked him many
more questions, so like what is this, Like what do
you mean.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
You're the Grandmaster?
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Like I literally don't think I asked one question, even
though he had even said you can ask me anything.
I'm pretty sure I asked nothing or I don't remember
asking anything. And then it just kind of continued from there.
But that's how I got introduced to the fact that
Keith was the grand Master.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I'm so sorry that that happened to you. And again,
for listeners to really zoom out, we're an hour into
this interview, right and no, no, no, no no. I
say that first of all, I want to continue for
as much time as you possibly have. But I say
that because these documentaries, I think and headlines send the
picture like that these women or people willingly joined a
(17:10):
cult or a sex cult, and it was all very conscious.
But really this was maybe I don't know how many
years in that you were next to him, but I'm
seven eight years in already.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Uh yeah, twenty fifteen, No, ten is.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
The Yeah, so you're ten years into this and the
ten years that they were were it started at eighteen,
like your entire brain was modeled in groom Groomed is
the best word I feel like to warp reality into
this is reality. Whatever Keith says is reality. And it
took that many years until it became not just strange
(17:46):
on many levels, but another level that involved sexual abuse.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah? For me, that's exactly what it was from my story.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, it's a very slow I'm put in quotes warm
up into that moment and then you're in so deep
where your friends, your family, your husband is there but
he can't know about it. You've got this fake collateral
story about you. I mean, how is your mental health
during this time.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, No, well that was the thing I would describe
myself as like I was going to use the word psychossic.
But the horrible thing was that me and John a
relationship really was bad because for one, Keith had had
told me I was not allowed to have sex with
John for two years. So we'd got married, were you know,
it was supposed to be in a relationship. We've said
(18:36):
we were going to have a relationship. We wanted the
same things, we wanted to have children and all these
different things, whereas I wouldn't even be intimate with him then,
so everything was like weird. But he was also taking
naxium classes, so he had, you know, could he could
like make that okay in his own way, in his
own head. And I don't want to speak for him
because obviously he's got his own story through that and
(18:58):
whatever his thoughts were, but that our relationship was kind
of fiddled with by Keith right from the start, and
I felt more like through those years, John was another adversary,
like nobody was a safe person to me because he
was constantly frustrated with our relationship. Because I was very pagey,
it was obviously hiding things all the time. I never
(19:21):
wanted to spend time together, or if I did, I
was very controlling about it because I didn't feel like
I was allowed.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And I was trying to protect my relationship.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
From Keith because I felt like if I got too
close to John, Keith would end the relationship. And he
used to say to me and Monica would say to me,
if we tell you that you have to break up
with John, you just have to be okay with that.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Then I'd be crying and.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Like, please don't do that, like please don't make me
break up with him. So I was constantly in some
ways keeping him at arm's length anyway for that reason.
So I was like, well, I cannot show myself as
too close to him because they're going to take him away.
So he was definitely not a safe person to me,
but he was someone I wanted to be with and
we were so that sound It was as complicated as
(20:05):
it sound, But there was all of that. Then I
was also working for Nexium in so many different ways
and working all the time, like they kept you so busy,
and if I wasn't working then I would be like
running ten miles a day. I was hardly eating because
we were all extremely underweight.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That was part of what Keith preferred.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
How does that part work? Is that part of das?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Well, and I think India Oxenberg has spoken very publicly
about how she was on like a restricted diet and
had to ask for permission when she was allowed to eat,
and all these different things.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I didn't have that with Keith, but Keith.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Had always had with me where he'd said my ideal
weight was like one hundred to one hundred and five pounds. Oh,
and I don't want to be triggering to people with numbers,
but the other people have spoken about how one hundred
pounds was like apparently this like ideal number for all women,
no matter what such shape or size you were, which
now in retrospect meants no sense.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Basically under eating, over exercising, barely sleeping, anxious as anything
like off the charts, anxious all the time, working like
I was gonna say, like a slave.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
But I don't want to use that word, not in
the right way.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But obviously the slave was a label that we also
used as what we were called.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I mean, they break you down, there's no sleep, there's
no food, You're in a trance. Years are going by,
your reality is warped. I mean, I know from being
a new mom as you do it, two nights without
sleep and I don't know like which way the sky
is like it. The disorientation process and how long it
went on is something that people, I feel like, really
(21:52):
need to understand and hopefully you yourself can also. I
know you have great therapists, but like I would hope
that would bring you some also like self compar because
looking back, it's like, you know, what the heck and
why would I do this? But when you're in that moment,
your husband's there, your friends are there, like it's just reality.
I could see it, and I hate to bring up
something so strange. But going back to how this all started,
(22:14):
you know you wanted to be a horse jumper. At
this point, are you still horse jumping or training?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And that is I think an important part of the
story is that within a few months, not even a
year of me having been in the States, moved from
my horse to the States to train with this person.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
She quit the spot entirely and she was my lifeline
and my I was.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I felt one hundred percent dependent on her by that point,
and she just shut the whole thing down.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
By that point, I was really underweight already.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
And just so depressed, and I think I felt like
ESP was presented to me even more again it's like
you need to stay to get over your issues because
you obviously have so many issues. And I did have
a lot of issues. ESP was not going to be
the thing that was going to fix that. I think
the bigger issue is that I'd come under a set
(23:06):
of beliefs about how what was going to happen there
in America, and what was happening was so extremely different
that it's quite understandable that someone might be struggling mentally
at that point and not see a path forward for
themselves when they're eighteen and they've invested everything in moving
to the States with their horse to train to be
an elite show jumping rider, and I quit school at sixteen.
(23:28):
I didn't have a backup plan. I had nothing, and
so it was presented to me that I could carry
on working and living for her, just under a different
I'd be her assistant basically instead of training as a
show jumping rider. So that's kind of how that ended
up continuing. It was kind of like swimming away from
the beach and then you're so far out from the
(23:48):
shore that you forgot why how you even got there.
Because then I didn't go back to riding horses until
ESP fell apart, and then I went back to working
with forces for a year. That's the crazy thing is
I think that I don't really know how to say
it about apart from that metaphor. But yeah, no, I
(24:09):
never made it as an elite show jumping righter.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Basically, then make it or not. I just you know,
this whole thing was how to be a better reach
your goals, be the person you want to be, and
yet it actually takes you farther from where you want
to be. But like you said, you're so far out
you don't even know how to get back to where
you started. And they've got all this on you, and
it's just it's so all encompassing and yet happened to
(24:35):
so many brilliant people, right Like there's a lot of
smart people affiliated with Nexium and DOS too.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that just to define
DOS because I'm not sure if I don't think we
did that, and just to jump back to that, but
I think that it's a Latin it's an acronym that's
a Latin phrase that stands for domination over the submissive
women or.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It's but yeah, so obviously I didn't know that part,
but yeah, to think that that's where it ended versus
where it started, and I haven't really actually zoomed down
and looked at it like that, And I feel like
it's like giving me goosebumps even now.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Because I think one of the things that.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Sorry is actually making me a bit emotional is like
I never really had a chance to grieve that I
gave up on my dreams and like that my life
could have been so different. And I think that there
are so many things that I haven't had a chance
to grieve that never happened because of being an esp
(25:34):
the fact that I mean, I'm so so grateful that
John and I have like salvaged our relationship because that's
what I would say is salvaged and salvaging in as
in like concurrently and that we have Zdy, a little
girl now. But at thirty four now, like I'd hoped
to have finished having children and like to be in
(25:54):
a very you know, I have three or four children.
I wanted a really big family and I feel like
there are just so many things that have kind of
slipped away and that I didn't even notice, and it's hard.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
To unpack that.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean, I'm not a therapist, I'm not any of that.
But the timeline of all of this, I think is
really important. Right, Keith went to jail how many years ago?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Only he was convicted in twenty nineteen and sentenced in
twenty twenty October twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
All right, so this story is still very much happening, right,
like I think, And he's appealing, But yeah, it's not
like if this is ten years behind us, or you know,
when we started, this was two thousand and six. This
isn't like when you started in two thousand. I think
you said two thousand and six, right, This isn't two
thousand and five when you started, and this has been
(26:45):
twenty years from now, Like of course you're still grieving,
coming to terms, trying to put the puzzle pieces together,
because so much just recently came to the surface. Even
though das started in twenty fifteen, it wasn't until the
trials that you even learned so much more about what
you were part of.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh totally, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Couldn't it would take so long for me to tell,
and I think people would probably fall asleep if I
told the entire story. So I feel like I've tried
to give relevant bits of information. But yeah, there was
so much that I learned in the six weeks from
the start to the end of the trial that was
so deeply disturbing even then because I didn't know it
(27:25):
was happening.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And it's just and I think that was the same
for so many people.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
It was just sort of like really going back and
seeing things for what they really were.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's so hard for your brain to.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Do that when you're like, Wow, that's what was really
going on at that time, and that's what was really
going on with that person.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's so disturbing.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
And some of the aspects of the trial, just the
age of some of the victims, it's just it's sick making.
And those were things that I wasn't even privy to
at the time.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
So I say that because I've had the honor of
knowing you without knowing that you were part of this, right,
Like you and I have had an online friendship for
a couple of years. I remember, you know, you once
wrote me something really beautiful and I printed it because
I was like, this woman's really like you stand out.
You're a really special person that leads with your heart
(28:16):
very openly, even after something that most people would have,
you know, closed. When you told me that you were
part of this, I was like, wait, you have you
know how I was trying to put the pieces together
and as much as I think it's important that you
grieve and we acknowledge what you quote unquote lost, you know,
not getting the career that you wanted. And I in
(28:38):
no way mean to put like a toxic positivity spin
on this or to downplay your experience, but seeing you
now as a mom in that full role, having lived
like four hundred lives in this past life, there's a
part of me that just knows that you are exactly
where you're meant to be. Not that that should have happened,
(28:59):
not that that's okay, but you're so much stronger because
almost because your your gut instincts were pulled out of
you and now you've had to go back to researching
for who is Sylvie? You know now that you're kind
of you're a mom? You know how how is it
felt to have such strong instincts and ones that are
(29:20):
impossible to ignore.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Think that one thing that I did, which I am
so glad that I did, is that when everything fell
apart with Nexium, I was completely cut off from anybody involved.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
In the organizations.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
They literally stopped talking to everybody I knew overnight after
being interviewed by the FBI, because that's what was That's
what my lawyer suggested I do, and I'm pretty sure
I was asked to.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Do that anyway.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
But basically I went from having this huge circle of
friends to knowing no one, like instantly.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Just a backup for a second. Were you in your
in US, you know, doing your day to day and
an FBI came.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
To you and subpoenas started being issued out different people.
I ended up being subpoenaed, which I think people would
know that means you have to speak if you're subpoenas.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Sorry. That was kind of a light.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Bulb moment for me because I was told in Das,
if you get a subpoena, tell me, Monica said, tell
me and we'll get you a lawyer. I didn't tell
them that I got a subpoena and I got my
own lawyer, So I was like, no, this is my
ticket out of here. So that was my first kind
of like wake up moment honestly for me. But anyway,
(30:30):
basically moved back to England overnight as well, after having
deal two days of interviews with the FBI in twenty eighteen,
moved to England right afterwards and went straight full time
to being with the animals again, being with the horses again,
which I hadn't beten since I was like eighteen, And
I think that just connected me back to my instincts.
(30:52):
And I spent a lot of time alone just with
dogs and horses, and I think that that laid a
foundation to be reconnut did to my intuition, because that's
really where I learned all of that, was through the
animals in the beginning, and I think then so stepping
into motherhood has felt like an extension of that.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I think what's true to my core is that I
just love to be a support.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I love to take care of, like that's what feels
most at home to me.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And so this is the longest I've ever left Zady, even.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
I'm sorry to take you for so long.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
No, well yeah, I mean no.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And so I felt like leading up to this, that's
what I felt the most kind of anxiety and guilt
and sadness around was not talking about this subject. It
was leaving Zady with She's not on her own just
so I wonder she's with John.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
She's totally fine.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
But essentially it feels like home to me, and I
would love to have more children if that's in our future,
because I feel so grateful and lucky to get to
spend my time with her and to just have the
experience of motherhood, because I think mothering is feels so
like home.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
And I mean, strong women raise strong woman, and you're
one hundred percent the strongest woman I know well, truly, truly,
I know that this has been an incredibly tough share,
but it is your truth and your reality that I
think only you know. An hour and sixteen minutes the
(32:22):
longest you've left Zada is it takes that long for
people to even just get the surface.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
We just scratched the surface of your true of your
true story, and you're not what the court was trying
to do. You know, you are not a broken woman
who's desperate or whatever they were trying to chalk up,
whatever story they were trying to sell there, right, Like
you are so much more. Even in that moment you
(32:48):
defied Monica. I don't even know who Monica is, but
you defied Monica and Keith and said, I'm getting my
own lawyer. Like, there have been parts of you, the
strengths within you, just dying to come out, and I'm
really ex to see how you continue to step into
the true you. You know, I think almost that maybe
Keith saw how powerful you could have been and worked
(33:10):
really hard to put that fire out within you because
maybe he was fearful of you.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Oh well, yeah, that was definitely a different way for
me to think about it. But I just want to
say thank you to you because I've been listening to
The Truthiest Life from when you launched it, and I
also excited that you had a podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And I think the reason why I wanted.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
To speak with you is because I do feel like
you're able to be present with people in their darkness,
in their pain, and then help them bring the light
out of that and the truth through the darkness, through
the whatever the complicated nature of their story is. And
I feel like you're the person that I could talk
to and probably the audience that would want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I don't know if that's true, but that would be
my chense.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
There in my audience is compassionate, kind, patient and here
to support you. So you know when this comes out
and in this moment even I just want you to
know that you're supported, held safe, and everything that happened
to you was unjust, but you are still becoming the
woman that you were meant to be, even though you
(34:16):
might feel I feel like jipped or derailed because of Keith,
Like I just I can feel your fire and it
lights me up to feel your power because I feel it,
I see it. And your daughter is the luckiest girl
in the world to have you as a mom.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh well, thank you yours too.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Thank you for being a guest and sharing your story.
Is there anything else that you want to include that
I possibly missed, Not.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
That I can think of.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
I mean, I always say that I would answer any questions,
and I think one of the things that is a
little bit strange, and maybe this is about the kind
of victims story, is that sometimes people kind of avoid
you and don't ask you questions, and I think that
they think they're doing you a favor, but actually that
can add to the shame sometimes because it's like, wow,
I'm so like my story is so weird or disturbing
(35:03):
to people that no one will even ask me a.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Simple question about it. And so not that I think
everybody would want.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
That, but I think sometimes it's good to check in
with people that have been through different things and don't
and if they don't want to talk about it, they'll
probably say no if you did ask, But sometimes they're
not asking.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
The avoiding and can actually make them feel more ashamed.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Totally understand that, especially when you know that people know
and you're like, I know that they want to ask,
but they don't say it, so you're like, just it's
just festering within you. You know, us as humans, we're
way smarter than we let on to be, and yet
we oftentimes dance around the obvious. Whereas conversations when they
come from the heart, how are you are you okay?
(35:46):
You know, things like that versus the voyeuristic nature of
a story. You know, I think there's always an opportunity
to hold space for people, especially when we lead with curiosity.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
From the heart. I agree.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Thank you. I'll let you get back to Zad and
John John, thank you for watching Zad. Thank you John,
and thank you for living your truthiest life. I so
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Thanks Lisa,
No, even when times gethard and you feel gin the.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
C see just how beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Life can be when you saften your heart, you can
finally start to live your tu seious life.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Truthiest Life. This
is the second part of the episode with Sylvie Lloyd,
ex member of the cult slash sex cult called Nexium
and Das. If you missed part one, it's linked in
the show notes below this and you're going to need
to start there to have context for this episode. In
the second half, we learn how Sylvie met her husband
(00:53):
through Nexiom and how Keith required his approval and the
rules he put into place that she had to oblige by.
We learn what her family thought of this entire thing,
and we get to understand how dos the quote unquote
sex cult part of this came to be very different
(01:13):
than how many think. We learned what it is, how
Sylvie got involved, and what it meant to be a
master and a slave, and we also get to see
how it all fell apart and Sylvie got her freedom back.
As always, I thank you all for bringing compassion to
this episode to Sylvie, and I think Sylvie for her
strength in sharing her story and of course for choosing
(01:35):
to share it on The Truthiest Life. Here's the rest
of the episode, and just another content warning that we
are going to be talking about sexual abuse and you
and your husband John. You mentioned that he was in
the stands when they were showing the pictures of you
around still your husband, but he was also your husband.
(01:56):
He became your husband through next to him. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And I mean that is one extremely strange.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's not like I say strange because I think I
still have shame around it, which is he is what
it is. But that was all part of kind of
just so entrenched in the cult. I felt like the
only way that I was going to be allowed to
have a relationship was if it was something that Keith
gave me permission to have, because he honestly had I'd
had boyfriends from the UK during that time, and he'd
(02:27):
always give me these ideas that I was just living
out my indoctrination and like this would be a bad
relationship for me and I'd end up ending the relationship.
But he was never saying like because I want to
control you.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But everything he.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Was saying was like, oh okay, like Keith knows best,
and like he's got my best interests at heart, is
the way that I would think about this, And so
I'd end up breaking up with these boyfriends and really
thinking like, the only way I'm gonna because I wanted
to get married and have a family and have children.
Now I was like, the only way I think this
is going to happen is if it's a relationationship that's
kind of condoned by Keith. And so the way that
(03:04):
John and I got together was that I went to
Keith first and said, like, what do you think of
me having a relationship with John? And at the time
I say, I even was like I'm going to ask
him if he'd be willing to marry me, Like would
this be okay if I asked him if he'd be
willing to marry me, and then I can also stay
in Albany.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So it was like this was.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Me presenting it like it's an enticing thing so that
it could be allowed, and Keith said, yes, it could be,
but it would need it should be a business relationship
for the first two years, and there should be no
that I should look at it as a platonic relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And so I was like, okay, but in my head.
I was like, no, that's not what I'm going to do.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
But I've thought great, like this means I can have
a relationship, and so this is the kind of thing
that was like considered pretty normal in esp And now
when I look at like that, I'm like, that is
very not what you'd can said a normal of how
our relationship would start.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Did your family have something to say about this?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My family were.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Very shocked, obviously because they were in England at the
time and they didn't know my plans. So the way
that they found out is I spoke to John and
I was like, hey, like, would you consider marrying me?
I still laugh because I'm like, oh my god, I
cannot believe that this is how this happened, but it
did and was still here so anyway, and he was like, yeah,
(04:28):
I'd consider it, and so then we basically got married,
but literally probably a month later, and I remember there
about four days later. I told my family, after I
had spoken to John about four days after that, that
that's what I was going to do, and yeah, I
would actually would like to go back and really ask
them what they thought, because I think one thing about
(04:49):
English culture too is kind of like they probably had
a lot to say about it behind my back, not
in a horrible way, but just like you don't necessarily
step into other people's lives. I think my dad was like,
we need to meet him on Skype at the time.
That's how they met him. And I remember my dad
saying things to John like, are you sure you really
(05:10):
want to do this? It was surely you should be
saying that to me with us another issue, but yeah,
and then he basically my mom flew out to meet
him and be there at our wedding, which was in
a courthouse, basically signing papers. But yes, that's how she
met John, and it was just all I think it
(05:31):
was so shocking and uncomfortable to them that it was
probably they didn't really know what to do about it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And I was twenty seven, so also, I guess when
you're by.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
The time you're that age, it's not like they can say,
you know, you're not allowed to marry this guy.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Stood to clarify here, you and John were initially first
married so that you could stay in the US. Like
you presented it as a business. Is that what you
meant by a business transaction?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
That wasn't my.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Space and on it, but That's how I presented it
to Keith because I thought that's what Keith would.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Allow, got it? And but you were having feelings for John,
and oh.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, I've been attracted to John for a long time
and he had been married at one point and then
he was divorced, and so I and we had been
working together on a project within ESP for a long
time at that point, so we'd been had speaking every
single day, and we've gotten pretty close and by working
closely together, and so it wasn't like I don't even
know this guy and here we marry me like I
(06:30):
had gotten to know him well and I was attracted
to him. So that's why, you know, I actually did
want to have a relationship with him, but I was
trying to finagle it to be allowed by Keith, and
I felt like that was a good plan, the one
that I came up with.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You and I discussing it now, we call it a cult.
But when you're working, you know, age twenty seven, you're
within this organization, are you referring to it as a
cult at that point? Is your family referring to it
as a cult? No?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
No, they had class is even where like some people
call this a cult. It's not a cult for all
of these reasons, so we were further trying to address that,
you know, defend that it wasn't a cult. So now
for sure people well you went like, hey, I'm in
a cult.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Okay, but you met your husband John through Nexium. You
were part of this big organization working together, and you
were twenty seven years old.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Within Nexium was also DOS, which got a lot of
public attention because of its salaciousness. As the word I
believe you used, and I think it's a really appropriate word.
What is dus and at what age do you begin
your life in us?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So actually, very soon after I married, me and John
got married, literally probably two months maybe a month later,
even I was approached by someone who was a very
close friend of mine within the organization called Monica, who
was like, hey, you seem to be really struggling. You
don't seem like you've been happy since.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You've been with John.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I've got a project, a secret project that I feel like,
you know, could change everything for you, could.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Get you everything you've ever wanted in your life.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It has nothing to do with an Xim or Keith,
but it's a secret and in order to find out
what the secret is, and to join, you need to
give me some collateral.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And that was a word we'd already.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Been introduced to a bunch, like giving collateral to be
able to do things was kind of like already extremely normalized.
And so I was like, oh, what kind of thing
do you need? And she's like, come up with a
story or something that would be damaging to you if
it ever got public. That and like, you give it
to me and I'll hold it and then I'll tell
(08:44):
you the secret, so I know that I have your
trust and that you will not break the secret, because
if you break the secret, we'll make this thing public.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
In the first I've sort.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Of found it funny, but again, this kind of thing
was not that abnormal given everything else that I've been
through near piece, I was like okay, and I came
up with some different stories, and nothing was like strong
enough for her.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
She kept saying, no, this isn't good enough. It's not
good enough.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So you were making up stories they weren't true.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, she said, it doesn't have to be true, and
I was like, how weird?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Okay, But then what we landed on was like some
crazy story of how I was like a sex obsessed
prostitute or something, and I was writing a confessional to
my family and she was like, it has to be
in an envelope with their address on it, so that
I will send it if you ever break the secret.
That was the first layer of collateral for me to
(09:35):
even find out like what this was. Well, it wasn't
even just.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
To find out what it was.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It was to get into the secret project. So that's
how Dars was presented to me. And then once I.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Had given that and she was like, Okay, now I'm
your master and you're my slave, and I was like, WHOA.
I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And again it's kind of finding it funny when she
first told me, because Monica was someone I was really
close with, I kind of really loved and like a lot.
She was a close friend. If you can imagine your
close friend doing this with you, you might be like, well,
it sounds really weird. But like the way she presented
is I'm your master, you're my safe. You have to
do absolutely everything I say, and I'm going to make
(10:14):
you a better person. Like this is some of these
things are going to be really challenging, but when you
do them, you're going to be that person you want
to be, and that was already like a hook for
me and by that point, and so in some ways
I felt like, oh wow, like amazing, She's going to
help me finally be a better partner in relationships, and
(10:34):
like yeah, just like basically I just felt like I
wasn't a good person, and I think that was.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Right from the start of the ESP and I thought,
she's going to make me a good person. So that's
how it was presented.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And yeah, there's so many different ways that you could
go into it, but one of the third she was
like one of the first things that she tasked me
to do because she said, I'm going to give you
these tasks and you're going to need to do them,
and I'm going to collect more more collateral from you
that will ensure that you absolutely do the task. So
the collateral was there to be the incentive that you
(11:09):
would do the tasks and not you know, not tell
anyone what was going on.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You're now part of the Secret Society, right, So.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I'm now part of the secret Society. And the most
I know about it at that point is that she's
my master, I'm her slave. I don't know anyone else
that's in it. I don't know anything else about it,
and never I was never introduced to the word dosin
actually until it all came out afterwards.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And you're married though, So does John your partner, know
about this?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
No nobody can know about this. Apparently nobody can know
about this. This is a completely secret project. And all
my collaterol, which by that point she'd already collected a
couple of naked photos of me. But again she was like,
they're just going in a safe I'm not even going
to look at them. And I was like, okay, super weird.
But they were going to Keith like and I just
didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And then basically one of the first things that I
was tasked to do was I need you to seduce Keith,
was what she said. And I was like, seduce Keith
like what like? And I was like why, Like does
he know?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It was so far out there for me, but she's like,
you just need I was conditioned, like you just need
to do it. She has my collterol. It's for some
reason this is good for me.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Like all these different stories I had around it.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yeah, and I remember I didn't do anything for a
few days, I was like, well, how am I even
going to seduce Keith?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Like what does that mean? And then I was kind
of chied it for it. You know, you need to
act on this.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I told you you need to seduce Keith, and you
haven't done anything. So that's kind of just to give
you a sense of like how whistle started.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
If I could try to understand dus from I don't
think I could, honestly, but if I could try, one
person did this, another person, another person did a master servant? Servant?
Is that the right?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Get slave? Actually?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Okay, master slave? Did it? Just keep kind of continuing.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So what Monica was in the Monica was a slave
of Keith. And so from what I understand in retrospect
what came out in the trial as well is that
it only really just started in twenty fifteen, which is
what the year was of when I became a slave.
And so I think I was one of the first
experimental second line slaves, is what they called it.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Like, could they bring.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In more women on the second level to the first
group of women that were one hundred percent Keith slaves?
Like just knew that they would keep slaves and Keith
was their master, because obviously at that point I didn't
know that Keith was part of this. That was the
initial part. But yeah, the way that you just described
it is kind of accurate.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
But what happened over.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Time was so I was supposed to seduce Keith. Eventually
I sent him a WhatsApp message your glasses look good
or something like that. It was like totally benign, and
he was like, that's not good enough, which was kind
of weird to me because I was like, well, how
does he know about this seducing thing? But again, I
just wish I could go back and give myself like
(14:15):
a hey, think about this, like this doesn't make sense,
but I didn't question anything at the time. So yeah,
he basically groomed me into, well, you need to send
me a naked photo, like this is how you seduce me.
And then there was like more and more and more
and more on naked photos, and I had to send
him a naked photo every day and all these different
things that went on for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And if you didn't want to, were you reminded of
the collateral that they had on you.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, at one point I stopped sending them to him,
and then Monica, as my master, came to me and
was like, why.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Haven't you sent the naked photos?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
So I was like, wow, everybody knows everything in this situation,
and because she had the collateral, I was like, okay, well,
obviously she said, you can't just stop doing it, like
I didn't how you to stop doing it, so you
have to do what I tell you to do. So
Monica and Keith were basically obviously in communication a lot.
(15:09):
But the thing that I was kind of like gearing
up to is that at some point Monica said, I
had to meet with Keith face to face and basically
do well not even basically I had to meet with
Keith face to face and I had to ask him, well,
you take my photo naked like live in person?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
That was what I was tasked to ask that question.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
But what actually ended up happening, and I don't really
want to go into massive amounts.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Of detail about that, but I had to meet him
at a house which is.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Really discussed in creepy little house that he had for
things like this. He took me upstairs and there was
like a bed with white sheets on that were kind
of like stained and disgusting, and I was just like,
oh my god, the most terrified I've ever been in
my life. I asked him, will you take my photo?
He told me to get undressed, and then he basically
(15:57):
abused me sexually and also took my photo and then
told me I am your grand master, like you're in
the circle now, like now you are kind of like
you can ask me any question you want.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I remember him saying that, and I was just so
terrified and.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Disassociated through the whole experience that, for one, my brain
was one hundred percent blank, but also I don't even
feel like I was in my body, Like the whole
thing was so terrifying that I never asked him many
more questions, so like what is this, Like what do
you mean.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
You're the Grandmaster?
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Like I literally don't think I asked one question, even
though he had even said you can ask me anything.
I'm pretty sure I asked nothing or I don't remember
asking anything. And then it just kind of continued from there.
But that's how I got introduced to the fact that
Keith was the grand Master.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I'm so sorry that that happened to you. And again,
for listeners to really zoom out, we're an hour into
this interview, right and no, no, no, no no. I
say that first of all, I want to continue for
as much time as you possibly have. But I say
that because these documentaries, I think and headlines send the
picture like that these women or people willingly joined a
(17:10):
cult or a sex cult, and it was all very conscious.
But really this was maybe I don't know how many
years in that you were next to him, but I'm
seven eight years in already.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Uh yeah, twenty fifteen, No, ten is.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
The Yeah, so you're ten years into this and the
ten years that they were were it started at eighteen,
like your entire brain was modeled in groom Groomed is
the best word I feel like to warp reality into
this is reality. Whatever Keith says is reality. And it
took that many years until it became not just strange
(17:46):
on many levels, but another level that involved sexual abuse.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah? For me, that's exactly what it was from my story.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, it's a very slow I'm put in quotes warm
up into that moment and then you're in so deep
where your friends, your family, your husband is there but
he can't know about it. You've got this fake collateral
story about you. I mean, how is your mental health
during this time.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, No, well that was the thing I would describe
myself as like I was going to use the word psychossic.
But the horrible thing was that me and John a
relationship really was bad because for one, Keith had had
told me I was not allowed to have sex with
John for two years. So we'd got married, were you know,
it was supposed to be in a relationship. We've said
(18:36):
we were going to have a relationship. We wanted the
same things, we wanted to have children and all these
different things, whereas I wouldn't even be intimate with him then,
so everything was like weird. But he was also taking
naxium classes, so he had, you know, could he could
like make that okay in his own way, in his
own head. And I don't want to speak for him
because obviously he's got his own story through that and
(18:58):
whatever his thoughts were, but that our relationship was kind
of fiddled with by Keith right from the start, and
I felt more like through those years, John was another adversary,
like nobody was a safe person to me because he
was constantly frustrated with our relationship. Because I was very pagey,
it was obviously hiding things all the time. I never
(19:21):
wanted to spend time together, or if I did, I
was very controlling about it because I didn't feel like
I was allowed.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And I was trying to protect my relationship.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
From Keith because I felt like if I got too
close to John, Keith would end the relationship. And he
used to say to me and Monica would say to me,
if we tell you that you have to break up
with John, you just have to be okay with that.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Then I'd be crying and.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Like, please don't do that, like please don't make me
break up with him. So I was constantly in some
ways keeping him at arm's length anyway for that reason.
So I was like, well, I cannot show myself as
too close to him because they're going to take him away.
So he was definitely not a safe person to me,
but he was someone I wanted to be with and
we were so that sound It was as complicated as
(20:05):
it sound, But there was all of that. Then I
was also working for Nexium in so many different ways
and working all the time, like they kept you so busy,
and if I wasn't working then I would be like
running ten miles a day. I was hardly eating because
we were all extremely underweight.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That was part of what Keith preferred.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
How does that part work? Is that part of das?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Well, and I think India Oxenberg has spoken very publicly
about how she was on like a restricted diet and
had to ask for permission when she was allowed to eat,
and all these different things.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I didn't have that with Keith, but Keith.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Had always had with me where he'd said my ideal
weight was like one hundred to one hundred and five pounds. Oh,
and I don't want to be triggering to people with numbers,
but the other people have spoken about how one hundred
pounds was like apparently this like ideal number for all women,
no matter what such shape or size you were, which
now in retrospect meants no sense.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Basically under eating, over exercising, barely sleeping, anxious as anything
like off the charts, anxious all the time, working like
I was gonna say, like a slave.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
But I don't want to use that word, not in
the right way.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But obviously the slave was a label that we also
used as what we were called.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I mean, they break you down, there's no sleep, there's
no food, You're in a trance. Years are going by,
your reality is warped. I mean, I know from being
a new mom as you do it, two nights without
sleep and I don't know like which way the sky
is like it. The disorientation process and how long it
went on is something that people, I feel like, really
(21:52):
need to understand and hopefully you yourself can also. I
know you have great therapists, but like I would hope
that would bring you some also like self compar because
looking back, it's like, you know, what the heck and
why would I do this? But when you're in that moment,
your husband's there, your friends are there, like it's just reality.
I could see it, and I hate to bring up
something so strange. But going back to how this all started,
(22:14):
you know you wanted to be a horse jumper. At
this point, are you still horse jumping or training?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And that is I think an important part of the
story is that within a few months, not even a
year of me having been in the States, moved from
my horse to the States to train with this person.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
She quit the spot entirely and she was my lifeline
and my I was.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I felt one hundred percent dependent on her by that point,
and she just shut the whole thing down.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
By that point, I was really underweight already.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
And just so depressed, and I think I felt like
ESP was presented to me even more again it's like
you need to stay to get over your issues because
you obviously have so many issues. And I did have
a lot of issues. ESP was not going to be
the thing that was going to fix that. I think
the bigger issue is that I'd come under a set
(23:06):
of beliefs about how what was going to happen there
in America, and what was happening was so extremely different
that it's quite understandable that someone might be struggling mentally
at that point and not see a path forward for
themselves when they're eighteen and they've invested everything in moving
to the States with their horse to train to be
an elite show jumping rider, and I quit school at sixteen.
(23:28):
I didn't have a backup plan. I had nothing, and
so it was presented to me that I could carry
on working and living for her, just under a different
I'd be her assistant basically instead of training as a
show jumping rider. So that's kind of how that ended
up continuing. It was kind of like swimming away from
the beach and then you're so far out from the
(23:48):
shore that you forgot why how you even got there.
Because then I didn't go back to riding horses until
ESP fell apart, and then I went back to working
with forces for a year. That's the crazy thing is
I think that I don't really know how to say
it about apart from that metaphor. But yeah, no, I
(24:09):
never made it as an elite show jumping righter.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Basically, then make it or not. I just you know,
this whole thing was how to be a better reach
your goals, be the person you want to be, and
yet it actually takes you farther from where you want
to be. But like you said, you're so far out
you don't even know how to get back to where
you started. And they've got all this on you, and
it's just it's so all encompassing and yet happened to
(24:35):
so many brilliant people, right Like there's a lot of
smart people affiliated with Nexium and DOS too.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that just to define
DOS because I'm not sure if I don't think we
did that, and just to jump back to that, but
I think that it's a Latin it's an acronym that's
a Latin phrase that stands for domination over the submissive
women or.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
It's but yeah, so obviously I didn't know that part,
but yeah, to think that that's where it ended versus
where it started, and I haven't really actually zoomed down
and looked at it like that, And I feel like
it's like giving me goosebumps even now.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Because I think one of the things that.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Sorry is actually making me a bit emotional is like
I never really had a chance to grieve that I
gave up on my dreams and like that my life
could have been so different. And I think that there
are so many things that I haven't had a chance
to grieve that never happened because of being an esp
(25:34):
the fact that I mean, I'm so so grateful that
John and I have like salvaged our relationship because that's
what I would say is salvaged and salvaging in as
in like concurrently and that we have Zdy, a little
girl now. But at thirty four now, like I'd hoped
to have finished having children and like to be in
(25:54):
a very you know, I have three or four children.
I wanted a really big family and I feel like
there are just so many things that have kind of
slipped away and that I didn't even notice, and it's hard.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
To unpack that.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean, I'm not a therapist, I'm not any of that.
But the timeline of all of this, I think is
really important. Right, Keith went to jail how many years ago?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Only he was convicted in twenty nineteen and sentenced in
twenty twenty October twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
All right, so this story is still very much happening, right,
like I think, And he's appealing, But yeah, it's not
like if this is ten years behind us, or you know,
when we started, this was two thousand and six. This
isn't like when you started in two thousand. I think
you said two thousand and six, right, This isn't two
thousand and five when you started, and this has been
(26:45):
twenty years from now, Like of course you're still grieving,
coming to terms, trying to put the puzzle pieces together,
because so much just recently came to the surface. Even
though das started in twenty fifteen, it wasn't until the
trials that you even learned so much more about what
you were part of.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh totally, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Couldn't it would take so long for me to tell,
and I think people would probably fall asleep if I
told the entire story. So I feel like I've tried
to give relevant bits of information. But yeah, there was
so much that I learned in the six weeks from
the start to the end of the trial that was
so deeply disturbing even then because I didn't know it
(27:25):
was happening.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And it's just and I think that was the same
for so many people.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
It was just sort of like really going back and
seeing things for what they really were.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's so hard for your brain to.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Do that when you're like, Wow, that's what was really
going on at that time, and that's what was really
going on with that person.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's so disturbing.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
And some of the aspects of the trial, just the
age of some of the victims, it's just it's sick making.
And those were things that I wasn't even privy to
at the time.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
So I say that because I've had the honor of
knowing you without knowing that you were part of this, right,
Like you and I have had an online friendship for
a couple of years. I remember, you know, you once
wrote me something really beautiful and I printed it because
I was like, this woman's really like you stand out.
You're a really special person that leads with your heart
(28:16):
very openly, even after something that most people would have,
you know, closed. When you told me that you were
part of this, I was like, wait, you have you
know how I was trying to put the pieces together
and as much as I think it's important that you
grieve and we acknowledge what you quote unquote lost, you know,
not getting the career that you wanted. And I in
(28:38):
no way mean to put like a toxic positivity spin
on this or to downplay your experience, but seeing you
now as a mom in that full role, having lived
like four hundred lives in this past life, there's a
part of me that just knows that you are exactly
where you're meant to be. Not that that should have happened,
(28:59):
not that that's okay, but you're so much stronger because
almost because your your gut instincts were pulled out of
you and now you've had to go back to researching
for who is Sylvie? You know now that you're kind
of you're a mom? You know how how is it
felt to have such strong instincts and ones that are
(29:20):
impossible to ignore.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Think that one thing that I did, which I am
so glad that I did, is that when everything fell
apart with Nexium, I was completely cut off from anybody involved.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
In the organizations.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
They literally stopped talking to everybody I knew overnight after
being interviewed by the FBI, because that's what was That's
what my lawyer suggested I do, and I'm pretty sure
I was asked to.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Do that anyway.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
But basically I went from having this huge circle of
friends to knowing no one, like instantly.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Just a backup for a second. Were you in your
in US, you know, doing your day to day and
an FBI came.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
To you and subpoenas started being issued out different people.
I ended up being subpoenaed, which I think people would
know that means you have to speak if you're subpoenas.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Sorry. That was kind of a light.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Bulb moment for me because I was told in Das,
if you get a subpoena, tell me, Monica said, tell
me and we'll get you a lawyer. I didn't tell
them that I got a subpoena and I got my
own lawyer, So I was like, no, this is my
ticket out of here. So that was my first kind
of like wake up moment honestly for me. But anyway,
(30:30):
basically moved back to England overnight as well, after having
deal two days of interviews with the FBI in twenty eighteen,
moved to England right afterwards and went straight full time
to being with the animals again, being with the horses again,
which I hadn't beten since I was like eighteen, And
I think that just connected me back to my instincts.
(30:52):
And I spent a lot of time alone just with
dogs and horses, and I think that that laid a
foundation to be reconnut did to my intuition, because that's
really where I learned all of that, was through the
animals in the beginning, and I think then so stepping
into motherhood has felt like an extension of that.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I think what's true to my core is that I
just love to be a support.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I love to take care of, like that's what feels
most at home to me.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And so this is the longest I've ever left Zady, even.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
I'm sorry to take you for so long.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
No, well yeah, I mean no.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And so I felt like leading up to this, that's
what I felt the most kind of anxiety and guilt
and sadness around was not talking about this subject. It
was leaving Zady with She's not on her own just
so I wonder she's with John.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
She's totally fine.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
But essentially it feels like home to me, and I
would love to have more children if that's in our future,
because I feel so grateful and lucky to get to
spend my time with her and to just have the
experience of motherhood, because I think mothering is feels so
like home.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
And I mean, strong women raise strong woman, and you're
one hundred percent the strongest woman I know well, truly, truly,
I know that this has been an incredibly tough share,
but it is your truth and your reality that I
think only you know. An hour and sixteen minutes the
(32:22):
longest you've left Zada is it takes that long for
people to even just get the surface.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
We just scratched the surface of your true of your
true story, and you're not what the court was trying
to do. You know, you are not a broken woman
who's desperate or whatever they were trying to chalk up,
whatever story they were trying to sell there, right, Like
you are so much more. Even in that moment you
(32:48):
defied Monica. I don't even know who Monica is, but
you defied Monica and Keith and said, I'm getting my
own lawyer. Like, there have been parts of you, the
strengths within you, just dying to come out, and I'm
really ex to see how you continue to step into
the true you. You know, I think almost that maybe
Keith saw how powerful you could have been and worked
(33:10):
really hard to put that fire out within you because
maybe he was fearful of you.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Oh well, yeah, that was definitely a different way for
me to think about it. But I just want to
say thank you to you because I've been listening to
The Truthiest Life from when you launched it, and I
also excited that you had a podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And I think the reason why I wanted.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
To speak with you is because I do feel like
you're able to be present with people in their darkness,
in their pain, and then help them bring the light
out of that and the truth through the darkness, through
the whatever the complicated nature of their story is. And
I feel like you're the person that I could talk
to and probably the audience that would want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I don't know if that's true, but that would be
my chense.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
There in my audience is compassionate, kind, patient and here
to support you. So you know when this comes out
and in this moment even I just want you to
know that you're supported, held safe, and everything that happened
to you was unjust, but you are still becoming the
woman that you were meant to be, even though you
(34:16):
might feel I feel like jipped or derailed because of Keith,
Like I just I can feel your fire and it
lights me up to feel your power because I feel it,
I see it. And your daughter is the luckiest girl
in the world to have you as a mom.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh well, thank you yours too.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Thank you for being a guest and sharing your story.
Is there anything else that you want to include that
I possibly missed, Not.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
That I can think of.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
I mean, I always say that I would answer any questions,
and I think one of the things that is a
little bit strange, and maybe this is about the kind
of victims story, is that sometimes people kind of avoid
you and don't ask you questions, and I think that
they think they're doing you a favor, but actually that
can add to the shame sometimes because it's like, wow,
I'm so like my story is so weird or disturbing
(35:03):
to people that no one will even ask me a.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Simple question about it. And so not that I think
everybody would want.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
That, but I think sometimes it's good to check in
with people that have been through different things and don't
and if they don't want to talk about it, they'll
probably say no if you did ask, But sometimes they're
not asking.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
The avoiding and can actually make them feel more ashamed.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Totally understand that, especially when you know that people know
and you're like, I know that they want to ask,
but they don't say it, so you're like, just it's
just festering within you. You know, us as humans, we're
way smarter than we let on to be, and yet
we oftentimes dance around the obvious. Whereas conversations when they
come from the heart, how are you are you okay?
(35:46):
You know, things like that versus the voyeuristic nature of
a story. You know, I think there's always an opportunity
to hold space for people, especially when we lead with curiosity.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
From the heart. I agree.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Thank you. I'll let you get back to Zad and
John John, thank you for watching Zad. Thank you John,
and thank you for living your truthiest life. I so
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Thanks Lisa,
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