Growing Up in The Order of the Lamb Cult

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi and welcome to Beyond the Monsters.
Today I have Ro.
She's here all the way from San Diego.
She just flew in.
When did you get in?
Last night?
night.
Last night.
And she's gonna share her story with us.
I swear I've been turning inside out, up inside out.

(00:21):
I'm turning inside
All right, Ro, go ahead.
Start wherever you feel comfortable.
Well first, thanks for having me.
It's great to be on the side of the country, see some new new sites.
So I'll start at the beginning.

(00:42):
think as many of us trauma experiencers, it's
you
spoken about it's it's all over.
so my story starts before I was born.
And if you know the Brady Bunch, you know, there's a mom and some girls and a dad and someboys.

(01:03):
Okay, and that's kind of how my story starts.
So there's a mom and a daughter.
And there's a father and a son and the parents are 40.
And the kids are 20.
And the parents marry.
Okay.
And then a year later, the kids marry.
And they had never lived in the same house.

(01:23):
They were 20 when they married.
And the kids are my parents.
So my parents are technically stepbrother and stepsister.
Okay.
Okay.
Got it.
it was a huge problem for the rest of the family because nobody wanted them to gettogether.
And everyone was angry.
And so this starts who I was or who I have been because

(01:52):
the family kind of, you know, took sides and it was very chaotic and conflictual andsuddenly my mom was pregnant and it became, I became the keeper of the family.
So, you know, I was the keeper of the peace.
I was the keeper of the harmony.

(02:13):
I was the keeper of the secrets.
You name it, that was me.
And it was, if you, if you don't treat us well, you can't see her.
So, you know,
lot of manipulation going on.
Wow, that's a lot.
It was a lot, and it was a lot of roles to fill because everybody needed me to besomething different.

(02:36):
And in a family where you have that stepbrother, step sister dynamic, you're actuallymissing like half of a family.
So it's smaller than most families.
So then the dynamics really kind of go up.
Right.
So there was a lot, I would say, in a way, my path was lined out for me in a way, right,before I really had a choice.

(03:01):
I think my biggest job was to protect my parents and keep them safe and...
And so I did that job, and I did it really well.
I would keep everybody happy.
So my parents and my grandparents, right before I was born, they joined this little cultcalled the Order of the Lamb.

(03:24):
And I mean, if we're profiling, it's probably like a...
a fundamental Christian cult, but much more in the charismatic, like casting out demonsand rolling around on the floor speaking in tongues, that type of cult.
And super intense, super spiritual, super...

(03:49):
devil and God, black and white, good and evil.
And that's how life always was.
I, growing up in that type of environment, home life was really difficult and I had to bethe good girl.
You have to fit in, you have to be like everybody else, you have to follow the rules.

(04:12):
And I was always in this position where
you had to in the cult you had to give God your heart.
But the devil could come and take part of your heart.
And that was always evidenced by you sinning.
And if you sinned, it was siding with the devil and sort of like giving away territory tothe devil.

(04:38):
And then God would have to fight for that territory back.
And so it was this constant battle.
It was really anxiety producing.
Because it's like, well, if you sinned before you went to bed and then you died in yoursleep, you were obviously going to hell.
Right.
And so from.
Now, did your parents, being that they were step siblings.

(05:03):
And they already started, they were already in this cult before you were born.
Like, were they getting a lot of like backlash from that at all?
Like, that comes from the devil?
Nothing like that.
Nothing like that.
I think partially because you know from a realistic standpoint You know these these fourindividuals never lived together.

(05:24):
The kids didn't grow up together.
They met later
Okay, okay.
so from that standpoint, I think everybody was very adult because there's really nothingtechnically wrong about it, right?
But it is an odd circumstance.
opinions.
It's how you feel about it because of how you were raised.
the cult was much more like, no, God, God wants you to be together.

(05:48):
And of course, divorce is of the devil.
So, you know, we're going to stay in this till the end.
We're going go down with the ship.
Right.
And
So I lived in constant fear for starters with a lot of anxiety, but I also lived in a lotof confusion.
And I would be told, like, I did something wrong.

(06:12):
And then I was really punished severely.
mean, like, beaten with a wooden spoon until it broke.
But always on the bum, right?
Because anything else would be abusive.
And so I remember thinking, like,
I don't know why I just got punished.
And you know, because I'm like a little kid.

(06:38):
I think, so I had siblings and you know, we might get into a squabble or something.
And then all of a sudden I would just get picked up and spanked.
it's just my fault.
And I kind of.
you know, be thinking, well, I don't exactly know what I did.
Maybe I shouldn't have been doing that.
But it was never quite concrete.

(07:00):
you punched your sister in the face, you know.
they're not even giving you like reason.
just.
Not really.
Not really.
It was, you you're bad, so you're getting beaten.
But I was trying so hard to be good.
And so was really confused about that.
And my parents were big fans of the Dr.

(07:20):
Dobson book, The Strong-Willed Child.
And he had laid out this whole very abusive punishment scheme for children in theChristian church.
And my parents not only followed that, I mean, they took it to, you know, exponential.
powers.
And so I remember at one point my dad being inches from my face screaming, will break yourspirit.

(07:44):
And I remember thinking, I don't know what that means.
What does it mean to have your spirit broken?
And why does he want to break my spirit?
And what am I doing that's causing the need for this?
Because everything was my fault.
And so, and also it was my choice.

(08:05):
My parents always implied that I chose the bad behavior premeditatively to show myrebellion against them and my rebellion against God.
And I remember thinking.
I didn't think about anything beforehand.
I just got into a fight with my sisters.
I just forgot to clean my room.

(08:26):
So everything was taken very personally.
so then I was constantly trying to figure out, OK, what do I need to do to fix it, to bethe good girl?
Your nervous system had to be just crazy at such a young age.
my gosh.
Yes.

(08:47):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I think I also had this problem because my parents believed that the core of who I waswas evil.
And they as parents had to save me and teach me the ways of God.
And so it's kind of that like, you know, we say guilty until or innocent until provingguilty.

(09:09):
It was the other way around.
All kids or just you?
All kids.
It was all kids.
Okay.
It was definitely all kids.
And I don't know if the other kids in the cult were getting beaten as badly as I was.
But they certainly were getting beaten.

(09:30):
mean, there's a difference between spanking and beating.
mean, arguably there's not, but this was such an extreme that I think.
I know from some of the kids, you know, everything was not really talked about.
The adults talked about how good it was that they discipline their children because that'srighteous.

(09:50):
But other than that, it wasn't really talked about publicly.
And of course, right, I was it was outlined before I was born.
I'm going to be the keeper of my parents.
I'm going to be the keeper of the secrets.
And so I wasn't going to say anything.
And I just assumed that everybody was going through the same thing as me.
You know, you think your story is normal.
Right.
Especially when you're in it.

(10:12):
Right.
And you're supposed to be able to look up to them.
They're supposed to know what's right and wrong and yeah.
Yeah, and teach you.
And I think the thing, you know, to that point, the thing that was really hard is myparents weren't nurturing.
They were really neglectful.
And so it was just extreme abuse or neglect.

(10:34):
You know, I relied on them for a roof over my head, for food and things like that.
But in terms of having a relationship with them or a connection to them, I didn'texperience that.
And I didn't experience
never experienced that at all growing up.
And I think it would be years later when I was reading, I ended up telling my therapist,my relationship with my parents, the best word for it would have been Stockholm syndrome.

(11:01):
I just relied on them.
And I never felt a connection to them.
so you didn't get like hugs or congratulations on things like that.
mean, hugs, congratulations.
mean, I don't know that I can think of anything ever from my dad.

(11:23):
Life just was not soft.
There were not soft edges.
And there wasn't the soft edges that even out the rough edges.
And again, these were not rough edges that should have been evened out.
There was just really nothing.
we were God's soldiers.
We were in God's army.
And our job was to save as many people around us as we could by our amazing example.

(11:52):
It's funny, you know, we tell these stories now.
Right.
And it's mind blowing.
Yeah.
Back then, it's it's all I knew.
And you're just in it.
Now, did you ever see any different like from kids at school or, you know, with theirparents to know what could be different, how it could be different?

(12:16):
Not really.
went to, up through eighth grade, I went to the same private school and it was a reformedChristian private school.
So ironically, looked down at them because they didn't have the Holy Spirit.
So that meant they didn't cast out demons and roll around on the floor speaking intongues.

(12:37):
And obviously we did, and that was so elite.
And one of the hardest things to live with was just the overall cognitive dissonance.
the leaders of the church would say, God said this.
But then that could change like two, three, four weeks later, a year later, because Godsaid this, and so it's a little contradictory to this, but now we gotta follow this.

(13:00):
And there was this expectation of just blind obedience.
And you don't want to...
ask questions because then you're a target.
And for me, my greatest need was safety.
And so you ask a question, well, I might get spanked for that.
So I wasn't going to do any of that.

(13:21):
It was really hard to reconcile the fact that anybody could speak for God.
And you just had to take it.
And that's that I mean, the blind obedience, the
the also the, you know, the rife abuse of power as an adult.

(13:44):
makes me realize, I mean, I had severe PTSD from the time I was child, you know, upthrough adulthood.
And you can trace all of these things.
And was like reoccurring all the time.
Yeah, I think that's an important aspect is this is systematic abuse.
This is not random once or twice.
mean, yes, sometimes I didn't know why I was getting spanked.

(14:06):
But getting spanked, getting beaten, this is like a daily.
Right.
occurrence, if not sometimes more.
And so it was just very predictable, very cold, very hardcore, know, blind obedience.
And that's how every day was.

(14:28):
what was hard is I couldn't protest against my parents because they spoke for God.
and God talked to them.
And sometimes God talked to them about me.
And I would feel like, but in church we learned that God is always with us and he seeseverything.
And if he told you that, he was also with me and that wasn't happening.

(14:51):
And so what am I supposed to do?
Because sometimes in my family, one of the kids would do something and then lie about it,right?
Because nobody wanted to get in trouble.
And I was the one that caved in the fastest or got hysterical if I got blamed forsomething that I didn't do.
So then that was always an indication that I was the culprit.

(15:13):
And I used to think, but God knows I didn't do it.
And here I am getting punished and you're saying you speak for God.
And I just couldn't.
I couldn't put together.
Yeah.
it really had my brain tied up in knots.
And there's not a lot of room, I think, for critical thinking as well, because I wasliving in fight or flight, right?

(15:38):
Huge amount of PTSD.
And then just this hypervigilance of, well, what do I need to do to keep you happy?
Well, what do I need to do to keep you happy?
Because in keeping everybody happy, it was my best bet at keeping myself safe.
Right.
Yeah.
really struggled with my self-image.
Of course.

(16:00):
you know, I...
Well, you wouldn't even know who to be, what to be, how to be, like anything.
Like, how would you know?
And I had this core of, but I'm not who you say I am.
Because you knew the reality.
And I really had this sort of trust, like, but they said that God sees everything.

(16:23):
And so if he does, and this was, you know, probably this is the beginning of the breakingpoint or the beginning of the questioning maybe is there's something wrong here.
old are you?
Thinking of these things to where you want to like question.
I don't think I even let myself get to the wanting to question.

(16:47):
But there's something wrong here.
Something's wrong and I can't figure it out.
That was the f-
That was always the feeling.
can't figure it out, I can't figure it out.
And I remember that, I mean, very, very young, six, seven.
And I think over the years, I got so used to that just being the arena that I didn'tquestion that arena very much.

(17:14):
I, so it's systematic abuse.
So I had a very systematic approach to defense mechanisms.
It wasn't this messy, like, gotta say, it was like,
Right.
this every day, I'm going to have to do this.
You do this every day, I'm going to have to do this.
And I remember being maybe like 12 or so and thinking, I wonder if I should have an eatingdisorder.

(17:38):
And then thinking, I can't hurt myself.
Everybody else is hurting me.
I don't want to do anything to hurt myself.
And I created this kind of, it's like I took the core of myself, the essence that I knewto be me, and I kind of.
wrapped it in this wall and as tight as I get, right, this cocoon.

(18:01):
And I basically said, okay, parents, you can get up to here, but you can't go any farther.
But I'm never going to let you know that.
Because you getting up to here is going to make you think.
Because remember, they had to fight for my heart, because I was trying to give it to thedevil.
And so in this way, could help them to believe that they were doing the right thing.

(18:22):
I was doing the right thing.
And this irreconcilable, think something's wrong.
I put this cocoon around those parts of me that I just didn't want damaged, and just kindof said,
That so smart.
Someday, you know, I'll deal with it.
It's not today.

(18:43):
And so we'll just keep those walls there and get through it.
And I that helped me as much as was possible under these circumstances to live it.
I've got this part protected.
I'm going to have to live this life and.

(19:05):
and one day.
Were you always thinking like until you're 18 or until you're grown or you just didn'teven
I wasn't even processing that.
No, not at all.
I was terrified at all times.
Fear was the biggest emotion that I felt, but like terrorizing fear.

(19:25):
But everything I did, I had to do it alongside of that fear.
So if it was something as simple as I want to sew a skirt, I'm going to have to try apattern for the first time, or I want to go talk to that person and be friends with her at
school.
I was just always afraid.
so one of the, my friend calls it the dark gifts that I got was I never let fear hold meback because I was, I just lived in a constant state of fear and I was an adventuresome

(19:58):
person and I was very creative.
And so all the things that I wanted to do, it just did, I'm scared.
And I guess, know, as an adult, that's one of those things that is is redeemable.
Don't feel that sense of fear.
But, you know, when we have nerves or whatever, it never really crosses my mind like,that's a sign I shouldn't do that.

(20:20):
Right.
Right.
You know, we can have two feelings at the same time.
One of the things that I also picked up, which I think every guest
has picked up in their lives is that hypervigilance.
So I could walk into a room and read everyone.

(20:44):
And you need me to do the dishes to keep you happy?
Done.
You need me to smile and give you a compliment about your sweater?
Done.
I was amazing.
I could diagnose everybody.
I could dole out the prescriptions.
And in that way, I could keep them happy.
And keeping them happy meant keeping myself safe.

(21:07):
And it took so much energy to do that.
But that energy for me was well worth it because it was the energy that I used to keepmyself safe.
But you always had fear still.
Always.
Right.
Oh gosh.

(21:27):
So if we talk about the confusion of things that I did wrong or what discipline lookslike.
Punishment was always this really long and drawn out process.
And I would be sent to my room alone to think about what I did and obviously hopefullypray about it.

(21:50):
And then one of them would come in and then I would have to confess what I did wrong andthen tell them that I deserved a spanking and then also then ask for it.
And if I didn't follow this recipe, then I got it double.
And the problem was is that they wouldn't tell me what I did wrong because that was partof the...

(22:16):
the signal to them if I was lying.
And I said, well, I don't know what I did wrong.
Then that was clear that the devil had taken over more of my heart than God had.
And the devil had control of me.
So obviously that meant stiffer punishment.
But a lot of times I just didn't know.
And I think part of it too was panic and trauma.

(22:38):
Right?
I know I'm going to get beaten.
I know that I have to go through this.
I don't want to ask to get spanked.
I don't want to say that I deserve it.
because I don't think I deserve it and this feels like lying and that panic.
And so, you know, kind of get blinded and you're not thinking.
And I remember watching their faces when they would come into my room and trying to pickup any little clue as to what I did wrong.

(23:02):
And then I would try to say it and keep them happy.
And sometimes I could and sometimes I couldn't.
Well, the anxiety that that probably caused you though, having no clue, then do I say theright thing?
like, so what would happen when you'd say wrong?
Did they even know what you did wrong in their head?
They did.

(23:22):
So you had to guess.
Yes, I had Right on.
Yeah.
And a lot of times they couldn't.
And they're like, they're lying.
And I'd be like, I'm not lying.
And that just meant you got double punishment.
And you're probably thinking in your head, well, like you said, God knows.
God knows I didn't.
And I didn't do it.

(23:43):
Or I don't know.
I genuinely don't know what I did.
And it could have been something as simple as, you talked back sassy.
As an adult sometimes I talk back sexy and I don't catch it.
Right here.
All the time.

(24:03):
So, if you repeated the same sin multiple times...
So one specific one that I remember was lying.
If you repeated it multiple times in one week, that was absolute proof that the devil hadyour heart.
so they called that entrenched behavior, and there was a recipe for that.

(24:28):
And so I remember I lied a couple of times in one week.
So they told me, you have entrenched behavior, so this is what's gonna happen.
Every day when you get home from school, you're gonna go straight to your room.
You're gonna sit in your room until one of us comes up.
And so I sat in my room, and then one of them came up and spanked me, went through thewhole thing.

(24:49):
I have to tell them, well, I have the entrenched behavior of lying.
I deserve this.
I want you to spank me.
And then I sat in my room till the next parent got home from work, and the whole thingrepeated itself.
And this went on every day for a week, because that, at the end of the week, should cureit and should take back the property that the devil had taken over.

(25:13):
And yeah, I look back at this, and I just don't know how do we get there.
They don't have just surviving.
And so during this, yeah, the brainwashing was massive, massive.

(25:35):
And that was.
It was on so many levels, because it's parental rights.
But it's also coming from the church.
My parents were leaders in the church.
there's that.
Around, I was six years old.
So all of this is going on.
And this is all going on.
I mean, the last time that I remember getting beaten, I was 16.

(25:58):
So also quite old.
Yeah.
And was six years old and my mom wanted to do a sewing project.
And so she took me and my sisters to fabric store.
So we were six, four and two.
And the fabric store had two levels and the top level you could see over the whole bottomlevel.
And there were stairs that kind of went through the middle of the store up to it.

(26:21):
And she said, you girls sit on the stairs.
And we had our quiet bags and we got books and toys.
And so we don't move.
OK, fine.
So we sit on
So my mom goes up to the top floor and the lady in the fabric store, the next thing Iknow, she's right up next to me in my ear and she said, do your parents hurt you?

(26:45):
And I looked at her and I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.
Also, she's not in our cult, so she's probably evil.
So I looked at her and I was like, what?
And she said, do your parents hurt you?
And I said, no.
And she just looked at me and said, three girls this age don't sit quietly on stairs.

(27:10):
And I looked at her and then my mom started coming downstairs and so the lady just kind ofwandered off back into the fabric store.
Did your mom see her talking?
Yeah, I think so.
she said, well, I said to my mom when I got in the car, that lady asked if you hurt us.

(27:31):
And she's like, she doesn't know that we have godly discipline.
And that's why you guys are so good.
And I was like, OK.
And that was also the truth.
There's some Bible verse.
I don't know where it is.
And it says something about the father disciplines the son that he loves.
And that was also always massively twisted.

(27:54):
And this was another occasion where my mom was like, see, you are so good.
She just couldn't even believe it.
And that's how you are witness.
and showing God's love.
And I was like, OK, you know, I'm six.
What else am I going to say?
Yeah.

(28:14):
And it was kind of like a compliment from your mom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I felt like I did something right.
so my parents had abusive parents, both of them.
And from what I can tell, that abuse goes back generations.
And so they wanted a different life than they grew up with.

(28:38):
So they joined this cult.
And the problem is that for me, was like,
God provided them a reason to beat somebody.
It was condoned, right?
This isn't beating, this is punishment.
And punishment makes your kids holy.
And so there was a lot of the stories of abuse that I heard.

(29:04):
What I experienced was 10 times worse.
But it was always under the guise of, this is love.
This is God.
And so did you?
that when you're a kid?
Well, they love me.
That's why they're doing this.
They Yeah.
And that whole love hurt.

(29:24):
And I definitely had a very twisted view, actually, of everything.
Sure.
Right.
I don't know if there's really anything that was redeemable in the end.
It was having to deconstruct and then build from scratch.
And I think the pattern also that was laid out, I think,

(29:46):
It was laid out for me.
I had had the choice to follow it or not.
But as a parent, you're the abuser.
And as the child, you just suffer.
But when that child grows up, now it's your turn to be the abuser.
What did you think of that growing up?
you like, I'm never doing this to my kids or this is what I'm going to have to do to mykid.

(30:07):
I didn't think about it.
I did think that it was normal.
Also, if you're going to encapsulate this in a time, so I'm a child of the 80s.
think many people were getting pretty harsh discipline and spanking, whether they were ina cult or not.
We can talk about it era.
It's very different.
It was very authoritarian, I think.

(30:29):
And so I really didn't think about it.
It didn't really cross my mind.
I didn't have a lot of bandwidth between the hypervigilance and just trying to survive.
really thinking future, but not too far in the future.
Also, the cult believed that Jesus was coming back very soon and we didn't know when.

(30:51):
And so you had to be ready.
And there's no point in, you know, don't have a secular job.
You should be in the church doing whatever you can to save souls because Jesus is going tocome back and the world's going to burn.
And very, and to even to the extent of like, why recycle?
Why save the earth?
It's going to burn.
And so there was no,

(31:14):
responsibility towards taking care of it.
It was almost this panic of, let's just get to the finish and save as many souls as wecan.
And I definitely felt that.
So I went to this.
OK, so sorry.

(31:34):
So I used to collect dolls.
And I had these two dolls and they were Madame Alexander dolls and I was so proud of them.
And the one doll had like long blonde hair and blue eyes.
And then the other doll had short, short hair and the short hair doll looked like me.
And I would sit on my bed and I would play with these two dolls and always a short haireddoll would get hurt.

(31:58):
And the blonde doll would pick her up and take her and then take care of her.
And this was the thing that I remember of all the playing, I remember this playing.
And it just really, every time that the blonde doll would pick up the other doll, I wouldjust feel the sense of like, yeah, like almost like soothing.

(32:24):
just playing this out, just felt like this is what I wanted to give to myself.
This is what I needed and I didn't have it.
But somehow through playing it, could do that.
So when I was about 15, I lived in Salt Lake City up to 15.
And my parents bought a cattle ranch.

(32:47):
And we moved to the center of the state where there's nothing but a lot of cows in desert.
And I moved from this Reformed Christian school that I'd grown up with.
We'd all gone to school together for forever.
So I'm now going into ninth grade.
And suddenly, I have to go to public school.

(33:08):
And I'm in this really small town, 5,000 people, and it is, they call it Mormondom, andit's 95 % Mormon, and it's 5 % not Mormon, and I'm part of that 5%.
And suddenly I find myself in this.

(33:29):
I come from this extreme cult, right?
Right.
And the Mormonism around me was a very strong culture, strong identification, very laidout rules of what you could and couldn't do, also gender roles.
And so I

(33:52):
found the society a little confusing because it was very structured, like what I was goingthrough.
But it was completely different theology.
And so we were there to save the Mormons.
mean, yeah, we had a cattle ranch.
But my parents were there for us to save the Mormons.
And then unbeknownst to us, the Mormons were going to convert us.

(34:19):
Yeah.
was groomed into seeing the world as us and them.
We're God's elite, and we got to save you because you're a sinner.
And it's not hard to take on that mentality when you're treated like that as a child.
When you're othered, it's easy to others.
And so I definitely, unfortunately, fell into that.

(34:46):
we were going to heaven.
The Mormons were going to hell.
And it was our job to change that.
And so we were supposed to preach to them anytime we got.
But we were also just supposed to live such perfect lives that they would see our livesand want to convert.
But the problem is nobody ever looked at our life and said, gosh, whatever they have, Iwant that.

(35:08):
Right?
So I was also confused because I was being a good girl.
So why weren't people looking at my life and wanting to join the church?
And this is another one of those like,
It's snarling question in the back of my head, but why are people not joining our church?
is not making sense.
So when we first moved down to the ranch, I would say at least once a week, once everyother week, Mormon missionaries would show up at our door and they would want to come in

(35:36):
and do a teaching and the neighbors would invite us to church.
And they finally realized we weren't going to convert.
And I think we realized
We're at an impasse.
I want to convert you.
You want to convert me.
Nobody's converting.

(35:56):
We're going to stay on our sides.
they familiar with your religion?
So they had no clue they just wanted you to become Mormon.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we sort of just, you know, when I wasn't going to join the church, I lost some of mychances to have friends.

(36:20):
There was other people that I was friends with that that wasn't a problem for them.
And we all came to respect each other's religious boundaries.
The people that I eventually made friends with, they were not trying to convert me.
And I really wasn't trying to convert them.
I just trusted that if they were going to convert, it was going to be because I wasamazing.
Right.

(36:43):
I had a lot of strange encounters with Mormon adults.
One day I was alone in one of the classrooms.
I'm in high school at this point.
I'm in 10th grade.
And I think I was TAing or something like that.
so it's a male teacher.
And he says to me, young miss, if it was 100 years ago when men took several wives, Iwould totally have you as one of my wives.

(37:10):
and I looked at him and I said, if it was 100 years ago, I would have been a princess andyou wouldn't have been eligible.
He just looked at me and laughed and he said, you're probably right.
He never said anything else to me and he never bothered me.
I look back on that and I think-

(37:32):
afraid he's like no she's gonna come back with something
Yeah.
So one day I was on, I played soccer and I was on the bus coming home and we played thesoccer game in the rain and I was soaked, I was cold and we lived really far.
So we were hours from wherever we were going and we stopped at a 7-Eleven and I went inand I was looking for anything hot to drink and their hot chocolate machine was out but

(38:03):
they had like a mocha.
And so I
I was like, I'll get a mocha.
And so I get on the bus and I completely forgot that coffee is absolutely forbidden in theMormon religion.
mean, so such a flagrant sin.

(38:24):
you
And I had always avoided, I mean, my family drank coffee, right?
But we didn't advertise it because that was considered a stumbling block.
And if they saw us drinking coffee, of course, they'd never convert.
so I get on the bus and I look at the faces because they can smell it.
And faces just start falling as I'm passing them.

(38:48):
And then people start saying literally,
You got coffee?
I thought you were a good person.
And I realized I was literally sitting in the back seat of the bus.
And I realized as I'm walking this bus, I just blew my reputation.
I just blew any chances at saving anybody.

(39:10):
Blew it all in one moment that I forgot.
I made a bad judgment call.
Yeah.
It's such a strange thing to be talking about right now in terms of the gravity of justgetting a cup of coffee, but that's what life was like.

(39:32):
Did it stick?
Like they felt that way because they stayed that way with their feelings about you.
They, everybody respected me.
had, I mean, I was a good student.
I was a good person.
So there was respect, but there was also, I don't know what the word was.

(39:53):
I mean, I was an outsider and I wasn't an elite.
Wasn't going to their heaven.
You know, probably we felt the same way about each other.
Yeah.
So around this time, my family went to visit this church in Toronto.
And the church in Toronto was known to have miracles.

(40:13):
And people would get mysteriously healed immediately, sometimes physical healing, but alot of times emotional healing.
And of course, I had no clue what emotional healing was.
I'm 17.
Yeah.
And so we go to visit this church and I remember walking into this building and thinking,this is like nothing I've ever experienced.

(40:35):
The air there felt like it was alive and it felt.
Good.
and it felt...
I know.
I wanted to be there.
It was attractive.
It felt safe.
It felt real.
And I had never felt that feeling in my cult or really any of the churches that I hadvisited.

(41:01):
so I mean, I think if we're talking about it now, it would be the difference betweenreligion and spirituality.
We really had real spirituality.
We didn't have that.
Mm-hmm.
What was the purpose for your parents to go there?
Were you guys looking for someone to be healed emotionally or just they were like we'regonna go visit this

(41:22):
They just wanted to know what God was doing and half the people said this was the deviland half the people said this was God so they were gonna go check it out and they
determined that it was indeed God and so this this this church offered a little trainingschool and so I was a senior in high school when I when this when we went so I signed up

(41:48):
to go it was a couple months long after I finished high
I like, gotta go back here.
Something amazing.
So my senior year in high school, I really wasn't sure what to do with my life because Ilive in this, the world's going to burn, the world's going to end, Jesus is coming back.
Don't waste your time being in a job.
You need to be saving people.

(42:09):
So kind of the only pathway for me to go was to find a career within the church,basically.
And but at the same time, my parents were not saying, you should be a pastor or you shouldthis.
They weren't saying anything about the future.
Really, nobody talked about the future.
I never don't.
ever having conversations about what do you want to be when you grow up?

(42:29):
college or anything because it was coming to an end.
It was coming to an end, so why would you waste your time?
So I was really excited to go to this church afterwards.
They called it the School of Ministry, learn more about myself, learn about theirenvironment.
And so one day in October, my dad got the flu.

(42:49):
and I had a really bad feeling.
And I had had a dream, I had had two dreams, and so I didn't remember my dreams ever as achild, interesting.
But I had two dreams, and I had one dream when I was 10, and I had the same dream when Iwas 15.
And in the dream, I woke up sobbing because my dad died.

(43:10):
And so it's October of my senior year of high school and my dad gets the flu and I getthis really bad feeling and he is dead in five days and he did not get the flu.
He was one of the rare cases of what's called hantavirus and it is it's the sameclassification of virus as anthrax.

(43:32):
There are no recorded survivors and it's carried through rodent droppings and our countyin Utah
has the highest death rate per capita in the world from this virus.
And it was just a fluke.
The mice had built a nest in his truck during the summer in the heating system.

(43:53):
When you don't use the heat.
At a blizzard in October, which was a little early, he turned on the heat, all this dustand droppings came out.
He jumped out of the truck.
know, coughing didn't know the mice had built a nest in there.
just that one exposure.
Right.

(44:13):
virus.
So I think that I'm getting excited to go to the School of Ministry, right?
And we're talking Toronto.
We're talking a different country.
We're also talking like the office.
And I think that was me starting to pull away from my family.
But we all know there's no bond, like a trauma bond.

(44:36):
Exactly.
And so here I am suddenly, you know, trauma bonded with the rest of my family because now
you think you have to take care of everyone too.
And I was told that the devil took my dad because he saw that we were doing such good workand the devil saw him as a threat and so he took him out.

(45:03):
I mean, how do you reconcile any of these?
that come from your mom or just the church?
And the Mormons who are around us didn't say that kind of stuff.
They didn't categorize it.
We're still baffled.
I mean, it was a baffling death, no matter how you it.

(45:24):
they know what the cause actually was?
Everybody knew.
That death made the New York Times.
Yeah.
It was such a baffling, odd case.
And so I'm stuck in this world of like, great.
Well, now I know the devil can take you out.
So now, like, you know, my sense of unsafety, I'd really better be good.

(45:50):
And the other thing is-
if you guys were then you got it you have must be thinking he was taken because you weredoing such a good job.
So now are you like, you have to be so confused.
Like, do we keep doing this good job?
We're lose someone else.
We might, but we have to keep doing it because we're God's soldiers.

(46:11):
This is a war.
And the thing that's hard is this is a major figure in my life.
So this loss is extreme for me.
But at the other point, one of my abusers is gone.
And gosh, what a relief.

(46:31):
And how do you reconcile that?
I mean, I'm not thinking that, but I'm feeling.
I'm experiencing it in the midst of all the other.
experiences that I'm having.
Did you almost feel guilty for feeling relief?
I think, so what I did, and I really, I know I did this always, but I really remember itmore at this time.

(46:57):
And it was kind of like, this is irreconcilable.
I don't have any way.
to make any decision about it.
And so I would take it and I would pack it up in this neat little parcel.
And inside myself, I had these neat shelves.
And I would put it on a shelf and say, I will come back to this.

(47:19):
But I don't know what to do.
But the thing is, is that when you're putting these parcels there, they don't just go inyour mind.
They go in your body.
And I had migraines.
No one could figure out.
It's stomach problems.
No doctors could figure out.
It was in constant pain.

(47:40):
was always the chiropractor.
It's all trauma, right?
So I went to the church in Toronto.
It was amazing.
And I think it was the first time in a genuinely just spiritual arena.

(48:00):
and was treated really well.
Now there was definitely some aspects of a church.
mean, women were kind of second class citizens and there was a lot of theology that waslike us and them.
But at the same time, there was a lot of freedom and the classes we had, I mean, I hadclasses in being a psychic.
They called it being a prophet, but I've talked to people who've done psychic courses.

(48:22):
It's the same thing.
And I had classes in meditation.
I had classes in like pairing music with meditation.
and using that to release negative emotions and things like that.
And I think during that time, I really was able to find a peaceful part of self.

(48:42):
We weren't being preached at all the time that you have to save people, the world's gonnaburn.
That just wasn't there.
so when I came back from that, I didn't, I couldn't reconcile.
Why is that different?
It's all church, it's all Christian church.
We all believe the same thing.

(49:03):
Why is it different?
And so I enrolled in a four year theology degree.
And I thought this is gonna help me to decide to understand to whatever.
Now, how was that looked upon because you were going to go to school and do?
super favorably because it was preparing me for even greater ministry.

(49:26):
But so if you went to school for like to be an accountant or something like that, forgetit.
Okay.
This was super favorable.
And as I'm studying theology, the school I was at was definitely, you know, was definitelya church.
It did not have the spirituality from that church in Toronto.

(49:50):
It was much more, again, women of second class citizens, but they were very hardcore ontheology.
And one of the hardcore on theology things was you don't take the Bible literally.
So when it says the father beats the son that he loves, you don't take that literally.

(50:11):
So now I'm like, what?
Okay, what does this mean?
And
You know, my I remember my dad telling me that, you know, that Bible verse, the the fatherdisciplines the son that he loves.
And for him, that was a justification of abuse.

(50:32):
Right.
I'm doing God's And he would tell me, you know, God told me to spank you because yousinned.
And I would want to argue like we talked about and say, but the real God saw me and Icouldn't do that.
And so.
in this world where nothing made sense, I bit my tongue.
And now all of sudden, it's like, well, he might not have been right.

(50:54):
And again, I don't know how to process that.
So I'm trying to pack these things up and stick them on a shelf.
And I'm in this place, too, where I don't really have a like the studying theology in someways.
I didn't really have anywhere else to go but here.
So I'm here and I'm doing this.
And I

(51:17):
You know, things sort of add up, but they don't add up.
And I feel comfortable in this arena, right?
Because I know kind of all the rules.
I'm not getting beaten.
I'm not being looked at as bad.
I'm actually being viewed as very positive.
I had a good reputation.
I had friends.
And so it was, you know, at least at this time for me, it was more of a church than acult.

(51:42):
Right.
And I think, you know, things can at one time very much go this way or that way.
But at this time in my life, that's what it was for me.
So my senior year of college, I was spending the night at my aunt's house.
And I came out of the bathroom.
I was getting ready to go to class.
And she took my hand, and she wordlessly led me to the couch.
My uncle followed right behind her.

(52:04):
And we all sat on the couch.
And she said, your sister was just killed in a car accident.
And I was like, what?
And it was the day before her 18th birthday.
And they don't know what happened.
So I had two sisters at home at this time.

(52:24):
Sorry, just one sister at home.
The other one was in college.
And I'm just reeling, right?
Because I'm starting to get over.
the death of my dad.
I'm starting to pull away from my family.
live at college.
I don't have to go home as often.
Every time I go home, they say that I make conflict, but that's not my experience.

(52:48):
And so...
Nothing bonds like a trauma bond.
So now here we are.
And it's a hard thing to go through losing half of your family.
And I'm not even 21 at this point.
And so I'm...
you know, overnight my reality looks different.

(53:10):
My professors, then they start in, well, God must have taken her, or the devil must havetaken her out.
Your family's been so good.
And all of a sudden I start to experience a very different experience of this institutionthat I'm in.
And, you know, some of the professors are like, that wasn't God.
Some of them were like, hey, God took her.

(53:30):
It was her time to go.
And I...
conflicting in all these different.
And so were they.
Yeah.
You there's not one story that I can track and follow.
And also, I can't make sense of any of this.
I don't know what to I mean, even if we were outside of a cult, it would be hard.

(53:53):
So.
then baby sister.
Yeah.
so much.
And I think that systematic abuse growing up, this just seemed like one more thing to getthrough and get over.
It was kind of like there's not too much time to mourn for this.

(54:14):
What am I going to do about it anyways?
I felt powerless, like I always felt in childhood.
And so there was also lot of packing that thing up, sticking it on a shelf, because Idon't know.
I don't know what to do.
All
And so after school, I went to work in this little church.

(54:36):
And I say church and not cult because it was a little church.
And it was very, I mean, for me, the difference would be people ask questions.
It wasn't demanded that you believe the same thing.
It a little small town.

(54:57):
and the people were great and the people just, know, they really, really liked me.
And one of the reasons that they liked me is that I was only female on staff, but everytime it was my turn to preach, I would always preach about...

(55:19):
Sometimes bad things happen to good people and it's not your fault.
And kind of the like, Jesus will be with you in the storm, he might not take the stormaway.
And people really resonate with that.
I think we all resonate with that.
For sure, yes.
Because there are some things that are existential truth.

(55:41):
Bad things do happen to good people.
And sometimes the storm doesn't go away, but you can find peace in it and you can findconnection in it.
And so.
So at this time, too, I was incredibly sick.
I would wake up every morning and throw up green bile.
And I would go back and lay in bed until I felt well enough to get up.

(56:02):
And then I would get up and go to work.
And I had these stomach problems that nobody could diagnose.
And I was tested for everything.
And one naturopath finally said, I think you have a parasite.
And he said, I'm not going to test you.
I'm just going to give you an anti-parasitic.
And I had a massive reaction to it.
which was a signal that I had this parasite.

(56:24):
Unfortunately, I would find out about 20 years later that the antiparasitic wasn't strongenough.
So it killed off a lot of it, but it didn't kill it off.
So then I have this in my system and it's just wreaking havoc on me.
And I don't know.
also, know, pain is love.

(56:44):
Pain is something you just live with.
It's daily.
It's hourly sometimes.
her to me that there's something wrong.
And I just got on with everything and you know good old God soldier.
Right?
So around this time, I met this incredible guy, and we got married.

(57:07):
he was, you he went to church, but he was in the military, he had a secular job.
so right after we got married, the military sent us to Belgium.
And when I was in Belgium, the government did not allow spouses to work.
because there was an agreement with the Belgian government.

(57:28):
the only choice I had was there was a long distance.
This was before online degrees.
There was a long distance degree in leadership offered through Azusa Pacific.
And so I took this degree.
And I had never studied leadership or anything like that.
And all of a sudden, have all my classes are this is what bad leaders do.

(57:51):
And this is what motivates them to do what they do.
It's about power.
It's about personal agenda.
It's about manipulation.
And I'm just like, this is everything, right?
Yes.
And then they come back and say, this is what healthy leaders look like.

(58:13):
So I'm 25 at the time.
I studied for three years.
So I'm 25 up to about 28.
And I suddenly have this rubric laid out.
Don't do this.
Do this.
And it's so easy to follow.
Because when we go back and we talk about the path that was laid out, I never really feltlike it was my turn to be the abuser.

(58:39):
I didn't like how I felt being abused.
And I was not interested in getting
Yeah.
Being that person, I was very much interested in shielding people, know, probably to afault, right?
Sure.
Just a little bit of a savior complex there.
But this degree in a lot of ways, I think, saved my life because I wasn't having to goback and deal with childhood.

(59:07):
I was just having it painted out.
Look, if you're going to lead people in a room.
Don't be authoritarian.
This is how you share power.
This is how you do this.
And it was very gentle.
And it was very, here's a bunch of books and case studies.
I just really, it resonated with me.
I gelled with my professors.
I could ask questions.

(59:29):
I could learn things.
And it was very tailored to.
We each have a personality and very individual, nothing I'd ever experienced ever.
And that was my first real, I think, massive course correction away from, I I quoteunquote left the cold when I left home.

(59:52):
Right.
But that sort of like structure in my mind or that you're reconcilable, but it wasn't acult, it was just a church.
And church is church is church.
I didn't know that it wasn't.
And so.
this really put me on this path.

(01:00:13):
And they weren't saying the world's going to burn.
They were saying, hey, just go be a good leader.
If you're in the business world, if you're in the volunteer world, this is how you can doit.
And I loved that.
So opposite.
So opposite.
that you was ingrained in you for so long.
Yeah.

(01:00:33):
And it sort of had that feeling.
It didn't have that spirituality aspect of that church in Toronto, but it definitely had afreedom aspect that I kind of experienced there too.
I think part of what that was was the non-hierarchy, because in the cult, it's the leaderand you got to do.
at least in Toronto, it was very equivocal.

(01:00:58):
And in school, it was very equivocal.
Yeah, you had your professors, but they didn't believe they were over the top.
And I think that was my first experience with that.
Bible college was not like that.
was very much like, we're here to bow to the feet of the professors and learn from them.
They are our guides.

(01:01:18):
During this time when I'm living in Belgium, I have a huge amount of pain.
I've still got all this pain.
I've still got these stomach problems.
And I really don't know what to do about it.
But it's there.
Later on, of course, I would understand the body keeps score.
But at this time, not knowing.
So when I was in Belgium, occasionally, sorry, when we moved back from Belgium, there wasa local church.

(01:01:44):
And I kind of helped out with music and things like that.
But I didn't gel entirely with the church.
I just, I think it was the first time that I really went into a church and was just like,I don't, and I think at the time I didn't understand, well, is it because I'm being
self-righteous?
Cause I have this leadership degree and now I can like evaluate like, well, you're a badleader.

(01:02:08):
Was it that?
Or was it something else?
And I really was stuck.
But at the same time, it wasn't a cult.
So I wasn't freaking out.
wasn't going back into childhood in a way.
And so I think a lot of it in some ways, see it as like this, the cult was like abirdcage, right?

(01:02:32):
And I was told I wasn't a bird.
And you know.
and you don't have wings and this is the cage that you live in.
So even though I'd left the cult, that bird cage, so to speak, was still there.
And I think what would happen every time I went to the church in Toronto or studiedtheology and learned a different way or studied leadership, I started to learn, like, no,

(01:02:56):
I'm actually a bird and I actually have wings.
And I starting to...
unfurl these wings that I never even knew that I had before.
But then they touched the sides of the cage.
And it's kind of this like, so how far can I go?
And I don't know.
And I'm kind of a, you know, but that structure is still there for me in some ways.

(01:03:18):
So the military sends us to Italy.
And at this point, we have two tiny boys.
They're a year apart.
And I
where we find this cute little English and Italian speaking church, little church, veryeasy going, it's great.

(01:03:40):
And during this time, I was in an incredible amount of pain and they didn't have achiropractor that I could go to.
And I had this really good friend and she said, you should go to an osteopath.
And so I searched around and found this osteopath and I went to...
his
and found myself in the office of this very interesting person.

(01:04:02):
He had studied Reiki.
No, of course, you know, Reiki's of the devil, right?
So, but I'm also in this place where I'm like, hmm, the only experience I have with Reikiis that I've been told it's of the devil, but I'm kind of open at this point to anything.
Yeah.
And his persona was like I felt in Toronto.

(01:04:25):
Or like I felt with those professors in the leadership degree, there was something abouthim that I really liked.
And every time I would go for a, I mean, he's helping me with my back and neck, right?
He would say, have you ever been to see a psychologist?
And he was Italian and I'm not and I would just be like, the Italians have such a funnyway of doing their doctor's appointments.

(01:04:49):
And I would say no and he would say, OK.
And he would ask me a little bit about my life and do you have some stress?
And yeah, I have two little kids, they're two and three.
And I always wondered why he asked me these questions.
Now, at the same time, I'm starting to have, I live overseas, right?
I'm starting to have conflict with my family every time I go back.

(01:05:13):
It's just getting worse.
just doesn't work.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's not just my parents, or it's not just my immediate family.
It's then I hear from so and so and so and so that I did this and it was super rude and Idid this.
And that wasn't never my experience when I was there.
It was always afterwards.
was you created conflict.
They were still in their little bird cage bubble, whatever you want to call it.

(01:05:38):
And you were like an outsider now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I was like, what do I do?
And the same friend that recommended the osteopath said, oh, I know a good therapist.
You should go to her.
And so I was like, OK.
But you know, therapists are from the devil.

(01:05:58):
But at this point, I was like, I'm like, great.
What else am I going to do?
I need help.
And so I end up seeing the therapist for about a year.
And as I start going to therapy, but of course I go see the osteopath all the time.
And one day he says, know, how's stress?

(01:06:23):
And I said, I started going to therapy.
And he's like, you started going to therapy?
I was so excited.
Like he had this huge smile and I couldn't figure out why, but I was like, okay, that'scool.
And then from then on out, he always said, what did you work on in therapy today?
and or or this week right and he would say he would say this this is good you should keepgoing to therapy and i was like okay that's that's great and so one day out of the blue i

(01:07:02):
Every childhood memory that I packed up and put on the shelf came back.
And I think I had just repressed everything in a way.
For sure.
And it wasn't this like, I don't remember my childhood.
I just would have said, childhood was fine.
And I could have given you details about it, but nothing would have focused on abuse.

(01:07:24):
Right.
or anything like that, know, up in the church, was a good kid, was hard, wasn't able toconvert a lot of people.
Like these are the things I would have told you.
And I've heard that when you have kids and the kids are the age that you were when youexperienced trauma, it can trigger it.

(01:07:46):
I think this is what happened.
And so overnight, 18 years,
come of just systematic abuse comes back to me.
And I'm in therapy.
I, thankfully, gosh, I don't know what I, and I, so I went to see, I went to see Katya, mytherapist.

(01:08:11):
And I was, and the crazy thing was I was scheduled to see both of them the day after thishappened.
It was already scheduled.
So I see her first.
And I told her everything.
And then I said, did you know?
And she said, I always knew what I didn't know.

(01:08:34):
I said, what do you mean by that?
And she said, you've been here for a year, and you've never one time said anything aboutchildhood.
And I was like, that's crazy.
Okay.
And it really did something to me that she knew.
And so then a couple of hours later, I find myself in the osteopath's office and I startedthe appointment by telling him what happened.

(01:09:01):
My repressed memories came back.
I just saw Katya this morning.
the first thing he says is, you know, what did she say?
And, you know, we talked through it.
And then he's like, OK.
And so he was working on my back and I was like face down in on, it's kind like a massagetable, right?
I my face in the cradle.

(01:09:22):
And then all of a sudden I realized, wait a minute.
I lift my face and I look up at him and I said, did you know?
And he said, oh yes, your body's been telling me this story for a year.
It's only today that you tell me this story with your mouth.
And I put my face back in the cradle.

(01:09:44):
And I was just blown away.
Because here were these two really important people in my life that are helping me, thatknew.
how do you know?
I didn't say anything.
And my mind was just blown.
And so over the next year, I continue with counseling.

(01:10:07):
And during this time, the Italian church that I'm in goes completely silent.
for
if you don't align with the leaders exactly you get kicked out and I was the first to getkicked out But at this point I had done enough healing right I didn't feel that I needed
to keep God happy, you I myself So I was like and I'm done with church.

(01:10:32):
I'm not doing this anymore.
I don't need it and
Excuse me.
I think that's the point where it was like the birdcage came off.
I was like, I didn't know how to fly, right?
But it was kind of like, I've got these wings and I was stretching them out in a way andrealizing I'm not the creature I was told I was.

(01:10:55):
I'm something different.
And I need to figure out what that is.
Now.
The first two years of counseling were really hard because it's not like I had processedanything.
I'd repressed it.
And overnight, it's this deluge coming at me.
And I was in so much emotional pain that I hear people say, like, I don't want to go totherapy today.

(01:11:21):
mean, was like, Tuesday is my favorite day therapy.
Because that was the only place that I could find relief.
And my therapist was amazing.
and would, you know, was like, let's deal with this, you know, and great.
She never used terms with me, you know.
It was only years later where she said, yeah, I said something about having PTSD and she'slike, I think it was complex PTSD, you know, and I was like, you're profiling me.

(01:11:53):
But she knew and she knew that I didn't need, you know, coming from a cult, I didn't needlabor.
I didn't need boxes.
I didn't need another birdcage.
I just needed somebody to listen and to help me and to be a guiding path.
she was, you know, she let me lead.

(01:12:18):
She knew.
And the first thing I did after the repressed memories came back is I sat through a onehour appointment and we went through a really violent memory and we worked through it from
a trauma standpoint.
And that was my first time doing that.
I'd never done that.
You must have had a hard time though, like all these coming at you at one time, like,okay, what's real, what's not, what each spinning.

(01:12:43):
Yes.
Yeah.
And the fact that the osteopath and that she said, we knew before I said anything, weretwo massive anchors.
remember the lady in the fabric store who said, does your parents hurt you?
That was somebody that I knew didn't know me.

(01:13:03):
And she had the courage.
Because I think as an adult, you can't have courage.
to a little kid right right
if you're wrong.
And those were three people that, because all the voices were like, you made this up inyour head.
You're just being dramatic.
Just all the things my family said to me, right?
But those three adults kept me in this place where I was like, no, they would tell me thetruth.

(01:13:28):
They have no motivation whatsoever.
And all the voices coming at me were copycats of my family or the cult or whatever.
They had motivation to say it.
They had a secret to protect.
And so now suddenly I'm having to work through extreme trauma.

(01:13:48):
And when I'm working through it, it's also coming out in my body.
When I'm telling the memories, I'm starting to shake.
And we do a one hour appointment, the first appointment after the repressed memories comeback.
And I realize, this isn't long enough.
So I show up at the next.
So I wrote her an email.
And I said, would you consider doing a two hour appointment?

(01:14:08):
I can't get it out in one hour.
And she's like, that's a little nonstandard.
Let's give it a try.
And at the end of the first two hour session, she said, yeah, I can see why you wanted twohours.
And I'm totally comfortable doing this.
And so from then on, I always had two hours.
And I think just all the parts that I fractioned off and fractured inside of myself inorder to make it through.

(01:14:37):
I just couldn't quite get my arms around him in one hour and get him settled down.
It's a lot.
It's a lot, but in two hours I could.
so I, thank goodness she...
Let me lead.
Right, right.

(01:15:00):
the thing that was the most important that I didn't understand at the time, I couldn'thave put words to it, but she genuinely believed that I had all the answers inside of me.
It was her job to help me find them.
And that was the opposite of anything.
The only other person that was like that was the osteoporosis.

(01:15:21):
And so it was such a new experience.
They were your two healers, you know.
Yeah, and so crazy to have a male and a female.
Right.
When I had two abusers that were like that.
And so.
opposite of what these new two people are.
And so crazy to have one that was helping me with my physical body and releasing physicaltrauma and one helping with my mental, emotional, spiritual.

(01:15:49):
Amazing.
Yeah.
The first two years of counseling were really hard.
Suddenly there's these memories of real violence coming at me.
it's, you know, every week I've got...
something else that seems to be the biggest one that I got to take to counseling.
I got to work through this one.

(01:16:10):
Also at this point, I don't really have the skills to be working through this stuff on myown.
I have two little kids.
I live in a foreign country.
Life is a little more challenging when you do it.
It's outside of your home culture in a way.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I think being in that culture at this time really saved me.

(01:16:31):
It took me away and outside of so many things.
I think getting kicked out of that Italian church was one of the best things that happenedto me because it really showed me what were the things that I needed to feel safe and how
far had I come that I didn't need those anymore.
And those were core to who I was.

(01:16:54):
and then, all sudden, they're just not.
It's pretty amazing.
how's your husband through this too?
Is he kind of like, okay, what is going on?
Like, because he didn't grow up like that.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, he was very much like, gosh, I've met your family.

(01:17:14):
And now you have a different story about them.
And I think it was really hard to reconcile.
But he's also very, his greatest need isn't for safety, it's for connection.
And so in a lot of ways, that was what was.
I don't know maybe what I really needed to heal.

(01:17:36):
Because if his greatest need was for safety, and then I went through this, I think itwould really jeopardize that relationship.
Because I would be kind of jeopardizing the safety.
But I was able to come home and talk about the counseling appointments and talk about the
safe for you.
He was safe for me.
I think because he was who he was at that time, I was able to heal.

(01:18:01):
He wasn't going to go anywhere.
He wasn't going to get scared off.
He wasn't going to anything.
He was going to be there.
It's one of those amazing...
kind of like the osteopath and the therapist, just one of those people that I look at inmy life that's like, without this person, it would be difficult.

(01:18:23):
Even my friend that suggested the osteopath and the therapist, she had my best interest inmind, but it's not like she knew the path down the road for me.
But these people, they're all the right people, and I'm so grateful for them.

(01:18:45):
I, one day I'm at the osteopaths and he, you he says, what did you talk about with Katya?
And I tell him, and he says, you're doing emotional work and therapy, but the emotionslive somewhere in your body.
And I was like, okay.

(01:19:07):
And he said, tell me where in your body you feel something right now.
And normally he would do, he would have, he would stand behind me and he would press onall the, I mean, I had pain from my back to my head to my mid back, right?
And so he would push and he would like see where, and osteopaths have their own type ofexams that they do, And so it's before he's doing this and he's saying, where in your body

(01:19:31):
do you feel something?
And so I, you know, I was like.
I don't know, but I'm kind of going along with it, you know?
And I was like, well, actually, I kind of feel something here.
And so he's like, OK, and then he does his exam and then he's pushing around, you know,and he just he kind of mentions like, you have some tension or something like that.
So he does his thing.

(01:19:53):
And it's called myofascial unwinding.
And so they really work with, you know, getting it out.
Right.
Right.
And there's a lot of active movement.
And they also call it nonlinear movement.
You're not moving both shoulders.
Right.
It's like one shoulders move and he's helping it to move.
Right.
Might be swinging around and then all of a it stops.
And it was interesting because I felt like something happened, but I couldn't really havetold you what happened.

(01:20:20):
But now I look at it later and it's like my body released.
And the crazy thing is I had just been at the therapist and worked through it.
And now here I am at the osteopaths finishing working through it.
Were you having lots of knots and things like that in your bed?
Okay.
and extreme pain because of the knots and the tightness and whatever.

(01:20:44):
And so he's kind of leading me in this process and I'm just kind of following along andfinding out that it's kind of miraculous.
And so my favorite days of the week were my therapy days.

(01:21:11):
So the...
Yeah, and what a blessing to be able to process and release within the same week.
Yeah.
Right?
For sure.
Now we know so much more about this, but this was 12 years ago.
We didn't quite know as much, but each of these two individuals knew what they knew fromtheir fields and were able to bring it.

(01:21:38):
to me.
And wow, what a benefit.
What a healing.
So we're a good year or so into the repressed memories have come back.
And I just realized it's kind of like I'm in a rowboat and I'm on the ocean and there's apump.

(01:22:05):
just pumping water into my boat, right?
And those are the memories coming back.
I'm bailing trying, you know, and this is me going to the osteopath, going to therapy,trying to get the water out as fast as I can.
And I get to this point where I'm like, I can't get it out fast enough.
I'm sinking.
And so I went back to Katya and I said, I know that I already come for two hourappointments, but it's not enough.

(01:22:28):
What were you feeling at this point?
Were you just feeling like kind of like gloom doom overwhelmed because it was too much?
But it wasn't in this existential, the world's a horrible place.
It was, I can't stop these memories from flooding at me, and I'm cooking dinner, and I'mremembering this.

(01:22:48):
And then I have a new memory that pops up.
And at the same time, I have severe PTSD, which I don't know what that is at this point intime.
I had no term for it and had never read about it.
probably anxiety disorder, all the things.
All of the things, right?
So there were certain things that would happen that would trigger my heart rate to go up.
remember I went, I was doing Pilates and the Pilates instructor, had poor form and I don'tremember what it was, but she had a thing where you stood and you pulled down on

(01:23:21):
something.
It's a machine that I haven't seen, but it was in Italy.
And I was turning my hips different than I was turning my shoulders and they were, andthey should have all been in a line.
And I said, you know, I can't get this right.
And she said, do you mind if I put my hands on your hips?
And I said, yeah, no problem.

(01:23:41):
And she put her hands on my shoulders and then she kind of put them on my hips.
And it was the same grab motion that my parents did right before they spanked me.
And...
I was like, whoa.
And so then I said later to her, said, this is what happened.
And she said, I used to be a hypnotherapist when I lived in the US.

(01:24:05):
Now we're all in Italy.
And I was like, really?
And she said, we would call that a trigger.
We would call that, I can't remember.
She didn't use the term PTSD.
But.
So she was like, you need to work through this physically.
And part of what Pilates does is force you to focus on muscles.
You're not sitting here remembering every memory, are you?

(01:24:26):
Because you're thinking about your muscles.
So it's triggered responses to that.
Yeah.
So she kind of helped me work through that, which was super interesting that now there'sone more person that's just like, got your back.
Italy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gosh.
And so that was one of the first times that I started to understand, this is like a PTSDtrigger.

(01:24:50):
That's why my heart rate went up.
And so I'm learning about that.
I'm in Katia's, she's like, well, you come on Tuesdays.
I have a two-hour slot on Thursdays.
You want to come then?
And I was like, yeah.
Yeah.
So at the point that I'm like in my worst, I should say my worst state, I was very highfunctioning, but my worst state, it was two hours on Tuesday, one hour osteopath

(01:25:22):
appointment, a Pilates appointment, two hours on Thursday, and then a one hour marriagecounseling.
And this is what my week looked like.
And it was just...
This was me bailing.
Right.
And that's the only way I knew how to do it.
And to be.

(01:25:44):
Yeah, and those babies are probably the reason, well, not probably, they are the reasonthat I was doing any of this.
as much as the osteopath and the.
and the therapist and all that, as much as they helped me.
These kids, they're the reason that I remembered these memories in the first place.

(01:26:10):
And so I was going to do whatever it took.
And I still am going to do whatever it takes to not follow that path that was carved outfor me.
When I'm a parent, it's my turn.
Hmm.
And so my kids maybe are arguably the biggest catalyst, the biggest blessings, the biggestreasons to continue, the biggest motivation, the biggest incentive.

(01:26:39):
And so it's really hard.
And at this time, the one thing I can't get out of my head and my heart is I don't want tosee my mom again.
I don't want to be around her.
don't want, I don't trust her with my kids.
And so I spend a lot of time thinking and realize we have a timeline.

(01:27:05):
We're going to move back to the States and I don't see her when I'm, you know, really whenI'm in Italy and my family thinks that we're going to all see each other and.
I don't want that.
And so I took a lot of time and realized, no, I'm going to go no contact.
And I confronted her on the abuse.

(01:27:27):
I wrote it out.
I had all my friends edit it.
I had the therapist help me.
I did the work.
one of my dear friends sat with me while I was on the phone with her.
And.
So I talked about the abuse and was told that we remembered my childhood very differentlyand really sorry for any hurt that there might have been and couldn't understand why I was

(01:28:00):
doing this.
And that was it.
And the minute that my family heard that I went no contact with my mom, they all kicked meout.
Hmm.
It was probably one of the also greatest blessings, right?
Because now I just don't have to deal at all.
So it's been 11 years.

(01:28:23):
I've had no contact with anybody in my family except for my grandfather up till his deathsent me registered hate mail.
And when we moved back from Italy, he somehow managed to get the first address that westayed at, and it was at a friend's house.
And so all the mail went there, because we were waiting on our house to be ready.

(01:28:44):
And so she would open it and read it and then say, nope, don't need to.
this time he sent you some tax documents.
We know, right?
That kind of gets us to,
That's mom's father or dad's?

(01:29:04):
Okay.
dads.
And I think what I want to talk about from this story are the lessons that I learned andalso the sort of, I wish somebody had told me aspects.
think one of the first ones was,

(01:29:26):
I was God's child.
We were God's children in God's army.
And that really demands that you take this stance of being naive and not takingresponsibility for yourself.
You know, it's up to God.
Well, you don't even you wouldn't even have a sense of self you don't know yeah Right

(01:29:51):
So it was very much learning to grow up and take responsibility for myself and not to shyaway from that.
And that, think, is very unique to a cult, having that pounded in.
No, you have to be nice.
Because you have to to survive, right?

(01:30:13):
You can't reconcile what's going on and be an adult emotionally and mentally.
You have to be a child.
So.
The other, another thing is some things are really unexplainable.
And remember the story of the Madame Alexander dolls?

(01:30:35):
And the one doll would always hold the other doll.
When I walked into my therapist's office, she looked just like that doll.
The one that would always pick up the other one and hold her.
Really?
Yeah.
And I thought about how that doll would always hold her, pick her up, carry her.

(01:30:57):
And those were all the things that over the years she did for me, whether it was justholding space and believing in me.
That carried me.
The fact that she told me I always knew what I was going do.
was, for me, a lot of times was her putting her arms around me emotionally.

(01:31:21):
And it's so unexplainable.
But it was a couple of years before I put two and two together.
But when I saw her, I was like, there's something familiar about her.
And then when I remembered it, I did share that with her a couple of years later.
So.
I always had a strong sense and I think a lot of it came, some of it came from beingabused, but some of it came from studying leadership.

(01:31:51):
And they talk about people who are abused.
then the freedom is the chance to be the abuser.
It can.
Right.
And I was really clear that that was not going to be that.

(01:32:13):
But it came from going to school.
It came from my sense of, I experienced this.
I don't want to inflict this on anybody.
But I also had a savior complex.
And it was kind of like, well, I see people getting abused, so I'm going to get in thereand save them.
Because then I needed to do that to make myself feel safe.
So as I am kind of going through that, the generational path is, hey,

(01:32:38):
when you're the parent, it's your turn to be the abuser.
So I'm also having to break this cycle of abuse.
it's hard, not hard.
But parts of that cycle are it's not just that you don't abuse somebody.
It's also
working through the savior complex.
It's also working through that holistic and what does that mean?

(01:33:00):
Because it's not always an absence of behavior.
It's also, if you take something out, you got to put something else in there, right?
And abuse always comes from fear, right?
So then it's...
finding those spaces where I'm motivated by fear and digging into them and then changingthat.

(01:33:22):
And so then what is my motivation?
Is it love?
Is it compassion?
Is it peace?
What can I find to fill that space?
It's really hard to be a cycle breaker, especially with the generational traumas and yeah.
feel like going through all this therapy was like a second full-time job that nobody knewthat I had.

(01:33:48):
Because the amount of time it occupies your thoughts, because when you start out, it is assimple as...
I'm angry, but I cannot hit my kids.
I will not hit my kids.
So then you got to go deal with the anger.
But then you got to deal with what triggered the anger.
It's pulling that thread all the way back through.
it's really hard.

(01:34:09):
It's so much work.
It's like the unsung heroes are the ones that make the decision not to.
And it's never one cycle that you break.
It's always.
So many woven together.
And any one of those cycles, if you break them, would be miraculous.

(01:34:30):
I think a lot of people, like even in your position or just abuse in general where theygrew up like that, it's really hard to figure out how it can be different.
You know what I mean?
Like what steps do you take?
is it therapy?
Is it this?

(01:34:50):
Is it processing things?
I think people get so overwhelmed with the fact that they could change it that they juststay where they're at.
And I have a unique experience, which is having repressed everything and then having itcome flooding back.
So I only know my own experience, which isn't necessarily a normal experience.

(01:35:11):
It happens to be unique to me.
Right.
I know it happens to other people, but so my experience of wanting to go to therapy andwanting to change things are coming from that scenario where I'm in the rowboat and I'm
going to go down with it.
And I got to do something different.
And it's not even that my motivation at this moment is like, I don't want to
hurt my kids.

(01:35:31):
My motivation is I don't want to hurt my kids.
I can't keep thinking about this.
Life has to be different.
I don't want this.
And also it felt like the real suffering had started.
Yeah, I suffered in childhood, but this suffering was the suffering of these two parentsmade decisions about my life that I can't control.

(01:35:54):
And now I'm paying the price and they're nowhere to be found.
And so what am I going to do?
consequences.
No consequences.
And I don't want to live like this.
I want to own my life.
I don't always want to be under the shadow, under the pain, under the trauma.
And those were my motivations.
And I think that made me into a highly motivated person, willing to try anything, be open.

(01:36:24):
my background dictated I should not be open.
And I hope people hear this and hear this coming from you because unfortunately nowadays alot of people in the same position, they turn to drugs, know, things like that just to
suppress, just to keep it down, keep it.
So it's dug down deep.

(01:36:46):
But it'll come out.
Yeah, it's still gonna, it's always gonna come back up.
Yeah.
it's not going anywhere.
And I repressed, right?
Like when you don't remember.
But it'll come back.
It'll come back.
so you have to find.
Don't know and you don't get to control that.

(01:37:08):
Yeah.
And if we're talking about triggers, triggers, in my opinion, are your best friend.
because they tell you what's come to the surface, what your psyche has brought to thesurface, and is ready to heal.

(01:37:28):
And I always tell people, if you get triggered by something, don't say, you know.
I'm really triggered when you wear a white sweater.
I need you to stop wearing the white sweater.
Don't turn this into everybody's got to soothe my triggers.
Turn this into, I'm sorry if I'm a little bit off.

(01:37:49):
I'm having some triggering and I need to take this to a place of healing.
So I'll be back and we'll deal with it.
So I have a text message between me and my therapist.
The therapist doesn't respond, but it's all the triggers.
And I'll just type a little note, you know, like, she wore a white sweater, reminded mewhen I was five years old and this happened.

(01:38:12):
So rather than get worked up about it, rather than anything, I just note the trigger.
And then I take it straight to therapy because she has the tools to help me work throughit.
don't necessarily, I mean, okay, over time, yeah, I've developed some of the tools, butespecially in the beginning, I hadn't.
And so it just became this place where it was like, no, we're going to heal that.

(01:38:34):
Nope, we're going to heal that.
And then after I healed it with her, then it's like, okay, if it's still stuck in my body,then let's go to the osteopath and let's really finish the.
Defense mechanisms.
I...

(01:38:56):
The first time that I worked through a really traumatic moment, and I was very aware ofthe defense mechanism associated with it, I remember getting kind of angry at that part of
myself.
Like, well, why would you do that?
And the minute that that happened, my therapist said, that part saved your life.

(01:39:21):
You honor her.
You owe her respect and gratitude.
And I was mind blown.
And from then on, we kind of developed this little method of dealing with defensemechanisms where it was like, that part got me to who I am today.
So I'm going to respect it.

(01:39:42):
But there is the totally universal truth that those
Those defense mechanisms that save you in childhood can wreck you in adulthood.
Absolutely.
Right.
So there's a point where you got to deal with them.
And again, just like a trigger, if those parts are coming forward, when I see your whitesweater, I start screaming.

(01:40:04):
That's a defense mechanism.
That's screaming.
Then that's also a sign that that is coming forward.
And it's time for that part, which saved us in the past.
to put that defense to rest and to find a new job to do with.
new coping skills, whatever it is.
Yeah.
Yeah
and to thank them and then to pick something different.

(01:40:29):
Right.
Neglect versus abuse.
This is such a hard one for me to wrap my head around because I had such active abuse andsuch inactive neglect, right?
Because neglect is inactive.

(01:40:50):
Abuse is what you experience.
Neglect is what you didn't experience.
And sometimes what you didn't experience, you don't know.
that you have a void over it.
And so when I went through my life, they always say it's kind of like an onion, you peelthe, okay, yeah, sure.
But for me, a lot of the outer layers were that abuse.

(01:41:12):
Those were the memories flooding into my rowboat, right?
It wasn't memories of neglect.
But then after I kind of got to the point where that deluge stopped, ironically, when thathappened, I stopped seeing myself in this rowboat.
And I was on shore and not drowning in this ocean in a way.

(01:41:35):
And then it was time to work through the neglect.
like you said, as a parent, sometimes you don't know what to do different because I didn'thave any example.
But also, I didn't know little silly things.
People really decorate a lot for their kids' birthday parties.

(01:41:56):
Never seen that.
Right.
little celebrations.
Celebrations.
You got an A.
You know, you got really good grades.
Like, let's go out and celebrate.
Those things I had to learn.
I didn't know those things.
And the neglect was harder to work through.
I found some really good books on it, which my therapist recommended, which then helped meto be able to see the void in a way.

(01:42:24):
But had I stopped at the abuse, there would have been a huge part of self that was kind ofleft in a cave in a way that I wouldn't have known.
I would have felt maybe like something was off, but I couldn't have identified.
Trusting the process.
My therapist used to say, I trust the process.

(01:42:46):
And I was like, I don't even know what that means.
I don't know what you've always said.
But then I think back, if I was her,
Right.
She was absolutely trusting the process.
Her trusting the process imparted a lot of dignity to me because in trusting the process,she was trusting me.

(01:43:09):
She was trusting that when I said I needed two hour appointments, when I needed two twohour appointments, that I did.
And it was, yeah, it absolutely was.
And...
And then we look at the parts of the process too that are encouraging, like how she lookedlike my doll.

(01:43:33):
My friend recommends these two healers that become pillars in my process.
And you can't make that stuff up.
Right, right, right.
we all have that.
These aren't unique to me.
You know, we all have somebody's got our back in a way.

(01:43:55):
And I think these things are along the path, the process for all of us.
Well, think you chose to have your own back too and to do something different.
And that's such a big step that a lot of people don't know how to take.
Yeah.
Yeah.
because it seemed so overwhelming and just like they have no clue.

(01:44:16):
And I think, unfortunately, that came also from when I said in childhood I did everythingscared.
I was terrified through this whole process.
But it also didn't stop me.
I think that's also another part is courage.

(01:44:40):
It doesn't take courage to live through trauma.
It takes courage.
to turn back around as an adult and walk backwards into that childhood, pick up thatchild, and then walk that child out.
That's what takes the courage.
that's therapy takes the courage.
Talking about it takes the courage.

(01:45:00):
Being honest takes the courage.
And that's something we have to choose to give to ourselves.
Yeah, I'm going to be 49 soon.
And I'm just now doing that.
Because I always just, I didn't want to look back.

(01:45:22):
I didn't want to remember things that my mind, my body, everything made me repressed.
I was too much.
I also think in the trust the process, things come up when your psyche thinks you're readyfor them.
And if they're not coming up, don't go digging.
But if they're coming up, don't freak out and cover it up.

(01:45:43):
Right.
We'll find out what you got to trust the The hypervigilance that we talked about, that'sbeen an interesting one because I dropped the need.
Because hypervigilance is rooted in my need for safety for me, right?
So if I walk into a room, I don't feel unsafe.

(01:46:08):
So therefore, I'm going to profile everybody and figure out how to keep them happy.
But what I'm doing is just saying, you guys are all my parents.
I'm putting this on people.
And they don't deserve me putting.
But old habits die hard.
So as I worked through a lot of the trauma and the physical trauma as well, what I learnedwas that I didn't, I could walk into a room and be a little scared.

(01:46:35):
I mean, I am an introvert, so I'm going to walk into a room and feel a little scared,right?
But feeling a little bit out of place and feeling introverted is different than feelingunsafe for me.
So...
After a little bit of time, I started to learn I can turn on that hypervigilance or turnit off.

(01:46:56):
And it takes a lot of energy to keep it turned on.
And that energy could be better spent somewhere else.
And so one of the things that I have now, which would be a dark gift, is I can walk into aroom and I can read everybody in the room.

(01:47:17):
But I don't need to.
But if I want to, yeah, that's a skill I have.
That's a skill that I learned, right?
That's not Rowana being a psychic.
That's Rowana learning a super.
So that is a skill that, yeah.
And there is some redemption.
Sometimes you walk into a room and you do need to kind of read people to see where thingsare at, But I don't have to do it because my life is unsafe.

(01:47:44):
And that's a great...
flip-flop.
Yeah.
The hardest part about going through the therapy process was

(01:48:05):
I always felt as a child that my parents were trying to destroy me.
So that's why I kind of built that little cocoon around the core of self.
And so I was going to protect that core.
But then it was like extreme abuse or extreme neglect.
There wasn't anything in between.
And there wasn't this like...

(01:48:25):
when you walk into a room, you should shake hands with everybody.
And this is how you present yourself as respectful.
It's like, you have to be a good witness for God or else these people are all gonna go tohell and they need to see that you're a good person.
It was presented from this different place.
So we didn't have this just basic building of personhood.
So that's something that I was doing for myself.

(01:48:49):
And as I was going through the therapy process, I felt as if
I was dismantling the self that I had built.
And I had built it under direct pre-treatment.
And it was so disheartening.
And it was like, well, then who am I going to be?

(01:49:11):
Because nobody's going to come in and parent me.
I'm in my 30s at this point in time as I'm starting this process.
Nobody's going to come in and parent me.
And this is where I learn about some people call it the
the therapy process self-parenting.
And you kind of do parent yourself in a way.
I kept feeling like I'm deconstructing.

(01:49:33):
And I had to deconstruct the Christianity, the cult Christianity.
And so there's that theological deconstructing.
There's the deconstructing, the cognitive dissonance.
At this month, God said this, but now God said this.
I wasn't the one that got in my parents' bathroom and stole their shampoo, but I'm gettingblamed and punished for it.

(01:49:56):
And I know that God saw me.
so, yeah, I have to deconstruct all of that.
What was the brainwashing?
What was going on?
Why didn't it make sense?
because it doesn't make sense.
So we're deconstructing that.
But then I'm deconstructing motivation.
And I used to keep in my bag, Rome has a lot of homeless people in Italy, and I would passthe same people in my neighborhood.

(01:50:27):
And I always had snacks for my young kids in my bag, but I always had extra snacks.
I would just pass, the Italians had this saying of, just do what you can do today.
And so you can't help everybody.
So I would have a sandwich or a snack.
that resonated with me.

(01:50:49):
And so I always had that in my bag.
But in the beginning, I had that because I was scared of God.
And I wanted God to see that I was a good person.
Right.
And anybody from the outside would be like, Rowan is so compassionate.
She's taking care of the poor.
But I'm doing that because I feel scared.
So as I'm deconstructing everything, what I end up with is getting to the bottom of thatand realizing I'm doing this because I'm afraid.

(01:51:19):
But I value the concept of taking care of my fellow person, right?
So as I'm reconstructing,
then I'm saying, but I still want to do that.
But I don't have to do that from the standpoint of this is what I have to do to keepmyself safe.
I can do this from, well, this is a value and I want to and I choose to do.

(01:51:43):
And that deconstruction, reconstruction process was really hard.
It was hard to wrap my head around.
It felt like the therapy process was a lot more distra-
drawing of self than building of self.
But there did come a time when I was able to see more clearly, where does thedeconstruction get you to?

(01:52:07):
What is the bottom that you want to peel back to?
Trust the process.
And I think if I had a better understanding, that's where the process kind of gets is toyour motivation and your reason for doing things.
It would have been a lot easier to swallow or to even follow because then I could havegone back and said, you're right.

(01:52:31):
am doing, but all of this had to be revelations in the moment.
so now it's easier to process that and to understand it.
But I also wish somebody, you know, wish somebody would have told me that.
Shame.

(01:52:52):
That's a big one.
It's the universal experience.
If you're going to have abuse, you're going to have shame.
If you're to have trauma, you're going to have shame.
And I think your whole podcast, like the reason you do this, right, it really confrontsshame.
It's critical.

(01:53:12):
It's absolutely critical.
And there is no healing, no truth without going through shame to get there.
And how we move through that shame.
how we deal with that shame, I think is something that at least I didn't understand.

(01:53:39):
So what I would do, and again, this was just me, but I would, when I was back in thatrowboat and all the memories are flooding in, I would pick out which memory I wanted to
go, which one was the biggest one?
Or oftentimes, what we started to notice was the same type of memory would come back.

(01:54:03):
And it would be this same type of thing over and over.
And then Katya would say, pick the biggest one or the one that jumps out.
And then we would work with that one.
And it would kind of have this chain effect.
And it would kind of go through all of them.
So what I would do is I would remember these memories.

(01:54:25):
And then my heart would immediately tell me, if you go to Katya and you tell her, she'sgoing to know you deserve the abuse.
And she's going to side with your parents.
And she's going to know that you were wrong and your parents were right.
And I could not shake this feeling.
every single week.

(01:54:46):
And it was so gripping.
And this is shame, right?
It keeps you in silence.
It keeps you in the dark.
It was so gripping that I couldn't even talk about it.
So every week, and when I say every week, I mean every week, I would write Katya an email.
And I would say, I remembered this memory of when my sister stole the shampoo out of myparents' bathroom and I got blamed for it.

(01:55:14):
And my heart is telling me that if I tell you, you're going to know that I deserve thepunishment that I got because it was my fault.
And then I would sign my name to it.
That's all I would say.
And she would write me back every single week.
she would say, because sometimes I would say what the memory was and sometimes I wouldn't.

(01:55:35):
And on the times when I didn't say what the memory was, she would say, I went through alot of scenarios in my head of what I thought it could be.
And of course, they were always worst case.
And I've decided that there's nothing that you could share with me that would make mebelieve that you deserved the punishments that you got.
And so just want you to know that.

(01:55:57):
And I'm here to talk with you.
And she would write me back pretty immediately.
And I'd have therapy on Tuesday, right?
So I cleared out whatever.
So then the memories would start back up Wednesday.
Right?
this is going to happen Wednesday or Thursday that I'm remembering the delusion and thenfeeling this just powerful shame.

(01:56:24):
so then the email would probably be back in my inbox like Thursday night or Friday.
And every time that my heart said, no, she's going to know, she's going to know youdeserve this, I would pull up that email and I would read it.
And sometimes I would print the email and stick it next to my bed because a lot of timesat night, that's when I would.
Right.
mind starts racing.

(01:56:45):
Yeah.
And I would read it, and I would read it, and I would read it until I believed her voicemore than the voice of shame.
And in some ways, that was me working through the brainwashing process, because shame isthe tool that cults use.

(01:57:05):
Because if somebody is not ashamed, you can't control them.
We could just break it right there.
So for me, that's...
that shame piece and dealing with this, what I didn't know as I was re-brainwashing myselfin a way, or un-brainwashing myself, however you want to say that, was something that I

(01:57:28):
tell my kids, which was, especially when they were little, you can be so angry at yourbrother that you want to punch him.
Please don't punch him.
You can feel that anger and you can feel the depth of it, but don't do what the anger'stelling you to do.
So that's what I would say about anybody going through the process, any process.

(01:57:53):
Shame is there.
So feel the shame, acknowledge the shame.
but don't do what the shame wants you to do.
Because also in our lives, we're pretty darn rational, right?
We all feel like we'd like to punch somebody, and we all don't do it.
And this can go on an hourly basis.
We all feel like we might want to run away from a situation, but we stay there.

(01:58:14):
We might want to yell at somebody, but we bite our tongue.
There are so many times when we have this skill of feeling the emotion, acknowledging theemotion, and not act.
The email's at.
then delete, delete, delete.
That's right.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
So do that with shame.
Feel it.
Acknowledge it wants me to run away.

(01:58:34):
It wants me to hide in the dark.
It wants me to keep silent.
But don't do what shame wants you to do.
I like that.
And for me, I had this person who's going to come back and say, hey, look, no matter whathappens.
I'm not siding with your parents.
I needed her voice to get through that.

(01:58:55):
And if you need a person, then get a person.
I couldn't have done that on my own.
I needed external words, especially coming from a brainwashing situation.
She just seems like she was like amazing.
So amazing.
know.

(01:59:16):
Yeah, wow.
Like she took the extra steps as a therapist, for sure.
Yeah, there was a couple of times when she said, I went to this conference and they hadthis book and it talks about trying.
I was like, what is it?
Right.
Because she knew I was a reader, and she knew.
And I'd show up a week or two weeks later with the entire book, like with Post-It notes.

(01:59:39):
I'd be like, OK, page 64.
Here we go.
And she knew that I was going to do that and definitely catered to that with me.
again, she trusted the process and was pretty willing to like, what do you want?
What's your personality?
You want this?
Yeah, I got it for you.
Yeah.

(02:00:04):
The truth aspect, we touched on this already a little bit, but it's super important.
And it's kind of like my final piece I think that's really important to touch on.
my whole childhood was lies, right?
couldn't, but it had to be my truth.

(02:00:26):
And when those repressed memories came back,
That's when so did all the voices too of like, you're a bad person.
You know, our family's fine until you're here and then you create all the conflict.
that very much that place that I had to occupy in the family.

(02:00:49):
It's like I didn't feel those voices on a sort of daily basis, also because I wasn't nearmy family.
But when the memories came back, so did all those voices very powerfully.
And again, that's another part of brainwashing that had to be
be undone.
And the truth, you're going to combat lies with truth, right?

(02:01:09):
That's the only way to do it in this arena.
that's when I, the lady in the fabric store, do your parents hurt you?
She was speaking truth to me at six years old.
I didn't need that truth for 30 years.
But when I needed it, it was there.
And I don't know who that lady was.

(02:01:32):
But she was so critical to my healing process.
And I don't even know her name.
And then when the osteopath said, yeah, your body's been telling me this story, that'struth, right?
When Katya says, I knew what I didn't know.
That was truth.

(02:01:52):
And my friend that had recommended the osteopath and the therapist, she would always speaktruth to me.
And so I had these people that were coming in with truth at a time when all the voices andall the memories were saying, you deserved it.
They were speaking the lies.
And I think truth is around us.

(02:02:14):
It's coming from people.
it can be anything from what I used to do, which was print out what they
said, put it in my bed, read it as many times a day or remember, I would remember the ladyin the fabric store so many times a day.
But I also think one of the gifts we have is sometimes we are that person.

(02:02:36):
And I remember my my friend that I've referenced so many times, she called me one day andshe said, I want you to know I called CPS today.
in honor of you.
And it was her job, something related to her job.
And she said, it was because of the story you told me about the lady in the fabric store.

(02:02:58):
And I knew that it was my job in this moment to be that adult.
And that child might not.
And she said, it gave me the courage because they might not understand today why I didwhat I did.
But maybe down the road, have to try.
Well, and just like with that little one, you never know what the parents are saying andall the things and all the lies.

(02:03:25):
But when they get older, hopefully they'll remember.
Yeah.
So that's all I have.
That's a lot, girl.
I love your story though, because you are a person who did something about it.
You chose to get better.
You chose not to deal.

(02:03:47):
I think that that's just a huge message, because that's so hard.
It's hard.
Right.
Yeah, I'm here to be honest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And especially at the time that I was going through it, I mean, even now, you know,talking through trauma, right?

(02:04:07):
This isn't something that was done how many years earlier when we all experienced thetrauma or when we were going through some of the counseling or whatever.
You know, it's.
I used to ask both the osteopath and my therapist, how do you know when you're done?

(02:04:27):
Do you really think that people can heal?
Because I still felt like my parents owned my life because it's like they had inflictedthis pain that I couldn't get out from under.
And because of that, it felt like they had ownership of it.
And that was the thing I was going to get to the other side of.
And I was woman on mission.

(02:04:49):
they would just say to me, you'll know.
And I remember one time saying to Katya, was like,
Have you ever read a story about somebody getting to the other side of this, somethinglike this?

(02:05:12):
And she said, no, I haven't.
But I believe that it can be done.
And I said the same thing to the osteopath.
And he said the same thing.
No, I haven't.
But I believe it can be done.
And again, it was that.
And they were both honest.

(02:05:33):
Yeah.
And so I was like, well, then I'm going to do it because I can't live like this.
Yeah.
I know people are going to be like, what about the sister?
Do you talk to your sister that you have left?
No.
They all kicked me out.
Yeah, I don't have any contact with any of them.

(02:05:54):
Yes, they're amazing.
Yeah.
And as we've gotten older, you know, we've been able to talk about some of it.
And and they I think they understand.
how they're 16 and 17.
They're amazing.
Yeah.
They're really, really good boys.

(02:06:14):
And I think of how I heard someone say, and I don't know what I believe, so don't quote meon this, but I heard someone say that if you believe in reincarnation, that you met
certain people in another life and made an agreement to go into this life because theywere going to help you.
And gosh, if that's the case, then I would say my kids, my husband,

(02:06:40):
Mm hmm.
Yes.
and the friend that suggested all the healers.
I had to have met them at some other time because without even one of them, right, Iwouldn't have this story.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what do they say?
You're hurt in relationship and you're healed in relationship.

(02:07:04):
And gosh, what a great bunch of relationships I have.
Yeah.
Wow.
I told you, I'm usually not, I'm just shaking my head the whole time.
It's so much, but I'm glad that you came and told your story because.

(02:07:29):
Other people have to watch this or listen and just be like, that's me.
Then they see that you did it.
You actually have done it.
Like where you asked the therapists and the osteo, has anybody ever came out on the otherside?
And they hadn't heard of that yet.
But you're a testament to that.

(02:07:50):
So thank you.
Absolutely.
Thank you for coming.
Also, thank you for doing this because I think this is what, know, shame is what keeps uswhere we are.
And this flies in the face of shame and you built this and I like what a pleasure to be apart of it.
thank you.
That's the goal, right?

(02:08:11):
Yeah.
Just for people not to feel that.
Yeah.
Or to get past it.
Yeah, because we can have not similar stories, but we understand that universal experienceof shame.
Absolutely.
The whole time you were talking about that, I'm like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
I know.
Right.
And it's different, but I do know.

(02:08:34):
Well, thank you.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you too.

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