January 14, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of Cults and the Culting of America, hosts Scot Loyd and Daniella engage with Tia Levings, a New York Times bestselling author and cult survivor. They discuss Tia's journey of writing her memoir, the impact of Christian patriarchy, and the allure of traditionalism in modern society. Tia shares her insights on the dynamics of complementarianism, the consequences of perfectionism, and the importance of storytelling in healing. The conversation emphasizes the need for awareness and empowerment among those affected by high-control groups, while also exploring the complexities of societal change and the role of women in shaping the future.
Tia's Links
https://tialevings.substack.com/
Instagram @tialevingswriter
Threads @tialevingswriter
TikTok @tialevingswriter
Daniella's Links:
You can read all about my story in my book, Uncultured-- buy signed copies here. https://bit.ly/SignedUncultured
For more info on me:
Patreon: https://bit.ly/YTPLanding
Cult book Clubs (Advanced AND Memoirs) Annual Membership: https://bit.ly/YTPLanding
Get an autographed copy of my book, Uncultured: https://bit.ly/SignedUncultured
Get my book, Uncultured, from Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/4g1Ufw8
Daniella’s Tiktok: https://bit.ly/3V6GK6k / KnittingCultLady
Instagram: https://bit.ly/4ePAOFK / daniellamyoung_
Unamerican video book (on Patreon): https://bit.ly/YTVideoBook
Secret Practice video book (on Patreon): https://bit.ly/3ZswGY8
Other Podcasts
Daniella's other podcast: Hey White Women
Takeaways
- Tia's book started as therapeutic journals recommended by her therapist.
- The journey to writing a memoir can take years and evolve over time.
- Christian patriarchy influe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
(00:03):
My name is Scott Lloyd along with my friend, Daniela.
And Daniela, it's been a minute since we've had the opportunity to record coming backafter the holidays, but good to see you in the bright orange and the knitting cult lady is
still here and thriving in 2025.
Well, know, Scott, 2025 started off with a literal bang as lightning hit the Capitolbuilding, the Washington Monument, the One World Trade Center and the Empire State
(00:36):
Building.
And so it was just like, welcome to 2025.
None of us know what's going to happen.
However, we have a guest today who's very exciting because she has lived through a lot ofthis kind of stuff before and she knows exactly what's going on.
And we are going to let the amazing New York Times bestselling author Tia Levingsintroduce herself.
(01:01):
Hello.
Yes, so I am the author of A Well-Trained Wife, My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.
It came out in August, did debut on the New York Times list.
It's also an Audible Canada Best of Year, which I'm super stoked about because I read myown audio book.
And that was a massive accomplishment for a cult survivor to tell it in my own voice, asyou well know, Danielle.
(01:23):
So my work spotlights the realities of Christian fundamentalism and the Americantheocracy, the world that we're living in now.
It's all got evangelical, patriarchal roots.
And that's what my work.
draws the parallels so that people can understand the root sources that are in ourentertainment, politics, news headlines, even faith deconstruction and trauma recovery are
(01:49):
all touched by a patriarchal system that's deeply embedded into our relationships andculture and world.
that's, have a never ending trove of material.
It's always there.
Welcome Tia, we're thrilled to have you and I was watching some of your content today andit was just amazing, your story and then your bestselling book.
(02:13):
And I just wonder how long did it take you to find the courage to tell your story?
Was that something that you knew immediately this is something that I want to share or didthat develop over time?
Yeah, great question.
No, it evolved because my book, even though I had always wanted to write and did write insome capacity, my book started as therapeutic journals that my therapist recommended I
(02:39):
start because I was going, I was doing so much work.
in therapy and I needed help seeing my experiences externalized on the page.
I was having a hard time stepping outside of them.
And so when you write what happened to you down, you're able to see a sequence of beforeand after, sequence of events, who are the players, what are the more external influences.
(03:00):
So it was really beneficial.
And then it formed into a timeline and narrative.
So there was a day when my therapist was like, I think you have a book here.
And that was probably two drafts in.
Over the next 10 years, that book would become first a novel, then a memoir told with apseudonym, and then finally I was ready to tell it in my own voice with my own name and
(03:23):
sell it on the large stage.
So it sold on the 13th draft in 2022, and it came out last August.
It's such an amazing book.
You know, I love the way Scott asked the question, how long did it take you?
Because I think what's so different about your book is that you had done so much of thedeconstruction and of the healing.
(03:49):
And that's a little more rare in the realm of cult survivor books.
What do you think is like the amount of time, like the minimum amount of time peopleshould wait?
before doing what you've done.
It's hard to put a number on it because what you need to know, be able to do is tell yourstory without re-traumatizing yourself.
(04:11):
And that's different in individual for everyone.
I am very suspicious if it doesn't take years because there's so many layers that has tohappen.
I will say there's been some dramatic growth that's parallel to my story that I use everyday.
So for example, I had a lot of vocal work to do.
I was using Fundy Baby Voice as a fundamentalist.
(04:32):
I had to retrain myself to speak in my own voice, but I also had
a stuttering problem from trauma and anxiety and things.
And so I had to work all of that in tandem with my trauma recovery.
And when I told the story, and I worked with trauma, a trauma writing coach, Lisa Ellison,and she really helped me make sure my story was cooked before I put it out there.
(04:54):
That was her term for, you you're able to withstand some constructive criticism, you'reable to be impervious to people who just, you know, they're going to say stupid stuff
about your story.
And you're able to tell it in many different forms without, you know, re-traumatizingyourself.
So, you know, that took years.
All of that took years.
(05:14):
And then I've grown since I started talking too.
Like you evolve as you tell this.
So over the last three years, I'm definitely a better communicator and storyteller than Iwas when I just even started the public facing part of this process.
Yeah, I found that to be so interesting.
I mean, I keep saying that writing a book deconstruction is like a whole different levelbecause you can't stay shallow, right?
(05:41):
You have to go to these deep, dark places.
And you do that really beautifully.
Another thing that I think is so important about your book is that you are showing theregular every day.
extremism.
That's like hiding in plain sight.
(06:02):
And I know I think you once mentioned that your initial title was an American burka.
And you're very much trying to make this parallel, you know, and I, as you know, this Istart my cult book club with my book, which is very intense from one of the world's
recognized extreme cults.
(06:24):
And then we wrap up with your book.
And I think of these as almost like two different ends of the spectrum of like, peopleexpect my story to be so extreme.
But then when I was digging into your story, it's like, I just kept thinking, and thereare families like this in every church in America.
(06:45):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I grew up, my story starts in a Southern Baptist megachurch with 20,000 members.
And it's really important to me that I start there because my process was groomed into methrough childhood.
I didn't just wake up one day and join a cult.
There was a decision-making process that had been formed and my church formed it.
So that same church.
(07:06):
is now at the heart of Christian nationalism and the movements that we're seeing now.
So I call it the cult without walls because it is in every home.
It is infiltrated and saturated into our culture.
my mentors, some of my mentors were in the same group that the Duggars were and they wereon TV, TLC.
It's very mainstream.
(07:27):
My goodness.
my goodness, Tia.
So I leave the Children of God when I'm 15, and I have been completely isolated on acommune, no media up until this point.
And I come out and the Duggars are on television.
And I literally remember being like, America's just watching a cult.
(07:49):
I know.
It must have seemed so upside down to you because I had the same fear in my heart.
Like, are they really going to show what this is like?
Are they really going to show?
There's cameras in their home.
How are they going to not?
Well, and also, you know, just meeting so many people with backgrounds like yours, whowould say to me, you know, I can't fathom your life.
(08:13):
But meanwhile, I'm like, but I recognize this in your experience, and this in yourexperience.
And I have said for a while that I think that some of the extreme evangelicals and Mormonslike
they want to be where the children of God is with the control and the ability to do whatthey want.
(08:34):
Tia, something that we talk a lot about on this podcast is something you alluded to whenyou introduced yourself.
And that's the way that patriarchy, high control religion, if you pull that string, it'sconnected to so many things in our culture.
(08:54):
thus, know, Daniela is writing about the culting of America.
And it's really hard to escape sometimes because
It's everywhere, everywhere you look and everywhere that you go.
So what are some of the things that you have noticed on this side of your experience?
(09:17):
And when did you come to the realization that, know, hey, it's more than just myexperience because it's happening everywhere and in almost every sector of the United
States for sure.
Yeah, so one of things I say often is that how the Christian patriarchy runs their homesis how they want to run the country.
And they have the very open, commonly shared, preached every Sunday strategy for dominion.
(09:44):
And that's what it is, dominion theology that teaches that Christians have a mandate fromGod to take over the globe, basically.
They're going to start with America.
And they preach this all the time.
And people just kind of like take it, you know, with a grain of salt.
But there's an actual strategy and marching order in place.
And it can be hard to like listen to all that and then think that it's going to translateto a culture that, for example, knows what it's like to have educated women and knows what
(10:10):
it's like to have women in the workplace and birth control and contraception and, know,like things that we can do to be a modern society.
How do you put that all back into a box and put it back into this Christian crusade?
So they are, you know, gearing up for this culture war and they use that kind ofterminology all the time.
We're in a war with the world.
The world is not for you.
be in the world, but not of the world.
(10:32):
so you're the Christian mindset and worldview is very narrow in that direction.
Um, knowing this, I, you know, had my experience in my escape and then my trauma therapy.
And as I said earlier, I was writing my story and the things that had happened to me.
And then the 2016 election came and I realized that everything I had worked so hard toescape was behind Donald Trump.
(10:55):
Like he's a, he's this front guy, this shiny, like anti-Christ type figure.
But behind him is the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 people and all those namesand faces, Home School Legal Defense Association, these deep, deep, deep pastors that are
in the same tradition as this evangelical patriarchy that's been there all along, verypatiently marching towards Washington.
(11:17):
And they're there.
so that's when I knew, like there was this parallel of like, I have to tell this storybecause it's not just about me.
And I need to tell my fellow American women what it's like to live in this world.
But it's still taking me by surprise.
The Tradwife Movement, which is just the same old thing we were doing before.
(11:37):
It's just hit critical mass and it's on social media.
Plus what's happening with Project 2025 and the fact that he was re-elected aftereverything that happened.
It is here.
We are facing a Christian nationalist theocracy and that is what it's like to live inthose homes.
We know all we have to do is amplify
(11:59):
the practices that are done in those homes to know what they're doing to our laws one byone and what they're trying to entice us with through their pretty and very attractive
social media.
So Tia, can you tell us why it seems so attractive?
Like why does the tradwife thing seem so attractive?
Why does what to so many of us looks like steps backward?
(12:23):
Like what do you think that is?
Yeah, I think, and you've heard me say this before, we've talked about it with cults, thefundamentalists, like fundamentalism in general, no matter what religion it belongs to,
even if it's a non-spiritual religion, that approach where you have an ideological purity,you have a soothing outcome, a promise, and a very clear formula of steps that if you do
(12:47):
them right and you do them in sequence, you will definitely achieve this promise.
That's very attractive to chaotic societies.
people who are disorganized, people who desperately want the same things that we all want.
We want happy marriages, secure relationships, children that turn out right.
We want a thriving society and a good economy and all of these things.
(13:08):
so one of the things I also say a lot is that the patriarchy has a way of creating thesituation and then offering the solution.
So they have created a chaotic world where we don't have social safety nets, where theyhave voted against our ability to have
a more balanced society with better, stronger democracy and rights for women.
(13:31):
There's no Equal Rights Amendment, for example.
They vote against all of that.
Then chaos ensues.
Backbreaking labor ensues.
We're all exhausted and tired and looking for a solution.
And then they swoop in with that solution and say, you just need to go back in time.
We just need women to go back home.
Wouldn't it be easier at home?
Here's a bread recipe.
(13:51):
Here's a lot of babies.
Aren't the babies pretty?
Let's just live this simple life at home.
And we know what it's like to be Puritans in 1950s housewives, but all that evidence justfades because they've shamed science.
The whole make America healthy movement against shamed science, shamed any kind oftestimonial that we might fall on.
And we fall into the lull.
(14:13):
know, ballerina farm is very hypnotic and soothing.
And lots of people will say, I just watch it for the entertainment.
But
Yeah, that's why it's as hypnotic as it is.
You're just drawn in.
And you know, it's interesting to me is that so many people assume, right, that by goingback, that it's going to make things better.
(14:36):
And when the men who look like me, especially say those kinds of things, that should beindication number one, that it was better for them, is better for people that look like me
and not everyone else.
It's like I was thinking the other day when you hear people say,
I wish we could go back to Bible times.
(14:58):
I wish we could live like they lived in the Bible.
That's pretty good indication to me that they've never actually read the Bible.
Right, or no, we're like, realized that life spans were 30 years old.
People died.
You were having babies.
Everybody was getting married at 12 and 14 because they knew they were gonna be dead by30.
Like, you really wanna go back to mud and gowns and no science?
(15:22):
I think we even see this in some of this like run of the mill nostalgia.
Like back in the day, kids just ran around until the streetlights came on and like a lotmore kids weren't okay.
We don't talk about that.
But also like when I hear, oh, they wanna go back to simpler times, what I hear as asurvivor of this is, you wanna go back to a time before labor laws protected women and
(15:49):
children.
Right on civil rights and you know the things that made it really easy to be especiallywhite straight and male but not just white straight and male.
There are there's usually an undercurrent in a subtext that they wish was the good olddays I was one of those kids that ran pretty feral you know till the streetlights came on.
Gen X is a is a wonderful generation to look at and see what was the real outcome of allthat feral childhood.
(16:17):
Are we truly better off I mean I have grandchildren now and
watching this generation parent babies with more technology, science, evidence, resource,support than any other time in humanity.
And I'm impressed.
They can say things like, I want my baby to be securely attached.
And I sit there like, I didn't even know what that word meant when I was having children.
(16:38):
We didn't have psychology.
We couldn't say the word anxiety until like 2008.
it's...
It's amazing what time and progress will offer us if we will only reach out and take itand protect it in times like these where they're trying to threaten our entire
civilization.
Yeah, I remember this moment when I had just had my baby and we were showing off the babyto family.
(17:03):
And so sitting around the table and it was like all the new moms and all the grandmothers.
And all of the new moms were talking about what you said, I read this report, there's thisthing, there's this science, this book.
And all the grandmothers are saying, well, I don't know, like in my day, Dr.
So-and-so said.
And it was one of those moments, I think, that it just clicked for me, that like, theelder isn't always the one that has the most experience, you know?
(17:33):
Right.
Exactly.
like they were experimenting.
You know, we know some of the outcomes of those practices.
So I get it that Dr.
Spock was an expert, but we we now know how his methods turned out.
So we can choose better.
We have the freedom and the privilege.
in time to choose better.
And it's maddening to me that we are talking in 2024 about basic vaccine rights and basiccontraception.
(17:58):
And I know that no fault divorce is on the table and we've just, we've made this muchprogress in our lifetimes and it's back in everyday conversation.
It's crazy.
you were working through the journaling in your therapy process, was there a particularstory that came to your mind first that perhaps was enlightening to you, kind of showing
(18:26):
you that, I am on the right path.
It was bad for me then.
It's better for me now.
And so I've got to keep walking in this direction.
And if so, could...
Could you share that story, what that moment was like for you?
The big one that I knew I had to contend with was domestic discipline and spirit wifediscipline in reformed homes in the church that is still growing out in Idaho now.
(18:52):
There's this practice in.
this evangelical patriarchy, which does span Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal.
There are a lot of people who use these pastors materials and they don't come out and sayit overtly.
There's there's a not a great paper trail on purpose of what they teach, but it's in thecommunities.
And there's a long list of me, two people.
(19:13):
And I knew that in order to really be effective in telling my story, I had to tell thewhole truth, which meant I would have to tell.
not just about marital rape, not just about infant loss, not just about all of thedomestic abuse that my church actually said was okay.
I call it church sanctioned domestic abuse because we were counseled to live this way.
(19:36):
But I had to like say the thing that was so hard for me to admit to anybody.
And when that happened to me, when I lived through wife discipline, I swore to myself Iwould never tell anybody.
It was mortifying to me that I had fallen that low because I'm a sparky person with a lotof courage and fire and
I had allowed myself to be so broken that I would submit to something like that in orderto stay safe.
(19:57):
And I was humiliated for a very long time.
And when I saw that, Doug Wilson's empire is still growing out in Idaho and you don't haveto do six degrees of separation to get him to Washington.
You have to do like three.
And that was years ago.
He's probably one degree away now.
I knew I gotta tell the whole truth and that's what's gonna help make my memoir stand outis that I am.
(20:22):
I'm pulling the curtain all the way back.
So yeah, mean, and it was very important to me to tell it well.
I had never written a long form book.
So also a good portion of that time was learning how to write a book and how to tell it ina way that would be well written and convey the story well so that there wasn't a
distraction in the telling itself.
(20:45):
This is one of the things I say to my audience a lot about my process too.
was like, I would write something and I would show it to people and they would be like, Idon't get it.
And especially when I was in the proposal and rejection process.
And I remember just being like, okay, Daniela, you need to learn to tell it better.
And one of the things I learned because I of course didn't take, well, I mean, it was a 13year journey for me.
(21:14):
but I was earlier in my journey than you and I opted to go with co-writers.
And that turned into such an interesting experience.
And I just describe it as like, we all need to learn to tell our stories.
But I would have those moments where like you said, like it was just the embarrassingthing or thing that you thought you couldn't share with anyone.
(21:37):
and then seeing, getting a sneak peek of like other women being like, no, I get this.
Like, I know what you're talking about was.
shame melted away the first time I got my first Me Too.
I set it in a caption on Instagram a couple years before I finished my book and I got a MeToo from a pastor's wife.
And I was like, okay, that's all I need to hear.
(21:58):
I know that this is widespread because I know what was going on in my congregations.
And I'm like, what's my humiliation?
That's just ego.
You know, like I can get past that in order to help other women stay safe.
yeah, so it's, it's just face it down, say the thing.
I mean, you did a great job in your book too.
Your book opens with a pretty visceral, story that you got to get past and say the thing.
(22:23):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I just wanna say this as a tip for listeners, because I know a lot of you are writing, youknow, like sometimes it helps to address the hardest story first, and then the rest will
start to kind of flow.
Tia, when you look back on your experiences, when you look at the culture, and I'msomewhat familiar growing up in a Pentecostal cult with the dynamics of what is referred
(22:58):
to as complementarianism, the idea that men and women are different, except that they havedifferent roles, etc., etc., which is all an extension of patriarchy and control.
Do you think
that the group that you were associated with and maybe evangelical culture in general inthe United States, do you think that this is something that they actually believe to be
(23:27):
true or is it a matter of this is helpful to accomplish our means and our goals and ourcontrol?
And then they develop all of the theology after the fact.
Let's find verses that confirm what we already believe to be true or what works for us inthis situation.
(23:48):
I love this question because it really hits on number one, if it was so natural, theywouldn't have to preach about it all the time to their own believers that this is how you
should be living.
we would all be doing that.
Clearly all men are not the same and all women are not the same.
And we do not just have these like cookie cutter roles and cookie cutter skill sets justbased on our genitalia.
(24:09):
So I think like we get it in our, in our instincts and it's just a matter of how
dead to your instincts you are, think, how obedient you are.
I know so many families that bend all those rules at home.
There are men who are washing their dishes because they're...
That's how they've divided labor in their homes.
(24:29):
They might not admit that at church, right.
They might not admit it at church that they're helping their wife with the dishes orcooking, know, heaven forbid they're cooking, but they're doing it.
And there are women who are absolutely the heads of their homes and just play in that goodsubmissive game in public.
yeah, I mean, there's a lot to do as I say, not as I do in patriarchy.
(24:53):
I found this term recently and it's a term for when we are like auto surveilling and thensurveilling those around us and policing each other.
And I think it's one of the best named terms ever because it's performative regulation.
And I will never forget, I was 12 years old and we were finally living in a commune thatwas small enough that it was just one other family and that family went away.
(25:19):
So for like the first time.
ever, my family was alone for like many days.
And immediately my parents didn't care about any of our rules.
And right there, I remember being like, this is BS.
And we all knew that when the other family came back, we were gonna have to like go backto all the rules.
And I was like, I remember just looking at my dad as a 12 year old and being like, wow, inmy head, right?
(25:43):
Like, you don't even believe any of this.
Wow.
when we examine this more closely and we look at it and we know it's happening in churchesand homes across the United States, what is the message that you want to communicate to
(26:04):
people that are experiencing perhaps what you experienced and they have questions about itand like Daniela said, they go on vacation.
And suddenly all of the rules stop.
They live differently for a few weeks.
They don't go to church on Sunday.
And then they return to the group and all of those rules are enforced.
(26:25):
And maybe they're having all these questions like you did, like we all do, but reallydon't know what the next step should be.
I know for me growing up in my high control group, it was a matter of asking questions andkeeping a lot of thoughts internally as I worked this out.
before I I found the courage to leave.
(26:48):
Yeah, what to do next is also like just one of those so individual things.
In my work, I'm striving to educate people so they'll recognize it in their own lives.
I know clearly I'm not a guru person who can see it all.
I can help you be more attuned to what's happening so that you understand when somethingfeels off, that you know you have language to call it and to know what it is.
(27:13):
And the end goal for that is to end oppression and abuse.
There are abusive practices happening right underneath everyone's noses.
And it's to people who don't have any consent in this lifestyle.
When we talked about tradwives, we're talking about the parents, but the children are theones that we really care about, have no say in what's happening in their homes.
It's not better to raise a child like it's 1800 in 2024, and that kid won't have say untilthey're 18.
(27:37):
And that's after all the damage has been done.
being able to know the signs and see what's going on around you will make you a stronger,better advocate.
if it's happening to you, you might have language that helps you understand that you needto leave, that you have resources that you're not like, you're not imagining this.
one of the things I rail about a lot is, people saying that marriage is hard and that loveis hard.
(28:02):
Whoa, whoa.
What a flaming red flag.
If your marriage is hard all the time and if it hurts all the time, guess what?
You're probably in some sort of abuse dynamic.
So like it's the more we talk about it the more we name it and describe it, the moreempowered
each individual is to take that and use that in their life, which will have the criticalmass to Washington eventually.
We have our more informed voters.
(28:26):
Tia, could you talk about the perfectionism that is foisted not only on women, but onchildren?
You mentioned, and I described growing up in a cult as just no spontaneous moments of joy.
And I think it's because the promise of the cult that everything will be perfect is a lie.
(28:49):
And so eventually children are gonna fall under just extreme discipline, expectation forperfection.
And I'm wondering if you like noticed this in your children as you were in the lifestyle.
that's a great question.
It's kind of a multifaceted stone to look at.
(29:12):
Fundamentalism depends on the individual's perfection in order to achieve it.
Whatever they're promising in fundamentalism is never real.
if there's failure along the way, it's always your fault.
So you're always trying to be more perfect so that you can actually attain the thing thatthey are dangling in front of you.
And the dangling carrot is a really great psychological term to go research becausethey're always moving the goalpost.
(29:37):
something that's out of your reach because of sin or because of your own failing.
And so you're always trying to purify, purify, purify towards this idea.
When you put that into little children who are naturally supposed to be making mistakesand developing and growing into the people that they are, there's no grace and there's
very high stakes to make sure everybody cooperates because if it's a parent and theirchildren are unruly, it reflects on the parents.
(30:02):
So suddenly this very emotional impetus to make everybody
conform is there and that's what makes parents reach for really strict discipline methods,things that they might, if they sat quietly, they might not want to hit their kid.
But in the moment they have to make their kids sit still in church, you know, becauseotherwise everyone's going to look at them.
It's this like just steaming pot of, you know, it just nurtures itself and bubbles it onself.
(30:29):
Like there's no way to escape perfectionism.
And I think it's one of the ways that we carry with us the most
into deconstruction.
hear a lot of survivors, they're still grappling with perfectionism years after maybe theybroke down the beliefs.
They understand what kind of group they were in.
They've made big radical changes in their life, but they're still struggling usually withpeople pleasing and perfectionism.
(30:54):
I say that I am grateful that my book did not debut on the New York Times because itkicked me right like the last little bit off the perfectionism train that I needed.
And now I can see it all like my whole life exactly what you said, you know, becausethat's the environment and especially as a kid who was neurodivergent and always asking
(31:16):
questions and didn't fit, you know.
It's sad, but I always say that to break people, you need isolation, pain, and small actsof kindness.
And I was just so different that they forgot the small acts of kindness with me.
So like, it didn't stick.
But then it was like, I would go on to spend another almost 20 years just like trying sohard to fit in and thinking, like, I think there's some kind of belief that you can like,
(31:48):
out
perfection your trauma, if that makes sense.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
And when you're belonging and your safety all depend on how well you fit in and then yourealize you don't fit in, you're in real danger, you know?
So it's very vulnerable, very scary.
And yeah, I'm neurodivergent as well.
And like, there's just no way I could be perfect enough.
(32:10):
I really gave it my best shot and I'm very high capacity.
I did a pretty good job of being an excellent trap wife, but not at the end of the day,because it's not really attainable.
No one can be that perfect.
And this brings up something that is very near and dear to my heart, which is one of thethings that is a result of this is often suicide.
(32:32):
And it's one of the patterns that we see in cults.
So to me, like, even when I'm studying normal organizations and I'm like, this Sapphostuff sounds crazy.
And then I see a pattern of suicides and I'm like, and I think that it comes down to whatyou just said.
Like, no one can maintain that.
No one can be perfect enough.
(32:53):
And one of the really heartbreaking things I've heard from my audience is children ofMormons and evangelicals, you know, thinking that they needed to die before they hit the
age of seven or eight, because that was their like age when they would start sinning.
There wasn't really a question there.
(33:14):
all of that all of that resonates with me, right?
Because I mean, this was something that I experienced as a child and certainly you did aswell.
But this this idea that the most vulnerable in the group are the ones that are most oftenabused, taken advantage of, you go down the list of free labor, of all of the exploitation
(33:39):
that the group is endeavoring to
impose, it starts as a child.
And that's something that you've got to deal with for the rest of your life.
I know, you know, at 53, I'm still dealing with a lot of that baggage that I receivedearly on because it's your identity, it's your purpose, your origin, your meaning,
(34:03):
morality, destiny, all of it is tied up in that particular group, in that particulardogma.
And I think that's exactly right that the most vulnerable often receive the brunt of allof that abuse.
Yeah, mean, churches and cults in general, you know, they they need you young.
(34:28):
They need the zeal of the young people to keep perpetuating.
And then you do have these this age bracket.
I'm sure you've seen this in your research, Daniela, with people in their 20s and 30s arefalling away because they're starting the critical thinking in their cognitive brain
development.
Everything is online and they're no longer as malleable and formal, formable as they wereas children.
(34:51):
And so maybe they come back.
you know later but this it's constantly renewing in the youth cycle and they got to havethose babies young so you know then you got to get rid of birth control you got to have
people having lots of families lots of babies it's interesting to me that we're seeing thebirther movement which is not necessarily religious at the same time as the quiver full
(35:12):
movement they're
piggybacking one another very seamlessly.
But what it's gonna result in is crap ton of kids coming out with abuse stories in about10 years.
Yeah, for sure.
On the flip side, when they fail to keep the children, this is how the cults end.
(35:36):
I do think, like, obviously we are in the other side of the pendulum swing, right?
Like we had some freedoms, we had some progress, and now we're going back.
like, I don't know, do you take any hope from this election that like, youth are leaving?
religion in broad numbers.
(35:57):
I think that's very complicated.
Gen Z is radicalized and they have too much pressure on them to save the world.
Everyone thought that they were going to carry the election.
What an unfair burden for everybody to put on young kids that were handed a crap hand withCOVID and the rest of their education.
A lot of them launched out of high school into loneliness and really hard times and ouracademic system's a mess.
(36:24):
So I don't know where the young people are going.
They're coming into
chaos and fundamentalism thrives in chaos.
I am tender with them.
don't want to put that pressure on them.
think adults should not abdicate our role in making sure that they have a thrivingsociety.
And hope from this election, mean, my hope with this election is that chaos also can comeself-like, just fall in on itself.
(36:49):
And when you give
These narcissists, enough rope, they take care of it themselves.
And so we are seeing some self-destructive behavior from that sector.
And when I see it, I'm like, may it be, just wear yourselves out.
The grownups shall reign again, is what I hope.
(37:10):
I think there's no chance that Elon and Trump will be speaking by this holiday.
I'm just like, I think it's so funny because he's playing by the cult leader playbook,right?
And those of us who've lived under this, like all three of us, like we recognized it rightin the beginning, but he's also making all the same mistakes.
(37:32):
they get, he's.
these people build their cults and then they just surround themselves with like fellownarcissists who affirmed their rise to power.
But the problem is, you know, I tell people this a lot with cults, right?
It can go one of two ways.
You either put effective bureaucrats in and they start routinizing and writing things downand making rules, which makes it harder for the charismatic leader to do whatever he
(38:00):
wants.
Or,
you put in a bunch of fellow narcissists and then you're fighting your own lieutenants thewhole time.
And that's usually what happens.
Like we can see it in Jim, we can see it in all of them.
And I just kind of think it's too funny.
I mean, down to underestimating the women.
One of my favorite.
add their own peril.
(38:21):
They really are doing that at their own peril.
We are, I think we're the majority number and we're.
day who tell me to go get military experience before I criticize the military.
I'm like, y'all are not going to be hard to beat.
And like, Knitting's Morse code, like, we're gonna have just like a brigade of women.
(38:45):
but I mean, I think that's also what's kind of funny right now is that like,
these men truly seem to believe that we women who have experienced freedom and somewhat ofequality are just gonna kind of like go quietly into the night.
Do you have any predictions?
(39:07):
pretty haunting to look at pictures from Iran and other countries that have put theirwomen back in boxes.
Yeah, exactly.
It's terrifying.
And it does give me like a dose of sobriety of like,
Yeah, if it's horrible enough and lasts long enough and organized enough, it can happen.
However, it doesn't have the signs of being organized enough.
(39:29):
The Christian Patriarch isn't the majority.
They don't have that much of a control.
They have a crazy madman at their helm.
I mean, who knows how long he's gonna live, but then they are infighting so much.
Elon is going to get caught with all of his interference that is starting to break, so.
You know, I just think we need to stay the course as trauma survivors and can keep ourwits about us, keep our courage, keep our network going, doing the things that are
(39:55):
ultimately hold a society together and help one another.
And we also get insights on how to survive this, right?
Because we have been under authoritarian rule before.
Yeah, yeah.
in the lead up to this election how much of the language from the Republican ticketmirrored the language that we all heard growing up within our particular groups when it
(40:24):
comes to the patriarchy, to complementarianism, the roles of men and women.
mean, JD Vance criticizing childless cat ladies.
The fact that, you know, that he says we've got to start having babies.
All of this is very similar to what you would hear in other fundamentalism as well, youknow, whether it's Islam or other high control religious groups.
(40:57):
But going forward, I wonder, you know, with every movement, with every
every group that sort of exerts itself in power, there's always a backlash to that power.
So I'm wondering what it will look like on the other side of this.
(41:17):
And I think both of you are doing Yeoman's work when it comes to writing and to speakingout and things of that nature.
Yeah, I think.
We can again probably take some wisdom from the family to larger scale model that they'reusing for their control.
We can look at that for whatever breaks their control.
(41:40):
Women have so much power to escape, to subvert, to teach their children differently, toraise the next generation, to network and connect.
There are so many good men involved.
You you're self included.
Yes, you look like that, but you're not a patriarch that's looking to oppress women.
There are a lot of men like that out there, good men who care to not see us go backwardsin time.
(42:02):
And I put a lot of stock in that having the ultimate sway in the future.
I don't think you go backwards quite so easily.
It would take so much to make that happen.
I'm very concerned with the family unit and what's happening in homes and how thataccumulates to a mass.
(42:24):
But I think we see a lot of movement when we just tell our stories.
Every single time one of us tells our stories and someone else says, me too, or they feelthe space and the courage to do it alongside.
That's the air, that's oxygen, you know, the patriarchy didn't get and who knows where itleads.
I have an optimism for the future.
(42:44):
It's very stubborn optimism, but I can't shake it.
I agree.
And I keep telling people this about the military as well, that like the military and thegovernment, yes, they are these machines and yes, they can do bad stuff, but like they are
filled with people, right?
(43:06):
Like American citizens are not going to turn on the population, right?
Like the military, I really don't think the first person to try to test, you know,
peaceful transfer of power is going to be successful in America.
our constitution.
(43:26):
know, our military is sworn to protect the constitution and every military person I'vetalked to takes that very seriously.
And if I'm to believe that small sample, I can have some faith in that checks and balance.
Also, I love what's happening online right now.
Conversations, the power of the people has changed cabinet appointees, we have, we havegotten bots down, there are things that we do in our national conversation that
(43:52):
can be downplayed because of just the social media chatter, but not actually.
are power, the people are the checks and balance that's left.
We don't have a great court, we don't have a great Congress, we don't know about ourelections, but we do have voices still.
And I keep saying this analogy of like the frogs in the pot that gets you so much and likecults and extremism, but it's like, but if the frogs wake up and I think we are, right?
(44:17):
And jump out of the pot, now you have 340 million frogs jumping around your kitchen.
Like they're not gonna be getting anything done.
Sounds a little bit like that plague in Egypt.
Hahaha
Well, as long, know, given some things that he said today, if he's distracted with thePanama Canal and changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, if he
(44:43):
focuses on those things, maybe he will be okay.
Yeah.
he's out there with his windmills and he's lulululu.
And I think the powers that be must be so frustrated with him because he has very skilledattorneys and sharp people behind him that have to have to put him out there for
population, you know, the popular vote.
(45:05):
But I'm sure I'm sure there's a lot of people tearing their hair out every time he openshis mouth.
Yeah, and that gives me hope when I see the incompetence and the lack of organization,because I know how massive an undertaking it would be to actually move us backwards as a
nation.
(45:25):
Yeah, their chaos will kill time.
That's what we saw in the last time in 2020.
It was unfortunate that we had the pandemic in the middle of all of that and there areconsequences to having chaos in control.
But they didn't get a lot done and they didn't get a lot done.
There's two ways to look at that.
So if the Constitution holds, we're okay.
(45:52):
The response to your book has been fantastic from what I can see and I look forward toreading it.
What are some of the stories that you're hearing from people that have read your book thatyou find encouraging?
I love, love, love when people...
a lot of the reviews are mentioning how much they can relate to it, even though they had avery different experience themselves.
(46:16):
It's certainly not as extreme as harrowing.
They were on the same path and they could see where it could lead, would have led if theyhadn't made a few different changes.
A lot of people are feeling like I put language to the things that they didn't know how toname.
I love when they send in their lines and their, you know, their favorite, the way theyresonate with it.
(46:37):
But I'm also surprised at how many people read
it like turn around and read it a second time as soon as they finish it.
They needed to know I was okay and I'm like if you're holding the memoir of somebody who'sbeen through hard stuff you know they come out okay because they were able to write it you
know it's it's obviously a triumphant thing.
And I just also love that people are able, I made that decision to include the mainstreamin my story and people are seeing that.
(47:06):
They're in their day-to-day lives and they're starting to recognize this phenomena andshare it with their friends and the conversations are happening and I just, I'm very
excited to see where that leads.
And you know, this is so interesting with cult studies, because basically in the 70s, whenall the big cults were popping up in our last huge time of social turmoil, the people were
(47:30):
making progress on getting some laws passed that were going to be about coercive control.
And this is when mainstream religious leaders decided they were going to fight that,right?
Decided that any kind of control impinged on their control.
And thus began the cult wars in the eighties and nineties were basically dominated bythis.
(47:51):
Don't say the word cult, you know, don't listen to cult survivors.
They're all disgruntled.
And it's like, it's the same thing you experience, I'm sure.
But it's like people being like, don't talk about it.
You're going to harm survivors.
I don't know if you get any of that, but my response is always just nobody that doesn'twant you to use the word cult.
(48:15):
Like.
has your best interest in mind or that doesn't want you to share your story.
I get a ton of not all Christians and people who are very protective of their faith systemand they don't want, they, don't like it if I've left faith and they want to know that God
is still good.
And I'm spiritually private.
I don't talk about my personal faith beliefs anymore because I believe that personalautonomy and privacy is something I should have had in the beginning.
(48:42):
Young children should find out who they are before they find out who they're, what theybelieve.
And as an indoctrinated child, I was not given that.
So I'm very
private about my personal beliefs now, but it's interesting to me when people are like,but, do you still believe in God?
need to know that you still believe in God.
You don't need to know anything about my private beliefs.
You need to know about your private beliefs.
(49:03):
You and God is all you have to square with and, that's on you.
And it doesn't have anything to do with me.
it's clear, not clear, not all Christians.
This is not, not all Christian churches are cults.
But the people who are very interested in protecting the reputation of Christianity needto take some hard looks at the way they're living because they have just prioritized the
(49:25):
system over the people and the survivors who have experienced cults.
And that's where I put my effort.
I don't have endless energy to cheerlead the people that are doing it right.
I'm here for the people that got harmed and I'm interested in stemming that harm and notallowing it to continue and just harm others.
So.
Yeah, sorry not sorry.
(49:46):
Yeah.
And it's interesting that the response from these groups, it's so predictable.
I think we could all tell our story about leaving and how you go through these phases,right?
First of all, they, they, if you're going to leave, just shut up about it, leave.
And you're all of a sudden your persona non grata, it's as if you never lived.
And then, you know, then the second wave is, well, you're, you're bitter, you'redisgruntled.
(50:10):
And so I get a lot of that, right?
That, well, you had a bad experience.
And so that bad experience is clouding all of your critiques of this particular movementor group.
You know, it's interesting you mentioned bitterness because I'm very my third book is kindof centers on the theme is bitterness as an empowerment tool of empowerment because it's
(50:33):
used to shame people into silence.
And I really believe bitterness forms when there's been an injustice and you didn't have achance to there's no antidote.
There's no there's no way for you to remedy it.
And so they call you bitter and so that you'll be quiet and just keep things going.
Push it under the rug.
You know, when you're supposed to be smiling sweetly and, you know, not holding peopleaccountable.
But bitterness is actually
(50:55):
medicine.
That's that is how we heal is by allowing the bitter to work.
And so I think that if we free our freedom, know, allow ourselves to be bitter, there's areason if we're bitter, bitterness is something resentment is something we're holding on
to.
It's better to unpack why and what's underneath that than it is to shame the emotionitself so it can be swept away.
(51:19):
Yeah, well said.
I often in those situations, since they gave me so many Bible stories to read and tomemorize as a child, and since I did that so well, I often remind them of the story of
Ruth and Orpah in the Old Testament where Naomi, she says, you know, God has made mebitter.
(51:42):
Well, there you go, right?
There is times when our bitterness is a tool.
to make us better and to move forward and to simply label someone.
It's a thought stopping cliche to say that someone is bitter or that someone isdisgruntled or someone is hurt without taking into account what they have experienced.
And most of these groups are unwilling to even acknowledge that anything has happened thatis wrong.
(52:08):
And so until you get to that point, it's very difficult to have a conversation of anylegitimacy.
Yeah, yeah, because that would make them have to change.
Nobody wants change.
They don't.
It's other people.
That's not how we do things here.
You know, yeah, I know all the lines and I was made.
(52:28):
I was made to be vocal.
can't.
you know, wham.
Yeah, there's something I've heard you say before about how like one of your mantras orone of the things you believe in is to never put ideas before people.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, it's my simple layman's term for fundamentalism, how to recognize it.
(52:51):
I wanted a really quick filter to know if I was dealing with something that was human andloving and life-giving, or if it was in service to a system.
And so I want to put people before ideas, always, no matter what.
I don't ever want to value an ideology over somebody else's humanity.
And that's what fundamentalism is.
(53:11):
The ideological purity is the thing that matters most, and everyone else is supposed tosubject
themselves in service to it and it breaks people.
So that little quick mantra of people before ideas is always my litmus if I'm confrontedwith a system or a group that is, you know, we're surrounded by group thinks and
opportunities to join groups all of the time.
(53:32):
We're also confronted with social pressure and issues that come up in our headlines and
you know, if something comes up that's controversial and I don't fully understand it, Iknow where my default needs to lie in as whatever is most compassionate to a human being.
It is not necessary for me to understand the full science of it or the strategy behind itor anything.
(53:52):
I don't need to have the full understanding to know where my priority needs to be.
And so that helps me with my day to day, you know, just loving other people and showing upfor them in a protective way and being an advocate and an ally.
That's where I'm gonna live.
I've tried it the other way and like I said, it broke people, it broke relationships, itends in death for a lot of people and that's not what I'm called to do.
(54:17):
And Tia is so good at what she does, y'all.
I'm one of those people that read the book and then read it again and then listen to theaudio.
I mean, your book for me, Tia, goes up in my like top five or whatever books that I thinkI literally cannot oversell enough along with Isabel Wilkerson's cast, which is like my
(54:37):
holy grail of book.
high praise and I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
and I think I told you I think I'll read it every five years because I'll be at like adifferent place in my deconstruction.
I'm so honored to know you.
You're such a great also just like literary citizen and teacher and instructor and I justI'm hoping you can tell everyone like where to find you how to work with you.
(55:01):
yeah, that's all easy.
I'm Tia Levings writer on all the social platforms, my website's TiaLevings.com and my substack where I deconstruct fundamentalism in our headlines, news, families, all of that is
TiaLevings.substack.com.
You can buy my book anywhere.
Absolutely.
Tia, thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to maybe having you back in thefuture to continue this conversation.
(55:24):
What you're doing is important work and we appreciate it very, very much.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
And for all of our listeners and viewers, do us a favor and hit that like button, shareand subscribe and follow Daniela on social media, buy her book Uncultured and keep up with
(55:45):
everything that we're doing here at Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
For Daniela Mesteneck Young, I'm Scott Lloyd.
We'll see you on the next episode.
This is Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
(00:03):
My name is Scott Lloyd along with my friend, Daniela.
And Daniela, it's been a minute since we've had the opportunity to record coming backafter the holidays, but good to see you in the bright orange and the knitting cult lady is
still here and thriving in 2025.
Well, know, Scott, 2025 started off with a literal bang as lightning hit the Capitolbuilding, the Washington Monument, the One World Trade Center and the Empire State
(00:36):
Building.
And so it was just like, welcome to 2025.
None of us know what's going to happen.
However, we have a guest today who's very exciting because she has lived through a lot ofthis kind of stuff before and she knows exactly what's going on.
And we are going to let the amazing New York Times bestselling author Tia Levingsintroduce herself.
(01:01):
Hello.
Yes, so I am the author of A Well-Trained Wife, My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.
It came out in August, did debut on the New York Times list.
It's also an Audible Canada Best of Year, which I'm super stoked about because I read myown audio book.
And that was a massive accomplishment for a cult survivor to tell it in my own voice, asyou well know, Danielle.
(01:23):
So my work spotlights the realities of Christian fundamentalism and the Americantheocracy, the world that we're living in now.
It's all got evangelical, patriarchal roots.
And that's what my work.
draws the parallels so that people can understand the root sources that are in ourentertainment, politics, news headlines, even faith deconstruction and trauma recovery are
(01:49):
all touched by a patriarchal system that's deeply embedded into our relationships andculture and world.
that's, have a never ending trove of material.
It's always there.
Welcome Tia, we're thrilled to have you and I was watching some of your content today andit was just amazing, your story and then your bestselling book.
(02:13):
And I just wonder how long did it take you to find the courage to tell your story?
Was that something that you knew immediately this is something that I want to share or didthat develop over time?
Yeah, great question.
No, it evolved because my book, even though I had always wanted to write and did write insome capacity, my book started as therapeutic journals that my therapist recommended I
(02:39):
start because I was going, I was doing so much work.
in therapy and I needed help seeing my experiences externalized on the page.
I was having a hard time stepping outside of them.
And so when you write what happened to you down, you're able to see a sequence of beforeand after, sequence of events, who are the players, what are the more external influences.
(03:00):
So it was really beneficial.
And then it formed into a timeline and narrative.
So there was a day when my therapist was like, I think you have a book here.
And that was probably two drafts in.
Over the next 10 years, that book would become first a novel, then a memoir told with apseudonym, and then finally I was ready to tell it in my own voice with my own name and
(03:23):
sell it on the large stage.
So it sold on the 13th draft in 2022, and it came out last August.
It's such an amazing book.
You know, I love the way Scott asked the question, how long did it take you?
Because I think what's so different about your book is that you had done so much of thedeconstruction and of the healing.
(03:49):
And that's a little more rare in the realm of cult survivor books.
What do you think is like the amount of time, like the minimum amount of time peopleshould wait?
before doing what you've done.
It's hard to put a number on it because what you need to know, be able to do is tell yourstory without re-traumatizing yourself.
(04:11):
And that's different in individual for everyone.
I am very suspicious if it doesn't take years because there's so many layers that has tohappen.
I will say there's been some dramatic growth that's parallel to my story that I use everyday.
So for example, I had a lot of vocal work to do.
I was using Fundy Baby Voice as a fundamentalist.
(04:32):
I had to retrain myself to speak in my own voice, but I also had
a stuttering problem from trauma and anxiety and things.
And so I had to work all of that in tandem with my trauma recovery.
And when I told the story, and I worked with trauma, a trauma writing coach, Lisa Ellison,and she really helped me make sure my story was cooked before I put it out there.
(04:54):
That was her term for, you you're able to withstand some constructive criticism, you'reable to be impervious to people who just, you know, they're going to say stupid stuff
about your story.
And you're able to tell it in many different forms without, you know, re-traumatizingyourself.
So, you know, that took years.
All of that took years.
(05:14):
And then I've grown since I started talking too.
Like you evolve as you tell this.
So over the last three years, I'm definitely a better communicator and storyteller than Iwas when I just even started the public facing part of this process.
Yeah, I found that to be so interesting.
I mean, I keep saying that writing a book deconstruction is like a whole different levelbecause you can't stay shallow, right?
(05:41):
You have to go to these deep, dark places.
And you do that really beautifully.
Another thing that I think is so important about your book is that you are showing theregular every day.
extremism.
That's like hiding in plain sight.
(06:02):
And I know I think you once mentioned that your initial title was an American burka.
And you're very much trying to make this parallel, you know, and I, as you know, this Istart my cult book club with my book, which is very intense from one of the world's
recognized extreme cults.
(06:24):
And then we wrap up with your book.
And I think of these as almost like two different ends of the spectrum of like, peopleexpect my story to be so extreme.
But then when I was digging into your story, it's like, I just kept thinking, and thereare families like this in every church in America.
(06:45):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I grew up, my story starts in a Southern Baptist megachurch with 20,000 members.
And it's really important to me that I start there because my process was groomed into methrough childhood.
I didn't just wake up one day and join a cult.
There was a decision-making process that had been formed and my church formed it.
So that same church.
(07:06):
is now at the heart of Christian nationalism and the movements that we're seeing now.
So I call it the cult without walls because it is in every home.
It is infiltrated and saturated into our culture.
my mentors, some of my mentors were in the same group that the Duggars were and they wereon TV, TLC.
It's very mainstream.
(07:27):
My goodness.
my goodness, Tia.
So I leave the Children of God when I'm 15, and I have been completely isolated on acommune, no media up until this point.
And I come out and the Duggars are on television.
And I literally remember being like, America's just watching a cult.
(07:49):
I know.
It must have seemed so upside down to you because I had the same fear in my heart.
Like, are they really going to show what this is like?
Are they really going to show?
There's cameras in their home.
How are they going to not?
Well, and also, you know, just meeting so many people with backgrounds like yours, whowould say to me, you know, I can't fathom your life.
(08:13):
But meanwhile, I'm like, but I recognize this in your experience, and this in yourexperience.
And I have said for a while that I think that some of the extreme evangelicals and Mormonslike
they want to be where the children of God is with the control and the ability to do whatthey want.
(08:34):
Tia, something that we talk a lot about on this podcast is something you alluded to whenyou introduced yourself.
And that's the way that patriarchy, high control religion, if you pull that string, it'sconnected to so many things in our culture.
(08:54):
thus, know, Daniela is writing about the culting of America.
And it's really hard to escape sometimes because
It's everywhere, everywhere you look and everywhere that you go.
So what are some of the things that you have noticed on this side of your experience?
(09:17):
And when did you come to the realization that, know, hey, it's more than just myexperience because it's happening everywhere and in almost every sector of the United
States for sure.
Yeah, so one of things I say often is that how the Christian patriarchy runs their homesis how they want to run the country.
And they have the very open, commonly shared, preached every Sunday strategy for dominion.
(09:44):
And that's what it is, dominion theology that teaches that Christians have a mandate fromGod to take over the globe, basically.
They're going to start with America.
And they preach this all the time.
And people just kind of like take it, you know, with a grain of salt.
But there's an actual strategy and marching order in place.
And it can be hard to like listen to all that and then think that it's going to translateto a culture that, for example, knows what it's like to have educated women and knows what
(10:10):
it's like to have women in the workplace and birth control and contraception and, know,like things that we can do to be a modern society.
How do you put that all back into a box and put it back into this Christian crusade?
So they are, you know, gearing up for this culture war and they use that kind ofterminology all the time.
We're in a war with the world.
The world is not for you.
be in the world, but not of the world.
(10:32):
so you're the Christian mindset and worldview is very narrow in that direction.
Um, knowing this, I, you know, had my experience in my escape and then my trauma therapy.
And as I said earlier, I was writing my story and the things that had happened to me.
And then the 2016 election came and I realized that everything I had worked so hard toescape was behind Donald Trump.
(10:55):
Like he's a, he's this front guy, this shiny, like anti-Christ type figure.
But behind him is the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 people and all those namesand faces, Home School Legal Defense Association, these deep, deep, deep pastors that are
in the same tradition as this evangelical patriarchy that's been there all along, verypatiently marching towards Washington.
(11:17):
And they're there.
so that's when I knew, like there was this parallel of like, I have to tell this storybecause it's not just about me.
And I need to tell my fellow American women what it's like to live in this world.
But it's still taking me by surprise.
The Tradwife Movement, which is just the same old thing we were doing before.
(11:37):
It's just hit critical mass and it's on social media.
Plus what's happening with Project 2025 and the fact that he was re-elected aftereverything that happened.
It is here.
We are facing a Christian nationalist theocracy and that is what it's like to live inthose homes.
We know all we have to do is amplify
(11:59):
the practices that are done in those homes to know what they're doing to our laws one byone and what they're trying to entice us with through their pretty and very attractive
social media.
So Tia, can you tell us why it seems so attractive?
Like why does the tradwife thing seem so attractive?
Why does what to so many of us looks like steps backward?
(12:23):
Like what do you think that is?
Yeah, I think, and you've heard me say this before, we've talked about it with cults, thefundamentalists, like fundamentalism in general, no matter what religion it belongs to,
even if it's a non-spiritual religion, that approach where you have an ideological purity,you have a soothing outcome, a promise, and a very clear formula of steps that if you do
(12:47):
them right and you do them in sequence, you will definitely achieve this promise.
That's very attractive to chaotic societies.
people who are disorganized, people who desperately want the same things that we all want.
We want happy marriages, secure relationships, children that turn out right.
We want a thriving society and a good economy and all of these things.
(13:08):
so one of the things I also say a lot is that the patriarchy has a way of creating thesituation and then offering the solution.
So they have created a chaotic world where we don't have social safety nets, where theyhave voted against our ability to have
a more balanced society with better, stronger democracy and rights for women.
(13:31):
There's no Equal Rights Amendment, for example.
They vote against all of that.
Then chaos ensues.
Backbreaking labor ensues.
We're all exhausted and tired and looking for a solution.
And then they swoop in with that solution and say, you just need to go back in time.
We just need women to go back home.
Wouldn't it be easier at home?
Here's a bread recipe.
(13:51):
Here's a lot of babies.
Aren't the babies pretty?
Let's just live this simple life at home.
And we know what it's like to be Puritans in 1950s housewives, but all that evidence justfades because they've shamed science.
The whole make America healthy movement against shamed science, shamed any kind oftestimonial that we might fall on.
And we fall into the lull.
(14:13):
know, ballerina farm is very hypnotic and soothing.
And lots of people will say, I just watch it for the entertainment.
But
Yeah, that's why it's as hypnotic as it is.
You're just drawn in.
And you know, it's interesting to me is that so many people assume, right, that by goingback, that it's going to make things better.
(14:36):
And when the men who look like me, especially say those kinds of things, that should beindication number one, that it was better for them, is better for people that look like me
and not everyone else.
It's like I was thinking the other day when you hear people say,
I wish we could go back to Bible times.
(14:58):
I wish we could live like they lived in the Bible.
That's pretty good indication to me that they've never actually read the Bible.
Right, or no, we're like, realized that life spans were 30 years old.
People died.
You were having babies.
Everybody was getting married at 12 and 14 because they knew they were gonna be dead by30.
Like, you really wanna go back to mud and gowns and no science?
(15:22):
I think we even see this in some of this like run of the mill nostalgia.
Like back in the day, kids just ran around until the streetlights came on and like a lotmore kids weren't okay.
We don't talk about that.
But also like when I hear, oh, they wanna go back to simpler times, what I hear as asurvivor of this is, you wanna go back to a time before labor laws protected women and
(15:49):
children.
Right on civil rights and you know the things that made it really easy to be especiallywhite straight and male but not just white straight and male.
There are there's usually an undercurrent in a subtext that they wish was the good olddays I was one of those kids that ran pretty feral you know till the streetlights came on.
Gen X is a is a wonderful generation to look at and see what was the real outcome of allthat feral childhood.
(16:17):
Are we truly better off I mean I have grandchildren now and
watching this generation parent babies with more technology, science, evidence, resource,support than any other time in humanity.
And I'm impressed.
They can say things like, I want my baby to be securely attached.
And I sit there like, I didn't even know what that word meant when I was having children.
(16:38):
We didn't have psychology.
We couldn't say the word anxiety until like 2008.
it's...
It's amazing what time and progress will offer us if we will only reach out and take itand protect it in times like these where they're trying to threaten our entire
civilization.
Yeah, I remember this moment when I had just had my baby and we were showing off the babyto family.
(17:03):
And so sitting around the table and it was like all the new moms and all the grandmothers.
And all of the new moms were talking about what you said, I read this report, there's thisthing, there's this science, this book.
And all the grandmothers are saying, well, I don't know, like in my day, Dr.
So-and-so said.
And it was one of those moments, I think, that it just clicked for me, that like, theelder isn't always the one that has the most experience, you know?
(17:33):
Right.
Exactly.
like they were experimenting.
You know, we know some of the outcomes of those practices.
So I get it that Dr.
Spock was an expert, but we we now know how his methods turned out.
So we can choose better.
We have the freedom and the privilege.
in time to choose better.
And it's maddening to me that we are talking in 2024 about basic vaccine rights and basiccontraception.
(17:58):
And I know that no fault divorce is on the table and we've just, we've made this muchprogress in our lifetimes and it's back in everyday conversation.
It's crazy.
you were working through the journaling in your therapy process, was there a particularstory that came to your mind first that perhaps was enlightening to you, kind of showing
(18:26):
you that, I am on the right path.
It was bad for me then.
It's better for me now.
And so I've got to keep walking in this direction.
And if so, could...
Could you share that story, what that moment was like for you?
The big one that I knew I had to contend with was domestic discipline and spirit wifediscipline in reformed homes in the church that is still growing out in Idaho now.
(18:52):
There's this practice in.
this evangelical patriarchy, which does span Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal.
There are a lot of people who use these pastors materials and they don't come out and sayit overtly.
There's there's a not a great paper trail on purpose of what they teach, but it's in thecommunities.
And there's a long list of me, two people.
(19:13):
And I knew that in order to really be effective in telling my story, I had to tell thewhole truth, which meant I would have to tell.
not just about marital rape, not just about infant loss, not just about all of thedomestic abuse that my church actually said was okay.
I call it church sanctioned domestic abuse because we were counseled to live this way.
(19:36):
But I had to like say the thing that was so hard for me to admit to anybody.
And when that happened to me, when I lived through wife discipline, I swore to myself Iwould never tell anybody.
It was mortifying to me that I had fallen that low because I'm a sparky person with a lotof courage and fire and
I had allowed myself to be so broken that I would submit to something like that in orderto stay safe.
(19:57):
And I was humiliated for a very long time.
And when I saw that, Doug Wilson's empire is still growing out in Idaho and you don't haveto do six degrees of separation to get him to Washington.
You have to do like three.
And that was years ago.
He's probably one degree away now.
I knew I gotta tell the whole truth and that's what's gonna help make my memoir stand outis that I am.
(20:22):
I'm pulling the curtain all the way back.
So yeah, mean, and it was very important to me to tell it well.
I had never written a long form book.
So also a good portion of that time was learning how to write a book and how to tell it ina way that would be well written and convey the story well so that there wasn't a
distraction in the telling itself.
(20:45):
This is one of the things I say to my audience a lot about my process too.
was like, I would write something and I would show it to people and they would be like, Idon't get it.
And especially when I was in the proposal and rejection process.
And I remember just being like, okay, Daniela, you need to learn to tell it better.
And one of the things I learned because I of course didn't take, well, I mean, it was a 13year journey for me.
(21:14):
but I was earlier in my journey than you and I opted to go with co-writers.
And that turned into such an interesting experience.
And I just describe it as like, we all need to learn to tell our stories.
But I would have those moments where like you said, like it was just the embarrassingthing or thing that you thought you couldn't share with anyone.
(21:37):
and then seeing, getting a sneak peek of like other women being like, no, I get this.
Like, I know what you're talking about was.
shame melted away the first time I got my first Me Too.
I set it in a caption on Instagram a couple years before I finished my book and I got a MeToo from a pastor's wife.
And I was like, okay, that's all I need to hear.
(21:58):
I know that this is widespread because I know what was going on in my congregations.
And I'm like, what's my humiliation?
That's just ego.
You know, like I can get past that in order to help other women stay safe.
yeah, so it's, it's just face it down, say the thing.
I mean, you did a great job in your book too.
Your book opens with a pretty visceral, story that you got to get past and say the thing.
(22:23):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I just wanna say this as a tip for listeners, because I know a lot of you are writing, youknow, like sometimes it helps to address the hardest story first, and then the rest will
start to kind of flow.
Tia, when you look back on your experiences, when you look at the culture, and I'msomewhat familiar growing up in a Pentecostal cult with the dynamics of what is referred
(22:58):
to as complementarianism, the idea that men and women are different, except that they havedifferent roles, etc., etc., which is all an extension of patriarchy and control.
Do you think
that the group that you were associated with and maybe evangelical culture in general inthe United States, do you think that this is something that they actually believe to be
(23:27):
true or is it a matter of this is helpful to accomplish our means and our goals and ourcontrol?
And then they develop all of the theology after the fact.
Let's find verses that confirm what we already believe to be true or what works for us inthis situation.
(23:48):
I love this question because it really hits on number one, if it was so natural, theywouldn't have to preach about it all the time to their own believers that this is how you
should be living.
we would all be doing that.
Clearly all men are not the same and all women are not the same.
And we do not just have these like cookie cutter roles and cookie cutter skill sets justbased on our genitalia.
(24:09):
So I think like we get it in our, in our instincts and it's just a matter of how
dead to your instincts you are, think, how obedient you are.
I know so many families that bend all those rules at home.
There are men who are washing their dishes because they're...
That's how they've divided labor in their homes.
(24:29):
They might not admit that at church, right.
They might not admit it at church that they're helping their wife with the dishes orcooking, know, heaven forbid they're cooking, but they're doing it.
And there are women who are absolutely the heads of their homes and just play in that goodsubmissive game in public.
yeah, I mean, there's a lot to do as I say, not as I do in patriarchy.
(24:53):
I found this term recently and it's a term for when we are like auto surveilling and thensurveilling those around us and policing each other.
And I think it's one of the best named terms ever because it's performative regulation.
And I will never forget, I was 12 years old and we were finally living in a commune thatwas small enough that it was just one other family and that family went away.
(25:19):
So for like the first time.
ever, my family was alone for like many days.
And immediately my parents didn't care about any of our rules.
And right there, I remember being like, this is BS.
And we all knew that when the other family came back, we were gonna have to like go backto all the rules.
And I was like, I remember just looking at my dad as a 12 year old and being like, wow, inmy head, right?
(25:43):
Like, you don't even believe any of this.
Wow.
when we examine this more closely and we look at it and we know it's happening in churchesand homes across the United States, what is the message that you want to communicate to
(26:04):
people that are experiencing perhaps what you experienced and they have questions about itand like Daniela said, they go on vacation.
And suddenly all of the rules stop.
They live differently for a few weeks.
They don't go to church on Sunday.
And then they return to the group and all of those rules are enforced.
(26:25):
And maybe they're having all these questions like you did, like we all do, but reallydon't know what the next step should be.
I know for me growing up in my high control group, it was a matter of asking questions andkeeping a lot of thoughts internally as I worked this out.
before I I found the courage to leave.
(26:48):
Yeah, what to do next is also like just one of those so individual things.
In my work, I'm striving to educate people so they'll recognize it in their own lives.
I know clearly I'm not a guru person who can see it all.
I can help you be more attuned to what's happening so that you understand when somethingfeels off, that you know you have language to call it and to know what it is.
(27:13):
And the end goal for that is to end oppression and abuse.
There are abusive practices happening right underneath everyone's noses.
And it's to people who don't have any consent in this lifestyle.
When we talked about tradwives, we're talking about the parents, but the children are theones that we really care about, have no say in what's happening in their homes.
It's not better to raise a child like it's 1800 in 2024, and that kid won't have say untilthey're 18.
(27:37):
And that's after all the damage has been done.
being able to know the signs and see what's going on around you will make you a stronger,better advocate.
if it's happening to you, you might have language that helps you understand that you needto leave, that you have resources that you're not like, you're not imagining this.
one of the things I rail about a lot is, people saying that marriage is hard and that loveis hard.
(28:02):
Whoa, whoa.
What a flaming red flag.
If your marriage is hard all the time and if it hurts all the time, guess what?
You're probably in some sort of abuse dynamic.
So like it's the more we talk about it the more we name it and describe it, the moreempowered
each individual is to take that and use that in their life, which will have the criticalmass to Washington eventually.
We have our more informed voters.
(28:26):
Tia, could you talk about the perfectionism that is foisted not only on women, but onchildren?
You mentioned, and I described growing up in a cult as just no spontaneous moments of joy.
And I think it's because the promise of the cult that everything will be perfect is a lie.
(28:49):
And so eventually children are gonna fall under just extreme discipline, expectation forperfection.
And I'm wondering if you like noticed this in your children as you were in the lifestyle.
that's a great question.
It's kind of a multifaceted stone to look at.
(29:12):
Fundamentalism depends on the individual's perfection in order to achieve it.
Whatever they're promising in fundamentalism is never real.
if there's failure along the way, it's always your fault.
So you're always trying to be more perfect so that you can actually attain the thing thatthey are dangling in front of you.
And the dangling carrot is a really great psychological term to go research becausethey're always moving the goalpost.
(29:37):
something that's out of your reach because of sin or because of your own failing.
And so you're always trying to purify, purify, purify towards this idea.
When you put that into little children who are naturally supposed to be making mistakesand developing and growing into the people that they are, there's no grace and there's
very high stakes to make sure everybody cooperates because if it's a parent and theirchildren are unruly, it reflects on the parents.
(30:02):
So suddenly this very emotional impetus to make everybody
conform is there and that's what makes parents reach for really strict discipline methods,things that they might, if they sat quietly, they might not want to hit their kid.
But in the moment they have to make their kids sit still in church, you know, becauseotherwise everyone's going to look at them.
It's this like just steaming pot of, you know, it just nurtures itself and bubbles it onself.
(30:29):
Like there's no way to escape perfectionism.
And I think it's one of the ways that we carry with us the most
into deconstruction.
hear a lot of survivors, they're still grappling with perfectionism years after maybe theybroke down the beliefs.
They understand what kind of group they were in.
They've made big radical changes in their life, but they're still struggling usually withpeople pleasing and perfectionism.
(30:54):
I say that I am grateful that my book did not debut on the New York Times because itkicked me right like the last little bit off the perfectionism train that I needed.
And now I can see it all like my whole life exactly what you said, you know, becausethat's the environment and especially as a kid who was neurodivergent and always asking
(31:16):
questions and didn't fit, you know.
It's sad, but I always say that to break people, you need isolation, pain, and small actsof kindness.
And I was just so different that they forgot the small acts of kindness with me.
So like, it didn't stick.
But then it was like, I would go on to spend another almost 20 years just like trying sohard to fit in and thinking, like, I think there's some kind of belief that you can like,
(31:48):
out
perfection your trauma, if that makes sense.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
And when you're belonging and your safety all depend on how well you fit in and then yourealize you don't fit in, you're in real danger, you know?
So it's very vulnerable, very scary.
And yeah, I'm neurodivergent as well.
And like, there's just no way I could be perfect enough.
(32:10):
I really gave it my best shot and I'm very high capacity.
I did a pretty good job of being an excellent trap wife, but not at the end of the day,because it's not really attainable.
No one can be that perfect.
And this brings up something that is very near and dear to my heart, which is one of thethings that is a result of this is often suicide.
(32:32):
And it's one of the patterns that we see in cults.
So to me, like, even when I'm studying normal organizations and I'm like, this Sapphostuff sounds crazy.
And then I see a pattern of suicides and I'm like, and I think that it comes down to whatyou just said.
Like, no one can maintain that.
No one can be perfect enough.
(32:53):
And one of the really heartbreaking things I've heard from my audience is children ofMormons and evangelicals, you know, thinking that they needed to die before they hit the
age of seven or eight, because that was their like age when they would start sinning.
There wasn't really a question there.
(33:14):
all of that all of that resonates with me, right?
Because I mean, this was something that I experienced as a child and certainly you did aswell.
But this this idea that the most vulnerable in the group are the ones that are most oftenabused, taken advantage of, you go down the list of free labor, of all of the exploitation
(33:39):
that the group is endeavoring to
impose, it starts as a child.
And that's something that you've got to deal with for the rest of your life.
I know, you know, at 53, I'm still dealing with a lot of that baggage that I receivedearly on because it's your identity, it's your purpose, your origin, your meaning,
(34:03):
morality, destiny, all of it is tied up in that particular group, in that particulardogma.
And I think that's exactly right that the most vulnerable often receive the brunt of allof that abuse.
Yeah, mean, churches and cults in general, you know, they they need you young.
(34:28):
They need the zeal of the young people to keep perpetuating.
And then you do have these this age bracket.
I'm sure you've seen this in your research, Daniela, with people in their 20s and 30s arefalling away because they're starting the critical thinking in their cognitive brain
development.
Everything is online and they're no longer as malleable and formal, formable as they wereas children.
(34:51):
And so maybe they come back.
you know later but this it's constantly renewing in the youth cycle and they got to havethose babies young so you know then you got to get rid of birth control you got to have
people having lots of families lots of babies it's interesting to me that we're seeing thebirther movement which is not necessarily religious at the same time as the quiver full
(35:12):
movement they're
piggybacking one another very seamlessly.
But what it's gonna result in is crap ton of kids coming out with abuse stories in about10 years.
Yeah, for sure.
On the flip side, when they fail to keep the children, this is how the cults end.
(35:36):
I do think, like, obviously we are in the other side of the pendulum swing, right?
Like we had some freedoms, we had some progress, and now we're going back.
like, I don't know, do you take any hope from this election that like, youth are leaving?
religion in broad numbers.
(35:57):
I think that's very complicated.
Gen Z is radicalized and they have too much pressure on them to save the world.
Everyone thought that they were going to carry the election.
What an unfair burden for everybody to put on young kids that were handed a crap hand withCOVID and the rest of their education.
A lot of them launched out of high school into loneliness and really hard times and ouracademic system's a mess.
(36:24):
So I don't know where the young people are going.
They're coming into
chaos and fundamentalism thrives in chaos.
I am tender with them.
don't want to put that pressure on them.
think adults should not abdicate our role in making sure that they have a thrivingsociety.
And hope from this election, mean, my hope with this election is that chaos also can comeself-like, just fall in on itself.
(36:49):
And when you give
These narcissists, enough rope, they take care of it themselves.
And so we are seeing some self-destructive behavior from that sector.
And when I see it, I'm like, may it be, just wear yourselves out.
The grownups shall reign again, is what I hope.
(37:10):
I think there's no chance that Elon and Trump will be speaking by this holiday.
I'm just like, I think it's so funny because he's playing by the cult leader playbook,right?
And those of us who've lived under this, like all three of us, like we recognized it rightin the beginning, but he's also making all the same mistakes.
(37:32):
they get, he's.
these people build their cults and then they just surround themselves with like fellownarcissists who affirmed their rise to power.
But the problem is, you know, I tell people this a lot with cults, right?
It can go one of two ways.
You either put effective bureaucrats in and they start routinizing and writing things downand making rules, which makes it harder for the charismatic leader to do whatever he
(38:00):
wants.
Or,
you put in a bunch of fellow narcissists and then you're fighting your own lieutenants thewhole time.
And that's usually what happens.
Like we can see it in Jim, we can see it in all of them.
And I just kind of think it's too funny.
I mean, down to underestimating the women.
One of my favorite.
add their own peril.
(38:21):
They really are doing that at their own peril.
We are, I think we're the majority number and we're.
day who tell me to go get military experience before I criticize the military.
I'm like, y'all are not going to be hard to beat.
And like, Knitting's Morse code, like, we're gonna have just like a brigade of women.
(38:45):
but I mean, I think that's also what's kind of funny right now is that like,
these men truly seem to believe that we women who have experienced freedom and somewhat ofequality are just gonna kind of like go quietly into the night.
Do you have any predictions?
(39:07):
pretty haunting to look at pictures from Iran and other countries that have put theirwomen back in boxes.
Yeah, exactly.
It's terrifying.
And it does give me like a dose of sobriety of like,
Yeah, if it's horrible enough and lasts long enough and organized enough, it can happen.
However, it doesn't have the signs of being organized enough.
(39:29):
The Christian Patriarch isn't the majority.
They don't have that much of a control.
They have a crazy madman at their helm.
I mean, who knows how long he's gonna live, but then they are infighting so much.
Elon is going to get caught with all of his interference that is starting to break, so.
You know, I just think we need to stay the course as trauma survivors and can keep ourwits about us, keep our courage, keep our network going, doing the things that are
(39:55):
ultimately hold a society together and help one another.
And we also get insights on how to survive this, right?
Because we have been under authoritarian rule before.
Yeah, yeah.
in the lead up to this election how much of the language from the Republican ticketmirrored the language that we all heard growing up within our particular groups when it
(40:24):
comes to the patriarchy, to complementarianism, the roles of men and women.
mean, JD Vance criticizing childless cat ladies.
The fact that, you know, that he says we've got to start having babies.
All of this is very similar to what you would hear in other fundamentalism as well, youknow, whether it's Islam or other high control religious groups.
(40:57):
But going forward, I wonder, you know, with every movement, with every
every group that sort of exerts itself in power, there's always a backlash to that power.
So I'm wondering what it will look like on the other side of this.
(41:17):
And I think both of you are doing Yeoman's work when it comes to writing and to speakingout and things of that nature.
Yeah, I think.
We can again probably take some wisdom from the family to larger scale model that they'reusing for their control.
We can look at that for whatever breaks their control.
(41:40):
Women have so much power to escape, to subvert, to teach their children differently, toraise the next generation, to network and connect.
There are so many good men involved.
You you're self included.
Yes, you look like that, but you're not a patriarch that's looking to oppress women.
There are a lot of men like that out there, good men who care to not see us go backwardsin time.
(42:02):
And I put a lot of stock in that having the ultimate sway in the future.
I don't think you go backwards quite so easily.
It would take so much to make that happen.
I'm very concerned with the family unit and what's happening in homes and how thataccumulates to a mass.
(42:24):
But I think we see a lot of movement when we just tell our stories.
Every single time one of us tells our stories and someone else says, me too, or they feelthe space and the courage to do it alongside.
That's the air, that's oxygen, you know, the patriarchy didn't get and who knows where itleads.
I have an optimism for the future.
(42:44):
It's very stubborn optimism, but I can't shake it.
I agree.
And I keep telling people this about the military as well, that like the military and thegovernment, yes, they are these machines and yes, they can do bad stuff, but like they are
filled with people, right?
(43:06):
Like American citizens are not going to turn on the population, right?
Like the military, I really don't think the first person to try to test, you know,
peaceful transfer of power is going to be successful in America.
our constitution.
(43:26):
know, our military is sworn to protect the constitution and every military person I'vetalked to takes that very seriously.
And if I'm to believe that small sample, I can have some faith in that checks and balance.
Also, I love what's happening online right now.
Conversations, the power of the people has changed cabinet appointees, we have, we havegotten bots down, there are things that we do in our national conversation that
(43:52):
can be downplayed because of just the social media chatter, but not actually.
are power, the people are the checks and balance that's left.
We don't have a great court, we don't have a great Congress, we don't know about ourelections, but we do have voices still.
And I keep saying this analogy of like the frogs in the pot that gets you so much and likecults and extremism, but it's like, but if the frogs wake up and I think we are, right?
(44:17):
And jump out of the pot, now you have 340 million frogs jumping around your kitchen.
Like they're not gonna be getting anything done.
Sounds a little bit like that plague in Egypt.
Hahaha
Well, as long, know, given some things that he said today, if he's distracted with thePanama Canal and changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, if he
(44:43):
focuses on those things, maybe he will be okay.
Yeah.
he's out there with his windmills and he's lulululu.
And I think the powers that be must be so frustrated with him because he has very skilledattorneys and sharp people behind him that have to have to put him out there for
population, you know, the popular vote.
(45:05):
But I'm sure I'm sure there's a lot of people tearing their hair out every time he openshis mouth.
Yeah, and that gives me hope when I see the incompetence and the lack of organization,because I know how massive an undertaking it would be to actually move us backwards as a
nation.
(45:25):
Yeah, their chaos will kill time.
That's what we saw in the last time in 2020.
It was unfortunate that we had the pandemic in the middle of all of that and there areconsequences to having chaos in control.
But they didn't get a lot done and they didn't get a lot done.
There's two ways to look at that.
So if the Constitution holds, we're okay.
(45:52):
The response to your book has been fantastic from what I can see and I look forward toreading it.
What are some of the stories that you're hearing from people that have read your book thatyou find encouraging?
I love, love, love when people...
a lot of the reviews are mentioning how much they can relate to it, even though they had avery different experience themselves.
(46:16):
It's certainly not as extreme as harrowing.
They were on the same path and they could see where it could lead, would have led if theyhadn't made a few different changes.
A lot of people are feeling like I put language to the things that they didn't know how toname.
I love when they send in their lines and their, you know, their favorite, the way theyresonate with it.
(46:37):
But I'm also surprised at how many people read
it like turn around and read it a second time as soon as they finish it.
They needed to know I was okay and I'm like if you're holding the memoir of somebody who'sbeen through hard stuff you know they come out okay because they were able to write it you
know it's it's obviously a triumphant thing.
And I just also love that people are able, I made that decision to include the mainstreamin my story and people are seeing that.
(47:06):
They're in their day-to-day lives and they're starting to recognize this phenomena andshare it with their friends and the conversations are happening and I just, I'm very
excited to see where that leads.
And you know, this is so interesting with cult studies, because basically in the 70s, whenall the big cults were popping up in our last huge time of social turmoil, the people were
(47:30):
making progress on getting some laws passed that were going to be about coercive control.
And this is when mainstream religious leaders decided they were going to fight that,right?
Decided that any kind of control impinged on their control.
And thus began the cult wars in the eighties and nineties were basically dominated bythis.
(47:51):
Don't say the word cult, you know, don't listen to cult survivors.
They're all disgruntled.
And it's like, it's the same thing you experience, I'm sure.
But it's like people being like, don't talk about it.
You're going to harm survivors.
I don't know if you get any of that, but my response is always just nobody that doesn'twant you to use the word cult.
(48:15):
Like.
has your best interest in mind or that doesn't want you to share your story.
I get a ton of not all Christians and people who are very protective of their faith systemand they don't want, they, don't like it if I've left faith and they want to know that God
is still good.
And I'm spiritually private.
I don't talk about my personal faith beliefs anymore because I believe that personalautonomy and privacy is something I should have had in the beginning.
(48:42):
Young children should find out who they are before they find out who they're, what theybelieve.
And as an indoctrinated child, I was not given that.
So I'm very
private about my personal beliefs now, but it's interesting to me when people are like,but, do you still believe in God?
need to know that you still believe in God.
You don't need to know anything about my private beliefs.
You need to know about your private beliefs.
(49:03):
You and God is all you have to square with and, that's on you.
And it doesn't have anything to do with me.
it's clear, not clear, not all Christians.
This is not, not all Christian churches are cults.
But the people who are very interested in protecting the reputation of Christianity needto take some hard looks at the way they're living because they have just prioritized the
(49:25):
system over the people and the survivors who have experienced cults.
And that's where I put my effort.
I don't have endless energy to cheerlead the people that are doing it right.
I'm here for the people that got harmed and I'm interested in stemming that harm and notallowing it to continue and just harm others.
So.
Yeah, sorry not sorry.
(49:46):
Yeah.
And it's interesting that the response from these groups, it's so predictable.
I think we could all tell our story about leaving and how you go through these phases,right?
First of all, they, they, if you're going to leave, just shut up about it, leave.
And you're all of a sudden your persona non grata, it's as if you never lived.
And then, you know, then the second wave is, well, you're, you're bitter, you'redisgruntled.
(50:10):
And so I get a lot of that, right?
That, well, you had a bad experience.
And so that bad experience is clouding all of your critiques of this particular movementor group.
You know, it's interesting you mentioned bitterness because I'm very my third book is kindof centers on the theme is bitterness as an empowerment tool of empowerment because it's
(50:33):
used to shame people into silence.
And I really believe bitterness forms when there's been an injustice and you didn't have achance to there's no antidote.
There's no there's no way for you to remedy it.
And so they call you bitter and so that you'll be quiet and just keep things going.
Push it under the rug.
You know, when you're supposed to be smiling sweetly and, you know, not holding peopleaccountable.
But bitterness is actually
(50:55):
medicine.
That's that is how we heal is by allowing the bitter to work.
And so I think that if we free our freedom, know, allow ourselves to be bitter, there's areason if we're bitter, bitterness is something resentment is something we're holding on
to.
It's better to unpack why and what's underneath that than it is to shame the emotionitself so it can be swept away.
(51:19):
Yeah, well said.
I often in those situations, since they gave me so many Bible stories to read and tomemorize as a child, and since I did that so well, I often remind them of the story of
Ruth and Orpah in the Old Testament where Naomi, she says, you know, God has made mebitter.
(51:42):
Well, there you go, right?
There is times when our bitterness is a tool.
to make us better and to move forward and to simply label someone.
It's a thought stopping cliche to say that someone is bitter or that someone isdisgruntled or someone is hurt without taking into account what they have experienced.
And most of these groups are unwilling to even acknowledge that anything has happened thatis wrong.
(52:08):
And so until you get to that point, it's very difficult to have a conversation of anylegitimacy.
Yeah, yeah, because that would make them have to change.
Nobody wants change.
They don't.
It's other people.
That's not how we do things here.
You know, yeah, I know all the lines and I was made.
(52:28):
I was made to be vocal.
can't.
you know, wham.
Yeah, there's something I've heard you say before about how like one of your mantras orone of the things you believe in is to never put ideas before people.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, it's my simple layman's term for fundamentalism, how to recognize it.
(52:51):
I wanted a really quick filter to know if I was dealing with something that was human andloving and life-giving, or if it was in service to a system.
And so I want to put people before ideas, always, no matter what.
I don't ever want to value an ideology over somebody else's humanity.
And that's what fundamentalism is.
(53:11):
The ideological purity is the thing that matters most, and everyone else is supposed tosubject
themselves in service to it and it breaks people.
So that little quick mantra of people before ideas is always my litmus if I'm confrontedwith a system or a group that is, you know, we're surrounded by group thinks and
opportunities to join groups all of the time.
(53:32):
We're also confronted with social pressure and issues that come up in our headlines and
you know, if something comes up that's controversial and I don't fully understand it, Iknow where my default needs to lie in as whatever is most compassionate to a human being.
It is not necessary for me to understand the full science of it or the strategy behind itor anything.
(53:52):
I don't need to have the full understanding to know where my priority needs to be.
And so that helps me with my day to day, you know, just loving other people and showing upfor them in a protective way and being an advocate and an ally.
That's where I'm gonna live.
I've tried it the other way and like I said, it broke people, it broke relationships, itends in death for a lot of people and that's not what I'm called to do.
(54:17):
And Tia is so good at what she does, y'all.
I'm one of those people that read the book and then read it again and then listen to theaudio.
I mean, your book for me, Tia, goes up in my like top five or whatever books that I thinkI literally cannot oversell enough along with Isabel Wilkerson's cast, which is like my
(54:37):
holy grail of book.
high praise and I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
and I think I told you I think I'll read it every five years because I'll be at like adifferent place in my deconstruction.
I'm so honored to know you.
You're such a great also just like literary citizen and teacher and instructor and I justI'm hoping you can tell everyone like where to find you how to work with you.
(55:01):
yeah, that's all easy.
I'm Tia Levings writer on all the social platforms, my website's TiaLevings.com and my substack where I deconstruct fundamentalism in our headlines, news, families, all of that is
TiaLevings.substack.com.
You can buy my book anywhere.
Absolutely.
Tia, thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to maybe having you back in thefuture to continue this conversation.
(55:24):
What you're doing is important work and we appreciate it very, very much.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
And for all of our listeners and viewers, do us a favor and hit that like button, shareand subscribe and follow Daniela on social media, buy her book Uncultured and keep up with
(55:45):
everything that we're doing here at Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
For Daniela Mesteneck Young, I'm Scott Lloyd.
We'll see you on the next episode.
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