February 11, 2025 • 60 mins
Content Warning: This episode includes descriptions of the abuse and torture of young children
In this episode of 'Cults and the Culting of America', hosts Scot Loyd and Daniella Mestyanek Young engage in a profound discussion with Ali Davis about the complexities of childhood torture, the distinction between abuse and torture, and the societal implications of these issues. They explore personal stories of survival, the role of the judicial system, and the cultural influences that perpetuate cycles of violence. The conversation emphasizes the importance of education, recognition of trauma, and the need for societal change to protect vulnerable populations, particularly children.
Connect with Ali Davis
Haley's Fundraiser
Click Here to donate to Haley's Go Fund me
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
- Conspiracies distract from real issues in society.
- Torture is a calculated act, unlike abuse.
- Judicial systems often fail to recognize torture.
- Survivors of childhood torture face unique challenges.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:25):
This is CULTS and the CULTING OF AMERICA podcast.
My name is Scott Lloyd along with my friend, Daniella Mestyenec Young, the knitting cultlady, also known as Captain Mestenec.
And that's very important because I imagine given the events in our nation surrounding thetragic air collision in D.C.
(00:49):
with the helicopter, I imagine you've been inundated with lots of questions.
Yes, yes, I have questions, but also I think what's relevant here is conspiracies, right?
And so it's been so interesting since the election, like I just branded as knitting cultlady and now the captain part is coming back and I'm talking to people and explaining the
(01:13):
military and I all of a sudden there was a collision and it became relevant that mymilitary experience like my exact intelligence
angle was aviation.
Like I have been a intelligence officer for helicopter pilots, Blackhawks specifically, incombat.
(01:36):
And I'm married to a retired 20 year helicopter pilot.
And the way I could still not get people to listen to me.
And this said, we're not talking cult of MAGA, we're talking the left.
And
I've just spent a very interesting week watching people go so hard into conspiracies andit's got me shook a little bit, right?
(02:06):
As we talk about like what is going on in the country.
Cause I'm like, whoa, we really have sort of stopped listening to experts here.
And I think that's relevant in all of these conversations that we have.
that's, you know, that does a disservice to what is actually happening in the country thatwe all should be concerned about.
(02:27):
If we distract ourselves with conspiracy theories, I think that takes away from a lot ofthe real danger and a lot of the real issues that are going on.
And this is not a time to be distracted.
Yes, and just a reminder for all of you, because it's relevant, I know we've talked aboutit on this channel before, but like being in apocalyptic mode or in panic mode, like
(02:51):
that's not helpful, right?
That's what the cults and the cult leaders want you to do.
So we gotta be realistic about what's happening, but also try to keep ourselves to thereality of what's going on as we go through this like unprecedented time in America.
And I'm so excited to talk to our guest today because we have the best guests.
(03:15):
And today we are going to hear from Allie.
Welcome, Ali.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's great to be here.
So tell us a little bit about yourself, about your experience and what you're doing now asfar as activism and how your experiences have shaped what you're doing now.
(03:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I actually found Daniella on TikTok way back a couple years ago through her educationon cults.
And it was right around the time I was realizing that I had survived one.
(03:59):
And my work focuses more on what happened.
me as a child in the cult, which I found out a few years ago, was torture.
And so my advocacy now is for other survivors of non-war-related childhood torture, whichhas suddenly become extremely relevant overnight with the administration's changes on
(04:26):
humanitarian aid efforts, because we are a humanitarian aid organization.
And I
started my nonprofit because I found out that all the humanitarian aid in the US at thattime was reserved for people who were tortured in other countries and are now living here
or and or were tortured through state sanctioned torture in the context of war.
(04:51):
Both very important populations that absolutely need that humanitarian aid but thosedefinitions specifically excluded thousands of
people who were tortured as children in their own homes and communities here on US soil.
And so I said, okay, well, I guess we're doing this.
(05:12):
Did not have any intention ever of going into nonprofits.
That's a whole other thing.
My background's actually in healthcare.
But when I saw how big the need was and I started sharing just a tiny bit of my story onthat platform and it took off and I realized
prevalent this problem actually was and how little was being done about it I said okaywell I guess we're doing something about it now so that is that's where I am now
(05:42):
Well, thank you for your work, Ali.
It is certainly something that is needed.
And you referenced what is happening in DC with the cutting of humanitarian aid, whichisn't really a big deal, right?
It's a big deal on the human aspect of it.
But as far as what they're endeavoring to do is saving money, I think it's like 1 % ofwhat's going on.
(06:07):
And so I would think that there are lots of other places.
that would be better served by their cost cutting.
But we'll see what happens.
But thank you for what you're doing.
I think it's very, very important work.
And Ali, know, obviously for the listeners, I think this is gonna be a bit of a heavyepisode.
(06:29):
Can you tell us a little bit of what you mean by a childhood survivor of torture?
Because, you I think you and I have the same thing when we tell our stories that peoplethink of that as distant and torture.
That's such a serious word.
Absolutely.
(06:50):
So the main, there's kind of two aspects of the definition that I function from in mywork.
One is looking at the difference between torture and abuse.
Torture is intentional and calculated.
(07:10):
whereas abuse is often reactionary.
Now what this means, it may sound like a very small difference, but it actually has hugeimplications because what this means when we're talking about child maltreatment, okay,
I'm not an expert on torture outside of the context of childhood, but when we're talkingabout child maltreatment and the difference between abuse and torture, what this means is
(07:33):
that perpetrators of abuse can very often be rehabilitated with access to education andresources.
But perpetrators of torture, they know that there are other ways to parent.
They're very well aware.
And they are actively choosing not to because of whatever, you know, we don't really knowwhat makes people do these things.
(07:57):
There are theories, but you know, for whatever reason, they are actively choosing not toparent in a kinder way.
And instead they are parenting in this way.
And then regarding the actual logistics, this part's gonna be a little heavy, there can bea huge overlap in acts, but one of the main things that sets torture apart from abuse is
(08:23):
that perpetrators of torture establish complete domination and control over their victims'access to the basic necessities of life, and then they leverage
that control in exchange for information compliance or some other desired behavioraloutcome.
So access to basic necessities of life is exactly what it sounds like.
They're controlling your ability to breathe, your ability to access nutrition andhydration.
(08:48):
Sleep deprivation is a very common one, forced positioning, exposure to the elements,those types of things.
And the reason why I focus so much on the difference between torture and abuse is becausethe trauma is different, the healing is different, and that is so...
Like that's at the crux of what happened when I...
(09:11):
Like I still remember where I was sitting, what I was doing when I learned that what I hadbeen through was torture, and I just had such a melting away of shame because I was like,
my god, like I wasn't abused, I was tortured, I've been trying to heal like an abusesurvivor.
haven't been doing it wrong, it just wasn't set up for me, it wasn't set up for survivorslike me.
(09:34):
Simple things like breath work in trauma circles can be so counterproductive for torturesurvivors, so that's kind of an overview of the difference and types of things.
Yeah, and you know, a few things that I wanted to just highlight for the listeners that Ithink a lot of people who have survived this sometimes don't connect, which is, I'm sorry,
(09:59):
I don't know what you called it, but in the military, we call it stress positions.
And in my book, I talk about this as like holding the Bible in your outstretched hands forjust like an unlimited amount of time.
And I...
miss it, you have to start over.
show this parallel in my book between the soldiers, you know, in the beginning of basictraining that are holding these duffle bags above their head.
(10:24):
And then later on, pretty specifically in the book, I do this kind of analogy of where I'mtrying to understand how enhanced questioning, enhanced interrogation, as we call it in
the military, isn't torture.
But as you know, I think I was probably having that same realization that you were
like in that moment as I'm an intelligence officer hearing about like how what we're doingis not torture because we're not cutting off fingers and pulling out teeth and I'm
(10:55):
literally looking around the room and looking at pictures of stress positions and goinglike but I did that right a few other things like solitary confinement I think honestly
this is a big part of why I knit all the time or like always have a project with me
and even parenting, being alone in a dark room with children, you know, it can be so hardif you don't realize.
(11:22):
And one other one that I think is a really like important one is bathroom control.
And this is one that we see in cults all the time.
And this is one of those ones that I always see as like a red flag when I hear people'sstories, you know, like,
when there was a conversation about Lizzo and her dance captain, and if that was a cultand you're trying to be very careful.
(11:48):
And then I hear like the dancers were so afraid to leave that one of them peed themselves.
I'm like, oh, yep, there it is, right?
It's like, it's that detail that is so humiliating.
It can be painful and it's so like core to who we are as people.
(12:08):
I even remember when I joined the military how dehumanizing it felt to again, as a 22 yearold adult, have to like raise my hand and ask for permission to go to the bathroom and
like wait for permission.
Ali, I'm curious.
I want you, if you're willing, to share some of your story, what you experienced, if you'dlike to share that.
(12:32):
But before we talk about that, I'm wondering, has the judicial system caught up with thisdifferentiation between abuse and torture?
OK.
no.
Okay.
And so is there, is this a lack of education on, on part of the, the law enforcement or,or what needs to be done to bring them up to speed?
(12:58):
Are they reluctant?
Are they ignorant?
Or is this just a matter of, of, them not wanting to, to go there?
I think it's very complex.
because the child welfare system as a whole.
has a pretty problematic history, first of all, here in the US.
(13:23):
This is the only place that I am well-educated on in my work, so I can't speak to otherplaces.
But the child welfare system here has a pretty troubled history and current.
And I think...
(13:46):
I think in terms of the logistics, because the roots of that issue and why this issue isnot up to speed in the child welfare system is honestly so complex, I don't think that I
could even begin to deal with it in this.
But I think the logistics of why has a lot to do with a lack of education.
(14:08):
People don't want to think that this type of thing is possible, and that's understandable,but
not thinking about it does not do anything to help it.
And so like a huge red flag that I talk about in my trainings for professionals ismultiple runaway attempts.
(14:29):
That's a huge red flag.
Okay.
But the way that law enforcement typically deals, like law enforcement, there are, there'sa piece of a documentary about one of the more high profile cases that happened a few
years ago where the
officer that ended up responding to the situation, he said he got the call, it was at theend of his shift, it was at the end of a really rough shift, and got the call, hey,
(14:50):
there's a runaway, blah, blah, and he was like, I'll take care of it, I'm almost done withmy shift, it'll be an easy end, it'll be easy end to my shift.
And he takes the call and ends up walking into hell.
And thankfully, he, you know, was in it for the right reasons or whatever, and he believedthe child, because they had
(15:12):
photo and video evidence, believed them and he went and he saw it through and the kids gotout of that situation.
But just that attitude going into it, this will be easy, I'll take them back, they'll workit out with their parents, it'll be fine.
And a child from that same family had had that happen to them about 15 years prior, theyran away and they were taken right back.
(15:33):
So to me, it's a lack of education issue.
But I think one of the biggest things is multiple runaway attempts.
Do not look at that lightly.
Kids don't run out into the unknown.
By and large, we don't just run out into the unknown with no protection and no resourcesbecause things are okay where we're coming from.
(15:57):
That, generally speaking, I realize there are some exceptions, but generally speaking,that does not happen.
So I think in terms of logistics, that's the biggest takeaway that I would leave.
Yeah, and the reason that I mentioned that is because increasingly, sadly, we see thesereports in the news, right, of children being abused and what you describe as torture.
(16:21):
But it occurs to me that, you know, in retrospect of all of these stories that I've seen,none of them mention the charges against the abusers being any different.
And I was just curious.
Yeah.
no, it's usually like a pile on of counts.
You know, X number of counts of child endangerment and, you know, whatever.
(16:44):
in a lot of states, I don't think there even is a charge for torture of children.
I think there are a few where there is, but I don't think the charge even exists in a lotof places.
So yeah, it's a good question.
Well, thank you for that.
(17:04):
I'm curious if you'd be willing to share with our audience some of the things that youexperienced and what brought you to the point you're at now.
Certainly with we approach this subject obviously with great compassion for you and foreveryone that's experienced that.
(17:26):
But it's an important topic to talk about because like I said, it seems
I don't know if I'm just noticing it more, but there certainly seems to be an uptick inthese kinds of crimes being reported.
Yeah, I'd like to speak to that for a second and then yes, I'm fine to share.
(17:48):
I think two things that I have seen change positively since I started, really like startedthis conversation on social media, and it's since led into other areas is I'm starting to
see more media outlets actually call it what it is when these cases break.
And that makes me very, happy.
(18:11):
Because I'm a huge like,
words have meaning and that helps or can help a survivor to contextualize and understandtheir experience.
And when that's all you've known, you don't like, you don't just come out of it like,okay, so this is what happened.
I've got my little suitcase of trauma and I know what to do with it.
Like, that's not how it works.
And so the more that we can do as a society that is welcoming these survivors into therest of existence, the least we can do is to be like, hey,
(18:43):
let's name correctly what happened to you so that you can start, you know, from a freshstart, so to speak.
So I'm very happy to see that.
And I think also we're starting to collectively understand like what is and is not okay todo to children.
And so I think that cases are getting reported sooner and intervened on sooner.
(19:04):
And so I think by and large, that change is a good thing.
So yeah.
As far as my story, I'm going to start with what made me recognize that what I had beenthrough was torture and then just kind of work backward from there and then any follow-up
questions that you have are fine.
(19:26):
So it was a couple of years ago I was sitting here watching Criminal Minds, which is oneof my comfort shows as one does.
And there was an episode where one of the
one of the BAU people got captured and was being tortured and questioned for informationand they were blasting her with water and I had to pause the show because I started having
(20:01):
the most horrific sensory flashback.
I get this like flashback where just my skin hurts and I was like
I knew exactly what, like, I had gotten to a point with my trauma where, I knew thesituation that that was from and I was like, this is like, you shouldn't think about your
(20:26):
childhood when you're watching an FBI person get, pretend tortured on, on, like, on thecamera, like, what is happening?
And so I Googled, I was like, what is torture?
And that's when I learned, you know, the intentional and calculated, and it's done to likebreak the victim psychologically and physically.
(20:50):
And so the circumstance that was like coming back and like huge content warning forlisteners, but the circumstance that was coming back from that was for a couple of years
around five, when I like wouldn't take a nap or like did anything else that was a hugepain in my abuser's ass.
(21:11):
then I would like get sent to bed with, you know, nothing.
Solitary confinement, I was an only child.
There were many, many, many times when the only thing that I had access to was my bearmattress and my Bible.
And if I wouldn't stop crying, which I don't know if you know me, but I don't shut up.
So that's been a lifelong, that's been a lifelong theme.
(21:35):
So I would be crying, I would be yelling and screaming.
and my abuser would come in with cups or buckets of cold water and throw them on me andshe used to do it when I like Didn't have clothes on and then she realized that if she did
it while my pajamas were on and then didn't let me change out of them that it wouldprolong my misery And so that was the thing that I had the flashback to and that was not
(22:00):
like that was a hee-hee-haha like sitting around drinks like
yeah, like telling stories with friends.
Like, that was never any aspect of my trauma that I forgot, but that was the first time Isaw it in that context and I was like, that's not normal.
That's not okay.
Like, that's not okay.
(22:22):
And so yeah, that's like one example that's very easy to encapsulate.
Yeah.
you had to endure that.
And this, by the way, I think, though, is so important about telling our stories, youknow?
And I think it's a pretty common kind of like cult baby or abused child situation to belike sharing a story.
(22:43):
I mean, I know someone who shared a very similar story in a ha ha, my dad used to spray uswith the cold water and I had to be the one to tell them like, honey, you know, like.
you know that wasn't okay.
Or even talking about like, what does it mean when you're naked versus not naked and nowthis is making it, you know, a sexualized thing.
(23:10):
And I do know that it's very difficult.
I'm so sorry that we have all had to go through that.
But I also think, you know, it's kind of like why we all like to watch Criminal Minds orSVU.
Right?
Because it in some way, it is helpful when another person has gone through that and youcan see it and you can know that you weren't the only one.
(23:37):
And if it's being depicted there or if I'm hearing you tell a story and I'm relating toit, it doesn't actually matter what names our abusers gave it or what ways people have
tried to justify it in the past.
Right?
Like
you're relating to an FBI interrogation.
(23:58):
So you know what you know.
Exactly.
And I think that's a huge part of, for me at least, the huge part of the trauma was justthe isolation.
Just being so profoundly alone in it and not...
I mean, at a certain point, like you just kind of give up and you're like, well, I guessthis is okay.
(24:23):
I guess I deserve this.
Like, you know, like there's pages and pages in my journals of me being like, I must be ahorrible person.
Like I'm a sinner.
I'm all of these things because like, you know, after a certain point, you just, you'relike, well, it must be me.
You know?
So yeah, I think there's huge power in sharing our stories and relating to other people.
(24:47):
because it knocks down those walls of isolation little by little.
Absolutely.
As you started realizing this and you realized what had happened to you, what were some ofthe next steps that were necessary for you to take for your own well-being, for your own
(25:08):
healing?
And I know for all of us, this is a process that there's not one magic bullet, but perhapsit would be helpful for someone who has experienced this to hear your story.
What kinds of things did you do
Or did you think about on the other side of that realization?
(25:33):
Kind of a few things.
At that point, I had been in therapy for quite some time.
I actually did not identify my childhood as abusive when I started therapy.
I started therapy because of some childhood sexual assault things that bubbled to thesurface in a very ugly way in my mid-20s.
(26:00):
And in the process of healing from that, I very much...
As I started to kind of really develop self-esteem for the first time and understand whatis an acceptable way to be treated and what is not an acceptable way to be treated, I
(26:22):
started to see the other circumstances in my childhood in a different light because ofthat giving up and just being like, this is just how it is.
I was like, wait, no, this isn't just how it is.
And this made me more vulnerable to that.
And that's not okay.
And so it was a very long process.
by the time I had, by the time I came to call what I had been through as torture, I hadalready identified my childhood as like fairly abusive, like fairly not okay.
(26:54):
I had gotten no contact with my abuser.
And so it was almost like there was this like backlog of like work that just fell intoplace with that realization is how it was for me.
And so I really kind of hit the ground running.
I think it was probably a couple of months maybe.
My memory of that particular period of my life is a little bit hazy so it may have been alittle different than that.
(27:19):
But it was pretty shortly after that I was like, this is a problem.
Okay we're fixing it.
Like that's just very much how I am as a person.
And so I...
was working with another nonprofit, one of my friends here locally runs a music therapynonprofit, and I had reached out to them.
(27:39):
I was like, hey, maybe we should start a fund or something.
And it took a while for their board to review it.
And in that time, I was learning and having these conversations.
And I was like, wait, no, this problem is so much bigger than just a random $10,000 fundfor a couple people to go through therapy.
This is huge.
And so when they came back with their decision, which was a no, just because of theirinfrastructure at the time.
(28:03):
Um, literally the night before I got their decision, I was like, okay, if they say no, I'mjust going to like start my own thing.
And they did.
And so I did.
Um, and that really is what has helped me heal because the other component of that is Iwas extremely suicidal in, I mean, I had been various levels of suicidal since I was about
(28:28):
five.
but it really came to a head in 2020 when just everything kind of hit the fan.
And a couple of years after that, I was still just going kind of like day by day and weekby week.
And I was like, okay, I can stick it out for 20 more years.
I can do anything for 20 years.
I survived that for 20 years.
I can stick it out for 20 more years.
(28:49):
And so I had an end date in my head and I was like, I'm just gonna reassess at that pointand I'm just gonna get through what I gotta get through until then.
And then this kind of came along and now I'm like, no wait, like this is, like I'mactually doing what Younger Me envisioned, like helping other people like not feel as
alone in those situations.
(29:10):
Like, yeah.
So it was kind of a really weird way that everything all kind of came together that hasbrought me to where I am now.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
I think there's something really important that you said when you said, know, as someonewho's sitting here talking to us who works in childhood torture, who has survived torture
(29:36):
and you said you didn't think of your childhood as abusive.
And to people that haven't had an abusive childhood, I know that that sounds a little bitout there, but that was the same thing for me.
until I had my sort of triggering moments.
(29:56):
And you know, I almost, I don't know if you felt this way, but I almost felt like therewas a me that had been putting everything in its boxes to survive when you were a child.
And you just didn't even turn back around to look at it.
But also I think what was so great.
there was the little piece that you said about how because you had been doing all of thiswork, that when you did have this big realization, it almost felt like things were falling
(30:28):
into place.
And I think that's another thing we see, you know, I call it the decade of deconstruction.
And usually when we have that big kind of like realization, you know, for me, it was cultsare all about labor.
And I immediately
understood the why, you know, of my childhood.
(30:49):
But when you look back, you see that you've been doing all this work.
And that's what even allowed you like if the first I don't think you would have had thatrealization if you'd been watching that scene like five years before.
watched that scene countless times before and the funny thing is then I didn't rememberany of rest of the episode because like literally just all like my brain just was not
(31:21):
ready to deal with it you know and to your point about not knowing that what we had beenthrough was abusive let alone torture it I forget how
bizarre that sounds to people who have not been through this but I'd like to speak to thata little bit because I think that victims and survivors, however you identify, which
(31:44):
personally I don't have a problem with the word victim, I kind of like the word victim,but that's a whole other that's a whole other thing.
Like victimizing just means being harmed by something.
Like I don't understand why everyone is like, no you're not a victim.
Like yeah, no it's okay to like be a victim that doesn't mean you can't also be empoweredand heal.
Like anyways.
Sorry, let me just stick that soapbox in the corner for a second.
(32:06):
But the piece about not recognizing that what we had been through was abusive, let alonetorture, I think that these perpetrators continue to thrive by our continued ignorance.
And I want to pick at that a little bit because what's really important for people tounderstand is that, at least in my experience, when you're in that, this is one of the
(32:28):
things that sets abuse apart from torture.
torturers will talk to you about abuse.
They'll talk to you about the shit that happened to them.
They'll talk.
I read a child called it when I was like 10 and I was like, I literally remember I wassitting on my bed.
read the last page.
(32:49):
My stomach dropped out through my butt and I went, it can get so much worse.
I better get it together.
I shut that book and I was on my.
best behavior for so long.
Like I was already on pretty good behavior, but I was like, my God.
And like, so that's the thing is like we didn't, or at least I didn't grow up unaware ofabuse.
(33:11):
But what I was told over and over and over is no abuse is when it happens for no reason.
You gave me a reason.
You had an attitude, you were lazy, you didn't do this, this and this exactly how Iexpected you to do it.
Therefore,
it's your fault that this is happening and then we have ye old King James version comingin saying if you don't honor your father and mother you can literally be killed so
(33:35):
everything that's happening to you is your fault and it's totally okay.
That's that's gnarly.
That's why I didn't realize that what I had been through was abuse.
I didn't think it was pleasant but I thought abuse is just when there's just no reason.
There's just no reason and I you know gave them a reason by by you know
breathing too hard at dinner.
(33:59):
That's not okay.
think that's, I think that's an important point to emphasize is that so many of us grow upin situations and circumstances.
And I used to tell my students in the classroom to think back to your first time leavingyour home and spending the night at a different home and how you walked away from that
(34:20):
experience because we are conditioned to believe that everything around us is normal.
But then you have another experience and you see people
living differently and you realize that everyone has their own normal.
So it should come as no surprise that even those of us that have experienced such abuseand such torture would think, okay, this is how my world is defined.
(34:49):
And to your point about, you know, abuse, us being conditioned to believe that abuse wasfor no reason,
Just to be clear, there is no justification at any time, anywhere to, yeah, absolutely.
it's just, first of all, it's counterintuitive, right?
(35:11):
That you're going to teach someone to abstain from violence by perpetrating violence onthem.
And that was sort of the culture in which I was raised, right?
I grew up in Arkansas.
the Bokhala, the Bible Belt, and it was all about, as you mentioned, the King JamesVersion and Spare Not the Rod.
(35:34):
So that was a lot of my experience as well.
Yeah, you know, I think it is this really important part of taking off the cult language,right?
And like actually calling it what it is.
(35:56):
And, you know, here's another one that I bring up with people, like military drills,right?
Like if you were a kid and you knew how to do a perfect pushup, you might need tore-examine that.
You know, and I've had interesting conversations with especially, you know, soldiers loveto be like, it's the new woke military soft and like the drill sergeants don't punch you
(36:21):
or hurt you anymore.
And I'm like, no, they make you do it to yourself.
They make you do repeated exercises until muscle failure and.
This is part of the formula of how you break people.
It's actually quite simple.
It's isolation, pain, and small acts of kindness.
(36:44):
And when you're in a situation where you're either a child or you're like a soldier,you're isolated in training, right?
You're dependent on these powerful figures in your life who are hurting you.
but you're also dependent on them for food and survival, right?
(37:06):
We grow up only having the language that they gave us.
We grow up loving them, even though they do these horrible things to us.
And, you know, this was even one of the things for me looking back where I said, you know,once I wrote down the story of my life in words that...
(37:28):
civilians use and outsiders use.
You go back and look at it and be like, these adults that I thought were the good adultsin my life, like, no, you know, right, they weren't on my side when I needed them.
Like they were not protecting me.
(37:49):
And another component that you just brought up about the military drills that really kindof hit home for me during the early days of processing that this is what I had been
through, was, know, and you know way more about this than me, but my understanding is thatwhen you are in the military and you are...
(38:14):
by nature of your job at risk of being captured and interrogated, like there ispreparation that occurs to help you withstand it too, right?
And then if and when that happens, and if and when you make it out, you still come backpretty messed up because torture fundamentally changes a human being.
(38:40):
And so if we have to do that level of preparation,
for a grown ass adult to withstand and survive torture and hope to heal after?
Why on God's green earth are we not doing more to help literal children who had no way toprepare, no way to consent to the risk of that happening?
(39:06):
And then they become adults or they escape their...
their parents or whoever it was that was doing that to them, which very often does nothappen at 18, it usually happens a little later because they don't ever intend to let
their victims go, and we're like, welcome to society, why aren't you functioning?
Make it make sense.
It does not make sense.
(39:29):
Yeah, and by the way, my husband is a pilot, so he has been to that school where theyprepare you to be captured.
I was in a unit full of pilots, and they're all messed up just from the training, justfrom going through it for a week, a week, right, of preparing for this.
(39:51):
And definitely some of us out there have lived this in so many ways.
Mm-hmm.
And Daniela, if you'll just speak to this point from your experience as a militaryofficer, as an intelligence officer, you know, that we went through a period of time in
our nation right after 9-11 and then the war on terror where, you know, these argumentswere put forth and they were even official policy of the Bush administration, I believe.
(40:27):
Maybe it wasn't official, but it was something that happened, right?
Where people would argue, well, we won't get the terrorist unless we torture them.
But I think everything that I've read and everything that I've heard from you and fromothers is that, you you torture someone long enough, they'll tell you whatever it is that
(40:51):
you want them to tell you.
And there's no way to verify that information.
It has never been shown.
It has never been shown that torture produces a good outcome, right?
Like the same exact thing we were saying about like spanking children to teach them not tohit doesn't work.
know, exactly what you said.
(41:12):
they'll, and it's not when we say they'll tell you whatever they need to know.
They'll tell you whatever you want to hear, right?
I mean, cults get people, cults get people to do this, right?
So like,
initial, sorry, identity breaking indoctrination when you first get into a cult, right?
Children of God wasn't letting you eat, sleep or drink for about 72 hours while they wereworking you out, praising God and jumping up and down, right?
(41:37):
Like they're putting you, they're pushing you to a limit.
And then just from that, which is nothing compared to military or compared to whatever,people would still say anything they wanted when they were getting them to write down
their story.
right?
So like, or like, if you've ever talked to a mom of a newborn baby, right?
(42:00):
I swear when I had a child after all of the things we mentioned, and I was like, I have awhole new understanding of sleep deprivation and why we use it the way we use it,
literally, specifically to break people.
And one of the, sounds so, so horrible.
(42:22):
I'm like in the context of the civilian world.
But one of the things you would do when you have a soldier that just wouldn't cooperateand wouldn't kind of like get with the program is you make them sign in on the hour every
hour.
And if they're really getting spicy, you make them do it in a different uniform everyhour.
(42:42):
So for 24 hours, you're not even getting like a full sleep one or two days.
Right?
And that soldier is perfect again.
And so like people will say anything.
People will do anything.
If you keep someone awake for about a week, they start trying to kill people.
(43:05):
I'm still thinking I'm on TikTok, you know, in order to get sleep.
Right?
So it's like, it doesn't, it's not even effective.
Right?
And I think like it's still
so much of how we justify it comes down to the same ways that we justify hitting children,right?
(43:26):
Or kind of like corporal punishment.
like, you know, I've had people ask you like, well, what if your kid was about to run outin the street?
I, at every level of age that she's been, I've had to have a different reaction to that.
And none of them included, I have to hit her to make her not go out in the street again.
(43:47):
People love to come up with the most extreme, like, they're basically saying, what wouldit take to get you to hit your kid?
Like, bam, nothing.
Like, stop, I'm not gonna do it.
And you know, I think that's something that we have yet to deal with in our nation.
And we talk a lot about the meta cult, right, of the patriarchy and of capitalism and ofevery racism that we deal with specifically here in the United States.
(44:16):
But one that we don't often talk about is this culture of violence.
As Americans, we love violence.
If you look to our fixation and fascination with guns and not just guns, but weapons,literal weapons of mass destruction and our commitment to those guns, no matter how many
(44:45):
tragedies we have, whether it's, you know, homicides or school shootings or everythingthat happens, people still defend
their right to carry these particular weapons.
And they defend, right?
If you have this conversation that we're having right now, I know in certain parts of thecountry where I was born and raised, this is still very much part of the culture that in
(45:13):
order to have well-behaved children, then you must perpetrate violence on them.
And growing up in the evangelical culture,
There were entire shows, right?
I remember Focus on the Family.
This was a big deal, right?
Where they would actually have entire programs dedicated to teaching parents how to hit,and of course they didn't say hit, but how to hit your children.
(45:43):
And they would tell you how to do it step by step.
But it was still perpetrating violence.
And I think that's something that maybe we don't talk enough about our
our fixation for violence in this nation.
Absolutely.
this is one of the reasons why we still haven't ratified the United Nations, what's itcalled, Ali?
(46:11):
Yeah, exactly, Rights of the Child, which like, it used to be us in Somalia, and Somaliahas ratified it.
And it is literally because.
evangelicals and Mormons and all of these people still want to keep hitting theirchildren.
And in 2018, the APA, the American Psychological Association, right, it came out and said,right, y'all, the studies are in, right?
(46:37):
Like there are enough children have grown up without being hit that we know that this 2000year old adage that you need to hit your children is like not.
right, you know, and, but this is also part of why I think education is so, so, soimportant in this area, right, and talking about what it is and talking about the
(47:04):
difference because so many people, as Allie had mentioned, right, like they were raised inthis way, which is abusive, and then they turn around and they think that they have to
pass that down, like in order to control our children, in order to
have this outcome, like we have to treat them this way.
(47:24):
And I think right now, obviously we are questioning all of that and trying to build a newparadigm.
But I agree with you, Scott, and I think this was part of the cult wars, this has beenpart of religious leaders lobbying and campaigning to keep their power.
And quite frankly, children are the most oppressed class in America.
(47:49):
we don't talk about it enough and we don't do enough of the work.
And I'm so grateful for people like you, Allie, that are like using your pain and yourstory to do something about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
And another thing that I want to talk about, since we're kind of on the subject ofchildren being the most oppressed class, I think that's the perfect way to put it, is
(48:14):
that, and this kind of goes hand in hand with like trauma being passed down in thegenerations as well as...
A piece that I think we need to kind of make a little bit more room for in thisconversation on a national scale, on a community-wide scale, is the lack of survivors of
(48:44):
color.
And I want to speak to that for a second because I grew up Arab.
My great-great-grandfather came here in the 1920s.
Ironically escaping religious persecution, but anyways and I I have a lot of thoughtsabout why there are virtually no survivors of color in this space with public platforms
(49:11):
other than me and What the conclusion I have come to is two things Well, no, it's onething We don't tend to when childhood torture has a 36 % fatality rate
just across the board.
But if you look at all the high profile cases of childhood torture that have broken in thelast 10-15 years, every single one that has resulted in death has been a child of color.
(49:39):
Every single one that has resulted in not death has been a white child.
And, you know, I have my own personal thoughts on that.
Personally, I would have preferred death a lot of the times, but...
If we're talking about whose story gets to survive and who gets to have a chance to opt inor out to life outside of trauma, that's a problem.
(50:05):
And the reason why I think it is that way is two reasons.
One.
when these children are killed by their own parents of the same race and ethnicity, thereis an overlapping of, an overlapping of, what is the term that I'm looking for, of an
(50:32):
overlapping of oppressions, an intersection of oppressions, right?
Not only do we have being a child, but parents of color face enormous pressure to
get their children to conform.
And in many cases, it can be life or death.
Think about parents raising black boys right now, hoping that they don't get shot by thepolice when they're just out living their lives, right?
(51:01):
And so that does not excuse treating a child in this manner, but every ethnicity and everygroup kind of has their thing.
Like I came of age during 9-11, like,
we were, we called ourselves pretty terrible slurs.
Like there was, you know, there is all of this piling on.
(51:25):
And so these parents, in addition to having the profile of like, you know, some people arejust gonna torture kids regardless, and some people just aren't gonna torture kids
regardless.
So these parents that are parents of color who are torturing their children, not only dothey already have the perpetrator profile, but then they have these layers of oppression
and pressure on top of it.
(51:46):
And then it gets normalized and passed down within the families.
And then the children of color who are killed by white parents, typically foster oradoptive parents, I think in that case, a lot of it, if you dig deep enough, is most
likely that they were racist parents.
that wanted to kill a black or brown child, you know?
(52:08):
And so it saddens me that there is really not a huge community of survivors of colorbecause we don't tend to survive.
That fatality rate goes way up and it's horrible, you know?
So I think a lot of it, a lot of, to Scott's point about our obsession with violence, youknow, there is just so much.
(52:33):
Emphasis on just breaking people even just in even outside of torture circles, you know,like there's just so much Hatred for ourselves that is instilled in us from these
patriarchal religions and When it connects with people with the right or wrong mentalprofile and it just it creates some really horrible things but
(52:59):
I think the good news is that it is all interconnected, so pulling at any thread helpsloosen the whole thing, you know?
But yeah, that's just something that I wanted to mention.
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense because so much of what we experience is informed notonly by our family, but by our culture, by our society.
(53:23):
You know, the old saying that geography is destiny.
And a lot of times where you are born, right?
I was born in the southern region of the United States at a particular time where religionwas
really, really important.
And in that culture, in my family, it was very important.
(53:46):
It wasn't necessarily that they had a commitment or an obsession for violence, althoughthat was part of the society that informed their belief in the Bible that they should
adhere to this particular custom or tradition.
But it was also the fact that, you know, as children, we were not seen necessarily asfully
(54:08):
human, we were seen as props in order to make the parents look good.
And so this is a lot of the reasons that this violence was perpetrated, because theparents were afraid that they would be ridiculed, that they would be ostracized if their
children were unruly.
(54:30):
And this was something that was, it was so ingrained in my religious tradition, in mychurch.
It was
violence against children, and again, it wasn't called that, it wasn't labeled that, butwords like discipline and spanking and Bible quotations like spare the rod, spoil the
child.
(54:51):
This kind of violence against children was celebrated.
And in retrospect, how we treat as a society, as a group, as a community, as human beings,how we treat the most vulnerable among us.
It says a lot about who we are and that needs to change.
(55:12):
And you know, I saw this meme or something recently that said that one of the things thatsort of millennial and Gen X parents are doing is shifting the parenting model from you
will love and respect me to I will love and respect you and teach you how to love andrespect other people through modeling.
(55:36):
And I think that's a place I would like to like.
leave this today and then we can find out resources from you, but just that, you know, youdon't have to pass it down.
And that we are also like breaking generational trauma and like those of us that haveexperienced this kind of stuff, hopefully we're the last ones in our line, whether we
(56:03):
reproduce or not.
And
You know, we're creating new models of things.
know, Scott, you were surrounded by good people who were trying to raise you with love,right?
As usually we are in these cults, but they get caught in these systems that are so brokenand where children are so dehumanized.
(56:26):
And there's this quote I really, really love that is, how do we change the world?
Good people raising good children.
You know, and I think so much sometimes when I'm upset over my life or how broken we are.
And then I look at like just the three of us right here.
Look at how much we're doing to kind of stop that generational trauma.
(56:50):
And so thank you so much, Ali.
I.
Sorry, I'm a bit emotional about this topic.
It's really heavy, but would you please tell us where our listeners can find you andsupport your work?
Yeah, absolutely.
So our website is prettigraffiti.org And it's pretty with an I, I can send you the link ifyou want to put it like in the description or anything.
(57:14):
And it's very easy to go on there find there's like a four survivors tab and there's aGoogle form right on there that people can just literally put their email address and
register for aid and then they get added to our list.
We launched a support group that had our first meeting actually this evening.
And we'll be rolling out more
support as resources allow.
(57:37):
Ali, thank you so much.
Thank you for the courage to share your story and thank you for your service to the restof us and to those that are hurting and to those that are seeking help.
But most of all, thank you on behalf of the children that will be helped.
And this conversation is so very important.
(58:00):
And so I hope that we have the opportunity to continue this conversation again in thefuture.
Ali, thank you.
And thank you everyone for tuning into this episode of Cults and the Culting of America.
Daniela, thank you as always for your insight.
If you haven't read her book, Uncultured, do so, pick it up.
(58:23):
It's available wherever fine books are sold.
And you can also get an autographed copy just by visiting her TikTok, her Instagram, herYouTube.
her website, you'll hear all about it.
So support Daniela and her work.
And before we go tonight, I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to our wonderfulproducer, Haley.
(58:49):
She does a tremendous job week in and week out on this program.
If you like our guest, she's the reason that we have such wonderful guests with suchimportant information.
And I heard somewhere,
that Haley is working on relocating her family.
And I think we all need to support that.
(59:11):
So Haley, make sure you put a link in the show notes here.
And we all want to be supportive of your efforts and what you do.
You do a wonderful, wonderful job.
So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your support.
And we'll see you on the next episode of Cults and the Culting of America.
This is CULTS and the CULTING OF AMERICA podcast.
My name is Scott Lloyd along with my friend, Daniella Mestyenec Young, the knitting cultlady, also known as Captain Mestenec.
And that's very important because I imagine given the events in our nation surrounding thetragic air collision in D.C.
(00:49):
with the helicopter, I imagine you've been inundated with lots of questions.
Yes, yes, I have questions, but also I think what's relevant here is conspiracies, right?
And so it's been so interesting since the election, like I just branded as knitting cultlady and now the captain part is coming back and I'm talking to people and explaining the
(01:13):
military and I all of a sudden there was a collision and it became relevant that mymilitary experience like my exact intelligence
angle was aviation.
Like I have been a intelligence officer for helicopter pilots, Blackhawks specifically, incombat.
(01:36):
And I'm married to a retired 20 year helicopter pilot.
And the way I could still not get people to listen to me.
And this said, we're not talking cult of MAGA, we're talking the left.
And
I've just spent a very interesting week watching people go so hard into conspiracies andit's got me shook a little bit, right?
(02:06):
As we talk about like what is going on in the country.
Cause I'm like, whoa, we really have sort of stopped listening to experts here.
And I think that's relevant in all of these conversations that we have.
that's, you know, that does a disservice to what is actually happening in the country thatwe all should be concerned about.
(02:27):
If we distract ourselves with conspiracy theories, I think that takes away from a lot ofthe real danger and a lot of the real issues that are going on.
And this is not a time to be distracted.
Yes, and just a reminder for all of you, because it's relevant, I know we've talked aboutit on this channel before, but like being in apocalyptic mode or in panic mode, like
(02:51):
that's not helpful, right?
That's what the cults and the cult leaders want you to do.
So we gotta be realistic about what's happening, but also try to keep ourselves to thereality of what's going on as we go through this like unprecedented time in America.
And I'm so excited to talk to our guest today because we have the best guests.
(03:15):
And today we are going to hear from Allie.
Welcome, Ali.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's great to be here.
So tell us a little bit about yourself, about your experience and what you're doing now asfar as activism and how your experiences have shaped what you're doing now.
(03:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I actually found Daniella on TikTok way back a couple years ago through her educationon cults.
And it was right around the time I was realizing that I had survived one.
(03:59):
And my work focuses more on what happened.
me as a child in the cult, which I found out a few years ago, was torture.
And so my advocacy now is for other survivors of non-war-related childhood torture, whichhas suddenly become extremely relevant overnight with the administration's changes on
(04:26):
humanitarian aid efforts, because we are a humanitarian aid organization.
And I
started my nonprofit because I found out that all the humanitarian aid in the US at thattime was reserved for people who were tortured in other countries and are now living here
or and or were tortured through state sanctioned torture in the context of war.
(04:51):
Both very important populations that absolutely need that humanitarian aid but thosedefinitions specifically excluded thousands of
people who were tortured as children in their own homes and communities here on US soil.
And so I said, okay, well, I guess we're doing this.
(05:12):
Did not have any intention ever of going into nonprofits.
That's a whole other thing.
My background's actually in healthcare.
But when I saw how big the need was and I started sharing just a tiny bit of my story onthat platform and it took off and I realized
prevalent this problem actually was and how little was being done about it I said okaywell I guess we're doing something about it now so that is that's where I am now
(05:42):
Well, thank you for your work, Ali.
It is certainly something that is needed.
And you referenced what is happening in DC with the cutting of humanitarian aid, whichisn't really a big deal, right?
It's a big deal on the human aspect of it.
But as far as what they're endeavoring to do is saving money, I think it's like 1 % ofwhat's going on.
(06:07):
And so I would think that there are lots of other places.
that would be better served by their cost cutting.
But we'll see what happens.
But thank you for what you're doing.
I think it's very, very important work.
And Ali, know, obviously for the listeners, I think this is gonna be a bit of a heavyepisode.
(06:29):
Can you tell us a little bit of what you mean by a childhood survivor of torture?
Because, you I think you and I have the same thing when we tell our stories that peoplethink of that as distant and torture.
That's such a serious word.
Absolutely.
(06:50):
So the main, there's kind of two aspects of the definition that I function from in mywork.
One is looking at the difference between torture and abuse.
Torture is intentional and calculated.
(07:10):
whereas abuse is often reactionary.
Now what this means, it may sound like a very small difference, but it actually has hugeimplications because what this means when we're talking about child maltreatment, okay,
I'm not an expert on torture outside of the context of childhood, but when we're talkingabout child maltreatment and the difference between abuse and torture, what this means is
(07:33):
that perpetrators of abuse can very often be rehabilitated with access to education andresources.
But perpetrators of torture, they know that there are other ways to parent.
They're very well aware.
And they are actively choosing not to because of whatever, you know, we don't really knowwhat makes people do these things.
(07:57):
There are theories, but you know, for whatever reason, they are actively choosing not toparent in a kinder way.
And instead they are parenting in this way.
And then regarding the actual logistics, this part's gonna be a little heavy, there can bea huge overlap in acts, but one of the main things that sets torture apart from abuse is
(08:23):
that perpetrators of torture establish complete domination and control over their victims'access to the basic necessities of life, and then they leverage
that control in exchange for information compliance or some other desired behavioraloutcome.
So access to basic necessities of life is exactly what it sounds like.
They're controlling your ability to breathe, your ability to access nutrition andhydration.
(08:48):
Sleep deprivation is a very common one, forced positioning, exposure to the elements,those types of things.
And the reason why I focus so much on the difference between torture and abuse is becausethe trauma is different, the healing is different, and that is so...
Like that's at the crux of what happened when I...
(09:11):
Like I still remember where I was sitting, what I was doing when I learned that what I hadbeen through was torture, and I just had such a melting away of shame because I was like,
my god, like I wasn't abused, I was tortured, I've been trying to heal like an abusesurvivor.
haven't been doing it wrong, it just wasn't set up for me, it wasn't set up for survivorslike me.
(09:34):
Simple things like breath work in trauma circles can be so counterproductive for torturesurvivors, so that's kind of an overview of the difference and types of things.
Yeah, and you know, a few things that I wanted to just highlight for the listeners that Ithink a lot of people who have survived this sometimes don't connect, which is, I'm sorry,
(09:59):
I don't know what you called it, but in the military, we call it stress positions.
And in my book, I talk about this as like holding the Bible in your outstretched hands forjust like an unlimited amount of time.
And I...
miss it, you have to start over.
show this parallel in my book between the soldiers, you know, in the beginning of basictraining that are holding these duffle bags above their head.
(10:24):
And then later on, pretty specifically in the book, I do this kind of analogy of where I'mtrying to understand how enhanced questioning, enhanced interrogation, as we call it in
the military, isn't torture.
But as you know, I think I was probably having that same realization that you were
like in that moment as I'm an intelligence officer hearing about like how what we're doingis not torture because we're not cutting off fingers and pulling out teeth and I'm
(10:55):
literally looking around the room and looking at pictures of stress positions and goinglike but I did that right a few other things like solitary confinement I think honestly
this is a big part of why I knit all the time or like always have a project with me
and even parenting, being alone in a dark room with children, you know, it can be so hardif you don't realize.
(11:22):
And one other one that I think is a really like important one is bathroom control.
And this is one that we see in cults all the time.
And this is one of those ones that I always see as like a red flag when I hear people'sstories, you know, like,
when there was a conversation about Lizzo and her dance captain, and if that was a cultand you're trying to be very careful.
(11:48):
And then I hear like the dancers were so afraid to leave that one of them peed themselves.
I'm like, oh, yep, there it is, right?
It's like, it's that detail that is so humiliating.
It can be painful and it's so like core to who we are as people.
(12:08):
I even remember when I joined the military how dehumanizing it felt to again, as a 22 yearold adult, have to like raise my hand and ask for permission to go to the bathroom and
like wait for permission.
Ali, I'm curious.
I want you, if you're willing, to share some of your story, what you experienced, if you'dlike to share that.
(12:32):
But before we talk about that, I'm wondering, has the judicial system caught up with thisdifferentiation between abuse and torture?
OK.
no.
Okay.
And so is there, is this a lack of education on, on part of the, the law enforcement or,or what needs to be done to bring them up to speed?
(12:58):
Are they reluctant?
Are they ignorant?
Or is this just a matter of, of, them not wanting to, to go there?
I think it's very complex.
because the child welfare system as a whole.
has a pretty problematic history, first of all, here in the US.
(13:23):
This is the only place that I am well-educated on in my work, so I can't speak to otherplaces.
But the child welfare system here has a pretty troubled history and current.
And I think...
(13:46):
I think in terms of the logistics, because the roots of that issue and why this issue isnot up to speed in the child welfare system is honestly so complex, I don't think that I
could even begin to deal with it in this.
But I think the logistics of why has a lot to do with a lack of education.
(14:08):
People don't want to think that this type of thing is possible, and that's understandable,but
not thinking about it does not do anything to help it.
And so like a huge red flag that I talk about in my trainings for professionals ismultiple runaway attempts.
(14:29):
That's a huge red flag.
Okay.
But the way that law enforcement typically deals, like law enforcement, there are, there'sa piece of a documentary about one of the more high profile cases that happened a few
years ago where the
officer that ended up responding to the situation, he said he got the call, it was at theend of his shift, it was at the end of a really rough shift, and got the call, hey,
(14:50):
there's a runaway, blah, blah, and he was like, I'll take care of it, I'm almost done withmy shift, it'll be an easy end, it'll be easy end to my shift.
And he takes the call and ends up walking into hell.
And thankfully, he, you know, was in it for the right reasons or whatever, and he believedthe child, because they had
(15:12):
photo and video evidence, believed them and he went and he saw it through and the kids gotout of that situation.
But just that attitude going into it, this will be easy, I'll take them back, they'll workit out with their parents, it'll be fine.
And a child from that same family had had that happen to them about 15 years prior, theyran away and they were taken right back.
(15:33):
So to me, it's a lack of education issue.
But I think one of the biggest things is multiple runaway attempts.
Do not look at that lightly.
Kids don't run out into the unknown.
By and large, we don't just run out into the unknown with no protection and no resourcesbecause things are okay where we're coming from.
(15:57):
That, generally speaking, I realize there are some exceptions, but generally speaking,that does not happen.
So I think in terms of logistics, that's the biggest takeaway that I would leave.
Yeah, and the reason that I mentioned that is because increasingly, sadly, we see thesereports in the news, right, of children being abused and what you describe as torture.
(16:21):
But it occurs to me that, you know, in retrospect of all of these stories that I've seen,none of them mention the charges against the abusers being any different.
And I was just curious.
Yeah.
no, it's usually like a pile on of counts.
You know, X number of counts of child endangerment and, you know, whatever.
(16:44):
in a lot of states, I don't think there even is a charge for torture of children.
I think there are a few where there is, but I don't think the charge even exists in a lotof places.
So yeah, it's a good question.
Well, thank you for that.
(17:04):
I'm curious if you'd be willing to share with our audience some of the things that youexperienced and what brought you to the point you're at now.
Certainly with we approach this subject obviously with great compassion for you and foreveryone that's experienced that.
(17:26):
But it's an important topic to talk about because like I said, it seems
I don't know if I'm just noticing it more, but there certainly seems to be an uptick inthese kinds of crimes being reported.
Yeah, I'd like to speak to that for a second and then yes, I'm fine to share.
(17:48):
I think two things that I have seen change positively since I started, really like startedthis conversation on social media, and it's since led into other areas is I'm starting to
see more media outlets actually call it what it is when these cases break.
And that makes me very, happy.
(18:11):
Because I'm a huge like,
words have meaning and that helps or can help a survivor to contextualize and understandtheir experience.
And when that's all you've known, you don't like, you don't just come out of it like,okay, so this is what happened.
I've got my little suitcase of trauma and I know what to do with it.
Like, that's not how it works.
And so the more that we can do as a society that is welcoming these survivors into therest of existence, the least we can do is to be like, hey,
(18:43):
let's name correctly what happened to you so that you can start, you know, from a freshstart, so to speak.
So I'm very happy to see that.
And I think also we're starting to collectively understand like what is and is not okay todo to children.
And so I think that cases are getting reported sooner and intervened on sooner.
(19:04):
And so I think by and large, that change is a good thing.
So yeah.
As far as my story, I'm going to start with what made me recognize that what I had beenthrough was torture and then just kind of work backward from there and then any follow-up
questions that you have are fine.
(19:26):
So it was a couple of years ago I was sitting here watching Criminal Minds, which is oneof my comfort shows as one does.
And there was an episode where one of the
one of the BAU people got captured and was being tortured and questioned for informationand they were blasting her with water and I had to pause the show because I started having
(20:01):
the most horrific sensory flashback.
I get this like flashback where just my skin hurts and I was like
I knew exactly what, like, I had gotten to a point with my trauma where, I knew thesituation that that was from and I was like, this is like, you shouldn't think about your
(20:26):
childhood when you're watching an FBI person get, pretend tortured on, on, like, on thecamera, like, what is happening?
And so I Googled, I was like, what is torture?
And that's when I learned, you know, the intentional and calculated, and it's done to likebreak the victim psychologically and physically.
(20:50):
And so the circumstance that was like coming back and like huge content warning forlisteners, but the circumstance that was coming back from that was for a couple of years
around five, when I like wouldn't take a nap or like did anything else that was a hugepain in my abuser's ass.
(21:11):
then I would like get sent to bed with, you know, nothing.
Solitary confinement, I was an only child.
There were many, many, many times when the only thing that I had access to was my bearmattress and my Bible.
And if I wouldn't stop crying, which I don't know if you know me, but I don't shut up.
So that's been a lifelong, that's been a lifelong theme.
(21:35):
So I would be crying, I would be yelling and screaming.
and my abuser would come in with cups or buckets of cold water and throw them on me andshe used to do it when I like Didn't have clothes on and then she realized that if she did
it while my pajamas were on and then didn't let me change out of them that it wouldprolong my misery And so that was the thing that I had the flashback to and that was not
(22:00):
like that was a hee-hee-haha like sitting around drinks like
yeah, like telling stories with friends.
Like, that was never any aspect of my trauma that I forgot, but that was the first time Isaw it in that context and I was like, that's not normal.
That's not okay.
Like, that's not okay.
(22:22):
And so yeah, that's like one example that's very easy to encapsulate.
Yeah.
you had to endure that.
And this, by the way, I think, though, is so important about telling our stories, youknow?
And I think it's a pretty common kind of like cult baby or abused child situation to belike sharing a story.
(22:43):
I mean, I know someone who shared a very similar story in a ha ha, my dad used to spray uswith the cold water and I had to be the one to tell them like, honey, you know, like.
you know that wasn't okay.
Or even talking about like, what does it mean when you're naked versus not naked and nowthis is making it, you know, a sexualized thing.
(23:10):
And I do know that it's very difficult.
I'm so sorry that we have all had to go through that.
But I also think, you know, it's kind of like why we all like to watch Criminal Minds orSVU.
Right?
Because it in some way, it is helpful when another person has gone through that and youcan see it and you can know that you weren't the only one.
(23:37):
And if it's being depicted there or if I'm hearing you tell a story and I'm relating toit, it doesn't actually matter what names our abusers gave it or what ways people have
tried to justify it in the past.
Right?
Like
you're relating to an FBI interrogation.
(23:58):
So you know what you know.
Exactly.
And I think that's a huge part of, for me at least, the huge part of the trauma was justthe isolation.
Just being so profoundly alone in it and not...
I mean, at a certain point, like you just kind of give up and you're like, well, I guessthis is okay.
(24:23):
I guess I deserve this.
Like, you know, like there's pages and pages in my journals of me being like, I must be ahorrible person.
Like I'm a sinner.
I'm all of these things because like, you know, after a certain point, you just, you'relike, well, it must be me.
You know?
So yeah, I think there's huge power in sharing our stories and relating to other people.
(24:47):
because it knocks down those walls of isolation little by little.
Absolutely.
As you started realizing this and you realized what had happened to you, what were some ofthe next steps that were necessary for you to take for your own well-being, for your own
(25:08):
healing?
And I know for all of us, this is a process that there's not one magic bullet, but perhapsit would be helpful for someone who has experienced this to hear your story.
What kinds of things did you do
Or did you think about on the other side of that realization?
(25:33):
Kind of a few things.
At that point, I had been in therapy for quite some time.
I actually did not identify my childhood as abusive when I started therapy.
I started therapy because of some childhood sexual assault things that bubbled to thesurface in a very ugly way in my mid-20s.
(26:00):
And in the process of healing from that, I very much...
As I started to kind of really develop self-esteem for the first time and understand whatis an acceptable way to be treated and what is not an acceptable way to be treated, I
(26:22):
started to see the other circumstances in my childhood in a different light because ofthat giving up and just being like, this is just how it is.
I was like, wait, no, this isn't just how it is.
And this made me more vulnerable to that.
And that's not okay.
And so it was a very long process.
by the time I had, by the time I came to call what I had been through as torture, I hadalready identified my childhood as like fairly abusive, like fairly not okay.
(26:54):
I had gotten no contact with my abuser.
And so it was almost like there was this like backlog of like work that just fell intoplace with that realization is how it was for me.
And so I really kind of hit the ground running.
I think it was probably a couple of months maybe.
My memory of that particular period of my life is a little bit hazy so it may have been alittle different than that.
(27:19):
But it was pretty shortly after that I was like, this is a problem.
Okay we're fixing it.
Like that's just very much how I am as a person.
And so I...
was working with another nonprofit, one of my friends here locally runs a music therapynonprofit, and I had reached out to them.
(27:39):
I was like, hey, maybe we should start a fund or something.
And it took a while for their board to review it.
And in that time, I was learning and having these conversations.
And I was like, wait, no, this problem is so much bigger than just a random $10,000 fundfor a couple people to go through therapy.
This is huge.
And so when they came back with their decision, which was a no, just because of theirinfrastructure at the time.
(28:03):
Um, literally the night before I got their decision, I was like, okay, if they say no, I'mjust going to like start my own thing.
And they did.
And so I did.
Um, and that really is what has helped me heal because the other component of that is Iwas extremely suicidal in, I mean, I had been various levels of suicidal since I was about
(28:28):
five.
but it really came to a head in 2020 when just everything kind of hit the fan.
And a couple of years after that, I was still just going kind of like day by day and weekby week.
And I was like, okay, I can stick it out for 20 more years.
I can do anything for 20 years.
I survived that for 20 years.
I can stick it out for 20 more years.
(28:49):
And so I had an end date in my head and I was like, I'm just gonna reassess at that pointand I'm just gonna get through what I gotta get through until then.
And then this kind of came along and now I'm like, no wait, like this is, like I'mactually doing what Younger Me envisioned, like helping other people like not feel as
alone in those situations.
(29:10):
Like, yeah.
So it was kind of a really weird way that everything all kind of came together that hasbrought me to where I am now.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
I think there's something really important that you said when you said, know, as someonewho's sitting here talking to us who works in childhood torture, who has survived torture
(29:36):
and you said you didn't think of your childhood as abusive.
And to people that haven't had an abusive childhood, I know that that sounds a little bitout there, but that was the same thing for me.
until I had my sort of triggering moments.
(29:56):
And you know, I almost, I don't know if you felt this way, but I almost felt like therewas a me that had been putting everything in its boxes to survive when you were a child.
And you just didn't even turn back around to look at it.
But also I think what was so great.
there was the little piece that you said about how because you had been doing all of thiswork, that when you did have this big realization, it almost felt like things were falling
(30:28):
into place.
And I think that's another thing we see, you know, I call it the decade of deconstruction.
And usually when we have that big kind of like realization, you know, for me, it was cultsare all about labor.
And I immediately
understood the why, you know, of my childhood.
(30:49):
But when you look back, you see that you've been doing all this work.
And that's what even allowed you like if the first I don't think you would have had thatrealization if you'd been watching that scene like five years before.
watched that scene countless times before and the funny thing is then I didn't rememberany of rest of the episode because like literally just all like my brain just was not
(31:21):
ready to deal with it you know and to your point about not knowing that what we had beenthrough was abusive let alone torture it I forget how
bizarre that sounds to people who have not been through this but I'd like to speak to thata little bit because I think that victims and survivors, however you identify, which
(31:44):
personally I don't have a problem with the word victim, I kind of like the word victim,but that's a whole other that's a whole other thing.
Like victimizing just means being harmed by something.
Like I don't understand why everyone is like, no you're not a victim.
Like yeah, no it's okay to like be a victim that doesn't mean you can't also be empoweredand heal.
Like anyways.
Sorry, let me just stick that soapbox in the corner for a second.
(32:06):
But the piece about not recognizing that what we had been through was abusive, let alonetorture, I think that these perpetrators continue to thrive by our continued ignorance.
And I want to pick at that a little bit because what's really important for people tounderstand is that, at least in my experience, when you're in that, this is one of the
(32:28):
things that sets abuse apart from torture.
torturers will talk to you about abuse.
They'll talk to you about the shit that happened to them.
They'll talk.
I read a child called it when I was like 10 and I was like, I literally remember I wassitting on my bed.
read the last page.
(32:49):
My stomach dropped out through my butt and I went, it can get so much worse.
I better get it together.
I shut that book and I was on my.
best behavior for so long.
Like I was already on pretty good behavior, but I was like, my God.
And like, so that's the thing is like we didn't, or at least I didn't grow up unaware ofabuse.
(33:11):
But what I was told over and over and over is no abuse is when it happens for no reason.
You gave me a reason.
You had an attitude, you were lazy, you didn't do this, this and this exactly how Iexpected you to do it.
Therefore,
it's your fault that this is happening and then we have ye old King James version comingin saying if you don't honor your father and mother you can literally be killed so
(33:35):
everything that's happening to you is your fault and it's totally okay.
That's that's gnarly.
That's why I didn't realize that what I had been through was abuse.
I didn't think it was pleasant but I thought abuse is just when there's just no reason.
There's just no reason and I you know gave them a reason by by you know
breathing too hard at dinner.
(33:59):
That's not okay.
think that's, I think that's an important point to emphasize is that so many of us grow upin situations and circumstances.
And I used to tell my students in the classroom to think back to your first time leavingyour home and spending the night at a different home and how you walked away from that
(34:20):
experience because we are conditioned to believe that everything around us is normal.
But then you have another experience and you see people
living differently and you realize that everyone has their own normal.
So it should come as no surprise that even those of us that have experienced such abuseand such torture would think, okay, this is how my world is defined.
(34:49):
And to your point about, you know, abuse, us being conditioned to believe that abuse wasfor no reason,
Just to be clear, there is no justification at any time, anywhere to, yeah, absolutely.
it's just, first of all, it's counterintuitive, right?
(35:11):
That you're going to teach someone to abstain from violence by perpetrating violence onthem.
And that was sort of the culture in which I was raised, right?
I grew up in Arkansas.
the Bokhala, the Bible Belt, and it was all about, as you mentioned, the King JamesVersion and Spare Not the Rod.
(35:34):
So that was a lot of my experience as well.
Yeah, you know, I think it is this really important part of taking off the cult language,right?
And like actually calling it what it is.
(35:56):
And, you know, here's another one that I bring up with people, like military drills,right?
Like if you were a kid and you knew how to do a perfect pushup, you might need tore-examine that.
You know, and I've had interesting conversations with especially, you know, soldiers loveto be like, it's the new woke military soft and like the drill sergeants don't punch you
(36:21):
or hurt you anymore.
And I'm like, no, they make you do it to yourself.
They make you do repeated exercises until muscle failure and.
This is part of the formula of how you break people.
It's actually quite simple.
It's isolation, pain, and small acts of kindness.
(36:44):
And when you're in a situation where you're either a child or you're like a soldier,you're isolated in training, right?
You're dependent on these powerful figures in your life who are hurting you.
but you're also dependent on them for food and survival, right?
(37:06):
We grow up only having the language that they gave us.
We grow up loving them, even though they do these horrible things to us.
And, you know, this was even one of the things for me looking back where I said, you know,once I wrote down the story of my life in words that...
(37:28):
civilians use and outsiders use.
You go back and look at it and be like, these adults that I thought were the good adultsin my life, like, no, you know, right, they weren't on my side when I needed them.
Like they were not protecting me.
(37:49):
And another component that you just brought up about the military drills that really kindof hit home for me during the early days of processing that this is what I had been
through, was, know, and you know way more about this than me, but my understanding is thatwhen you are in the military and you are...
(38:14):
by nature of your job at risk of being captured and interrogated, like there ispreparation that occurs to help you withstand it too, right?
And then if and when that happens, and if and when you make it out, you still come backpretty messed up because torture fundamentally changes a human being.
(38:40):
And so if we have to do that level of preparation,
for a grown ass adult to withstand and survive torture and hope to heal after?
Why on God's green earth are we not doing more to help literal children who had no way toprepare, no way to consent to the risk of that happening?
(39:06):
And then they become adults or they escape their...
their parents or whoever it was that was doing that to them, which very often does nothappen at 18, it usually happens a little later because they don't ever intend to let
their victims go, and we're like, welcome to society, why aren't you functioning?
Make it make sense.
It does not make sense.
(39:29):
Yeah, and by the way, my husband is a pilot, so he has been to that school where theyprepare you to be captured.
I was in a unit full of pilots, and they're all messed up just from the training, justfrom going through it for a week, a week, right, of preparing for this.
(39:51):
And definitely some of us out there have lived this in so many ways.
Mm-hmm.
And Daniela, if you'll just speak to this point from your experience as a militaryofficer, as an intelligence officer, you know, that we went through a period of time in
our nation right after 9-11 and then the war on terror where, you know, these argumentswere put forth and they were even official policy of the Bush administration, I believe.
(40:27):
Maybe it wasn't official, but it was something that happened, right?
Where people would argue, well, we won't get the terrorist unless we torture them.
But I think everything that I've read and everything that I've heard from you and fromothers is that, you you torture someone long enough, they'll tell you whatever it is that
(40:51):
you want them to tell you.
And there's no way to verify that information.
It has never been shown.
It has never been shown that torture produces a good outcome, right?
Like the same exact thing we were saying about like spanking children to teach them not tohit doesn't work.
know, exactly what you said.
(41:12):
they'll, and it's not when we say they'll tell you whatever they need to know.
They'll tell you whatever you want to hear, right?
I mean, cults get people, cults get people to do this, right?
So like,
initial, sorry, identity breaking indoctrination when you first get into a cult, right?
Children of God wasn't letting you eat, sleep or drink for about 72 hours while they wereworking you out, praising God and jumping up and down, right?
(41:37):
Like they're putting you, they're pushing you to a limit.
And then just from that, which is nothing compared to military or compared to whatever,people would still say anything they wanted when they were getting them to write down
their story.
right?
So like, or like, if you've ever talked to a mom of a newborn baby, right?
(42:00):
I swear when I had a child after all of the things we mentioned, and I was like, I have awhole new understanding of sleep deprivation and why we use it the way we use it,
literally, specifically to break people.
And one of the, sounds so, so horrible.
(42:22):
I'm like in the context of the civilian world.
But one of the things you would do when you have a soldier that just wouldn't cooperateand wouldn't kind of like get with the program is you make them sign in on the hour every
hour.
And if they're really getting spicy, you make them do it in a different uniform everyhour.
(42:42):
So for 24 hours, you're not even getting like a full sleep one or two days.
Right?
And that soldier is perfect again.
And so like people will say anything.
People will do anything.
If you keep someone awake for about a week, they start trying to kill people.
(43:05):
I'm still thinking I'm on TikTok, you know, in order to get sleep.
Right?
So it's like, it doesn't, it's not even effective.
Right?
And I think like it's still
so much of how we justify it comes down to the same ways that we justify hitting children,right?
(43:26):
Or kind of like corporal punishment.
like, you know, I've had people ask you like, well, what if your kid was about to run outin the street?
I, at every level of age that she's been, I've had to have a different reaction to that.
And none of them included, I have to hit her to make her not go out in the street again.
(43:47):
People love to come up with the most extreme, like, they're basically saying, what wouldit take to get you to hit your kid?
Like, bam, nothing.
Like, stop, I'm not gonna do it.
And you know, I think that's something that we have yet to deal with in our nation.
And we talk a lot about the meta cult, right, of the patriarchy and of capitalism and ofevery racism that we deal with specifically here in the United States.
(44:16):
But one that we don't often talk about is this culture of violence.
As Americans, we love violence.
If you look to our fixation and fascination with guns and not just guns, but weapons,literal weapons of mass destruction and our commitment to those guns, no matter how many
(44:45):
tragedies we have, whether it's, you know, homicides or school shootings or everythingthat happens, people still defend
their right to carry these particular weapons.
And they defend, right?
If you have this conversation that we're having right now, I know in certain parts of thecountry where I was born and raised, this is still very much part of the culture that in
(45:13):
order to have well-behaved children, then you must perpetrate violence on them.
And growing up in the evangelical culture,
There were entire shows, right?
I remember Focus on the Family.
This was a big deal, right?
Where they would actually have entire programs dedicated to teaching parents how to hit,and of course they didn't say hit, but how to hit your children.
(45:43):
And they would tell you how to do it step by step.
But it was still perpetrating violence.
And I think that's something that maybe we don't talk enough about our
our fixation for violence in this nation.
Absolutely.
this is one of the reasons why we still haven't ratified the United Nations, what's itcalled, Ali?
(46:11):
Yeah, exactly, Rights of the Child, which like, it used to be us in Somalia, and Somaliahas ratified it.
And it is literally because.
evangelicals and Mormons and all of these people still want to keep hitting theirchildren.
And in 2018, the APA, the American Psychological Association, right, it came out and said,right, y'all, the studies are in, right?
(46:37):
Like there are enough children have grown up without being hit that we know that this 2000year old adage that you need to hit your children is like not.
right, you know, and, but this is also part of why I think education is so, so, soimportant in this area, right, and talking about what it is and talking about the
(47:04):
difference because so many people, as Allie had mentioned, right, like they were raised inthis way, which is abusive, and then they turn around and they think that they have to
pass that down, like in order to control our children, in order to
have this outcome, like we have to treat them this way.
(47:24):
And I think right now, obviously we are questioning all of that and trying to build a newparadigm.
But I agree with you, Scott, and I think this was part of the cult wars, this has beenpart of religious leaders lobbying and campaigning to keep their power.
And quite frankly, children are the most oppressed class in America.
(47:49):
we don't talk about it enough and we don't do enough of the work.
And I'm so grateful for people like you, Allie, that are like using your pain and yourstory to do something about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
And another thing that I want to talk about, since we're kind of on the subject ofchildren being the most oppressed class, I think that's the perfect way to put it, is
(48:14):
that, and this kind of goes hand in hand with like trauma being passed down in thegenerations as well as...
A piece that I think we need to kind of make a little bit more room for in thisconversation on a national scale, on a community-wide scale, is the lack of survivors of
(48:44):
color.
And I want to speak to that for a second because I grew up Arab.
My great-great-grandfather came here in the 1920s.
Ironically escaping religious persecution, but anyways and I I have a lot of thoughtsabout why there are virtually no survivors of color in this space with public platforms
(49:11):
other than me and What the conclusion I have come to is two things Well, no, it's onething We don't tend to when childhood torture has a 36 % fatality rate
just across the board.
But if you look at all the high profile cases of childhood torture that have broken in thelast 10-15 years, every single one that has resulted in death has been a child of color.
(49:39):
Every single one that has resulted in not death has been a white child.
And, you know, I have my own personal thoughts on that.
Personally, I would have preferred death a lot of the times, but...
If we're talking about whose story gets to survive and who gets to have a chance to opt inor out to life outside of trauma, that's a problem.
(50:05):
And the reason why I think it is that way is two reasons.
One.
when these children are killed by their own parents of the same race and ethnicity, thereis an overlapping of, an overlapping of, what is the term that I'm looking for, of an
(50:32):
overlapping of oppressions, an intersection of oppressions, right?
Not only do we have being a child, but parents of color face enormous pressure to
get their children to conform.
And in many cases, it can be life or death.
Think about parents raising black boys right now, hoping that they don't get shot by thepolice when they're just out living their lives, right?
(51:01):
And so that does not excuse treating a child in this manner, but every ethnicity and everygroup kind of has their thing.
Like I came of age during 9-11, like,
we were, we called ourselves pretty terrible slurs.
Like there was, you know, there is all of this piling on.
(51:25):
And so these parents, in addition to having the profile of like, you know, some people arejust gonna torture kids regardless, and some people just aren't gonna torture kids
regardless.
So these parents that are parents of color who are torturing their children, not only dothey already have the perpetrator profile, but then they have these layers of oppression
and pressure on top of it.
(51:46):
And then it gets normalized and passed down within the families.
And then the children of color who are killed by white parents, typically foster oradoptive parents, I think in that case, a lot of it, if you dig deep enough, is most
likely that they were racist parents.
that wanted to kill a black or brown child, you know?
(52:08):
And so it saddens me that there is really not a huge community of survivors of colorbecause we don't tend to survive.
That fatality rate goes way up and it's horrible, you know?
So I think a lot of it, a lot of, to Scott's point about our obsession with violence, youknow, there is just so much.
(52:33):
Emphasis on just breaking people even just in even outside of torture circles, you know,like there's just so much Hatred for ourselves that is instilled in us from these
patriarchal religions and When it connects with people with the right or wrong mentalprofile and it just it creates some really horrible things but
(52:59):
I think the good news is that it is all interconnected, so pulling at any thread helpsloosen the whole thing, you know?
But yeah, that's just something that I wanted to mention.
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense because so much of what we experience is informed notonly by our family, but by our culture, by our society.
(53:23):
You know, the old saying that geography is destiny.
And a lot of times where you are born, right?
I was born in the southern region of the United States at a particular time where religionwas
really, really important.
And in that culture, in my family, it was very important.
(53:46):
It wasn't necessarily that they had a commitment or an obsession for violence, althoughthat was part of the society that informed their belief in the Bible that they should
adhere to this particular custom or tradition.
But it was also the fact that, you know, as children, we were not seen necessarily asfully
(54:08):
human, we were seen as props in order to make the parents look good.
And so this is a lot of the reasons that this violence was perpetrated, because theparents were afraid that they would be ridiculed, that they would be ostracized if their
children were unruly.
(54:30):
And this was something that was, it was so ingrained in my religious tradition, in mychurch.
It was
violence against children, and again, it wasn't called that, it wasn't labeled that, butwords like discipline and spanking and Bible quotations like spare the rod, spoil the
child.
(54:51):
This kind of violence against children was celebrated.
And in retrospect, how we treat as a society, as a group, as a community, as human beings,how we treat the most vulnerable among us.
It says a lot about who we are and that needs to change.
(55:12):
And you know, I saw this meme or something recently that said that one of the things thatsort of millennial and Gen X parents are doing is shifting the parenting model from you
will love and respect me to I will love and respect you and teach you how to love andrespect other people through modeling.
(55:36):
And I think that's a place I would like to like.
leave this today and then we can find out resources from you, but just that, you know, youdon't have to pass it down.
And that we are also like breaking generational trauma and like those of us that haveexperienced this kind of stuff, hopefully we're the last ones in our line, whether we
(56:03):
reproduce or not.
And
You know, we're creating new models of things.
know, Scott, you were surrounded by good people who were trying to raise you with love,right?
As usually we are in these cults, but they get caught in these systems that are so brokenand where children are so dehumanized.
(56:26):
And there's this quote I really, really love that is, how do we change the world?
Good people raising good children.
You know, and I think so much sometimes when I'm upset over my life or how broken we are.
And then I look at like just the three of us right here.
Look at how much we're doing to kind of stop that generational trauma.
(56:50):
And so thank you so much, Ali.
I.
Sorry, I'm a bit emotional about this topic.
It's really heavy, but would you please tell us where our listeners can find you andsupport your work?
Yeah, absolutely.
So our website is prettigraffiti.org And it's pretty with an I, I can send you the link ifyou want to put it like in the description or anything.
(57:14):
And it's very easy to go on there find there's like a four survivors tab and there's aGoogle form right on there that people can just literally put their email address and
register for aid and then they get added to our list.
We launched a support group that had our first meeting actually this evening.
And we'll be rolling out more
support as resources allow.
(57:37):
Ali, thank you so much.
Thank you for the courage to share your story and thank you for your service to the restof us and to those that are hurting and to those that are seeking help.
But most of all, thank you on behalf of the children that will be helped.
And this conversation is so very important.
(58:00):
And so I hope that we have the opportunity to continue this conversation again in thefuture.
Ali, thank you.
And thank you everyone for tuning into this episode of Cults and the Culting of America.
Daniela, thank you as always for your insight.
If you haven't read her book, Uncultured, do so, pick it up.
(58:23):
It's available wherever fine books are sold.
And you can also get an autographed copy just by visiting her TikTok, her Instagram, herYouTube.
her website, you'll hear all about it.
So support Daniela and her work.
And before we go tonight, I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to our wonderfulproducer, Haley.
(58:49):
She does a tremendous job week in and week out on this program.
If you like our guest, she's the reason that we have such wonderful guests with suchimportant information.
And I heard somewhere,
that Haley is working on relocating her family.
And I think we all need to support that.
(59:11):
So Haley, make sure you put a link in the show notes here.
And we all want to be supportive of your efforts and what you do.
You do a wonderful, wonderful job.
So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your support.
And we'll see you on the next episode of Cults and the Culting of America.
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