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Interview: Escaping the cult embraced by the Duggar family. What happens when your entire childhood is controlled by religious extremism? Amanda Briggs takes us behind the curtain of the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP)—the same cult featured in the Duggar family's reality show—revealing the shocking reality of growing up female in an organization designed to control every aspect of her existence including eye traps and pledging her virginity to her father.
CONTACTS for Amanda and Kyle Briggs
Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cult-i-left-behind/id1705661944
Website:
https://www.cultileftbehind.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Cult-I-Left-Behind/61551657642775/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cultileftbehind/
Website: https://www.onegoodthingmedia.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OneGoodThingMedia?mibextid=fVIIUt
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/1THZ05VbQ0sZJZwCo5i46I
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to One Good Thing Media, your official
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We search the vast digitallandscape on a daily basis to
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Speaker 1 (00:52):
Trigger warning.
This episode contains mentionsof child abuse and sexual
assault.
Listener discretion is advised.
Hello, lovelies, welcome to OneGood Thing Media.
For those of you who are new toour show, my name is Gerald
(01:15):
Spear and I am the creator andhost of our podcast.
This week is the secondinterview that we've remastered
since it first aired in early2024.
We are playing the interviewtoday because we've grown so
much since then and most of ourfollowers joined us after this
(01:36):
episode had dropped.
Honestly, it's an amazinginterview filled with
information about what it waslike for one person to be raised
in the Institute of Basic LifePrinciples, or IBLP, the
religious cult that was madefamous by the Duggar family as
(01:56):
part of their reality TV show 19and Counting, where they
practiced the teachings of thisreligious cult.
I included a trigger warning atthe beginning of this show but,
just to remind you, thisparticular interview is not
meant for children or anyone whois triggered by the topic of
(02:18):
sexual assault.
All right, folks, it isshowtime.
(02:52):
I am here in the studio withAmanda and Kyle Briggs.
They are co-hosts of a podcastcalled the Cult I Left Behind.
Besides sharing informationabout their podcast, amanda is
here today to talk about what itwas like growing up in the IBLP
.
So, amanda, in terms of yourfamily situation, were you born
into it or did your parentsactually convert after you were
(03:12):
born?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so my biological parents joined IBLP
either before I was born or whenI was a very young child.
I'm not real clear on the startdate, this whole cult
experience, but I mean it's tiedup in my earliest memories of
life and from a young personperspective you think about.
(03:35):
Well, what's it like to be in acult?
It's a lot of rules.
It's a lot of rules, and themost important thing you could
do as a young child in a cult,or a young person in the cult,
was instantly obey yourauthorities with a smile and a
cheerful attitude and especiallyfor females, we were very
controlled.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm curious what was it like when you finally got
into your?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
teens, there's something called courtship
commitments that both males andfemales had to participate in.
In my family we had a ceremonywhen we turned 15.
I had to pledge my virginity tomy father, which is really
creepy when you look back andthink on it.
Yeah, so you know.
(04:20):
You start to get hips and boobsand grow up a bit.
Yeah, so you start to get hipsand boobs and grow up a bit, and
the teaching very quicklybecomes focused on how anything
bad that happens to you is yourfault, because you are a
temptation and you might cause aman to stumble with your
winking eyes Winking eyes, yesand how we might cause men to
(04:42):
stumble.
So we had to be modest andbasically anything that happened
to us that was harmful wasusually our fault.
We'd be blamed for it, andthere were young women who would
experience a sexual assault,and the leaders in the cult
would analyze that young woman'sclothing to make sure it was
(05:06):
modest and if it wasn't modestenough, then the sexual assault
was her fault.
So you had a lot to lookforward to, you know, hitting
puberty in the cult, basically,amanda it's all your fault.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Isn't everything Right off the top of my head.
I can honestly say that I don'tthink that you were meant to be
a member in good standing ofthe IBLP as a woman or as a girl
living in the IBLP.
If you reported sexual abuse,would it be looked into?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It was just hushed up .
What happened with the Duggarfamily?
Was it?
For anyone who's watched thedocu series on amazon about them
, you know it talks about howeventually jim bob took josh the
oldest and he had to likeconfess to a state trooper.
That was rare, like the factthat any law enforcement, any
disclosure to the authoritiesoccurred generally.
(06:01):
It was just hushed up and sweptunder the rug and we moved on
like it never happened.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, they would try to keep it in the family or
within the cult or the churchcult.
They never reached outside thelaw enforcement so it was
interesting that it was theykept it internal.
But once you hear all thestories of how they were running
the cult and the oppressionthat was happening, it's like of
course they would have keptthat to themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Amanda, were you homeschooled like the Duggar
children?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I was, I had to use ATI.
So Advanced Training Instituteis an arm, or was an arm, of
IBLP that produced homeschoolcurriculum called wisdom
booklets.
That were a farce.
It was supposed to prepare youfor a medical degree or to
(06:54):
become a lawyer and it was justpseudoscience and a lot of Bible
stories taken out of context,usually about how everything was
your fault as a woman.
And then we used some othercurriculum.
We used a Becca book, which isvery heavily Christian, slanted
curriculum, inaccuracies withhistorical incidents and stuff
(07:17):
like that.
And then I think we used someSaxon textbooks for math.
But I mean it wasn't to get usready for college, because
college is evil and satanic andwe weren't Women definitely
weren't encouraged to go tocollege.
No, we were supposed to bekeepers at home and make babies
(07:37):
and bake bread and take care ofthe home, and we definitely did
not need to be prepared for lifebeyond that.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I've looked at online and just looked at some of the
wisdom booklets and there's likeliterally pages in there and
it's just like you know adrawing or a sketch of like a
woman and you know it's got likemultiple choice answers of like
what's an eye trap on here,like what is wrong with this
woman or this girl?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I'm jumping in just to let you know what an eye trap
actually is.
An eye trap is anything thatdraws a man's attention away
from a woman's face, going waybeyond things like plunging
necklines or micro mini dresses.
Eye traps in the IBLP arethings like having see-through
(08:26):
lace on the shoulders and thearms of your dress, wearing a
long necklace, wearing patternedstockings that draw attention
to the legs and even having aV-shaped collar.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
That was part of our academic education.
I was not taught anatomy andfor anyone who listens to our
podcast, you'll find out prettyquickly that I did experience
sexual assault growing up inthat home and the lack of a
proper education was definitelya barrier to explaining what had
(09:01):
happened to my body and theways I had been assaulted,
because I didn't have avocabulary for it, we weren't
taught that stuff.
Nope yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You couldn't protect yourself because you didn't know
what you were protectingyourself against.
You had absolutely nounderstanding.
Yeah, that's a good way to putit.
Considering everything that youwent through as a child and
from the time you took yourfirst breath, you were being
indoctrinated into this cult Atwhat point did you say I have to
(09:31):
?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
leave, and this started before I turned 10.
And that didn't go over realwell, especially being female
and getting in debates overHebrew and Greek with adult
males.
Yeah, that was not super fun,so I questioned a lot of it.
(09:56):
There was a period of my lifewhere I tried really hard in my
teens to just buy in and blendin so I could be part of the
family and not be the outcast,and it just didn't work.
There were too many logicalinconsistencies that I could not
live with.
So it was a very slow fade forme from about the time I was
(10:16):
like nine into my 20s.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So your awareness was self-taught then.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yes, it just didn't logically make sense.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Interesting thing about Amanda is like she's
incredibly smart, but she's arule follower like to the T, and
so you put her and maybe that'sfrom the cult but like, you put
her in that situation whenthere's a million different
rules, like she's going tofollow all of them, but she's
going to be like why this, whythat, like this doesn't make any
sense.
You told me this and then youtold me this and they're
(10:48):
conflicting Like, and so I couldsee her in the cult, just like
asking a million questions andlike challenging everything,
while also like simultaneouslyfollowing.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I'm so glad you like that about me, Kyle, because
nobody liked that about me whenI was a kid.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
At what point did you realize?
You know I have to get out ofhere.
This is not making sense andfurthermore, they've lied to me.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It was, you know, I think, okay.
So eventually I did go tocollege, realized that having
bright eyes and a ministry smileand working at the cult
headquarters wasn't reallycutting it for young adults to
be able to get jobs,particularly the males, because
you had to have a job and a wayto support a woman before you
could court her.
It's a whole thing, anyways.
So they realized it wasn'tworking and, as women, I had an
(11:40):
older sister.
I have an older sister I'm notin touch with her, but she's 10
years older than I am In thecult.
Optimally, you were married by24.
And 24 had come and gone forher and Rick and Chris were like
what do we do with her now?
Because she is unwed and theydecided she needed to have.
Well, she started looking intocareer paths and it was like you
(12:02):
need a degree.
So she was allowed to go to theMoody Bible Institute, which is
a very, very conservativeChristian college, and then that
opened the door for the rest ofus because she's the oldest.
So I was given one option forcollege and it was the Moody
Bible Institute and I studiedtheology there, as one does at a
(12:22):
Bible college, and In her nextcomment, Amanda talks about Bill
Gothard.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Bill Gothard was the founder and leader of the IBLP.
He was ultimately disgraced anddethroned because of multiple
sexual abuse allegations.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The impetus for me really finally walking away from
the cult fully, I think.
Well, I was in the librarybecause I'm basically Hermione
and I was researching somethingin Hebrew and Greek and I
realized that this one versethat Bill Gothard used that had
hung over my head my whole life.
He had mistranslated it.
It did not mean what he thoughtat all or what he said, what he
(13:08):
told us.
It meant.
It didn't mean that at all.
And then I started researchingmore and more and more of the
Bible verses that Bill Gothardcherry picked in IBLP to force
his ideology down all of ourthroats.
And again and again it was likenope, that's not what it means
in context.
That's not what it means incontext.
That's not what it means incontext.
And I had an existential crisisin the library.
I didn't know what to do.
I felt like my whole world wasfalling apart, but also like I
(13:33):
was free at the same time.
And I looked over and there wasa young woman that I kind of
sort of knew just a tiny littlebit, like we weren't close
friends but we'd been in someclasses together and I walked up
to her and I think I saidsomething like hi, I know, we
don't know each other reallywell, but my whole world just
fell apart.
But I'm also like reallyexcited because I just figured
everything out and I just neededto tell someone and she looked
at me and she was like OK,amanda, and I walked out of the
(13:59):
library a different person I hadknown my whole life.
Something was wrong, that therewere logical inconsistencies,
that things just did not add up,that I was always creeped out
by Bill.
His teachings never reallyfully made sense to me, it just
didn't feel right.
No, it didn't, and it didn'tlogic right.
(14:20):
And that day in the library, Ithink I was like a junior in
college when it all finally likeoh, this is why it's wrong.
Because it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
When you finally left the cult, how did you handle it
?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It was slow.
I mean, I had already startedto back away from my biological
family.
They hated the fact that as anadult, as a young adult in
college, I started getting helpfor the sexual assault, that I
started going to counseling andjust basically I was speaking
about it how dare I?
(14:53):
And they were very harmful intheir responses to that.
So I had just slowly beenstepping back from them for
years and you know, it showed upin small ways, Like I'd wear a
strapless dress to an event likea wedding, a family wedding.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
How dare I?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Amanda's evil now.
Or a Thanksgiving with therelatives who were not cold.
It was just my immediate familythat was in the cold.
My relatives and extendedfamily were not.
I would have a glass of wine,definitely demon possessed and
going to hell.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
So I think they just kind of saw it in my life
choices as I aged, I thinkgetting out of the house when
she moved off to college was, Imean, as most people do.
You learn a lot and you findout a lot about yourself when
you move away to college and shewasn't living at home.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The distance was good .
That was their mistake.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah, pretty much.
That's how I see it.
They'd agree with you.
They let her out of the houseand the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Look what happened when you were younger.
Were you isolated enough thatyou sort of looked at the
outside world as somethingforeign?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yes and no, yes and no.
We had pretty unlimited accessto our cousins, aunts, uncles,
grandparents, and they were verynormal.
My cousins played with plasticdinosaurs and the cult taught
(16:27):
that dinosaurs weren't real.
So we would get into thesedebates.
We were five, so there was alot that I heard of through my
relatives, but there's a lot ofstuff I still like Pop culture
from the 80s, the 90s, early2000s.
(16:47):
I'm hopeless, it's fine, I justown it, I roll with it and
accept it.
Obviously, I knew nothing aboutsex other than sexual assault.
I knew nothing about whathealthy relationships look like
or partying.
Oh gosh, yeah, I tried alcoholfor the first time when I was 23
.
Oh gosh, yeah, I tried alcoholfor the first time when I was 23
(17:10):
.
Wait, no, for my bachelorette,my girlfriends took me to a club
because I'd never been to aclub.
I was what?
33?
So, yeah, there was everydaylife stuff that people do in
college as young adults that Inever experienced, and it's okay
.
I've seen a lot of people makereally extreme choices to go
(17:31):
back and reclaim that time and Ijust accept that.
My life trajectory, it is whatit is and the things that really
matter to me.
I circle back and go do.
But the rest of it, yeah, I wasisolated and I just accept that
that's how it went down.
And Kyle explains stuff to meas we go and I'm like what is
that movie, what is that song?
(17:52):
Who is that rapper?
You didn't have a television inyour home.
Well, we could only watch partsof that.
If there were any scantily cladwomen, we had to turn it off.
We could watch approvedportions of the Olympics, where
(18:13):
there were no scantily cladwomen.
We could watch stuff to do withpresidential elections, but no,
we didn't just watch TV and themovies we watched were heavily
monitored, heavily.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, they would make them look away at certain If
someone kissed In a 1940s movie.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
If someone kissed, we had the eyes down because
impurity.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Kyle, you must have had to share a lot of
information with Amanda andprobably still do.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I try not to do it too much but for not having
experienced all that stuff andnot grown up watching classics,
she still will.
Every now and then we'll throwone in or she'll.
I'll just watch an old moviethat everybody knows and she's
never seen before.
But I don't try to like, oh youhaven't seen this and this and
this and this and this, andbinge watch 90 movies.
I get to point out the goodones that were worth going back
(19:13):
and watching.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Oh fun, you show me an old movie.
I'm like well, there's RampantRacism.
Look at the inherent misogynythat was in there.
From when I was a child.
Yeah, that was still.
That still permeated Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Okay, let's talk about your podcast.
As I mentioned at the beginningof our interview, Amanda and
Kyle co host a remarkablepodcast called the Cult I Left
Behind.
I have to admit, I couldn'thelp myself.
I binge watched all theepisodes that were available up
(19:48):
to the point when we started ourinterview, and now I'm finding
myself going back like every twoor three days.
Oh God, have they droppedanother podcast episode?
Have they dropped another one?
I'm obsessed.
Oh wow, we're honored.
Let's talk about how it gotstarted.
What was the epiphany that youdecided?
(20:09):
I think I'm going to turn mylife experience of living in a
cult, start a podcast, like mostpeople think, and that was
(20:30):
years ago.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
We're just thinking, oh, it'd be cool to do a podcast
.
But, like, what do we do?
And Amanda works, you know,professionally now she does a
lot of work talking aroundsexual assault, sexual
harassment, domestic violence,all that kind of stuff, and
obviously that was a big part ofgrowing up in the cult.
Those things existed.
(20:52):
And I think we were justdriving home one day and I was
like why don't we just talkabout the cult?
Everybody loves cults.
Your story is horribly messedup, but I wouldn't have
recommended that if that wasstill very traumatic for her or
she hadn't like spent the timeto like process all that.
But professionally, like shecan, she goes out and she talks
(21:15):
about really difficult things,um, and so I I brought it up and
I think I think I brought it up.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I think we were.
We were out to dinner, it wasover pizza, and I think I was
joking.
I think I said, well, I couldjust tell all my cult stories
and I was kind of kidding andyou were like oh, and then I was
like, oh, no, what did I justget myself into?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Has it been a cathartic experience for you?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
You know people ask me that I I get asked a lot like
is this hard for you to do ordoes it feel good for you to do?
Yeah, I think it's veryeducational for me.
Regarding myself, there arecertain parts of my story where,
you know, it's a very neutralemotional experience for me,
(22:01):
like talking about all thesexual assault and the harm that
I grew up in.
I do speak about thatprofessionally.
I own a business where I'm aconsultant around sexual assault
and suicide prevention and abunch of other stuff, and so I'm
very accustomed to sharingthose things.
(22:22):
Now in the podcast we go into alot more detail than I share
during a keynote or during aworkshop and I cuss a lot on the
podcast, which I definitelydon't do professionally, but I
would say those are veryemotionally neutral to positive
experiences for me harmfulmarriage and cult ideology and
how that shaped it.
(22:43):
I think that one was harder andwe've talked about I don't
remember which episode at themoment, but there have been
times where we've endedrecording and I go huh, I know
what I'm talking about intherapy next week Because I can
(23:03):
tell it brought some stuff upfor me and I wouldn't keep doing
this if it was harmful to mymental health, but I learn a lot
about where I am.
So I mean, I really enjoy it.
I really enjoy it and if youknow, if I'm not ready to talk
about something, we don't talkabout it on the podcast.
So if I'm talking about it, Ifeel like I can handle it yeah,
(23:25):
sometimes we'll shuffle topicsaround like we've got a list of
like.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Here's all the things we're going to do for the next
three months or whatever, um,and so we do prioritize some of
those topics just based on howemotionally draining it might be
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
From the outside, looking in, I really see you two
as a power couple.
You work together seamlesslyand together bring two different
perspectives oftentimes to yourpodcast.
Bring two differentperspectives oftentimes to your
podcast.
I think people are going todiscover a lot about cults,
about sexual abuse and, honestly, what constitutes a healthy
(24:01):
relationship.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I think we do.
I think we do.
I am the boring logic let's goto the library and research
stuff.
But I also think I'm absolutelyhilarious and Kyle's like
actually funny.
I mean, he's from Oklahoma.
He's a salt of the earth kindof guy.
Everyone loves him.
My parents, my adoptive parents, like him more than me.
Now it's fine, I've accepted it, but he's just great at
(24:27):
bringing levity and great atcomforting me behind the scenes
and holding my hand when we talkabout hard stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I know listeners can't see it.
Before we sign off, I wouldlove for you to share about the
special room that you makeavailable in your home for
people who need shelter,understanding and, I think,
above all else, a safe place.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Oh yeah, the guest room, the safe space.
So we talk about this in one ofour episodes, but something
that's very, very important tome is having a safe space in my
home for people who need it.
I am insistent that my home isa safe space.
I kind of got the idea in latehigh school, early college.
(25:11):
I was a choir nerd.
We traveled all the time, andlate high school, early college,
I was a choir nerd.
We traveled all the time and wewould stay in host homes and it
was usually folks who, a lot ofthe times it was folks who were
retired who would open theirhomes up to us and I just I felt
so safe in those spaces.
They had the big fluffy pillowsand the big fluffy towels and
(25:34):
good food and they were so sweetand attentive to us and
anything you need, you're justhere to rest, and I was like I
didn't see that modeled growingup.
That was definitely not part ofthe cult.
Plus, no one had a spare roombecause they had 85 kids.
But that was something I justloved experiencing and it was so
(25:56):
helpful and healing for me whenI got to be in those safe
spaces and I decided someday Iwas going to do that in my home.
So we have a room like thatwith fluffy pillows and it's
beautifully decorated and theguest bathroom has all the
fluffy towels, and we just tryto make our home somewhere that
when people come into it theyknow that this is a place they
(26:18):
can let down their guard andthey can talk about things that
might be hard to talk about inother environments and they know
they're going to be loved andcared about and heard and seen
and not judged.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Have you ever invited a cult member into your home
who was seriously thinking aboutleaving their situation?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
You know, I have never specifically had someone
leaving the cult and that'slargely because I moved away
from everyone I knew in the cultand then I only started talking
about growing up in a cultsomewhat recently.
It's not even something I talkabout in my professional
(27:00):
capacity at this time, mostlybecause it's just never been
relevant.
I don't hide it.
It's just never been relevant.
So I've never gotten up anddone a keynote about cults but I
think I'm open to now.
But yeah, I've just never beengeographically co-located with
someone who needed that kind ofspace.
Now they have never needed tostay with me, but I've
(27:22):
definitely.
I hope the feedback is thatthey felt loved.
I've had people leaving othercults.
Just, you know, come over andhave coffee and talk and process
through the weirdness and hangout and that's really meaningful
.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Speaking about the IBLP.
If they ever reach out to you,I want to hear about it.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
If they ever send us anything, don't worry, we will
blast it all over our platforms.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I'm waiting for it.
I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I have a business lawyer for the company I own.
I probably need to just briefhim on all of this.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Eventually, Amanda and Kyle.
It has been an absolute blastspending time with both of you.
I know that we will have afuture conversation about your
progress.
I really believe that yourpodcast is going to blow up and
you are going to enjoy extremesuccess.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Thanks for having us on.
We appreciate it.
You're the first podcast we'vebeen on as a guest, so thank you
for reaching out.
I know we connected overFacebook, so, yeah, thanks for
reaching out and inviting us on.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
As you're listening to this podcast, I encourage you
to check out the show notes,because I have many links that
you can click to learn moreabout Kyle and Amanda.
Amanda, let's close our podcastinterview with a piece of
advice that you like to give toyour listeners.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I tell everyone don't join a cult.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
I love that and I promise you, Kyle and Amanda, I
will not join a cult and besides, they probably wouldn't have me
.
I would probably have one ofthose one hour turnarounds in
the door and kicked out.
That's a wrap for this week.
(29:23):
If you haven't done so yet,please give us a follow and make
sure that you hit thenotification button so you'll
know when we drop our nextepisode.
We'll be returning with ourregular programming next week.
Until then, always remember youknow we love you.
We'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
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Welcome to One Good Thing Media, your official
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We search the vast digitallandscape on a daily basis to
discover the best shows thatpodcasters have to offer.
Are you ready to discover newfavorites to add to your
playbook?
Stay tuned and listen to hostGerald Spears' latest podcast
reviews.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Trigger warning.
This episode contains mentionsof child abuse and sexual
assault.
Listener discretion is advised.
Hello, lovelies, welcome to OneGood Thing Media.
For those of you who are new toour show, my name is Gerald
(01:15):
Spear and I am the creator andhost of our podcast.
This week is the secondinterview that we've remastered
since it first aired in early2024.
We are playing the interviewtoday because we've grown so
much since then and most of ourfollowers joined us after this
(01:36):
episode had dropped.
Honestly, it's an amazinginterview filled with
information about what it waslike for one person to be raised
in the Institute of Basic LifePrinciples, or IBLP, the
religious cult that was madefamous by the Duggar family as
(01:56):
part of their reality TV show 19and Counting, where they
practiced the teachings of thisreligious cult.
I included a trigger warning atthe beginning of this show but,
just to remind you, thisparticular interview is not
meant for children or anyone whois triggered by the topic of
(02:18):
sexual assault.
All right, folks, it isshowtime.
(02:52):
I am here in the studio withAmanda and Kyle Briggs.
They are co-hosts of a podcastcalled the Cult I Left Behind.
Besides sharing informationabout their podcast, amanda is
here today to talk about what itwas like growing up in the IBLP
.
So, amanda, in terms of yourfamily situation, were you born
into it or did your parentsactually convert after you were
(03:12):
born?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so my biological parents joined IBLP
either before I was born or whenI was a very young child.
I'm not real clear on the startdate, this whole cult
experience, but I mean it's tiedup in my earliest memories of
life and from a young personperspective you think about.
(03:35):
Well, what's it like to be in acult?
It's a lot of rules.
It's a lot of rules, and themost important thing you could
do as a young child in a cult,or a young person in the cult,
was instantly obey yourauthorities with a smile and a
cheerful attitude and especiallyfor females, we were very
controlled.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm curious what was it like when you finally got
into your?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
teens, there's something called courtship
commitments that both males andfemales had to participate in.
In my family we had a ceremonywhen we turned 15.
I had to pledge my virginity tomy father, which is really
creepy when you look back andthink on it.
Yeah, so you know.
(04:20):
You start to get hips and boobsand grow up a bit.
Yeah, so you start to get hipsand boobs and grow up a bit, and
the teaching very quicklybecomes focused on how anything
bad that happens to you is yourfault, because you are a
temptation and you might cause aman to stumble with your
winking eyes Winking eyes, yesand how we might cause men to
(04:42):
stumble.
So we had to be modest andbasically anything that happened
to us that was harmful wasusually our fault.
We'd be blamed for it, andthere were young women who would
experience a sexual assault,and the leaders in the cult
would analyze that young woman'sclothing to make sure it was
(05:06):
modest and if it wasn't modestenough, then the sexual assault
was her fault.
So you had a lot to lookforward to, you know, hitting
puberty in the cult, basically,amanda it's all your fault.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Isn't everything Right off the top of my head.
I can honestly say that I don'tthink that you were meant to be
a member in good standing ofthe IBLP as a woman or as a girl
living in the IBLP.
If you reported sexual abuse,would it be looked into?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It was just hushed up .
What happened with the Duggarfamily?
Was it?
For anyone who's watched thedocu series on amazon about them
, you know it talks about howeventually jim bob took josh the
oldest and he had to likeconfess to a state trooper.
That was rare, like the factthat any law enforcement, any
disclosure to the authoritiesoccurred generally.
(06:01):
It was just hushed up and sweptunder the rug and we moved on
like it never happened.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, they would try to keep it in the family or
within the cult or the churchcult.
They never reached outside thelaw enforcement so it was
interesting that it was theykept it internal.
But once you hear all thestories of how they were running
the cult and the oppressionthat was happening, it's like of
course they would have keptthat to themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Amanda, were you homeschooled like the Duggar
children?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I was, I had to use ATI.
So Advanced Training Instituteis an arm, or was an arm, of
IBLP that produced homeschoolcurriculum called wisdom
booklets.
That were a farce.
It was supposed to prepare youfor a medical degree or to
(06:54):
become a lawyer and it was justpseudoscience and a lot of Bible
stories taken out of context,usually about how everything was
your fault as a woman.
And then we used some othercurriculum.
We used a Becca book, which isvery heavily Christian, slanted
curriculum, inaccuracies withhistorical incidents and stuff
(07:17):
like that.
And then I think we used someSaxon textbooks for math.
But I mean it wasn't to get usready for college, because
college is evil and satanic andwe weren't Women definitely
weren't encouraged to go tocollege.
No, we were supposed to bekeepers at home and make babies
(07:37):
and bake bread and take care ofthe home, and we definitely did
not need to be prepared for lifebeyond that.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I've looked at online and just looked at some of the
wisdom booklets and there's likeliterally pages in there and
it's just like you know adrawing or a sketch of like a
woman and you know it's got likemultiple choice answers of like
what's an eye trap on here,like what is wrong with this
woman or this girl?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I'm jumping in just to let you know what an eye trap
actually is.
An eye trap is anything thatdraws a man's attention away
from a woman's face, going waybeyond things like plunging
necklines or micro mini dresses.
Eye traps in the IBLP arethings like having see-through
(08:26):
lace on the shoulders and thearms of your dress, wearing a
long necklace, wearing patternedstockings that draw attention
to the legs and even having aV-shaped collar.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
That was part of our academic education.
I was not taught anatomy andfor anyone who listens to our
podcast, you'll find out prettyquickly that I did experience
sexual assault growing up inthat home and the lack of a
proper education was definitelya barrier to explaining what had
(09:01):
happened to my body and theways I had been assaulted,
because I didn't have avocabulary for it, we weren't
taught that stuff.
Nope yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You couldn't protect yourself because you didn't know
what you were protectingyourself against.
You had absolutely nounderstanding.
Yeah, that's a good way to putit.
Considering everything that youwent through as a child and
from the time you took yourfirst breath, you were being
indoctrinated into this cult Atwhat point did you say I have to
(09:31):
?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
leave, and this started before I turned 10.
And that didn't go over realwell, especially being female
and getting in debates overHebrew and Greek with adult
males.
Yeah, that was not super fun,so I questioned a lot of it.
(09:56):
There was a period of my lifewhere I tried really hard in my
teens to just buy in and blendin so I could be part of the
family and not be the outcast,and it just didn't work.
There were too many logicalinconsistencies that I could not
live with.
So it was a very slow fade forme from about the time I was
(10:16):
like nine into my 20s.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So your awareness was self-taught then.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yes, it just didn't logically make sense.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Interesting thing about Amanda is like she's
incredibly smart, but she's arule follower like to the T, and
so you put her and maybe that'sfrom the cult but like, you put
her in that situation whenthere's a million different
rules, like she's going tofollow all of them, but she's
going to be like why this, whythat, like this doesn't make any
sense.
You told me this and then youtold me this and they're
(10:48):
conflicting Like, and so I couldsee her in the cult, just like
asking a million questions andlike challenging everything,
while also like simultaneouslyfollowing.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I'm so glad you like that about me, Kyle, because
nobody liked that about me whenI was a kid.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
At what point did you realize?
You know I have to get out ofhere.
This is not making sense andfurthermore, they've lied to me.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It was, you know, I think, okay.
So eventually I did go tocollege, realized that having
bright eyes and a ministry smileand working at the cult
headquarters wasn't reallycutting it for young adults to
be able to get jobs,particularly the males, because
you had to have a job and a wayto support a woman before you
could court her.
It's a whole thing, anyways.
So they realized it wasn'tworking and, as women, I had an
(11:40):
older sister.
I have an older sister I'm notin touch with her, but she's 10
years older than I am In thecult.
Optimally, you were married by24.
And 24 had come and gone forher and Rick and Chris were like
what do we do with her now?
Because she is unwed and theydecided she needed to have.
Well, she started looking intocareer paths and it was like you
(12:02):
need a degree.
So she was allowed to go to theMoody Bible Institute, which is
a very, very conservativeChristian college, and then that
opened the door for the rest ofus because she's the oldest.
So I was given one option forcollege and it was the Moody
Bible Institute and I studiedtheology there, as one does at a
(12:22):
Bible college, and In her nextcomment, Amanda talks about Bill
Gothard.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Bill Gothard was the founder and leader of the IBLP.
He was ultimately disgraced anddethroned because of multiple
sexual abuse allegations.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The impetus for me really finally walking away from
the cult fully, I think.
Well, I was in the librarybecause I'm basically Hermione
and I was researching somethingin Hebrew and Greek and I
realized that this one versethat Bill Gothard used that had
hung over my head my whole life.
He had mistranslated it.
It did not mean what he thoughtat all or what he said, what he
(13:08):
told us.
It meant.
It didn't mean that at all.
And then I started researchingmore and more and more of the
Bible verses that Bill Gothardcherry picked in IBLP to force
his ideology down all of ourthroats.
And again and again it was likenope, that's not what it means
in context.
That's not what it means incontext.
That's not what it means incontext.
And I had an existential crisisin the library.
I didn't know what to do.
I felt like my whole world wasfalling apart, but also like I
(13:33):
was free at the same time.
And I looked over and there wasa young woman that I kind of
sort of knew just a tiny littlebit, like we weren't close
friends but we'd been in someclasses together and I walked up
to her and I think I saidsomething like hi, I know, we
don't know each other reallywell, but my whole world just
fell apart.
But I'm also like reallyexcited because I just figured
everything out and I just neededto tell someone and she looked
at me and she was like OK,amanda, and I walked out of the
(13:59):
library a different person I hadknown my whole life.
Something was wrong, that therewere logical inconsistencies,
that things just did not add up,that I was always creeped out
by Bill.
His teachings never reallyfully made sense to me, it just
didn't feel right.
No, it didn't, and it didn'tlogic right.
(14:20):
And that day in the library, Ithink I was like a junior in
college when it all finally likeoh, this is why it's wrong.
Because it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
When you finally left the cult, how did you handle it
?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It was slow.
I mean, I had already startedto back away from my biological
family.
They hated the fact that as anadult, as a young adult in
college, I started getting helpfor the sexual assault, that I
started going to counseling andjust basically I was speaking
about it how dare I?
(14:53):
And they were very harmful intheir responses to that.
So I had just slowly beenstepping back from them for
years and you know, it showed upin small ways, Like I'd wear a
strapless dress to an event likea wedding, a family wedding.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
How dare I?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Amanda's evil now.
Or a Thanksgiving with therelatives who were not cold.
It was just my immediate familythat was in the cold.
My relatives and extendedfamily were not.
I would have a glass of wine,definitely demon possessed and
going to hell.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
So I think they just kind of saw it in my life
choices as I aged, I thinkgetting out of the house when
she moved off to college was, Imean, as most people do.
You learn a lot and you findout a lot about yourself when
you move away to college and shewasn't living at home.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The distance was good .
That was their mistake.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah, pretty much.
That's how I see it.
They'd agree with you.
They let her out of the houseand the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Look what happened when you were younger.
Were you isolated enough thatyou sort of looked at the
outside world as somethingforeign?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yes and no, yes and no.
We had pretty unlimited accessto our cousins, aunts, uncles,
grandparents, and they were verynormal.
My cousins played with plasticdinosaurs and the cult taught
(16:27):
that dinosaurs weren't real.
So we would get into thesedebates.
We were five, so there was alot that I heard of through my
relatives, but there's a lot ofstuff I still like Pop culture
from the 80s, the 90s, early2000s.
(16:47):
I'm hopeless, it's fine, I justown it, I roll with it and
accept it.
Obviously, I knew nothing aboutsex other than sexual assault.
I knew nothing about whathealthy relationships look like
or partying.
Oh gosh, yeah, I tried alcoholfor the first time when I was 23
.
Oh gosh, yeah, I tried alcoholfor the first time when I was 23
(17:10):
.
Wait, no, for my bachelorette,my girlfriends took me to a club
because I'd never been to aclub.
I was what?
33?
So, yeah, there was everydaylife stuff that people do in
college as young adults that Inever experienced, and it's okay
.
I've seen a lot of people makereally extreme choices to go
(17:31):
back and reclaim that time and Ijust accept that.
My life trajectory, it is whatit is and the things that really
matter to me.
I circle back and go do.
But the rest of it, yeah, I wasisolated and I just accept that
that's how it went down.
And Kyle explains stuff to meas we go and I'm like what is
that movie, what is that song?
(17:52):
Who is that rapper?
You didn't have a television inyour home.
Well, we could only watch partsof that.
If there were any scantily cladwomen, we had to turn it off.
We could watch approvedportions of the Olympics, where
(18:13):
there were no scantily cladwomen.
We could watch stuff to do withpresidential elections, but no,
we didn't just watch TV and themovies we watched were heavily
monitored, heavily.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, they would make them look away at certain If
someone kissed In a 1940s movie.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
If someone kissed, we had the eyes down because
impurity.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Kyle, you must have had to share a lot of
information with Amanda andprobably still do.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I try not to do it too much but for not having
experienced all that stuff andnot grown up watching classics,
she still will.
Every now and then we'll throwone in or she'll.
I'll just watch an old moviethat everybody knows and she's
never seen before.
But I don't try to like, oh youhaven't seen this and this and
this and this and this, andbinge watch 90 movies.
I get to point out the goodones that were worth going back
(19:13):
and watching.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Oh fun, you show me an old movie.
I'm like well, there's RampantRacism.
Look at the inherent misogynythat was in there.
From when I was a child.
Yeah, that was still.
That still permeated Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Okay, let's talk about your podcast.
As I mentioned at the beginningof our interview, Amanda and
Kyle co host a remarkablepodcast called the Cult I Left
Behind.
I have to admit, I couldn'thelp myself.
I binge watched all theepisodes that were available up
(19:48):
to the point when we started ourinterview, and now I'm finding
myself going back like every twoor three days.
Oh God, have they droppedanother podcast episode?
Have they dropped another one?
I'm obsessed.
Oh wow, we're honored.
Let's talk about how it gotstarted.
What was the epiphany that youdecided?
(20:09):
I think I'm going to turn mylife experience of living in a
cult, start a podcast, like mostpeople think, and that was
(20:30):
years ago.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
We're just thinking, oh, it'd be cool to do a podcast
.
But, like, what do we do?
And Amanda works, you know,professionally now she does a
lot of work talking aroundsexual assault, sexual
harassment, domestic violence,all that kind of stuff, and
obviously that was a big part ofgrowing up in the cult.
Those things existed.
(20:52):
And I think we were justdriving home one day and I was
like why don't we just talkabout the cult?
Everybody loves cults.
Your story is horribly messedup, but I wouldn't have
recommended that if that wasstill very traumatic for her or
she hadn't like spent the timeto like process all that.
But professionally, like shecan, she goes out and she talks
(21:15):
about really difficult things,um, and so I I brought it up and
I think I think I brought it up.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I think we were.
We were out to dinner, it wasover pizza, and I think I was
joking.
I think I said, well, I couldjust tell all my cult stories
and I was kind of kidding andyou were like oh, and then I was
like, oh, no, what did I justget myself into?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Has it been a cathartic experience for you?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
You know people ask me that I I get asked a lot like
is this hard for you to do ordoes it feel good for you to do?
Yeah, I think it's veryeducational for me.
Regarding myself, there arecertain parts of my story where,
you know, it's a very neutralemotional experience for me,
(22:01):
like talking about all thesexual assault and the harm that
I grew up in.
I do speak about thatprofessionally.
I own a business where I'm aconsultant around sexual assault
and suicide prevention and abunch of other stuff, and so I'm
very accustomed to sharingthose things.
(22:22):
Now in the podcast we go into alot more detail than I share
during a keynote or during aworkshop and I cuss a lot on the
podcast, which I definitelydon't do professionally, but I
would say those are veryemotionally neutral to positive
experiences for me harmfulmarriage and cult ideology and
how that shaped it.
(22:43):
I think that one was harder andwe've talked about I don't
remember which episode at themoment, but there have been
times where we've endedrecording and I go huh, I know
what I'm talking about intherapy next week Because I can
(23:03):
tell it brought some stuff upfor me and I wouldn't keep doing
this if it was harmful to mymental health, but I learn a lot
about where I am.
So I mean, I really enjoy it.
I really enjoy it and if youknow, if I'm not ready to talk
about something, we don't talkabout it on the podcast.
So if I'm talking about it, Ifeel like I can handle it yeah,
(23:25):
sometimes we'll shuffle topicsaround like we've got a list of
like.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Here's all the things we're going to do for the next
three months or whatever, um,and so we do prioritize some of
those topics just based on howemotionally draining it might be
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
From the outside, looking in, I really see you two
as a power couple.
You work together seamlesslyand together bring two different
perspectives oftentimes to yourpodcast.
Bring two differentperspectives oftentimes to your
podcast.
I think people are going todiscover a lot about cults,
about sexual abuse and, honestly, what constitutes a healthy
(24:01):
relationship.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I think we do.
I think we do.
I am the boring logic let's goto the library and research
stuff.
But I also think I'm absolutelyhilarious and Kyle's like
actually funny.
I mean, he's from Oklahoma.
He's a salt of the earth kindof guy.
Everyone loves him.
My parents, my adoptive parents, like him more than me.
Now it's fine, I've accepted it, but he's just great at
(24:27):
bringing levity and great atcomforting me behind the scenes
and holding my hand when we talkabout hard stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I know listeners can't see it.
Before we sign off, I wouldlove for you to share about the
special room that you makeavailable in your home for
people who need shelter,understanding and, I think,
above all else, a safe place.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Oh yeah, the guest room, the safe space.
So we talk about this in one ofour episodes, but something
that's very, very important tome is having a safe space in my
home for people who need it.
I am insistent that my home isa safe space.
I kind of got the idea in latehigh school, early college.
(25:11):
I was a choir nerd.
We traveled all the time, andlate high school, early college,
I was a choir nerd.
We traveled all the time and wewould stay in host homes and it
was usually folks who, a lot ofthe times it was folks who were
retired who would open theirhomes up to us and I just I felt
so safe in those spaces.
They had the big fluffy pillowsand the big fluffy towels and
(25:34):
good food and they were so sweetand attentive to us and
anything you need, you're justhere to rest, and I was like I
didn't see that modeled growingup.
That was definitely not part ofthe cult.
Plus, no one had a spare roombecause they had 85 kids.
But that was something I justloved experiencing and it was so
(25:56):
helpful and healing for me whenI got to be in those safe
spaces and I decided someday Iwas going to do that in my home.
So we have a room like thatwith fluffy pillows and it's
beautifully decorated and theguest bathroom has all the
fluffy towels, and we just tryto make our home somewhere that
when people come into it theyknow that this is a place they
(26:18):
can let down their guard andthey can talk about things that
might be hard to talk about inother environments and they know
they're going to be loved andcared about and heard and seen
and not judged.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Have you ever invited a cult member into your home
who was seriously thinking aboutleaving their situation?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
You know, I have never specifically had someone
leaving the cult and that'slargely because I moved away
from everyone I knew in the cultand then I only started talking
about growing up in a cultsomewhat recently.
It's not even something I talkabout in my professional
(27:00):
capacity at this time, mostlybecause it's just never been
relevant.
I don't hide it.
It's just never been relevant.
So I've never gotten up anddone a keynote about cults but I
think I'm open to now.
But yeah, I've just never beengeographically co-located with
someone who needed that kind ofspace.
Now they have never needed tostay with me, but I've
(27:22):
definitely.
I hope the feedback is thatthey felt loved.
I've had people leaving othercults.
Just, you know, come over andhave coffee and talk and process
through the weirdness and hangout and that's really meaningful
.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Speaking about the IBLP.
If they ever reach out to you,I want to hear about it.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
If they ever send us anything, don't worry, we will
blast it all over our platforms.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I'm waiting for it.
I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I have a business lawyer for the company I own.
I probably need to just briefhim on all of this.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Eventually, Amanda and Kyle.
It has been an absolute blastspending time with both of you.
I know that we will have afuture conversation about your
progress.
I really believe that yourpodcast is going to blow up and
you are going to enjoy extremesuccess.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Thanks for having us on.
We appreciate it.
You're the first podcast we'vebeen on as a guest, so thank you
for reaching out.
I know we connected overFacebook, so, yeah, thanks for
reaching out and inviting us on.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
As you're listening to this podcast, I encourage you
to check out the show notes,because I have many links that
you can click to learn moreabout Kyle and Amanda.
Amanda, let's close our podcastinterview with a piece of
advice that you like to give toyour listeners.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I tell everyone don't join a cult.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
I love that and I promise you, Kyle and Amanda, I
will not join a cult and besides, they probably wouldn't have me
.
I would probably have one ofthose one hour turnarounds in
the door and kicked out.
That's a wrap for this week.
(29:23):
If you haven't done so yet,please give us a follow and make
sure that you hit thenotification button so you'll
know when we drop our nextepisode.
We'll be returning with ourregular programming next week.
Until then, always remember youknow we love you.
We'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
One Good Thing Media is brought to you by our host
and creator, Gerald Spear.
All things technical are byDavid Dodd and our announcer is
Robert Spear.
Our theme song is Force by HGST.
Thank you,
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