May 3, 2024 • 73 mins
Embarking on a path to freedom demands courage, a truth Rachel Holt and Liz Humble know all too well. As survivor sisters, they share their gripping tales of escaping the IFB cult, navigating the aftershocks of a controlled upbringing, and the liberating struggle towards healing. Their book, "The King James Virgins," serves as a backdrop to a candid conversation that also spills into their podcast, "Sisters Declassified Life Survival Guide," where they fuse life lessons with actionable advice for those walking similar paths to recovery.
Parenting after cult life presents an intricate dance between providing structure and fostering independence. The sisters delve into their personal experiences, discussing the critical role of supportive partners and the importance of family in reassembling a life once dictated by oppressive control. Their stories of raising children in the shadow of their past resonate deeply, offering a beacon to others striving to break free from generational cycles of restriction.
In an atmosphere where trust is often a casualty of betrayal, Rachel and Liz courageously confront the darker chapters of their past. They engage in a raw reflection on abuse, the complexities of finding trustworthy therapeutic support, and the power of owning one's narrative. Their journey is a testament to resilience, a guidepost for navigating the murky waters of trauma, and an invitation to listeners to embark on their own journey of healing, bolstered by the strength found in honesty, humility, and sisterhood.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am so happy to have Rachel and Liz with me today.
It's so nice to be able to meetyou, and I can't wait for our
conversation, and so let's getcooking.
Where I want to start with you.
Other, rachel, if you can takea few moments to introduce
yourself, and then we'll move onto Liz, go for it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Excellent.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to be here also.
It's been a long journey.
My name is Rachel Holt, asopposed to Rachel Bernstein,
which is going to be an ongoingthing.
I currently am in San Diego,california.
I teach dance and Pilates and Iam a IFB cult survivor.
(00:47):
I am also a co-author of a bookthat my sister and I, elizabeth
, whom you'll soon meet wroteabout our experience growing up
in that, and I'm really excitedto talk to Rachel Bernstein
about this and to just go withher through this journey of what
that looks like for you as thelistener.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh, it's so nice.
And also, do you have a workingtitle for the book yet or no,
we do.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The King James Virgins, that is so good, that's
so good.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You know what happens when you come up with a great,
really catchy title.
There are going to be a lot ofpeople out there going, oh why
didn't I think of that?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Right, that's a good one.
It's as though it was there allthe time, and then I also think
about it as being timeless,right.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh, that's good, Right, that's right.
And Liz, do you want me to callyou Liz or Elizabeth?
Yeah, liz is great, okay, cool,all right, so take a few
moments and introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Okay, I am Liz or Elizabeth Humble.
I go by Liz.
I currently own a couple ofbusinesses a food truck, a
barbering business, alterationshop.
I just work a lot as well asworking on, like what Rachel
said, the book and the.
We have a podcast we work onevery week.
So we grew up in IFB, in thesame one, until around the age I
(02:16):
was about 21 when we finallygot out.
So I've been out for about 25years.
So we are living life outsideof that now, which is amazing.
But there has been a lot ofhurdles in life to get over and
to deal with and in all aspectsof life, including when you're
(02:39):
raised in something, not knowinghow to raise your own children,
things like that.
Both of us have our kids grown.
So interesting life after thecult and also inside of it.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So, liz, you mentioned in your intro
something about a podcast, sotell us about it.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We call it Sisters Declassified Life Survival Guide
.
So it's kind of a take on ashow our kids watched growing up
, but it's two sisters with fourdaughters fishing drama, trauma
and survival tips for theeveryday.
It's kind of a long name but itkind of fit and we basically
talk about we do like a how-toevery week.
(03:18):
It's by week, so every otherweek but we do a how-to and then
we do a define this and so wekind of do different things and
we incorporate the cult.
We incorporate, you know,raising children.
It's basically like listeningin on a conversation with me and
my sister, so talking aboutrandom things, but also you know
(03:40):
just how to, how to live everyday, because there's so many
challenges we face all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Know just how to, how to live every day, because
there's so many challenges weface all the times, right, right
.
So I'm making a note to comeback to this idea of raising
kids and, you know, being raisedin a different tradition,
that's going to have verydifferent views on child rearing
, child development.
Actually, usually there are noviews on child development, but
there is a lot about.
(04:05):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, there's just a lot of rules that are not
connected to what is natural toexpect at each stage of
development, and also without asensitivity about not only
what's possible but what'shealthy.
It's totally devoid of all ofthose things.
(04:30):
So I just want to make sure toget into that, just as you
became moms yourself and I know,rachel, you were going to
mention something, as Liz wastalking about the podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh, I was just going to expand on the podcast, that
it really came out of an ideathat we want the whole reason
for basically 25 years out,coming out and doing something
like this.
I will reiterate the fact thatit took us about 25 years to
really be able to go to thisplace where we're able to talk
about it and to write about itand to work through all of the
(05:00):
things because our podcast, ifwe would have started this 20
years ago and we would haverecorded our phone conversations
between the two of us as weco-raise daughters and we call
them roommates one through four,so Liz has three and I have one
, so mine's the youngest, Liz'sfirst was the eldest, so it's
(05:20):
roommate one through four.
We call them our roommatesbecause we don't want to use
their names all the time anddeluge them in this therapeutic
experiment that we have going on.
That podcast is a thing isbecause we know we're not the
(05:47):
only ones and that theexperience that we had with
raising daughters and going outof this you know world viewpoint
, which actually we had no ideawhat was out there, we had no
idea how to do it or how toraise our kids, but we had each
other, and that was a really,really critical thing, Whereas
had we been solo siblings, itwould have been a very different
thing.
But also the interest or theidea that we had is okay.
(06:11):
Well, had we recorded our phoneconversations 20 years ago, we
would have had a book, we wouldhave had a feature film, we
would have had spinoffs, wewould have had a TV series.
It would have been a wholething, Because our phone
conversations are just real.
They're what's going on in ourlife right now and how we're
dealing with it and how wemanage to deal with the life
(06:33):
that we had, the life that weleft and then the life that
we're now living and trying tohurdle all of these monumental
tasks at the moment.
But then how we dealt with themand we talked through them as
sisters and as both cultsurvivors, but then also as
females, mothers, women.
Wife Liz is a wife and rightdealing with all that.
(06:56):
So it's a cacophony ofeverything that we are and who
we want to be, and then also thedirty, nitty, gritty, nuts and
bolts of getting through thesethings on a daily basis.
And that was the point is tosort of be, you know, an
inspiration.
I mean people are going to dipin and just listen to it out of
(07:17):
pure voyeurism.
But that was the goal is to tryand reach out to those who also
have gone through this, or itcould be a similar experience,
it could be another trauma,something else.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Right.
So I think about also, when Istarted my podcast, it suddenly
dawned on me and I mean,podcasting became more of a
thing around that time anyway.
But I think at the time that Iwas thinking about the podcast,
I was thinking I've been alreadydoing this for whatever 25
years or so and that means thatI've heard many stories up until
(07:48):
that point.
Many, many, many, and I had hadthat thought over and over of
someone else should be learningfrom this, like this shouldn't
just be something that peopleare sharing with me in my office
.
I mean, even though that is thepoint of therapy and I'm going
to help them, but still thesepoints are really important.
I mean, even though that is thepoint of therapy and I'm going
to help them, but still thesepoints are really important, I
think, for the public to knowand also for people's healing,
(08:10):
sometimes just coming forwardwith their story and putting it
into words, feeling brave totell it, not feeling like they
have to keep the secrets of theplace anymore or the secrets of
a perpetrator anymore, becausethey don't deserve that right.
I think it was sort of awin-win, like the public got
educated and people also wereable to feel empowered by being
(08:32):
able to talk.
You mentioned that it took along time to start putting the
thoughts together for a book orthinking about a book, and I'm
curious, before we even get intoyour story, just about that,
about that delay, and also Ijust want to add this caveat,
which is that not everyone needsto tell their story.
It's okay, and some people havecontacted me almost
(08:54):
apologetically, like I'm justdon't think I'll ever be ready.
It isn't something you have todo, it's only really if you feel
like you want to.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I like that point a lot.
It's actually what drove us tothis or at least myself and Liz
can speak for herself also.
For years, everyone's told usyou need to write a book, you
need to write a book.
Right when they hear ourstories and one of the probably
smartest people I know said thatyou can't write until you have
to.
And for Liz and I both becauseour daughters are relatively
(09:24):
close in age, so we were bothsort of empty nesters around the
same time, and it was as thoughwe had a task, we had it done
and then we could move on.
And then I would say a lot ofthis has to do with political
climate.
It felt compelling.
We had to.
If that makes sense, you can'twrite until you have to.
(09:47):
I never felt like I had tountil when we started writing
the book, and I think Liz hadthe same experience, but I'll
let her speak for that.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, I'm really glad , though, that you mentioned
that.
Yes, because people have saidto me and it's happened actually
in the support group I wasrunning last night where people
say I feel bad that I haven'tcome forward or I'm not even
ready to talk, even in thisgroup, like I've come and I want
to listen, but I'm not ready toeven speak it or say the word
cult, or you know, everyone's ata different point and what is
(10:18):
monumental for one person isjust maybe that they have left
and stayed out, or that they'vetold one friend, you know, and
that is sufficient, because thatwas a big deal and you can put
a period at the end of that,unless you start to get that
drive and the have-tos.
It's interesting, right, okay,and so, liz, from your
(10:38):
perspective, what was that aboutfor you?
About the delay and putting pento paper, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think exactly pretty much what my sister said.
As far as raising the children,we lived very close to each
other for about three years inSouthern California and we would
get together almost every dayand we would talk about it and
we were like we need to do this,we need to do this.
But there was always and I don'twant to say that our kids were
(11:06):
the reason we did it, but thatwas more important at the time
to just try and do that, becauseI don't think, honestly, I
could have mentally handledwriting the book because it was
extremely therapeutic for me.
I haven't had traditionaltherapy like Rachel has, and so
(11:27):
for me, writing it was the firsttime I had actually wrote a lot
of that stuff down and put itout there.
So as soon as I wrote it down,it was very therapeutic.
But I think if I would havetried to do that while I was
raising my kids, it would havebeen traumatic and I don't feel
like I'm done raising my kids.
They're grown and out of thehouse, but they're still, you
(11:49):
know, still need mom.
But it's a whole differentstory when you're not there with
them on the daily, you know,and you have more time and
headspace to focus on that andeven concentrate on what you
want to actually put on paper.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right and I think that's really beautifully said,
though about being able to checkin with yourself and think is
this the right time?
Is this going to just fragmentme, is this going to be too much
and I'm not going to be able tobe present?
I mean so much of what happenswhen people and that's why I
want to hear more about your ownstory early on, when people are
(12:27):
raised in these environments,they do get the feeling from
their families, often from thecommunity often, that they don't
matter as much as the church,as much as God, as much as other
things or something standingbetween you or something
standing between you.
(12:48):
I think how healing for you toknow that you could put your
kids first, that this, thechurch, all of it, was not going
to stand in between you, whichI think is really powerful,
actually, and spot on.
Okay, so let's talk about firstwith your parents getting
involved and how far back itgoes.
Did it start with your folks orbefore them?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
My dad and mom were in the Marines and they found an
independent fundamental Baptistchurch when she was in boot
camp, where they met.
So at their first station theymet, found a church, my dad got
himself into some trouble, toprison, and my mom was in
(13:26):
colorado, like they hadn't.
They had moved around a bunchbut ended up in colorado.
I was two, rachel was about one, because we're only a year
apart.
So, um, my mom, someone cameand knocked on her door and
invited her to this church andshe said that she felt like she
needed To go and this was theplace that God wanted her to be
(13:47):
at.
So she went.
So that's literally all we knew.
I from the time.
I was two.
So I was in the nursery at thetime, you know, up until I got
married and then my husband andI eventually left.
Rachel was a baby, so samething in the nursery, so it was
my mom, but she has no.
Her parents were totallydifferent.
(14:09):
So my dad and mom got divorcedwhen I was five.
He had got out of prison forone thing and then he was back
in prison and then they gotdivorced.
He was in and out, he was kindof a mess, but my mom stayed
with it.
She felt a lot of support fromthem in the younger years so she
felt like it was a place, asafe space.
(14:31):
She actually believed that andI think in the beginning it
probably was a good supportsystem for her Raising three
kids on her own basically.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Wow, incredible.
Okay, that's a lot.
From that history, too, you cansee that both your parents were
in what I would see asrestrictive environments, with
bootcamp, with prison, whichsome people have likened to
being like prison, or prisonbeing like boot camp.
(15:03):
It's interesting.
And so being told what to do,you know, having something
highly, highly structured whereyou don't have a say, you can't
ask questions, it's interesting.
Okay, yeah, go ahead, rachel,you want to add to that?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So I'll bring into that, because it is psychology,
it is the cult, it is what we'redealing with in terms of a lot
of things right now, and this isanother reason why Liz and I
both felt we had to speak now isbecause we've seen this before.
We know this pattern.
It's not rocket science.
So my mother left herrestrictive parents and that
(15:41):
environment to go to a morerestrictive environment which
she felt safe in.
My father was abused horriblyas a child and then also found
the same thing right, but theyagain repeat the pattern of
abuse.
My mother has never felt safewithout that structure, without
someone having that control overher life, where she didn't have
(16:04):
to make decisions, and that'salmost like a developmental
retardation, and I use that inthe exact word or meaning that
it's meant to be.
It's that you don't have theskills or the toolkit to
actually make decisions on yourown.
Therefore, you're going to let.
There's a permission structurethere allowing someone to take
over, and I think that that waspart of it where my mom was so.
Therefore, you're going to letright, there's a permission
structure there allowing someoneto take over, and I think that
(16:27):
that was part of it where my momwas so overwhelmed with three
kids by herself as a singleparent that that made sense for
her to have the structure, tohave a surrounding community
that helped her make thedecisions without having to do
them all on her own.
And that's a repetitive patternof behavior.
(16:48):
And Liz and I, both in our verydifferent ways, made very sure
that we did not raise our kidsthat way and in varied
differences we were very and Ithink this is common.
You try and not create the sameenvironment you were raised in
and, to our dismay or not,that's how it works.
(17:10):
And of course we choose variedpaths and they're all different
and I don't think any of themare wrong.
But I do think the importantpart is that we recognize where
we come from and then also we'reable to go okay, that's not the
right path, we shouldn't bethere.
And then how do we change it orhow do we correct it.
And healing yourself is a bigpart of that.
(17:32):
And that I think for both of uswas a wake up call to go okay,
we have priorities now.
We have to fix ourselves tomove forward.
So Liz's telling of the originstory, if you will move forward.
So Liz's telling of the originstory, if you will, is also a
reflection back on what we lostin terms of that and then also
(17:52):
what we knew we lost and thenhad to regain with our second
generation, our kids.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Okay, my goodness Right.
So when you were talking abouta structure that answers the
questions or just keeps you frombeing able to ask any, what is
really interesting, too, is theamount of inherent gaslighting
that's, in that that you learnthat you can't make decisions
right, or you shouldn't, becauseif left up to you, you would
(18:20):
make the wrong ones right Likewho according to whom?
You'd make the wrong ones rightLike who according to whom?
And a lot of times the advicethat you get in these places is
so off but you listen to itanyway, and people often will
say once I could shed myself ofthinking I had to defer to the
other person to tell me what todo, or to the leadership, or to
(18:41):
my disciple or whomever,whatever the role was or
whatever the title was.
I realized that there I mean,I've heard, I actually heard
this last night their advicesucked was was actually the
phrase, but I had to follow itand I.
But I just thought, well, evenif there's my suck, so to speak,
mine is going to be worse.
Well, no, not necessarily,because yours is going to be
(19:02):
intuitive and yours is going tobe checking in with you and it's
going to be reading the roomand it's going to be filled with
a lot of things that someoneelse sitting in an office or
whatever doesn't really know youis.
Not only do I get to, but I'mable, is a huge leap.
I think people don't realizewhat a monumental leap that is
(19:31):
and how nerve wracking it isalso, especially if you make a
decision and it turned out tonot be the right one, to just be
able to say whoops and not.
Well then that's it, I'm never.
I learned my lesson.
I'm never going to make adecision again.
But just really to have it be awhoops, because most of the
world outside is going to treatit that way, that it's a whoops,
and often in these kinds ofrestrictive environments if you
(19:55):
make a mistake, well then that'sit.
That just proves somethinglifelong about you.
I mean, there's so much risk,you know, for making a mistake.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Rachel, you bring up exactly what Liz and I just
talked about, actually on ourother podcast, because we're
talking about the fact that evensocial media is a restrictive
environment, particularly foryounger kids.
Their like buttons are theirwhole world, so they're
encapsulated and restrictedwithin this like button and
they're afraid to fail and youcan't be.
(20:26):
And we just got over describingthis fear of failure and it's
in the public realm.
But Liz and I, with our phoneconversations, we ultimately
figured out we could fail andfall flat on our face every
single time, parenting-wise,life-wise, making decisions, but
(20:46):
we had each other and that wasreally really the tie that binds
for us in terms of that, andour mom still struggles with it.
I didn't mean to bring this up,liz, but I'm like my God she's
talking about mom, because it'sa fear of making a poor choice.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And it's like, but that's also a choice.
Yeah, and it's like, but that'salso a choice.
Yeah, right, exactly, it's alsoa choice and you learn that you
can deal with the consequencesand you also can learn that in
the world outside, theconsequences are not so severe
or swift and it's not adamnation of you and your sense
of agency.
I know know raising my kids tobe strong, to be individuals
(21:27):
still needing to be respectful,but being able to voice what's
on their mind.
You know, sometimes it's alittle hard, because I would say
something and they'd say hmm,or we could look at it like this
and they were kind of right,and so I would joke.
I'd be like, damn it, you know,like you're.
So, okay, let's start thisagain, the scene of me being a
(21:50):
really wise parent.
Take two, and then I would justquote them to them.
You know you can try to make itfunny, but, liz, what are your
thoughts about this?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I definitely think my kids do have a hard time making
decisions.
I have fallen flat on my face amillion times.
My kids have seen me fall flaton my face.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I'm just going to interject for comedy, both
literally and physically.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Okay, yeah, I'm kind of a clumsy person, so yeah
literally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
you're right In the charmingest of ways.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Okay, gotcha, I tried to let them make decisions as
they were growing up, becauseall of our decisions were taken
away from us.
We didn't get to choose if wewere going to do something or
not.
We lived in such a world whereit was these are the rules, you
follow them and these are theconsequences.
(22:49):
And sometimes the consequenceswere more extreme than others.
Sometimes they didn't followthe consequences, but the rules
were always there, and then theywould make up rules inside of
the rules.
And it was just like I livesuch a structured thing and then
with my kids, I tried to letthem be a little bit more of
their own people and failedmiserably many times, because
(23:11):
sometimes they need thatstructure.
So finding a balance was alwaysvery challenging for me Having
too many rules and not havingenough with my kids, especially
when they got a little bit olderand were able to start making
decisions on their own thatweren't life altering, you know.
But, um, I they've seen me doall kinds of ventures Um, I've,
(23:34):
I think, the freedom of notliving inside of those rules and
stuff, and I also have ahusband who's extremely
supportive.
So he, you know, I'm like I'mgoing to start doing this and
he's like okay, go for it.
You know, he's always been verysupportive.
For the most part, I'm going tosay, in the last 20 years of
our relationship, he's beenextremely supportive, probably
(23:54):
seven years outside of the cult,because he came into it a bit
later than I did or a lot later.
I met him inside the cult buthe'd only been there for about a
year and so he was raisednormal if there's a normal
outside of a cult.
He wasn't raised in a cult andso when we met and then when we
(24:15):
left, he just was like okay,back to normal, his normal, and
I was falling apart, but I havealways been able to make
decisions and just like go forit.
And I felt a sense of freedomoutside of that, but many times
fallen on my face.
So, yeah, that's just that hasbeen my experience and sometimes
(24:37):
it's successful and sometimesit's not, but I haven't been
afraid to make decisions.
I think the further outside ofit I get, the more freedom I
feel of being my own person andtaking my own risks and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So I heard you talk about the chronology that he
became more open and accepting,because you know he's, of course
, going to be impacted by theteachings within the group,
(25:12):
which is not going to be aboutletting you do your thing, and
so it's really nice that he wasable to transform over time
along with you, so that you havethis ability to be able to say
I'm going to try this and I'mgoing to do this Because I
noticed in that example youdidn't say is it okay with you
if I?
You just said I'm going to trythis.
(25:32):
I like that.
That's also big.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
She's been that way our whole lives, not necessarily
in the cult, and I think wehave to talk about that a little
bit in terms of like.
We have to talk about that alittle bit in terms of like how,
because I think IFB culture isa 10.
If you take Baptists right, aSouthern Baptist, which you
mentioned at the very beginning,where, like, it's typically
(25:55):
thought of as like a Southernthing, and then all of a sudden
Colorado comes out of nowhere.
But IFB culture in some degreeis like proliferated throughout
the US in little pockets ofstuff, right, kind of like the
Mormon.
And if you take IFB culture andthen you kick it up four
notches, five notches, that'swhere we were in terms of our
(26:20):
thing.
So it was very like for herhusband, liz's husband it was a
huge change, but remember thathis brother at that time was
kind of impacted by that.
He was like, wow, you've changedyour whole world around and he
turned his life around based onthis.
So Liz's husband and, by the way, she got lucky Of anyone I know
(26:44):
that should get lucky aboutthis Liz deserves to be lucky
with finding a good man and howwilling and loving and caring
he's been with her throughoutthis whole journey because it's
been a journey and it's reallyimportant to me that she's taken
care of and I'm so glad thatshe got lucky in terms of
(27:07):
finding this man for her,because she got married a virgin
, she had a honeymoon baby andshe had three babies in four
years, four or five years, threebabies in five years and it was
phenomenal to watch like her gothrough this journey.
(27:28):
Her husband was there.
He's been magnanimous in thiswhole thing because he just came
in blind, not knowing what wasgoing on, and that restrictive
culture and then allowing herthat freedom is really really
like as a sister.
(27:48):
It makes me just go.
Oh my God.
I'm so glad that she has him,you know, and we're there for
each other.
But also he was, he wasridiculously supportive and
still has been, you know, inthis whole thing.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
It's really nice and it's lovely for you, rachel, as
a sister, to be clearly sosupportive and happy for you
know, for your sister.
It's interesting because one ofthe things that I talk about is
that sometimes, when peoplehave been in groups like this,
their relationships with eachother have been weaponized, and
(28:23):
I don't hear a lot of that.
I'm happy for you, and so thatis very meaningful, and I want
to be able to come back to that.
I do want to go into yourhistory, though, just like a day
in the life or a year in thelife.
What was your life like there?
If you're saying this, kickedit up a notch.
So many times can only imagine,so paint us a picture.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Okay.
So obviously both of us werethere from birth.
Basically, I mean earliestmemories Were there inside the
we'll say cult.
I have no problem using thatbecause by every definition of
that it was a cult, everydefinition.
So there's a lot of oh, it's,you know, purgatorial in terms
of like what it is, and I'm likeno, no, no, no, it's not.
(29:09):
It clearly definitively was acult.
So I have no problem using thatword and I will defend it and I
don't mind that.
So our earliest memories,everything we knew, was
surrounded by a um, we'll say acommunity.
And in honesty, I think Liz andI I think Liz will agree with
me on this In all honesty, wehad an idyllic childhood.
(29:32):
We had a diverse and a verymother and we had multiple
siblings who were friends.
We had multiple people on whichwe were raised in.
(29:57):
So if you want to say it takesa village, that's what we were
raised in from our primary right.
So if we talk about childdevelopment, primary was
actually quite developmentallystimulating.
It was good for us.
We actually, liz and I, areavid readers.
We didn't have television,secular books, we didn't have a
(30:18):
radio, so we were very muchsheltered in this little bubble
that we lived in.
When her and I went to school,it was not at a public school,
it was at a church school.
So most of our days look likewe would wake up very early in
the morning, we would go to thechurch and or school in our
primary years I'm specificallyreferring to those and we would
(30:41):
have all day with ourschoolmates and our classmates,
and most of that was surroundedby the exact same people that we
knew from church.
On Sundays, all day, we were atchurch.
On Mondays, we were at schoolall day.
On Tuesdays, we were at schoolall day.
On Wednesdays, we would go toschool, and then we would have
church in the evenings.
On Thursdays, we would go toschool all day.
We would have proselytizing inthe evenings.
(31:04):
On Fridays, we would go toschool all day.
On Saturdays, we would get upearly and go to do bus routes or
further proselytization withinthe community, and that would
last most of the day, includingoutreach to marginalized
communities, including homeless,mentally impaired, those kinds
of things, and that would happenall day.
(31:24):
So then we would repeat thatprocess every day.
Our whole entire world revolvedaround this community.
That in all of our bestknowledge of that community was
to help people and that was abig, huge part of it is that
you're here for a higher purpose.
You are going to be in serviceof the community around you and
(31:45):
the community around you isservicing you and they are
taking care of you, they'reeducating you, they are
educating you, they are feedingyou.
My mom, for many years, was aschool teacher.
She was not a certified schoolteacher, nor was she qualified,
but all of our investments inthis world went to that
investment.
My mother was single mom.
(32:06):
She did not have any childsupport, she did not have any
other outlets.
Her community was the churchand she was single mom.
She did not have any childsupport, she did not have any
other outlets.
Her community was the church.
And she was also vulnerable andI can't overstress that point
is that it was a vulnerableposition in her life and she was
preyed upon Absolutely and shedid what she thought was best
(32:27):
for us and that's okay.
So, as and Liz and I have talkedabout this ad nauseum in the
book, it progressively got more.
I don't think anyone joins agroup in a community like that
that's as welcoming without itprogressing to a different point
, and it did so over ourlifetime, between the time Liz
(32:49):
and I went into grade school,primary school, quote unquote
school to the time that I was inmiddle school is where it took
a huge dark shift and startedgetting more repressive, more
rules that you know theguidelines here, you know you
need to be dressed this certainway and you need to act this
(33:09):
certain way, and then the linegot moved and it kept getting
moved and it kept getting movedand it got more and more
restrictive, more and morecontrolling more and more of
your individual thoughts andideas were completely quashed in
terms of this overbearingpurpose, and I think that's
pretty common among cultbehaviors and that definitely we
(33:31):
saw that.
So you know it did reach apoint at which, yeah, her and I
both were, there was a, therewas a breaking point right, okay
, and so, yeah, we certainlywant to talk about the breaking
point.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
When you said also that she was preyed upon, can
you talk a little bit more aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Sure.
So again, my mother, as Lizalready spoke about, was a
Marine.
It was very uncommon in thatera for a woman to join the
Marines.
My mother had a pretty abusivechildhood, in my opinion, and
does not really want to talkabout that, and that's okay, I
(34:09):
understand it.
It's sort of a generationalthing and there are some things
that she's not happy to dealwith.
That's okay, we understand that, and you know that's okay.
In her own time, she wasescaping something that she
didn't want to be in.
She met my father, who was nota father, he was just a sperm
donor, as we lovingly refer tohim, the story of which is death
(34:33):
is also a long one.
She was a single mother withabsolutely no life skills to
which she could rely on tosupport and or provide for her
children and her family, andsomeone knocking at her door,
(34:58):
inviting the community in whichshe so craved, was exactly what
she needed and also what theyand I say they in terms of the
cult we're looking for In termsof loyalty.
You're never going to getsomeone who's more loyal or more
forgiving of wrongdoings whenyou meet a mother who's trying
(35:22):
to provide for her kids and dothe best by them and then also
going well, we're going to dothis now and are you okay with
this?
Well, yeah, well, you'veprovided for me and my children,
including, at times, food.
Liz and I dumpster dived when wewere kids.
We were so poor that we had toat times.
(35:44):
This is a vulnerable populationand I'm not talking about in
terms of race or anything otherthan socioeconomic class.
She had no skills, she had nojob, she had nothing and outside
of being on the welfare systemwhich, at that time, reaganomics
, was right in terms ofRepublican and right-wing
(36:06):
culture, absolutely not okay.
So she avoided food stamps, in away to say, oh, I'm better than
that, but I'm not going tochoose to feed my children.
And who else do I have to relyon?
Oh, the church, right, the cult.
So, therefore, food to Mao,feeding your children, all came
(36:28):
from the church.
So, sustenance, the life, lifegiving her kids, life, giving
her kids food, shelter, housingall came from the church.
So it put her into a square peg, into the hole where she had to
rely on that, because herbelief system was so intertwined
(36:48):
and loyal to this cult that shehad no other option than to
just continue to double down onthat and continue to rely on
that cult to survive her.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When you say prey on them, I felt like they did have
a target.
They did.
This particular brand of cultwent towards military single
moms.
They prayed it's a good word,but they prayed on those types
of people because in a military,you're used to being told what
(37:21):
to do, when to do it, how to doit, and so they pulled those
types of people in.
And then single moms, becausethey were loyal, because they
would provide something thatthey couldn't, and so there was
a lot of single.
There was a huge single mothersgroup in the cult.
There was also, you know,military was huge.
(37:42):
I think probably at one timehalf of the church was military.
You know, there's just therewas a lot of that type of people
that they prayed on becausethey were looking for people to
follow their rules and to followthe system.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And, just like every other cult, it progresses over
time.
Where there were some major,major issues with how it was
structured, that, as their riskgets higher, that they tighten
the rules.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Wow, okay, and I'm wondering then also you know,
liz, if there are more stories.
I mean it's very, very movingwhen you say, rachel, you went
dumpster diving.
What a difficult life.
I mean just having foodinsecurities very hard for
anyone.
What else do you remember, liz?
That really paints a picture ofyour life.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
I just know that we were so mentally immature I
think that was a massive thingfor me.
When I got married I had noclue.
There's no sex education,except both of us were obviously
abused in that situation mysister much younger than I was.
(39:01):
But when you tell someone thatyou were sexually abused at 16,
they're like well, 16-year-old,you know what's going on?
Nope, you don't.
In that type of environmentwhere everything is so
restricted and so you know yougo by these rules and you follow
(39:21):
this and these leaders are likeGod and you know you do
everything they say.
And then when one of thembreaks your trust and you know,
abuses you sexually, emotionally, all of the things, you just go
with it.
And then you have, you have noidea.
(39:42):
I mean, I thought for years thatI was, I had done something
wrong when I was 16, you know,because that's how I was made to
feel and that's how I felt anddidn't even deal with it until
several years ago because it'ssomething that I thought that
was my fault.
(40:02):
But they make you feel soguilty.
I think that I live with guiltnow continuously.
I have a major guilt factor.
I have a guilt factor with mykids.
Anything they bring up.
That happened when they weregrowing up or something that I
did wrong.
It's something that's painfully, but they drilled in us this
guilt that we had to followthese things and if you did
(40:27):
anything outside of that, theguilt was just something that
was ingrained in us, and so Ifeel that I really had a hard
time overcoming that becausethey just I mean, when you're
drilled it for 20 years, it'shard to get that out of your
(40:47):
system.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Well, it's not even just 20 years, it's your whole
life.
Up until that point, for sure.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, so you know, Liz, you were telling a story
and I want to make sure to youknow, to honor some of these
experiences that I know are noteasy to talk about, but they
really help the people listeningunderstand what was so
difficult, what also was part ofthe crux, of what you needed to
(41:17):
heal from after leaving.
So what else would you like usto know about what you went
through?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
In terms of the sexual abuse, I will say that
from the pulpit, from school,from everywhere, there's these
leaders screaming at you abouthow you need to keep yourself
pure and how, and then you havea leader that puts you in these
(41:52):
vulnerable positions and there'sabsolutely the word grooming
applies here because we didn'thave a dad.
So there was this guy that wasmaking me feel like I could
trust him, me feel like I couldtrust him, like I could rely on
(42:16):
him, like he was there to helpme, and then do all of these
nice kind gestures and justdifferent things that he would
say compliments and things likethat, and then eventually start
the abuse and I had no idea howto handle it.
I literally thought, also, I'mthe only one this is happening
(42:36):
to, you know, at the time, andso I can't say a word.
And he said you can't tell mywife this is going on and
because you know, he made mefeel like I paused this to
happen and so you know I'mliving with this.
I lived with it for over 20years before I started dealing
(42:58):
with it because I still feltguilt over it.
So that is one of the hardestthings that I have ever had to
get over.
I think, like Rachel and Italked about earlier, writing
the book and writing all of itdown and actually wrote out the
whole experience.
I wrote out everything and itwas so therapeutic for me just
(43:20):
to put it on paper.
I've kept a journal.
I journal my sister is a verylarge component of therapy.
I had some extremely messed upsituations in the Holt with
therapy, which they call itcounseling with the leader, and
so for me that was off the tablefor years because he, the
(43:47):
leader that I was giving mecounseling, was so inappropriate
and so the leader that wasgiving me counseling was so
inappropriate and so made me souncomfortable and it was not a
good place for me to be.
So I had a lot of issuestrusting somebody to be a
counselor or a therapist oranything like that, because of
(44:07):
how many years of counseling Ihad inside the cult that were so
negative and so bad and I wouldleave in tears and just
thinking there was somethingwrong with me and it was never a
good experience.
But you were not allowed tocease a secular psychiatrist or
a counselor or anything likethat.
The leaders were yourcounselors and those were who
(44:28):
you talked to, but you couldn'ttell them anything without being
judged or being screamed atfrom the pulpit.
They would lay everything outthere what you told them.
So there was no trust, and so Ithink that that has been tough
for me to just trust a therapist.
I've tried to do it a couple oftimes.
I find that journaling has beenone of the best things, and
(44:50):
also my sister and my husbandare also my people, so talking
to them and getting it out therelike that has been very helpful
for me.
So that's how I've sort of Imean that's pretty much how I've
overcome it.
I have not overcome all of it,but I have been able to function
(45:12):
, I feel like, in a way that isproductive and that I can.
It's not in my mind 24-7.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay, I'm really glad to hear that and I think, if
you don't mind taking a fewmoments and talking about the
therapy when you're saying thatit was making you really
uncomfortable.
A lot of people have said thattoo, that they're really nervous
about coming to therapy with mebecause of their experiences in
their church or whatever theywere in and also with group
(45:42):
therapy.
People are nervous becausethey've been called on the
carpet in front of a group thatwas a of set up for shaming, and
so there are people also saidthat I've met with a counselor
who just told me how I was thecause of my abuse, and they also
asked for lots of details and Ifelt like they were kind of
(46:04):
getting turned on by the thingsI was saying, like it just felt
wrong on so many levels.
I'm wondering what felt wrongto you about this.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So I would go to ask for advice or, especially during
my abuse, I went in a lotbecause I thought that I was
doing something wrong and Ineeded to find out what was
wrong with me, that I wouldcause this man to do this to me
and I never said the wordsbecause I couldn't tell him what
(46:36):
was going on, because it was ahorrible sin.
So I couldn't tell him what wasgoing on.
But I would go and talk to himand just tell him what's going
on in my head outside of theabuse, but that I didn't.
I was feeling like I didn'tbelong there anymore.
It was like I was uncomfortablebeing even in the church.
(46:57):
That was when I started toquestion being in the cult, in
the religion, in anything likethat, and I started questioning.
So then I would bring it up andthen that I was questioning
whether God would think thatthese types of things, such as
(47:17):
the way certain situations werehandled or they would, he would
preach people out of the church,which, when I say preach people
out of the church, he would getup at the pulpit.
This is the main leader with anagenda that these people did
wrong and he was going to saywhatever he wanted to say to
(47:37):
make them leave the church andhis goal was to get them to walk
out in the middle of the sermon.
So I would bring things likethat up to him and I'm saying
well, if God is, if somebody issinning, don't you think God
would want them to stay and gethelp?
Why would you want to preachthem out of the pulpit?
(48:00):
And it would immediately I meanI would immediately get shut
down, that I don't know what I'mtalking about.
I am not a man of God, thingslike that.
So any kind of questioning wasnever allowed.
And when I did question, um, andI questioned, I remember asking
him one time this is how naiveI was how I would know if I was
(48:23):
a virgin, because you were notsupposed to get married until
you're a virgin.
And I got asked questions likedo you masturbate until you're a
virgin?
And I got asked questions likedo you masturbate?
Like super uncomfortablequestions like this from
somebody who is, in my opinion,a man of God and it would freak
me out and he would go intospecifics of these things, of
what I did.
(48:43):
And at this time, you know, Iwas just like so embarrassed I
didn't even know what the wordmeant.
There was just so manyuncomfortable conversations like
that that made me think that Icould not trust him any longer
and I eventually quit going andthen going outside of that.
I don't even know how you start, has been my thought.
(49:05):
How do you even start talkingto somebody about your
experiences that doesn'tunderstand?
Because I feel like if youdon't grow up in that situation,
it's very hard to explain itreally is.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
And there are people who will come to see me who will
say I already met with a numberof therapists where I felt like
they just didn't understand orthey weren't open to learning
more about it, or they just keptchanging the subject because
that's not what they learned inschool.
So I do, you know, I'm alwayskind of doing a plug for people
out there who are becomingcounselors, who are becoming
(49:39):
therapists, social workers, toreally learn about this.
But thank you for letting meknow about what that was like
and the fact that you couldn'ttalk about it because it was a
sin oh, my goodness, right andthat you're the one carrying
around the shame and the guilt,which happens almost all the
time, even though you didn't dothat to someone, someone did it
to you, but still, that's how itworks and so sorry.
So anything else, before wetalk about kind of the breaking
(50:03):
point for both of you, any otherstory you want to make sure to
mention?
Speaker 3 (50:07):
I think Rachel's story of her abuse kind of leads
to the breaking point, so thatmight be good for her to share a
little bit of.
I know that her experience wasthe cause of the breaking point
of when we left.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
All right, so then do you feel comfortable getting
into that Rachel for a bit?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
As opposed to Liz, I had a verydifferent version of therapy
and I'm always a fan.
I'm always not pushing peoplebut also suggesting that it's
actually a third party that isoutside of Liz's experience with
(50:50):
it is actually supposed to betrauma-informed and a therapist
who understands and knows whatyou're doing.
But I won't disagree with herin the fact that there are very
few and far between and I willsay that I have been in and out
of therapy since I left the cult, so that's been over 25 years
(51:10):
and I rely on it and I actuallyhave a lot of faith in it.
And Liz is not wrong.
You can have family, you canhave friends and you can have
other tools also available toyou and I think that those are
fine.
And I think that writing thebook with Liz was a huge
therapeutic process for her andI absolutely supported that 100%
(51:32):
.
We had about probably a four tosix month hiatus after writing
that book in which neither of uscould really talk about it or
look at it again.
That is intentional and thatwas intentional and it took some
time and I think that writingis a form of therapy.
(51:52):
So, with that said and Iunderstand and know most of
Liz's history about therapy, ifwe talk about my experience and
(52:13):
sentenced to 12 years in prisonfor sexually assaulting a minor,
and that was with multipleaccounts.
He took a plea deal which I wasnot actually comfortable taking
, but at the time I didn't havea voice for myself and I
couldn't speak up about that.
And had I brothers, I wouldhave been in the courtroom and I
would have faced him personallyand been able to do that.
(52:35):
I was not strong enough at thetime, nor could I have probably
done that.
However, in hindsight I stoodup for what I was abused for and
assaulted for and I took thepower in that situation and that
was quite beneficial to mymental health.
Moving forward from thatexperience, I was sexually
(52:57):
abused from 12 to about 14,multiple times and from a man
who was the pastor's son choirdirector at the cult and also
groomed me for multiple yearsprior to that I ended it.
I didn't feel right.
I didn't know exactly why, butI wasn't sure that this was
(53:17):
correct.
But there's an extremehypocrisy in cult religions
about being untouched virginityand that that is a value upon
which you don't, you're not,allowed to tread in terms of
what you're supposed to do,comportment wise as a female,
(53:39):
and everything that Iexperienced was exactly the
antithesis of that meaning.
That was taken away from me ata very early age, and so those
conflicting terms andconflicting ideologies in my
mind weighed on me heavily for along time.
I had a long period of insomnia, anxiety, still do with that
(54:04):
cognitive dissidence.
That was an ideology of which Iwas trained to believe in and
then also got handed theopposite hand of that.
I didn't speak out about that,I sort of let it happen and then
went along with the program formany, many years.
I also was not a child who wasactually a good rule follower.
(54:26):
I was always outside of the boxand I always made sure that
that was apparent, and my mouthhas always been my weapon of
choice and it was never allowedto be fully extended.
And I do think that there werespecial circumstances
surrounding my particular abusein which it was made to be more
(54:51):
suppressive and or moreoppressive in terms of that, and
I think that that is somethingthat made me actually more vocal
when and if it came to be ableto speak about it.
I dealt with this pain and thisabuse and this massive
repression of who I was and whatI wanted to say and where I
(55:14):
thought things were, and it is acognitive dissonance living a
life in which you knoweverything is wrong about it and
then also getting feedback fromthe every person or entity in
your life that is supposed to bethe authority on this, and
understanding that they'reabsolutely wrong.
So I dealt with that for many,many years.
(55:34):
So by the time.
So 12 was the initial abuse, andthen, when I was 19, I had the
opportunity again probably verycalculated from the cult to go
and attend a parochial collegein Hammond, indiana, which is no
(55:55):
surprise to anyone and afterreturning from that, foray into
what is a different cult, looklike.
I came home and knew exactly toColorado and knew exactly what
I had to do and I had to leave.
I had to get away fromeverything that I knew was
oppressive and I knew was wrong.
(56:16):
But now I had some traction.
I had a little bit of a glimmerof hope in which to see that
there was something else outthere and that I knew that this
was potentially wrong and Ididn't know how or why, but I
knew in my gut that I had to getout and I knew that that came
(56:37):
along with some repercussions,and I knew that a lot of those
were going to probably be losingmy family, losing my friends,
losing that community that Igrew up in an idyllic childhood
and I knew that that wassomething that I would have to
give up and I had to get to thepoint at which I could allow
that to happen.
And I was slowly doing that asI got back.
(57:00):
So it was 1998.
And I was slowly getting backto that idea that okay, if I do
it gradually, if I don't show upfor church on Sunday morning,
if I don't show up to this event, if I slowly, gradually get
myself out, I can kind ofpiecemeal the loss, the grief of
(57:21):
losing all of that at somepoint.
And then I had a breaking point.
And that breaking point camewhen I saw the pattern of abuse.
I'm going to let you take overin a minute, liz.
As far as the breaking point, Iwas slowly doing that gradual
march to let's loss, let's letthis go, and how am I going to
(57:46):
deal with that?
So, emotionally, physically, Ihad already kind of started that
direction.
And then my sister had her firstchild, and that happened before
I got back, so I wasn't therefor the birth, but of course
this child was everything and itwas a girl and it was amazing
(58:06):
and there's no better Aside fromhaving your own children when
your sister has a child.
It was monumental and I was justso overwhelmed with the
emotions of joy and love and allthe things that come with
having a new baby inside thefamily.
That was my sister's and it'salmost like having your own, but
it's not quite and it's evenbetter.
So I'm so overwhelmed with allthese emotions and just the
(58:31):
outpouring of love.
At that point I was almost out.
I was like I could taste thedoor.
It's right there but my sisterwas still in it with her husband
, with the new baby, with my mom, and I couldn't bring myself
yet to tell them that I was goneand that I was going.
And now this new life bringsform to something I can't really
(58:54):
express.
But all of a sudden, there itis, right in front of my face.
Liz, you can take it from there.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Yeah, so that was, she had been missing stuff.
I noticed we talked about itshe was wearing pants.
So I had found out she waswearing pants and I'm like, oh
my gosh, you know, in a strangeturn of events, anyway, we went
to an event it was it wasactually, I believe, a wedding
(59:20):
of somebody out in Black Forest.
Anyway, everybody from thechurch was there and I had my
daughter, who's about six monthsold, and we were there together
, me, my husband, my daughterRachel was there.
And we went to this event andher abuser, which I had no idea
(59:41):
at the time, came over andpicked up my daughter and Rachel
, was way across the room andmade it there in about one
second flat, grabs her and saysdon't you ever let him touch her
again.
(01:00:02):
And I was just like, oh my gosh, what happened?
You know, I had no idea.
I had no idea she had beenabused.
I had no idea any of this.
I had no idea she had beenabused.
I had no idea any of this.
So I just said okay, and itkind of was an abrupt thing.
We ended up leaving.
The next night.
She calls me and said she's atwork at the mall.
And she calls me and she saidyou have to come here right now.
(01:00:26):
I have to talk to you, it's anemergency.
So I went up there.
She spilled everything, told meeverything, all about her abuse
.
That was it, because in my mind, my sister was the most
important thing in the world andthe fact that she had been
abused and had held this in forso long and told me everything.
(01:00:49):
I was like we have to go to thepolice, we have to do this, we
have to do this.
She said don't tell mom.
Of course I told mom and my momgot her to go to the police.
You know, the rest is history.
Of course, there was a wholewhole thing of let's go talk to
the pastors about this and let'sgo talk to them and knew.
They all knew it didn't matter.
(01:01:10):
We left.
It was very abrupt, but we allleft.
My mom followed us, which isamazing, rare and rare and
appreciated.
Yes, yeah, she believed her, shebelieved my sister.
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Well, mom went to the police.
Yeah, I mean, mom and I went tothe police and told my story
only under threat of subpoena,but she made me do it and you
know, that was a time mom stoodup for us.
She didn't when we were growingup, but she got the opportunity
(01:01:50):
, she saw the wrongdoing and shedid the right thing, and that's
really, really powerful interms of women and mom and
raising kids and family, and allof that Because when she got
handed the opportunity to do theright thing, she did, and
that's basically what led to,yeah, we had a criminal, uh, we
(01:02:13):
had a criminal suit.
Um, he did go to prison.
He actually lives near Lizright now in Oklahoma.
So you know I'd be happy tostart a campaign against him,
but anyway, um, but yeah, again,Scott free now, um, probably
grooming and doing God knowswhat to other women, but that's
(01:02:34):
our system.
He did go to prison, he did.
We subsequently sued theorganization, the church,
basically their insurancecompany, and I got a civil
lawsuit.
It's a long story, but 25 yearsago 99 is when this all went
(01:02:55):
down, and it took us that long,though, to figure out.
Oh God, we actually have apriority now.
We have kids.
We're not going to let our kidsgrow up in a cult.
We're not going to let themgrow up under a oppressed
environment of where their ideasdon't matter and where their
female voices don't matter.
They are going to be loud andheard, no matter what, even if
(01:03:15):
it's to our detriment.
And Liz, every fucking morningexcuse me every morning she's
like, oh God, the girls havedone this bullshit.
And I'm like that's fine,they're allowed to say their
voice, they're allowed to speak,they're allowed to be the
imbeciles that they are at thisyoung age and that's okay.
(01:03:37):
The freedom that we've been ableto give our kids, because we
took that into our and and uh,there's a lot of, I would say,
like, hoopla right now about theifb and there's been some
documentaries and stuff, and Iwas like, oh, okay, well, we
should get on that.
And then Liz and I both arelike no, we're over it, partly
(01:03:58):
being because we've been out ofit 25 years, we have a bit more
clarity, we have a bit more oflike insight as to what the
journey looks like for someonecoming out of this, as to what
the journey looks like forsomeone coming out of this, and
it's harrowing, it's hard, it'sarduous.
It's something that, unless youhave you know the cumption and
(01:04:21):
the wherewithal to figure outand then critically think for
yourself, which is somethingthat is not taught and we had to
learn on our own.
You know, I went througheducation system publicly and
Liz went through her own versionof it also, but we both have
degrees.
We're both in the real worlddoing our thing right now, but
(01:04:42):
it was not without scars.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
That's incredible.
I know we're unfortunately donewith time, but I'm hoping that
you both can come back so we cancontinue, because I want to
hear so much more about thismoment and the transition out
and the challenges of that, and,even though some things are
(01:05:07):
going to feel so clear and like,yes, they're going to be, these
other moments of greattrepidation, real worry and a
lot of trial and error.
You know it's interesting thatI mean it's beautiful that the
two of you have each other andthe fact that, liz, you could
call Rachel and say, like mygirls just did this.
You know, I feel like there arethese themes that can be
(01:05:27):
applied to, especially when kidsare preteen and teen, that I
think their life can be undertwo headings, which is I thought
it was a good idea at the timeand that sounded better in my
head, and so I think they'relearning while you're learning
(01:05:48):
and parents are learning as theygo, but also people who just
were not raised in this way.
Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
In every sense of that term, rachel.
We grew up together with ourkids, absolutely because, like
Liz iterated to earlier, she wasabused at 16.
She was not a 16-year-old at 16.
Because of the suppression ofthe cult, she was probably
(01:06:15):
closer to 12, 13 developmentally.
And then, when we had kids andLiz had her first kid at 19, we
raised our kids with us.
We were growing, we werelearning about the real world as
they were learning it.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
And that's a really nice thing.
I mean, that takes a lot ofreally beautiful honesty and
humility to be able to say thatand to acknowledge that and that
you don't have to be the I knowbest parent, right?
You know kids need to know thattheir parents know some things
beyond what they know, but youdon't have to always know
everything, and your process oflearning is actually a great
(01:07:00):
model for them to see that it istrue that we are all kind of
transitioning into being moreable, having more wisdom as we
go.
So, yeah, so let's make sure tofind another time to continue
this conversation, and then Ialso want to hear more about the
book that you put together, solet's get that on the calendar.
(01:07:22):
I am so happy to at least havestarted the conversation with
both of you, and it's beautifulto see your relationship with
each other and how strengtheningit's been and how much wisdom
you share with our listeners.
It's really very powerful.
And your honesty it's alsoreally beautiful.
(01:07:43):
Thank you so much for ourconversation today.
Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Thank you, rachel, thank you.
I am so happy to have Rachel and Liz with me today.
It's so nice to be able to meetyou, and I can't wait for our
conversation, and so let's getcooking.
Where I want to start with you.
Other, rachel, if you can takea few moments to introduce
yourself, and then we'll move onto Liz, go for it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Excellent.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to be here also.
It's been a long journey.
My name is Rachel Holt, asopposed to Rachel Bernstein,
which is going to be an ongoingthing.
I currently am in San Diego,california.
I teach dance and Pilates and Iam a IFB cult survivor.
(00:47):
I am also a co-author of a bookthat my sister and I, elizabeth
, whom you'll soon meet wroteabout our experience growing up
in that, and I'm really excitedto talk to Rachel Bernstein
about this and to just go withher through this journey of what
that looks like for you as thelistener.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh, it's so nice.
And also, do you have a workingtitle for the book yet or no,
we do.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The King James Virgins, that is so good, that's
so good.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You know what happens when you come up with a great,
really catchy title.
There are going to be a lot ofpeople out there going, oh why
didn't I think of that?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Right, that's a good one.
It's as though it was there allthe time, and then I also think
about it as being timeless,right.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh, that's good, Right, that's right.
And Liz, do you want me to callyou Liz or Elizabeth?
Yeah, liz is great, okay, cool,all right, so take a few
moments and introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Okay, I am Liz or Elizabeth Humble.
I go by Liz.
I currently own a couple ofbusinesses a food truck, a
barbering business, alterationshop.
I just work a lot as well asworking on, like what Rachel
said, the book and the.
We have a podcast we work onevery week.
So we grew up in IFB, in thesame one, until around the age I
(02:16):
was about 21 when we finallygot out.
So I've been out for about 25years.
So we are living life outsideof that now, which is amazing.
But there has been a lot ofhurdles in life to get over and
to deal with and in all aspectsof life, including when you're
(02:39):
raised in something, not knowinghow to raise your own children,
things like that.
Both of us have our kids grown.
So interesting life after thecult and also inside of it.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So, liz, you mentioned in your intro
something about a podcast, sotell us about it.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We call it Sisters Declassified Life Survival Guide
.
So it's kind of a take on ashow our kids watched growing up
, but it's two sisters with fourdaughters fishing drama, trauma
and survival tips for theeveryday.
It's kind of a long name but itkind of fit and we basically
talk about we do like a how-toevery week.
(03:18):
It's by week, so every otherweek but we do a how-to and then
we do a define this and so wekind of do different things and
we incorporate the cult.
We incorporate, you know,raising children.
It's basically like listeningin on a conversation with me and
my sister, so talking aboutrandom things, but also you know
(03:40):
just how to, how to live everyday, because there's so many
challenges we face all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Know just how to, how to live every day, because
there's so many challenges weface all the times, right, right
.
So I'm making a note to comeback to this idea of raising
kids and, you know, being raisedin a different tradition,
that's going to have verydifferent views on child rearing
, child development.
Actually, usually there are noviews on child development, but
there is a lot about.
(04:05):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, there's just a lot of rules that are not
connected to what is natural toexpect at each stage of
development, and also without asensitivity about not only
what's possible but what'shealthy.
It's totally devoid of all ofthose things.
(04:30):
So I just want to make sure toget into that, just as you
became moms yourself and I know,rachel, you were going to
mention something, as Liz wastalking about the podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh, I was just going to expand on the podcast, that
it really came out of an ideathat we want the whole reason
for basically 25 years out,coming out and doing something
like this.
I will reiterate the fact thatit took us about 25 years to
really be able to go to thisplace where we're able to talk
about it and to write about itand to work through all of the
(05:00):
things because our podcast, ifwe would have started this 20
years ago and we would haverecorded our phone conversations
between the two of us as weco-raise daughters and we call
them roommates one through four,so Liz has three and I have one
, so mine's the youngest, Liz'sfirst was the eldest, so it's
(05:20):
roommate one through four.
We call them our roommatesbecause we don't want to use
their names all the time anddeluge them in this therapeutic
experiment that we have going on.
That podcast is a thing isbecause we know we're not the
(05:47):
only ones and that theexperience that we had with
raising daughters and going outof this you know world viewpoint
, which actually we had no ideawhat was out there, we had no
idea how to do it or how toraise our kids, but we had each
other, and that was a really,really critical thing, Whereas
had we been solo siblings, itwould have been a very different
thing.
But also the interest or theidea that we had is okay.
(06:11):
Well, had we recorded our phoneconversations 20 years ago, we
would have had a book, we wouldhave had a feature film, we
would have had spinoffs, wewould have had a TV series.
It would have been a wholething, Because our phone
conversations are just real.
They're what's going on in ourlife right now and how we're
dealing with it and how wemanage to deal with the life
(06:33):
that we had, the life that weleft and then the life that
we're now living and trying tohurdle all of these monumental
tasks at the moment.
But then how we dealt with themand we talked through them as
sisters and as both cultsurvivors, but then also as
females, mothers, women.
Wife Liz is a wife and rightdealing with all that.
(06:56):
So it's a cacophony ofeverything that we are and who
we want to be, and then also thedirty, nitty, gritty, nuts and
bolts of getting through thesethings on a daily basis.
And that was the point is tosort of be, you know, an
inspiration.
I mean people are going to dipin and just listen to it out of
(07:17):
pure voyeurism.
But that was the goal is to tryand reach out to those who also
have gone through this, or itcould be a similar experience,
it could be another trauma,something else.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Right.
So I think about also, when Istarted my podcast, it suddenly
dawned on me and I mean,podcasting became more of a
thing around that time anyway.
But I think at the time that Iwas thinking about the podcast,
I was thinking I've been alreadydoing this for whatever 25
years or so and that means thatI've heard many stories up until
(07:48):
that point.
Many, many, many, and I had hadthat thought over and over of
someone else should be learningfrom this, like this shouldn't
just be something that peopleare sharing with me in my office
.
I mean, even though that is thepoint of therapy and I'm going
to help them, but still thesepoints are really important.
I mean, even though that is thepoint of therapy and I'm going
to help them, but still thesepoints are really important, I
think, for the public to knowand also for people's healing,
(08:10):
sometimes just coming forwardwith their story and putting it
into words, feeling brave totell it, not feeling like they
have to keep the secrets of theplace anymore or the secrets of
a perpetrator anymore, becausethey don't deserve that right.
I think it was sort of awin-win, like the public got
educated and people also wereable to feel empowered by being
(08:32):
able to talk.
You mentioned that it took along time to start putting the
thoughts together for a book orthinking about a book, and I'm
curious, before we even get intoyour story, just about that,
about that delay, and also Ijust want to add this caveat,
which is that not everyone needsto tell their story.
It's okay, and some people havecontacted me almost
(08:54):
apologetically, like I'm justdon't think I'll ever be ready.
It isn't something you have todo, it's only really if you feel
like you want to.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I like that point a lot.
It's actually what drove us tothis or at least myself and Liz
can speak for herself also.
For years, everyone's told usyou need to write a book, you
need to write a book.
Right when they hear ourstories and one of the probably
smartest people I know said thatyou can't write until you have
to.
And for Liz and I both becauseour daughters are relatively
(09:24):
close in age, so we were bothsort of empty nesters around the
same time, and it was as thoughwe had a task, we had it done
and then we could move on.
And then I would say a lot ofthis has to do with political
climate.
It felt compelling.
We had to.
If that makes sense, you can'twrite until you have to.
(09:47):
I never felt like I had tountil when we started writing
the book, and I think Liz hadthe same experience, but I'll
let her speak for that.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, I'm really glad , though, that you mentioned
that.
Yes, because people have saidto me and it's happened actually
in the support group I wasrunning last night where people
say I feel bad that I haven'tcome forward or I'm not even
ready to talk, even in thisgroup, like I've come and I want
to listen, but I'm not ready toeven speak it or say the word
cult, or you know, everyone's ata different point and what is
(10:18):
monumental for one person isjust maybe that they have left
and stayed out, or that they'vetold one friend, you know, and
that is sufficient, because thatwas a big deal and you can put
a period at the end of that,unless you start to get that
drive and the have-tos.
It's interesting, right, okay,and so, liz, from your
(10:38):
perspective, what was that aboutfor you?
About the delay and putting pento paper, so to speak.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think exactly pretty much what my sister said.
As far as raising the children,we lived very close to each
other for about three years inSouthern California and we would
get together almost every dayand we would talk about it and
we were like we need to do this,we need to do this.
But there was always and I don'twant to say that our kids were
(11:06):
the reason we did it, but thatwas more important at the time
to just try and do that, becauseI don't think, honestly, I
could have mentally handledwriting the book because it was
extremely therapeutic for me.
I haven't had traditionaltherapy like Rachel has, and so
(11:27):
for me, writing it was the firsttime I had actually wrote a lot
of that stuff down and put itout there.
So as soon as I wrote it down,it was very therapeutic.
But I think if I would havetried to do that while I was
raising my kids, it would havebeen traumatic and I don't feel
like I'm done raising my kids.
They're grown and out of thehouse, but they're still, you
(11:49):
know, still need mom.
But it's a whole differentstory when you're not there with
them on the daily, you know,and you have more time and
headspace to focus on that andeven concentrate on what you
want to actually put on paper.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right and I think that's really beautifully said,
though about being able to checkin with yourself and think is
this the right time?
Is this going to just fragmentme, is this going to be too much
and I'm not going to be able tobe present?
I mean so much of what happenswhen people and that's why I
want to hear more about your ownstory early on, when people are
(12:27):
raised in these environments,they do get the feeling from
their families, often from thecommunity often, that they don't
matter as much as the church,as much as God, as much as other
things or something standingbetween you or something
standing between you.
(12:48):
I think how healing for you toknow that you could put your
kids first, that this, thechurch, all of it, was not going
to stand in between you, whichI think is really powerful,
actually, and spot on.
Okay, so let's talk about firstwith your parents getting
involved and how far back itgoes.
Did it start with your folks orbefore them?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
My dad and mom were in the Marines and they found an
independent fundamental Baptistchurch when she was in boot
camp, where they met.
So at their first station theymet, found a church, my dad got
himself into some trouble, toprison, and my mom was in
(13:26):
colorado, like they hadn't.
They had moved around a bunchbut ended up in colorado.
I was two, rachel was about one, because we're only a year
apart.
So, um, my mom, someone cameand knocked on her door and
invited her to this church andshe said that she felt like she
needed To go and this was theplace that God wanted her to be
(13:47):
at.
So she went.
So that's literally all we knew.
I from the time.
I was two.
So I was in the nursery at thetime, you know, up until I got
married and then my husband andI eventually left.
Rachel was a baby, so samething in the nursery, so it was
my mom, but she has no.
Her parents were totallydifferent.
(14:09):
So my dad and mom got divorcedwhen I was five.
He had got out of prison forone thing and then he was back
in prison and then they gotdivorced.
He was in and out, he was kindof a mess, but my mom stayed
with it.
She felt a lot of support fromthem in the younger years so she
felt like it was a place, asafe space.
(14:31):
She actually believed that andI think in the beginning it
probably was a good supportsystem for her Raising three
kids on her own basically.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Wow, incredible.
Okay, that's a lot.
From that history, too, you cansee that both your parents were
in what I would see asrestrictive environments, with
bootcamp, with prison, whichsome people have likened to
being like prison, or prisonbeing like boot camp.
(15:03):
It's interesting.
And so being told what to do,you know, having something
highly, highly structured whereyou don't have a say, you can't
ask questions, it's interesting.
Okay, yeah, go ahead, rachel,you want to add to that?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So I'll bring into that, because it is psychology,
it is the cult, it is what we'redealing with in terms of a lot
of things right now, and this isanother reason why Liz and I
both felt we had to speak now isbecause we've seen this before.
We know this pattern.
It's not rocket science.
So my mother left herrestrictive parents and that
(15:41):
environment to go to a morerestrictive environment which
she felt safe in.
My father was abused horriblyas a child and then also found
the same thing right, but theyagain repeat the pattern of
abuse.
My mother has never felt safewithout that structure, without
someone having that control overher life, where she didn't have
(16:04):
to make decisions, and that'salmost like a developmental
retardation, and I use that inthe exact word or meaning that
it's meant to be.
It's that you don't have theskills or the toolkit to
actually make decisions on yourown.
Therefore, you're going to let.
There's a permission structurethere allowing someone to take
over, and I think that that waspart of it where my mom was so.
Therefore, you're going to letright, there's a permission
structure there allowing someoneto take over, and I think that
(16:27):
that was part of it where my momwas so overwhelmed with three
kids by herself as a singleparent that that made sense for
her to have the structure, tohave a surrounding community
that helped her make thedecisions without having to do
them all on her own.
And that's a repetitive patternof behavior.
(16:48):
And Liz and I, both in our verydifferent ways, made very sure
that we did not raise our kidsthat way and in varied
differences we were very and Ithink this is common.
You try and not create the sameenvironment you were raised in
and, to our dismay or not,that's how it works.
(17:10):
And of course we choose variedpaths and they're all different
and I don't think any of themare wrong.
But I do think the importantpart is that we recognize where
we come from and then also we'reable to go okay, that's not the
right path, we shouldn't bethere.
And then how do we change it orhow do we correct it.
And healing yourself is a bigpart of that.
(17:32):
And that I think for both of uswas a wake up call to go okay,
we have priorities now.
We have to fix ourselves tomove forward.
So Liz's telling of the originstory, if you will move forward.
So Liz's telling of the originstory, if you will, is also a
reflection back on what we lostin terms of that and then also
(17:52):
what we knew we lost and thenhad to regain with our second
generation, our kids.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Okay, my goodness Right.
So when you were talking abouta structure that answers the
questions or just keeps you frombeing able to ask any, what is
really interesting, too, is theamount of inherent gaslighting
that's, in that that you learnthat you can't make decisions
right, or you shouldn't, becauseif left up to you, you would
(18:20):
make the wrong ones right Likewho according to whom?
You'd make the wrong ones rightLike who according to whom?
And a lot of times the advicethat you get in these places is
so off but you listen to itanyway, and people often will
say once I could shed myself ofthinking I had to defer to the
other person to tell me what todo, or to the leadership, or to
(18:41):
my disciple or whomever,whatever the role was or
whatever the title was.
I realized that there I mean,I've heard, I actually heard
this last night their advicesucked was was actually the
phrase, but I had to follow itand I.
But I just thought, well, evenif there's my suck, so to speak,
mine is going to be worse.
Well, no, not necessarily,because yours is going to be
(19:02):
intuitive and yours is going tobe checking in with you and it's
going to be reading the roomand it's going to be filled with
a lot of things that someoneelse sitting in an office or
whatever doesn't really know youis.
Not only do I get to, but I'mable, is a huge leap.
I think people don't realizewhat a monumental leap that is
(19:31):
and how nerve wracking it isalso, especially if you make a
decision and it turned out tonot be the right one, to just be
able to say whoops and not.
Well then that's it, I'm never.
I learned my lesson.
I'm never going to make adecision again.
But just really to have it be awhoops, because most of the
world outside is going to treatit that way, that it's a whoops,
and often in these kinds ofrestrictive environments if you
(19:55):
make a mistake, well then that'sit.
That just proves somethinglifelong about you.
I mean, there's so much risk,you know, for making a mistake.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Rachel, you bring up exactly what Liz and I just
talked about, actually on ourother podcast, because we're
talking about the fact that evensocial media is a restrictive
environment, particularly foryounger kids.
Their like buttons are theirwhole world, so they're
encapsulated and restrictedwithin this like button and
they're afraid to fail and youcan't be.
(20:26):
And we just got over describingthis fear of failure and it's
in the public realm.
But Liz and I, with our phoneconversations, we ultimately
figured out we could fail andfall flat on our face every
single time, parenting-wise,life-wise, making decisions, but
(20:46):
we had each other and that wasreally really the tie that binds
for us in terms of that, andour mom still struggles with it.
I didn't mean to bring this up,liz, but I'm like my God she's
talking about mom, because it'sa fear of making a poor choice.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And it's like, but that's also a choice.
Yeah, and it's like, but that'salso a choice.
Yeah, right, exactly, it's alsoa choice and you learn that you
can deal with the consequencesand you also can learn that in
the world outside, theconsequences are not so severe
or swift and it's not adamnation of you and your sense
of agency.
I know know raising my kids tobe strong, to be individuals
(21:27):
still needing to be respectful,but being able to voice what's
on their mind.
You know, sometimes it's alittle hard, because I would say
something and they'd say hmm,or we could look at it like this
and they were kind of right,and so I would joke.
I'd be like, damn it, you know,like you're.
So, okay, let's start thisagain, the scene of me being a
(21:50):
really wise parent.
Take two, and then I would justquote them to them.
You know you can try to make itfunny, but, liz, what are your
thoughts about this?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I definitely think my kids do have a hard time making
decisions.
I have fallen flat on my face amillion times.
My kids have seen me fall flaton my face.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I'm just going to interject for comedy, both
literally and physically.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Okay, yeah, I'm kind of a clumsy person, so yeah
literally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
you're right In the charmingest of ways.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Okay, gotcha, I tried to let them make decisions as
they were growing up, becauseall of our decisions were taken
away from us.
We didn't get to choose if wewere going to do something or
not.
We lived in such a world whereit was these are the rules, you
follow them and these are theconsequences.
(22:49):
And sometimes the consequenceswere more extreme than others.
Sometimes they didn't followthe consequences, but the rules
were always there, and then theywould make up rules inside of
the rules.
And it was just like I livesuch a structured thing and then
with my kids, I tried to letthem be a little bit more of
their own people and failedmiserably many times, because
(23:11):
sometimes they need thatstructure.
So finding a balance was alwaysvery challenging for me Having
too many rules and not havingenough with my kids, especially
when they got a little bit olderand were able to start making
decisions on their own thatweren't life altering, you know.
But, um, I they've seen me doall kinds of ventures Um, I've,
(23:34):
I think, the freedom of notliving inside of those rules and
stuff, and I also have ahusband who's extremely
supportive.
So he, you know, I'm like I'mgoing to start doing this and
he's like okay, go for it.
You know, he's always been verysupportive.
For the most part, I'm going tosay, in the last 20 years of
our relationship, he's beenextremely supportive, probably
(23:54):
seven years outside of the cult,because he came into it a bit
later than I did or a lot later.
I met him inside the cult buthe'd only been there for about a
year and so he was raisednormal if there's a normal
outside of a cult.
He wasn't raised in a cult andso when we met and then when we
(24:15):
left, he just was like okay,back to normal, his normal, and
I was falling apart, but I havealways been able to make
decisions and just like go forit.
And I felt a sense of freedomoutside of that, but many times
fallen on my face.
So, yeah, that's just that hasbeen my experience and sometimes
(24:37):
it's successful and sometimesit's not, but I haven't been
afraid to make decisions.
I think the further outside ofit I get, the more freedom I
feel of being my own person andtaking my own risks and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So I heard you talk about the chronology that he
became more open and accepting,because you know he's, of course
, going to be impacted by theteachings within the group,
(25:12):
which is not going to be aboutletting you do your thing, and
so it's really nice that he wasable to transform over time
along with you, so that you havethis ability to be able to say
I'm going to try this and I'mgoing to do this Because I
noticed in that example youdidn't say is it okay with you
if I?
You just said I'm going to trythis.
(25:32):
I like that.
That's also big.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
She's been that way our whole lives, not necessarily
in the cult, and I think wehave to talk about that a little
bit in terms of like.
We have to talk about that alittle bit in terms of like how,
because I think IFB culture isa 10.
If you take Baptists right, aSouthern Baptist, which you
mentioned at the very beginning,where, like, it's typically
(25:55):
thought of as like a Southernthing, and then all of a sudden
Colorado comes out of nowhere.
But IFB culture in some degreeis like proliferated throughout
the US in little pockets ofstuff, right, kind of like the
Mormon.
And if you take IFB culture andthen you kick it up four
notches, five notches, that'swhere we were in terms of our
(26:20):
thing.
So it was very like for herhusband, liz's husband it was a
huge change, but remember thathis brother at that time was
kind of impacted by that.
He was like, wow, you've changedyour whole world around and he
turned his life around based onthis.
So Liz's husband and, by the way, she got lucky Of anyone I know
(26:44):
that should get lucky aboutthis Liz deserves to be lucky
with finding a good man and howwilling and loving and caring
he's been with her throughoutthis whole journey because it's
been a journey and it's reallyimportant to me that she's taken
care of and I'm so glad thatshe got lucky in terms of
(27:07):
finding this man for her,because she got married a virgin
, she had a honeymoon baby andshe had three babies in four
years, four or five years, threebabies in five years and it was
phenomenal to watch like her gothrough this journey.
(27:28):
Her husband was there.
He's been magnanimous in thiswhole thing because he just came
in blind, not knowing what wasgoing on, and that restrictive
culture and then allowing herthat freedom is really really
like as a sister.
(27:48):
It makes me just go.
Oh my God.
I'm so glad that she has him,you know, and we're there for
each other.
But also he was, he wasridiculously supportive and
still has been, you know, inthis whole thing.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
It's really nice and it's lovely for you, rachel, as
a sister, to be clearly sosupportive and happy for you
know, for your sister.
It's interesting because one ofthe things that I talk about is
that sometimes, when peoplehave been in groups like this,
their relationships with eachother have been weaponized, and
(28:23):
I don't hear a lot of that.
I'm happy for you, and so thatis very meaningful, and I want
to be able to come back to that.
I do want to go into yourhistory, though, just like a day
in the life or a year in thelife.
What was your life like there?
If you're saying this, kickedit up a notch.
So many times can only imagine,so paint us a picture.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Okay.
So obviously both of us werethere from birth.
Basically, I mean earliestmemories Were there inside the
we'll say cult.
I have no problem using thatbecause by every definition of
that it was a cult, everydefinition.
So there's a lot of oh, it's,you know, purgatorial in terms
of like what it is, and I'm likeno, no, no, no, it's not.
(29:09):
It clearly definitively was acult.
So I have no problem using thatword and I will defend it and I
don't mind that.
So our earliest memories,everything we knew, was
surrounded by a um, we'll say acommunity.
And in honesty, I think Liz andI I think Liz will agree with
me on this In all honesty, wehad an idyllic childhood.
(29:32):
We had a diverse and a verymother and we had multiple
siblings who were friends.
We had multiple people on whichwe were raised in.
(29:57):
So if you want to say it takesa village, that's what we were
raised in from our primary right.
So if we talk about childdevelopment, primary was
actually quite developmentallystimulating.
It was good for us.
We actually, liz and I, areavid readers.
We didn't have television,secular books, we didn't have a
(30:18):
radio, so we were very muchsheltered in this little bubble
that we lived in.
When her and I went to school,it was not at a public school,
it was at a church school.
So most of our days look likewe would wake up very early in
the morning, we would go to thechurch and or school in our
primary years I'm specificallyreferring to those and we would
(30:41):
have all day with ourschoolmates and our classmates,
and most of that was surroundedby the exact same people that we
knew from church.
On Sundays, all day, we were atchurch.
On Mondays, we were at schoolall day.
On Tuesdays, we were at schoolall day.
On Wednesdays, we would go toschool, and then we would have
church in the evenings.
On Thursdays, we would go toschool all day.
We would have proselytizing inthe evenings.
(31:04):
On Fridays, we would go toschool all day.
On Saturdays, we would get upearly and go to do bus routes or
further proselytization withinthe community, and that would
last most of the day, includingoutreach to marginalized
communities, including homeless,mentally impaired, those kinds
of things, and that would happenall day.
(31:24):
So then we would repeat thatprocess every day.
Our whole entire world revolvedaround this community.
That in all of our bestknowledge of that community was
to help people and that was abig, huge part of it is that
you're here for a higher purpose.
You are going to be in serviceof the community around you and
(31:45):
the community around you isservicing you and they are
taking care of you, they'reeducating you, they are
educating you, they are feedingyou.
My mom, for many years, was aschool teacher.
She was not a certified schoolteacher, nor was she qualified,
but all of our investments inthis world went to that
investment.
My mother was single mom.
(32:06):
She did not have any childsupport, she did not have any
other outlets.
Her community was the churchand she was single mom.
She did not have any childsupport, she did not have any
other outlets.
Her community was the church.
And she was also vulnerable andI can't overstress that point
is that it was a vulnerableposition in her life and she was
preyed upon Absolutely and shedid what she thought was best
(32:27):
for us and that's okay.
So, as and Liz and I have talkedabout this ad nauseum in the
book, it progressively got more.
I don't think anyone joins agroup in a community like that
that's as welcoming without itprogressing to a different point
, and it did so over ourlifetime, between the time Liz
(32:49):
and I went into grade school,primary school, quote unquote
school to the time that I was inmiddle school is where it took
a huge dark shift and startedgetting more repressive, more
rules that you know theguidelines here, you know you
need to be dressed this certainway and you need to act this
(33:09):
certain way, and then the linegot moved and it kept getting
moved and it kept getting movedand it got more and more
restrictive, more and morecontrolling more and more of
your individual thoughts andideas were completely quashed in
terms of this overbearingpurpose, and I think that's
pretty common among cultbehaviors and that definitely we
(33:31):
saw that.
So you know it did reach apoint at which, yeah, her and I
both were, there was a, therewas a breaking point right, okay
, and so, yeah, we certainlywant to talk about the breaking
point.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
When you said also that she was preyed upon, can
you talk a little bit more aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Sure.
So again, my mother, as Lizalready spoke about, was a
Marine.
It was very uncommon in thatera for a woman to join the
Marines.
My mother had a pretty abusivechildhood, in my opinion, and
does not really want to talkabout that, and that's okay, I
(34:09):
understand it.
It's sort of a generationalthing and there are some things
that she's not happy to dealwith.
That's okay, we understand that, and you know that's okay.
In her own time, she wasescaping something that she
didn't want to be in.
She met my father, who was nota father, he was just a sperm
donor, as we lovingly refer tohim, the story of which is death
(34:33):
is also a long one.
She was a single mother withabsolutely no life skills to
which she could rely on tosupport and or provide for her
children and her family, andsomeone knocking at her door,
(34:58):
inviting the community in whichshe so craved, was exactly what
she needed and also what theyand I say they in terms of the
cult we're looking for In termsof loyalty.
You're never going to getsomeone who's more loyal or more
forgiving of wrongdoings whenyou meet a mother who's trying
(35:22):
to provide for her kids and dothe best by them and then also
going well, we're going to dothis now and are you okay with
this?
Well, yeah, well, you'veprovided for me and my children,
including, at times, food.
Liz and I dumpster dived when wewere kids.
We were so poor that we had toat times.
(35:44):
This is a vulnerable populationand I'm not talking about in
terms of race or anything otherthan socioeconomic class.
She had no skills, she had nojob, she had nothing and outside
of being on the welfare systemwhich, at that time, reaganomics
, was right in terms ofRepublican and right-wing
(36:06):
culture, absolutely not okay.
So she avoided food stamps, in away to say, oh, I'm better than
that, but I'm not going tochoose to feed my children.
And who else do I have to relyon?
Oh, the church, right, the cult.
So, therefore, food to Mao,feeding your children, all came
(36:28):
from the church.
So, sustenance, the life, lifegiving her kids, life, giving
her kids food, shelter, housingall came from the church.
So it put her into a square peg, into the hole where she had to
rely on that, because herbelief system was so intertwined
(36:48):
and loyal to this cult that shehad no other option than to
just continue to double down onthat and continue to rely on
that cult to survive her.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When you say prey on them, I felt like they did have
a target.
They did.
This particular brand of cultwent towards military single
moms.
They prayed it's a good word,but they prayed on those types
of people because in a military,you're used to being told what
(37:21):
to do, when to do it, how to doit, and so they pulled those
types of people in.
And then single moms, becausethey were loyal, because they
would provide something thatthey couldn't, and so there was
a lot of single.
There was a huge single mothersgroup in the cult.
There was also, you know,military was huge.
(37:42):
I think probably at one timehalf of the church was military.
You know, there's just therewas a lot of that type of people
that they prayed on becausethey were looking for people to
follow their rules and to followthe system.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And, just like every other cult, it progresses over
time.
Where there were some major,major issues with how it was
structured, that, as their riskgets higher, that they tighten
the rules.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Wow, okay, and I'm wondering then also you know,
liz, if there are more stories.
I mean it's very, very movingwhen you say, rachel, you went
dumpster diving.
What a difficult life.
I mean just having foodinsecurities very hard for
anyone.
What else do you remember, liz?
That really paints a picture ofyour life.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
I just know that we were so mentally immature I
think that was a massive thingfor me.
When I got married I had noclue.
There's no sex education,except both of us were obviously
abused in that situation mysister much younger than I was.
(39:01):
But when you tell someone thatyou were sexually abused at 16,
they're like well, 16-year-old,you know what's going on?
Nope, you don't.
In that type of environmentwhere everything is so
restricted and so you know yougo by these rules and you follow
(39:21):
this and these leaders are likeGod and you know you do
everything they say.
And then when one of thembreaks your trust and you know,
abuses you sexually, emotionally, all of the things, you just go
with it.
And then you have, you have noidea.
(39:42):
I mean, I thought for years thatI was, I had done something
wrong when I was 16, you know,because that's how I was made to
feel and that's how I felt anddidn't even deal with it until
several years ago because it'ssomething that I thought that
was my fault.
(40:02):
But they make you feel soguilty.
I think that I live with guiltnow continuously.
I have a major guilt factor.
I have a guilt factor with mykids.
Anything they bring up.
That happened when they weregrowing up or something that I
did wrong.
It's something that's painfully, but they drilled in us this
guilt that we had to followthese things and if you did
(40:27):
anything outside of that, theguilt was just something that
was ingrained in us, and so Ifeel that I really had a hard
time overcoming that becausethey just I mean, when you're
drilled it for 20 years, it'shard to get that out of your
(40:47):
system.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Well, it's not even just 20 years, it's your whole
life.
Up until that point, for sure.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, so you know, Liz, you were telling a story
and I want to make sure to youknow, to honor some of these
experiences that I know are noteasy to talk about, but they
really help the people listeningunderstand what was so
difficult, what also was part ofthe crux, of what you needed to
(41:17):
heal from after leaving.
So what else would you like usto know about what you went
through?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
In terms of the sexual abuse, I will say that
from the pulpit, from school,from everywhere, there's these
leaders screaming at you abouthow you need to keep yourself
pure and how, and then you havea leader that puts you in these
(41:52):
vulnerable positions and there'sabsolutely the word grooming
applies here because we didn'thave a dad.
So there was this guy that wasmaking me feel like I could
trust him, me feel like I couldtrust him, like I could rely on
(42:16):
him, like he was there to helpme, and then do all of these
nice kind gestures and justdifferent things that he would
say compliments and things likethat, and then eventually start
the abuse and I had no idea howto handle it.
I literally thought, also, I'mthe only one this is happening
(42:36):
to, you know, at the time, andso I can't say a word.
And he said you can't tell mywife this is going on and
because you know, he made mefeel like I paused this to
happen and so you know I'mliving with this.
I lived with it for over 20years before I started dealing
(42:58):
with it because I still feltguilt over it.
So that is one of the hardestthings that I have ever had to
get over.
I think, like Rachel and Italked about earlier, writing
the book and writing all of itdown and actually wrote out the
whole experience.
I wrote out everything and itwas so therapeutic for me just
(43:20):
to put it on paper.
I've kept a journal.
I journal my sister is a verylarge component of therapy.
I had some extremely messed upsituations in the Holt with
therapy, which they call itcounseling with the leader, and
so for me that was off the tablefor years because he, the
(43:47):
leader that I was giving mecounseling, was so inappropriate
and so the leader that wasgiving me counseling was so
inappropriate and so made me souncomfortable and it was not a
good place for me to be.
So I had a lot of issuestrusting somebody to be a
counselor or a therapist oranything like that, because of
(44:07):
how many years of counseling Ihad inside the cult that were so
negative and so bad and I wouldleave in tears and just
thinking there was somethingwrong with me and it was never a
good experience.
But you were not allowed tocease a secular psychiatrist or
a counselor or anything likethat.
The leaders were yourcounselors and those were who
(44:28):
you talked to, but you couldn'ttell them anything without being
judged or being screamed atfrom the pulpit.
They would lay everything outthere what you told them.
So there was no trust, and so Ithink that that has been tough
for me to just trust a therapist.
I've tried to do it a couple oftimes.
I find that journaling has beenone of the best things, and
(44:50):
also my sister and my husbandare also my people, so talking
to them and getting it out therelike that has been very helpful
for me.
So that's how I've sort of Imean that's pretty much how I've
overcome it.
I have not overcome all of it,but I have been able to function
(45:12):
, I feel like, in a way that isproductive and that I can.
It's not in my mind 24-7.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay, I'm really glad to hear that and I think, if
you don't mind taking a fewmoments and talking about the
therapy when you're saying thatit was making you really
uncomfortable.
A lot of people have said thattoo, that they're really nervous
about coming to therapy with mebecause of their experiences in
their church or whatever theywere in and also with group
(45:42):
therapy.
People are nervous becausethey've been called on the
carpet in front of a group thatwas a of set up for shaming, and
so there are people also saidthat I've met with a counselor
who just told me how I was thecause of my abuse, and they also
asked for lots of details and Ifelt like they were kind of
(46:04):
getting turned on by the thingsI was saying, like it just felt
wrong on so many levels.
I'm wondering what felt wrongto you about this.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So I would go to ask for advice or, especially during
my abuse, I went in a lotbecause I thought that I was
doing something wrong and Ineeded to find out what was
wrong with me, that I wouldcause this man to do this to me
and I never said the wordsbecause I couldn't tell him what
(46:36):
was going on, because it was ahorrible sin.
So I couldn't tell him what wasgoing on.
But I would go and talk to himand just tell him what's going
on in my head outside of theabuse, but that I didn't.
I was feeling like I didn'tbelong there anymore.
It was like I was uncomfortablebeing even in the church.
(46:57):
That was when I started toquestion being in the cult, in
the religion, in anything likethat, and I started questioning.
So then I would bring it up andthen that I was questioning
whether God would think thatthese types of things, such as
(47:17):
the way certain situations werehandled or they would, he would
preach people out of the church,which, when I say preach people
out of the church, he would getup at the pulpit.
This is the main leader with anagenda that these people did
wrong and he was going to saywhatever he wanted to say to
(47:37):
make them leave the church andhis goal was to get them to walk
out in the middle of the sermon.
So I would bring things likethat up to him and I'm saying
well, if God is, if somebody issinning, don't you think God
would want them to stay and gethelp?
Why would you want to preachthem out of the pulpit?
(48:00):
And it would immediately I meanI would immediately get shut
down, that I don't know what I'mtalking about.
I am not a man of God, thingslike that.
So any kind of questioning wasnever allowed.
And when I did question, um, andI questioned, I remember asking
him one time this is how naiveI was how I would know if I was
(48:23):
a virgin, because you were notsupposed to get married until
you're a virgin.
And I got asked questions likedo you masturbate until you're a
virgin?
And I got asked questions likedo you masturbate?
Like super uncomfortablequestions like this from
somebody who is, in my opinion,a man of God and it would freak
me out and he would go intospecifics of these things, of
what I did.
(48:43):
And at this time, you know, Iwas just like so embarrassed I
didn't even know what the wordmeant.
There was just so manyuncomfortable conversations like
that that made me think that Icould not trust him any longer
and I eventually quit going andthen going outside of that.
I don't even know how you start, has been my thought.
(49:05):
How do you even start talkingto somebody about your
experiences that doesn'tunderstand?
Because I feel like if youdon't grow up in that situation,
it's very hard to explain itreally is.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
And there are people who will come to see me who will
say I already met with a numberof therapists where I felt like
they just didn't understand orthey weren't open to learning
more about it, or they just keptchanging the subject because
that's not what they learned inschool.
So I do, you know, I'm alwayskind of doing a plug for people
out there who are becomingcounselors, who are becoming
(49:39):
therapists, social workers, toreally learn about this.
But thank you for letting meknow about what that was like
and the fact that you couldn'ttalk about it because it was a
sin oh, my goodness, right andthat you're the one carrying
around the shame and the guilt,which happens almost all the
time, even though you didn't dothat to someone, someone did it
to you, but still, that's how itworks and so sorry.
So anything else, before wetalk about kind of the breaking
(50:03):
point for both of you, any otherstory you want to make sure to
mention?
Speaker 3 (50:07):
I think Rachel's story of her abuse kind of leads
to the breaking point, so thatmight be good for her to share a
little bit of.
I know that her experience wasthe cause of the breaking point
of when we left.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
All right, so then do you feel comfortable getting
into that Rachel for a bit?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
As opposed to Liz, I had a verydifferent version of therapy
and I'm always a fan.
I'm always not pushing peoplebut also suggesting that it's
actually a third party that isoutside of Liz's experience with
(50:50):
it is actually supposed to betrauma-informed and a therapist
who understands and knows whatyou're doing.
But I won't disagree with herin the fact that there are very
few and far between and I willsay that I have been in and out
of therapy since I left the cult, so that's been over 25 years
(51:10):
and I rely on it and I actuallyhave a lot of faith in it.
And Liz is not wrong.
You can have family, you canhave friends and you can have
other tools also available toyou and I think that those are
fine.
And I think that writing thebook with Liz was a huge
therapeutic process for her andI absolutely supported that 100%
(51:32):
.
We had about probably a four tosix month hiatus after writing
that book in which neither of uscould really talk about it or
look at it again.
That is intentional and thatwas intentional and it took some
time and I think that writingis a form of therapy.
(51:52):
So, with that said and Iunderstand and know most of
Liz's history about therapy, ifwe talk about my experience and
(52:13):
sentenced to 12 years in prisonfor sexually assaulting a minor,
and that was with multipleaccounts.
He took a plea deal which I wasnot actually comfortable taking
, but at the time I didn't havea voice for myself and I
couldn't speak up about that.
And had I brothers, I wouldhave been in the courtroom and I
would have faced him personallyand been able to do that.
(52:35):
I was not strong enough at thetime, nor could I have probably
done that.
However, in hindsight I stoodup for what I was abused for and
assaulted for and I took thepower in that situation and that
was quite beneficial to mymental health.
Moving forward from thatexperience, I was sexually
(52:57):
abused from 12 to about 14,multiple times and from a man
who was the pastor's son choirdirector at the cult and also
groomed me for multiple yearsprior to that I ended it.
I didn't feel right.
I didn't know exactly why, butI wasn't sure that this was
(53:17):
correct.
But there's an extremehypocrisy in cult religions
about being untouched virginityand that that is a value upon
which you don't, you're not,allowed to tread in terms of
what you're supposed to do,comportment wise as a female,
(53:39):
and everything that Iexperienced was exactly the
antithesis of that meaning.
That was taken away from me ata very early age, and so those
conflicting terms andconflicting ideologies in my
mind weighed on me heavily for along time.
I had a long period of insomnia, anxiety, still do with that
(54:04):
cognitive dissidence.
That was an ideology of which Iwas trained to believe in and
then also got handed theopposite hand of that.
I didn't speak out about that,I sort of let it happen and then
went along with the program formany, many years.
I also was not a child who wasactually a good rule follower.
(54:26):
I was always outside of the boxand I always made sure that
that was apparent, and my mouthhas always been my weapon of
choice and it was never allowedto be fully extended.
And I do think that there werespecial circumstances
surrounding my particular abusein which it was made to be more
(54:51):
suppressive and or moreoppressive in terms of that, and
I think that that is somethingthat made me actually more vocal
when and if it came to be ableto speak about it.
I dealt with this pain and thisabuse and this massive
repression of who I was and whatI wanted to say and where I
(55:14):
thought things were, and it is acognitive dissonance living a
life in which you knoweverything is wrong about it and
then also getting feedback fromthe every person or entity in
your life that is supposed to bethe authority on this, and
understanding that they'reabsolutely wrong.
So I dealt with that for many,many years.
(55:34):
So by the time.
So 12 was the initial abuse, andthen, when I was 19, I had the
opportunity again probably verycalculated from the cult to go
and attend a parochial collegein Hammond, indiana, which is no
(55:55):
surprise to anyone and afterreturning from that, foray into
what is a different cult, looklike.
I came home and knew exactly toColorado and knew exactly what
I had to do and I had to leave.
I had to get away fromeverything that I knew was
oppressive and I knew was wrong.
(56:16):
But now I had some traction.
I had a little bit of a glimmerof hope in which to see that
there was something else outthere and that I knew that this
was potentially wrong and Ididn't know how or why, but I
knew in my gut that I had to getout and I knew that that came
(56:37):
along with some repercussions,and I knew that a lot of those
were going to probably be losingmy family, losing my friends,
losing that community that Igrew up in an idyllic childhood
and I knew that that wassomething that I would have to
give up and I had to get to thepoint at which I could allow
that to happen.
And I was slowly doing that asI got back.
(57:00):
So it was 1998.
And I was slowly getting backto that idea that okay, if I do
it gradually, if I don't show upfor church on Sunday morning,
if I don't show up to this event, if I slowly, gradually get
myself out, I can kind ofpiecemeal the loss, the grief of
(57:21):
losing all of that at somepoint.
And then I had a breaking point.
And that breaking point camewhen I saw the pattern of abuse.
I'm going to let you take overin a minute, liz.
As far as the breaking point, Iwas slowly doing that gradual
march to let's loss, let's letthis go, and how am I going to
(57:46):
deal with that?
So, emotionally, physically, Ihad already kind of started that
direction.
And then my sister had her firstchild, and that happened before
I got back, so I wasn't therefor the birth, but of course
this child was everything and itwas a girl and it was amazing
(58:06):
and there's no better Aside fromhaving your own children when
your sister has a child.
It was monumental and I was justso overwhelmed with the
emotions of joy and love and allthe things that come with
having a new baby inside thefamily.
That was my sister's and it'salmost like having your own, but
it's not quite and it's evenbetter.
So I'm so overwhelmed with allthese emotions and just the
(58:31):
outpouring of love.
At that point I was almost out.
I was like I could taste thedoor.
It's right there but my sisterwas still in it with her husband
, with the new baby, with my mom, and I couldn't bring myself
yet to tell them that I was goneand that I was going.
And now this new life bringsform to something I can't really
(58:54):
express.
But all of a sudden, there itis, right in front of my face.
Liz, you can take it from there.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Yeah, so that was, she had been missing stuff.
I noticed we talked about itshe was wearing pants.
So I had found out she waswearing pants and I'm like, oh
my gosh, you know, in a strangeturn of events, anyway, we went
to an event it was it wasactually, I believe, a wedding
(59:20):
of somebody out in Black Forest.
Anyway, everybody from thechurch was there and I had my
daughter, who's about six monthsold, and we were there together
, me, my husband, my daughterRachel was there.
And we went to this event andher abuser, which I had no idea
(59:41):
at the time, came over andpicked up my daughter and Rachel
, was way across the room andmade it there in about one
second flat, grabs her and saysdon't you ever let him touch her
again.
(01:00:02):
And I was just like, oh my gosh, what happened?
You know, I had no idea.
I had no idea she had beenabused.
I had no idea any of this.
I had no idea she had beenabused.
I had no idea any of this.
So I just said okay, and itkind of was an abrupt thing.
We ended up leaving.
The next night.
She calls me and said she's atwork at the mall.
And she calls me and she saidyou have to come here right now.
(01:00:26):
I have to talk to you, it's anemergency.
So I went up there.
She spilled everything, told meeverything, all about her abuse
.
That was it, because in my mind, my sister was the most
important thing in the world andthe fact that she had been
abused and had held this in forso long and told me everything.
(01:00:49):
I was like we have to go to thepolice, we have to do this, we
have to do this.
She said don't tell mom.
Of course I told mom and my momgot her to go to the police.
You know, the rest is history.
Of course, there was a wholewhole thing of let's go talk to
the pastors about this and let'sgo talk to them and knew.
They all knew it didn't matter.
(01:01:10):
We left.
It was very abrupt, but we allleft.
My mom followed us, which isamazing, rare and rare and
appreciated.
Yes, yeah, she believed her, shebelieved my sister.
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Well, mom went to the police.
Yeah, I mean, mom and I went tothe police and told my story
only under threat of subpoena,but she made me do it and you
know, that was a time mom stoodup for us.
She didn't when we were growingup, but she got the opportunity
(01:01:50):
, she saw the wrongdoing and shedid the right thing, and that's
really, really powerful interms of women and mom and
raising kids and family, and allof that Because when she got
handed the opportunity to do theright thing, she did, and
that's basically what led to,yeah, we had a criminal, uh, we
(01:02:13):
had a criminal suit.
Um, he did go to prison.
He actually lives near Lizright now in Oklahoma.
So you know I'd be happy tostart a campaign against him,
but anyway, um, but yeah, again,Scott free now, um, probably
grooming and doing God knowswhat to other women, but that's
(01:02:34):
our system.
He did go to prison, he did.
We subsequently sued theorganization, the church,
basically their insurancecompany, and I got a civil
lawsuit.
It's a long story, but 25 yearsago 99 is when this all went
(01:02:55):
down, and it took us that long,though, to figure out.
Oh God, we actually have apriority now.
We have kids.
We're not going to let our kidsgrow up in a cult.
We're not going to let themgrow up under a oppressed
environment of where their ideasdon't matter and where their
female voices don't matter.
They are going to be loud andheard, no matter what, even if
(01:03:15):
it's to our detriment.
And Liz, every fucking morningexcuse me every morning she's
like, oh God, the girls havedone this bullshit.
And I'm like that's fine,they're allowed to say their
voice, they're allowed to speak,they're allowed to be the
imbeciles that they are at thisyoung age and that's okay.
(01:03:37):
The freedom that we've been ableto give our kids, because we
took that into our and and uh,there's a lot of, I would say,
like, hoopla right now about theifb and there's been some
documentaries and stuff, and Iwas like, oh, okay, well, we
should get on that.
And then Liz and I both arelike no, we're over it, partly
(01:03:58):
being because we've been out ofit 25 years, we have a bit more
clarity, we have a bit more oflike insight as to what the
journey looks like for someonecoming out of this, as to what
the journey looks like forsomeone coming out of this, and
it's harrowing, it's hard, it'sarduous.
It's something that, unless youhave you know the cumption and
(01:04:21):
the wherewithal to figure outand then critically think for
yourself, which is somethingthat is not taught and we had to
learn on our own.
You know, I went througheducation system publicly and
Liz went through her own versionof it also, but we both have
degrees.
We're both in the real worlddoing our thing right now, but
(01:04:42):
it was not without scars.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
That's incredible.
I know we're unfortunately donewith time, but I'm hoping that
you both can come back so we cancontinue, because I want to
hear so much more about thismoment and the transition out
and the challenges of that, and,even though some things are
(01:05:07):
going to feel so clear and like,yes, they're going to be, these
other moments of greattrepidation, real worry and a
lot of trial and error.
You know it's interesting thatI mean it's beautiful that the
two of you have each other andthe fact that, liz, you could
call Rachel and say, like mygirls just did this.
You know, I feel like there arethese themes that can be
(01:05:27):
applied to, especially when kidsare preteen and teen, that I
think their life can be undertwo headings, which is I thought
it was a good idea at the timeand that sounded better in my
head, and so I think they'relearning while you're learning
(01:05:48):
and parents are learning as theygo, but also people who just
were not raised in this way.
Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
In every sense of that term, rachel.
We grew up together with ourkids, absolutely because, like
Liz iterated to earlier, she wasabused at 16.
She was not a 16-year-old at 16.
Because of the suppression ofthe cult, she was probably
(01:06:15):
closer to 12, 13 developmentally.
And then, when we had kids andLiz had her first kid at 19, we
raised our kids with us.
We were growing, we werelearning about the real world as
they were learning it.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
And that's a really nice thing.
I mean, that takes a lot ofreally beautiful honesty and
humility to be able to say thatand to acknowledge that and that
you don't have to be the I knowbest parent, right?
You know kids need to know thattheir parents know some things
beyond what they know, but youdon't have to always know
everything, and your process oflearning is actually a great
(01:07:00):
model for them to see that it istrue that we are all kind of
transitioning into being moreable, having more wisdom as we
go.
So, yeah, so let's make sure tofind another time to continue
this conversation, and then Ialso want to hear more about the
book that you put together, solet's get that on the calendar.
(01:07:22):
I am so happy to at least havestarted the conversation with
both of you, and it's beautifulto see your relationship with
each other and how strengtheningit's been and how much wisdom
you share with our listeners.
It's really very powerful.
And your honesty it's alsoreally beautiful.
(01:07:43):
Thank you so much for ourconversation today.
Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Thank you, rachel, thank you.
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