Ep.52: "I Could Have Died"

🎙️ Leave us a voice message here! In Ep. 52: "I Could Have Died," we sit down with Naomi Wright, executive director of BeEmboldened Ministries, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and healing from spiritual abuse. Naomi shares her journey of growing up in a pseudo-Christian polygamist cult, the challenges she faced, and how she finally broke free at 28.

Now a licensed mental health professional and theologian, she uses her expertise to help others heal. Don’t miss this powerful conversation.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for updates, and support the podcast on Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee to help us continue sharing these important stories!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The world tomorrow, The World Wide Church of God presents
Riberts w Armstrong and I'm here.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
To bring you the truth.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
He's speaking through me the Lord. Let me experience what
it is to be a new bride. You know, I'm
not worried about what I'm about to say, though it
may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord and if
you can.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Take it, beyond the veil is the chamber. That's the
wedding chamber. The Lord told me that.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
But from then on, visions begin to come.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
When this comes up on me, it produces the vision.
I am able to tell people what's wrong with them,
what they must do in life, and the sins that
they are holding back in their life.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Cult Next Store Podcast.
I am Maddie Lasser, as always, joined by my sister Ashley.
Before we get started, reminder, as always, you guys are
going to get so sick of hearing it. Follow us
on our socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff. Also
want to do our Double Portion Club shout out real
quick as promised Chase and Shanda Heather Bartlett and Carla.

(01:16):
Thank you all for supporting the podcast. It means a lot.
And also, if you are listening and you're not familiar
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We've got it on our Instagram and like our link
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You can sign up there do a five dollars a
month thing or the ten dollars a month and you

(01:38):
get the shout out. Anybody who signs up for either
of those tiers, I will send you a really cool
free sticker which I will show here, which leads me
into my next point, which is if you can't see
this right now and you would like to see me
and Ashley and the sticker that I'm holding in my hand,
you can go check out our YouTube post our full

(02:01):
length video. Usually we try to do like some kind
of video with our podcast, so we'll post those full
length there. So if you're bored and you can sit
and watch, then please go do that there. And then
also I want.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
To read a review real quick.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
We got a nice five star It says this podcast
is the only thing that gets me through Newborn night feeds.
I actually look forward to waking up because I get
to listen to this. It's a great mix of seriousness
and humor, and Ashley and Maddie and all of their
guests seem so genuine, and that is the point. We're
not genuine, but we can really act and seem genuine.

(02:42):
I think that that review is from Claire Mock, So
thank you very much, Claire for the five star review
and for just buying our acting skills hook line and sinker.
So for today's guest, it's we're kind of switching gears
a little bit. You know, we've talked about this when

(03:04):
we started. The whole point of this for us was
to eventually be able to move on from just telling
our story and everything that's surrounding our story and kind
of give other people a platform to tell their story.
So we're able to kind of do that today. So Ashley,
you want to tell everybody about our guest Naomi.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I kind of wanted to say too that I'm
really excited about interviewing other people from different you know,
cults and high control groups, because even though I've really
enjoyed talking about our stories, there is a heaviness that
comes with that, and so I'm excited to just hear

(03:47):
from other people. And our guest today is one of
those people. And her name is Naomi Wright, executive director
of Be Emboldened Ministries, a nonprofit dedicated to the pntion
of and the healing from spiritual abuse. She grew up
in a pseudo Christian polygamous cult, which she exited around

(04:07):
the age of twenty eight. She holds a Masters of
Science and Social Work from the University of Buffalo and
is a licensed mental health professional in the state of Colorado.
She also holds a Master of Arts and Christian Studies
from Denver Seminary. Her areas of specialty include grief and loss,
spiritual abuse, including cult abuse, as well as biblical and

(04:30):
theological studies. And she's here to share her story.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah. I found Naomi to be wonderful and warm, and
her story it is fascinating, but also, as we well know,
like these are real stories of real emotion and feeling
and things that happened to these people that we talked to,
so obviously important to keep in mind as well.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, while while it is fascinating, it's all so heartbreaking
and real. You know, and I think for both of us,
we like we could feel her pain in the experiences
that she shared. So I hope everyone can also appreciate

(05:19):
that it is so hard to tell these stories of abuse,
because I think so many times, and I think she
brought this up which we may hear, that people look
at cult groups and survivors of cults as having interesting

(05:41):
stories and can sometimes almost like depersonalize the person in
a way. And so I just want everybody to keep
that in mind that these are real people, and these
are real abuses and real trauma that people have gone through,
and she is a great example of someone who's gone

(06:04):
through really difficult things and has come through with resilience
and courage and bravery, and so like, I just feel
so grateful that she shared her story with us. So, Naomi,
thanks so much for being here.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm so glad to be here. I've been looking forward
to this, and I just think I think so highly
of most of your family.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Which members exactly. Yeah, and I know you've listened to
the podcast.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yes, yes, I haven't. I actually Blake was feeding me
the episodes. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this.
If you guys were okay, with the fact he was
feeding them to me before you started releasing them, so
I was like listening alongside him before they came out,
and so I got like, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
So I'd like to just dive right in because I
know you have extensive experience being in a cult, and
I know you called it a pseudo Christian polygamist cult
and you exited that at the age of twenty eight?
Is that correct around that?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yes? And no, I'd say I like started exiting probably
as a teenager, but it was twenty eight when I
looked back. I had already not been living it, you know,
but I didn't know what to do with it. And
so it was twenty eight when I realized, oh wait,
that was a cult. Now it all makes sense.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, okay, So can we just start like right from
the beginning, like what it was like growing up, how
this even came to be. Like I'm not even sure
if you were born into this or this something that
you came into later in your childhood.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So my dad, my dad had an he had a
tough upbringing. I have to be I mean, I'll be
honest in all this, but I'm like kind of like
I have to be honest with myself is really what
I'm saying. I don't know how bad it was now
that I've learned more about my dad himself, Like I
just I have unanswered questions now about my grandparents and

(08:07):
things because he had reason to spin stuff in certain ways. Again,
I just have doubt now on some of the story
that was shared with me from him. My understanding of
his upbringing was that my grandfather was really physically abusive.
And so he told a story of he came home
from school and day opened the screen door and his

(08:29):
dad was on the other side just started kicking him
into the stomach, kicking him in the stomach till he
just collapsed on the ground and then was kicking him. Continued,
So when I think about that kind of experience, I'm like, Okay,
this is awful. He left home at a younger age.
I don't think I have reason to doubt that my
grandpa was physically abusive. I just don't know like the
fullness of everything that was going on. My grandfather was

(08:50):
a pastor. He was one of those like rural country
pastors who like made house visits on all of that.
So my grandfather, I think he was born in like
nineteen oh two, nineteen. I mean, I wasn't bored till
my dad was fifty two. So you kind of like,
if I go, Grandpa, go way back, you know, I'm
going a really long ways back in history. So I
don't know a whole lot of that dynamic. Again, I

(09:13):
know that he had, at least his telling is he
had a rough go in some ways. He then got
married at some point in that pre marriage. After he
got married, my aunt and her husband started following someone
named William Brenham. Maybe some have heard of him, maybe

(09:34):
some haven't. So he was a part of like the
tent revivals and like all that stuff that was like
really getting a lot of attention back in like forties fifties.
He died in a car accident in sixty five. He
was viewed as being a quote unquote prophet. He was
doing all of these supposed healing you know, ministries where
people are getting healed. People found out after that they

(09:56):
weren't really healed. Of course, they went off medication and
stuff and they di and so it's really really awful,
awful abuses that were happening. My dad found out about
this through his brother in law. They started like looking
into Brenham's teaching, started going to tent revivals all that
kind of stuff, And my dad then actually moved down
to Jeffersonville, Indiana, where there's still like the tabernacle for

(10:21):
the Message, you know, for this group that still exists there,
and his first kid was baptized at the tabernacle. Well
along the way, then Brenham dies. My dad had a
really great singing voice, so he was singing in some
of these tent revival meetings. He had actually been offered
an opera contract at one point, like he was really

(10:42):
that good. He was trained. So he was singing in
these tent revival meetings and stuff, and through that, it
wasn't too long before Brenham had died in this car
accident where he and my dad had this moment, you
know that for my dad he felt was significant. And
so then when Brenham dies, he thought, well, I'm kind
of carrying this torch forward for this ministry. Now. Lots
of people thought that. I mean, so there's so many

(11:03):
splinter groups. There's so many I mean, and everyone all
of these message churches. I mean, it's estimated like two
to four million worldwide. I mean, it's a really big,
extensive group, but each individual little cluster is the only
one that has it right. You know, there are all
that Yeah, so there's no unity among Message of believers.
So my dad though, something that he did that got

(11:24):
him kicked out of other Message churches was he was like, oh, polygamy,
that sounds like a really good idea, and so he
wanted to live a polygamist lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Believe a young man at this time he would.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Have been No, he couldn't have been that young because
I think my mom met him around like he would
have been upper forties, so maybe it was like mid
forties when he was heading in that direction. So he
wanted to head in that live that polygamist lifestyle. His
first wife, so he was married, had six children at
this point. So I have letters from his first wife

(12:02):
who did divorce him and rightfully, so I'm so glad
she did. She wrote letters like to my mom, like,
so I have those, like I've read them, the letters
that she wrote to her about like how are you
doing this to her family? How are you? And I
know my mom's view of it was she thought it
was right. She had been indoctrinated by my dad My

(12:23):
mom's backstory was she had been highly abused. They were
so so poor, like she had to wear her brother's
hand me downs, They did not have food every day,
and her both of her parents had passed by the
time she was seventeen. She got married at nineteen, highly
abusive man, had lots and lots of affairs, was physically abusive.
She finally got away from him around like twenty five

(12:44):
twenty six and believed with her church belief that she
couldn't marry again. And she had always wanted to be
a mom. So then incomes my dad, who was very romantic,
wrote poetry, was like, you know that kind of which
makes me like it gives me the immediately, like don't
call me your dove or I'm gonna like want to
just drop kick in right like it disgusts me. So

(13:05):
but it worked for her, you know, it works for
some to each their out with that. So she loved it.
She thinks she's hearing, you know, the truth, she thinks. So,
I mean it's like she gets kind of swept up
in that.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
So and she knew that he had this other family.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yes, yes, and so she thought it was supposed to
be okay, this is all like he's using scripture, He's
using and she's like okay, like there is polygamy in
the Bible. Like and I'm not trying to say there's
no accountability on her. I'll get to some of that later,
but I see her as being a woman who is
going to be easily preyed upon. She was well positioned

(13:42):
mid thirties to be preyed upon, and I think he
saw that opportunity took it. So he marries her first
wife divorces him, and he then immediately Okay, so you guys,
I'm gonna share some stuff I've sad about this in advance.
I might get a little emotional. I'm going to share
some stuff that I haven't shared ever anywhere. So hey,

(14:05):
you heard it here first, because it's new, Like I've
had some information come to light just over the past
six months, which is one of the horrors of something
like this. I can just rabbit trail for a second,
is you can get to this place from Like, am
I is it ever done? Like do I ever just
know it all? Like do I ever just have all

(14:25):
the information where I can fully process it through and
I can step forward. It's like maybe not like, I
don't know, maybe not. I continue to find out more
things and have to go back through and rework my
paradigm and my framework again. And there's actually episodes from
my own podcast that I went and took down when

(14:45):
I got this information. So I'm like, this is not
honoring enough to the survivors, So I need to do
a re you know, I need to do a redo
on this, so that will be coming soon. But my dad,
then it must have been very immediate that he was
trying to collect other wives, because I met some people

(15:08):
who have shared with me that they knew. Basically I'm
not going to get into because I want to meeting confidentiality.
It's been confirmed for me the suspicion I had that
he was praying upon girls as young as like twelve,
thirteen years old, that he knew he wanted to marry
them when they were whatever of age was, and of

(15:29):
age definitely was as young as seventeen, because I know
he had a wife at seventeen because I have siblings,
I have half siblings from that relationship, so I have
an example of like I would have been eleven and
this other girl would have been like thirteen, which also
makes a lot of sense over some of the abuses
that I endured within the household. So again, this was

(15:52):
happening like right away, So he would have married my
mom and immediately been praying upon these other young girls,
like showing up where they were making backroom deals with
their fathers to be able to have them in a
few years when they were like supposedly old enough. I mean,
it was disgusting, and I think the part that it
clinched for me recently was I knew my dad was

(16:14):
a predator. And I mean, so I'll say that for sure,
I knew he was a predator. I knew that he
had been sexually abusive towards me as well he was
physically abuses. I mean, it was all the abuses. But
I didn't know that he was a pedophile. And so
that was the new like that getting cemented again. I

(16:36):
had my suspicions, but that was confirmed. I'm like, oh
my gosh, yeah, like okay, I have to step back
with that. Then this is really bad. And everything that
he was doing, he was using the Bible to do it,
which is why I say it's like a pseudo Christian call,
because Christianity does not endorse being a pedophile. It does

(16:56):
not endorse pedophilia, like wherever someone lands and like well
doesn't say that whether someone believes the Bible is like
holy or not, it doesn't say that. And so he
was using that book though to convince people that what
he was doing was okay. And when I look back further,
my one of my older brothers, he had stories of

(17:19):
my dad that he shared that filled in some pieces too,
where he shared about how like once our dad like
went off the road, literally took the car off the
road into a ditch because he was craning his neck
to watch a woman jog and they had the kids
in the car, and just different things like that, or
it's like, okay, wow, this guy just had out of

(17:41):
control libido, completely unethical decisions and just manipulating a book
in order to be able to get his sexual gratification.
I mean, that's really just what it comes down to.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's it seems like
it's almost the desire comes first. It's like what do
I want? And then what's next is how do I
get that? And how can I manipulate scripture that will
provide that for me without it looking like I'm you know,

(18:16):
doing what I'm actually doing. I mean, we seen that
with our dad as well quite a lot.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, and it can be it can be slow going.
And I think I've heard some of that to a
degree in your story. And sometimes it's just slow till
it's not. And it's just like the snowball of sudden
is like whoa, how quickly though he went from my
mom to like trying to have so many others Because
I have siblings from three other women, and we are

(18:47):
we're kind of like stacked sort of like in sections
with our ages. So we have like a round of
us who are within a couple of years of one another,
and then there's a couple of years and then there's
a round of them who are And so I'm like, well,
that would have been four all within a couple of years.
But I'm hearing all these stories about these other girls

(19:09):
who were able to get away from him. How many,
like how many would he have had? Oh my gosh,
like just all of these young girls and then other
men who joined then started following suit. And so when
I was only eight or nine, I have a memory
of someone trying to claim me. Once I was I

(19:29):
don't know what of age. Again, the best I can
say would have been seventeen because that would have been
the legal statute. Where are we going by legal statutes?
I mean, polygamy was illegal as a New York state,
so I don't know, So I'm not really sure if
it would have been younger or not. That ultimately did
not happen. It wasn't allowed, And I've gotten some feedback actually,

(19:53):
like on our YouTube channel and stuff, So I'm not
going to say it was handled well, but I got
some feedback where someone is saying, well, basically, Naomi, shut
up and sit down, and you can't say anything because
he was your dad, so you got off easier. So
I'd love to hear your guys' comments on that, like
in what's in what sociological world does the predator behave

(20:16):
best in his own heart? Exactly right? Yeah, so that's
absolutely untrue. I will say though, that I wasn't potentially
going to be given to him, but I was potentially
going to be given to one of the other dudes
who were in their fifties, forties or whatever, and he
was coming in and watching me shower at eleven years old,

(20:39):
so like I had really one of we had holiness standards,
so like I couldn't. Oh my gosh, you guys, this
is so crazy how stuff like pops back up? Why
did I do this?

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:52):
I I was taking a shower. This isn't going to
get graphic.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
I was listening.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
I'm not going to get super specific, but it came
back to me because I was this literally was just
like this past week. I was taking a shower and
then realized we were out of something and I was like, oh,
like there wasn't any shampoo or whatever, and so I
was like like called out for Michael, who was my husband,
who was I know, in bed like on the other
side of the wall, and just like tapped on the
wall for a second. I was like, hey, would you

(21:17):
mind grabbing that from under the sink because I didn't
want to get out and drip everywhere, and I knew
he was right there, and when I hit the wall,
it just like came back to me. I'm like, oh
my gosh. And then like sitting on the floor in
the shower like, oh my gosh, that's how it happened.
Because I had hair to the back of my knees
because we couldn't cut our hair and so I could

(21:38):
shower on my own, but I couldn't always get like
all the soap out, Like I was kind of like
needed some help. So I would knock on the wall
of the shower and my mom would come in and
she'd help make sure I had it all rint. But
when my dad was home, he would come in and
he would act like it was cute, like, oh, it's
me instead, but he didn't help me. He would just
stand there and stare at me, and it was so uncomfortable.

(21:59):
And I knew, even as a young girl, this feels weird,
like this is off, but I didn't have terminology for it,
of course, And then I'd still have to go in
and like kiss him good night every night. And it
wasn't until I was sixteen that he started kissing on
the mouth. Oh you know, some families they just do that,
you know, they do that when they're little, and then
it stops as the kid gets older. He started when

(22:22):
I was a teenager. So there's all these signs again.
It just continues to click together. And I think what
wrecks me the most at this point in my own
healing journey in my own life is wanting justice for
the other girls whose lives he is so deeply impacted
because they're impacted up till today, just like mine is. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
It's just interesting to like think back when you're a
child and you know something isn't right. You feel it
in your bones, but you don't have the language to
really express what it is that you're feeling. You just
know it doesn't feel right. And for me, I just
I have a lot of things like that where I'm like,

(23:07):
I don't actually know what I don't know if something
terrible happened or not, but I have that those those
instances in my life where I just really felt like
this is not okay.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Well, the moment that you talked about, like when you
knocked on the wall, I think that we have all
had those where there are things that you didn't even
know existed, and then something triggers it and you it
all comes back. Yes, we're like, how could I ever
have forgotten this thing? Is like, I have those moments
I had won earlier this week about like the end

(23:40):
time training thing that we did, Like I hadn't thought
about that, and since it happened, I guess, and then
somebody said something it triggered it. And then I'm remembering
like every little detail of things like it's and then
you know, confirming it with other family members like am
I remembering this thing actually happened? But yeah, it's wild
how that works. I mean, you probably know better than

(24:00):
most like the brain just just deciding like not gonna
have that right in the you know, library of memories
right now, Like however that works?

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, well. In one of the homeworks of post trauma
for someone and why a society can so easily just
like write someone off is because emotions are just regulated,
sequencing is gone, things are forgotten then get remembered later,
so it looks like someone's just like now lying or
making it worse or no, I'm literally still having moments

(24:31):
where the sequencing is really what came back because it
was just like I don't know, he would just come
into the I'm like, oh no, that's that's how he
played it off to try to make it like less weird.
Was I basically called for help, And yes, he would
just make it like like cutesye like oh I'm here, honey,
I'm gonna help, you know, but like would just stand

(24:52):
there and stare and I know, you know, I still
you guys, this might be so naive and probably not
actually funny, but I have these I used to like
I would go to bed clothed. This isn't actually gonna
be funny. What's funny is that I'm still like, wait,
what's the reality of the situation, Like I'm almost like

(25:14):
laughing at myself or not, like just putting it together
like from a professional standpoint. So I would go to
sleep clothed and I would wake up without clothes, and
I thought it was a thing I would do if
I got too hot, Like it was like a joke
even in my household. Like Naomi if she gets like

(25:35):
hot at night or whatever, like she just takes her
clothes off in her sleep. And I literally would never
remember I had done it. And it actually it was
so impactful that I remember being afraid to like go
have a sleepover something because I was afraid I would
like do it at somebody's house. But the thing is,
it never happened at anybody else's house. Did it happened
anywhere else? And so and I just I had this

(26:02):
pivotal moment too, you know, I had these moments that
I kind of held on to or as like, you know,
my dad showed up for me here or my dad
showed up for me there, like just kind of holding
onto also trying to figure out, like what is the
actual reality of it all? Like there can be some good,
there can be some genuine there can be some love,
So like what is that tension of it all and

(26:22):
being willing to allow that to be true and not
make it like all one bucket or like all the
other bucket. And yet one of those examples was where
I got up one night the phone was ringing. I
was like fifteen, and I don't know if you guys
have this though, like age dading is hard when you

(26:42):
grow up in a trauma and like it's difficult. So
I'm like, I was about fifteen because I know this,
or I know it's hard. It's just all again that
sequencing is difficult. But I was about fifteen the phone rang.
What I'm in ten eleven at night? My dad was home.
I really shouldn't have, like, based on the roles of
the house. I don't even know why I got up
to answer the phone. It was actually really weird that

(27:03):
I even did that, because I was so afraid of
my dad. But we had back in the answering machine days,
you know, dating me, And so I heard that it
was one of my dad's friends who was a part
of this group. So I got up and I answered it,
and I remember my thought process was like I'll pick
it up and then like go get my dad. While
I'm on the phone with him, this guy was having
some mental health like psychiatric stuff going on, like he

(27:26):
really needed professional help. So he was talking like whack
a doodle stuff, Like he was talking about the Elephant Graveyard.
I don't know if you just watched The Lion King,
like that was a movie that was like platformed in
our household as being prophetic, like literally, so like he
was saying weird stuff and I'm just on the phone,
like I don't know what's happening. Well, my dad came out.
In the last memory I have was him coming towards

(27:48):
me and just like looking mad. The next thing I know,
I wake up the next morning. Well, I was told
that I was told that this man was demon possessed
and a demon had gone through the phone and had
taken me out, and my dad had carried me back
to bed. How much do you want to bet that

(28:10):
this physically abusive man who had thrown us into the walls,
whacked my head against the door frame next to the phone.
He knocked me out. Yeah, I know, that's what happened.
And yet it was then just lied about like my
dad was my hero. And so there's these things again,
like they continue to come up, they continue to connect,
and just that willingness, that willingness just to be honest

(28:34):
with ourselves, because I have to say, as painful as
these truths are, in the long run, it takes a
lot less energy to grieve than it does to continue
to hold up this house of cards. Like it's just exhausting.
So I'm like, yeah, no, this makes the most sense.
I don't believe that demons go through phone lines and

(28:55):
make kids drop to the ground. So again I can
still I'm talking to you, and I can picture his
face right now, like he was like like grimacing, you know,
like he was mad. And we had a wooden door
frame heading out into the garage like right there, and
I was turned and I'm like, he would have just
spacked my house. I mean, we had our heads smacked
into the brick wall of the house, the outside of
the house, our head smacked together. My brother once was

(29:18):
thrown off the top bunk into the wall on the
other side of the room because he was talking during
nap time. I mean I trimmed my hair once and
got the belt or like his foot was on my
back so I couldn't get up. I mean, this was
like the kind of environment that we were in. So, yeah,
I know, it wasn't a demon through the phone line. No, Yeah,
he wasn't my hero.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
And also, you know, like you're talking about, you have
good things about your dad that you can remember and
that you can say that are positive, but then you
have all these other abusive things, and that's sometimes hard
to see him for who he was in the reality
of the situation in your experience. Do you think that

(30:01):
you know, for us, it was very deeply ingreened that
you honor and obey your parents. And I think that
being such a part of my DNA made it difficult
for me to really acknowledge some of the more abusive
things that happened in our household, because I there was

(30:23):
a guilt attached to acknowledging that maybe his intentions weren't
always the best, maybe he hurt us and knew he
was hurting us, you know, because I think there was
for years. I just wanted to almost like make excuses
for him or just focus on the good parts. And

(30:46):
I'm just curious if any of that, like the honor
and obey is tied into all of that for you
as well.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
The honor and obey. Yes, I would say. It was like,
and you may resonate with us too. It was like
an on steroids version because of the fear of if
we didn't you know, like what like there would be consequences.
And I was raised that he was like a prophet, right,

(31:15):
you know, so with him being a prophet of God,
it's like, well, now we've got like eternal consequences. I mean,
that's what we're the fear that we're living under. So
it wouldn't be like that classic category of just like
be respectful or be right.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
No, it was well you might go to hell forever
and you're gonna get beaten until you get there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, and not to sidetrack you, but I was just
thinking when you were talking about kind of the implications
of it, not just being like you're my dad, but
like extra were there things and maybe you'll get to
this later, were there things that he did or that
occurred that reinforced that for you growing up, that it
wasn't just he's my dad, like there's an extra level

(32:00):
here that made it more serious, like doubt him and
things like that.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh, I mean, it was the whole culture. It was
just a part of Like it was just embedded in
the whole culture. So with him being physically abusive, I
mean I was taught a lot too, like Okay, he's
still a man, so like ignore and okay, that's not okay,
but that's the man in him, Like you need to
appreciate him for the God in him, and so you

(32:26):
need to kind of deal with the physical abuse because
it's worth it for his spiritual direction. So that kind
of idea. So it created this sort of split in
him like how we had to view him, and it
also made it the sort of this catch all where well,
that's just the man part, but well it's worth it
because we have this godly part. And there was like

(32:48):
stuff that happened that looking back is like hard to explain.
So it would seem like, Okay, yeah, you know, God
is with him, and so yeah, I mean, I guess
we're provided for. I guess we're but now looking back,
even those you know, you mentioned Ashley, like those good things,
you know, and there really are way fewer, Like I
don't have many left because memories I have where oh

(33:12):
my dad bought me, like took me out and bought
me shoes from my first internship for college and oh
my dad, you know, little things like that that he
would do. Why wasn't he doing that to begin with?
Like he was supposed to be providing for us, right,
and so these things that would seem so special. I
remember my mom would tell us when he was in
town because side note he we were not all in

(33:35):
the same to get to that. Yeah, so I can
explain more. And but so he wasn't always with my
immediate family, which was so good because we got to
breathe when he was gone. So when he was in town,
my mom would be like, oh, you know, your dad
bought pizza tonight, and it would be like, oh my gosh,

(33:56):
like thank you, and you'd have to show such like appreciation.
And again, I mean, my mom is working to support
she's supporting us. She's basically single mom supporting us, and
my dad would just like waltz in, waltz back out
without notice. You didn't know when he was coming, he
didn't know when he was going, and then he would
do some thing, spend some money if he felt like it,
and be like, oh my gosh, like he's amazing, and

(34:18):
like you should be taking care of your family, like
you should be providing for your family, and you probably
shouldn't have a bunch of families if you can't do
that right, And so even those moments down, I'm like, yeah, no,
that's actually a problem. That's not a win in my
mind anymore.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, and side note, mom has done some of that
same stuff. I don't know if you recognize that, Maddie,
but like I just remember her saying there was a
time period when I was little where he went out
and he picked up cans or something to get money
for milk. And but I'm like, I know he wasn't working,

(34:57):
you know what I mean. It's just like, why weren't
are you just taking care of us? Yes, I was
a baby, I should have milk. But the way that
she said that was like this is evidence that like
you have a good dad, you know, and I recognize
many other things like that. It is interesting how you
have to do some mental gymnastics when you're in a

(35:23):
situation like that or you'll go crazy.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Your poor mom, well, and I recognize like her need
to survive in it and trying to do those mental
gymnastics to make it okay or make it good. And
then I guess we have to do backwards gymnastics as
it tolds to like get back out of it and
take I think a more accurate look at what was

(35:47):
going on and what should it have been to begin with.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, so okay, So your dad he he left messengers.
He wanted to be able to have this polygamous lifestyle.
So was he and he thought he was basically the profit.
Did he have a following? Like did he bring people
with him when he left?

Speaker 1 (36:12):
I don't know where he found the people, but he
did end up having He did have a following. So
he had a cluster of people in western New York.
So we grew up outside of Buffalo, so I was
just say Buffalo, and then he had a I would
say it was a bigger group in central Ohio. And
then there were some people I can't remember actually if
it was Arkansas or Arizona. I think it's Arkansas. I

(36:34):
think you all got some of them here. Oh, and
I don't know how that happened because obviously this region
is totally different, so some connections were made through some
probably tent something, and so he would go visit and
he'd have calls, but he would primarily go back and
forth between Western New York and Central Ohio. But we

(36:55):
were the only children of his in Western New York.
Now there were other followers, but we were the only children.
So he did overall, if we average it out, he
spent less time with us than he did in Central
Ohio because again, there were more families there.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
So that's interesting that he didn't want to merge, like
the wives and the children. He was keeping all of these,
like he had all these different lives basically.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, yes, I just thought of something that made me laugh.
What you said just reminded me of something, because he
had all these families, but he when he was in
Ohio anyway, he had like an upstairs room bathroom setup
like at a bachelor's house. So like he didn't even
like stay with them, so he would that was his

(37:47):
main Like there's a batchery at his house, and he
made like an upstairs kind of apartment sort of thing,
and that was like my dad's you know, hermit hole.
That he would go stay, and so he would just
like show up though he loved the scare tactic of
you know, the unexpected, So I'm just gonna show up,
and so he'd just show up, so.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Your mom wouldn't even know that he was coming.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
No, and then we wouldn't know till he was leaving.
It would either be at dinner the night before or
the morning of, and he'd be like, okay, I'm heading out.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Would this is this a control tactic like for your mom? Oh?

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Absolutely. The only time we could really let our guard
down was like two weeks after he had left. It
was it would be really odd if he were to
show up within the first couple of weeks, so you knew, like, okay,
I've got some time. But so yeah, So we had
all these families and no one lived to none of
the kids with the mom's respective moms all lived together.

(38:42):
But he to me was like he would threaten us.
I think it was supposed to be, like he'd say,
someday we'll all be under one roof and we'll all in.
It's supposed to be that way. And I always felt
like I was getting threatened, Like what do I have
to do to make sure that doesn't happen. Kidding, but
that was the goal. But I mean, he knew that
he had to keep this under the radar. I mean,

(39:03):
he knew that this wasn't legal, and I would get
told that because I went to public school, y'all. Like
I wasn't in private, I wasn't like homeschooled. Most were
homeschooled because my mom worked full time and he wasn't
there to help provide. Yeah, she was providing for us,
so she worked, and she worked for the school district
that we attended, which was even higher pressure. So we

(39:24):
had to make sure that we tried to blend even
though we looked I looked totally different. Boys can blend
with holiness standards. Girls can't so much, so that was
really difficult. But he he did have this goal of yeah,
us all being under one roof. But I mean he
went as far as my brother and I from my
mother being like the first marriage, that would have made

(39:44):
it polygamist essentially, even though it ultimately didn't because he
was divorced from his first wife. We have his last name,
so my maiden name would be my dad's last name.
The other children all have their mom's last names, and
he's not listed at least I know for sure he's
not listed on at least some er certificates. So like
he was really trying to cover his tracks. No legal marriages,

(40:06):
even he and my mom were not legally married. Oh
so he taught that legal marriage was just like in
the eyes of the state, you know, and in the
eyes of God, you know, if you make that commitment.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
And did perform these ceremonies. Or was he just like, hey,
you and I are married.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, no, we're married. Now I'm going to sleep with you.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
And it's kind of like marking your territory. Like that's
how I see it now. It's like a dog marking
its territory. It's like, okay, now you're mine.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
How many women did he end up marrying, Like how
many wives did he have at one time?

Speaker 1 (40:40):
I know for sure, I know for sure the four,
but there were there were others that overlap, but they
came and went, And I don't know the full backstory
of that. I don't think he would have ever left someone.
I don't know what his motivation would have been to
do that because he was getting what he wanted. So
I'm I'm hopeful that these women stepped away and said now,

(41:04):
but I know for sure of two other women who
overlapped during that timeframe, because he would have because my
mom was working and she had a work year round,
and my brother and I would be home from school
all summer. We'd go to Ohio for part of those breaks,
but we'd also, you know, we wouldn't be there the
whole time. So he would have teenage girls from Ohio

(41:26):
who were in the group come and stay with us,
and they were watching us well. I then found letters
after he died between some of those young women that
they were basically prospects for him to marry, and so
that just totally changes, of course, my experience of that too.
When I look back, it also explains why not all

(41:48):
of them were very nice to us. I mean, we
weren't treated super well, Like my brother was treated better
because he's a male, and this is an incredibly patriarchal group.
Women were way less than Brenham actually teaches that women
are hogs. I mean he literally is recorded using that language,
and they're just like temptresses and adulteresses and all this
kind of stuff, and you can't trust them. So I

(42:09):
grew up, like if I did tell my dad I
loved him like he would, here's probably a better example,
like I would just never trusted. So I knew he
really valued art in music, and I had some artistic ability,
and I started just clearing out the art awards in
like fift sixth grade, and I remember being so proud
to tell him, and he just looks at me and
he goes, well, who helped you? Obviously you cheated, So

(42:33):
it was like you just couldn't do anything, like you
weren't gonna, you weren't gonna get praised, you weren't gonna
And so that's how women were viewed. And it just
again it makes sense that these women, now, who are
these young young young women? Can we call them women?
These teenage girls? They were women to me because I
was like five, you know, but I'm like, no, they

(42:54):
really weren't. They were teenage girls. Why they weren't like
necessarily loving their stay because there was this other awful
weight that would have been on them while they were there,
of like, am I gonna have to marry this guy?

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Am?

Speaker 1 (43:07):
I'm? I mean, it's just horrific, it's absolutely awful. So again,
just something I'm still working through is like, how do
I how do I kind of honor that for all
of these women who were preyed on by him.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Like I just and really not even knowing how many
there are in total, I would imagine it was probably
pretty much every every girl I could think of was
probably a possibility.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
I don't know why anyone would have been exempt.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
How big did this group grow?

Speaker 1 (43:43):
I've estimate I've estimated it probably like with kids and everything,
maybe a couple hundred. So it wasn't tiny tiny. I
mean it's small, but it's not just like ten people.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, was that primarily in Ohio?

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Then? Yeah, primarily in Ohio. There was a decent size,
a lot of them. I've learned it this more too,
as I've gotten older. A lot of them were related,
so Western New York had some relations with Central House.
It kind of makes sense how it sort of spread
so different people got recruited.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I'm just I'm glad that you never had to move
to Ohio. How many how many weeks would you have
without your dad around? And then when he would come in,
like typically how long would he stay?

Speaker 1 (44:33):
We'd usually have the best my memory serving me right now,
I would say a few weeks a month. Sometimes he
was gone a couple months at a time. I mean
it could be, but you started being like walking on
eggshells after a while because you didn't know so and
it's not like he was there at a specific time
every day when he came. We knew generally he liked

(44:54):
to travel in the morning. It was about a four
and a half hour drive. So my brother and I
we I'd be riding the school bus on the way home,
and the way the school bus drove, like if our
house is here, it would drive this way and then
circle around it up And so when we went this way,
we could see if his car was in the driveway.
So if we saw his car on the driveway, like

(45:17):
I can still you know, that terror just that like
just gripping your body and absolutely a trauma threat response.
I grew up dissociating was, you know, the best a
kid can do. So I'm grateful to my younger self
for doing that. I mean, it helped me survive, but

(45:37):
then did a lot of work to be able to
set that coping aside and be able to cope in
a different way that's healthier long term. But yeah, that's
that's how how I made it, but he would then stay.
Usually it was at least a couple weeks. I mean
maybe three weeks he'd spent again, he spent less time
in New York and there were just think it's mainly

(46:00):
because there were less of us, but I also think
because he had that separate apartment area in Ohio. He
didn't have that at our house, and so that probably
wore on him too, like that he was actually like with.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
His family, he had to interact with you guys.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Which he really didn't a whole lot because he stayed
in the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
I was gonna say he wasn't working.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, so he was just like in the bedroom, like
watching TV, reading literally all day long.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
I can imagine that would probably be more stressful in
the summer when you don't have school to go to,
like you're just gonna be there in the house with him.
I can't imagine what that did to your nervous system.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Well, and he very intentionally raised us to have chaotic
attachment styles. Now he would not have been able to
use that language, but he didn't want us to be
healthily attached to her mom. He would say that we
were spoiled because she like hugged us because she wanted
to care for for us. And I have a note

(47:03):
too from my dad that he sent back to my
mom when my brother was only two weeks old. He
had taken him to Ohio away from your mom. Yeah,
because he was bottle fed. Her milk hadn't come in
and so he was bottle fed. So my dad took
him at two weeks old. Isn't that horrifying?

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, that's bad, and that that's like, I can't even
I don't know how I would even function.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
And can you imagine, like thirty eight, you've wanted children
your whole life, you finally have this baby, and then
the baby's taken from you two weeks later for I
don't know how long they were gone for.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
That's horrible. It's about the baby, it's for both.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, and so he didn't want us to be I
had an accident when I was eight where it's really
awful young girl. She's awful at the time. I have
some information that leads me to believe she's still awful,
but she was definitely awful at the time. Now and
there's room for that, right because she was also a kid,
she was being raised in a cult I just have

(48:07):
seen some comments from her towards me recently that made
me think she's still probably pretty awful.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Well.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
When she was that age, she purposefully and we know
this because she ended up in many and her parents
were like, why'd you do this? Like you knew this
bike was broken? Had me get on this broken bicycle?
And I was a pretty fearful kiddo to Beacon takes
me to this top of this like steep hild road
and I start riding, and I was I remember being

(48:33):
up at the top being like I just want to
go back the other way, like I don't want to
do this, and I'm getting called names and I'm getting
pressure and all that, and I'm a kid, and so
I'm like, okay, like I need to do this. I
start writing out the front wheel of the front wheel
flies off and so I flip and I land like
forehead face first. So I lost my front tooth, my
lips fallow up, covering my nostrils, like I have a

(48:55):
scar on one side of my face. Fo it, I've
got a crown, I've got all this stuff from it.
I also was unconscious for eighteen hours, no medical care, none,
just like at your home uh huh. This was in
Ohio though my mom wasn't there. I was then captain
Ohio for a full month until my face returned normal.

(49:15):
And when I got home and I told my mom,
she had never been told. They kept it from her.
So I literally could have died and they just hid
it from her.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well that's another thing. Then you weren't able to have
phone calls or communication with your mom.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
No. One of my dad's other wives was actually really kind.
She let us hide like I was like smearing off
drinks and stuff when I was like fourteen in the dryer,
and let me try like driving her car and I
absolutely broke ahead legs, I pulled right into something. And

(49:53):
so she was like the cool, fun one. She would
let us sneak and make phone calls. And when her daughter,
my half sister, was at our house and New York,
my mom would do the same. So they actually had
like a healthy, like working relationship of understanding. I think
they had that empathy for one another of this is hard. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
So yeah, that brings me to the next question, which
was were all the wives communicating with each other? But
it sounds like your mom and one of the wives
communicated and were on friendly terms, but the others, no, as.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
I think is fair. It was really caddy and competitive,
and I remember I used to think that was so
ugly of them, and I'm like, well, of course you
oh were that way, and I don't blame you at all,
like that you should be struggling with this. This is wrong. Yeah,
my mom was so much older than the others, So
I mean, if he if he married them when they

(50:54):
were like seventeen. And I'm trying to like age do
an age thing. So my my half brother is thirty five,
I'm a couple. I'm about to turn forty here soon,
so it'd be five years shy. I was one when
my mom was forty. She had him when she was seventeen,
so my mom would have been forty five. So just

(51:15):
give you an idea of like that age gap. Like
my dad was like sixty years old when right, And
so my mom was kind of like the older mature
woman of the situation. She still could have behaved the
same and it would have been totally fair. She didn't.
She was more trying to like keep the peace and

(51:35):
try to like make stuff okay and kind of joke
with the other women when she saw them and try
to like make it fine. I think there's also this
reality of like she's forty five, she's paramount apausal, she
just had two kids later in life, like she's not
competing with a seventeen year old, Like what on earth?
Like when I think about those dynamics, I think, as again,

(51:56):
as I'm heading towards like those ages where I can
remember her now, I'm like, oh, what a horrible situation
for a woman to be in. Just the self doubt.
I mean, she would walk around and say you're so stupid,
like to herself, like she literally allowed to be like
I can't believe you did that. You're so stupid. What's
the matter with you? Just no self esteem? And so

(52:18):
I think that like caretaker role was something that she
could do that likely, I think that it was partially
in her, but I think it also got elevated and
magnified because it helped her to cope and find her
place and all of this mess.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Do you think there was any part of her that
felt like this is wrong, like the polygamy, but not
just the polygamy, the marrying teenage girls. Was there a
part of her that or did she just completely believe
like he is God's prophet and this has to be right.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
That's a current stuck point for me with again some
of that confirmation happening recently. I I don't know how
someone could not at least have doubts about that because
she wasn't raised in it. I think there is a
distinction there, like when you're raised in something, it's all

(53:14):
you've known, and so it's so normal, and your brain's
literally getting wired and it's you're developing your and that's
all a part of it. And so to come into
it like in your thirties or maybe in twenties for
like the message in general, but with my dad in
your thirties. And then I think though about how she
got married at nineteen and she was born in forty four,

(53:38):
so also remembering this really is a different era we're talking.
My dad was a he would have actually been a
depression baby, and my mom was a boomer, so you know,
she would have been World War two baby. And so
when I think about that, I'm like, maybe it wasn't
so odd like it is to us now, Like the
age I still think the age gap. I can't fathom

(54:00):
the age gap. But I'm wondering if the seventeen eighteen nineteen,
if she got married at nineteen, like if that just
was more normal in her world. Yeah, so I'm kind
of working through some of that. I do have some
indicators that she took issue with some stuff. There was
this one time where he stepped on her foot on purpose.

(54:22):
In general, I'm not aware of him being physically abusive
with her. There were some little moments like this though,
like these like kind of passive aggressive. Still was physically abusive,
more like under the radar, or he was upset with
her and tried to play it off like he was
being playful, but like stepped on her foot really hard.
She didn't have shoes on, and she got so much
she turned around threw her water in his face, and

(54:43):
it made me so happy. Wow, I thought that was
just amazing. And then she of course felt horrible for it.
But he did back off. I mean, he didn't come
at her more. I don't know. I just she believed
so much that this was the truth, that the biblical

(55:04):
theological part was the truth. I mean, she was a
woman who was in the Bible every day and taking notes,
and she knew shorthand because she was a secretary and
would take shorthand notes on everything and just really was
all in. And I think she allowed her faith to
overshadow all of the injustices and the abuses that were happening.

(55:27):
And that's something that we should never do, whatever faith
we have, where whatever that is for someone, it should
lead us in the direction of justice, and I just
it worked in reverse and that's wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
And there's also that concept of suffering now for something greater,
and so I think that causes us to accept things
that we might not otherwise accept because it's like, well,
you know, going through this now, but then later like

(56:03):
there's going to be a payoff for this suffering that
I've endured. I'm just curious about your mom. Do you
feel like she understood the fear that you had and
your siblings had in that and the abuses that you experienced.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
I don't have any I don't have anything to go
on to think she knew there was sexual abuse. There
was never anything said, there was never, so I don't
think so for that. She did say though, that the
physical abuse, that that was the man and that wasn't God.

(56:49):
So she did see a delineation there, and so her
way though of trying to help was to just have
us be, yeah, And so that was protecting yeah. And
I remember feeling that too, like just trying to like,
oh my gosh. I can still have that come up
a little bit, like if I'm like when I was

(57:11):
in school, if I was in class and someone was
doing something, I'm like, I would feel that fear of like,
just don't do that, Just don't do that, you know,
like just stop it. And with my son being in
school and some of like he liked certain classes, he
doesn't like other classes, and I can feel that come
up a little bit of like, oh, I want to
protect him. But fortunately I have that self awareness and

(57:33):
I'm like, I'm not going to teach him to be
to protect himself though by making himself basically go away,
because that's what I did. I basically just made myself
is not existent as possible. I read a book a day.
I just was as quiet as possible, made myself as
small as I could. And that really was my mom's modeling,
because that that was how she operated, just like did

(57:53):
what she's supposed to do. And I would see life
come into her as well when he was gone, because
she was so funny. She was silly. She was goofy
like she and so I think I, you know, as
kids were watching, but we're not necessarily like intellectually connecting things.
We're just modeling. And so I think I learned that
from her at a really young age. And she I

(58:16):
remember one time she was heading to the dentist and
it meant I would be home with my dad and
that was terrifying. And so I had hidden in the
back seat of her car and she actually like left
and when she found me, she's like, oh my gosh,
you're going to get in so much trouble, Like like
why did you do this? Like because she knew it
was going to be so bad for me and maybe

(58:38):
even for her, like because does she say, oh I
took her, Like no, she's not in that, Like I mean,
I think it gave her kind of a dilemma as well.
And so there wasn't true protection, you know, like that's
not real. That's not what protection actually looks like. Protection
looks like standing up to the abuser and saying no
and getting distance and creating real safe not faux safety

(59:02):
by not being able to be a person and have
a personality.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Right, I feel like that speaks to how deep her
indoctrination must have been into these beliefs because she was
self supported. You know, so many times we hear a
polygamist groups the women are not allowed to work or
get education, and so it makes it that much harder

(59:27):
for them to decide to leave and step away, and
sometimes almost impossible. And the fact that your mom did
have some freedom from him and she was able to
work and be outside the home and support the family
just tells me, like that was deep. I'm guessing I

(59:50):
don't know about her her love for him. Did you
ever feel like they were in love or that she
was being dutiful?

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
She was literally giddy with him when he would be sweet. Yes,
like teenage, he had a very furry chest, and I remember,
and I'm not against that, that's fine. I just remember
as a kid being like, oh, you know, and then
she though loved it, and so if he came out

(01:00:22):
with his shirt off, she'd like want to go like
plant it. And it was like but it was super cute,
you know, like she was into him. Yeah, wow, Like
she legit was into him, Like they didn't cross any lines,
Like it wasn't you know, inappropriate in front of us kids,
but like it really was like she was attracted to
him and she enjoyed conversation with him, And I think

(01:00:44):
that's part of what's so heartbreaking about it. Yeah, it does,
but he didn't he didn't actually treat her well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
No, so it's almost like he did he love bomb
because I'm kind of getting that sense.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yeah, oh yeah, And it was you know, abuse cycle
in ways of a little bit of a honeymoon. Not
it wasn't as drastic as we can see and domestic
violent situations, but there's there was like a taste of
that of oh, I'm going to be thoughtful and then
I but I also know what I know of personality

(01:01:18):
disorders and just again his his background and some of
the things that were going on for him. I think
he may have genuinely had moments of emotionally moving towards
someone and then retreating. I think I see some of
that when I look back, So I don't know if
it was totally calculated and fake. I think he maybe

(01:01:43):
had times of again like emotionally, I'm going to move
towards her and there's going to be some genuiness there,
but then I need to protect myself and I'm gonna
I'm gonna jump back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Interesting, Well where do we want to go next to?

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Apologies are all? Are Harry justin listeners? Because I don't
want to miss anything.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
That's an episode title Petting the Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And if Michael listens, my husband does have hair in
this chest and I'm not upset about it. It's just
when I was like a kid, I was like, why
are you so into this? Is it triggering for you?

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Do I see it? And remember my mom? No? I
do not need that connection. Oh my god, that's a
whole therapy right there. Oh my gosh. If you like
this episode of The Cult next Door, please leave us
a positive review and rating on Apple Podcasts

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Spotify, or wherever you listen, and don't forget to subscribe
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