S3 E31 Born and Razed: In Conversation with Beth Granger

In this episode of the Cult Vault Podcast, host Kacey speaks with author Beth Granger, a cult survivor and representative plaintiff in a landmark class action lawsuit against her abusers. Beth shares her experiences growing up in Grenville Christian College, a cult disguised as a school, and discusses the challenges of recovery and the importance of sharing stories of those born and raised in cults. The conversation delves into the impact of cult life on identity, the challenges of publishing a memoir, connections to the troubled teen industry, coercive control tactics, purity culture, family dynamics, and the journey of healing.

Beth's Book: 
Amazon.com: Born and Razed : Surviving the Cult Was Only Half the Battle eBook : Granger, Beth: Books

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
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(00:44):
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Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello and welcome to the Cult Vault podcast, your dedicated
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(01:12):
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(02:14):
not only gives you exclusive access but also directly supports
the continuation of this work. Thank you again for your
support and your listenership. Now let's unlock the vault. Hello, Hello, Hello, listeners,
and welcome back to another episode of the Coltport Podcast.
I'm your host, Katie, and I'm joined today by author

(02:35):
Beth Grainger. Hi, Beth, would you like to start by
introducing yourself to the listeners.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Thank you, Katy, I'm so delighted to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I Yeah. My name is Beth Granger and I am
a cult survivor. I'm also a representative plainiff in a
landmark class action lawsuit against our abusers, which we'll get to.
I'm a diet culture dropout and a recovering overachiever, and

(03:07):
I am now a published author. So that sort of
sets the stage, I guess. I mean, I will say,
you know, to really set the stage. I was the
first baby born to parents at a private elite boarding
school called Crenville Christian College, and it advertised as an

(03:27):
Anglican school, but in truth it was a cult hiding
in plain sight. We even duped the Anglicans. Yeah, the
truth did not come out till the school when bankrupt.
But when I was three, our school fell prey to
two leaders of a commune called the Mothers. And that

(03:51):
commune was in Cape con Or. It still is actually,
and it's called the Community of Jesus, and under their
influence our school became an institution of paranoia that brainwashed
and abused and terrorized its residents for decades. So that's
kind of the setting the Steene for the story.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
And I had not heard of Grenfield Christian College until
I read your book Born and Raised. Surviving the Cult
was only half the battle, And that's such a powerful
title because so many of the things, and I've said
this before on the podcast a few times, so much
of the media that we have access to, documentaries, newspaper articles, podcasts,

(04:44):
a lot of the time those stories focus on the
experiences of the cult, almost through the lens of the
cult leader, so there's not a lot from voices of
people specifically born and raised in cult and actually the
steps that people have to navigate post cult to recover

(05:06):
from that experience. And I think that that's so important
because if you listen to some piece of media that
you resonate with, then that it stops halfway through and
you're like, hang on a minute. You've told me that
I'm suffering with the same thing, but you've stopped, like,
hang on, there's more. Tell me how I how I
kind of get over this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
What happens next? That's what I always want to know. Yeah,
and I should, I should thank you for pointing that out.
I should clarify that the title of my book is
Born and Raised spelled r A z ed or z ed,
which gives it the full meaning. But I love how
you pointed that out because I relied on memoirs. We

(05:50):
didn't have podcasts when I left, but I relied on
memoirs essentially, and they almost all ended when the person
left the cult or you know, got out somehow and
the triumphant escape. And I wanted to know what, seriously,
how are they dealing with the past, and how is
it affecting them? And am I normal? What's wrong with me?

(06:13):
You know that sort of thing. So I tried to
write It was very important for me to write. At
least I think over a third of my book is
the recovery process that, you know, So because I wanted
to write a book that I needed leaving the culture,
you know.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
So yeah, yeah, born and raised as in raising a
town or raising a village or you know. I think
that is such a powerful play on the words, because
that is what happens in cultic groups. Your whole identity
is raised, your whole community is raised. If the group
splits or you're shunned again, everything's raised. So that's such

(06:54):
a strong title both the former lat.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah exactly, I mean in our cult and I'm most culled.
You know, the point is to break people down, and
that was really the point of you know, the goal
of our leaders if you will and they so when

(07:23):
you leave, you are, You're broken. And it's very very
it's basically a journey of the life of a lifetime
I think from many people to repair and recover. So yeah,
I tried to touched on that, well, not just touch on it,
dive into that in my story. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
So it's such a well written book. And I was
just looking through the list of names of from acknowledgments
that you've had for your folks. A lot of people
on that list have been on this podcast. A lot
of people on this have written their own memoirs, which

(08:05):
is really cool. What's it like to publish a memoir
about your life experience in a cult and have that
type of support for your writing.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Oh well, it's scary as it's terrifying to publish. It's
one of the hardest parts is that if you're like me,
you are trying to get into the publishing landscape without following.
So I didn't. I didn't have I wasn't able successful

(08:35):
to get an agent and do the traditional publishing where
you know, everything's paid for you by the publisher. So
I was able to partner with a really excellent hybrid press,
and they led me through the They sort of showed
me the path to getting these endorsements and told me

(08:56):
to write a wish list. This was last summer and
I started. It took me about three four months of
constant listening to podcasts, reading memoirs, doing all these things
to find all a list of the people that I
would love most to endorse my book. And that was
so scary. I spent probably the whole time feeling like

(09:17):
an impostor and who do you think you are? Kind
of voices in my head. But I knew I had
a good book, and thank you for your compliment. But
I knew it was good, and I just had to
be so brave and then write, you know, write individualized
letters to each one of them to tell them who

(09:39):
I was and would you please read my book? It
would mean so much to me.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
If you did.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I was told that the rule of thumb is
if you seek endorsements from people that you don't know,
the general rule of thumb is you'll get one out
of ten saying yes. And I think I asked forty
people and I got sixteen, So it was a pretty good,
pretty good yeah. And it meant the world to me

(10:08):
to answer your question. I mean, it's so scary to
put out a memoir you feel, you feel, does my
story matter? Will anyone like, will anyone think it's even
like relatable? All that stuff, And so these endorsements just
meant the world to me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
I'm just going to read out some of the names
for listeners that might recognize some of the people that
have been on the podcast. And if this isn't praise
enough for listeners to go out and be like, oh,
I wonder what this book's all about, if they haven't
read it already, then maybe this will I tell few people.
So here we have Stephen Kent, who's very prominent in

(10:55):
the cult recovery and education field, yan Ya Lalich who
is a good friend of the show, Janie Selby, who
was also a friend of the show. Here Gee, Jenkinson,
Uncle Ricter, carrying on down the page, Meg Applegate, Kate West,
who is a recent guest on the show, Tourette Boody
on who I just absolutely adore. Oh my gosh, so

(11:18):
many incredible names of wonderful people that have had such
an impact on the cult recovery space, and your name
is now in amongst all them people.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
How they Yeah, so exciting. I'll never forget. Actually, the
first person that I heard from was Jennie Selby, and
she sent me an email that she couldn't put my
book down, and I was like, oh my god. And
then I got a text from someone you didn't mention,
which was Sarah Edmondson and she is a little bit
culty podcast, but she was on Nexium the Vow and

(11:53):
I got this text that she said, I'm loving your book,
and I was.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Anyway, so yeah, it's just great to hear.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
That's amazing. That's good. You need. All of those little
messages helped to help those those self doubting and nasty
little voices that we get in the back of our
brains telling us to stop trying to do what we
want to do in the way we want to.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Do it exactly. I needed this, and I'm so glad
you brought that up because I'm really proud and delighted
to have those endorsements.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Well, one of the names on the list I thought
was really interesting because I drew so many parallels between
your writing and the work that we've done on the
podcast around the troubletein industry. How much of the troubleteine
industry did you were you aware of before you wrote
this book?

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Just hmm, let me think I'd read a couple memoirs.
I think it's basically it. I'd read Silenced. I think
it's all don't remember who? Sorry, my brain is. I
have a bad memory, but which we might get into
because it's caused by drugs.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
But yeah, I was aware.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I'd maybe seen a couple of documentaries. I could see
the relationship between my experience and the trouble teen industry.
Although ours is kind of well, ours really is related
in many ways because we had teens at our school.
But ours was so unique in that it was we

(13:37):
were advertised as this elite institution. You know that people
were sending their kids not as trouble teens. But it's
basically getting a university preparatory education, and you know, we
had we had we had people on our board of
advisors who were from the highest levels of society and government.

(13:58):
We had three lieutenants on our board. We had the
Bishop of Ontario Anglican, and you know, High Commissioner to
Great Britain, senators on the board from the outside world
who had no idea what was going on behind our walls.
So that sort of sets us apart from the trouble

(14:20):
team industry in that usually those are I don't know,
they're all unregulated, let's just say that. And that's the
huge problem. But yeah, and that's one of the reasons
i want my book to gain traction because I'm so
afraid of what's happening, especially in the United States. But
we can talk about that later. But with them dismantling

(14:42):
the Department of Education and ushering in private schools en
mass it's terrifying what can happen to students being indoctrinated
and abused without regulation.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Ye, absolutely it was.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
It was definitely the attack like the hot Sea activities
and the kind of in in parallel to like attack therapy,
scream therapy from from the Trouble teen industry, but of
course originally from synan On. So I was just wondering

(15:43):
where that tactic originated from. In terms of the the
community of Jesus, the mothers, I was wondering where they
and if there was any ties to things like Synanon
or or some kind of.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Attack their Greek.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, because it's a strange thing to introduce to a
religious setting. I think it's it's not often you'll find
that type of public humiliation or ritualistic humiliation in that
specific form.

Speaker 5 (16:14):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
There's a friend of mine who Brief, who was at
our school and is also an author, and he's been
doing a lot of research and I think his book
is coming out soon. But his book is very much
academic research and he explains and answers this in detail.
I haven't read it yet though, but what I know
is that our the mothers from the community actually went

(16:40):
to a convent in Germany in the sixties, I believe,
and that convent was uh it was it was in Darmstadt,
Sisters of Mary, I think it was called, and they
were basically using Nazi uh what's the word, course of

(17:06):
control tactics and this kind of you know, attack therapy
to quickly gain control of people. And I can't speak
to the details because, as I said, I haven't really
got a full understanding of it, but I know that
that they spent a lot of time there being trained

(17:30):
and influenced in that setting, and then they came into
the community, they started their own commune at the Community
of Jesus where they started not like people became nuns
and monks there. My brother is one of them to
this day, he's still there. So I don't know if

(17:51):
that answers your question, but it kind of, you know, yes,
I know does.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Definitely does. And I think it kind of goes back
to a lot of the stuff that not only Robert
day Lifton talked about, you know, because he's the godfather
of cult education, so of course he's talked about this,
but Edgar Shine's idea, of course, with persuasion, with you know, freezing,
changing and unfreezing, as well with a lot of the

(18:18):
brainwashing tactics that were used in the Korean War with
prisoners of war, which I'm sure translated directly from Hitler's
regime and Nazi Germany. And they all kind of take
influences from each other, don't they. And you see this
a lot at the moment with online cults and things.
But back to Grenville Christian College. It was interest in

(18:42):
reading the formation of Grenville and how it really did
seem like it had its problems, financial problems and you know,
teething problems, but really it seemed to be much more
of an idyllic place until these people showed up and

(19:04):
told you that there was a problem with the college
that they could solve exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, I have very good memories from the first few
years of my life. I was born the year that
the school started, and it was actually not called Grenville
Christian College. It was called Brion Christian School, and it
was part of what they wanted to have happened was
a global franchise. They already had locations in Texas, New York, Scotland,

(19:37):
and they were starting something in Africa, and one of
the leaders at the New York school, the Higgs, became
the founders of our Canadian location, and because the HIGs
were Canadian, so it just so happened though that when
they found the campus and they made the deal to

(19:58):
buy the property, that same week the New York location
went bankrupt, and so they convinced all the staff there,
including my parents, to move up to Canada and start
the school within a month, I think it was in
six weeks. They started a new school and they brought
a lot of the students up and it was, you know,

(20:21):
missionaries basically kind of a missionary vibe, if you will,
and they were very evangelical, which isn't not necessarily benign,
but anyway, you know, the model was that staff would
live in community, be paid very little, you know, sacrifice
their life for the greater good and and everything just

(20:45):
there was a lightness to my memories. You know. For
one thing, I was allowed to live with my parents.
That changed. But I didn't know that the school was
floundering financially and that the leadership wasn't cohesive and that
what else happened. Staff were becoming dissillusioned after about three years,

(21:06):
and that's why they looked for outside input, and that's
why they once they found the mothers at the community
and they were really impressed with their commune. It seemed
so disciplined and successful and cohesive. They went down there
and they were really impressed and very stepter our leaders. Anyway,

(21:30):
they quickly became convinced that the mothers were basically the
answer to our problems, and you know, the key they
would be if we followed them, they'd be the key
to our school's success. And so they invited them up
to Canada to lead retreat and the retreats stretched out

(21:52):
to two weeks during the school year. I can't imagine
how that worked. And the retreat was full of what
classic cult tactics like love bombing, prophesying about the wonderful
success that God will bring you, all the visions that

(22:12):
they had for the school, and on the flip side,
just breaking people down right off the bat, you know,
you know, preaching to them that they were a repository
of rebellion and that God needed to purge their group
and that they needed to if they were going to stay,

(22:32):
they had to can you know, make lifetime confessions which
were used against them right off the bat, and that
they needed to vow that vow of obedience to the
mothers and you're all in, you're all out type thing,
you know. So I didn't obviously, I wasn't aware of
all this, but I could feel right away the whole

(22:54):
vibe of the school changing and it became very paranoid
in my parents. Some changed right before my eyes, and
soon after it was, like I like to say, it
was in all you can eat buffet of coercive tactics
were just dumped into our lives. Like our families were dismantled.
Staff kids were moved away from their parents because we

(23:16):
were told they our parents were told that they were
blind to our sin and that their sin of idolatry
had to be eradicated, an idolatry meaning loving your children
above God. But what I internalized was that it was
a sin to love me, which is a profoundly damaging

(23:41):
thing to learn when you're little. And then, as we said,
we talked about attack therapy. We called those alight sessions,
and they happened constantly, from small groups to full school assemblies.
People were publicly shied and attacked for sins, real or imagined,

(24:03):
and you never knew when you'd be next, and we
lived in constant fear. And then soon the staff were
required to take vows of obedience for life, and discipline
became a huge part of our lives too, draconian discipline
that was both harsh and unpredictable. Anything from paddling, which

(24:32):
they did indiscriminately with the students and mainly and very
severe paddling to harsh labor that could last indefinitely. So
anytime you got in trouble and you were put on discipline,
you would be given harsh labor, and it was usually

(24:53):
there was no end given, so you didn't know how
long it would be, and you were based told until
you've changed, until we can tell you've changed, and or
or even things like we girls had our hair cut
short if they considered us to be acting like temptresses,

(25:14):
uh Jezebels and you know so. And then there was
a spy network. You know, I keep hearing this in
so many cults where the leaders are everybody reports to
the leaders, so you know, if you're on the bottom,
you're always in trouble, but you don't really I didn't
realize till during our trial that this was an actual

(25:34):
network where everyone was reporting back up the chain and
and staff and prefects, and we're expected to turn people
in or turn attack people in light sessions for a

(25:55):
long list of rules that were both written and unwritten.
And yeah, I mean that's just a few of them.
I could keep going, but it's like, you know, the
indoctrination too. We could talk about that for a long time,
you know how we had to listen to the mother's
teaching tapes and we had to do excessive prayer. And

(26:16):
then I guess one more thing is that we had
so our lives were so controlled, so we didn't have
ability to decide where we're going to live, or what
we were going to wear, or jobs. You know, my
dad when my dad, when they got there, my dad

(26:36):
was the principal of the high school, and he said,
I was principal in the morning. In the afternoon, I
was digging ditches, like because they have changing jobs. You
just never knew what would happen. So yeah, it was yeah,
classic cult.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
You mentioned the kind of environment of surveillance that existed,
and there was also a lot of self pleasing and
that was through like a lot of mystical manipulation, like
you know, saying that they already knew what you'd done,
so you might as well tell them now while you
have the opportunity to come forward with and sometimes there

(27:19):
was just nothing to say, like there was just nothing
to say. And this was really like reminding me of
a lot of the forced confession stuff that you hear
about in the trouble teen industry. But it was making
me feel like I couldn't breathe some of the times,
you know, because they're just saying they're like tell Us
tell Us, tell Us Beeth, tell Us Beth, tell Us Beth,

(27:39):
and you're like, I don't honestly, I just don't know
what to say. And then of course there were times
where you did have things that you really really just
wanted to hold on to. I don't know if you
could talk the listeners.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
Through the.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Story about the pair of jeens, because like that that
was like your small little victory, and you wanted to
keep that for yourself. But of course, with the self
policing system that was in place, you didn't get to
keep it for very long.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Oh yeah, I love that. It's just such a classic example.
I jeans were considered the devil, you know, basically not
the devil, but you know, sinful evil, and so even
students would get on discipline if they found a pair
of jeans, even in the storage room which was locked

(28:30):
and they didn't have access to. But even having it
on campus you could get in great, big trouble. So
I when I was grade eight ish, I got invited
to spend a week in New York City in the
summer with one of the boarding students, and she I
had only brought skirts to wear, and one day she said,

(28:52):
do you want to try on my jeans? And it's
just like so conflicted. I was thinking, like, is she
the devil trying to me? Like I decided, okay, well
I was curiosity one, and so I you know, she
taught me how to squeeze myself into the jeans, the
whole classic lying on the bed, you know, pullaying the

(29:13):
zipper and yeah, so I got. I spent the whole
day in those jeans, and I remember walking down the
streets and throngs of hundreds and thousands of people worrying
that I would see someone from Canada who knew me,
Like I was like, uh, yeah, but but anyway, I didn't.

(29:35):
I came home and I wasn't about to tell anyone
I'd done that, but they kept That's the thing in
these light sessions, you just get hounded. It was either
we know you're this sin or that sin, or we
know you're hiding something. And I just got so afraid

(29:59):
that God had told them what I'd done. You know,
they must know that you know, so I basically confessed it,
and then they told me that I couldn't go to
students houses anymore because I wasn't to be trusted. And
you know, I was two anyway, all the sins but

(30:24):
but yeah, I'm crazy.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
You're the only daughter, Is that right? You've got two
older brothers and a younger brother correct. Yeah, So the
gene story feeds into talking a bit about purity culture,
because you explained like you could feel the genes like
on your curves, on your body, and it was like
a strange feeling to have something close to your skin,

(31:14):
not something that's loose and flowing where you know, you
can't really make out the shape of your body. So,
with being separated from your mum and not really having
any guidance on how to navigate the purity culture of
the college, how was that growing up with all of
these messages on how you should behave and how you

(31:37):
should wear clothes and things you shouldn't wear and things
you shouldn't do with your body, but not really being
given an explanation on on why you can't do all
of those things, just being told it's sinful with no
other context.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah, it's really so confusing because we weren't given sex ed.
We were very ext ilicitly taught that sex was dirty,
evil to be avoided at all costs, and that that
girls were the cause of any sexual sin or any

(32:15):
kind of predatory behavior, any kind of sexual assault or rape,
that would be the girl's fault, the woman's fault. We
were taught to shame, to feel shamed of our bodies,
of our curves, and you know, we were responsible if
boys lusted after our demon flesh, and girls were publicly

(32:40):
accused of being whoores and Jezebel's and bitches in heat.
It was so prevalent that I normalized it, Like I
either I both normalized it and I dissociated because I
have heard from so many people telling me that same thing,

(33:00):
and I barely can remember it, do you know what
I mean, Like it's just so weird, Like those words.
I remember only a few cases where they were said
to me. But I've heard from a you know, one
of the other representative planets. The only other one was female,
and she was called a whore publicly when she was twelve,
and you know, for smoking, like they'd caught her smoking,

(33:22):
but they yelled at her. She was a whore, and
you know, uh, you know. And then our clothing was
so strictly controlled in a nonsensical way. I don't know,
it's impossible to say it here, but I included a
letter in my book that was written by the deans
of women to the parents, basically outlining all the rules

(33:45):
for the girl's clothing. And honestly, if I were a
parent today or even back then, reading that letter would
have confused me and alarm be so much. I don't
know how parents accepted the ridiculous because it wasn't you
can't have anything too tight. It can't be too tight,
it can't be too loose. It can't be too short,
it can't be too long, it can't do you know

(34:07):
what I mean? Like, there was nothing that was actually acceptable,
and then, you know, things got crazier as the years
went by. We couldn't wear bathing suits without shorts and
t shirts on them. And at the Community of Jesus,
I was sent there at one point for a very
large punishment, and at that time they made us start

(34:30):
wearing dresses to swim in the ocean, like from my
neck to my knees dresses with shorts underneath. So all
of that was happening. And just to further answer your
question jumping ahead, when we did finally get to trial
with the lawsuit, it was interesting we had a psychologist

(34:51):
who was an expert witness speak to the various abuses
that she recognized that we're going on at our school,
and one was she called it sexualized abuse, and some
of the examples that she said that were occurring at
Grenville were requiring sexual confessions. They would interrogate us and

(35:14):
want every detail. You know, what do you fantasize about?
We're you know, all that stuff, berating students for inciting lust.
She said the vilification of homosexuality is part of that,
using derogatory terms such as temptress, LUTs, whores, any preoccupation

(35:35):
with sexuality, and sin. And she also mentioned two of
the things one that directly like I had experienced when
they made us bend over to see if they could
see our cleavage or see if our underwear would you know,
ride up in the back. And also just humiliating students

(35:59):
for having romantic feelings. You know a lot of us
got in trouble just for having crushes. I was too
afraid to even talk to the guy I had a
crush on, but we were still harshly disciplined because they
whenever they could find proof that someone liked someone else,

(36:21):
that was enough to be in trouble. So these are
all examples of the purity culture that I went through.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
The romance. I was like, all for the romance. I
was like, yes, Matt, come on. I was like, oh,
I mean, do you know where he is? Do you
know where he?

Speaker 6 (36:38):
Do?

Speaker 3 (36:39):
I do, because I kind of I don't know. I
can't remember how. But I found him on Facebook a
few years ago, and he obviously wasn't very active on Facebook,
so I didn't know, if you know, I didn't really
I didn't reach out to him until I had written
my first draft and I thought, if I'm going to
include this part of the story on his approval, and

(37:01):
so I sent him a Facebook message and he agreed
to receive the manuscript and look at it, and yeah,
we got talking. It was just great to kind of reunite.
And I was worried because I know this is probably
giving away more foe. But once I started the lawsuit,

(37:25):
I lost a lot of friends. I lost all the
most of the staff kids basically disagreed with what I
was doing with the lawsuit, and I lost all the
relationships with most of the former staff that I had
worked with as well. And there were plenty of students

(37:45):
too who were prefects who disagreed with the lawsuit. So
I didn't know if he would where he stood because
he had been a prefect too, And luckily he was
very upset with the Community of Jesus and Grenville and
he completely supported the book, and yeah, it's that's good.

(38:09):
And interestingly enough, his family hadn't been He had been
a regular boarding school student as far as I knew,
but then after he left, his family got kind of
sucked in by the Community of Jesus, if you will.
And so he had two sisters who were still there
up till recently. One of them recently left. But yeah,

(38:30):
so anyway, that's where that one ended up.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, at least you have each other to lean on
with having a sibling still within the teachings, there's a
really beautiful part of the book where you welcome a
baby brother into the world and you absolutely adore him
and you're besotted with him, and you try and spend
as much time with him as possible. Have you spoken

(38:56):
to him about his experiences and how he remembers those
moments in your life.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
My baby brother, my younger brother. Yes, I've tried.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
He is.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
When I say people are broken by these systems, he
is the classic example. I'm sad to say that he's
currently in jail. He's been in jail, in psych words,
or homeless for much of his adult life. And so
when I bring up my book or my trauma, it

(39:33):
seems ridiculous because I mean, my trauma pales and compared
his sin to the way his life has been impacted.
And so, yeah, it's difficult to talk about it. And
he actually I asked him to write a to write
an impact statement for our lawsuit, which lasted for sixteen years,

(39:54):
and it took him years and years to finally do that,
and he sort of made an attempt and just the
attempt put him into a man xt state and he
got arrested. And you know, it's just so hard for
so many people to even talk about the past. So
I don't know, maybe someday he'll be able to read

(40:16):
it and it will be helpful for him. I'm not
going to push that on him.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
I'm so sorry to hear that about your brother.

Speaker 7 (40:24):
That's so Long's it's hard because because of how you
speak about him in your book as well, and how
much it meant to you and your family for him
to come into the world.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, it is. It is a tear dirt crime. Every
time I think about him. My one is dirt crying.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
In terms of your older brothers and your parents, have
you sat down to speak with them about the impact
of the mothers in the community of Jesus coming in
and flipping everything on its head and watching you and
your brothers go through everything from afar because you know
your parents were separated from you. Have you had a

(41:07):
chance to have that conversation. Yes.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
My parents, I'm happy to say, have come to both
support the lawsuit at the end. They started supporting it
not at the beginning, but right near the end they
realized its importance. But they also supported my book. And

(41:34):
we spent a very key weekend together while I was
just starting writing, and I just peppered them with questions
and I wrote down everything they said. And also my
dad gave me some of his confession letters, which I
published one of them in the book. And it's it

(41:56):
is so powerful because you see what he's writing the
level of control like brain. I guess brainwashing, you know
how he was just his brain was hijacked. And I
think it it must have been from the get go,

(42:18):
because how else would you relinquish your children, how else
would you stand by and let them be raised by
all kinds of other people. We were passed from family
to family, you know, And I witnessed their change right
as a four year old. I could tell they were changing.

(42:40):
But I think to answer your question, they always say
that they were just trying to survive. And I know
it's not an excuse, and they've apologized a lot, but
they were so preoccupied with their own survival that they
thought they assumed we were okay, and they thought they
they were the ones getting abused, not their kids. And

(43:04):
I think the same goes thing goes for all the staff.
They did not see the damage that was happening to
the students, even though they were being publicly humiliated right
in front of their eyes. They didn't get it because
they were being publicly humiliated, probably five times more than
the students were. And as a staff kid, I never
really saw the pain that the students went through either

(43:26):
because I thought, well, it's way worse for me. So
if I can handle it, so can you. But you know,
it's all this is all relative. And as far as
my brothers go, I have an older brother who is
who lives near me actually, and he was one of

(43:46):
the first people to read my first draft and helped
me edit you know, some of the all the little
mistakes that he could see, and he's been really supportive.
In fact, he and his partner came up the title.
I have to credit it to them, so I thank
him for that so much. But as far as my

(44:07):
second brother, who I mentioned is I think I mentioned
he is a monk at the Community of Jesus. I
basically have no contact with him as soon he was
He was my daughter's godfather if you imagine when she
was born. She's twenty now. But two years after she

(44:29):
was born we started the lawsuit and it didn't we
didn't sue the Community of Jesus, but they were indirectly implicated.
So that was when I lost contact with him, basically.
And so and then I've mentioned Robbie, my youngest who
is also lost to me.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
So yeah, I think again that goes back to your title.
Doesn't it survive in the cult was only half the battle,
because you're still, you know, ranged from one of your
direct family members and another one is heavily impacted psychologically. Yes,

(45:09):
I mean, you're all impacted psychologically. But it's almost like
sometimes that you wonder if there's any hope of a
full recovery when a pre existing mental health condition is
exacerbated through traumatic experiences. And I don't know if that's
the case with Robbie. I don't know if there was
anything pre existing, but we see all too often in

(45:33):
groups where psychological warfare is used on people that pre
existing mental health conditions are severely, severely exacerbated, to the
point where sometimes people just disappear forever and there's no
way to get them back. I hope that's not the
case here for either of your brothers. I hope that
at some point there is a chance for you to

(45:57):
have relationships with both of them.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
I would love that. I'm not holding my breath, but
but I mean, it is so painful to have your
family shattered, and you know, and I will say, like
my parents, even though they support what I do, we
have been it's very hard for me to feel the

(46:23):
kind of like I see other people's relationships with their parents,
and I just I feel such a distance from them,
and you know, even though we live nearby, it's just
really it's really hard to rebuild, you know when when
they basically the mother's taught it is a sin to

(46:47):
human love is sin before God. That was that's a
direct quote that they used to preach. So it wasn't
just families they dismantled. They they made a point to
make sure a friends chips weren't forums, and you know,
it really impacted kids. I yeah, everyone.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
When I have done some interviews with survivors of the
Children of God, especially kind of second or third generation survivors,
there's this moment where the level of indoctrination used as
standard ramps up with the children that have been born
into the group. And that's because you know, the parents

(47:57):
kind of were recruited or influenced or seduced into the
group or however people would prefer that process to be worded.
But the children didn't make that decision. They were born
and forced into that belief system and that way of life.
And there's almost this silent rebellion that takes place amongst

(48:20):
the second and third generation of children, where the indoctrination
tactics have to be ramped up to try an attempt
to brainwash or indoctrinate the children in the same way
the parents have been indoctrinated. And you do talk about
this process in your book where you think you're the

(48:41):
only person that's being sort of told off for having
lostful thoughts or you know, trying to seduce somebody else,
But then you find out slowly that actually all the
children are being subjected to this higher level of control
and indoctrination. And I just thought that was such a
fascinating part of the book to read. Really.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Yeah, well, I mean, the light sessions were scheduled for
us staff kids, that's what we were called, the staff kids,
and so we couldn't escape that kind of indoctrination and
attack basically, and we were taught right from teenage years
early teenage years. We would meet in these light sessions

(49:21):
that were, like I said, they were on the schedule.
They couldn't escape them, and we were expected to attack
each other. So if you were quiet during the light session,
you know during the meeting that week, at the end
of the meeting, you were going to be targeted. So
you needed to speak up and be seen speaking truth.

(49:42):
I have quotes in my you know, truth to others,
or you would be attacked yourself. So it was kill
or be killed. And that's why that was one way
they effectively splintered us all because none of us could
trust one another, and none of us really knew what
it would was like to have a friend you could

(50:03):
count on or even open up to about your actual emotions. So,
you know, I think that, and then that ramped up.
As you said, you know, they have to keep turning
up the heat and turning up the intensity so that
they keep control over us. So even in my twenties,
when we were basically told if we left, we'd go

(50:25):
straight to hell, that God had called us all to
stay there for life, we had to take vows of
obedience for life. I took mine publicly at twenty one.
But the heat just kept going higher and higher all
of my twenties till you know, some of the disciplines
that I had later in my twenties were just like
they came out of the blue. I'd never even imagine

(50:48):
the kinds of things they were they were forcing us
to do. So yeah, I like you said, they do,
they do turn up the heat, and they do make
us suffering isolation too. You can be in a light

(51:08):
session and you can see what everyone's being yelled at for,
but we also it's a strange way of being isolated.
And a lot of our light sessions were behind closed doors,
and I had no idea what other people were going through.
And now when people are reading my story, they're reaching
out to me and saying I had no idea, even

(51:29):
though they were there at the same time.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, I guess it's that idea of just being in
survival mode again, individually being in survival mode and the
power of the power of having somebody to confide in,
the power of having somebody resonate with your experiences and
validate your experiences. It's no wonder they all wanted to

(51:53):
keep you separate, because just going to visit your friend
for a week and trying on a pair of jeans
did something to you in your story. If that would
have happened two, three, four more times, you just don't
know how much faster your journey would have come to
an end in this particular group, and they don't obviously,
they don't want that, so the children have to be yeah,

(52:14):
treated as extreme cases. Of you know, thought reform, and
that's that's absolutely what happened in your story. It's the
most extreme case of moving goalposts that I've ever read
in my life. And at this point I must have
read like over one hundred Colt memoirs. Oh my goodness,
they just oh you go through these. You've already mentioned,

(52:36):
you know, not a dressed too short, not addressed too long,
not a dressed too tight, not ad dress too loose.
But that was with everything, and it's exhausting, you know.
You you talked about how they would shame you for
your weight, so you lost loads of weight, and then
they shamed you for being too thin. Oh my gosh.
Nothing you did or anything anybody did in this place

(52:56):
was good enough or write or correct. Everything was always wrong.
And if you are striving to succeed with inable goals,
how can you ever expect to get anywhere? And the personal,
of course, is that you don't you just keep going

(53:17):
through this cycle.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Well that was the crazy thing, which wasn't. Also again
in the trial I had this confirmed with when someone
else testified because she was an admin and she broke
our case open basically because she was the only person
who came forward to speak the truth, but she confirmed
that the crazy thing was, like you said, we were
expect perfection was expected and high achieving and just absolutely

(53:44):
the best of the best. But don't you dare feel
good about yourself? And as soon as they could perceive
us starting to get confident in any area like music
or academics or sports, we were publicly humiliated as shame
like taken out of the thing we're good at. Deny
you know, you're it's all through the book, right, But

(54:07):
you know I often got lead roles in the Gilbert
and Sullivans, and I never got to play one of
them because of my perceived sins. And basically this woman
who testified, she said, yeah, that was part of our
belief system that no one was supposed to feel good
about themselves. So it was this really strange, like you said,

(54:32):
moving the goalposts, You're always looking towards, you know, some
sort of accomplishment, and then it would get whisked away
before you could achieve it, or never don't you dare
feel good about yourself?

Speaker 2 (54:47):
So yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, striving for perfection but
never giving you a solid framework on how it achieved.
That by design, you know, and that's kind of where
a lot of this Bible comes in, because people are
second guessing everything they're doing, Oh, questioning should I be
doing this, shouldn't I be doing this?

Speaker 6 (55:07):
Oh my gosh, I was just just like this, Yeah,
like all the community of Jesus, this didn't I talked
about that one example where you know, here we are,
we're preparing an orchestra for a big concert, and.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
You know, the the the the correction was that we
weren't playing in the spirit, you know, relying on the
Holy Spirit. So we had to go home and memorize
everything the whole concert for the next day. But I'd
heard I've also heard where just to keep everyone out
of control and leaning on the Holy Spirit, they they

(55:47):
took they they made everyone in the orchestra switch instruments.
So like, you know, you're a violinist, now you're gonna
play the flute, like and so it doesn't matter that
you've had years and years of training on this instrument
and you're going to rely on God.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Yeah, if it's God's real for you to play the trombone,
it'll happen. Yeah, So you'h my God. There there were
moments where I would find myself laughing as well. You know,
it's a it's a hard book to read, and some
of the earlier moments you talk about like having great memories,
and I think that that's really important because when I
first started doing these podcasts, I was like, everything's bad,

(56:25):
throw the baby out with the bath water. And then
through speaker with people, I realized, actually, there are parts
that people want to keep, so it's not always to
throw the baby out with the bath water. And one
of the bits that made me laugh was when you
had you had some people come over to do kind
of like a prayer session, and everyone starts speaking in

(56:46):
tongues and you said that you nearly died of embarrassment,
and I that second hand cringe, like it cripples me
when I'm out in public. Sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh,
like I'm so embarrassed right now, I don't have no
where to look or my butt cheeks. Claim that's the
only way I could describe it.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
And that fit was how you can we laugh?

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Because I was like, are are there? What was doing?

Speaker 5 (57:06):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (57:06):
I cannot tolerate that.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
So I guess the next part of our conversation is
to ask you how when did you leave? What happened
to Grenville? And how did this class action lawsuit come about?

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Wow, well you'll have to read them. No, let me
just give a few, you know tastes that you know,
just a few samples of what you'll get in store.
But so how did I leave? Well, as I said,
life in my twenties was not easy. It was it
just kept getting harder. And we were taught that we

(57:46):
had that God had called us for life, and if
we left, we would be going to hell. So it
didn't matter that we weren't happy, like you didn't expect
to be happy. But I started realizing that as I
as I got all as I approached thirty, I started realizing,
I don't think I'll ever be happy here. And I
started realizing I wasn't okay with that, and that was

(58:09):
a very rebellious thought, and I knew it was. I
actually felt scared feeling that, And it didn't help that
I was By the time I was twenty seven, I'd
given up hope of getting married there. We weren't allowed
to marry outside of the any of the community, and
there were many more women than men. And I talked

(58:31):
about how I was I actually finally got engaged, and
I was, you know, really excited about that, planning the wedding.
And then the man who I was engaged to, who
I actually worked with in the same office, he broke
off our engagement without explanation, and I just sunk into

(58:52):
an intense depression. I could barely just breathe. I was
so depressed and so unhappy. And I think, looking back,
it's that I got a taste of what it was
like to be loved and a taste of what it
was like to be special to someone, and that that
getting taken away, I just could I couldn't live with

(59:14):
without it. Basically, it didn't help that I was pushing
thirty and still a virgin, and the fact that he
actually side note became a monk himself. He went down
to the community and he's still there. So anyway, I
was incredibly depressed, and at the same time I needed

(59:36):
me surgery, and during the recovery, I was allowed to
go off campus for aqua fit and physio, and I
started meeting people and getting stronger and starting all of that,
and you know, I get more into it.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
It just.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
It gave me a sense that I felt like a
caged animal, and I couldn't. I couldn't tolerate my life anymore.
And then I started questioning things, and for the first time,
I started getting angry when people would accuse me of
my sin. Before I was always ashamed. At that point,
I started getting angry and I started seeing through their
ridiculous accusations. So it took me three years to decide

(01:00:18):
to leave. And I finally decided that if I was
going to hell, so be it. I didn't I honestly
didn't think there was anything wrong with Grenville. I didn't
think they were abusive. I thought I was failing them
in leaving. But I finally decided it was I had
no choice. And yeah, so there's a lot more to

(01:00:43):
that story. But like you asked, you know, and when
I said, I didn't know that it was abusive or problematic.
That came to life six years later when the school
bankrupt and decided to close its stores. When that happened,

(01:01:06):
it was like a volcano exploded of allegations against the school,
And it all happened online on this website called fact
net that has since been closed and bought by Scientology.
Because people would post on their their anonymous abuse stories,

(01:01:26):
and Scientology didn't want it up anymore. But yeah, we
had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people posting on
that summer that Grenville closed, and I started reading it
and I couldn't believe my eyes. I finally understood that
I had been abused, and that hundreds of students had

(01:01:46):
been abused, and everything started to make sense, and everything
started to haunt me because I realized we had damaged
so many students. And soon after the school went on record,
the final leaders went on record denying all the allegations
and saying there was no truth to them. And that's

(01:02:08):
what I needed to spark my fury, and I by
then understood it was a cult, and so yeah, a
few of us decided that was enough. We're going to
we number one, we went to the Anglican Church and
we spoke to the bishop and told them everything. And
then we we realized that wasn't going to do much,

(01:02:30):
and we decided to start a lawsuit, and yeah, we
launched it in twenty the very beginning of just a
few months after the school went bankrupt. The lawsuit was launched,
and like I said, it lasted sixteen years and when
I launched. When I took PART, I was just beginning

(01:02:51):
to understand that I'd been abused. But I knew that
taking part was going to be an important part of
my healing. I didn't know how. I just had this
very clear sense that it was what I needed for
my own healing, and.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
I was right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
For sixteen years. Did you learn a lot about the
judicial process of a class actual lawsuit during that time? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
I had so much to learn. It's kind of you know,
it's good that you don't know what you're getting into
with sometimes in life when you decide to bite the bullets,
kind of like getting married or whatever. You if you
knew how hard it was going to be, nobody would
do anything right. Yeah, it I had no idea I'd

(01:04:04):
be that long. I had no idea would be that hard.
And I remember we got to trial, which almost no
lawsuits go to trial. When we were in trial and
I was on the stand for three days, I nearly
like it nearly broke me. But I and I thought,
if I had known, there's no way I would have

(01:04:25):
said yes, like this is so excruciating. But looking back,
I have no regrets, and I'm very proud that we persevered,
and you know, we set precedent for you know, systemic
abuse and in our country. And we've we've been told

(01:04:49):
that our lawyers have been contact by lots of people
and other lawyers looking for advice. And yeah, it's it's yeah.
I could probably write a book just about the lawsuit itself.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
So do we get to hear the outcome or do
we have to read the book? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Sure, I can give that away.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
We we won on all counts.

Speaker 5 (01:05:14):
We uh the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
And then we went through two years of an appeal
and we won again with the three appeal judges. What's
interesting is that, and what's still frustrating is that you
have to find a way in right. So for us,
we proved that the school breached its fiduciary duty. That

(01:05:39):
was the key of our case.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
It's always money. It's always money. That's the way you
get in, Oh fraud, Oh haven't plaid that tax it?
Oh sure, we'll have to look into it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
Like but but but you know, to prove that it
was a cult or that it was abusive in the
way it worshiped or or you know, practiced religion, none
of that matter. I mean, that's all. That's all fine,
But luckily we had it was a boarding school, so
they had a fiduciary duty to the students and the

(01:06:11):
staff kids who were basically taken. They we proved that
we were taking from our parents' care, so we were
we got to be included. But uh, yeah, it's it
is frustrating that you know that that that religious freedom
covers a multitude of sins, And yeah, I wish, I

(01:06:36):
wish there was more recourse for people who are who
are have been damaged by religion, because it is no
small thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
No, I I am hopeful that it will change, especially
with like landmark court cases like this one that allow
people insight through documentation that's public now, right, it's in
the public realm. Yes, people can go and read over
court transcripts and court verdicts and outcomes and even just

(01:07:06):
go on to like Canadian newspapers and international newspapers and
read just the bullet point highlights of the of the case.
Things like that, and they change in legislation and politicians
being open to expanding coercive and controlling laws against group coercion.
You know, all of these small efforts I do hope

(01:07:28):
will culminate into some positive impact on the legal system
at some point. But we are currently in this place
where you're where your court case is probably like brand
new territory for the like for the lawyers on both sides,
and for the jury and for the judge who are

(01:07:49):
all like, wow, this is like so new to me
unless those people have been in exploitive religious circles before.

Speaker 5 (01:07:56):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
Yeah, basically, our lawyer kept saying, we're just heading into
the wild West. This is uncharted territory. And she actually
our lead lawyer, is now a judge on the Superior Court,
so but she was hoping that we would finish the
case before she retired.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Well, I think there's a point to be made about sisters,
because there's been a lot of stuff over here coming
out about the Magdalene laundries over in Ireland and the
Sisters of Quiet Mercy. We're hearing about these sisters and

(01:08:40):
the Sisters Sisters of Mary. Did you say yes?

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
I think that was what it was called, the Sisters
of Mary. Don't quote. I mean, people can joggle it.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
There's this idea that's the sisters incumbents, nuns you know,
live a pure godly good in foul life. And that's
not always true. And I think sometimes, you know, if
we were to look at Robert Caldini's psychology of influence
and just how a certain title or position can give

(01:09:12):
you a level of power and influence without being questioned,
without being without being you know, vetted, that's a part
of society. I think we all need to be a
bit more careful in you know, if somebody comes in
with a dog collar on, are they instantly a better
person than the person on your left. True, just because

(01:09:35):
they have a religious status does not mean that they
are going to be pure, godly and good. Because these
women were not well.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Their mothers. Actually, when when Grenville closed and all the
shit hit the fan, a lot of newspapers were being
a lot of articles were being published, and one was
called the Mothers of Invention, and they were exposed for
the fact that they were actually a lesbian couple. Both

(01:10:03):
of them had several children. They had basically abandoned their children,
abandoned their husbands. And this was actually happening. And you know,
we were being taught that homosexuality was worse than murder.
And you know, the duplicity and the hypocrisy is just
it's outrageous.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Yeah, that's wild. There were just certain parts of that,
like that hypocrisy that you've mentioned, the double standards between
like the mothers and the people that they were directly harming.
That was just incredulous. You know, are you just reading
and you're like, well, hang on. At one point I

(01:10:44):
had to read back over a bit where where one
of the main women just like divorced her husband and
then left after telling everyone for their whole childhoods that
they can never get divorced if they get married.

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Yeah, So it's just obviously if you meet a nun,
you're probably gonna be like, wow, she must be a
great person, and she probably is. But we should always
just exercise caution when we give people unregulated confidence purely
based on their position and their.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
And the problem too, it makes sense basically to all
the legend. I mean, people are so open to harm
through religious leadership, and I just hope my book and
all of our stories opens people's eyes and makes people
much more cautious, and especially when it comes to children

(01:11:41):
being interested under their care. Yeah, it's really scary what
the long term harm that can happen in your sorry,
when religion is weaponized I should have said yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
And your men. While you talk a lot about your
love for music, your father's love for music, you include
some journal articles and confession letters that you've written in
your memoir, and you talk about having a love of performing,
being on stage, and a lot of these things are

(01:12:19):
used in sort of art therapy, performance therapy, and they
are tools of recovery that some people use when they
are navigating trauma. And I've had it said that sometimes
if a person is recommended to use the same tools
in recovery that they were forced to use when they

(01:12:42):
were in a cult, it can actually make a PTSD
diagnosis worse. So my question to you is have you
used any of those things in your recovery? Do you
have an aversion to them? And three part question? So
I just do that all the time. People are like, wait,

(01:13:02):
what you're actually asking me? What advice would you give
to other people who are on their own path of recovery?

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Mm hmm okay. So, as you said, music was a
huge part of well, it's my DNA. Basically, my dad
is an exceptional musician. He's still teaching at a local
Steinway studio. It's teaching piano, but he was the director

(01:13:29):
of the our our choir and our bands and you
know Gens, Gilbert and Sullivan. Anyway, I it mattered so
much to me growing up, and I really, you know what,
I've actually heard that people who are in music or

(01:13:51):
art in a cult are in some ways shielded from
some of the harm because of a certain aspect of
a healing aspect of it. And I don't want to
get into all that, but I think it really actually
helped me to be part of, you know, the music
scene there. But again it was weaponized and I often

(01:14:13):
was abused for my talent. They would actually target people
who are more talented. So it was very painful. And
when I left, I didn't sing for fifteen years. I
didn't play my viola for fifteen years. It was all
just put on the shelf. And I, like you said,
it was too painful, and I didn't even realize that

(01:14:33):
it was something I missed. But my psychologist was always
looking for ways to help me recover, and one day
she said, is there anything artistic from your past that
you would like to revisit because I think you're missing
something And right away I thought singing. So I it's

(01:14:55):
funny we were always told that we were too haughty
our family like haughty in arrogant, and anytime we did
well with things, you know, that was that was the
biggest sin we had. So we never deined to acknowledge

(01:15:16):
our talent. And so when I went to my dad
and I told him I was going to audition for
this big choir in Ottawa, and the choir sings at
the National Arts Center, it's like it's a big deal.
I told him what the kind of music they sang,
and he right away said, I don't think you should audition.
You're not going to be ready for like, you're not

(01:15:37):
going to be prepared for that level. But something told
me he was wrong, and I drummed up the courage
and I had such a good audition. They asked me
where I'd been hiding, and then I know, and I
laughed and I thought, do you really want to know?

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
Well, now that you ask, let me just tell your story.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
Yeah, yeah, I have a story for you. So yeah.
So I've been singing with them for ten years and
I sometimes do solo work and it's just really healing.
It's been so wonderful to sing and just be I
was very well trained like that was one thing about

(01:16:19):
Grenville that was a height was a silver lining. We
had a good education and we were well trained in
the arts and all disciplines. Anything that you were involved in,
you're gonna get good training. But so yeah, music is
a healing part of my life now. And I also
discovered through when I and I'll get into this, but

(01:16:43):
I don't think we will have time today. But I
basically had a breakdown about five years ago and had
to I haven't been able to work. And part of
that breakdown was caused by withdrawal from the drugs that
my psychiatrists had me on for too long. Way my
heart was racing, that was part of it, and I

(01:17:03):
couldn't figure out how to calm down, and painting turned
out to be the answer. So I discovered I'm actually
really good at painting, and that was just such a
healing thing and it continues to be. And then writing
was another thing that obviously it ended up with a book,
but writing, I think I've been benefiting from years of therapy,

(01:17:27):
like almost two decades. I've had therapy since almost since
I left Grenville because I became a teacher and they
had the the benefits, but nothing, no therapy touched the
transformative power of writing. It was like, it's so much

(01:17:49):
dissociation growing through those three decades, and writing forced me
to open doors that were locked and remember things, almost
like by magic. It would come to me as I'm right,
and it was just like the tears. It was so
like I think you can sense it in the book
when somebody's writing from a place of healing. And every

(01:18:10):
day I finished writing, I feel a little lighter, a
little more empowered. And it just it lasted for two
years to do the first draft. So yeah, I think
that would be my advice for people in your healing,
like seek out those things that you can maybe take
back into your life and reclaim them in a positive way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah, that word reclaim is so powerful. To be able
to take back something that you love, something you're good at,
something you get praised for, something you feel good about
doing and not feel scared about it, but to indulge
in it and to feel empowered by it is so

(01:18:50):
powerful to take that back as something that is for you,
something that you enjoy that cannot be taken away or
touched by somebody else. And yeah, that is incredible. I
am so happy to hear you talk about, you know,
people telling you that you have talent and you allowing
yourself to say that you have talent is huge and

(01:19:14):
just to see you know how much it means to
you to be able to take part in those artistic activities.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Yeah, I'm still glad you asked that because it really
has been a huge part of my of my recovery
and just like a happy part of my story.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Because yeah, well, I can't recommend the book enough. Born
and Raised Surviving the Cult was only half the Battle
by Beth Granger, which is available online now. I will
put links to the book everywhere you can find it
in the episode description. And Beth, is there anything that
you would like to say or add today before we

(01:19:51):
say goodbye?

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
I guess some. Well, before I thank you, I wanted
to say that the audiobook is coming out. I have
narrated it. It's teeking an eternity to have it edited.
I want to call them every day and find out
where they're standing, but I'm trying to be patient. Anyway,
the audiobook is coming, but I just want to thank

(01:20:12):
you for such a wonderful discussion. Yeah, this has been
really great and I really appreciate your questions and that
you read the book, and yeah, the work you're doing
is so important and you obviously have so much experience.
I would really appreciate it talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Thank you so, Muffeth. I've really enjoyed the book. I've
always been a bit cheeky when authors email me like, Hey,
do you want to interview me about my book? I'm like,
only if you send me a coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Awesome, It makes it so much apiary.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
It does, and sometimes people are like no, but then
so I'm like, okay, Well then I don't know how
I can talk to you properly about your book if
I don't read your book, especially because sometimes the book'sren't released.
When people email me, they're like, I've got a book
coming out, do you want to talk about it?

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Yeah? That's awkward.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Yeah, so I appreciate you sending me a copy as well.
And I really did enjoy reading it, and I can't
recommend it enough to the listeners. And if anybody does
go ahead and buys a copy or listens to the book,
as I always say, reach out and let me know
what you think, because I love to have discussions with
listeners about their thoughts on books. That I've also read,
so thank you so much, Beat, and I hope you

(01:21:28):
enjoyed the rest of your day.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
Thank you so much too, and have a great weekend.