October 31, 2024 • 54 mins
Today, our guest is a friend who we'll call Anne. We discuss the connection between psychosis and cults, the mental changes Anne experienced when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger, how she felt like she was communicating with spirits, the paranoia that grew inside her, and how a psychiatric mental health professional helped pull her out of it. We also compare the similarities of Anne's experience with that of many cult leaders, how coming out of a paranoid delusion is similar to coming out of a cult belief, and why it can be wise NOT to directly attack the beliefs of someone experiencing a psychotic episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your own story of being in a cult,
are a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Trust me.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Trust Me. I'm like a swat person. I've never lied
to you, I've never had a live about If you
think that one person has all the answers, don't welcome
to trust Me. The podcast about cults, Extreme belief and
Manipulation from two mental health lovers who've actually experienced it.
I am Lola Blanc and I am Megan Elizabeth, and
(00:44):
today our guest is a friend we'll call Anne, who's
going to talk to us about the connection between psychosis
and cults. We'll discuss the mental changes she began experiencing
when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger and
felt more and more true, how she felt like she
was communicating directly with spirits, and the paranoia that grew
inside her, not unlike what many cult leaders seem to experience.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We'll talk about how it seems like some cult leaders
must be in the middle of a psychotic break, unbeknownst
to their followers or even themselves, how psychiatric intervention with
a caring mental health professional was what eventually pulled her
out of it, and the parallels between coming out of
a paranoid delusion and coming out of a cult belief,
and why it can be wise not to directly attack
(01:25):
the belief.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We always come back to that.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I always come back to that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This one brings up an interesting question that comes up
all the time about cult leaders and how much they
are believing what they're doing. And I want to be clear,
we're not saying that cult leaders aren't responsible for their actions.
Most of them probably know exactly what they're doing, but
there seems to be a small percentage of people who
literally had a hallucination, yeah, and continue to have hallucinations.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It actually applies to my cultiest thing in the week.
I was talking to Anne and she was kind of
telling me about this episode that she had and how
before it, and she'll get into it in the episode,
but how before it she really had no interest in
spirituality whatsoever. And it drew the parallel to me of
my cult leader, the two by two infamous William Irvine
that I've always had really negative feelings about. He was
(02:15):
so mean, he started this cult and ruined four generations
of my family and like blah blah, blah blah. But
then I read a little bit more about him, and
he basically was turning thirty, had a depressive episode where
he considered taking his life, and then a week later
found a gospel and then is doing like bicycle missions
to Scotland, And I was like, oh, I think he
(02:38):
had an episode, and he ended up getting kicked out
of the very group he started, died ranting and raving
in India like this on a street corner with no
mental health given to him, and kind of the religion
taken over by people who used it for yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, that's so interesting, Like maybe some of them the
original leader was just literally.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah in an episode, maybe you know. So it really
reframed it for me. Why is it when somebody goes
into these episodes, is it usually religion that pops into
their mind? And I think I have an answer, But
y'all can come to your own conclusions and we can
discuss at the end.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, I have thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
But let's wait till the end. Let's wait till the end.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Would you like to hear my cultiest thing?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, no, just kidding. What's your culdiest thing of the week.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, obviously this is election week, so so everything is
coldly on the internet right now. But all of that aside,
I saw this video on TikTok, so I've been unfortunately
going to the dark side and spending a little bit
more time on TikTok and oh turning. It's killing my
brains out, as I can feel it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Every time I go on TikTok, I have like five
new eating disorders. I'm like, I have to be on
the staremaster for forty five minutes a day.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Why was that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Oh my goodness, Well, I saw this video that had
gone super viral of a girl and I actually posted
a video about it on.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
My own TikTok.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Whatever, so I'll probably be repeating myself if you follow
me there, but a video of a girl talking to
an AI on her iPad and having a conversation and
it sounds very human coming out of the iPad and
they're talking about reality, having like sort of a philosophical conversation.
And the AI is saying stuff that's like not that impressive,
(04:18):
Like it's just like a normal back and forth conversation
you'd have with someone about, you know, ideas about what
reality is. She started talking about the law of attraction
and then the AI started responding to her and really
affirming this idea that this is a true scientific law
and whatever you believe about that. It was really interesting
to watch because she was so transfixed with what the
(04:42):
AI was saying to her, as though it was this
sort of like otherworldly wisdom, when in reality, ais are
synthesizing human ideas and things that humans have written, and
as we know, humans often get it oh, very very
wrong totally.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And if you were to ask disprove the law of
attraction to me, it would have had an equally interesting conversation.
I've found.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, like it reflects back whatever you are asking it.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, But as we discussed with former guests on the podcast,
people have lost the plot on how it's working. It is,
remember the tech woman we interviewed, like it is working
beyond human knowledge a bit, but it is also skewed
to what you're asking about. But in the same breath,
it has taught me that time isn't real because of gravity.
And now I understand physics like physics and concepts in
(05:34):
a way that my brain should absolutely never understand because
I ask it to explain things to me, like I'm
in the movie Clueless.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I mean, it's can be really good at simplifying complex ideas,
but I think it can also.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I mean, just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Ago, I asked it to find me examples of scenes
in movies, and three of them were like movies I
had seen, and I was like, that never happened in
that movie, and it was like.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Oh, yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I asked it to tell me what was going on
with P Diddy and it was like P Diddy is
an award winning musician. I was like, no, I mean
right now, and then I was like, oh, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I mean, as we discussed in that episode, it can
be a tool for amazing things and also for really
bad things. And my bigger takeaway was less like it's
talking about the law of attraction, which I personally, which
there's no evidence for.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
My bigger takeaway is.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Sure world for it, all the anecdotal, all the anecdotal
real evidence, But it was more how she seemed to
be she seemed to be elevating the AI to a
level beyond the higher power. Yes, exactly, And it just
was a glimpse for me into you know, as I
(06:43):
say in my own video, like we as humans are
so drawn to people who have appear to have some
kind of authority or confidence. Right, who's going to seem
to have more authority than a robot that can read
everything that's ever been written? And that is very dangerous
depending on who's programming it, and depending on how safeguards
are or are not put in place in whatever you're using.
So I'm just like, we are going to have a
(07:06):
cult leaders I think next year, that's my prediction.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And if you want to hear more about us talking
about this, we did do an episode with Sarah Teitelman
called The Culty Elements of Technology, So jump back there
and listen to that if this is something that you're
interested in, indeed, But for now, shall we talk to Anne.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Welcome Anne to trust me. So great to be here,
so great to be with you.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
In real life.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We have you here today to talk about something we
have not done an episode on yet, and I think
will be very fascinating for listeners and for me because
it's a topic I know nothing about, which is psychotic
episodes and how they connect to people who start cults.
Can you start us off by telling us about who
you were before you had your first episode of psychosis?
(08:01):
What was your life like? Did you have any religious beliefs?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Tell us about what were your interests?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
My interests, well, I was always very artistic and creative,
so throughout my teenage years. Well, my first episode was
in two thousand and three when I was eighteen years old,
and before having that episode, I was very involved in
music and art, and I played sports, and I was
(08:26):
raised Jewish. I had about Mitzvah, but I didn't have
any real spiritual or religious understanding underpinnings, no real concept
of God. Actually, if anything, I didn't believe that there
was a greater force because I lost my father suddenly
when I was seven. So I remember this moment of
(08:46):
getting that news where I was like I sort of
looked up at the sky and I was like, wow,
we really are alone. So I would say, if anything,
I did not believe in invisible forces and no real
curiosity about absolutely not. I was more curious about what
the liner notes said on the new nine Inch Nails record,
like where I was and what.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Were the first signs that something was kind of changing
for you internally?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I took a trip with my family, and this had
been influenced by some prescription medications that I was using
that were not prescribed to me, and I started to
have what is referred to clinically as a hypomanic episode.
So I started sort of operating on heightened awareness and
(09:37):
sleeping less. I dropped a lot of weight, and I
started connecting dots between things that weren't necessarily there.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And is that idea? Is that what ideas of reference
is or what is idea?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think it is the start of ideas of reference.
And I'm just you know, researching all of this myself.
There's ideas of reference and then their delusions of reference
and illusions are sort of like the full blown enchilada,
Like I think I'm Jesus Christ because X, Y and
Z connect in my life. I started to at that time,
in two thousand and three, believe that I was going
(10:15):
to be a figurehead of a movement to almost a
feminist movement to liberate media from the patriarchy. And like
old old men in charge. And I grew up in
Los Angeles, so I grew up literally around all of
the people that were in charge. These were not weird figures.
These were my best friend's dads. So it was the
(10:38):
concept that what was called past the torch and I
called it PT.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So past the torch is a concept that is yours.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Past the torch is my concept. I changed my friend's surname,
change your friend's name. I changed my friends their name
to ptpt oh, and it was past the torch from
the older generation to the new generation, and I would
be the figurehead. But I figured all my friends would
be in tow and they would support me.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And was there something in your environment do you think
that led you to have that be the thing that
your brain focused on.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I was working in the music industry at the time,
and I had like a pretty prominent an R position
at a large record label at eighteen. Yeah, and again,
around the people who are running the business. It wasn't
some far fetched person I was seeing through my television.
It was who I was seeing when I showed up
at work. And I thought mostly in the music industry,
(11:42):
which I feel is the first media industry that got
hit with digital and technological transformation that these CEOs and
presidents and shareholders of record labels really were not willing
to adapt to technology. They tried all sorts of things
drm rights management on CDs, protections. They couldn't get with
(12:03):
the times in the way that people were consuming music,
especially teenagers people my age. I mean, I was on
Napster all day long.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And that's a reasonable like and reasonable to be like,
these guys need to get with the like and the
future is female.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You were like twenty years ahead, but what else is new?
And as a legend, and I'm wondering, like, when did
the kind of religious inkling enter the picture? Or higher
power inkling?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Shall we say? So? This starts in the invisible I
was believing that spirits were jumping bodies and that there
were certain senior spirits that were guiding me, and that
there were good spirits and evil spirits, which I feel
is very religious.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And did those ideas just kind of start entering your
mind just like a thought would occur to you and
you'd be like, yes, I believe that thought.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, it just felt true.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Yes, And I mean I know we spoke a little
bit before we started recording. There were some thoughts that
didn't immediately feel true, and it felt like your brain
almost had to like slowly coerce.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You and to believing them, like, yeah, what were those
talk about?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That? Well, there was an awareness that because of my ego,
it was going to be hard for me to accept
my role as the center of the universe and the
Lord pretty much. I mean, I didn't call it the Lord.
I didn't call it the Lord. It was like past
the Torch. And I was the leader of that movement.
(13:31):
And then I was spiritually bound to a girl who
I was in drama camp with when I was thirteen,
and she was a Goth and I thought she was amazing.
And we had done the Whiz together at this drama
camp at Graystone Mansion, and she played Evilan and I
(13:51):
played the Lion. And I remember, I don't know how
I got the idea of her, but I remember, you know,
zoom forward five years. I'm in my den. I'm manic now,
not hypomanic, like manic and rolling into psychosis at this point,
and I pulled the VHS down, I put it in,
and I thought that her spirit left the television and
(14:16):
came into my house. Oh wow, And I saw lights flickering,
and that was sort of the beginning of like, okay,
I need to be hyper vigilant about where she's guiding me.
And that was sort of so it wasn't it was
about romance more than it was oh interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, and that like.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
From totally normal nowhere thoughts to like I'm talking to
spirits and maybe I'm God.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Like how long was that process?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I think it started in like June, in the beginning
of June of twenty twenty three, and I was fifty
one fifty by the end of August, so there was
like a three month steady esc and yeah, then by
the end of August I was in the hospital. But
(15:06):
even with meds, this was such a powerful delusion that
even with psychiatric intervention, I was still pretty high up
there for another four months and two different institutions.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So are you able to describe the difference between a
manic episode and a psychotic episode. I'm assuming there's some
overlaps sometimes.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'll say, what I'm
saying is not as vetted as whatever chat GPT would say,
and I don't read a lot. I think a lot
but like for me, when I think about manic episodes,
they just seem a little easier to come by, so
(15:48):
to speak. Some people say they're triggered with methamphetamine use.
Some people say their you know mom is bipolar, went
off or meds, went on a shopping spree, went on
a sexcapage, cheated on her husband. Maybe easier to spot, too,
easier to spot exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Someone's like high energy, right and like probably talking really
fast and engaging in a lot of like unusual behaviors
for them, maybe.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, or excessive excessive behaviors exactly. Whereas with psychosis it
has many different flavors. I think is a wider it's
more of a catch all. And what we were discussing
a little bit before is that somebody can be psychotic
and you would have no idea.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And that and that is a period of losing touch
with reality that can cause I'm just reading this from
Google hallucinations, you're so smart.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And confused thoughts.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So that's more of like you are believing in a
reality that is detached from the reality.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Reality exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And to also just read from the Internet ideas of reference.
This is how the Internet describes it. It's a type
because I hadn't heard this term before, A type of
delusion that occurs when someone believes that ordinary events or
coincidences have a strong personal significance. People with IRS might
may interpret neutral stimulis such as gestures, comments, or looks
(17:14):
as being directed at them. It can be a common
symptom of psychosis and can be observed in up to
seventy percent of patients with recent onset schizophrenia. So would
that be more of like the seeing signs and everything
everything's connected? Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, yes, And so I think where they overlap is
when your manic you can make connect, you can think
really quickly, your thought life is expedited. But I think
there's more genius in psychosis in terms of linking things
together that aren't necessarily linked, and developing a consistent narrative
(17:49):
and more attention to that narrative.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And truly believing it, which makes you so much more convincing, convicted,
you know, like you're an not. We fall into this
question so many times on this podcast, as this leader
malicious or do.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
They believe it? Or do they believe it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And if you actually believe it, you are probably more
likely to have way more effects on followers.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Some we don't associate past are probably really good at
emulating that conviction. But yeah, I mean, like if somebody
really believes something, you're going to feel that it's wild. Yeah,
I mean did you have inklings about follow like how
you were going to have followers?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Well, she had to pass the torch someone, If I.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Had to pass the torch, it was going to be
passed to me. Just see. I don't know if I
saw it as followers. Necessarily, it was a journey I
was on and I had I had I had somebody
very close to me die tragically a year before, and
(18:59):
so it had a lot to do with my own
personal romantic arc. So it was less, it was less
typically religious followers. But tapping back on what Megan said,
I do think if a cult leader or a cult
figure is psychotic and convinced of these delusions, that is
(19:22):
that's what you're facing. I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I mean, so many of the leaders, the cult leaders
that we have talked about on this podcast, their origin
story is that they had a vision.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
And I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
In many of those cases the vision was totally made up,
but in other cases it literally happened in a psychiatric hospital,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like out in nature, because it was not nine hundred
years ago, you know, right right, Yeah, I just didn't
have words for it then. And then if they have
these ideas of reference, their brain is moving so much
more quickly than everyone else's. They're making connections that no
one else's and we're like, whoa, you're on in a
different dimension, like you're onto something.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Take me with you, Take me with you. Teach me
about my life through what you see in yours.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, how did people react to you when you were
in it?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I was very There was very much those who
are with me and those who are against me, so anytime.
And you find this if you research people who have
these episodes and people in colts who Jim Jones saying, oh,
they're out to attack us, like creating a real enemy,
a real threat. But if anybody disagreed with what I
(20:41):
was saying, they were banished from my inner circle. If
somebody supported it, then they were going to rise to
rule the universe with me. Who supported it? Well, people
pretended to, That's the thing. They had to, like pretend.
My younger sister, bless her, she was only fifteen at
the time and just suited to agree with me, and
(21:03):
she was the one that walked me into the fifty
one to fifty. Wow. How she convinced me, I don't know.
She just like agreed with me. She knew that because
my mom was the enemy. She knew that if my
mom drove the car, I would not get into it.
She said, We're going to get a taxi cab and
I'm going to hold her hand and walk her in.
(21:26):
And it's wild because I felt safe with my little sister.
My delusion just shaped to the hospital. So I was like, oh,
this is part of the initiation, and hospital quote unquote
means something else entirely. So you better watch the eyeballs
around you because they're going to be people with you
(21:48):
and people against you, and guides. And I wouldn't say demons,
but detractors.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Maybe I think you you You mentioned Devil Collective.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, that's my own horror filmmaker collect Fatal Collective.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
This is our arrivals Devil Collective.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Now go on.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I had Devil Collective. So there was an idea that
my body was measurable, that it was somehow radioactive and
connected to satellites, and that because my body was measurable,
any infringement, any negative, any naysayer, anybody who had ever
hurt me. It was, it was measured, and all of
those combined measurements marked specific people and they were the
(22:31):
Devil Collective. Wow, and my body had been collecting that data.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I mean, and this is a person who has never
thought about religion in their life, could have less and
now you have a Devil Collective. And I will just
say I would have joined it. I would have been
past the torch.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I would would I have not.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I would have joined the fun pet for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Done.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And I know that you had at least one friend
who was like, I kind of believe you.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah. I had this friend Taylor, who's still my friend.
He's the best. He when he retells the experience, and
of course it was like twenty one years ago, but
he says, I kind of believe you, Like I got
it a lot. We were gone to the moon totally
and tell your mom took your car keys.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
But I do just want to touch on that fact
that this happened to Anne after a depth of somebody,
which is so often how we see people. It's when
people join the cult, and it's almost like she's joining
her own. Her brain created the cult for her to
join to escape the pain of losing this very important person.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That's interesting, I was going to say, Also, it feels
like the episode is mimicking cults in that it's creating
this extremely us versus them black and white, like good
team or bad team type of thinking, which is like
a hallmark of Colts. But it's just all inside your brain.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. Yeah, And dividing good good from evil, I would say,
is good from evil is a pervasive theme. And I said,
like a year out of this thing, and not to brag,
but many do not come out of these like it's
you know, end. Not to brag, but psychiatrists over the
years have told me, I've never heard of an episode
(24:16):
that lasted that long and had somebody return fully cognitive,
fully functional, fully operative. It definitely protects from pain, and
I think death is the pain of grief of that
is inextinguishable. So I can definitely to make his point
see that being a huge, huge piece of the puzzle
(24:39):
and a huge part of the belief in spirit, because
that was, you know, the spirit of this person who
was so important to me, was one of my guides
when I was in this episode.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
It's like your brain was trying to protect you.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
So a year out of this and I thought about
it a lot. Like what I'm also, I stay very busy,
so it was easy for me not to think about
it a lot, but I did think about it, and
I was absolutely convinced that every religious figure in history
was having an episode. And there just wasn't a psychiatric industry.
(25:16):
There wasn't psychology around it. There weren't hospitals, psych wars.
But they came out and they said, look that tree
was talking to me Bush. I'm gonna tell you what
that tree was saying, right, And now we're all like
really believing that stuff. But what was that?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
But I mean, we still very much in modern society too,
even with some of this now acquired knowledge about psychiatry.
So many people are saying that they're seeing things and
sounding very much like they just are having an episode.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
But they still acquire these followers.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
They sound very convincing, And I wonder if I wonder
if it's that like you can have an episode but
like not be power hungry, so it's more just like
you're having an episode and it's more private. Oh yeah,
isolated versus someone who's having an episode, and then they
have these other qualities like the need for power, the
(26:15):
desire to control. Like I wonder because I have to
imagine most people who do have psychotic breaks like aren't
aren't acquiring like amassing like large followings?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Right, yeah, yeah, it's like there's this triangle of things
that need to be there for them to then go into.
And now everyone follow me and it is just worth
noting that, you know, and the days of or it
would be like a man would come back and be
like I just got this message from angels, and everybody'd
be like, dope, write it down, let's keep it forever.
And then a woman would be like me too, and
(26:47):
they'd big burners.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
She's a weg.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's like, really, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
This is what the town square is for. Yeah, exactly exactly?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Did time, like your sense of time changed? Did you
feel like you were destined? Like like what was that
like like predestined?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Well, I want to tap back really quickly on why
I didn't amass a following. I don't have narcissistic qualities
like that. I'm more on the codependent side. I am
usually attracted to more narcissistic leaders and uh, interesting. So
I think with if you don't have that sort of
narcissism and lack of empathy in terms of harming other people,
(27:30):
I don't think you a mass of following right or carelessness.
It's not even a desire to harm, it's just a
simple carelessness. Yeah. But what if people.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Were like, I love past the torch, we got to
pass the torch.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I don't know, that would have been wild. A lot
of people on friends her.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, like it could have just if it I get
I suppose if it felt really good to have people
validating that.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Maybe, I mean in Mother God, she at a certain
point was like, no, I'm not actually a leader, Like
I want to stop this now. A Mother God is
a doc on HBO, and they were like, you can't
like her. Followers kind of became more powerful than the leader.
I know. So I've seen instances of that happening as well.
It's it's very it's a very interesting landscape.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
That also happens in the Source family. Oh about that
They go through the whole thing started in a health
food sure and at the very end, when he's dying
sorry spoiler alert, he's like, wait, I'm not God, but
the whole they'd lived in mansions worn all white like
it was the original, and were they like, yes, you are,
(28:42):
I don't know, I don't remember. We should watch it.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I mean I think that a lot of people maintained
that belief. But yeah, I mean we you know, you
see that happen a lot even with we. I feel
like I keep talking about Vickram Gandhi. I talked about
him recently, but a previous guest, a very early guest
we had on on the show, posed as a guru,
and then when he revealed that he was just faking
it as an experiment, people still believed and thought it
(29:05):
was part of the lesson, you know, like people really
will once you're in a certain amount. It's like it's
very hard to undo beliefs like that, especially when you've
devoted so much life and energy to it. Yeah, did
(29:26):
you ever question your own thoughts? Like, did it ever
occur to you that maybe your reality wasn't the true reality?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Well, eventually I had to sort of succumb to the
medicinal psychiatric intervention and also psychotherapy. In this I went
to this second hospital in Houston, Texas. After I was
at Cedar's. Cedars used to have a psychiatric hospital called Aliens,
but it's since been shut down. Aliens Aliens, Yeah, wow,
(29:57):
that's whoever put the money in for it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
So the suntile scientology thing to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
So when I was in I was in Houston for
at Meninger for three months, and by the second or
third month, I had a therapist that I really trusted.
Her name was Cynthia. She always wore a white coat
and she has short red hair and a pointing nose
and glasses. I like this visual. Yeah, she just keeps
getting more intricate, and she made me feel safe enough
(30:28):
where she started to quite reality test, which is what
it's called clinically and check my belief system. And then
what I started doing is so basically a belief I
had was that I could change the weather with my hand,
and that I was connected to squirrels and other animals
around the property because Meninger's like a has a larger
(30:52):
nature situation, and there it's not indoors as much, well
it is indoors, but anyway, there are squirrels. That's the
whole point score. And I remember having to train myself
like that squirrel just ran over to that door, not
because you're also going to the door. That's not why,
(31:12):
it's just going to the door. And then one of
the code words that I thought this woman would use
through other people when she was jumping bodies was coca cola.
So any and people say coca cola all the damn time.
So anytime someone said coca cola, she's here, you know.
And so I remember having to say, Okay, that person
(31:32):
just said coca cola or coke. Obviously people aren't walking
around saying.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Coca cola, but some people are.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They don't they yeah, so long, coca cola, Yeah yeah,
And saying Okay, that person just wants a coke. They
just want to coke. They're not sending me. It's not
her in them sending a message. But I thought what
was happening in a ghost with Woopy Goldberg was like
happening to everybody around.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I don't I haven't seen ghosts inside.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
So she's like a medium and she really channels dead people.
But mine was about a live people, Like in a
live person that was powerful enough to be hopping bodies. Wow,
that's so scary. Like I'll tell you a story. Right
before the day before I was hospitalized, I ran away
from home, and it was really wild because I knew
(32:24):
that I was going to be picked up by my
angel fleet. I knew that it was time to leave.
And it was six am, and I packed a maroon
Duffel bag with my laptop, a Puma hoodie, and a
few of my journals and a pen. And I went
to the front window and I saw a gold Mercedes
pull up to the house next door, and I was like, Oh,
(32:46):
that's my ride. I went out of the house, I
went to the car. I opened the trunk. The man
was in the car. I opened the trunk, I put
the duffel. I put the Duffel in the trunk. I
got in the car. I had a tape of my music.
I like, had a cassette tape. I was like, we
will be listening to my music. And I got in
(33:06):
the car with this stranger and he took off with me.
He took off with me. What He drove me all
around town and he had two different cell phones and
he was speaking Hebrew in one of them, and he
was speaking English and the other. And I was like, okay,
he's alerting the teams. I'm he has the lute, Like
we're off to the races, drove me all over town.
(33:27):
The last place he took me was this apartment in
North Hollywood, some contractor named Schlowmi. He probably was like
thirty two at the time wife Peter Grease back hair.
And in order to get into his apartment, I had
to walk through the parking lot and there was a
(33:47):
sign that said you are being filmed. And I thought
that like my head was being moved to see what
it needed to be seen by this woman, Like she
was not only controlling the people around me, but she
was controlling my head. So she had me look to
the sign that said you are being filmed. So I
was like, Okay, whatever is about to happen is like
really going to be broadcast, so I just have to
(34:09):
know that. So go into Shlomi's apartment. He had like
a bong and he had all this weed and he
was trying to hook up with me, and I remember
being like, oh my god, she's in his body. So
I leaned forward and I was like, listen, I know
you're in there. I can't hook up with you like
in this form, so just like wait, but like I
(34:31):
know you're in there, and he's looking back at me,
like what is this chick.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Talking about He's like, I've never been out weirded before.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
It's taking the cake.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, He's like never, he's never been scared when he
pulls this creepy move on the kid and you're like
freaking him out.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Yeah, And I love that for you, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm also stuck on why did this man think you
were entering his car?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I don't know, and I will never know. My mother
and sister found me because he was an acquaintance of
my neighbor, and so they ended up showing up at
Shlomy's and they were at the door. They had been crying.
They like thought I was dead. They had no idea
where I was going to go. They had no idea
if they'd ever seen me again. Their eyes were glazed.
(35:15):
They seemed to be operating very slowly compared to me,
and I was like, oh, the evil force has them.
But I ended up going with them. And I also
thought that I was on the way to my wedding
to this woman. It wasn't just connecting with her. I
was like going to get married to her. I was eighteen,
it was legal. I was going to get married. And
(35:36):
so mirror Ball Sarah McLaughlin. Mirror Ball was playing on
my mom asterio great record, and I thought it was
a broadcast from my wedding venue in Malaburma.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You have a lot of storylines going on at once
and you were just able to follow them off flawlessly.
I have to point that out.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
And this is the same girl from your acting camp.
Did you ever tell her yeah she reacts?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
What did she say? Well? It was hard because I
had such a belief in the power in her power wow.
And it was the year after I was completely back,
and I found her through a guy. I was like
working at a cafe and a guy came in who
knew her, and I said, are you still in touch
(36:23):
with her? Let's call her Fairy Song? Oh yeah? And
I was like, are you in touch with Fairy And
he was like, yeah, actually I am. Do you want
her number? And so I ended up having a conversation
with her and she so was not the person taking
over the world with me who I thought she was,
And so that was a tiny little death, but I
think it was an important conversation.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'm still so curious about the reality testing piece of it,
because I imagine there are probably lots of people listening, who
have dealt with someone who might be in some kind
of episode and you know it's it's encouraging to know
it's possible to come out of it. How much of that, like,
do you attribute most of that to having someone you
(37:06):
trust as like someone who is really like kind and
gentle as your mental health, like as your therapist.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, I think if someone is listens long enough to understand,
like be passive enough to understand what the person believes,
so really hear what they think, who's after them, what
they're in control over and fit into their storyline. And
as long as you're saying absolutely yes, end you know yes,
(37:35):
and agreeing with everything they say. And that, incidentally, is
what therapists are trained to do with delusional like delusional disorders,
because if they disagree with the person, the person's going
to leave treatment.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Right. That's so interesting because it's very similar to how
you would talk to somebody who is in a cult
and is believing in this cult reality.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
You can't be like you're an idiot, shut up or leaving.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You'd be like, oh, yeah, so tell me more about
your beliefs.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Why do you feel that way?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And then like over time, if you can have just
understanding conversations, like you could maybe start asking questions, yeah, yeah,
without attacking what the belief is. And it's just so
interesting that that tactic is kind of the same for
both of those things.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, and it's the same in recovery too, Like if
somebody leaves a recovery group, like a twelve step group,
the wisest advice always is to not cast that person out,
not cast judgment, be the door if they ever want
to return, or if they ever want to send somebody else, Like, definitely,
I think that cooperation is important.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Like would she ask a question like if the squirrel
is listening to you, can you control it right now?
Can you do?
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Would there be stuff where you were kind of like
forced to contend with like your ideas being proven wrong?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Why I wish I remembered Cynthia. I wish I remembered
more of what she said. I don't really remember anything,
only that I really liked her, I really really trusted her.
I really liked her. So I also think medication was helping.
Sure I have I know and hear all the time,
which is wild because I've never, like since then, I
(39:21):
have never been disobedient when it comes to psychiatric medication,
I think, what could be scarier? But I never hear
about people staying on their medication, do you know what
I mean? Thought you all the time, like he went
off as meds, she went off her meds, like wild
And then they have episodes whereas I have the experience
of the medication actually really working, slowing down my brain
(39:46):
from making certain connections.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I mean, now we haven't we have this part of
the story where it's like, now you have to deconstruct
your beliefs from this over arching belief that your brain
has made, and I am wondering what that feels like?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
So horrible. I would think a lot of people would
stay ongoing in cults, and especially two by twos for example,
because it's home, it's identity, it's community.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
In your in your for you as well, like.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Oh, I'm applying it to cults. For me, it was
like a nightmare. I mean, to go from thinking you're
a profit to serving muffins at a bakery is really something.
It's very upsetting. So I was depressed for a very
long time afterwards.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, I mean, so many people in cults are told
that they're chosen, you know, I was told I was
chosen like one of like you know, five chosen people
for the end of the world and so like like
obviously very different context, but like similar having to sort
of reframe myself in the world as like just a person. Yeah,
(41:05):
you know, from like being Harry Potter to being just
a person.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is heart it's it's that's hard for and I think
that's so much of why it is difficult to leave
any belief system, but especially when there's community involved, especially
if their finance is involved.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And Lola reminds me of like Lola got specific OCD help.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
How do you say this.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Like, oh, like therapy. Yeah, yeah, so it.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Reminds me of how because I also went to the
place you were going because I was like, I also
have a CD, but I feel like you did the
work a little bit deeper than I did. I had
a really embarrassing thing happened with my therapist or with
the first time I talked to her. I sat down
on my curtains and the curtain rod fell down and
hit me on that and we were on zoom and
(41:53):
like after that, I just I was too humiliated to
like really connecte.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, but through.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Your explanation of how going. It was just like sitting
in the uncomfortability of having a thought and knowing it
might not be true even though it's there. Can you
say a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, I mean I had I have had to do
so much work on like noticing a thought when it
comes into my head and instead of believing it immediately,
we're like looking at it and being like, Okay.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
That's a thought.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's a thought I'm having about something that might be true,
and also it might not, and I am going to
just allow that uncertainty to be here rather than jumping
to believing it and trying to react to it and
defend against it and do some kind of mental ritual
to stop the thing from happening. Yeah. And for me,
(42:46):
actually it was I was initially it changes. The themes change,
but initially it was a fear of losing my mind,
and so I was like constantly on guard against losing,
you know, losing my mind. I'm gonna lose my mind.
I got I gotta be hypervigil my mind so I
don't lose my mind.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And I had to.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, I was doing a lot of exposure and response
prevention therapy around like Okay, maybe I'll lose my mind.
Maybe not, And I'm going to just allow that uncertainty
to exist.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Uncertainty, uncertainty, that cognitive dissonance. Those are the reasons that
cults exist. Is to get away from those.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Things, to provide certainty, because it feels so much better,
much better.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
And so yeah, just knowing that, like that uncomfortable feeling
that a lot of people are probably having to set
with right now is uh the hardest work. And it's
good work, and that's important work, but it.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Is not easy.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And and I can't even imagine where you had, like
how much work that must have taken.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
It's a lot of work. That's a lot of work.
Well it's hard, you know, I think for anybody in
my own experience, the internal world, the relationship with yourself,
you know, especially I had an incredibly traumatic childhood. I
did not have have safe, healthy adult mirrors around me,
so I became a parentified child and that doesn't allow
(44:06):
you to develop the healthiest relationship with self. And it's
a lot easier, especially nowadays, where stimulation is just on
ten and you want somebody to say, Okay, which shampoo
do I use? So like it's too much information nobody
needs to even know all this streamlining sense of purpose,
(44:26):
streamlining community and belief systems. Like it's so much easier,
though way more painful in the long run, to depend
on these external sources of power. Whether it's a romantic
relationship where you have a narcissistic lover, or you're in
(44:47):
a recovery group with a narcissistic sponsor, or you're working
under a sociopathic boss who promises the promotion, or you're
in a cult. This is this is the source of
like all pain I think is that people aren't willing
to go internally first, like you did to say, I
don't want to lose my mind, Like what is a
(45:08):
thought to Lola? But you know, what is this interior world.
It's it's very hard to do that. And if you
do work on your interior world, you might get distracted,
you by somebody who's you know, and it's kind of boring.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
That's exactly what it's boring, hur And like there's just
this you know, there's just like the hottest person over
there that you could go get in a toxic relationship with.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
There's this little thought in your brain that you could
really go wild with, And like have some fun with chaos. Yeah. Yeah,
it's fucking boring, and it's necessary.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, so necessary. It's we're all signs point like when
you yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
And to like it's boring, but then after the boring,
it's rewarding and fulfilling and it feels healthy and you
feel like, yeah, there's happiness on the other side of
the boredom.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
Yeah, it's important side of.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Your like, it takes a lot of hard work to
get like a certain part of your brain to turn
back on. Yeah, you know, and then once it does,
you're not as bored because you're dealing with a different deck.
And I don't know. We always come back to this,
the fact that I believe in a bunch of spiritual shit.
Where did Where did you land with all of these things?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
You know? I think sort of back to being very
practical and three dimensionally bound, I think is where I
returned to, which is a little bit unfortunate that my
experiences with the spiritual realm have to be linked to
psychosis and hospitalizations and handcuffs and all that. I Yeah,
(46:49):
I think it's it's I really try to stay in
the present. I try to stay in what is and
what is three dimensional what is you know, I believe
obviously in the greater forces of the universe. I can't
predict what's going to happen in thirty minutes from now,
and I know that most big things in my life
(47:12):
do come out of left field. And was that karmic contract?
Was that you know? Whatever it is? I believe that
there are greater forces at play, of course, but as
far as God and like personal higher powers that have
my best interests in mind. And I think that goes
along with relationship with self. I think it's sort of
(47:34):
a lifelong journey. Yeah, to really because you can believe
in God, But then is that relationship personal to you?
Like where is that source of power in your life?
I think that's a lifelong journey. I love that.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, are we missing anything about your experience, your journey,
your your takebacks from the other side.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
My takebacks, my takeaways from the other side. Yeah. I
think everybody should stand their medication. I think if your
friend or family member or someone you're close to is
experiencing a disconnect from reality, is experiencing delusions of grandeur,
(48:17):
you have to work with them because the moment you
butt up against whatever it is, they're believing you're eliminated
from a potential treatment conduit or team, So that I
think is the most important thing for anyone listening.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
But at some point you have to show your hand
and be like, but maybe not right.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Well, I think you want to get the person into treatment,
right like, you want to get them hospitalized.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Essentially, rather than trying to or get them to a doctor.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah, this is such wonderful information. It's linking so many
things together for me. I don't know about Yolola, but.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Would you say that you're experiencing ideas of reference?
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Ideas of reference?
Speaker 3 (49:04):
No, do you have a cult to start?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Probably, No, it's it's just really hitting home for me too.
Of that the experience is that I'm seeing of people
leaving these high control groups and how they're immediately dropped
into depressive episodes. They feel a loss of meaning, a
loss of you know, beauty in the world. And there's
just so many I think we've touched upon, like ten
(49:30):
parallels between what you experienced and what people starting cults,
leaving cults, and cults, family members watching people in cults
all can can help. So thank you so much for
being our guests powerful information.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thank you for having me it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Wow wewa wawa we wa.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Indeed that was fascinating, I mean, totally leading thought edge
stuff for me, stuff I've never thought of before.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
M m hmm. Exciting. So the point you had brought
up earlier was about why we think that it tends
toward religious delicious episodes?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Episodes tend to go towards religious delusions was the question
that popped into my mind. And you seem to have
an idea about it, as do I, So why.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Don't you go first?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I mean a couple thoughts, not from an educated perspective.
I'm sure there's a I'm sure there's a mental health
professional who has or a neurologist who has a better
sense of it. But my just like initial thoughts were like,
we actually see a lot of people like people who
are in a paranoid delusion will often be talking about
the government and.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Not necessarily religion.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I wonder how much of it comes from whatever your
particular framework is growing up and that just gets activated.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, because it's like the government and God are a
symbolic thing of control.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Yes, yeah, both of those would be powers like bigger
than yourself. So if you're feeling these overwhelming emotions and
thoughts like it's got to attach to some kind of
greater power. I would imagine. It also made me think
about this episode we did a long time ago that
I actually think was fascinating, maybe a bit heady for
anyone who wants to listen to it. It was with Yuval
Laur called Further Awe and hyper Religiosity, and what we
(51:12):
talked about was temporal lobe epilepsy and how that's a
particular kind of seizure in the brain that for some
reason leads to often leads to religious experiences. But I
can't remember the exact mechanism, and we probably don't actually know,
but it has something to do with the fact that
it gives you this really really heightened emotional experience that
feels like it must be spiritual because of how heightened
(51:35):
and intense it is. It's like a peak experience. It
is a peak experience.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I will also throw into the chat this book that
I was obsessed with.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It was this.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Book by a woman who was a neurologist at Harvard.
Her name is doctor Jill Bolt or Bote, and she
had a aneurysm and her basically ego collapsed and she
was living in this bizarre state of oneness with all
that is. Oh wait, what's it called, I'm trying to
(52:05):
find Okay, it's called My Stroke of Insight? Oh yes, yes, yes,
And you know to me, as we all know, I
am a little bit more prone to the spiritual side
of life. So I do think that there are spiritual
explanations for some things. And you know, I don't know.
It's a mystery to me, but I strongly recommend reading
(52:27):
My Stroke of Insight.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
It is interesting how.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
When you stimulate certain parts of the brain you have
a spiritual experience. And I think mostrologists woul attribute that
to the feelings that it produces.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Actually experienced it, and what's hard takeaway that there's something
really to it.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
We're accessing a different part of our brain. That's important.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
So I'm very curious to read the book and see
through through the lens of how I think if my
takeaway would be she had a very.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Buddhist take on it, and very like if you're using
this part of your mind, like.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I'll have to read that.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
She wasn't saying she's magically accessing.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
No, she was saying that she is completely aware that
we're all one, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
So if there were a way for us all to
access that feeling because of something that's being stimulated in
our rain, that would be great.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Thank you so much to Anne for speaking to us
about this, because that was very vulnerable and very thought provoking.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, So, if y'all like the podcast, please go rate
us five stars and leave us a good review. It's
the kindest thing you can do to help support us.
If you don't like the podcast, do not don't review us,
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Speaker 3 (53:39):
It to us.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
It's annoying to do.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Why would you do that?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
A troll?
Speaker 2 (53:43):
You are also go buy our merchant bitt ly slash
trust Me Merch please and we can't wait to see
you here again next week, and as always, remember to
follow your gut, watch out for red flags, and never
ever trust me.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Delemator, with special thanks to Stacy Para and our
theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
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trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I'm Oola Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Remember to rate and review and spread the word.
If you have your own story of being in a cult,
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Speaker 2 (00:03):
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
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Speaker 3 (00:20):
Trust me.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Trust Me. I'm like a swat person. I've never lied
to you, I've never had a live about If you
think that one person has all the answers, don't welcome
to trust Me. The podcast about cults, Extreme belief and
Manipulation from two mental health lovers who've actually experienced it.
I am Lola Blanc and I am Megan Elizabeth, and
(00:44):
today our guest is a friend we'll call Anne, who's
going to talk to us about the connection between psychosis
and cults. We'll discuss the mental changes she began experiencing
when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger and
felt more and more true, how she felt like she
was communicating directly with spirits, and the paranoia that grew
inside her, not unlike what many cult leaders seem to experience.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We'll talk about how it seems like some cult leaders
must be in the middle of a psychotic break, unbeknownst
to their followers or even themselves, how psychiatric intervention with
a caring mental health professional was what eventually pulled her
out of it, and the parallels between coming out of
a paranoid delusion and coming out of a cult belief,
and why it can be wise not to directly attack
(01:25):
the belief.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We always come back to that.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I always come back to that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
This one brings up an interesting question that comes up
all the time about cult leaders and how much they
are believing what they're doing. And I want to be clear,
we're not saying that cult leaders aren't responsible for their actions.
Most of them probably know exactly what they're doing, but
there seems to be a small percentage of people who
literally had a hallucination, yeah, and continue to have hallucinations.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It actually applies to my cultiest thing in the week.
I was talking to Anne and she was kind of
telling me about this episode that she had and how
before it, and she'll get into it in the episode,
but how before it she really had no interest in
spirituality whatsoever. And it drew the parallel to me of
my cult leader, the two by two infamous William Irvine
that I've always had really negative feelings about. He was
(02:15):
so mean, he started this cult and ruined four generations
of my family and like blah blah, blah blah. But
then I read a little bit more about him, and
he basically was turning thirty, had a depressive episode where
he considered taking his life, and then a week later
found a gospel and then is doing like bicycle missions
to Scotland, And I was like, oh, I think he
(02:38):
had an episode, and he ended up getting kicked out
of the very group he started, died ranting and raving
in India like this on a street corner with no
mental health given to him, and kind of the religion
taken over by people who used it for yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, that's so interesting, Like maybe some of them the
original leader was just literally.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah in an episode, maybe you know. So it really
reframed it for me. Why is it when somebody goes
into these episodes, is it usually religion that pops into
their mind? And I think I have an answer, But
y'all can come to your own conclusions and we can
discuss at the end.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, I have thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
But let's wait till the end. Let's wait till the end.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Would you like to hear my cultiest thing?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, no, just kidding. What's your culdiest thing of the week.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, obviously this is election week, so so everything is
coldly on the internet right now. But all of that aside,
I saw this video on TikTok, so I've been unfortunately
going to the dark side and spending a little bit
more time on TikTok and oh turning. It's killing my
brains out, as I can feel it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Every time I go on TikTok, I have like five
new eating disorders. I'm like, I have to be on
the staremaster for forty five minutes a day.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Why was that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Oh my goodness, Well, I saw this video that had
gone super viral of a girl and I actually posted
a video about it on.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
My own TikTok.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Whatever, so I'll probably be repeating myself if you follow
me there, but a video of a girl talking to
an AI on her iPad and having a conversation and
it sounds very human coming out of the iPad and
they're talking about reality, having like sort of a philosophical conversation.
And the AI is saying stuff that's like not that impressive,
(04:18):
Like it's just like a normal back and forth conversation
you'd have with someone about, you know, ideas about what
reality is. She started talking about the law of attraction
and then the AI started responding to her and really
affirming this idea that this is a true scientific law
and whatever you believe about that. It was really interesting
to watch because she was so transfixed with what the
(04:42):
AI was saying to her, as though it was this
sort of like otherworldly wisdom, when in reality, ais are
synthesizing human ideas and things that humans have written, and
as we know, humans often get it oh, very very
wrong totally.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And if you were to ask disprove the law of
attraction to me, it would have had an equally interesting conversation.
I've found.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, like it reflects back whatever you are asking it.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, But as we discussed with former guests on the podcast,
people have lost the plot on how it's working. It is,
remember the tech woman we interviewed, like it is working
beyond human knowledge a bit, but it is also skewed
to what you're asking about. But in the same breath,
it has taught me that time isn't real because of gravity.
And now I understand physics like physics and concepts in
(05:34):
a way that my brain should absolutely never understand because
I ask it to explain things to me, like I'm
in the movie Clueless.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I mean, it's can be really good at simplifying complex ideas,
but I think it can also.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I mean, just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Ago, I asked it to find me examples of scenes
in movies, and three of them were like movies I
had seen, and I was like, that never happened in
that movie, and it was like.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Oh, yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I asked it to tell me what was going on
with P Diddy and it was like P Diddy is
an award winning musician. I was like, no, I mean
right now, and then I was like, oh, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I mean, as we discussed in that episode, it can
be a tool for amazing things and also for really
bad things. And my bigger takeaway was less like it's
talking about the law of attraction, which I personally, which
there's no evidence for.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
My bigger takeaway is.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Sure world for it, all the anecdotal, all the anecdotal
real evidence, But it was more how she seemed to
be she seemed to be elevating the AI to a
level beyond the higher power. Yes, exactly, And it just
was a glimpse for me into you know, as I
(06:43):
say in my own video, like we as humans are
so drawn to people who have appear to have some
kind of authority or confidence. Right, who's going to seem
to have more authority than a robot that can read
everything that's ever been written? And that is very dangerous
depending on who's programming it, and depending on how safeguards
are or are not put in place in whatever you're using.
So I'm just like, we are going to have a
(07:06):
cult leaders I think next year, that's my prediction.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And if you want to hear more about us talking
about this, we did do an episode with Sarah Teitelman
called The Culty Elements of Technology, So jump back there
and listen to that if this is something that you're
interested in, indeed, But for now, shall we talk to Anne.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Welcome Anne to trust me. So great to be here,
so great to be with you.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
In real life.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We have you here today to talk about something we
have not done an episode on yet, and I think
will be very fascinating for listeners and for me because
it's a topic I know nothing about, which is psychotic
episodes and how they connect to people who start cults.
Can you start us off by telling us about who
you were before you had your first episode of psychosis?
(08:01):
What was your life like? Did you have any religious beliefs?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Tell us about what were your interests?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
My interests, well, I was always very artistic and creative,
so throughout my teenage years. Well, my first episode was
in two thousand and three when I was eighteen years old,
and before having that episode, I was very involved in
music and art, and I played sports, and I was
(08:26):
raised Jewish. I had about Mitzvah, but I didn't have
any real spiritual or religious understanding underpinnings, no real concept
of God. Actually, if anything, I didn't believe that there
was a greater force because I lost my father suddenly
when I was seven. So I remember this moment of
(08:46):
getting that news where I was like I sort of
looked up at the sky and I was like, wow,
we really are alone. So I would say, if anything,
I did not believe in invisible forces and no real
curiosity about absolutely not. I was more curious about what
the liner notes said on the new nine Inch Nails record,
like where I was and what.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Were the first signs that something was kind of changing
for you internally?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I took a trip with my family, and this had
been influenced by some prescription medications that I was using
that were not prescribed to me, and I started to
have what is referred to clinically as a hypomanic episode.
So I started sort of operating on heightened awareness and
(09:37):
sleeping less. I dropped a lot of weight, and I
started connecting dots between things that weren't necessarily there.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And is that idea? Is that what ideas of reference
is or what is idea?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think it is the start of ideas of reference.
And I'm just you know, researching all of this myself.
There's ideas of reference and then their delusions of reference
and illusions are sort of like the full blown enchilada,
Like I think I'm Jesus Christ because X, Y and
Z connect in my life. I started to at that time,
in two thousand and three, believe that I was going
(10:15):
to be a figurehead of a movement to almost a
feminist movement to liberate media from the patriarchy. And like
old old men in charge. And I grew up in
Los Angeles, so I grew up literally around all of
the people that were in charge. These were not weird figures.
These were my best friend's dads. So it was the
(10:38):
concept that what was called past the torch and I
called it PT.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So past the torch is a concept that is yours.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Past the torch is my concept. I changed my friend's surname,
change your friend's name. I changed my friends their name
to ptpt oh, and it was past the torch from
the older generation to the new generation, and I would
be the figurehead. But I figured all my friends would
be in tow and they would support me.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And was there something in your environment do you think
that led you to have that be the thing that
your brain focused on.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I was working in the music industry at the time,
and I had like a pretty prominent an R position
at a large record label at eighteen. Yeah, and again,
around the people who are running the business. It wasn't
some far fetched person I was seeing through my television.
It was who I was seeing when I showed up
at work. And I thought mostly in the music industry,
(11:42):
which I feel is the first media industry that got
hit with digital and technological transformation that these CEOs and
presidents and shareholders of record labels really were not willing
to adapt to technology. They tried all sorts of things
drm rights management on CDs, protections. They couldn't get with
(12:03):
the times in the way that people were consuming music,
especially teenagers people my age. I mean, I was on
Napster all day long.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And that's a reasonable like and reasonable to be like,
these guys need to get with the like and the
future is female.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You were like twenty years ahead, but what else is new?
And as a legend, and I'm wondering, like, when did
the kind of religious inkling enter the picture? Or higher
power inkling?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Shall we say? So? This starts in the invisible I
was believing that spirits were jumping bodies and that there
were certain senior spirits that were guiding me, and that
there were good spirits and evil spirits, which I feel
is very religious.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And did those ideas just kind of start entering your
mind just like a thought would occur to you and
you'd be like, yes, I believe that thought.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, it just felt true.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Yes, And I mean I know we spoke a little
bit before we started recording. There were some thoughts that
didn't immediately feel true, and it felt like your brain
almost had to like slowly coerce.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You and to believing them, like, yeah, what were those
talk about?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That? Well, there was an awareness that because of my ego,
it was going to be hard for me to accept
my role as the center of the universe and the
Lord pretty much. I mean, I didn't call it the Lord.
I didn't call it the Lord. It was like past
the Torch. And I was the leader of that movement.
(13:31):
And then I was spiritually bound to a girl who
I was in drama camp with when I was thirteen,
and she was a Goth and I thought she was amazing.
And we had done the Whiz together at this drama
camp at Graystone Mansion, and she played Evilan and I
(13:51):
played the Lion. And I remember, I don't know how
I got the idea of her, but I remember, you know,
zoom forward five years. I'm in my den. I'm manic now,
not hypomanic, like manic and rolling into psychosis at this point,
and I pulled the VHS down, I put it in,
and I thought that her spirit left the television and
(14:16):
came into my house. Oh wow, And I saw lights flickering,
and that was sort of the beginning of like, okay,
I need to be hyper vigilant about where she's guiding me.
And that was sort of so it wasn't it was
about romance more than it was oh interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, and that like.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
From totally normal nowhere thoughts to like I'm talking to
spirits and maybe I'm God.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Like how long was that process?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I think it started in like June, in the beginning
of June of twenty twenty three, and I was fifty
one fifty by the end of August, so there was
like a three month steady esc and yeah, then by
the end of August I was in the hospital. But
(15:06):
even with meds, this was such a powerful delusion that
even with psychiatric intervention, I was still pretty high up
there for another four months and two different institutions.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So are you able to describe the difference between a
manic episode and a psychotic episode. I'm assuming there's some
overlaps sometimes.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'll say, what I'm
saying is not as vetted as whatever chat GPT would say,
and I don't read a lot. I think a lot
but like for me, when I think about manic episodes,
they just seem a little easier to come by, so
(15:48):
to speak. Some people say they're triggered with methamphetamine use.
Some people say their you know mom is bipolar, went
off or meds, went on a shopping spree, went on
a sexcapage, cheated on her husband. Maybe easier to spot, too,
easier to spot exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Someone's like high energy, right and like probably talking really
fast and engaging in a lot of like unusual behaviors
for them, maybe.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, or excessive excessive behaviors exactly. Whereas with psychosis it
has many different flavors. I think is a wider it's
more of a catch all. And what we were discussing
a little bit before is that somebody can be psychotic
and you would have no idea.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And that and that is a period of losing touch
with reality that can cause I'm just reading this from
Google hallucinations, you're so smart.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And confused thoughts.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So that's more of like you are believing in a
reality that is detached from the reality.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Reality exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And to also just read from the Internet ideas of reference.
This is how the Internet describes it. It's a type
because I hadn't heard this term before, A type of
delusion that occurs when someone believes that ordinary events or
coincidences have a strong personal significance. People with IRS might
may interpret neutral stimulis such as gestures, comments, or looks
(17:14):
as being directed at them. It can be a common
symptom of psychosis and can be observed in up to
seventy percent of patients with recent onset schizophrenia. So would
that be more of like the seeing signs and everything
everything's connected? Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, yes, And so I think where they overlap is
when your manic you can make connect, you can think
really quickly, your thought life is expedited. But I think
there's more genius in psychosis in terms of linking things
together that aren't necessarily linked, and developing a consistent narrative
(17:49):
and more attention to that narrative.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And truly believing it, which makes you so much more convincing, convicted,
you know, like you're an not. We fall into this
question so many times on this podcast, as this leader
malicious or do.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
They believe it? Or do they believe it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And if you actually believe it, you are probably more
likely to have way more effects on followers.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Some we don't associate past are probably really good at
emulating that conviction. But yeah, I mean, like if somebody
really believes something, you're going to feel that it's wild. Yeah,
I mean did you have inklings about follow like how
you were going to have followers?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Well, she had to pass the torch someone, If I.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Had to pass the torch, it was going to be
passed to me. Just see. I don't know if I
saw it as followers. Necessarily, it was a journey I
was on and I had I had I had somebody
very close to me die tragically a year before, and
(18:59):
so it had a lot to do with my own
personal romantic arc. So it was less, it was less
typically religious followers. But tapping back on what Megan said,
I do think if a cult leader or a cult
figure is psychotic and convinced of these delusions, that is
(19:22):
that's what you're facing. I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I mean, so many of the leaders, the cult leaders
that we have talked about on this podcast, their origin
story is that they had a vision.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
And I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
In many of those cases the vision was totally made up,
but in other cases it literally happened in a psychiatric hospital,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like out in nature, because it was not nine hundred
years ago, you know, right right, Yeah, I just didn't
have words for it then. And then if they have
these ideas of reference, their brain is moving so much
more quickly than everyone else's. They're making connections that no
one else's and we're like, whoa, you're on in a
different dimension, like you're onto something.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Take me with you, Take me with you. Teach me
about my life through what you see in yours.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, how did people react to you when you were
in it?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I was very There was very much those who
are with me and those who are against me, so anytime.
And you find this if you research people who have
these episodes and people in colts who Jim Jones saying, oh,
they're out to attack us, like creating a real enemy,
a real threat. But if anybody disagreed with what I
(20:41):
was saying, they were banished from my inner circle. If
somebody supported it, then they were going to rise to
rule the universe with me. Who supported it? Well, people
pretended to, That's the thing. They had to, like pretend.
My younger sister, bless her, she was only fifteen at
the time and just suited to agree with me, and
(21:03):
she was the one that walked me into the fifty
one to fifty. Wow. How she convinced me, I don't know.
She just like agreed with me. She knew that because
my mom was the enemy. She knew that if my
mom drove the car, I would not get into it.
She said, We're going to get a taxi cab and
I'm going to hold her hand and walk her in.
(21:26):
And it's wild because I felt safe with my little sister.
My delusion just shaped to the hospital. So I was like, oh,
this is part of the initiation, and hospital quote unquote
means something else entirely. So you better watch the eyeballs
around you because they're going to be people with you
(21:48):
and people against you, and guides. And I wouldn't say demons,
but detractors.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Maybe I think you you You mentioned Devil Collective.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, that's my own horror filmmaker collect Fatal Collective.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
This is our arrivals Devil Collective.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Now go on.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I had Devil Collective. So there was an idea that
my body was measurable, that it was somehow radioactive and
connected to satellites, and that because my body was measurable,
any infringement, any negative, any naysayer, anybody who had ever
hurt me. It was, it was measured, and all of
those combined measurements marked specific people and they were the
(22:31):
Devil Collective. Wow, and my body had been collecting that data.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I mean, and this is a person who has never
thought about religion in their life, could have less and
now you have a Devil Collective. And I will just
say I would have joined it. I would have been
past the torch.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I would would I have not.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I would have joined the fun pet for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Done.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And I know that you had at least one friend
who was like, I kind of believe you.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah. I had this friend Taylor, who's still my friend.
He's the best. He when he retells the experience, and
of course it was like twenty one years ago, but
he says, I kind of believe you, Like I got
it a lot. We were gone to the moon totally
and tell your mom took your car keys.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
But I do just want to touch on that fact
that this happened to Anne after a depth of somebody,
which is so often how we see people. It's when
people join the cult, and it's almost like she's joining
her own. Her brain created the cult for her to
join to escape the pain of losing this very important person.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That's interesting, I was going to say, Also, it feels
like the episode is mimicking cults in that it's creating
this extremely us versus them black and white, like good
team or bad team type of thinking, which is like
a hallmark of Colts. But it's just all inside your brain.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. Yeah, And dividing good good from evil, I would say,
is good from evil is a pervasive theme. And I said,
like a year out of this thing, and not to brag,
but many do not come out of these like it's
you know, end. Not to brag, but psychiatrists over the
years have told me, I've never heard of an episode
(24:16):
that lasted that long and had somebody return fully cognitive,
fully functional, fully operative. It definitely protects from pain, and
I think death is the pain of grief of that
is inextinguishable. So I can definitely to make his point
see that being a huge, huge piece of the puzzle
(24:39):
and a huge part of the belief in spirit, because
that was, you know, the spirit of this person who
was so important to me, was one of my guides
when I was in this episode.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
It's like your brain was trying to protect you.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
So a year out of this and I thought about
it a lot. Like what I'm also, I stay very busy,
so it was easy for me not to think about
it a lot, but I did think about it, and
I was absolutely convinced that every religious figure in history
was having an episode. And there just wasn't a psychiatric industry.
(25:16):
There wasn't psychology around it. There weren't hospitals, psych wars.
But they came out and they said, look that tree
was talking to me Bush. I'm gonna tell you what
that tree was saying, right, And now we're all like
really believing that stuff. But what was that?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
But I mean, we still very much in modern society too,
even with some of this now acquired knowledge about psychiatry.
So many people are saying that they're seeing things and
sounding very much like they just are having an episode.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
But they still acquire these followers.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
They sound very convincing, And I wonder if I wonder
if it's that like you can have an episode but
like not be power hungry, so it's more just like
you're having an episode and it's more private. Oh yeah,
isolated versus someone who's having an episode, and then they
have these other qualities like the need for power, the
(26:15):
desire to control. Like I wonder because I have to
imagine most people who do have psychotic breaks like aren't
aren't acquiring like amassing like large followings?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Right, yeah, yeah, it's like there's this triangle of things
that need to be there for them to then go into.
And now everyone follow me and it is just worth
noting that, you know, and the days of or it
would be like a man would come back and be
like I just got this message from angels, and everybody'd
be like, dope, write it down, let's keep it forever.
And then a woman would be like me too, and
(26:47):
they'd big burners.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
She's a weg.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's like, really, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
This is what the town square is for. Yeah, exactly exactly?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Did time, like your sense of time changed? Did you
feel like you were destined? Like like what was that
like like predestined?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Well, I want to tap back really quickly on why
I didn't amass a following. I don't have narcissistic qualities
like that. I'm more on the codependent side. I am
usually attracted to more narcissistic leaders and uh, interesting. So
I think with if you don't have that sort of
narcissism and lack of empathy in terms of harming other people,
(27:30):
I don't think you a mass of following right or carelessness.
It's not even a desire to harm, it's just a
simple carelessness. Yeah. But what if people.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Were like, I love past the torch, we got to
pass the torch.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I don't know, that would have been wild. A lot
of people on friends her.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, like it could have just if it I get
I suppose if it felt really good to have people
validating that.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Maybe, I mean in Mother God, she at a certain
point was like, no, I'm not actually a leader, Like
I want to stop this now. A Mother God is
a doc on HBO, and they were like, you can't
like her. Followers kind of became more powerful than the leader.
I know. So I've seen instances of that happening as well.
It's it's very it's a very interesting landscape.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
That also happens in the Source family. Oh about that
They go through the whole thing started in a health
food sure and at the very end, when he's dying
sorry spoiler alert, he's like, wait, I'm not God, but
the whole they'd lived in mansions worn all white like
it was the original, and were they like, yes, you are,
(28:42):
I don't know, I don't remember. We should watch it.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I mean I think that a lot of people maintained
that belief. But yeah, I mean we you know, you
see that happen a lot even with we. I feel
like I keep talking about Vickram Gandhi. I talked about
him recently, but a previous guest, a very early guest
we had on on the show, posed as a guru,
and then when he revealed that he was just faking
it as an experiment, people still believed and thought it
(29:05):
was part of the lesson, you know, like people really
will once you're in a certain amount. It's like it's
very hard to undo beliefs like that, especially when you've
devoted so much life and energy to it. Yeah, did
(29:26):
you ever question your own thoughts? Like, did it ever
occur to you that maybe your reality wasn't the true reality?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Well, eventually I had to sort of succumb to the
medicinal psychiatric intervention and also psychotherapy. In this I went
to this second hospital in Houston, Texas. After I was
at Cedar's. Cedars used to have a psychiatric hospital called Aliens,
but it's since been shut down. Aliens Aliens, Yeah, wow,
(29:57):
that's whoever put the money in for it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
So the suntile scientology thing to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
So when I was in I was in Houston for
at Meninger for three months, and by the second or
third month, I had a therapist that I really trusted.
Her name was Cynthia. She always wore a white coat
and she has short red hair and a pointing nose
and glasses. I like this visual. Yeah, she just keeps
getting more intricate, and she made me feel safe enough
(30:28):
where she started to quite reality test, which is what
it's called clinically and check my belief system. And then
what I started doing is so basically a belief I
had was that I could change the weather with my hand,
and that I was connected to squirrels and other animals
around the property because Meninger's like a has a larger
(30:52):
nature situation, and there it's not indoors as much, well
it is indoors, but anyway, there are squirrels. That's the
whole point score. And I remember having to train myself
like that squirrel just ran over to that door, not
because you're also going to the door. That's not why,
(31:12):
it's just going to the door. And then one of
the code words that I thought this woman would use
through other people when she was jumping bodies was coca cola.
So any and people say coca cola all the damn time.
So anytime someone said coca cola, she's here, you know.
And so I remember having to say, Okay, that person
(31:32):
just said coca cola or coke. Obviously people aren't walking
around saying.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Coca cola, but some people are.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They don't they yeah, so long, coca cola, Yeah yeah,
And saying Okay, that person just wants a coke. They
just want to coke. They're not sending me. It's not
her in them sending a message. But I thought what
was happening in a ghost with Woopy Goldberg was like
happening to everybody around.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I don't I haven't seen ghosts inside.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
So she's like a medium and she really channels dead people.
But mine was about a live people, Like in a
live person that was powerful enough to be hopping bodies. Wow,
that's so scary. Like I'll tell you a story. Right
before the day before I was hospitalized, I ran away
from home, and it was really wild because I knew
(32:24):
that I was going to be picked up by my
angel fleet. I knew that it was time to leave.
And it was six am, and I packed a maroon
Duffel bag with my laptop, a Puma hoodie, and a
few of my journals and a pen. And I went
to the front window and I saw a gold Mercedes
pull up to the house next door, and I was like, Oh,
(32:46):
that's my ride. I went out of the house, I
went to the car. I opened the trunk. The man
was in the car. I opened the trunk, I put
the duffel. I put the Duffel in the trunk. I
got in the car. I had a tape of my music.
I like, had a cassette tape. I was like, we
will be listening to my music. And I got in
(33:06):
the car with this stranger and he took off with me.
He took off with me. What He drove me all
around town and he had two different cell phones and
he was speaking Hebrew in one of them, and he
was speaking English and the other. And I was like, okay,
he's alerting the teams. I'm he has the lute, Like
we're off to the races, drove me all over town.
(33:27):
The last place he took me was this apartment in
North Hollywood, some contractor named Schlowmi. He probably was like
thirty two at the time wife Peter Grease back hair.
And in order to get into his apartment, I had
to walk through the parking lot and there was a
(33:47):
sign that said you are being filmed. And I thought
that like my head was being moved to see what
it needed to be seen by this woman, Like she
was not only controlling the people around me, but she
was controlling my head. So she had me look to
the sign that said you are being filmed. So I
was like, Okay, whatever is about to happen is like
really going to be broadcast, so I just have to
(34:09):
know that. So go into Shlomi's apartment. He had like
a bong and he had all this weed and he
was trying to hook up with me, and I remember
being like, oh my god, she's in his body. So
I leaned forward and I was like, listen, I know
you're in there. I can't hook up with you like
in this form, so just like wait, but like I
(34:31):
know you're in there, and he's looking back at me,
like what is this chick.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Talking about He's like, I've never been out weirded before.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
It's taking the cake.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, He's like never, he's never been scared when he
pulls this creepy move on the kid and you're like
freaking him out.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Yeah, And I love that for you, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm also stuck on why did this man think you
were entering his car?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I don't know, and I will never know. My mother
and sister found me because he was an acquaintance of
my neighbor, and so they ended up showing up at
Shlomy's and they were at the door. They had been crying.
They like thought I was dead. They had no idea
where I was going to go. They had no idea
if they'd ever seen me again. Their eyes were glazed.
(35:15):
They seemed to be operating very slowly compared to me,
and I was like, oh, the evil force has them.
But I ended up going with them. And I also
thought that I was on the way to my wedding
to this woman. It wasn't just connecting with her. I
was like going to get married to her. I was eighteen,
it was legal. I was going to get married. And
(35:36):
so mirror Ball Sarah McLaughlin. Mirror Ball was playing on
my mom asterio great record, and I thought it was
a broadcast from my wedding venue in Malaburma.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You have a lot of storylines going on at once
and you were just able to follow them off flawlessly.
I have to point that out.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
And this is the same girl from your acting camp.
Did you ever tell her yeah she reacts?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
What did she say? Well? It was hard because I
had such a belief in the power in her power wow.
And it was the year after I was completely back,
and I found her through a guy. I was like
working at a cafe and a guy came in who
knew her, and I said, are you still in touch
(36:23):
with her? Let's call her Fairy Song? Oh yeah? And
I was like, are you in touch with Fairy And
he was like, yeah, actually I am. Do you want
her number? And so I ended up having a conversation
with her and she so was not the person taking
over the world with me who I thought she was,
And so that was a tiny little death, but I
think it was an important conversation.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'm still so curious about the reality testing piece of it,
because I imagine there are probably lots of people listening, who
have dealt with someone who might be in some kind
of episode and you know it's it's encouraging to know
it's possible to come out of it. How much of that, like,
do you attribute most of that to having someone you
(37:06):
trust as like someone who is really like kind and
gentle as your mental health, like as your therapist.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, I think if someone is listens long enough to understand,
like be passive enough to understand what the person believes,
so really hear what they think, who's after them, what
they're in control over and fit into their storyline. And
as long as you're saying absolutely yes, end you know yes,
(37:35):
and agreeing with everything they say. And that, incidentally, is
what therapists are trained to do with delusional like delusional disorders,
because if they disagree with the person, the person's going
to leave treatment.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Right. That's so interesting because it's very similar to how
you would talk to somebody who is in a cult
and is believing in this cult reality.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
You can't be like you're an idiot, shut up or leaving.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You'd be like, oh, yeah, so tell me more about
your beliefs.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Why do you feel that way?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And then like over time, if you can have just
understanding conversations, like you could maybe start asking questions, yeah, yeah,
without attacking what the belief is. And it's just so
interesting that that tactic is kind of the same for
both of those things.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, and it's the same in recovery too, Like if
somebody leaves a recovery group, like a twelve step group,
the wisest advice always is to not cast that person out,
not cast judgment, be the door if they ever want
to return, or if they ever want to send somebody else, Like, definitely,
I think that cooperation is important.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Like would she ask a question like if the squirrel
is listening to you, can you control it right now?
Can you do?
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Would there be stuff where you were kind of like
forced to contend with like your ideas being proven wrong?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Why I wish I remembered Cynthia. I wish I remembered
more of what she said. I don't really remember anything,
only that I really liked her, I really really trusted her.
I really liked her. So I also think medication was helping.
Sure I have I know and hear all the time,
which is wild because I've never, like since then, I
(39:21):
have never been disobedient when it comes to psychiatric medication,
I think, what could be scarier? But I never hear
about people staying on their medication, do you know what
I mean? Thought you all the time, like he went
off as meds, she went off her meds, like wild
And then they have episodes whereas I have the experience
of the medication actually really working, slowing down my brain
(39:46):
from making certain connections.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I mean, now we haven't we have this part of
the story where it's like, now you have to deconstruct
your beliefs from this over arching belief that your brain
has made, and I am wondering what that feels like?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
So horrible. I would think a lot of people would
stay ongoing in cults, and especially two by twos for example,
because it's home, it's identity, it's community.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
In your in your for you as well, like.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Oh, I'm applying it to cults. For me, it was
like a nightmare. I mean, to go from thinking you're
a profit to serving muffins at a bakery is really something.
It's very upsetting. So I was depressed for a very
long time afterwards.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, I mean, so many people in cults are told
that they're chosen, you know, I was told I was
chosen like one of like you know, five chosen people
for the end of the world and so like like
obviously very different context, but like similar having to sort
of reframe myself in the world as like just a person. Yeah,
(41:05):
you know, from like being Harry Potter to being just
a person.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is heart it's it's that's hard for and I think
that's so much of why it is difficult to leave
any belief system, but especially when there's community involved, especially
if their finance is involved.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And Lola reminds me of like Lola got specific OCD help.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
How do you say this.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Like, oh, like therapy. Yeah, yeah, so it.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Reminds me of how because I also went to the
place you were going because I was like, I also
have a CD, but I feel like you did the
work a little bit deeper than I did. I had
a really embarrassing thing happened with my therapist or with
the first time I talked to her. I sat down
on my curtains and the curtain rod fell down and
hit me on that and we were on zoom and
(41:53):
like after that, I just I was too humiliated to
like really connecte.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, but through.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Your explanation of how going. It was just like sitting
in the uncomfortability of having a thought and knowing it
might not be true even though it's there. Can you
say a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, I mean I had I have had to do
so much work on like noticing a thought when it
comes into my head and instead of believing it immediately,
we're like looking at it and being like, Okay.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
That's a thought.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's a thought I'm having about something that might be true,
and also it might not, and I am going to
just allow that uncertainty to be here rather than jumping
to believing it and trying to react to it and
defend against it and do some kind of mental ritual
to stop the thing from happening. Yeah. And for me,
(42:46):
actually it was I was initially it changes. The themes change,
but initially it was a fear of losing my mind,
and so I was like constantly on guard against losing,
you know, losing my mind. I'm gonna lose my mind.
I got I gotta be hypervigil my mind so I
don't lose my mind.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And I had to.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, I was doing a lot of exposure and response
prevention therapy around like Okay, maybe I'll lose my mind.
Maybe not, And I'm going to just allow that uncertainty
to exist.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Uncertainty, uncertainty, that cognitive dissonance. Those are the reasons that
cults exist. Is to get away from those.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Things, to provide certainty, because it feels so much better,
much better.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
And so yeah, just knowing that, like that uncomfortable feeling
that a lot of people are probably having to set
with right now is uh the hardest work. And it's
good work, and that's important work, but it.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Is not easy.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And and I can't even imagine where you had, like
how much work that must have taken.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
It's a lot of work. That's a lot of work.
Well it's hard, you know, I think for anybody in
my own experience, the internal world, the relationship with yourself,
you know, especially I had an incredibly traumatic childhood. I
did not have have safe, healthy adult mirrors around me,
so I became a parentified child and that doesn't allow
(44:06):
you to develop the healthiest relationship with self. And it's
a lot easier, especially nowadays, where stimulation is just on
ten and you want somebody to say, Okay, which shampoo
do I use? So like it's too much information nobody
needs to even know all this streamlining sense of purpose,
(44:26):
streamlining community and belief systems. Like it's so much easier,
though way more painful in the long run, to depend
on these external sources of power. Whether it's a romantic
relationship where you have a narcissistic lover, or you're in
(44:47):
a recovery group with a narcissistic sponsor, or you're working
under a sociopathic boss who promises the promotion, or you're
in a cult. This is this is the source of
like all pain I think is that people aren't willing
to go internally first, like you did to say, I
don't want to lose my mind, Like what is a
(45:08):
thought to Lola? But you know, what is this interior world.
It's it's very hard to do that. And if you
do work on your interior world, you might get distracted,
you by somebody who's you know, and it's kind of boring.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
That's exactly what it's boring, hur And like there's just
this you know, there's just like the hottest person over
there that you could go get in a toxic relationship with.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
There's this little thought in your brain that you could
really go wild with, And like have some fun with chaos. Yeah. Yeah,
it's fucking boring, and it's necessary.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, so necessary. It's we're all signs point like when
you yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
And to like it's boring, but then after the boring,
it's rewarding and fulfilling and it feels healthy and you
feel like, yeah, there's happiness on the other side of
the boredom.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
Yeah, it's important side of.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Your like, it takes a lot of hard work to
get like a certain part of your brain to turn
back on. Yeah, you know, and then once it does,
you're not as bored because you're dealing with a different deck.
And I don't know. We always come back to this,
the fact that I believe in a bunch of spiritual shit.
Where did Where did you land with all of these things?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
You know? I think sort of back to being very
practical and three dimensionally bound, I think is where I
returned to, which is a little bit unfortunate that my
experiences with the spiritual realm have to be linked to
psychosis and hospitalizations and handcuffs and all that. I Yeah,
(46:49):
I think it's it's I really try to stay in
the present. I try to stay in what is and
what is three dimensional what is you know, I believe
obviously in the greater forces of the universe. I can't
predict what's going to happen in thirty minutes from now,
and I know that most big things in my life
(47:12):
do come out of left field. And was that karmic contract?
Was that you know? Whatever it is? I believe that
there are greater forces at play, of course, but as
far as God and like personal higher powers that have
my best interests in mind. And I think that goes
along with relationship with self. I think it's sort of
(47:34):
a lifelong journey. Yeah, to really because you can believe
in God, But then is that relationship personal to you?
Like where is that source of power in your life?
I think that's a lifelong journey. I love that.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, are we missing anything about your experience, your journey,
your your takebacks from the other side.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
My takebacks, my takeaways from the other side. Yeah. I
think everybody should stand their medication. I think if your
friend or family member or someone you're close to is
experiencing a disconnect from reality, is experiencing delusions of grandeur,
(48:17):
you have to work with them because the moment you
butt up against whatever it is, they're believing you're eliminated
from a potential treatment conduit or team, So that I
think is the most important thing for anyone listening.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
But at some point you have to show your hand
and be like, but maybe not right.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Well, I think you want to get the person into treatment,
right like, you want to get them hospitalized.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Essentially, rather than trying to or get them to a doctor.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah, this is such wonderful information. It's linking so many
things together for me. I don't know about Yolola, but.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Would you say that you're experiencing ideas of reference?
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Ideas of reference?
Speaker 3 (49:04):
No, do you have a cult to start?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Probably, No, it's it's just really hitting home for me too.
Of that the experience is that I'm seeing of people
leaving these high control groups and how they're immediately dropped
into depressive episodes. They feel a loss of meaning, a
loss of you know, beauty in the world. And there's
just so many I think we've touched upon, like ten
(49:30):
parallels between what you experienced and what people starting cults,
leaving cults, and cults, family members watching people in cults
all can can help. So thank you so much for
being our guests powerful information.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thank you for having me it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Wow wewa wawa we wa.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Indeed that was fascinating, I mean, totally leading thought edge
stuff for me, stuff I've never thought of before.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
M m hmm. Exciting. So the point you had brought
up earlier was about why we think that it tends
toward religious delicious episodes?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Episodes tend to go towards religious delusions was the question
that popped into my mind. And you seem to have
an idea about it, as do I, So why.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Don't you go first?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I mean a couple thoughts, not from an educated perspective.
I'm sure there's a I'm sure there's a mental health
professional who has or a neurologist who has a better
sense of it. But my just like initial thoughts were like,
we actually see a lot of people like people who
are in a paranoid delusion will often be talking about
the government and.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Not necessarily religion.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I wonder how much of it comes from whatever your
particular framework is growing up and that just gets activated.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, because it's like the government and God are a
symbolic thing of control.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Yes, yeah, both of those would be powers like bigger
than yourself. So if you're feeling these overwhelming emotions and
thoughts like it's got to attach to some kind of
greater power. I would imagine. It also made me think
about this episode we did a long time ago that
I actually think was fascinating, maybe a bit heady for
anyone who wants to listen to it. It was with Yuval
Laur called Further Awe and hyper Religiosity, and what we
(51:12):
talked about was temporal lobe epilepsy and how that's a
particular kind of seizure in the brain that for some
reason leads to often leads to religious experiences. But I
can't remember the exact mechanism, and we probably don't actually know,
but it has something to do with the fact that
it gives you this really really heightened emotional experience that
feels like it must be spiritual because of how heightened
(51:35):
and intense it is. It's like a peak experience. It
is a peak experience.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I will also throw into the chat this book that
I was obsessed with.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It was this.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Book by a woman who was a neurologist at Harvard.
Her name is doctor Jill Bolt or Bote, and she
had a aneurysm and her basically ego collapsed and she
was living in this bizarre state of oneness with all
that is. Oh wait, what's it called, I'm trying to
(52:05):
find Okay, it's called My Stroke of Insight? Oh yes, yes, yes,
And you know to me, as we all know, I
am a little bit more prone to the spiritual side
of life. So I do think that there are spiritual
explanations for some things. And you know, I don't know.
It's a mystery to me, but I strongly recommend reading
(52:27):
My Stroke of Insight.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
It is interesting how.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
When you stimulate certain parts of the brain you have
a spiritual experience. And I think mostrologists woul attribute that
to the feelings that it produces.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Actually experienced it, and what's hard takeaway that there's something
really to it.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
We're accessing a different part of our brain. That's important.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
So I'm very curious to read the book and see
through through the lens of how I think if my
takeaway would be she had a very.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Buddhist take on it, and very like if you're using
this part of your mind, like.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I'll have to read that.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
She wasn't saying she's magically accessing.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
No, she was saying that she is completely aware that
we're all one, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
So if there were a way for us all to
access that feeling because of something that's being stimulated in
our rain, that would be great.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Thank you so much to Anne for speaking to us
about this, because that was very vulnerable and very thought provoking.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Indeed.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, So, if y'all like the podcast, please go rate
us five stars and leave us a good review. It's
the kindest thing you can do to help support us.
If you don't like the podcast, do not don't review us,
don't reveal.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
It to us.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
It's annoying to do.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Why would you do that?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
A troll?
Speaker 2 (53:43):
You are also go buy our merchant bitt ly slash
trust Me Merch please and we can't wait to see
you here again next week, and as always, remember to
follow your gut, watch out for red flags, and never
ever trust me.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Delemator, with special thanks to Stacy Para and our
theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I'm Oola Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Remember to rate and review and spread the word.
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