Speaking Way Up: Nikieta Lambert, Erika Cheung & Jessica Willis Fisher

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[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_06]: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical or mental health advice.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_06]: The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_06]: and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Music

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm Anthony, air quotes Nippy, Ames.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_08]: And this is A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_08]: A podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Every week we chat with survivors, experts and whistleblowers for real cult stories told directly by the people who live through them.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_08]: Because we want you to learn a few things we've had to learn the hard way.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you're already prime recruitment material.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_08]: You might even already be in a cult.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Oops. You better keep listening to find out.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_08]: Welcome to Season 6 of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Music

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Welcome back ALBC listeners.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_06]: We are wrapping up our summer hiatus.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_06]: We didn't want to leave you hanging.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Got some things in store for you.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Sarah wants to do a little chit chat before we get into things.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_08]: Just wanted to tell people what we're up to.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Keep it natch as she says.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_08]: We're coming back from our whirlwind, almost seven weeks in Canada.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_08]: Weather was glorious.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_08]: Thank you very much.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_06]: We're not supposed to tell people that.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_08]: We're not supposed to brag about it.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Don't go to Canada in the summer.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_08]: Do not go, especially to British Columbia.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_08]: You guys miss my ice?

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh Nippy, put the ice away.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_08]: We are very excited to get back, get the kids back in school.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm sure many of you relate.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_08]: School starts for us now.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_08]: The summer has been great.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_08]: We've had some really good quality time, but we're ready to get back to our book.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_08]: We're about a quarter way through.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_08]: Very excited to say we will be publishing in spring of 2025.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Air quotes around spring of 2025.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_08]: Spring is loose.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_08]: More specific date coming soon.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_08]: We're very excited to share that with y'all.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_08]: And in case you didn't know, we do have a newsletter.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_08]: You can find it on our about page at littlebitculty.com.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Become official.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_08]: It's official.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_08]: You can keep up with all the things that we're doing.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_08]: And if you want to support this podcast, which is free as you know, but you wanted to keep it going,

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_08]: you can do so by going to our sponsor page, littlebitculty.com slash sponsors.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_08]: All of our current sponsors are there and you can click the links.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_08]: And just so you know, you supporting our sponsors and purchasing things from them keeps our podcast going

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_08]: because then they continue to sponsor us.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_08]: So that would be something greatly appreciative of.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_08]: And we're super excited about some of our latest sponsors that we are obsessed with via CBD and THC product gummies.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_08]: We know you love our gummies.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_08]: Mud water.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_08]: Mud water, which is a coffee alternative.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_08]: Great for me who just got off coffee because it turned out it was not helping with my anxiety.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_06]: It definitely wasn't.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Definitely wasn't.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_08]: So to wrap up our summer extravaganza remix,

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_08]: we are diving into the ALBC archives for an episode featuring some of our most courageous and outspoken guests.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_08]: Hashtag whistleblowers.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_06]: From tech whistleblowers to toxic showbiz parenting,

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_06]: these three strong women had the guts to stand up to their abusers and make a change in their lives and others.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_08]: This week you'll hear Nikita Lambert speak out against her experience with the International Church of Christ

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_08]: and a taste of Erica Chung's time taking down Theranos.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_08]: Plus, Jessica Willis Fisher talks about the toxic side of childhood fame.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_06]: First up are the highlights from our episode with Nikita Lambert.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Nikita spent 15 years climbing the ranks at the Evangelical International Churches of Christ, the ICOC.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Nikita shared the culty tactics the church used to keep members in line

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_06]: and the crystallizing moment when she realized it was time to leave the church.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_08]: We loved this episode. Enjoy.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_08]: What was the final straw that snapped you out of it?

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so it happened in stages and this is actually a really good segue because it was, you know, not at all to be insensitive.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully this doesn't rub anyone the wrong way.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously the pandemic was devastating, terrible.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_04]: But because the world stopped and nobody was allowed to be together, I didn't have to go to any more meetings.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_04]: That's brilliant.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And after a while, I like had time to think because I wasn't always going.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was able to process like, wait a minute.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_04]: So that little inkling, that little feeling that was, I don't know if this is right.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_04]: It was able to develop into a full thought of that doesn't make sense for me to keep going somewhere that, you know, that I hate actually.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_04]: But it was the perfect storm.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_04]: It just kept compiling and compiling and compiling.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_04]: So, of course, while the pandemic is going on, there's this huge kind of civil rights movement.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_04]: The whole Black Lives Matter going on and most locations, especially where I am, the Hampton Roads area, the church leaders, because the majority of them, the overwhelming majority of them are led by, you know, older white couples.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_04]: And who try to appease the people who pay the most money.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of them are, you know, white conservative people in this group.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_04]: They didn't want to rock the boat.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So the same Jesus that they preach, who's overturning tables and the God of the Old Testament, who is about like forgiveness and taking in, you know, wandering foreigners and making sure that they don't go without.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is very clear overarching theme of the Bible.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Now, all of a sudden, the leaders are just so unsure where they stand and we shouldn't get involved in civilian affairs.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And I told several of the leaders like this is just very concerning because over the years I've heard many sermons preached from the pulpit where you openly shame couples who live together before marriage.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Or you openly shame the LGBTQ community.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you say, well, some of you might not come back because you're upset, but that's okay.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Because Jesus didn't care about the number of followers.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_04]: He cared about the hearts of the followers.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_04]: But now that it's about black and brown people, you don't want to upset people.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_04]: The math is not my thing.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And they never had anything to say.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_04]: They just kind of, it was always, and then they would find some way to spin it or whatever.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_04]: So thank you so much for sharing your concern.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: I can't tell you how many times, Nikita, your voice is so powerful and we really need it to be heard, but not from the pulpit on Sundays.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_04]: How patronizing.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Very, very.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And so my husband and I, because we were, you know, on the leadership path, though not staff, thank goodness.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Our disciples, our mentors were actually two of the elders.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I texted him and I was like, Hey, the elder, if I'm going to stay in order for me to feel good, I just need to know that there's a path of action.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Like what are we going to work toward?

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And he didn't respond, which was unusual because he was usually very responsive.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And we got together.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, you know, sister, I've been thinking about that text and I just can't promise you anything.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_04]: But if we mess up again, you can feel free to talk to me about it.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, that's what I've been doing.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to keep doing that.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_04]: So between just my eyes being able to be opened to all of the systems, the complete disregard and insensitivity and lack of support for justice for the Black and Brown community, and then having a couple of interactions with higher leadership where afterwards, because I wouldn't back down.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't necessarily very confrontational, but I just, I wasn't apologetic and I didn't fall back in line.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_04]: I just kind of was like, yes, I said that.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I don't agree with that.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think they would just expect me to say, Oh, you're so wise.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I'm so sorry.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I didn't think about it that way.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And I did it.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_04]: When I left, I felt sick to my stomach when I would leave those interactions.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I would feel physically sick.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_06]: No one had your back?

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_04]: No, not like in public, really.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_04]: That's awful.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Some people occasionally would text me, but when we were in group conversations, no one would really be like, that's right, Nikita.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_06]: They're obedient.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Or even some people would patronize me or like kind of scold me at first.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And then when they would see how things would play out, they would then text me and be like, Oh, I'm so glad you did that.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Actually, I'm so glad you said, but they would never actually go tell the leader.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of it is detailed on the YouTube channel, but lots of public kind of shaming and scrutiny.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_04]: I deleted like over a thousand people off of my Facebook friends list because of course, when you go to all these different conferences and retreats, you meet so many people.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_04]: So I had so many Facebook friends, but they weren't really friends.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_04]: They weren't really quote unquote brothers and sisters.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And I felt a lot of them were just kind of watching and spying to be able to talk about me.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_04]: So I just cut off the access.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Like you don't get to see what I'm saying.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_04]: You don't get to see what I'm doing.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_04]: It's causing me stress.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So when I felt that physical feeling, I was like, you know what?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_04]: This is not healthy.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: I've been to enough therapy.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_04]: I've done enough work with my own mom and other people in my life to know that this is not healthy.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And so actually, I don't want to be here anymore.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_04]: If you are my leader and you're supposed to be helping me get to get close to God and you're supposed to be quote unquote my brother in Christ, I should not feel physically sick because you confronted me and I didn't make myself your doormat.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_04]: That's not a healthy dynamic.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_06]: So good for you.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_04]: That was my last straw.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_08]: This podcast certainly would not be happening without our amazing, supportive, generous patrons.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_08]: Are you with us?

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_08]: Come find us over on Patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit culty for bonus episodes, ad free and exclusive content and the occasional zoom with fan favorites from our past episodes, Q&A's and all sorts of goodies.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_08]: It's fun over there, people.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Right now, I've got a decent job.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_03]: The pay isn't bad, but honestly, I want more.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't just want a job.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I want a career when that gives me opportunities to advance, earn more and build a better life for myself.

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[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_09]: You've heard from our sponsors.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_08]: Now let's get back to a little bit culty, shall we?

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_08]: If you want to learn more about Nikita Lambert's experience exiting the church, check out her ICOC series on YouTube.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_08]: It's much more in-depth and absolutely fascinating.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_06]: From religious cults to the cult of Silicon Valley, our next conversation is with Erica Chung.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_06]: At just 22 years old, Erica joined the now infamous team at Theranos and was ready to make some life-changing medicine.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_06]: The euphoria only lasted only seven months when she decided she was done with the lies, bought a burner phone and blew the whistle on Elizabeth Holmes and one of the largest cons in tech industry to date.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_07]: That's such a shame.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_07]: It's such a shame.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_07]: There's so many, and I'm sure you guys had this too, even though being at the helm of whistleblowing and stopping the case, there's still so much heartbreak that comes from that.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_07]: That idealism that they played on, those ideals didn't disappear for me.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It's moral injury.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_07]: It's the moral injury.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_07]: It's the grief and the loss and the sadness and the betrayal.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_07]: There's so many emotions that end up coming to the forefront of these cases and they ripple into so many different things beyond just that case itself.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_06]: How far off is she?

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Is it as crazy as me going to someone and saying, hey, I want to do a time machine, give me hundreds of millions of dollars and then how absurd is her idea?

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_07]: So her idea, parts of it are not, it's like two truths and a lie.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_07]: So there are some truths there of things that you can do.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_07]: But I think in terms of what we were doing at Fairness, how I compare it is that she promised everyone a magic carpet that could fly and delivered people a hoverboard.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_07]: But worse yet, the hoverboard she shipped, when you plug them in, they explode.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_07]: And that's pretty much what she did.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_05]: That's a great metaphor.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_07]: That's kind of what was accomplished.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_07]: And so it was pretty far off.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_07]: It was pretty far off and it's hard, right?

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_07]: It's hard when you see these big machines and when people are working so hard to develop things that it's hard for people to see like, well, look, we had all of these million dollar machines or we manufactured all of these different units.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, yeah, but they don't work.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_07]: Right. That was one of the things they did in the trial where it was like, oh, OK.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_07]: If the company wasn't working on building this, look at these stacks of papers of all these experiments that they had run to show you that this technology was viable, knew it existed.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's like, sure, I can print out, I can write on a piece of paper that I did this experiment.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_07]: But if they all fail, that doesn't mean I have a product that works.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_07]: Right. Like I can run-

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_07]: Such a non sequitur.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_07]: I can run no piece of experiment.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't seem to show a track record of progress either.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. Just circling back to something you said about like the internal feeling and being overridden by the idealism.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_08]: I think, you know, one of the things we certainly saw watching and watching the doc anyway is it's also the corporate rah-rah, like for lack of a better word, the songs and the gatherings and the hype.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_08]: And that aligns with what you were saying, like it's, you know, feeling special and being part of all that and how great that must have felt.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_08]: Sidebar calling them Eagle One and Eagle Two.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm pretty sure we called Nancy and Keith that, didn't we? At certain points, like one and two, like it was that kind of like they'd come in together and it was just that kind of vibe.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_08]: If not called that directly, it was certainly that vibe.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_08]: But yeah, so then, so getting, so going from that, all of those red flags, what was the final straw for you?

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_08]: When did you decide that you had to speak up and become a, well, I guess there's probably two points, speaking up and then being dismissed and then becoming a whistleblower.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_08]: Is that accurate?

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. So I had reported internally several times, right, of saying like, something's not right here.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_07]: This, it wasn't like overarching, something's not right here.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_07]: It was like this experiment, this didn't work.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_07]: We're having problems with this type of test.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_07]: We're having problems with this.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_07]: And so I had done a lot to report internally to different people within the organization.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_07]: But I think the big turning point for me of the fact that, okay, these aren't just issues that we have in the company, that there's something bigger going on here is when I had a conversation with the COO of the company.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_07]: And I had gone into his office and basically told him I'm concerned about the issues that we're having in terms of failures of our patient tests and frequency of them.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_07]: And the fact that when we make a mistake on a patient sample, we don't notify them.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_07]: And when I had reported these concerns to him, he basically said, you are a recent graduate from UC Berkeley.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Have you ever taken a statistics class? Do you know anything about statistics?

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_07]: You need to do the job I pay you to do, which is to process patient samples without question.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_07]: And so at that point, I was just shocked. I was really jarred.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_07]: I was like, okay, this isn't the case that there's some discrepancy between what the executive management knows and what's happening at the operational floor.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_07]: They know exactly what's going on.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_07]: They're just not doing anything about it.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_07]: And so I think that really flipped for me what type of situation I had gotten myself into.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_07]: Before that, I think I was still operating by the principle that you're in a startup. Things aren't working. That's why you're hired. You're here to fix the problems.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_07]: But at that point, I realized, oh, no, no, no, there's something else going on here.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_07]: And I talked to the board as well.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_07]: I'd gone to the board's house and had a conversation.

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_07]: And he basically said, maybe I should look for another job.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think after those experiences of internally reporting, going up every level of command, basically, to get the truth out, I was very disempowered.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_07]: I didn't know what to do.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_07]: I was very concerned about the fact that they were testing on patients, even though it was pretty well proven that these tests weren't working, even by our own internal standards.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_07]: And I tell a lot of people I got lucky in the sense that I had gotten contacted by John Kerry Rue, who was the main reporter who reported on the case.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_07]: And for me, it wasn't even a second thought.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_07]: It was like a breath of fresh air of, oh, okay, there's one opportunity to get the truth out.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to take it.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to take whatever door presents itself to me to allow the truth to get out.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_07]: And I didn't really think twice.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_07]: I didn't probably do as much due diligence as I should have in terms of vetting, is this a good journalist or not?

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_07]: And honestly, before his report came out, the company was so litigious that they had basically come after me, threatened assuming, and had private investigators following me when I was living in the Bay.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_07]: But that was also a bit lucky in a strange way because it sort of allowed me to understand that I could also report to regulators, that that was an opportunity for me.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_07]: That the regulators were ultimately the governing body that could shut down their ability to process patient samples.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_07]: And so once I figured out like, oh, you can do this and you can do it anonymously, it was great.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_07]: It was kind of crazy though, because when I had first figured this out, I had tried to go to San Francisco in order to walk into the office to file the report.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_07]: But I was so paranoid about the fact that I was being stalked and followed and that they would see me entering into the building.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_07]: That I ended up like pacing like a crazy person around the streets of San Francisco, like trying to see is someone following me, is someone not?

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_07]: That I like couldn't do it that first day.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_07]: And so then I ended up getting a burner phone and calling them through the burner phone and then figuring out, oh, okay, this is how you file a report.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And it took me a while to file the report. I had a lot of personal issues. I was taking care of someone who was dying at that time.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_07]: So it took me a while to write out the report.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_07]: These things never happen at opportune times. It was a really crazy summer for me.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_07]: But that's kind of what led me to speaking up, was a mixture of the desire to just say they need to stop testing on patients.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_07]: And also a bit of luck in terms of kind of bumping into the right people who sort of helped me build my awareness of what were the opportunities for me to allow the truth to get out.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_07]: Right. Like you don't walk around 23 years old like, oh, I'm going to knock on the door of the Wall Street Journal and have them hold this company I used to work for accountable.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_06]: You don't walk around at 43 years old doing that.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_07]: That's something that you think that you're ever going to be presented with, especially when you started off.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_07]: Like really, it's crazy. I really thought Theranos was going to be the company I was going to work for the next 10 years of my life.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_07]: Like I was that bought in into what we were trying to do. And then next thing you know, you're having to kind of change course.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_06]: One thing Sarah and I learned is you don't get to pick and choose how and why you're going to stand for what you're going to stand for.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Why not walk away at that point for you?

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, in my case, I knew what I stood for when I joined the company.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_07]: Like I stood for the fact that I wanted to figure out how to leverage technology to provide affordable and accessible health care to people.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_07]: I knew that. Right? Like I went in very clear minded, very clear headed that this is how I wanted to spend my life and my career.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think because our actions were so counter that we were lying to patients.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_07]: We were telling people they may or may not have had cancer when we didn't even trust these tests.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_07]: Like people internally in the organization would get their blood test results on Edison devices and like freak out.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_07]: Because they were just having such like false reports on everything.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_07]: And so I think that made it easy, even though it was scary and hard to kind of keep pushing through because I did have a very clear understanding of why I joined the company.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_07]: What I stood for, how I wanted to spend my time, how I wanted to spend my career.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_07]: Why did I study the sciences? Why did I do all of these different things?

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_07]: It was very black and white in many ways for me.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_07]: It made it all the easier.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_07]: I think what makes it complicated was actually the circumstance of like, are you actually right about this or not?

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, is this the case that you're actually right about the issues that are going on?

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_07]: And because of my lack of experience and because of the amount of intimidation and gaslighting and just kind of like twilight zone environment of a workplace that was where like all of a sudden, you know, up is right in 2076 and just all this wild stuff.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_07]: That's what was the complicated part, I think for me.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_07]: It was like the mission, the principle, what to stand for.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_07]: Very clear, very easy.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_07]: It was, are you actually right about this?

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think also I didn't want to be right about this.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_07]: It's so gross, right?

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Like when you really look at it, you're like, this is so awful that I almost want to be delusional about what's happening because the reality of what we're actually doing is so painful.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_06]: I totally agree.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_07]: And so counter what I signed up for, that it's just even your personal resistance to the truth.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_07]: Like there are very few times in life that you want to be wrong about something this badly.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_06]: For more background on what brought us here, check out Sarah's page turning memoir.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_06]: It's called Scarred, the true story of how I escaped NXIVM, the cult that bound my life.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_06]: It's available on Amazon, Audible and at most bookstores.

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_06]: If you want to see that story in streaming form, watch both seasons of The Vow on HBO.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Right now, I've got a decent job.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: The pay isn't bad, but honestly, I want more.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't just want a job.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I want a career.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: One that gives me opportunities to advance, earn more and build a better life for myself.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I enrolled at Salt Lake Technical College where I learned skills that quickly got me ready for my new career.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Discover your new career and enroll at slcc.edu slash sltech.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Salt Lake Tech, careers that work for you.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Behind every door at Houston Methodist, you know what to expect.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Expertise. Whether it's life-saving brain surgery, your 3D mammogram that catches breast cancer sooner,

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: or orthopedic specialists helping you feel stronger than ever.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: With hundreds of doors across Houston, you can get expert care everywhere.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the difference between practicing medicine and leading it.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Houston Methodist. Leading Medicine.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_06]: We've heard from our sponsors. Now let's get back to a little bit culty, shall we?

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_08]: Good for her. So proud of her.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_08]: Since her time at Theranos, Erica has gone on to be the Executive Director of Ethics in Entrepreneurship,

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_08]: a non-profit whose mission is to foster ethical questioning, culture and systems in startups and startup ecosystems.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_08]: She's also an advisor to several whistleblower advocacy organizations. Wow.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_06]: From religious cults to technology scams, we're rounding out today's episode with a stopover in the toxic world of childhood fame.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Our final clip comes from our episode with Jessica Willis Fisher, who we met at CrimeCon.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Jessica and her siblings rose to fame on America's Got Talent and even landed a reality show from their parents.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Things aren't as they appeared in the heavenly Christian Willis home.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Jessica bravely spoke with us about the abusive reality behind her picture-perfect family.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_08]: So before we get to your, you know, the final straw, I know there were obviously so many things leading up to the,

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_08]: to the darkest time and the darkest moments.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_08]: And I just say that one of the things that I think was really valuable for me as a reader, but also as a survivor,

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_08]: in terms of like catharsis and resonance is your ability to explain all the things that had happened to you that weren't right.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, all of the abuse, physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_08]: It's all gone in your brain.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_08]: And it, to me, it was, it was really indicative of like, you didn't, and I struggled with this also when I was writing my memoir.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_08]: Like, it's like, I'd say something, but like, but what I learned later was this was actually, it was happening.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_08]: And I liked how you didn't do that.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_08]: And you stayed in the moment of like kind of bringing the reader through the compartmentalization, the disassociation,

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_08]: the separating yourself, like the part separation.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_08]: I loved how you didn't even name it like that.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_08]: You didn't name those things.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_08]: You didn't say, I was disassociating.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_08]: You were like, no, you're like, I'm a little girl and I'm over there.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_08]: And then I'm not that little girl.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_08]: And I have to tell myself, I'm not that little girl.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_08]: Like it was just, it was really, really well-written.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm very surprised you didn't have a co-writer, but I guess you are a writer and you write songs.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_08]: So it makes sense that you were able to, because I had to hire someone to help me find those words.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_08]: I was just like, how did you do that?

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_09]: And I mean, therapy.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_09]: Helping me find those words.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_09]: And I had a wonderful book team and the editor.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_09]: I felt like I learned so much.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_09]: As I said earlier, that was usually a whittling down, but I do think that I wanted to, I mean, it's kind of a bold thing.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_09]: I don't want to traumatize anyone else.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_09]: Hey, if someone's reading and they don't have sexual abuse in their history, which a lot of us do, like statistically, a lot of us do.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_09]: One in four women.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_09]: But like, I'm so happy if you don't.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm not here to, like, I would never knowingly, willingly want to like even vicariously make you feel that.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_09]: And yet how do you articulate something that does happen and isn't talked about much?

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_09]: And so there were lots of things where I felt like I read Tara Westover's book, Educated, and I resonated so much.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_09]: I had it here to be like, you've read this, right?

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_09]: I just want to make sure you read it.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_09]: Absolutely. I resonated with it so much.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_09]: And it was like, yes, this, but with sexual abuse, more sexual, you know, like that sort of thing.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_09]: Or, you know, so I really felt like that was a thing that I had to articulate that was either mine to lean into or not.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_09]: And it's been interesting to your point, Nippy, earlier about people are going to disagree, have their critique no matter what.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_09]: And I think that's a really important thing to remember is that, you know, the only people I've had some people tell me to be quiet and not to talk.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_09]: Honestly, those have all been Christian people.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_09]: Not all Christians have told me that.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_09]: But those are the only people that have told me that the book is pornographic or inappropriate or to even say what I say that specific is too much.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm like, but I lived that.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_09]: You're telling me my experience is too harmful for you to even hear and talk about a problem.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_09]: Like we all know abuse is the main problem.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_09]: How does that even happen?

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_09]: And if you get curious about the question of how does it happen, why does it happen?

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_09]: Like, you know, let's get curious about this.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_09]: Let's actually look at it.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_09]: It always has to be paired with someone who can't look, won't look or doesn't have.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_09]: I get it.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_09]: You don't have words for this.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_09]: But I didn't either.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_09]: I had to go get them.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_09]: When I look at young adults, when I look at my mother, it's complicated.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_09]: And I have the empathy of, wow, you didn't have the tool for this.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_09]: You didn't have the strength.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_09]: You didn't have the vocabulary.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_09]: And I didn't either.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_09]: I had to go get it.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_09]: I had to become the adult that I needed.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_09]: And so there's this balance of like empathy and taking the responsibility, trying to grow past that.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_09]: But staying true to in the moment before you knew better, how can you articulate what that was really like?

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_09]: So thank you for calling that out because that was an intention to try to really help people.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_09]: Again, not to traumatize people, but this is what it's like.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_09]: I want to be truthful and kind of be a witness for my younger self.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_09]: I'm the adult now.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_09]: I can be the adult that can be strong enough to look at what it was that you actually went through.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_06]: It's well put.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I did an interview yesterday with someone and, you know, the current climate that everyone's in right now is somewhat divisive.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And he said, I made a decision to not be a part of the division.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And I want to be part of bringing people together.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Particularly if you can do it with this subject matter, it speaks volumes about how you have become the adult.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Because that's what adults do.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_09]: I think as human beings, we are so much more alike than we are different.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_09]: And I see this with my parents, for example, where the reaction that I see around me when I speak my story,

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_09]: a lot of times is a lot of vitriol towards my mother and or my father.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_09]: And almost an othering of, well, your dad is probably so evil that, you know, he's almost like a different.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_09]: He's either possessed by a demon that was the devil or he's just so evil, so broken.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_09]: And a lot of people will say, you know, if I was in your mom's position, I would this, I would that, I would that.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm always like, that's actually not what the research says.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_09]: Research says that this is much more close to there's all these patterns that follow.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_09]: Like I didn't get out and go, wow, we are the strangest, weirdest.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_09]: This has never happened before.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_09]: It was this follows a pattern, this follows a pattern.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_09]: If you want to learn more, study domestic violence.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_09]: Understand this is how it plays out.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_09]: Learn about grooming.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_09]: This is how it plays out.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_09]: Learn about sexual abuse and how it actually happens.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_09]: And you see that we are very much, you know, not everybody is 12 kids, not everybody's on TV.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_09]: But those were like, you know, that's not the main core of what we're talking about here.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_09]: And yeah, I think when you separate and say, I could never.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_09]: Again, we're talking about that thing like maybe you're more vulnerable to it.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_09]: A lot of times I think of Hitler.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_09]: And if you think, you know, a lot of people agree, he was a pretty, made a lot of bad decisions, bad influence, bad guy.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_06]: The more I hear about him, the more I don't like him.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_09]: But if you think that you're almost like a completely different species than Hitler, it's like the road to that destination, I think looks so much more like our everyday and the decisions that we make.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_09]: And nobody, even Hitler didn't think he was like an evil guy.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_06]: He was laughed at before.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_06]: He was literally laughed at in the country.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And about three years later, he had power.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_09]: And I think when we, anyway, I'm kind of going down a tangent.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, just to backtrack for a second about people saying to you that you shouldn't speak or you shouldn't say it.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_08]: I think I'm going to give you permission.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm sure you found your own words, but I think it's totally acceptable to say, I understand it's hard to see these things.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_08]: And especially if you're protective of Christianity or homeschooling, whatever it is that they're protecting.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_08]: But to say, if I don't do this and people don't do this, it will continue.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_08]: And you have to blow the lid off the shame and embrace it because these stories, and I really resonate with what you said on the back of your book about the shame, the reminder that shame never has to have the last word.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_08]: I think that's so important.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_08]: And that telling these stories will change the world because the more people read something like your story and go, oh, that happened to me and I have a roadmap now out thanks to somebody like you.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_08]: Like what a, well, it's a huge gift, a huge gift for people.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_09]: It's a really beautiful, complicated place that I'm in right now.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_09]: I just did a couple of days ago, did my first solo show.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_09]: It was like half reading as an author, half singing songs and stuff.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_09]: And this is just one example, but I was talking to a young woman there and she said, you know, this song and your story helped me report my stepdad.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_09]: And I just, you know, sometimes it doesn't feel like it's appropriate for words, just hugging someone and holding space for that because that's helpful for me.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_09]: That's heavy for me.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_09]: It's validating in the decision to share my story and believing that it has helpful power, but it's always sad.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_09]: It's like never a cause fully for someone to take.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_09]: It's a call, a moment for grieving and honoring that.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_09]: And it's tough.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_09]: Like how do you invite people into that and be respectful of their capacity?

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe they can't handle anything else heavy.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_09]: I get that.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_09]: But also I didn't have a choice, you know, when I was going through, I didn't have a choice.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_09]: So yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_09]: And I think it's a beautiful and fulfilling thing in my life now to know just that one person like that's enough.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_09]: That's worth sharing my story, but it's not just one person.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_09]: It goes out and it's, you know, helped and reached a lot of people.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm still trying to just absorb that and hold space for that.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_09]: And now we get that.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_09]: It's complicated.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Like what you hear, do you?

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Give us a rating, a review and subscribe on iTunes.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Every little bit helps us get this cult awareness content out there.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Smash that subscribe button.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_06]: You know you want to.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_08]: Want to hear more Jessica's story?

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_08]: Check out her memoir, Unspeakable, Surviving My Childhood and Finding My Voice.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_08]: Or listen to her debut solo album, Brand New Day.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_08]: Jessica, it was so wonderful to meet you in person at CrimeCon this summer.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_08]: And we hope to see you again, hopefully in Nashville or Atlanta or somewhere in the South very, very soon.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_08]: Proud of you and all of you whistleblowers for your strong, strong voice.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_06]: There you have it.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_06]: That's just a sampling of the incredibly powerful women who have graced ALBC.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_06]: A big thank you to Nikita Lambert, Erica Chung, Jessica Willis Fisher for sharing their personal experience with our audience.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_06]: It's strong women like these that inspire us to do better for our communities.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_08]: Thanks again for listening.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_08]: We'll be back with season seven and some fresh episodes really soon.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_08]: Bye.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks for listening, everyone.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_06]: We're heading over to patreon.com slash a little bit culty now to discuss this episode.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_06]: In the meantime, dear listener, please remember this podcast is solely for general informational, educational and entertainment purposes.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not intended as a substitute for real medical, legal or therapeutic advice.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_06]: For cult recovery resources and to learn more about seeking safely in this culty world,

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_06]: check out a little bit culty.com slash culty resources and don't miss Sarah's TED talk called How Cult Literate Are You?

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_06]: That's cult stuff.

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_08]: A little bit culty is a Trace 120 production, executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_08]: in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_08]: and our co-creator and show chaplain slash bodyguard Jess Temple-Tardy.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_08]: And our theme song Cultivated is by John Bryant.