Stolen Innocence: Elissa Wall on Growing up FLDS (Part 1)

[00:00:00] The views and opinions expressed by A Little Bit Culty are those of the hosts, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. That's true. Any of the fire content provided by our guest, bloggers, sponsors, or authors are of their opinion

[00:00:13] and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Unless you're abusing people then I have a problem maligning you. Also, we're not doctors, psychologists, or wizards. We're just two non-experts trying

[00:00:27] to make you a friendly, informative podcast that helps you understand culty shit. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here and I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband, and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty, aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side.

[00:00:54] We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story, we met and fell in love in a cult. And then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. And the whole thing was captured in the HBO docu-series The Vow, now in its second season.

[00:01:08] I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped Nexium, the cult that bound my life. Look at us, a couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night,

[00:01:19] where we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Oh wait, wait, this does not count toward date night, babe. We gotta schedule that, that's separate. So it's two days, we gotta hang on?

[00:01:30] We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium, still on that journey. And we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers. We know all too well that culty things happen.

[00:01:42] It happens to people every day across every walk of life. So join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level market. This stuff really is everywhere. The cultiverse just keeps on expanding and so are we.

[00:01:56] Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Culty, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at alittlebitculty.com. Welcome back to the cultiverse everybody. I'm going to take over the beginning of this one

[00:02:28] because if you were going to listen to this podcast, it's prerequisite. You need to watch the documentary, Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey if you want this documentary to have its full effect and understand the entire situation. Correct Sarah? You mean podcast? That too.

[00:02:45] I'm assuming that most of our listeners have watched Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey because when this came out... Hey, you know what assumptions do, don't you Sarah? I know that they can ask that even me but I'm just saying that most people have

[00:02:56] just like I know everyone's watching the One Taste documentary and answer your questions. Yes, it's on our list. In fact, we've been looking for someone to interview about this documentary since way before the series dropped.

[00:03:09] I actually know some people who've done it. We know a couple of people who've done it. I met somebody recently at South by Southwest and he was like, yeah, I did some oming. I did some stroking. It was interesting. I was like, okay.

[00:03:22] We'll cover that later. Hard pass. Hard pass. I mean everyone said, oh my God, those women's just like Keith and Harry. I mean they're all sort of the same, especially with this one actually. All that said, this episode may be triggering across several themes, sexual assault, religious

[00:03:36] trauma, family separation. It's dark. Please listen to Caution and do see our website for resources if you need any help. Take care of yourself and this is not an easy lesson. It's also not easy to bring down a monster but our guest today helped put a pretty diabolical

[00:03:50] one behind bars for life plus 20 years. If you've seen Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey, you may recognize Alyssa Wall's name and story. Keep Sweet is the four part Netflix docu-series released this past summer that delves into the

[00:04:04] Mormon offshoot known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which we'll refer to as FLDS through the rest of this episode because it has too many words, as well as the rise and fall of its leader, Warren Jeffs, aka the monster.

[00:04:17] Alyssa was born into a polygamous FLDS family in Utah. In 14 she was forced into marrying her cousin and by the time she turned 16 she had been raped routinely and had suffered two miscarriages. When she went to the quote unquote prophet at the helm of the FLDS,

[00:04:31] Warren Jeffs just told her she needed to go home and submit to her husband. Because in Warren Jeffs twisted world girls as young as 12 were groomed and forced to marry older men on the regular. He had 78 wives 24 of whom were under age including a 12-year-old

[00:04:46] that he reportedly raped in front of other wives. He also assaulted children as young as six and even had the gall to run teachings on how to satisfy him. 78? Jesus. Jeffs was eventually convicted of rape and child sexual assault. He's now in prison for a

[00:05:01] nice long time thanks in no small part to Alyssa's courageous testimony at his 2007 trial. Alyssa published a memoir for upbringing in FLDS and her eventual escape called Stolen Innocence My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect Becoming a Teenage Bride

[00:05:16] and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs, which became a New York Times bestseller. I loved this book. It is so descriptive of a situation that you can't only imagine unless you really put yourself in it and that book certainly does that.

[00:05:30] And we're honored to have her on the pod to share more about her story, how she's continuing to reckon with the FLDS legacy, her views on polygamy, and what she's doing now to continue to speak truth to power.

[00:05:40] Author, activist, and advocate and the woman who helped put Warren Jeffs away, Alyssa Wall. Alyssa Wall, welcome finally to a little bit gulty. Thank you for your patience with us. I'm happy to be here. So glad to have you.

[00:06:06] We don't always have time to read every book and watch every documentary, but this is one that, you know, especially since Keep Sweet came out, everyone said, oh, you have to do an episode on this and have to do an episode on this. And when we first connected,

[00:06:18] I didn't realize that was your story actually. So then when I put it all together and now here we are, you are totally, we're just like cheering for you and rooting for you.

[00:06:28] I've come to realize that so much of the time when we are connecting, especially people from any kind of a background like that, specifically, coldy backgrounds of any kind, it's really easy to

[00:06:38] kind of compare. And I have fallen into that so many times where it's like, oh, what their experience was way worse. But I've come to realize that the common denominators are the fact that we went through really hard things. And that as everybody has moved for those really,

[00:06:50] really hard things, each one of them has discovered aspects of who they are, their resilience, and their ability to stick it out, to find who they are, to find purpose outside of the disillusion that their life had been. So I think we definitely both went through incredible

[00:07:07] experiences. And I'm pretty amazed at what everyone has become as they've come up through it. Very true. Yes, absolutely. And it's one of the coolest things for me was in your audio book. Well,

[00:07:19] I don't read anymore. I just listened. So I was listening to your book and hearing your words in the way you described your life and how you got in and how you got out, which we'll get to in

[00:07:28] a second. And then to be communicating with you over email and hearing like the way that you speak is consistent in your book and in your emails and hearing what you're doing now, which I think is the most exciting thing of this conversation. And we'll leave our listeners

[00:07:42] with those nuggets. But to start, I'm not going to ask you to give the full history of the FLTS. For those who want that, they can listen to Mormon stories with John Dillon and hear that. What was it? An eight hour interview?

[00:07:55] Well, it was technically 13, but I don't know for sure how many they, I'm, yeah, I know that they edited some, but yeah, we had a conversation for 13 hours. It was, it was quite the marathon, but it was, it had its own cathartic aspects. And I feel like it

[00:08:11] was important because in everything I have done, I think it's easy to get snippets and snippets work for different aspects of media, but for the depth of the story and the wholeness

[00:08:22] of it. I think you have to be willing to go deep and willing to stick it out. Yeah. Long form interviews certainly give people the eyeball test, you know, they get the full tapestry of what happened and what it means. So yeah, I totally agree.

[00:08:35] And John Dillon is like an endurance athlete in the podcast world. It's crazy. He truly is. It's amazing. How are you doing right now? How are you? I am doing well. I'm in a really interesting place in my life. So I moved back to the community where

[00:08:53] all of this kind of happened and it's this border community because there's one side is Hildale, Utah and the other side is Colorado City, Arizona. And it's often referred to a short creek because

[00:09:03] that's what it was for many, many years. And it's going through such a renaissance here. And through that process, you get a chance to see every single person as they've returned back into this area. And most of them have no affiliation whatsoever with the religious

[00:09:21] cult that was here, that originally established the area. And so it's been good. There's always the ups and downs. And I'm learning even now 18 years after I left that healing is not linear.

[00:09:33] And sometimes you're at the top of the mountain and you really have a solid grasp on the phase of yourself in that point. And then you go through a valley and it's that learning

[00:09:45] timeframe. And I'm just in a valley of my life and it's good. It's okay. It's just reminding me that everyone's kind of going through that journey of self-discovery and uncovering more every layer as I'm sure you know, you kind of have to look at it and you're like,

[00:10:03] well, hello there, casual trauma. How are you today? Yes. Yeah. Or as Evan, Rachel would said in our interview with her and I'll send you the link if it would be helpful. She talks about the light at the end of the tunnel is true,

[00:10:16] but then there's more tunnels and then there's more light. And they could summed up in one word, life. Yes. And I always say, we've been through hard things. We've done hard things. We're still doing hard things and we're still going through hard things. And

[00:10:31] we're still doing it. That's the part that matters. Still doing it, right? Well, let's go back to the beginning of this journey. We always ask our survivors, you know, how did you get in? And I know you were born into the FLDS,

[00:10:43] but your parents chose they weren't born in or no, your dad wasn't born in, but your mom was, correct? Yes. Okay. With both of them when they joined or when your mom's parents joined, what was the vision of the FLDS? Like what was the good community

[00:10:58] experience that they were signing up for? What did they think they were getting? I think one thing they've realized is that because I was born into the FLDS, I only have historical accounting from my parents and my ancestors. And I think everyone kind of has

[00:11:12] a different vision of it, but from my mom's side of it, so she came from a polygamous family and her family had been a part of this group for a very long time. And for most people,

[00:11:23] the FLDS formulated and prior to the 90s, it was known as the work. And the people that came together, they all came from a Mormon background, but they all had a central aspect in that they

[00:11:36] disagreed with the church's ending of plural marriage, and they believed in that doctrine and that covenant, as they would say. So the FLDS was kind of a group of people that were still living polygamy, as well as those that were interested in the purity of that particular teaching.

[00:11:57] And coming together, they found that they were being persecuted and that they couldn't live it openly. And so by coming to the Short Creek area in the early 1900s, when they started to come here,

[00:12:11] it was so far out in the middle of nowhere that they were able to be secluded. And with each generation, that seclusion made it so that the people that were living inside of the FLDS or the

[00:12:25] work, then that was the only world they really knew. So that was the world that my mother grew up in. And she grew up a child of her environment. She was dedicated to her belief system,

[00:12:35] dedicated to the practice of polygamy and really had the desire within herself to follow in the footsteps of her mothers, which was to be a mother to a man who had multiple

[00:12:46] wives and to have as many children as she could. My dad and his first wife came from a different pathway, and that my dad was, he was a part of the mainstream Mormon church. And there came a

[00:12:56] point where he became intrigued or interested in the FLDS. Originally it was to prove that it was wrong, but in time as he began to explore more and more, he felt like that it was far more in line with the original teachings of Mormonism, specifically Joseph Smith and

[00:13:14] his belief and teaching around plural marriage, that that's what led him to leave the mainstream Mormon church and to join the work. In the doctrine and specifically the covenant of plural marriage, correct me if this is my understanding is correct, is that the more wives and the more

[00:13:33] children, the higher you would be to God, is that like what was the tenant behind that in terms of what the belief system was? That's a really classic example of I think that the doctrine itself says one thing and then the interpretation of people teaching it says another.

[00:13:50] And I've really never been able to find exactly where it says as many wives and as many children as you can, but I think the interpretation as time went on specifically with leadership within

[00:14:01] the FLDS as they were getting more and more wives, it was easy for them to say, well this is just securing our way to heaven. And it would give ambition to the families to just

[00:14:12] always be willing to welcome plural wives. Now there was kind of a central belief that you had to have at least three wives and there was always that aspiration in families that they would have at least three mothers because that would definitely secure their place in what they

[00:14:28] called the celestial kingdom, which was the highest degree of heaven for the people. Was that predominantly under Warren Jeff's reign or was that throughout? It was before Warren actually and it started really heavily with Ruland Jeffs, which was Warren's

[00:14:45] father and he had taken over in 1986. And there had been a lot of disruption in the people of the work at the time and that's really when things kind of broke off and the FLDS went one

[00:14:56] direction and there was a group of other people that continued what they called the work. And Ruland took the group of people that followed him and you see where belief systems kind

[00:15:07] of altered and shifted from that point forward. Was this the split that you spoke of on your book? Yes, this was the split that I spoke of in my book and that is where Ruland really started to push

[00:15:17] the concept of plural marriage. Whereas I think before it was kind of if you felt called or if you were asked or suggested to then people could choose in and out. But then with Ruland he

[00:15:28] really started to push it hard and I think the men and the family started to feel a lot of pressure that they absolutely had to follow that practice of plural marriage.

[00:16:08] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga. Maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep. I mean that's my personal and everyone's dream, isn't it?

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[00:17:55] h-e-l-p dot com slash culty. I noticed with your dad it seemed like he felt like he wasn't doing enough and that's why he hadn't been granted his third wife. God, I really felt for your dad

[00:18:06] throughout this journey. Definitely. I think that's something that is easily ignored is the experience that a lot of the men that were inside of this cult what their experience was the amount of intense pressure that they had because you know so much of the doctor and the teaching

[00:18:23] where you know the men had all the answers the fathers were the ones that were meant to teach everyone the husbands taught the wives everything from the anatomy of their own body to how to engage with marital relations which was sexual relations and so there was just an

[00:18:37] intense pressure on a lot of the men and I think that's what we saw with my dad is that there was so much pressure for him to perform but then also the realization that the church had so much

[00:18:47] control in their life that it could really pull any string in a family's life and it would completely change the dynamic of the family but he did. My dad definitely had a lot of pressure

[00:18:59] to perform and then to be worthy to be given a third wife. It's a great observation it's one in watching the show that I had and I'm guilty of what I'm about to say as well throughout the

[00:19:12] whole thing I'm going these guys such perpetrators such excuse my language assholes blah blah blah and then I had a thought of like and this isn't necessarily extending a courtesy to Warren

[00:19:23] Jeffs but he kind of didn't have a chance to be anything other than he was in that thing and the atmosphere seemed to put pressure on men to be the perpetrators in a lot of ways because in a lot

[00:19:36] of ways to thrive within that environment they had to be perpetrators and the system rewarded the strongest perpetrator and because we're watching it from that perspective and I'm thinking the poor women the whole time and yes that's true but I also felt like these guys don't have a

[00:19:52] chance if they want to express it a different way if they want to do anything in a different way they can't because it's not it's not what's rewarded in that hierarchy and I felt I necessarily feel

[00:20:00] bad for Warren Jeffs but I just recognize that like of all the sons in there he actually did what was most encouraged in a kind of tacit tacit way. Plus some. Well I mean and the lessons we can

[00:20:13] take from all these things is that's what society does in a certain way. That is such a fascinating observation and even for me as I hear you talk about it I'm having a my lens is

[00:20:23] shifting in that because I think it's easy when you're the victims of those perpetrators it's so easy to put them in in such a black and white because that pain and that struggle that we've gone through puts us there but that's been part of the healing process

[00:20:38] as difficult as it is to zoom out and to say what was the environmental influences that created the product because I think so much of the time I look at the behaviors my dad did and

[00:20:49] other people did and even the man that I was married to and Warren and I have to agree with you that I think so much about the environment it brought out the worst in people for sure in everyone in

[00:21:00] women and in men and it was always so twisted because it was constantly this pressure that you were supposed to be perfect be obedient be sweet and so there was so much that would happen

[00:21:11] under the surface and because everyone was afraid to be seen as anything other than righteous and pure and obedient nothing ever got dealt with and so perpetrators that were reacting to their environment continue to do that unchecked because nothing got dealt with. Well everyone's dreams got crushed

[00:21:30] you know it seemed like it seemed like if there was any sort of outlet that wasn't what was demanded of them the only avenue was is you had to embrace this dogma or else

[00:21:40] and that's tough. And definitely and in response to I agree with you and I think that's where we actually do see like if you were to look at the history of the FLDS and you see each season based

[00:21:50] on who the leadership was because there was there was a point in it where the leadership was considered quite benevolent and kind and a lot more inclusive of just creating community and making sure everyone was doing well and then as leadership shifted the narrative shifted

[00:22:09] the climate shifted and by the time Warren came along he was the one that really really pushed through the FLDS private school and culturing and nurturing the children that were in it as

[00:22:22] well as over the pulpit. He really started to change that climate to where it crushed anything you know by the time Warren was put in prison everything all the way down to play was evil

[00:22:33] and so that shift and change you see happen and really become very unhealthy as the leadership shifted. Oh yeah just to say that our listeners who haven't yet watched Keep Sweet or read your book

[00:22:46] under Warren he slowly changed the commands or the doctrine or the orders and cut out all social all the fun all the singing all the beautiful parts of the community that would bring joy

[00:22:58] and happiness to the children I noticed that it just kept getting stricter and stricter and the isolation more and more severe and the cutting people off from the outside world more and more extreme not like everything outside of the community was considered apostate is that the

[00:23:14] right word Elisa? Yes Warren did he started to to change it and really where it became because part of the narrative of the FLDS was the end of the world is coming and I think

[00:23:27] Warren really attached to that and that became an avenue of control for him because fear is incredibly powerful and that was the theme of his reign was fear. Fear of not being enough

[00:23:41] fear of not being righteous enough and then as time went on fear at the end of the world was going to come every any day as well as fear that at any point in time if you were deemed

[00:23:53] unworthy everything that you had worked for your entire life would be gone in an instant and we watched that happen as families were taken away from men and men were kicked out and boys were

[00:24:04] kicked out because they were deemed unworthy or they were deemed as too much competition and you know there's a whole group of boys that's often referred to as the lost boys and they were young teenagers who in their life had done something that someone deemed unworthy

[00:24:23] or they were concerned of them and it could have been anything from asking the wrong question to sneaking to watch a movie or talking to a girl at school that they shouldn't have talked to and

[00:24:34] the problem was is there was no continuity to what was seen as evil or unrighteous like someone could be accused of something and there was no way for them to defend themselves if you were told

[00:24:46] that this is what you did then you needed to just admit it and write a letter of confession and they would decide what they would do with you. It's a form of communism like literally that's

[00:24:55] how Stalin ran his regime it was random there was no rhyme or reason to like why Stalin would have a problem with you I mean that's what I was watching and I it just felt like you were

[00:25:05] always constantly in a state of fear because there wasn't even like a predictable modality that you could navigate or strategize around it felt like it was just I did this and don't even

[00:25:15] know what I did to deserve this which is a lot scarier than someone who you can navigate in a lot of ways. Definitely I would agree complete with with that and you know there was a lot of

[00:25:26] people that suggested that Warren took a lot of time to explore and read about some of the dictators and leaders through the history of time and you can kind of see how he chose

[00:25:36] to model his behavior after that. I have a question for you on that note obviously we've had a lot of conversations over the last two years with these types of people and I haven't even categorized Warren

[00:25:46] entirely do you think this was something that like he enjoyed to do like in a sociopathic sort of way or do you think it was more of a linear I need a lockdown power keep my people

[00:25:58] here like do you think there was a psychopathy to it where like in one of our podcasts someone called the perpetrator their abuse their craft their art in a lot of ways do you think Warren

[00:26:09] falls under that category or do you think it was more just I have a group of people I need to secure the loyalty I'm going to do it through these tactics or both. I don't think there was both

[00:26:18] I look at the way that he chose to take over leadership because he was kind of self-proclaimed the way that he took over leadership if you look at it you know his ailing father

[00:26:31] was the leader and for whatever reason they really started to promote this idea that he was going to somehow be renewed but really what that was is it made it so that Rulan who was Warren's

[00:26:42] father could be a puppet and he could be the face for it and for years prior to Rulan passing away Warren would step forward to preach to the people and he would say I speak for my father

[00:26:55] and so little things like that where I think you can very clearly see the areas where I do believe that he had a lot of psychopathic aspects to it and the way that he would manipulate people and

[00:27:09] lead people on and all of the behaviors that he had it's very difficult to even suggest that maybe he was just looking at it as his flock that he was kind of trying to take care of

[00:27:19] I think it's very clear that it was a form of power to him and as time went on I believe that that mental struggle that he had just worsened with time because as he was feeding himself ultimate

[00:27:32] power and absolute power he absolutely became corrupt. I think there's something about unchecked power that that's ultimately what happens. This is the through line and I'm not saying that all men in the FLDS but certainly Warren is a pedophile would you do you classify him

[00:27:47] as a pedophile? Absolutely I do I classify him as a pedophile especially when you started to see what he personally did. Yes because a lot of these the worst parts of these groups like underneath

[00:27:59] the good and the community and everyone trying to like get to heaven and all the things it's like a safe haven for these pedophiles almost every single our group included and I actually think that Etherinary studied Warren Jeffs there's a lot of similar patterns of abuse and

[00:28:14] techniques for control they all steal from each other and there's also like a serimonial aspect to it that they make which is fucked up. Yeah in my experience of the FLDS especially by the time

[00:28:26] I left and what happened as time went on it was the perfect environment to bring that out in individuals. I believe Warren was a pretty extreme pedophile and that he wanted other people to

[00:28:38] be complicit in that as well and so he put good men in positions to where they also had to be pedophiles themselves and I think we saw that happen a lot on the compound that Warren created in Texas

[00:28:51] where he had so many of the men that he had called down there to this very secretive compound on there to marry other underage girls because he himself was doing it. That part of the

[00:29:02] documentary was very disturbing with the bed and the yeah like Nippy said the ceremonial aspect of the abuse especially having other women being involved in watching it reminded us of some of the things that we found out happened in Nexium and I'm sure it has happened in many

[00:29:19] other of these groups that we've been talking about. Let me ask you you know you've done so much recovery and you've referred to this as the cult aspect of the religion looking back

[00:29:29] and in writing your book what were some of the main red flags that were your gut instinct trying to tell you that something was wrong throughout your time there? It's a question I've actually reflected on a lot in my life because as I get further away from it

[00:29:45] my lens shifts because I'm able to see more clearly through my life that there were red flags. The difference for me in the moment of it was that I didn't have enough understanding of my

[00:29:59] own body and my intuition to really see that as a red flag. So much of our lifestyle was about disembodying us from the ability to be able to read ourselves and our instincts and I can remember

[00:30:12] even as young as a young child one of those red flags was being able to witness the world outside of our community and question how can they be evil? The outside world were gentiles

[00:30:24] and anyone who had once been inside of the work or the FLDS and had chosen to leave they were considered apostates. For me to look at the outside world and all of these gentiles you know I remember

[00:30:37] as young as eight years old questioning that and saying how can they be evil because I would watch families together and they seemed like they loved one another and they seemed like they

[00:30:47] were experiencing a level of what I would now call joy even though as a child I didn't know exactly what that was that I had never quite seen and so if I look at it that and then I just kind

[00:30:58] of track it all the way through but especially when I was 14 years old and I was being asked to be married and that process because for about a week, week and a half prior to the marriage ceremony

[00:31:11] I went and did things that very few women inside of this high demand religion community had ever done and I fought it in every way that I knew how and that even was red flags coming up for

[00:31:24] me because that that was the first time that I had so viscerally connected with that gut instinct that was that all it could feel was was concern and doom is the best way to explain it and

[00:31:36] looking at that and then as I got older those red flags became more clear you know I was asking multiple times to be let out of the marriage I was very clear with leadership what

[00:31:49] was happening inside of it the kinds of abuse even though when I was articulating the abuse to the leadership I didn't have language to articulate it in words like rape or assault

[00:32:02] I was explaining it in the best words that I had but to be told over and over go back and give yourself mind, body and soul that was in essence its own red flag

[00:32:14] and ultimately what led me to leave was really this understanding that if I was going to hell anyway because that's what I was being told is that I had sinned so greatly that I was there was

[00:32:27] no option for me then there couldn't be a hell anywhere between here and the afterlife that was as bad as what I was in and so I would rather just go and try and find some sort of peace

[00:32:41] in this life. Hey there hope you're enjoying this a little bit culty episode if you're interested in more long-form culty content check out my memoir it's called Scarred the true story

[00:32:53] of how I escaped nexium the cult that bound my life you can get it on amazon or listen to it an audible war find it at most bookstores in the quote total badass woman in nonfiction

[00:33:03] section which is new thanks babe I appreciate you and now here's a message from our sponsors not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel

[00:33:39] not great not myself not grounded therapy day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it and I know I'm just gonna feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much

[00:33:49] out of it it helps me put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need and sometimes what I don't need like I don't

[00:33:57] need to be overbooking myself just because I hate to say no to people you know what I mean thanks therapy thanks for helping me see that and if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited

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[00:34:31] better help h e l p dot com slash culty the frankies were a picture perfect influencer family but everything wasn't as it seemed i just had a 12 year old boy still appeared asking for help

[00:34:46] he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs ruby frankie is his mom's name infamous is covering ruby frankie the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives listen to infamous

[00:35:02] wherever you get your podcasts what you articulated and what your experience right there was such a similar process in terms of the term that came into our world was a deficit of language and if you haven't been abused in certain ways that you can really identify you don't

[00:35:20] necessarily know how to articulate what it is that just happened right so it's not proprietary to you know your group it's true it kind of happened to us but one of the things that I think is so

[00:35:30] compelling as a parallel is there's something in the human body that goes off it tells you something isn't right and then we don't necessarily have a language for it yet until we go through a process of defining and I think the healing part that you were talking about

[00:35:45] is applying words that abuse owning it talking about it reconciling it getting it out and sharing the language with the rest of the world so they can go that's what that is right I think that's

[00:35:57] what makes what you're doing so important I was just thinking about in reading your book even though obviously the context is so different the parallels for abuse and the parallels for the gaslighting were so similar and I think that's such a consistency that we've seen like

[00:36:11] for us we were taught that like if we felt something was off if we felt that feeling we were trained to basically I believe Keith Ranieri dismantled our intuition and in your case it seems like your

[00:36:22] intuition if it wasn't in line with the doctrine then you just weren't yielded to God so anything that wasn't in line with what they wanted you to do could be gaslighted and you're just trapped

[00:36:33] it's just a mental trap you're either in line and you're obedient or you're having something offline and you're gonna get kicked out or you're not going to heaven and it just that

[00:36:40] that type of control to keep people as sheep I mean it's just it just kills the human spirit it kills their individuality it kills kills everything and I so cheered for you as you were somebody who

[00:36:53] went to the higher ups and said I don't want this and time and time again got gaslit and I want to know what do you think it was about you that you were able to get out when you did

[00:37:04] and what was it that was the final straw was it what you just mentioned about recognizing that hell would have been worse was that the final recognition or anything else happened to push you

[00:37:13] there and there was a lot of things that happened to push me there but it was definitely one particular experience and your question of what was it about me and I've thought about that and I've

[00:37:23] been asked that a lot and I think there was a lot of different aspects that allowed for me to have that a little bit more than most you know I was a teenager and teenagers have

[00:37:36] this unique ability to have a mind of their own even if they are in an environment that does not culture that and I think that fiery that fiery aspect was was there and I also believe that even

[00:37:52] my parentage my dad and the way that he was raised he had a different perspective of the world than people that had been born into it and had multiple generations into this high demand

[00:38:05] religion so I think there was a lot of aspects of it for me but really if I boil it down I think there was a part of me that was a deep filler and no matter how much I was gaslit or cultured

[00:38:18] or brainwashed to disconnect from that intuition then it was always a part of me and I often refer to it as that little spark and that element inside of us that just burns and that

[00:38:31] really came alive at different points in my life you know right before I was married but then there was events that happened that really just quelched it completely and it just laid their

[00:38:41] dormant for a long time because it didn't have any other way to express it it had been fully constrained down to where I was inside of an abusive marriage that I couldn't get out of

[00:38:54] and didn't know how to reconcile what was happening to me and all that being said to me is this is happening to you because you are not a good person that is where the true essence of breaking came

[00:39:09] for me was it was my fault the abuse that was happening the miscarriages that I was experiencing they were my fault because I wasn't good enough and it was never the responsibility of what was

[00:39:23] happening was never appropriately put on people and so I really believed it for a long time and there came a point in all of it where I think it's sheer survival I couldn't protect myself

[00:39:36] from the abuses that were happening and so I started to physically remove myself from the environment by driving out into the wilderness that surrounded the town that I lived in and would

[00:39:47] sleep in my vehicle because I just didn't really have any other way to protect my my physical self from what was happening and then the psychological and emotional abuse that would just be layered

[00:39:58] on and I became numb to a lot of it there came a pivotal point where I the last time that I was ever physically abused by the man that I had been married to I remember looking at him and being

[00:40:12] so angry and something just rose up inside of me and I said you will never touch me again and it became my creed to never be in a position that he could touch me again and I would do

[00:40:25] everything in my power to make that happen and I took multiple jobs I would make sure I was not in the same place as him and and I at this point I already knew that I was evil I already knew that

[00:40:37] I was damned to hell and so why not anyway because for me I still had family inside of it and they became my focus making sure they were okay making sure they were provided for and that was my lifeline

[00:40:50] was my family but ultimately that's the tool that was used to break me further because I was told ultimately that I could no longer have any communication with my mother or my sisters

[00:41:02] and that was really that breaking point where I said well the one lifeline that I have of why I'm here is no longer and so I'm done you know that's such a clear box to check with these

[00:41:13] groups when people wonder if their group is you know a cult or not or bad or not or whatever is if you're actively being cut off by members of your family because you don't believe the

[00:41:21] same thing huge huge huge red flag and it's just so clear how they you know created that dependency and why you know I see this also with like Jehovah's Witnesses and people who

[00:41:32] like they wake up they recognize they don't believe they want to get out but they don't leave because everything they have was within the community. Well they gaslight themselves too like it sounds like which to me is like the hardest part to hear yeah because the prison's

[00:41:46] your mind. Yeah and I think your book really does a great job of showing again the mindset of what happens when you're in it and what you tell yourself and what the people around

[00:41:57] tell you and how it all fortifies and why you can't leave until you do until you hit that breaking point. The main thing that I wanted to leave our listeners with from you know your back story

[00:42:07] if you wouldn't mind just giving us that you know a couple sound bites on that is like what specifically was the woman's role in terms of the marriage and priesthood versus the priesthood

[00:42:18] head was it acceptable for her to have a voice for women to have a voice that's what I'm interested in that the dynamics between men and women. By the time I was born then the community

[00:42:29] of the FLDS had evolved quite a bit you know with each prophet or leader that would come through they would weave in different aspects of the roles and responsibilities between husband and wife

[00:42:42] and then also the role of women even in the community as well as the role of men in the community. So what I was going to school and I went to the religious school called Alt Academy and it

[00:42:55] was ran by Warren Jeffs who was the prophet's son and then so much of our schooling was really centered on what it meant to be that particular gender the boys were separated from the girls and they

[00:43:08] were taught and trained differently than the girls were a lot of our classes that I attended were centered around home economics how to become a good mother how to keep a good home but then also

[00:43:22] an intense amount of indoctrination around how to be a submissive obedient wife. All the way down to you know all of these whisperings or questions you might have those are whisperings of evil

[00:43:37] spirits and so there was just a lot of education that was fed to us that separated women from individuality as well as the voice within themselves and teaching us how to surrender

[00:43:53] that internal guidance system to the men of our lives you know at first we were daughters and we belonged to the father and that was the language that was used you belong to your father he is

[00:44:04] your priesthood head and a priesthood head is a term that's used as a way to describe the men who's connected to the church they have this concept of priesthood which is this intangible power that

[00:44:18] comes from God comes down into the prophet and he funnels it out into the men of the community and so as a child I belonged to my priesthood head who was my father until he was deemed

[00:44:31] unworthy then my mother was remarried to another man and that new man became my priesthood head and I became his property and his daughter then when I was married I was then transferred to the

[00:44:44] man I was married to because now he's my priesthood head and so I was really just property and chattel of the men in my life and my role as a woman was to be submissive it was

[00:44:55] to be obedient it was to be at the beck and call of my husband to be the one that was willing to set aside my own personal needs and wants to fulfill that of my husband and priesthood head knowing that

[00:45:08] my belief and the way that I was taught was that should have been my desire and ambition in life was to serve my husband. Where does the Keepsweet doctrine fit into that? So the Keepsweet doctrine

[00:45:21] was one that was really promoted by Roland Jeffs who was the father of Warren and he started it as this way of encouraging people to hold a pleasant disposition and over time it really became kind

[00:45:33] of like a hammer that could be used in any context if anyone was showing any disruption of emotion even if it was really really happy or really really sad it was Keepsweet meant to always hold a sweet submissive obedient disposition. We're gonna take a pause there because that's

[00:46:00] the end of episode one please join us Thursday for part two with our double album episode with Alyssa Wall thank you hope you liked this episode let's keep the conversation going and come hang out with us on

[00:46:31] patreon where we keep the tape rolling each week special episodes just for patreon subscribers and where we get deep into the weeds of unpacking every episode of the vow and if you're looking

[00:46:40] for our show notes or some sweet sweet swag or official albc podcast merch or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources visit our website at alilbitculty.com and for more background on what brought us here check out Sarah's page turning memoir it's called Scar

[00:46:56] true story of how I escaped nexium the cult that found my life it's available on amazon audible narrated by my wife and at most bookstores. Alilbit Colty is a talkhouse podcast and a trace 120 production we're executive produced by sarah edmondson and anthony nippy aims

[00:47:11] with writing research and additional production support by senior producer jess tardy we're edited mixed and mastered by our rocking producer will rutherford of citizens of sound and our amazing theme song cultivated is by john bryant and co-written by nigel assilin thank you for listening