From Obedience to Empowerment: One Woman’s Recovery From Faith Assembly | Lael McKay (Nei)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannem Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannem Historical Research at William-Branem.org and with me I have my very special guest, Leo McKay, former member of Faith Assembly. Leo it's good to have you and to finally get to share your story on the podcast. Chino has been building up how interesting this is and he's been he keeps asking me when when we're gonna have Ron when are we gonna have Ron so today is the day. Thank you for doing it. Maybe if you could begin by telling

everybody a little bit about yourself. Thank you for having me. When I first connected with Chino about six months ago he learned my origin story and was very curious and asked if I would ever be able to share it and I just thought absolutely not but as I've just healed and grown I just feel ready and I think your vulnerability has helped so many of us in ways that you don't know so I appreciate Chino and his access to information that he's kind of given us a framework to heal and then your vulnerability so the combination of the two of

you has has been really really helpful so thank you. So I am the fifth of seven children. I grew up in Indiana. We grew up about 45 minutes from Faith Assembly and growing up to me that was church. It was very normal. We went to church on Sundays in the morning and Sundays in the evening and Wednesday nights and it was a 45 minute drive and that was just very much a normal situation. My childhood was so idyllic in a thousand ways and as I started unpack all of this that doesn't change like the the fact that I experienced so

much love and and good things in my childhood doesn't change and we had we were outside all the time. We had neighbors that were so wonderful. We just always had someone to play with always had something to do. I you know how to cool in mustache for most of my entire childhood and just that was it was so good and so it's been confusing to kind of work through things and realize that two things can be true that I experienced so much love. My family was was so wonderful in so many ways and also things about the way I was raised created an environment that was

really unsafe and so yeah we just had the very, the very best start. I mean, we were, we had grandparents that lived at a lake, we spent weekends at the lake. That set of grandparents were only about 15 minutes from faith assembly, so it allowed us access to family that I think a lot of people in faith assembly didn't get.

A lot of people I think ended up being cut off from their family, but because they were so close and we would spend Sunday afternoon in between services with family, that allowed us a sense of normalcy that I think a lot of people within faith assembly didn't get. But for my childhood with my siblings and we, we played pretend all the time, pretend house, pretend church, pretend school. We were just my mom would send us outside for the whole day and then at the end of the day blow whistle and all the night kids would come scurrying from all over and that was, you know,

then it was time for dinner or time to go to church or whatever it was. And that was just like my, my memory of that is just so good. My grandfather, my grandparents owned the faith assembly building that in all these conversations about the origins of like from the glory barn to the new building, the new building would be what my grandfather owned, they owned the land that then the church was built on.

So then that created a connection to that space that was a little bit more significant. My grandfather was the janitor sometimes in the weekends and I have memories of going over there and, you know, roller skating through the building while he was, you know, sweeping the floors and just playing tag with my cousins in that building. So as I've really been able to comprehend the reality of what that space created, so many my early memories of it were just running around that building. Just I think it's a child what you know is what you know and it's your normal. So it felt

very normal for a very long time for me. You know, that's an aspect that I don't think many people realize who are on the outside looking in. As a child, it's bliss. You don't know about all of these things that are going on. You basically describe my childhood right down to the Kool-Aid mustache.

That's exactly how we were and I had a really good childhood. I even had a really good teenage years up until I was an adult. It was really, really fun, really exciting, different people, different meetings you'd go to. When your whole world is wrapped around church, you get excited about church and you get excited about these gatherings and dinner on the ground, you know, this kind of thing.

I grew up in that lifestyle and I really enjoyed it. I really did. I know people think that I did not because I'm doing this thing that I do, but it's so sinister and difficult to understand that while the good things are happening, there's this evil thing that is underneath.

to think about the things that were really significant in my life when it came to the ways that we were not protected as children. I think there were many tenants and we've talked about all of, you've talked about this with Tino where it was a lot of control over what women wore. You know, we wore dresses, no pants, you know. I had jeans skirts over, sweat pants if I was walking to school and let's know, like it was always you were not to cause a man to stumble by what you were wearing. And so from the time I was very young, I knew

that that was my responsibility to protect other people from stumbling based on my appearance. And so it was, you know, we didn't celebrate holidays. That was just always true. But again, that's all I knew. So Halloween, that one's easy and obvious. But then it was, I mean, no Valentine's, no Christmas. None of it, which then, you know, when you're a child to feel other is just really complicated and really hard. And so every holiday party, you know, you're, I'm sitting in the hall next to my friend Ben who was Jehovah's Witness and everyone just thought

that that's what I was too. And I was fine with that because that was, it was just hard to explain. I didn't understand why I was in the hall for Christmas party. You know, it just didn't make sense to me either, but these were the rules. And so there were just so much that we missed out on.

You know, I have a, and I know other people have talked about this, but this like absolute black pole when it comes to any kind of pop culture. Like the 90s are just, they just don't, I've had to catch up in a lot of ways to that as much as I can. But no television, no, you know, no movies, anything that could invite or open the door to San or Satan. And so

the, of all those things, that was just kind of, I think it got to be more and more and more. It got to be more and more legalistic as things progressed. But what I think was so damaging and so problematic within my own experience with faith, faith assembly was the concept of faith-based healing.

That was the most important thing. It was your illness as a reflection of sin in your life. And so when they could start to tie your, essentially your eternal salvation to your well-being, that created a really, really complicated environment for a child. So we had no access to medicine.

I got my vaccines when I wanted to go on a teamania mission trip as a teenager, which is problematic in its own ways. But having not had vaccines ever, no medication, no, not as much as Abil, none of that. So I just a couple of those stories. And in mind you, Recently, when I started therapy a year and a half ago, and I'm telling my therapist that my trauma started when I was 14 and 15, and her response to that was, oh honey, you were born into trauma.

I got angry and defensive because she didn't know me, she doesn't know my family, she doesn't know my story. So of the things I'll say next, just know that those were not part of my trauma in my mind.

I was angry with her for even suggesting that, but a couple things that I remember specifically, I remember being, I couldn't have been five or six and going to the bathroom and looking in the toilet and I turned out I had penworms.

I didn't know what that was, but that's just what I saw. And I did not know that that didn't mean that like, you know, demons are eating my insides and I'm seeing a reflection of that in the toilet.

I didn't tell anyone, never, I never told anyone. But then went to bed so scared to like, am I going to wake up tomorrow? What does this mean? But I didn't, I knew we were going to pray over that.

And even then that didn't make sense to me. So to think that like a little child is experiencing something like that and then just not telling anyone, but having to reconcile what that means for them next.

Now I understand obviously that's pretty traumatic, but that didn't even, that wasn't even on my list of things that might have been traumatic for me. I had two fakes as a child that were just really, really significant.

I had a lot to do with the Kool-Aid, I'm sure, but I had terrible, terrible teeth as a child and early on knew to just not tell anybody. I just didn't, I didn't tell anybody.

And so I would, I would be in my bed at night crying and have to make up a story to my mom as to why I'm upset because I didn't want her to know that my teeth hurt because we've prayed for them and they're not healed.

So now that's, you know, I knew that maybe that day I still agreed from the grocery store and maybe this is just what I get and I deserve, but also I'm eight so that really isn't fair for a child, but that's just what I knew.

And so I had two fakes that were just tremendous and never told, never told anybody. And then the most significant injury for me was that when I was in fourth grade, we were at a pool and just rough housing with, with somebody and I hit the edge of the decorative rocks on the pool with my leg and I, when I looked up, I mean, I knew what I saw.

I saw bone intending and I, it was graphic. And they took me inside and wrapped a towel around my head so I didn't ever have to look at it again. And I have the memory of laying on the counter as people walked into the room and the horror on their face.

would see me, they would just erupt in prayers. And my parents weren't there, but they were able to get there quickly. And we ended up getting butterfly band-aids in iodine. And we just bandaged it up, and we went home, and I didn't walk on my leg for six weeks.

And then that was that. And so I went to school, that next fall, and I remember telling a teacher that, oh, no, I got stitches, but my grandma's a nurse, and she stitched it, but they were infected, so we took them out.

Like, none of that was true. But that early on, I knew, I have to protect my family. This, my body knew I wasn't safe, but I was safer than being taken away, or whatever things that I feared.

And so that's when I learned to lie, to protect people, and which is so interesting, because in my childhood, lying was the worst thing. You kind of knew what the punishment for things were, and you could decide accordingly if you wanted to action out.

And lying was the worst punishment, and I know what that, and so we didn't lie, that I just didn't lie. But I could come up with a lie every time I needed to, when it came to protecting the people that should have been protecting me, really.

You know, it's ironic because my father continually said this phrase to me, John, there are two things I hate most in this world, one is a thief and one is a liar. This is a phrase I remember over and over.

He would say this often, and like, I don't even know why he was saying it, but I've come to understand that the entire movement, because of this positive confession thing, the entire movement is lying.

So you're in a movement that's like this, and half of the elders, that half the ministers and leaders in this thing were thieves. So, you know, it's just so weird when you stop and think about it.

But so our group did not have it as bad as you. We were in the positive confession, faith healing thing. We were told that you could go get medication, but then there was this double standard.

You could go get it, but you're also supposed to confess that you don't need it. But what does that mean if you need it? And also, if you have the ultimate faith, you won't need it at all.

You don't need to go to the doctor. So I can remember, I'm embarrassing myself here, and I'll go ahead, but I remember going to the dentist one time, and he said, John, this is quite a few cavities you've gotten, and I drank the Kool-Aid, just like you did early in my life.

Literally. So I'm just filled with cavities. I want to say that there were something like 20 or 30 cavities, because I had not gone in years. And he said, John, you've got so many cavities in your head.

And he said, we're going to have to basically put you on a pro... for like every every so many weeks for an entire year to get rid of these and I looked at him and I said no I wanted all done now today It was the most pain. I have ever had a tense pain But all this to say the and where I'm embarrassing myself This didn't happen when I first left the cult this actually happened years after because Still indoctrinated in my head is this idea that you really don't need to go to the doctor

You can just have faith you can overlook your symptoms I don't believe this anymore, but it's so embedded into my being that it's hard It's hard for me to take some Tylenol if I need it. It's that hard So I get everything that you're saying. I can't imagine being in a position where you were however in the Hobart-Freban Faith assembly sect for those who are unaware Medicine doctors all of it was almost completely forbidden if not completely forbidden and so if you have a broken Bone if you have something as bad and severe as you the child might actually die

So that's the reason the horror on the faces because they all know we can't take the child to the doctor and we must Faith it to be better, but in the back of their minds. They all know You know as much as I try to faith this away. This is a broken bone. It's just not going away Mm-hmm And I I mean there are times where I'll I'll have a headache for the whole day and I'll just Mention it and it's rare for me. I don't need I don't need medicine often But it doesn't even cross my mind that it's available to me and there'll be times that I'll just reference a headache and my husband will say

Well, did you take Advil? It's like oh, I yeah, no, I'll go do that and yesterday I took Advil in the morning and I thought that I knew I needed it So I just took it and that felt like a big step because it's 40 years old I it's never ever my first thought I just doesn't cross my mind You just described my day yesterday Yes, and to someone else like that that would just be so silly But it's so ingrained and so embedded when I probably and this might have been 10 years ago. I was an adult

another pool incident Where I there there is an injury my head was I split my head open at a pool and We went to urgent care and this is I'm 30 years old. I've had access to medicine now for 15 years We went to an urgent care and the urgent care was closed and I thought well, this isn't an emergency That would be so silly to go to an emergency room and so I went home and Not until the urgent care was open the next day Did I go and needed 12 staples in my head and they were so horrified

They were like what took why are you here now? And I was like well, it wasn't an emergency I didn't want to go to the emergency room Yes, and you've kind of closed that window is to when it's best to close a wound like this, but in my even then It's not even about, there might be a piece of it that's just tough it out because that's what I knew.

I had a friend we were talking about this recently and she was like, well, there's no honor in suffering. And I was like, okay, I don't think that I realized that I just know to suffer and that's not necessarily a strength, but I'm okay with it.

So I've had to kind of heal my relationship to that, that there's no, there's no sense when we have access to care or take it and that's not a weakness. And like I said, I wouldn't even even thought that that's what I was doing in that incident.

I just knew, well, I'm not dying, so probably don't need to go to the hospital and still should have gotten stitches about 10 hour sooner and didn't. It is. You know, like I said, I go through this constantly and I have family members that do as well.

Even the ones who are out of the cult now, it's just so you don't think of it, it's second hand to other people, they just think, oh, I'm going to have to go take town, oh, that's what it's for.

And I have to like go through these mental steps to say, well, yes, I'm bad enough to really need it. Uh-huh. That's what you have to cross this threshold, right? And usually that threshold is migraine.

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that Chino and I have talked about a lot and I know that you two have talked about on the podcast a lot is the concept of cognitive dissonance and you referenced it earlier.

But it's like, even as a child, like I know that this is not how this works, but this is the system that we're under. And so we're going to move forward in this way.

And it was just so confusing that we're going to pretend that this works, even though we had very, very little proof that that was true. I mean, we celebrated a lot of miraculous healings that weren't healings, like it's been really important to me to only tell my own story, but there are siblings that have experienced things that they, you know, that he were healed and they weren't.

They weren't. But it's like, that's the story that's been told and I would hate him. There is my family to tell them otherwise. So let's just pretend that, yep, you're right, I'm healed. And that wasn't like a choice for them to be deceitful.

It was just easier to just go with what was being said. Yeah, out of respect for my family, I don't tell many of the stories, but maybe I can make it vague enough nobody knows who I am talking about.

But see, the two cults kind of progressed in different ways. And brannemism you progress towards, you know, people go to the doctors, they get medicine. People are free-minute kind of went more destructive, so it got less doctors, less medicine.

Well, on the brannem side, what they did instead was if you really think about the concept, it is almost exactly the same. but the ins to the means is different. They will over exaggerate their ailments to the extent that it was a life or death situation, whether it was or not. I almost died when I went to the doctor, and the doctor said, this is the worst case I've ever seen. I mean, it's that kind of story so that you have a testimony. It's often not about what God did, not about what the healing is,

but it's literally, do I have a testimony that other people are going to think that I'm prestigious in my faith? That's usually what this ends up to. Yeah, yep, yep. So I think what became so problematic for me was this ability to experience something like this and then hide it. That's just what I came to know. So when

another thing that was so significant in our kind of theology was, again, it was the 90s, it was purity culture. It was the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It was all of that where purity rings and all of that. I have memories of being just so young and kind of shaperoning my 17-year-old sister and her boyfriend just to make sure that I just tagged along on everything because they couldn't do anything. They could never be left alone because we were so sinful. So that was the culture and kind of the most important thing in a lot of ways.

You know, purity culture is not something that I've actually had any of the podcasts about, but I believe we're one of the hosts that I have is probably going there. There's so many different aspects of purity culture that not everybody understands who are on the outside looking into these cults. It isn't so much about, are you pure? Did you have sex or not? Purity culture in these cults means did you show a little skin or not? It goes right down to the level. So things progress differently, like I said. In where it has progressed today in Brannemism, there are

different, one of the sex close to here. The length of the skirt has to cover the ankle. If you show just a little bit of your ankle, you're going to cause some man to sin. That's usually the thought.

It's never about the man. It's about the woman causing them to sin. I'll never forget, I grew up from coast to coast. So the varying levels of skirt length is different. When I came here and I saw this, I was like, why are men interested in the ankles of the women? This doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, and I think so much of it too is about control, and that's definitely where it led. It's definitely controlling. But that led to an environment that when I was sexually assaulted or I was wrong, I took that on as my own shame. So when I was a teenager and really

young teenager, I was working for a company that they would have young like young teen assistants go out on these projects for the day and come back. And oftentimes there was two of those.

And for every, there was two assistants for every kind of project leader. And this environment started being created where that wasn't always the case where I was always with this one, this one man.

And sometimes they were an hour away. And so there was a time that we were driving home and he was just out of high school. So maybe I was 14 and he was 19.

And I, we were driving home, it was a country road, middle and nowhere. And he starts telling me, you know, this will be so embarrassing for you. As he kind of understood my upbringing, he said, this is going to be so embarrassing for you that you're about to go to high school and you don't know these things.

So I would hate that for you. So he finds a very isolated tree line and he pulls over to the side of the road. And and then when things happened, that was my own shame that I carried with me that I must have done something to lead him to think I was open to that or, you know, and it's like, well, I didn't say no, but also I was 14 and he was in control of the situation.

And so that happened a couple of different times and it was always with this like almost the underlying sense of it was, I'm going to do this for you and you're welcome. Which is just such a such an especially gross way to, to part of someone.

And I have a memory of being dropped off at my home moments after one of these experiences happened. And my dad is standing on the stoop and we pull up to the house and I jump out of the car and my dad yells, thank you so much, thank you for getting her home.

And I just run past my dad and I go inside and then and then the day just goes on. And never ever was it, never was it discussed again, that was my own shame to carry.

And then I continue to work with this person after this eventually stopped when I was a little bit older, that stopped. And then I worked with them for five years and I had to be like cool with them because I didn't, I needed this job.

It was a good job that was lucrative in a way that that the other jobs weren't, weren't not at that age. And I needed that job and I had so much shame in it that he knew I was going to hold that secret.

He knew that I was and I, and I never told anyone and I never, and Finally, I'm packing this recently. I was telling a friend about it and she said, Leo, there's not a world in which that happens.

I don't run home and tell my mom. And I said, oh, there is not a world in which I would ever have told my mom that. Never. And one thing that's been so helpful in my therapy and in my healing has been Dr. Gabor Mate.

I don't know if that name is familiar to you. He's been, his books are really incredible. But one thing that I just recently heard from him was the idea that your trauma is significant, but it's almost secondary to holding the secret as a child and not having someone to tell.

And so your primary trauma is that an environment was created in which you couldn't tell the adults when something happened to you. And I think that just built from a very, very young age.

And so when I look back at my therapist tells me you were born into trauma, now I can understand how that's true, because I just held all of that shame for myself.

So what happened to me physically was significant. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brandham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

What you're describing, it's difficult for many of the male members of the group to understand. But what essentially happens in these groups, the family unit is completely defunct. It cannot operate as a cohesive family unit because religion has actually replaced or false religion, I should say, has actually replaced the family unit.

So things that are normal and common to other families, such as if something horrific like this happens, you go immediately to your parents and you tell them what happened. That kind of thing is overlooked and it isn't just that that is overlooked, right down to the Tylenol.

There are children who won't take medicine because even... Like I said, in my group, they would allow it. But if you're constantly hearing how evil it is and how you can be a spiritual overcomer if you don't take it, there are children who aren't going to take it, and there are children who aren't going to tell their parents, I have a headache.

Well, one thing leads to another, now the parent asks them to do something, and they have this migraine headache. Now they don't feel like doing it, and then they get shamed because, well, why can't you work for us?

Why can't you do anything that we ask you to do? And so the family unit just spirals out of control, it is not a cohesive family unit, and it all comes down to the fact that the central figure is more important to the family members than the family themselves.

And children being raised in this environment whenever your parents don't think of you as their primary most important thing in the world, this other guy would now you're starting to see this replacement. He's replaced me with the cult leader.

I'm nothing to this family that I grew up kind of feeling this way, and I never really could address that until years later, years after leaving. I started to realize it's not that my family didn't love me, they did, but the religion itself had destroyed the family in so much that I didn't feel like it was part of a family.

I'm wondering that I really haven't touched on much, but was so significant to those early years, not even early years, that's always been true for me, is like the fear of hell, that was so significant.

That was always present in my mind, because we learned a lot about it, and there was a lot of emphasis on it. And so if you're scared of hell, and that's, I mean, I have the very most specific memory of one of the first times I was ever alone.

And when you're one of seven kids, and you never ever have a moment to yourself, the first time I came home, or I came downstairs and the house was empty, I didn't know that there was a cat underneath the neighbor shed, all I knew that the house was empty, and I knew that the rapture happened.

It wasn't a question I just knew, and I knew whatever sin I had committed the day before that made me ineligible to be taken. And that was like shocking and devastating, and I'm scrambling and just panicked, and then everyone walks in the house, and I just pretend that didn't just happen to me.

And so that was so the fear of hell, and being pure and righteous and faithful, was all because your eternity depends on it. And that's scary. And when you're a child, and all you know is that, oh, it's forever and ever and ever, and it's the worst thing you can imagine times ten, and it's forever, but you're gonna be cooperative.

You're gonna align yourself with what you're told. because that's a scary prospect for anyone. And especially for a child, and I've had to really unpack that. And I've had so much urgency, really my whole life of having the answers because if I'm questioning things, and then what if God comes back in that moment when I'm in question?

And so finally, I think the greatest reflection of my healing in a lot of ways is the lack of urgency to be curious, to question, to wander, to be in awe, to be inspired, but to not have to know right in this moment.

Because my whole life was, if I don't, if I don't know right now, then there's always this fear that God comes, do this comes back and I'm in this space because I mean, those were true.

I remember the feeling of knowing the rapture happened and I was not taken. You know, I'm no longer a believer in the rapture theology as it was taught. If you read even the parables by Jesus of the coming kingdom, the order is quite different than the rapture theology.

And it took me a while to understand that why is Jesus saying the opposite of what we're being taught? However, there are many people today that still believe in the rapture. But the problem that I have isn't so much the theology itself, it's the imbalance.

They focus so heavily on heaven or hell, rapture or destruction that to the children, all they think about is, oh my gosh, I don't feel secure. I'm not going to make it. And there is no security.

There's no no internal security of whether or not you're saved. I remember leaving many of the church groups and seeing the same teenagers, Sunday after Sunday, just crying their hearts out at the altar.

Each one of them afraid that they weren't going to make it. Something that they had done that week is going to just rob them of their salvation. And I was there with them a lot of times because in the back of your mind, you're thinking, I don't know if I'm saved or not.

Am I? How do I tell? And you hear the sermons and they tell you how you tell. And it's usually this positive confession thing. Well, inwardly, you know that the positive confession is a lie.

So now you also question the eternal security. And so the eternal security is actually the bubbling up of understanding that you don't know if you're saved, you don't know if you're healed, you don't know all of the things that they tell you that you must have in order to make it to heaven.

You don't know if any of it's true. Yeah. And it also creates an urgency with how you interact with people. Like if this is what I know to be true, well, I would kind of be a monster not to tell everyone I know about this.

And I remember, I remember in third grade leading friends to Jesus. And that was like, that was very important to me. Because if that's what you know, it would be, it would be like such a shame that these people don't know too.

And what that creates for a child is just this like if I look around and everyone I know is going to burn forever Like that's just a really heavy way to live The fear of hell. I can remember countless sermons where they're just constantly preaching Right down to detailed descriptions. This is what it's going to feel like if you're in hell the gnashing of teeth The gnashing of teeth. Yeah, so they've they paint these these wonderful visions of torture in the back of your minds and That's how you leave feeling you you basically leave the church feeling like you're tortured and what it does over time

If you continue doing this it leads to trauma and it is spiritual abuse. So you're being abused You've got abuse trauma, but the trauma persists because during the week as you're waiting for the next time You're going to be threatened with hell on the next Sunday You're throughout the week. That's all you can think of you're not thinking of things uplifting And so what happens is over time people become very negative They're outlook is negative the people around them notice their negative and it changes It changes their value in their self-worth which leads into an array of other problems

psychological problems leading up to even some some people are Practicing self-harm. So if you're caught up in this type of environment The only way to break free is to start thinking positively But if you do the only way you can think positive to be is to actually leave the group Which is ironic? You know my siblings and I we've never we've never talked about this stuff until More recently when the podcast became available to us and it was validation in a way that I wouldn't have imagined that we'd ever have and And It's opened so many doors to just really incredible conversations with my siblings and and one of my siblings recently when I was

We were just kind of talking about where we are now spiritually and you said lay out what I would hope for you is that you can

Just start to understand the portrayal of Jesus as a loving gentle shepherd My brother just wanting me to experience a portrayal of Jesus as as a gentle and kind loving Christ because that's a never I'm sure that was the intention that we would know the whole Bible and I know that we knew all the stories we learned all the stories but my memory is How scary all these things were For me my story has always been and I've known this to be true even early on I always knew that my story is about all the people that protected me when I didn't know that that's what I needed and I didn't know

What was happening but other people on the outside that that started protecting me? So what was so significant when I was in about sixth grade is that I started babysitting for a family just a the street and they, it was a couple of years of just this, you know, just, just baby sitting. And I will never forget sitting in the car. It was the, the, the, um, the dad was a dentist. And I don't know what, with that point, if he knew my history at all or if he knew where I, my story, but I remember being in the car with the mom, I was in the

car with Katie and she said, um, I told her how embarrassed I was with my teeth. I had a big gap between my teeth. I didn't tell her, you know, that I'd have two thigs and paint. I just, aesthetically, I was so embarrassed. And I told her and she said, well, maybe Dr. Spencer could just have you into the office and then he'll send you to orthodontist. And so when I was about 14 or 15, I went into his office and they took X-rays and they were, I'm sure shocked and horrified. They didn't express that. They were so gentle and kind and loving.

And it was a year and a half of me walking home from school or walking from school to the dentist office. And it was like, it felt like every Wednesday for a year where he just performed an incredible amount of dentistry. I think the term for the kind of dentistry he was providing was heroic dentistry because he was just like saving, saving me in ways that I would have never ever had access to. Um, and he did that for me for years. And then I was able at that point to then get braces and that that changed my life. Like I finally

had access. But this was all happening kind of right before my family stepped out of this theology in a way that we then started receiving medical care. And I was home over this summer and I was able to have dinner with him and and asked him, you know, what was that decision to treat me because is it true that you did not have consent from my parents?

And and Katie, she said, oh, he was, he was angry for one day. He was very angry. And then it had to transition to like, okay, now what do I do? And he knew in that moment that what he could do. And I actually had lunch also while I was home with the first hygienist that I ever saw me and just was able to tell her, I mean, I'm a hygienist now. And every bit of how I practice and is informed by how they treated me. And she said, layout, when I saw you, she said, Dr. Spencer thought initially that maybe this was just a situation

of neglect. It's a, it's a big family. And so it's a situation of a lack of access. And she said, but my sister and I was in faith assembly. So when I saw you, I knew what I was looking at. And the fact that when I first had access to care, that those are the people that were seeing me were people that were able to provide care and subtle loving kind way. So that, that changed my life. And that, that whole family is still so incredibly special to me. And the way that Katie protected me.

I there were times that every Christmas she would buy me clothes so that when I went back to school It was like always like Tommy Hilfiger and Rob Moore and I would go back to school with an outfit to say like This is what I got for Christmas. Just to one more way to not feel other and not feel Different is that I didn't have to tell people I didn't celebrate Christmas I could just make up a story about what I did for the holiday break and then say and this is my new outfit And so they that is so much of my story is the way that people protected me and they were some of the greatest protectors

For me both physically and emotionally both It's the little things like that that not many people think about the children have it so difficult in so many ways that You can't even put into words little things like did you celebrate Christmas?

I I was one of the fortunate ones because my family did celebrate Christmas Because they knew that the cult leader even though he preached against it He and his families celebrated Christmas. There's this weird irony, right?

So my family did but there were other families in the cult who didn't and watching them Whenever I would be around them just watching the children their faces I can I can remember this I can remember a children wanting presents and their family just they didn't celebrate They didn't if they did they didn't make a big deal out of it and they weren't supposed to talk about it that kind of thing it really Changes the way that a child it changes their outlook because they see all of the other kids are doing it and Again mentally it just breaks up the family because the child doesn't know why the parents aren't doing it

There's this question does the parents love me? I see the other families their their parents love them and Some of the children can think critically enough to think well we're poor. Maybe that's why But not all the families were poor so you're you're faced with these questions, right? My family wasn't that poor Again, we we did celebrate Christmas, but what it does to the family?

It just tears them apart and to think that you had somebody on the outside that's helping you if every child had this And this I think how much differently my life would have been if I did have one of these people as a hero for me Yeah, and that's and as I've unpacked this with some of my siblings We had especially the younger the younger kids as as my dad became ill and we can talk about that next but As that became true and my family no longer really had the capacity to To care for us in the way that we needed we had profound relationships when I think about the way that my best friend

Like was a friend to me and her and the way that her parents took me in and like my My high school boyfriend his family was just so incredibly caring and protective of me and Ways that looking back. I've been able to have some conversations recently with some of those people and say Like, did you know I was at a cult?

And everybody is, yes, honey, you're the last to know. I just feel like that is, yes, they knew. And of course, that's why they cared for me in the way that, and they were just good people and cared for me because of that.

But also, they knew that I needed protected. And the way that I didn't even know that I needed protected. And in some ways, I have a lot of gratitude for the way that, for what I didn't know.

Because my outlook was pretty positive for what I was actually experiencing. But I'm glad that there are other people that knew more than I knew. And in some of them, they would, maybe I should have done more or maybe I should have intervened.

And I was like, I don't think so, because had you, maybe I would have lost access to you. And therefore, you were exactly what I needed and exactly that time, and that's enough. So it just absolves anyone of guilt when they hear my story and think, I should have done more.

Because I've heard that as I've told my story recently to people that knew me early on. And it's like, no, you did exactly enough. It had you done more, I think, I could have lost access.

I agree. If the family were to find out, I know families that would have cut other families off completely from their children if they knew that they were violating the cult doctrines. Yeah. So the next thing that was so significant for me is that, and this is when I tried to tell my therapist that when I was 14 or 15, this is my trauma.

So what was so traumatic for me is that my dad, he hadn't worn glasses since before I was born. And that was something that was important as a church that Dr. Freeman had preached on that everybody believed for their eyesight.

Well, that obviously isn't how that worked. And so he just didn't drive for my whole life. And so my mom, who's caring for seven children, pregnant or nursing for 15 years straight is driving him to work in the morning, dropping him off, coming home, homeschooling, providing meals, all the things that she's doing.

And then halfway through making dinner goes and picks him back up. And that was just the burden that became true to her is just breaks my heart. But she very much was a godly submissive wife and she just did as she knew to be honorable.

So when I was about 15, my dad had a mole on the side of his head that wasn't going away. And it was right for over and over and over. And knowing now what we know, it was basil cell cancer.

It's the kind of cancer that can, that people get removed six and eight at a time on their face and it's just it's a mole that needs removed and then you're done. Well, that left untreated became incredibly problematic.

So by the time I was in high school, it was a very large open wound on the side of his head. to look, I mean, it just was really, really traumatic. And so he just was an incredible amount of pain and nights were when it was worse and it was hard to control the bleeding and it was hard to, he had no pain management and he was an excruciating pain.

And so many, many of those nights for me were hearing him in this battle of managing his pain. And then somehow mornings would get better and he would go out to work and he would work for the day.

And eventually it became that he worked for the school system and so then I would see him at school and pretend everything was great and make sure that I would interact with them especially if he had a bad night so that everybody thought everything was good and I just went out of my way to kind of placate that situation and I have, looking back now, I did, I did have other siblings that kind of stood up to him and said like, this is, this is not okay.

But and there are other people that stepped into and that just never ever, he just was firm in his bleep. So for five years that was my trauma was him, you know, being aware at that age to know that I knew like what cancer smells like and to know what those nights were and how I would dread those nights and try and avoid being home.

That is heartbreaking because I loved my mom so much, but I just couldn't be there and found all the ways to be, to not be home. And so finally, when I left for college is when it got to a point that it was just unmanageable and he was gonna lose his job because of the outward appearance of this wound.

So when I was in high school or when I was in college, he did eventually see treatment. And by then that first surgery, I mean it lasted a day, we had no idea what all they would have to remove.

That seemed successful initially and then it was five years of reconstruction and everything that came with that. And then five years from the time that he had his initial surgery, he passed. And it's because it came back and all of that.

And I would say those last five years, those were the good years. There was palliative care. There was a plan, there was assistance, but it was that those years with no answers

were just absolutely devastating to my family. I can't even imagine what it would be like to watch a family member suffering like this and knowing at the same time that if they were to just go to the doctor just go to the hospital, they could get help.

You've mentioned therapy a few times in the course of this interview. How did that come to be? And what are your thoughts on therapy? I know that there's a lot of people who escaped these religious groups that really, really need to go see a therapist, but like myself, like you probably were the same way you've described this with a Tylenol.

There's this feeling like defeat. eat. If you go to see a therapist, you feel inadequate, you feel less. I was told actually by a minister that if you go to therapy, that's where the demons come in you. Because if you go get mental help, we've watched time and time again. People leave these cults.

So how did that come to be? What happened that got you into therapy? I had for a long time known that there was a lot to unpack. I never even said that I was that wasn't even a term that I used for so long. And honestly, I felt like to go down.

I had many times said, I'm going to unpack that when my mom's gone because I don't want to hurt her. My mom's 73 and I hope she lives to be 100. So I kind of didn't have a plan to unpack this or go down this road at all. And then in a year and a half ago, I was forced into it. My husband and I were in the midst of a crisis within our marriage. I had had an experience with a massage therapist that I now fully understand was that I was groomed and sexually assaulted by them. And that was

a secret and shame that I carried for a long time. And when I finally told my husband that this happened, I told him of infidelity, which was obviously devastating for us. And we were figuring out how to move forward in that reality. I took full responsibility and he just kept saying this story doesn't make sense. This story doesn't make sense. And I would continue with this story.

And we ended up having access to a therapist for couples therapy within just a couple days of this. When we got into therapy, through that, the timing was such that we then learned that this person had a pattern, this person had a history. It was almost as if I needed, it was almost as if I need an intervention to say, this is what happened to you. Those things can't happen in that space, in that circumstance that you are not responsible for that. But all I had known was to hold that guilt and to hold that shame. And for me, it's been so much to unpack all of that and what go of that.

And early into that, a couple of months into that couple of therapy, my husband, we came to a place of healing and he started to say, I think that you need to continue down this road.

I think that there's a lot for you to unpack. And so for a couple more sessions, I was meeting with my therapist with him, even though it kind of turned into just my therapy, because I just still needed his support. And finally, he just said, there are things for you to go down. This is a road for you to go down. I think you're ready.

And so for me understanding therapy, it was that I had no boundaries. I had absolutely no boundaries and I didn't know how to say no to anybody about anything. And to me, that's me just being agreeable.

That's me being a middle child. That's me being, you know, that was also around the time of Dr. James Dopson and the whole idea of breaking the stronghold child. And a child that is submissive is easier to raise, but they are not kept safe.

When they don't understand the agency they have over themselves, they are not kept safe. And so as this situation, as I started to unpack this situation, it has changed my life. My therapist says sometimes, she said, you can be too much credit.

And so I don't think I do because the intention for us was to heal our marriage or the reality was that our marriage was going to absolve and how do we pick up those pieces.

So not only did she give us this space in which we could heal our marriage, it's absolutely changed my life to learn boundaries, to grow, to say no, to trust my body. That's the most significant thing and all of this to me is that I thought that system that keeps me safe is broken because in my mind, I've gotten myself into these situations that then have made me vulnerable because that system was broken.

And I'm realizing that system was never broken, I just learned to overwrite it. You're a child, you can't be trusted, the adults are right. And I mean, I learned when I was little, if my body hurt, you ignore that.

And so when I'm in a situation that's unsafe and I know that this energy is changing in this room, instead of just getting up and leaving, I freeze. And it was exactly a reflection of experiences growing up.

And so that's how I continued to carry the shame for this person that I'm just no longer gonna carry. I'm glad you were able to get into therapy. I know that there are a lot of people that I've talked to who have escaped these cults who are starting into therapy and they say it's just changed their life.

There are things that they did not know about themselves, but they wish that they did and things that they've bottled up and right down to what you're describing, ways that just change your life in the way that they have structured your mental outlook on how to perceive the world around you, how to interact with other people.

Every single aspect of life has been changed and altered by these cults. And a therapist sometimes can rewire things where it starts to make more sense. Whenever they do, often you find that it changes the way that you look at even your past experiences and your family, how did that affect you?

Absolutely. When I... I look at this experience that I've just been through recently and I look back at what my mom and dad experienced. What they walked into when they walked into the glory bar and back in the 70s, that was a space of so much love, you know, these families had one in two and three kids and we're going to the doctor.

It wasn't that they had 12 kids and everyone was ill and dying and, you know, for chin out and I'll say that there are 2000 plus deaths that tied to this church. I believe that, but that's not what they walked into and I think that they were earnest and they're seeking and, you know, if things started how they ended, they never would have started and that was true for me and I can give my family and my parents that same grace to say this was a very, very slow manipulative burn that then led them to where they are

and I think it's what's allowed my family to experience a lot of healing is just that grace and empathy to say, you know, what, how it started and how it ended are very different and that's how it was allowed to be.

So for me, it has always, I looked at it as a betrayal to my family, betrayal to my mom to go down this path and as I understand it's a much greater betrayal to myself to not.

It's given me the freedom to heal in ways that I'm just so grateful for. Well, I'm glad you found healing. I'm glad that you're in therapy and like I said, anybody who has been in one of these cults you might consider it because it will change your life.

If you could go back in time back to the very beginning of this whenever you were a little child and you're drinking the Kool-Aid and you had the Kool-Aid in your stash and give yourself some advice to help you through all of this.

What advice would you give yourself? Staying on to those around you, my family is so, so important to me and so special to me and we have been each other's support as we've started to make sense of this recently.

And it's also just, just hang on because it gets better, there's so much on the other side. I mean, there were days that were in high school, I just couldn't imagine that life could ever be so full and vibrant and beautiful and it's just, just hang on.

Glad you did. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you, John. I appreciate it. Again, I appreciate your story and your vulnerability. You are helping people heal. Thank you. Awesome. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.