When people hear the term ,,cult” they usually have The Manson Family, Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate as a reference in their minds. They were indeed cases of mass murder-suicides which shocked the entire world back in those days. While their names may not be splashed across headlines like the infamous cases of the past, dangerous cults still exist today. They are not only about charismatic leaders and the members’ devotion to them. They are about abuse, mental health illnesses, coercive control, isolation from loved ones, isolation from the world and finally, isolation from oneself.
Today we will be exploring the stories of 5 cult survivors from the United States. Their stories all have something in common: the fight to reclaim their lives.
Jules: ,,My father told me that he can do whatever he wanted to do to my body because he was my father.”
Jules was a part of the cult ,,Institute in Basic Life Principles” (IBLP). The cult was founded in 1961 by Bill Gothard. According to the IBLP’s website, the organization started as a local youth outreach program in Chicago, and since then, it has grown to conduct citywide seminars, conferences, student programs, and online messages to reach more people. The IBLP considers men to be superior, whereas women are expected to obey men in every way. This includes in the home, school, workplace, and marriage.
Jules’ parents have always been strict and had the same beliefs as the cult. Jules was 8 years old when her family started seriously following the cult. Leaving the cult was a slow process for her but she finally managed to get out of it in 2022. Because there weren’t a lot of people in the area she was living in, they didn’t have much of a community, so she left on her own. Jules was also a part of the Mennonite Church. They had very similar teachings but they were not part of that same cult: ,,People would think about leaving but they couldn’t actually leave because they knew that they would get shunned. Nobody wanted that.”. Anabaptist groups, including the Mennonite sects, formed as part of the sixteenth-century Protestant reformation. Unlike other Protestant groups, the Anabaptists insisted that the church remain separate from the state. Some Mennonites migrated to North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their communities have steadily grown over time. Church doctrine teaches Anabaptist believers to identify and avoid “worldly” things that threaten the church and community, ranging from technology to higher education.
Institute in Basic Life Principles also had many rules. Jules’ family was more on the strict side, therefore she had to wear long dresses, had to have long hair and wear headcoverings. Women were not allowed to say no to men for anything, girls especially were not allowed to say no to their fathers. Cabbage Patch Dolls were also considered a sin: ,,I don’t know if this is an american thing but they would tell us that my hair would fall out if I got a cabbage doll.” Over time, a dark side to the radical organization was exposed. In addition to the controversial teachings listed above, the founder of the cult, Gothard, has also been accused of sexually harassing more than 30 women, many of whom directly worked for him. In the documentary ,,Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets”, Bill Gothard’s hidden agenda and past are exposed.
Women were not allowed to have jobs and they had to be stay at homes. They had to have as many children as possible because they couldn’t say no to the men and they didn’t have any kind of birthcontrol. Even if it was medically unsafe for the woman, she would have to continue having children: ,,Basically, the women’s job was to pop all these babies, homeschool them and be a stay at home wife and lover, not do anything outside of the household”. There were a few families that were able to have stay at home jobs. Jules’ adoptive mom is an example in this case, she sews clothes and sells them but other than jobs like that, there was nothing allowed for women.
The cult’s rules were stricter for women. Men didn’t have many job restrictions but they had some rules regarding facial hair – what they could and couldn’t have. As far as Jules remembers, they weren’t allowed to have jeans. In the cult, children had to homeschool and to use only their curriculum: ,,My family did use a little bit of some outside curriculum, to mix it up but the curriculum still followed their beliefs system. We couldn’t associate with people that believed much different than the cult. Everyone had to follow that lifestyle.”. According to FreeJinger, a key part of the teachings of IBLP is the Umbrella of Protection. It is taught that fathers are under the protection of Christ, mothers are under the protection of their husbands and children are under the protection of the mother/father. As long as everyone stays under their umbrella nothing will go wrong. Rebellion and leaving the protection of the umbrella is said to be witch craft.
Her family especially was not supposed to seek medical treatment. There were a few times they would allow it for extreme emergencies: ,,If one time I thought that something may trigger my stomach we were able to go to the IR. But with exception to things like that, there was very little medical treatment allowed”. In the IBLP cult, the members were taught how to treat themselves with herbs. It would work in some cases but it was definitely not a substitute especially for life-threatening illnesses. Jules’ father for example had cancer, he’s got rid of it now but they had treated it with all natural methods. The family even went to a doctor that was all across the United States because they couldn’t go to a normal doctor that would treat him with the typical ways. Jules’ parents were the ones that found that doctor. The cult leader didn’t specifically have a list of doctors that they could and couldn’t go to but there was like a list of types of medical treatment they couldn’t get.
At the Mennonite Church they would have a leader choose which doctors members could and couldn’t go to: ,,I know that a man did his research and picked which doctor he wanted to go to and the leaders said that he could not go to that doctor to seek that medical treatment. They chose where he was gonna be able to go to, a completely different medical treatment.”. You might think this is illegal but in reality, several states from the USA have a religious exemption in their reporting laws. It means that even in the case of children being sick, withholding medical care on religious grounds is not child neglect and therefore should not be reported to state child protection services.
The moment that made Jules realize the cult was wrong was when she was a teenager: ,,My father told me that he can do whatever he wanted to do to my body because he was my father. That was one of the cult rules, that the fathers could do whatever they wanted. I knew that the things he was doing to me were wrong even though I was basically brainwashed from the beginning to think that that was okay. If I’d go to the store I could see that other families were not like that and I didn’t want that for myself or for my children if I ever had any.” Jules had to wait a few years until she could leave as she was not 18 but that moment made her decide she wants to get out of the cult as soon as possible. Once she decided to leave, she was shunned. Her adoptive family and her best friends completely shunned her. She couldn’t have communication with them pretty much at all anymore: ,,My biological family tried to stalk me to try to bring me back to the cult for quite a while after I left. They finally gave that up but they were like that for a couple of years. So I had no contact with anyone from the cult.”
Jules was able to convince her parents to let her join a police academy for children. She felt safe there and the people she met were a huge part of how she learnt that what was going on wasn’t right and often illegal: ,,They saved my life because they taught me that there was a world outside of the cult and they helped me leave it.” Her parents also let her get a job at a Greenhouse. She did that for a little while and then she talked them into getting her an outside job. That was not normal for girls in these cults. Most of them would not have an opportunity. Getting that outside job, getting to talk to people outside of the cult was very helpful for Jules.
Jules is still getting used to the world outside of the cult. In the cult women were not really allowed to have conversations with men. If they were telling women to do something, they could talk to them in that manner. Full on conversations were only allowed if the purpose of the women was to recruit men into the cult. Because of that, even now that she’d been out for a couple of years, Jules still feels shocked when she is having a conversation with someone: ,,Sometimes it’ll freak me out and my brain will just shut down. I’m still getting used to being able to wear pants and have my hair down or cut it as I want to, not having to wear headcoverings, being able to make decisions for myself.” Jules is learning something new about her or life outside of the cult every single day. There were so many things that she always thought were normal but when talking to somebody, she would realize they were not okay. It was like a culture shock for her: ,,There’s so much violence within the cult and so much physical abuse that I didn’t think I would live this far. But I made it and I came to follow my dreams and do all the things that I wanted to do – like finding friends – and it’s awesome.”


Violet: ,,Being in a psychiatric hospital for depression felt safer than being there.”
Violet was born in Delaware, in the United States. Her story is a bit different as the cult she was in operated as a school officially. If you did not look too closely at it, it just seemed like an american boarding school for kids who either had some sort of learning disability or who had gotten kicked out of their previous school. The name of the cult is “The New School” and Violet joined it at the age of 10. It has now been 18 years since she left. The cult is located in Newark Delaware and its orginal location was within walking distance of the University of Delaware. The founder’s name is Melanie Jago Hiner and the school was founded in 1955: ,,The woman who founded it wanted a boarding school and a farm but could not pull it off for whatever reason.”
As most cults, The New School had strict rules. There was a book of rules called “The Law book” but there was also a set of unspoken rules that came into being a few years after Violet joined. For example, fist fights in the backyard were ignored as long as parents coming to pick up their children did not see and you did not leave obvious bruises, but you couldn’t be an athiest without getting massive amounts of flack. The members were allowed to go to the doctor but they sometimes got a lot of lectures from it. The cult was very anti-birth control even for just regulating periods: ,,The founder went to a vet instead of a real doctor even when she was pregnant”. Students were also forced to clean the school and prepare food and coffee for male staff. A lot of these unofficial rules only applied to female students: ,,This only started happening once normal staff started leaving. When we had non-white and LGBTQ+ staff the school was a bit more normal.” The teachers often did not bother to set up classes or make food for students, so they had to do that for each other. This was not considered a flaw, more like part of the process: ,,I remember one year there was no hot water until I called around and hired someone to turn it back on. I was 14 or 15.”
There was also a modesty dress and anti-dating rule going on the last few years Violet was there. Girls were pressured into wearing knee and ankle length skirts and nearly collar high shirts. Boys could get away with wearing almost anything if it was masculine enough though: ,,Two of my friends who joined after me were dating but had to keep it secret. But the founder’s godson could openly date outside the cult. Being LGBTQ+ was something most people like myself just kept secret from true believers.”
The way things worked according to The Law Book was you only had to be on campus for six hours. In Delaware, that is the state minimum. You could get your six hours in any time from 7 am until 5 pm. You could stay longer if you wanted to, if say, you lived too far away to walk and could not drive, and your parents could not pick you up until later:,,In reality, students like myself and a few other girls I knew were often pressured to stay some nights until long after 8pm even though they could drive and I lived within walking distance. In retrospect it was an attempt at grooming.”
The students and staff at The New School were not allowed to tell parents what was going on there. They even had an “anti snitch rule” which lead to multiple drug overdoses and at least one suicide getting swept under the rug along with a lot of sexual abuse, some of it being staff abusing students. A somewhat common punishment was students getting locked alone in a room. One of Violet’s friends was not allowed to leave it for a month. The same thing happened to her but for only a week: ,,At the time I thought I was lucky. I told my parents a lot of stuff, but due to me having previously gone to a school for children with learning disabilities they thought I was confused. The staff and one of my mother’s friends who I don’t think was malicious just naive also convinced my parents that I was misinterpreting things.”
The moment spent in the cult that marked Violet the most was when she was almost 12 years old and she was taken down to the creek to swim with the other children: ,,The bad stuff only happened when the founder’s husband was the only staff taking us there. He would only do this when female students were there. He would encourage us to undress and swim topless or nude. I feel shame for not knowing better and not protecting my friends.” There were also 6+ hour long meetings called “Tribunals”. Officially they had no power to punish, but the students had to listen to the staff scream and harang them: ,,Sometimes students got thrown into walls or called slurs.”
Violet finally left the cult when she was 18 years old. She ended up having to hospitalize herself for a bit over a week once she turned 18 to get out: ,,Being in a psychiatric hospital for depression felt safer than being there.” She wanted to live life on her terms and not theirs: ,,I hated how they twisted scripture and used it to control people.”
It took her a lot of time to adjust after leaving the cult but she positively says that her life is now a lot better than it was. She still struggles with PTSD and depression and she has her ups and downs: ,,However, I am the one who decides who I spend time with, what I wear and where I go. And at the end of the day that is what matters to me. Freedom and choice. We all deserve that, no matter who you are or where you’re from.”
Arielle Symone: ,,I was admiring a sunset, and exclaimed about how beautiful it was, and the sisters looked at me with concern and told me the world was just made for destruction.”
Arielle Symone is from the United States. She was a member of the World Mission Society Church of God (WMSCOG), an offshoot of the Church of God Jesus’ Witnesses, established by Ahn Sanh-hong in South Korea. The World Mission Society Church of God believes that he is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He also predicted that the world would end in 2012 in his book titled “The Bridegroom Was A Long Time In Coming, And They All Fell Asleep”. The Christian church considers this group a cult because of their problematic theological beliefs and controlling practices. Arielle was not born into that cult but after being “preached to” 4 times over the course of a year, a traumatic event at the age of 20 led her to say yes to their 5th try, and she was baptised that same day.
Some of the stricter rules of the cult were: no eating food that a non-believer (anyone not in the cult) has prayed over, no eating food with blood in it (black pudding for example) or meat that has been strangled and no sexual immorality (having sex without being married): ,,These were explained to you right after you were baptised, and were seen as sins that were unforgivable and that would void your contract with God.”
There were other rules if you wanted to be a gospel worker, to become the 144,000. The 144,000 were those that would not perish in the horror of the Last Days: ,,The 144,000 are those who would sit with our Heavenly Mother as she watches the calamity on earth unfold, and we would go up to heaven alive, together, to then be transformed into heavenly beings!”. If that was what you wanted, it was also expected that you include an additional “free will” offering in the brown envelope at least once a month, provide a food offering each month, pray at the daily prayer times of 10:00 am and 2:30 pm, only listen to music that isn’t “worldly” (not church produced) and only read church provided literature. You also have to reject philosophy and other worldly knowledge, never look up outside information about the WMSCOG on the internet (which was referred to as eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), cut-off or severely limit communication with non-believers (including family), except to preach to them because ,,they were controlled by Satan”, live with other church members, attend the church 7/7 days of the week, 365 days a year; fulfill and financially support whatever your blessing was: ,,Mine was to mind the children, choir, coffee station”. You have to marry whomever was matched to you by the church leaders, move wherever in the world the church told you to move, preach to and bear at least 10 new fruit (people who you brought to be baptized) and start new churches if asked to: ,,Our body was to be a ‘living sacrifice’ to pay for our sin.”
There were a few cultural rules. You cannot speak about your personal problems, you must greet people by bowing and saying “God bless you”, wear clothes approved by the church, say “Thank Father and Mother” instead of thank you or in response to thank you, do not be alone in a room or car with a person of the opposite sex, and do not touch a person of the opposite sex or ,,you will fall in love and it will drive you crazy and you’ll fall to Satan” (women and men sat in pews on separate sides of the church and barely interacted with one another). ,,Abortion was one of the big quietly spoken / implied rules but after a public lawsuit about abortion coercion the cult changed their tune, had us sign non-disclosure agreements, and started a media campaign to change their public image.”
About one year after she joined the cult, the Pastor for the East Coast region, Pastor Daniel Lee, came to visit and gave the members a chance to ask any questions. Arielle had a burning question, something that was really bothering her: ,,I asked him, in front of everyone, ‘Pastor, the 144,000 have to be blameless and flawless, perfect, but how can we become perfect? How can we become the 144,000?’ “. In that moment, the Pastor looked at Arielle, pointed his finger, raised his voice and said “You have such little faith. You ask that because you don’t believe in Father and Mother. You of weak faith!”. After saying that, while still pointing at her, he turned and asked the Deacon, the leader for their church, how long Arielle had been in the Truth: ,,When the Deacon answered, Pastor sucked his teeth and looked at me with disgust. I think I cried. But I stood there and tried to take it. I felt so ashamed. I didn’t understand why he reacted that way and I didn’t have the answer to my question. Just more worry that I would never be able to make it to heaven. That I would burn.”
There were many things that made Arielle question her faith, like the lying, the propaganda campaigns, the spying, the sleep deprivation, and saying that same sex couples would go to hell: ,,I remember being told a sad story of a lesbian couple who joined the church and then split up and moved away from each other so they could be ‘right’ in the eyes of God.” According to Arielle, the many volunteer activities the members did were just for show. For example, all the blankets that were donated for a blanket drive they did for victims of a natural disaster just sat in a room collecting dust: ,,Honestly, one of the first moments that made me not want to be there was when I was admiring a sunset, and exclaimed about how beautiful it was, and the sisters I were with looked at me with concern and told me the world was just made for destruction.”
The moment that changed the tide for her happened 5 years in. Three years prior Arielle was given the blessing (unpaid labor) to care for the children: ,,Now, I loved those kids, and my experience with them is a true gift that I will never forget, but my mental health also became increasingly tenuous.” Nearly every day for three years she would head to the kids wing directly after work to mind the children until midnight: ,,I spent countless hours with little people who were not mature enough to have an equal conversation with me, let alone able to fill the aching void I had in my heart for the companionship of a person who understood me, and saw me as an individual person…which was blasphemy. I started to lose it.”
One day a man she was supposed to train at work hit on her, and she didn’t report it. She felt shameful and for a few weeks she started listing all of her sinful thoughts and prayed for each one, every hour, as an attempt to resist temptation: ,,But after 5 years of celibacy, I wanted to be wanted. Long story short, we were intimate, and I knew I had to confess my sin.” Arielle told the Deaconess she was close to, who told the leader of the Church, who called General Assembly in Korea (where Heavenly Mother (Zahng Gil-jah) and the Elders make decisions), and Arielle was informed that she was to leave the church building immediately. She was told she could keep the rest of the daily services in the apartment she shared with the sisters, but had to move out by the end of the week. If she wanted to possibly gain God’s grace to return, she would need to keep all of the appointed times alone, reporting in by text when she began and when she finished worship, along with the name of the sermon she watched: ,,I did this for 6 months. It was a torturous, miserable experience. Very lonely. I can’t describe how lonely. You have no one. The church was everything I had. I had cut off every one I knew. But I survived.”
Arielle was allowed to return in 2016, and while she still believed, she was never the same again: ,,I was no longer striving to be perfect. And I was away long enough that I started to notice the manipulation, the control, the guilt trips, and worst of all I started to enjoy the Earth.”. Upon her return, there was a sermon about the terror the world would experience in the Last Days, and a detailed description of what the horror of Hell would be like. She drove home in a state of shock, went directly to bed and started to cry. They mentioned every day that the end was very soon, and they even had a solid date in the past (2012). The members were increasingly shown depictions of hell, including people being burned alive with terrible screams: ,,I started having nightmares about balls of fire raining down and destroying everything. I started having panic attacks, which I had never before experienced in my life. I would hear things, voices, and see shadows. I would be struck with a feeling of doom and would be convinced that the world was about to end at any moment.”
At some point, she had been tasked to start a Bible study group at the University. One night Arielle was very afraid because she started seeing things and she told her Team Leader she needed to leave, but the leader who was with her and knew about her mental state told her to ,,stop being selfish and do the will of Father and Mother.” She started seeing a psychiatrist but she hadn’t told them anything about the church. They prescribed Lexapro and Clonazepam to help with her panic attacks and mood. She only grew worse with time, and in 2017 had a flare up of her medical condition and needed surgery. Arielle became very weak and could not do as much, and started being accused by the church leader of not loving Father and Mother. By 2018 it took all her willpower to attend, and she needed to take Clonazepam multiple times a day: ,,I would have a panic attack just driving up to the church, and I started taking cannabis edibles in addition to the Clonazepam just to try and make it through each excruciating sermon.”
One night, after a particularly distressing sermon about hell, she drove to a grocery store parking lot and planned to take her whole bottle of Clonazepam: ,,I knew I couldn’t make it to heaven, so I figured I might as well get it over with. But something told me to call a friend. I didn’t mention that by this point I had met someone in secret, married them with permission of the church (probably to choose the lesser scandal) and my spouse had introduced me to their friend who wasn’t freaked out when I told them about my world. I decided to call that friend. She talked me out of killing myself.”Arielle ended up giving the pills to her spouse, and then decided that she needed a break from the church in order to work on her mental health. She told herself that she would would be back in two weeks but during that time, she finally started reading about the church on the internet, and started realizing the truth: ,,I never went back, but once, so I could keep the Passover, and say goodbye one last time.”
Arielle officially left the cult when she was 28 years old. She is now 33 years old and it will be a full 5 years since she has left, October 18th of this year. She left on her own, but she was able to get in contact with a woman who had left before her: ,,We didn’t talk much for a while after my initial contact (I was still pretty brainwashed), but we later became friends, and she reconnected me with another woman who had left. That woman is now one of my dearest friends.”
Arielle’s journey to adjusting after leaving the cult was just as hard as for the others. Her cult therapist explained it as being dropped in a completely foreign country where you don’t understand the language, customs, or anything that’s going on. She felt like she was entering a different reality. She didn’t leave the house for weeks after she left because she was so afraid something bad would happen to her: ,,I felt an indescribable depth of dread and guilt every time I missed a service time. I actually used to wash and iron the money for my offerings, but at the last service I attended I gave coins: where was the divine retribution? I thought surely it would come; ‘I am giving no offerings now, what will happen to me?’“ When she did start to leave the house, she would only do it when she knew they’d be in service so she wouldn’t run into them. This went on for about a year: ,,For two years after I left, I would snap awake at 3:30 am during ‘holy times’ without an alarm.”
Having conversations with others was the worst for Arielle because half the time she had no idea what they were talking about. She had spent most of the past decade completely removed from anything going on in the world besides news about impending wars (evidence of the last days drawing nearer): ,,The only thing I had talked about for nearly a decade was the Bible. I had almost nothing else to say.”
At the moment, she lives alone in an idyllic and peaceful mountain town. She no longer has nightmares about the end of the world, and in fact, most of her PTSD symptoms have subsided: ,,For the first time in my life, I am not in crisis mode, and I am focusing on enjoying things I missed out on, trying new things, traveling, and really learning who I am and what I want out of this wondrous, fascinating journey called existence. I have so many questions, and expect to find more questions – I no longer subscribe to the idea of ‘The Truth’”. Arielle has a small but good group of friends, and she has developed relationships with family again. She has even reconnected with a couple of friends from before the cult: ,,I spend time writing, gardening, and caring for houseplants, an intimate and grounding hobby that helped my mental health tremendously after leaving the cult. I’m also doing my best to learn how to have healthy, safe relationships.” She has found therapy useful, and is currently working with a trauma therapist that uses the IFS modality along with somatic experiencing. Arielle is no longer in the cult support group nor does she see a cult therapist: ,,These things were tremendously helpful to me, but as of last summer I felt I was ready to focus on my initial traumas that perhaps led me to be more vulnerable to falling prey to an organization like the World Mission Society Church of God.”
,,At one point when I was in the church, and I had one foot in and one foot out, I was listening to a sermon about needing to save the world and I just remember thinking: “I just want to live an ordinary life.”


Lydia Vinson: ,,There was a woman with epilepsy they’d continuously pray over and make a scene about that died under their direction.”
Lydia Vinson is from the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, USA. The small town she lived in and where the cult was were two different places. By the time Lydia was born (1991), people stopped living on the same property together. The cult had expanded into a church of sorts. At the time they were going by the name “Philadelphia Church of our Savior.” The cult was described as “a cult that kept secrets and covered up crimes committed by its members.” The location of the church was not in Philadelphia. The organization changed names all the time, and operates today in another state under another name: ,,It was supposed to be a non-denominational thing, but it was all about the leader and who he could abuse and how much money he could get.” Not only the leader was an abuser, but also some of the members. A former senior member of the defunct Church of Our Saviour, Richard Bellingham, was charged with molesting four girls who belonged to the church in the 1980s.
Lydia was born into the cult. Her brother was born eleven years earlier, and was also born into it. At that time people lived on the same property all together and Lydia’s parents had followed the leader from another state years prior. When she was born the following had grown and no one except the leader’s family and some “devotees” lived on the church property.
Some of the rules were screamed at Lydia as a kid, and some were implied. No sex before marriage, no looking poor: ,,although most of us were very poor”. Women must be skinny and docile, to prepare for a husband someday. No talking back to/questioning authority: ,,For a while women had to look really feminine and also not wear black pants, I still don’t understand that one.” The members also had to tithe a minimum of 10% of their paycheck plus much more as an offering to “God”, which went right to the leader. They had to attend services 3 times a week plus private study groups. Corporal punishment was a requirement as well. Parents needed to punish their children that way and it was required in the school. Children had to go to the school the cult created, and they had to join the choir: ,,We had to memorize a lot of doctrine they created, not just Bible stuff.” It was ambiguous as to whether the members were allowed to hang out with others outside of the group or not: ,,The leader would make sure that we all understood that other beliefs and religions were not from God and therefore were not true and were evil, so why should we be with those people. “
When it comes to health, the cult Lydia was a part of wasn’t any different. Prayer was the preferred method of curing diseases instead of using medicine. Every minute medical issue had to get run past the authorities and they’d pray about how God wanted to handle it. Several people died because they wanted a miracle instead of a medical cure: ,,There was a woman with epilepsy they’d continuously pray over and make a scene about that died under their direction, a woman with cancer who stopped medical care, and a girl with down syndrome who was not getting proper attention. Prayer was primary medical care.”
Lydia considered herself a ,,black sheep” since the beginning. She never understood why everyone liked the leader so much or why they did what he said. Growing up not being well-accepted (for being a questioner and a tomboy) marked her the most: ,,I’ve never belonged. Also, I couldn’t believe some of the things the leader would talk about from the pulpit… dogs having sex, badgering people in the church for their bad deeds, etc. People would say to love and then would be horrible.”
The cult split when Lydia was 14, her parents moved with the leader and a small group (15 other adults) to another state and she had to go with them. Her brother’s escape was to go to the military when he was 20 and she was 9: ,,My escape was going to college, with no money and no idea what to do with my life.” She left the cult by herself at the age of 19 and she is now 32 years old: ,,I was very depressed, and had already tried to end my life. I had been dreaming about this moment for my whole life.”
Lydia’s life is now much better, although it was a ,,culture shock” for her to get out into the world outside of the cult and learn about it: ,,People would stop me and ask if I was okay because I looked scared a lot. I had a lot of panic attacks.” She learned about evolution and other beliefs for the first time. It has taken her a long time to shed certain fears and judgements of others.: ,,Even though I have a good intuition, I was very naive about people and the world and put myself into some bad situations. Now… hm. I’m still fairly lost and tend to feel different from people, but I’m working through it.” She has had a great life, although she got diagnosed with PTSD a couple years ago: ,,I’ve dealt with depression and dark days for a long time, but I think I’m the best I’ve ever been. I’ve been really nomadic since graduating university, not staying in one place for more than a couple of years, but I’d like to find “home.” I get jealous of people with a “home base” and somewhere to go back to. I have good friends, but it can be hard for me to connect with people who don’t have a “deep” factor.” Lydia is athletic and she loves what she does for a living (working in birth). She does a lot of things to re-regulate her nervous system, and through psychedelics, therapy and EMDR she is improving her mental health and well-being every day: ,,Really doing my best to step out of the victim mentality and just be a source of love in this world.”


Winter Hobley: ,,We had to get approval of who we dated or had a relationship with.”
Winter Hobley was born in Germany but she grew up in Killeen, Texas. She joined a cult at 17 years old through a friend and she chose to not disclose its name for personal protection.
There were several rules the members had to respect. For example, they had to tell the leaders when they would go out of town or would miss a service, they must corporately fast at the beginning of the year for 21 days or they would be labeled rebellious and independent, they were guilted into fasting and had to serve in an auxiliary in some capacity: ,,We had to get approval of who we dated or had a relationship with.”
Winter began to question her own faith when she had no desire to be overly religious: ,,The people in my church would pray for hours, fast for days, study their bible, etc. I would try to do those things but I didn’t enjoy them. I felt like I wasn’t a real christian.” The church’s doctrine was very radical and strict. The members had to live a particular way. They were told not to be around certain types of people, even within the church itself. There were a lot of things that Winter wanted to do or experience that she didn’t or felt very guilty doing because of the doctrine they were under. Things like going out for drinks with friends, listening to hip hop or r&b, or even having male friends if you were a single female were not allowed: ,,I started wondering why God was so strict and how other people were happy in life and why I felt so restricted and miserable in church.”
She was groomed and sexually assaulted by one of the ministers there when she was in highschool but when she confessed, she was indirectly blamed for the situation. Nothing was done to the minister and he was allowed to stay and serve as an usher: ,,Everyone in the church knew about the situation and I did not receive any kind of therapy or psychological help until years later.”
One day, a woman ended up leaving the church Winter was in, on a bad note. She called Winter to warn her that the pastors were not good people and that they made her roommate put her out of the house. The lady said she was called a witch and a jezebel. She also told Winter that she would soon see the truth: ,,When I told the pastors what the woman had told me, they told me not to speak to her anymore. This lady was my friend so naturally this bothered me.”. That was the moment that made Winter realize she didn’t want to be in the cult anymore. It wasn’t until a year later that she ended up in a mental hospital due to being suicidal from trauma involved with the church and outside: ,,My mom drove three hours from Houston to get me and bring me home with her. I haven’t been back since.”
She was 23 when she left the cult and it has now been about a year and a half since she is free. Living outside of the cult is still an adjustment to this day for her: ,,I feel like I am doing everything wrong. I am not good at making or keeping friends. I don’t know who to trust. I do not trust people in authority. It’s definitely something I have to work at to get used to.” Her life is now easier. She spends her time with family and her best friend. She also works and she is preparing to go back to school. Winter doesn’t attend a church at the moment: ,,I am still figuring out my beliefs. I have a lot of deconstructing to do. I just take it one day at a time.”

