Shattered, Broken, and Beautiful: Brooke Deanne on Jehovah’s Witnesses (Part 1)

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson. I'm Anthony Nippie Ames and this is a little bit culty. We woke up from a cult and that journey was captured in the vow on HBO and in my memoir, SCARD. Now in this podcast we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the cult of us and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week we bring experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you got a laugh. Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening, some live Q&A and exclusive content at patreon.com/a little bit culty. Welcome to season 8 of a little bit culty. Welcome back to a little bit culty everybody. How are you doing, babe? We're doing some humble bragging here. We've hit some benchmarks. Yeah, we have. What happened this week? This is not bench press. You can brag about that too if you want. I don't do bench press anymore. It hurts my shoulders. But back in the day I did clear 330. I bet you did. No big deal. What are the benchmarks? 16 million downloads. Yes. 4.9 reviews. Four point nine of our book. Four point seven. Of our book. Four point seven. No, no, it's 4.9. No, and our podcast reviews are 4.7. Oh, 4.7 in our podcast. 4.9 in our book. Not that that really matters. It matters to me. It does. You do get a positive review. I'm kind of like, I guess. We love all the gold stars. Keep moving. The other benchmark is Troy took no hitter into the fourth inning the other night and ended up winning his playoff game. 72 and he made all stars. Not that I'm measuring his performance or anything like that. We do not get our worth of our children's performance. Not at all. Crazy. No dinner if you don't hit a homer. It's definitely an episode in the cult of children's youth sports. Children's youth sports. If anyone's interested in that, you can listen to a podcast called Pure Athlete. It'll really add a little bit. What else? Well, should we talk about today's guest? Oh, right. There is more here. We have a great guest. We really enjoyed this conversation. Today's guest doesn't just talk about healing. She embodies it. Brookdiane is a former Jehovah's Witness who's turned her own journey of leaving a high control religion into a roadmap for others reclaiming their lives. After surviving indoctrination, abuse and toxic relationships, Brookdiane discovered that leaving wasn't the end. It was the messy, magical beginning of deprogramming, nervous system repair, and building faith from the inside out. She's now a trauma healing mentor and rapid transformational therapist. Brook's best-selling memoir, Shattered, Broken, and Beautiful, losing my religion and finding faith, unpacks what happens when you walk away from conditional belonging and start rebuilding self-trust identity and spirituality on your own terms. Today, we're diving into the invisible aftermath of cult life, the shame, the hypervigilance, the people pleasing, and how the body remembers control long after the belief unravels. Brookdiane reminds us that real healing isn't about escaping. It's about coming home to yourself. From our lived experience, we learned how to move from survival to sovereignty and reclaim inner authority after years of external control. This is a conversation about how to rebuild identity, spirituality, and self-trust from the inside out. Here's part one with Brookdiane. Brook, welcome to Little Bit Cultie. Thank you for having me here. I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation. So are we? I don't know if you know this, but we have covered, are you offended by the term JWs? Or are we not at all? Not at all. Use it all the time. Okay. Go J-Dub. J-Dub. We have two episodes, but it's a big organization. The stories are different. We have a joking relationship near the sports complex where a child plays at. There's some J-Dubs that hang out and like this little dug out. Not a dug out. Pressbox. Kind of thing. Yeah. And when we go for our power work, walks we see that. We try and win them over. I love that. I used to glare at them, be like, you're in a cult. And now I smile and I say good morning. Bring them cookies. How are you so that they get counter data about life on the outside? Do they think that's a good plan? I think it's exactly what they need. They need actually the opposite because we are so taught that everyone on the outside is evil and something's wrong with them. So you live in a bubble inside of that system and so people actually really need to see that actually people are actually good human beings on the outside of this religion because I didn't, I was definitely not taught that. I mean, I left 10 years ago. So I mean, in reality, I'm pretty fresh out. Yeah. It's confusing to them. Let's say I do. I think I might drop out. I might say I'll read your pamphlet about the kingdom. What do you call it? The new kingdom. Yeah, basically the paradise, like the new world that's coming. Yeah. I'll read the pamphlet. If you read my copy of a little bit Coltie. Let's do it this way. Oh, wow. That's perfect. Do you really do that? That's exactly what they need because they need to do that. I should do that. Just poke them. You know, not scare them, but at the same time because there's so much fear when you're inside of that system. I mean, when people would actually tell me that I was in a cult, I actually, when I was inside the system, I would laugh because I was like, oh, we know. These people think, you know, they just think that we're in a cult. Like that's so wild because, but here we are. We're going to their door. We're preaching to them, you know, like we're showing up at their front door on a Saturday morning and we're trying to tell them to convert and we're trying to change their belief system. And yet, when people would say that to me, I wouldn't be able to receive that message. But something in the back of my mind was always like, huh, that's kind of weird. But I never like went into curiosity. I never allowed myself to question because I was taught really young questioning was not okay. I would be curious. I'd ask questions to my father and my father would become agitated. He would be like, that's just the way it is. You just need to obey. Like you just need to do it. Like you just need to obey Jehovah. You need to listen to what we're telling you and that's it. Like basically don't ask questions. And so I learned very young. That was not okay. Yeah, definitely not a group that nurtures curiosity. As I was mentioning earlier, we've done two episodes already, but I was surprised about still how much more I learned about the Jehovah's Witnesses in your book about a couple specific things that they do that are horrendous and we'll get into it. But before we cover all that, why don't you give us a little overview just like we let us all our guests who are survivors. How did you get in? In this case, you were born in. So were your parents also born in? Did they choose it or tell us your family history with this group? For sure. So yeah, we were a third generation. I was third generation. So my parents were born in as well. And that's really all we knew. So, you know, when your parents come to you and they say, you know, this is the truth. This is the only path. This is the only way to your salvation. Because the child, you don't question that. You just take that for, okay, this is the truth. My parents believe this and this is the way that we're supposed to live. And even though, you know, you start to see like other things, like that's what I started to see as a child when I was at school. I started to see like different ways people were living. And, you know, I started to be really curious about that and be like, oh, there's just so much freedom here. But growing up inside of that, like my parents always told me that, no, this is not okay, like you're not allowed to be around other children that are not Jehovah's Witnesses. And that's what you're taught inside the system. And so when I would get invited to do things, or I would be excited to have these friends outside of the system, that was shut off as well as doing anything extracurricular at side of school. And I just desperately wanted to fit in. And I just, I couldn't belong in that. I couldn't belong there in school. And I didn't feel like I belonged in the religion, to be honest. So inside of my own family, my father was really the narcissistic dynamic. He was my first abuser, I like to say, because he wanted control. And I feel like this is kind of a theme in this religion in particular, where this hierarchy of the system inside of it, these men desire this control. And my father really showed me that model inside of my family. My mother was very suppressed. My father was emotionally abusive. I would often see the dynamic between them play out where he would say things to her, to kind of a little her or to mean her in front of me. But she wouldn't say anything, she would just quietly cry, you know, washing the dishes over the sink and not really say anything about what had happened to her. I felt it as a child. And so I just started to notice that and seeing how, "Okay, it's interesting. I don't have." If I have love for my father, like one moment I was very loving and he was so safe, which what I thought he was, and then the next minute if you disobeyed or if you didn't stay in alignment with the religious expectations and expectations of him, that was withdrawn. That love was withdrawn. And so I really saw that inside of that system, if you own my family system, how love was so conditional. And no wonder it wasn't surprising that I still was okay with love being conditional inside the religious system as well, because it was all I'd ever known. Yeah, you talk about it in your book. What God is to people in Jehovah's Witnesses? Can you explain that a little bit if somebody doesn't know? Like God loves you, but if you don't comply or you don't follow the rules, then what? So I say that that was like I had a trauma bond with God because I was taught that God was loving, right? And we were read those scriptures over and over again. But then I was also taught that God was angry. And then if you disobeyed him, well then God took away his love from you. And now you were wicked. And now basically I was set up to be destroyed at Armageddon, which is what the belief system, like God's going to come in, destroy all the wicked people. And then there's going to be a paradise eventually that God's going to restore the earth. And everybody's going to live this perfect life and be perfect. So that was the story that I was told since I was a child. I mean, they have this Bible book of stories, which is for children that all of the parents are meant to read. And we're going over and over to their kids, right? We're learning these stories. And I mean, they're horrific stories. We call it the Bible book of horrors because it is like they're all horrific stories. You know, you see these horrible pictures of Armageddon and God being angry and wrathful and destroying you if you don't obey. And so you're getting that messaging very early. And so it's no wonder I was like, oh, well, God loves me. But man, he also can destroy me. And that was the same template for love that I had with my father. It was one minute. It was there. And then the next minute it was gone. I have in my notes, I just sort of take random notes when I'm reading a book. And I have here grounded by God. Do you remember what that was in your book? I do not remember that. Tell me the light. I think it was that you that you were talking about shunning because you take it shunned at one point in your trajectory with J.Dubs. And you basically said being shunned is like being grounded by God. I think that was the context. Yes, completely. Yes, I just thought that was so brilliant. I mean, if anyone is listening who's curious about whether their group is a cult or not and all you have to really do, I mean, that's like one of the number one checkpoints is like, can you leave and be included? When did you start making the parallels between the relationship with God and your dad and then challenging them? That did not happen until really honestly about six years ago. Like after left. Okay. Yeah. So I think first I would be able to take a little one step back, you know, inside of that, I married like the carbon copy of my father, not knowing, right? Not knowing that I was just repeating a pattern because it was all I knew. I only knew of you. I only knew you know, yeah, it was it. And so I married into that. And shortly after that, you know, I realized, whoa, what something's not right here, but religion also teaches you that one God hates a divorcing and that the only grounds for divorce is infidelity. And so basically they're really teaching women that, you know what, your man can beat you, he can hurt you, he can verbally abuse you, but you need to stay. And that's actually a lot of the story of Jehovah's Witness women that I have found in my journey this far, that have stayed in a very abusive relationships entirely because well, we're taught to forgive. It's forgave. So you forgive, right? And then realizing that, you know, we don't know anything different. We're so suppressed. We have no connection to our own voice. We're not allowed to have a voice in our opinion. It's only the men do and only the men have the direct connection to God. We don't. So, you know, there's just so much suppression. So it's no wonder why, you know, I felt like I stayed so trapped and not really understanding what was really happening to me. This episode would not be possible without the support of our sponsors. Let's hear what they have to offer. 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Now, let's dive back into the cult of Earth. Yeah. Earlier, I mentioned there was a couple of new things I didn't know but Jehovah's Witnesses. One of them, which I didn't know, and I know we're skipping ahead in the timeline. I'm going to go back to your childhood in a second. When you were married to Ryan and who did cheat on you and you tell us the rule about if you use a basically a small window where you can ask for a divorce. But if you sleep with them again, if sex happens, then you can't. I did not know that. Can you explain? Is that, did I cover it? Did I say it? No, you have that spot on. It is. It is. It is. It's wild, right? But basically what that says to the elders and the congregation is that you now have forgiven your partner for cheating on you. That means that Jehovah God, yeah, Jehovah God now sees that you forgive him. Now, you have taken him back. I literally, once I knew this, the elders met with me and they're like, "Well, did you sleep with him again?" And I said, "Yes." and they're like, "Well, then you're not free to remarry if you divorce him." We just want you to know that. Wow. So when you do that, that means that if you divorced him, if I divorced him then I couldn't remarry in the Jehovah's Witness community again. I would forever have to be single. So is this something that's enforced universally? Like is there a Jehovah light where this isn't like, is it consistent in every sort of like chapter of Jehovah? So you know what's funny that you're even asking my question, I don't know if there's any consistencies in that religion. I feel like a lot of it's just falling apart at the seams right now. Right now. It's just a mess. But yes, that is a rule. Yeah, for sure. The other thing that I learned from you from your book was the way that you laid out the [BLANK_AUDIO] roles, I wish I'm not going to be able to reiterate off the top of my head, but like the, I mean, you maybe do have that like, is that some of you would have but in your head by wrote like the different structure in the structure? Can you just can you mind sharing that with us? Because I think that summary that you said it was like an MLM. And I'd never like, I'd never seen the MLM component of the Jimovies witnesses. Can you break it down for us? I'm working tool. That's a perfect structure for creating a big corporation, right? You have the women that are basically what they call the army of women that go out or meant to like be the main people that go out and preach and try to recruit new members. And so, you know, a lot of these women like one of you pioneers and they want to be in service all the time, they're like the home makers, but also meant to go and preach the word. And then you have the men that are really from a young age, they're groomed in conditions to start to want to go to Bethel, which is if for no anybody that doesn't understand what Bethel is, it's like the main headquarters of Jehovah's witnesses where all the operations are like where they create the material, the magazines, all of these things. And so you want to achieve that. That's like big status. Like if you met someone that's like, Oh, yeah, I work at Bethel, you're like, Oh, my gosh, you work at Bethel. That's how we would where is Bethel? So there used to be a location in New York City, they sold that. I think it's an upstate New York now. Like I think they call it warwick. So it's up there. Yeah, yeah, pretty interesting name. So pioneers and then what's the next? So yeah, so pioneers and then so then the boys try to achieve status as a ministerial servant. So if they don't go to Bethel, they want to be someone that's used in the congregation. So ministerial servant is like someone that's kind of, it's not quite the tear to elder yet, but they're on your way to becoming an elder of the congregation and being able to make all the big decisions. And really, I guess, leave the flock is what they call it. And then above that is circuit overseer. And circuit overseer is someone that travels to congregations to give special talks and people like look at circuit overseers as like celebrities as a Jehovah's Witness. We look at those people as like, oh my gosh, they've achieved this status and they're the most spiritual people in this religion. And so everything they say, we take to like heart like we are wanting to be like them. We're trying to strive to be more like them. And they're kind of a big deal. And then above the circuit overseer is what they call district overseer. I don't really remember exactly what they do. But like I said, there's always a hierarchy of system. And you're basically being pushed and plotted to continue to do more and more. And every kind of, you know, meeting or what we say, like church gathering, some people need to, it's like they're trying to press the same information over and over again. And that is please be busy in the work of the Lord, please continue to do more. And so you just really are just like feeling guilty, even if you miss meeting or if you miss going out and service and preaching, because there is so much messaging around having to keep busy. That's definitely a through line and most, most calls I find is keeping you busy. You don't even have time to think. But meanwhile, and we'll save the juicy details for people to read your book, but you did fall in love, luckily with a witness boy, but somebody you didn't, your parents didn't appreciate. Tell us a little bit about your journey with Ryan in terms of like how that affected your connection to the faith and eventually your disillusionment with the faith. Well, I think the most important piece is is that when I met him, we quickly obviously we were young teenagers, right? And so one thing led to another and we ended up having sex before marriage, which is a huge no-no in the religion. Okay. This is the one of the biggest sins that you can do and it lands you straight into the back room. One of the most fun too. Exactly. One of the things you're supposed to be doing at the age, but not as a jojo of his witness. And so I landed myself in the back room with three elders, which is basically what they call a committee meeting. And I had to explain in very big detail about what I had done. How many times I had done it, where we had done it, all this sort of details they wanted to know everything. And in that room, obviously, you're looked at shamefully, they read you scriptures from the Bible that are talking about you being a harlot. Basically, since so many words calling me a prostitute for having sex before marriage without saying the words completely, but that's the messaging I was receiving. And then they decided to pray over me. And then they told me that I was not repentant. And so they disfellowshipped me and disfellowshipping means that you are outcast from the community. You can still come to the community and sit during the spiritual gatherings, but no one will look at you, no one will talk to you. And you can only talk to your family if you live inside of their home. So, it's a scarlet letter. Yes, it is a scarlet letter. I spent a whole year being disfellowshipped at 16 years old. So I had nobody on the outside of the system and nobody in the inside of the system. I would go and show up to the kingdom hall. And people would look at me like I had a plague, like something was wrong with me. And they would like turn their heads, they would look away, like they wouldn't even look at me in the eyes. And as a young girl, you're just like, I don't understand, I don't know, this just this doesn't make any sense. That's so cruel. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot to unpack as I, I mean, later on, when I finally went to therapy and figured out what the hell happened to me, I was like, Oh my gosh, this how traumatizing was this for me, like the 16 year old girl just like being all alone completely isolated. Yeah. And nowhere to go. I mean, I think that this is where, you know, if you're older, you have like a little bit of a social circle. Yeah, you have no, you have like no one to run to. So of course, you want to get back in the good graces. You want it to be good again. I did. I did. I desperately wanted to because my father told me, you know, you brought shame to the whole family. Right. You now, no one's going to want to marry you because now you're not a virgin. He's like, no ministerial servant or elders going to want you. So I took that and I have just a low grade non spiritual man that's going to want to marry me. Like that's what my father was basically telling me that I was not going to be able to find somebody of caliber. Oh, right. Everyone outside's inferior. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I get it. Oh, that was a very difficult thing for me as a young girl. But what that led me to do is it really made me angry. But I also like you said, I wanted to be the good girl again. I want my father's approval again. I wanted to show him that, okay, I can do this. And so for a period of time, I let go of Ryan. And we didn't see each other for about two years. But when I turned 18, all bets were off. I contacted him again. And we ended up a loathing. Like that was it. And I just basically said, sorry, parents, not sorry, I'm leaving. I'm going to do my thing. I wanted to get out of their control. Yes, exactly. I wanted to be free. I desperately like they were just choking me. Like it felt like because I couldn't do anything I wanted to do. And so of course, you know, a few weeks later, I mean, you ran the book, I quickly realized that I was not in a safe relationship, but didn't really know or understand that I wasn't in a safe relationship. Because you know, he suffocated me through me up against a pillow and I couldn't breathe. And I didn't know what to do. But I didn't want to go back just to be clear, suffocating with you pillow through up against a wall. Yeah, well, so he didn't do that. But that's he did. So the pillow he suffocated me with the pillow. That was my first instance. There was many more abusive instances. But that was the first time that I was like, well, wait a second, what's happening here? But it was like such a shock to my system. And then, you know, of course, he came back and said, I'm sorry, I'll never do that again. Like that, you know, I didn't mean to hurt you. And, you know, you just made me so angry. And so that's the first time where I was like, Oh, okay, well, maybe this is my fault. I did make you angry, right? That's the gaslighting. Okay, that's what happens in that experience. And you're just like, okay, well, maybe it is my fault. There is a year right, I made you angry. I'm sorry, let's make up, you know, and then really over 17 years, it was just many more of those instances, happening, not even realizing I was even in a cycle, but also being terrified to leave for multiple reasons, because he would threaten me, what he could do to me, you know, he had power over me, he it was the one that made the money in the home. I took care, I took care of the children. I was trying to be a good Christian woman. I was afraid of what Jehovah would think, my parents, like the community, I'm in the community like gossiped and talked about people that couldn't figure out their marriages. Like, it is no wonder why I kept everything a secret. I wanted no one to know what I was living inside of. So now you're in a cult of one. Yes, exactly. So, the question for you, did he leverage Jehovah over you? Was he doing kind of the same thing your dad was doing, like using that to keep you under his thumb? Was that. So, no, you know what? He didn't use that always. He used finances, so there's a lot of financial abuse that went on because he could. He made a lot of money, company, he was very well off, and so he could use that. He didn't really need to use the religion. For him, everything was about status. The religion was about status. Even when he woke up years later, he was like, "I'm going to pretend in this religion and I'm going to show you that I can become a ministerial servant and that it's not from God." And I was like, "Okay." I was like, "All right, I support that. I want to see what happens." He never got to that point because we ended up divorcing and he just decided to leave it all together and so did I at the same time. That was a joint effort. Yes. He woke me up first. I was not ready to be woken up. It was like a jolt in my system. She came to me like a mad man and was like, "I need you to look at all these child sex abuse cases and you need to watch this stuff. I need to show you this stuff." And my training, my conditioning, reacted exactly as it was supposed to. Oh my gosh, you've been possessed by Satan. What's going on? You need to stop this. Stop looking at other stuff, stop reading stuff. You know better. Like Jehovah will take care of it. Like that was my response. Like, I responded just like the Jehovah's Witnesses had trained me. You're a good girl. Yeah, I was a good girl. I was like, "I've got to defend my face." You're well trained. You're well trained. Yeah. When people have clarity, they become a threat. Yes. Right? And their clarity becomes evidence for you rather than more clarity for you. Right? Yeah. And I want to save your waking up and what you've done since for part two. So we'll get to that in just one second. But one thing I want to say that I really enjoyed about your book is that you come from it from this therapist perspective. And as you're talking about these horrendous things and your reactions, you're also kind of weaving in what you now know about so many things that are very important. Like you already mentioned trauma bonding, gaslighting, narcissism, attachment theory. Can you give us a little bit of the play by play? Like put on your therapist hat for a minute. And I think a lot of people will relate to this part, whether their Jehovah's Witness or not. But just how, I don't know you know, you know, I've even talked about this in the podcast, our attachment styles and how they play out with an incredible person I have to connect you with, Eli Harwood, who writes about this. And anyway, I'll do that separately. But give us a little, like put your therapist hat on and tell us like, what was going on for you? What were your wounds? What was his wounds? What was your dad's wounds? How did this all play into the structure of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Whatever you want to share with us about that. Yeah. Well, that could be like five more shows and we're in style. Yeah, seriously. We'll try to condense that. Yeah. So yes, what you're speaking to is so perfect because I think that it is really important thing that people need to understand in relationship. Like when we're in abusive relationships, it was not entirely just Ryan. Like I also brought wounds into the relationship. Wounds that were created long before I arrived in that marriage. It was from my father. And my father created that those wounds entirely because he carried his own. He carried his own trauma from his parental upbringing that, you know, we just, it's so interesting to see that how that played out for Ryan and I. Ryan had a mother that was not able to be emotionally there for him. And she used him as her like crutch. He was like the man in the relationship because she didn't have a husband. And so he learned how to kind of resent his mom at a young age because he was like picking up the pieces for her and like working at a young age to provide for her. And so he already came in with like resentment and anger towards women, I believe. And so not respect for women. And then I did not have a theme of the organization. I mean, completely. You're so spot on there. I've seen it so much. And I didn't have respect for my father because my father used control and manipulation to get me to do what he wanted me to do. And then he also didn't make me feel safe with who I was. I had to be who he wanted me to be. And so I came in with this father wound really looking at a man as like don't tell me what to do. If you do one thing like you're going to I'm that's it. You're going to feel all of my rage. And so I just wanted to be seen, heard and actually loved for who I was. And I couldn't receive that from Ryan because he had his mommy issues and I brought my daddy issues into the play. So we were just like in this cycle, like just playing out these wounds in real time, having no idea that what was happening underneath the surface because we had no self awareness. Even cult podcast needs sponsors, check out these must have. Thank you sponsors. We couldn't do without you now. Let's get back to the show. The problems aren't proprietary, you know, to cults. It's just that your issues are being played out under this ecosystem where that seems to be a little bit more normalized and exacerbated. Yeah. Yes, the exact message. And there's no way out. There's no lifeline. So you're in a you're in a you're in a feedback loop where most people can go talk to people and say compare notes. You're not comparing notes. So it makes it even I would imagine stifling. Yeah. Just a little sidebar story on that at our we do the summer retreat every year, not V week in case anyone's wondering we did that years ago. That's the cult retreat. But now we just go to Hornby Island and we go with a couple of family friends and there's just one year. Do you remember the snappy or is me and you Dave and Bonnie are two of our really good friends from Toronto. Oh, yeah. My sister and I my brother Devon and staff and the three of us were kind of comparing notes about our relationship dynamics. Like I'm anxious attachment. It is avoided. No, no, really what you came out with was like I'm doing everything right. Oh, no. No, it was like in each of the relationship there was one of us and it wasn't gender specific. Like I'm always like pay attention to me. Like I want to be seen like hang out with me, which is like you in the relationship right? Like I want quality time and the more we want it, the more it pushes the other person away. Right. That's it. He's like I'm reading. One reading. Yeah. And it is the six of us, the three couples. I was like me and my brother and my friend Bonnie's husband Dave. Like we were the one that was always like looking and the other three were like give me some fucking space. And we just thought it was so funny. Like I'm like who I've tried to think of some of the other examples. You know, who was the one who what was funny was it was funny because like there was always one person when I friend Bonnie was like no, I was like I was like yeah, I get that. The person who wants it can't understand why they're like no, leave me alone. I'm reading. It's like it's a very difficult thing. And vice versa. I can't imagine me like all the time. Like if he was meaty with me, I don't know how I'd be able to handle that, right? He's so not meaty person at all. I'm kneading different ways. Yeah, but everyone has their needs, right? Like I'm not needy like. But it was funny when we were comparing notes and for me to be able to tell my friend like for a man to hear it from a woman's perspective was really. And it was validating. It was validating a lot of ways. To that we all were like, okay, these are just patterns from our wounds and the way our parents were with us as affected how we are with our partners and you know, anyway, it was a digression, but it's what to share. It doesn't just happen in high control religion. No, it's totes legit. Yeah. Right? For sure. It's true. And honestly, that gives you everybody awareness that's listening to this is that when if you can find out what your partner's attachment style is, advice versa, like it opens up a whole new world to have like really deep conversations of like, oh, this is why my partner does this instead of taking it personal. Yeah. I think that's what a lot of the story is for people that are in these relationships. They're not fulfilled in their relations. They're not happy is because they're taking something personal about what they're why their partner is doing something. And no, it's just because this is the way that they operate. It's their pattern. It started in childhood. This is why they're doing the thing that they're doing now. And when you understand this, it's like, it's like completely eye opening. You know, I recently talk about like how everyone has their own love template. And it was created, you know, as a child, well, how do what do we learn or in our childhood that was modeled to aspire parents, one, how we receive love, how we get love. Like well, was it, did it have to be earned? Right? Did what was that. Like what did love feel like as a child? Because that's your love template now. That's how you think that you are getting love or receive love now and actually how you also give it. So that when you find out and you figure out that, yeah, or don't give it. Exactly. Or if you don't give it, right? And then it's just it helps you just see people in your life differently. And it helps you actually create huge self awareness about yourself and how you feel about love. Totally. And not taking it personally. I wish our politicians could look at it. I like that. Wouldn't it be totally different dynamic if like someone got up there and was like, other attachment is, oh, I understand them. And you could speak to that as opposed to you're awful. I'm not speaking of not taking it personally. I remember learning about when did you not avoid it and like nippy's upbringing and how like he learned to self-suit. And like I wanted four boys and a little sister. It was like, you know, I was. And so he when he goes internal cleaning, he's like, yeah, he's self-cleaning. He's like, he got called a self-cleaning oven, but I used to take that as rejection. You know, and now I'm like, while I'm cleaning, well, I'm like, go do your thing. The biggest piece of the healing piece is starting to realize, oh, wow, I've been suppressing what I actually feel in the moment and just been like stuffing it down. And like that's when like resentment starts to happen in relationships, right? That's when we start to like project and we start to do things that we don't even realize what we're doing them. It's because we haven't actually expressed how we really felt in all those other moments that are just like stacking up. And so when you talked about self-cleaning oven, personally, love that analogy, you're actually just kind of sitting with, okay, well, you know, what am I really feeling? Like, you're like actually kind of clearing out, okay, what's really going on inside of me and being able to sit with what you're really feeling and then being, okay, well, where do I actually need to say something? And where do I need to express myself so that I can feel, you know, fully seen and heard in my relationship or whatever that looks like at your workplace or, you know, however that comes up. And there's a lot of things that fortified me developing that process because I found growing up in my atmosphere an emotional response wasn't respected. And so I was an athlete and I played quarterback and like, you don't cry in the huddle. You come up with a very rational response. So I had to learn to make those distinctions come out with what sounded, I don't know, I want to say masculine, acceptable in that environment. And so I got good at that process and the process probably had some other muscles that weren't are underdeveloped because that leaned so heavily on one process. Yeah. And that's exactly what is it's the muscles are underdeveloped, right? And I always tell me it's like the emotional intelligence. We weren't taught that. Maybe my parents simply had zero emotional intelligence. We didn't talk about emotions. We suppressed emotions. Also the day and age too. It's the day and age and the gym was what it says. And I do think that like people reading your book don't have to have been raised you w or even in the cult at all. Like I think there's so many dynamics between men and women and our upbrings and our wounds and like you really put a putting the therapist lens on it throughout like I wish I'd known now that I was projecting my own da da da onto his blah blah blah. Like that's so important for people to understand that's normally what's happening. Like it's it's and so you add the cold and it has to be humanized. It's humanized. Yeah. You just reminded me about like coming out of cults not having needs. In next year, I just remembered an epi of action. It made I work through this a lot in therapy is that like not only it wasn't just women you couldn't know you weren't allowed to have needs. It was then your needs were survival based food, well water shelter. Everything else that you felt like you needed was considered a desire, which means a non-integrate. This is next-him-talk and non-integrated fixation. So if I felt like I needed love, then that was like what's well what's missing in you that you feel like you need that. So like so it was it was like a distortion of the sort of Buddhist ten. I know you've studied Buddhism since you've left. The Buddhist sort of tenant that nothing from the outside fills the hole, which is true, but also it's to thrive humans need connection and love and validation to have a thriving full life. Right. So it's like a twist of something really. That in Keith's case he needed a hair on. In Keith's yeah. That's the irony is that we were taught we didn't need anything and we were told he was a celibate renunciate because he was so evolved. But meanwhile he has got women on speed dial available to step at any moment. So it's crazy. Anyway. Yeah. Oh my goodness. This is right. Yeah. It's like you can't even like the some of this stuff that you know your guys' story like the story of all these people that if you I mean yes I wasn't a cult, but I'm like wow some of this stuff is just like how delusional can we truly become as humans and you start to see that like in the fact that these men really particularly men's ego. Sorry. But like it's like looking at it's like how can I have control and power over women and make it look like it's exciting. Like make it look like this is what you're meant to do as a woman. I mean I just you know I recently watched the false prophet. I don't know if you guys watched that on Netflix. And I was horrified. Like it was watching these women be like oh you know like looking at him like he was some god you know that he was their path to heaven and it's just like it's hard to stomach these things. It's hard to stomach what what is happening in these cult like systems and we they have no idea they have no idea. We're hoping to have Christine Marion by the way that we've been in touch with her about coming on the podcast. Oh I love I can't wait I can't wait listen to that. So the self-harm they're willing to put themselves through at for the greater what they think is the greater good. It's kind of like or well talks about it's like it's the greater good of the party at everything's expense it's the greater good of the guru at my expense so they've handed their morality and thought process off to this thing and they'll do anything to fortify it and then once there's some sort of like evidence to show that they're not necessarily the altruistic movement that they are if they've self identified with the group it's extremely hard to divest yourself from what you've doubled down on multiple triple down on. That's the ego part I was fooled by the rest of the time that sort of thing. All right so let's take a pause there. When we come back for part two and Thursday we'll hear about how you woke up partly thanks to Ryan and how you've unraveled where your journey of healing has been and make sure we stay to the end because I know you have a lot of wisdom about healing and recovery and regaining your sovereignty so see you next time see you on Thursday with Brooke Dean for a little bit called "team". We hope you're enjoying a little bit culty. If so please do show us some love drop a rating or leave a review hit subscribe on apple spotify or ever listen and subscribe to our patreon at patreon.com such a little bit culty. Even better send this episode to someone who needs it maybe they're in a cult maybe they're just a little bit susceptible or maybe they just love a good story spread the word spread the love thanks for listening and see you next time a little bit culty is a trace 120 production executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippie Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound our co-creator is Jess Temple Tarty our production coordinator is Leslie Dindborg riding by Sandra Nemoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarsinski and Brooke Kean our theme song cultivated is by the artist John Bryant and Nigel Aslan [BLANK_AUDIO]