Episode Eleven – Brenda is shunned by the FLDS

Brenda Is Shunned By The FLDS.mp3

[00:00:12] Welcome to the shunned podcast where we get to hear stories from people that have been silenced by controlling religious today we’re going to hear from Brenda a woman that is shunned by the FLDS or if you’re unfamiliar the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints the FLDS are a fundamentalist group of religion that are more often known as the Mormons. They’re just a subset of that. They came to be early in the 20th century as a split from the Mormons occurred and they are known for their practice of polygamy which is one of the biggest reasons they split off originally the headquarters was located in Short Creek in Arizona. You’re going to hear many references to short Korek by Brenda. That’s the area she was from short Cricks Short Creek in doing some research and it appears that they have little colonies spread out in different areas of Arizona Utah North Dakota South Dakota Colorado Texas and even British Columbia. According to Wikipedia it is estimated that there are between six and 10000 members and they may even be developing colonies in Oklahoma California and the Mexican state of Sonora. I was a little bit familiar with who the LDS were. I’d seen shows on TV about them at times most notably about their leader Warren Jeffs. Warren Jeffs is their leader even today from prison as he’s serving a sentence of life plus 20 years for felony sexual assault.

[00:01:46] I couldn’t help but be reminded of the show on Hulu called The Handmaid’s Tale as I was listening to Brenda tell her story and apparently this struck a chord with Brenda during the interview so I’m sure there are a lot of things there and she will address during the interview that that are reminiscent you know sadly there are still places in this world even in the developed world where women are still treated this way. This story is amazing. I know that a lot of my listeners are former Jehovah’s Witnesses because you know that’s my background and this all kind of sprang from that. I know that what you’re about to hear is more extreme than what we lived as Jehovah’s Witnesses. But if you look back you know behind it all all the methods and manipulations are very familiar. There’s a lot of crossover that the extremity might be different but the tools and techniques used are often the same. For others this might just be a look in the lives that maybe they led as former members of theF.L. to ask themselves or you know maybe you’ve never been affiliated with any of this and it’s just opening your eyes and and shedding a light on something that that other people are going through and that you will be able to see in the future and have compassion for. So let’s go ahead and get into the interview. Let’s meet Brenda My name is Brendan Nicholson. I am 45 years old. I was an F LDS member. And now I am shamed. All right so then how was it that you came to be in the LDS my parents were actually members of the mainstream LDS church before I was born. And then my father met a man through his job in Southern California.

[00:03:45] He was working at the Boeing plant who was a member of theF.L. the S and through that he found out about the fundamentalist polygamist group there in southern Utah. And I can’t explain how they decided that but somehow he convinced my mother and they decided to convert to that and they moved us to from California to Utah. When I was a baby and so I wasn’t born into it but that’s I mean I didn’t remember anything before that that’s the only life I ever knew. Yeah. So yeah that is quite a quite a feat to I wonder how many people are converted into LDS. Is that something that that happens very often. So about the same year that my family converted another family converted out of Southern California. Also we had no connection with them. It was the Nicholson family and they had also been members of the LDS church. Only John Nicholson the father had somehow this is another story of an Monch Charlie sure how they worked that out. He had taken on a second wife that he met while they were still members of the LDS church so they got excommunicated and then he found out about the fundamentalists. And they also moved from California and joined the LDS and there were a couple other families that I knew of growing up that had converted around the same time. But as far as I know there were very few if any who converted beyond that time. So that was in the early 70s. They aren’t extremely welcoming of new people. You know they aren’t they don’t have a lot of trust for people.

[00:05:52] And the reality is when you if you lay out to people what they’re going to be required to give up there’s not a whole lot of people that are interested. There aren’t a lot of men that are looking for a second or third wife but they’re not really anxious to give up everything to get out. You know there’s other groups to join in a ways to go about that. So there’s not a lot of people that work. Got you. All right so then what was your growing up in this. What was the world view that this LDS religion gave you. I mean I know a little bit about it you know from some research I’ve done online you know Wikipedia and things like that but you know how did it make you see the world. Well basically we were taught that you know the few thousand members of the. At that point when I was growing up we just called it the work or the priesthood work. It didn’t become theF.L. and that stands for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But we didn’t call it that until I was a little bit older. I think like in the 80s. But basically we were taught that the people who were members of our religion were the most favored of all God’s children. We had been brought there and preserved the entire foundation of the United States was put in place by God to provide a place where we could live our religion in freedom.

[00:07:32] You know a lot of people benefited from that but we were the focus of every historical event led was either inconsequential or on purpose to provide the way for us to live polygamy and follow God’s laws anyone who was not a member of our little group were either gentiles which was people who were never part of the group or didn’t ever believe or apostates and apostates or people who used to believe and leave and they were the absolute worst people in existence. They were considered traitors to God. And the worst people you could spend time around but even the Gentile world we were told they were out to get us. They were all under the control of the devil and the devil would use them in any way he could to stop the work of God to come after us the laws that were put in place were through the inspiration of the devil even laws like underage marriage child labor. That was the devil trying to keep us from being able to teach our kids to work you know and put them in the factories and whatever. So I had a very basically a lot of fear. Everything was there. Everyone was out to get us. The government wanted to come in and tear apart our families and throw our fathers in jail. And we were just had to hold on until the great distractions can wipe half awake. Wow. It’s so it’s so fascinating you know. You know I’m an ex Jehovah’s Witness and a lot of my audience were former members of that faith and so much of this rings true because you know we went through a lot of the same things that you know you had this evil world out there that you were to be in fear of you know fear ruled everything.

[00:09:31] And you know the same definitions you know I am an apostate according to Jehovah’s Witnesses the exact same things. You know we were to be in submission to the rules and laws and dictates of the world governments. But as long as it didn’t go against what they said was God’s law which was cause was Jehovah’s Witnesses law. Yes. Of course their own brand of it. So it’s it’s really fascinating to hear the similarities and just the way that these different so-called spin control and manipulate people through the exact same tactics. So you know there may be differences within the courts. Yeah but when I was in high school Warren Jeffs I remember Warren Jeffs tale telling us how there’s all these different false religions out there. And every one of them thinks they have the truth but how lucky and fortunate and blessed we were to really be the only ones with the truth. And I remember that little doubt popping up in my mind thinking that they all are saying the same thing. So how do I know. But you know everything you know all of the people you know are in this group so you might as well stick with it because what other choice do you have right. Now for you you were even coming into the room. Obviously you were a baby. But how did that impact you you know growing up you know it’s not you’re new into this group. So how do they view you or did you have a hard time kind of getting fitting in. Well when I was younger I mean my mother homeschooled us. We were extremely poor. You know for years my mother didn’t even have a driver’s license.

[00:11:38] And so being outsiders we grew up in Salt Lake. We just lived in a house in a normal neighborhood among the Gentiles. But we weren’t supposed to associate with the Gentiles so we didn’t fit into the world that we lived in. But I also came to understand that we didn’t really fit in to the world of the religion because when I started school at 12 I went to seventh grade. I found out that most of the people the people they already had their groups they had their their little and what it was is these girls that were my age. The people they played with were their own sisters you know they had sisters their same age from other mothers or they were friends with their aunts or their nieces because you have these huge families and you’re all having babies at the same time. And so they all had their family groups they had their friends they had the people they did with that their parents trusted. And there really was no place for an outsider to fit into that world. So that was hard. Also I did make some friends there were a few other families that were smaller families couples that only also had one mother our house only had one mother. They had fewer children and weren’t as integrated in these huge elite names that I did make friends with. But it was quite eye opening to me when I started school. I got put into a grade of a classroom was 24 students.

[00:13:20] There are 12 girls and boys and I was so excited I was going to have 11 best friends because we were all saints and we all grown up the same way and you know the whole religion teaches love and acceptance and we’re all equals. And it didn’t take me very long to realize that basically there is a wide gap between the principles of the gospel that we’re taught and what people were actually living and that was a real wakeup call for me. I had spent my life up to that point just hearing the stories going to church and listening to what was said and believing that this was really how it was because I had nothing to compare it with. So it was a lonely childhood I guess. I mean we had a large family ourselves. But it was. It was hard. I know my mother was always under a lot of stress and I honestly grew up not believing that my parents loved me. I mean I knew they they cared about me but I didn’t feel like they truly loved me and I and I spent a lot of time looking forward to the day when I’d get married because then somebody would love me because God would tell them they had to love me and that is interesting. You know first of all you see that in these cults it seems like there’s always cults within the cults really you know almost all of them are very klick ish and they they all I mean it’s human nature anyway to kind of segment off into groups is just what humans do as part of communities but you just see how it really gets down to the micro level in these cults when you know families become their own calls and Jehovah’s Witnesses had the same thing.

[00:15:19] We didn’t we didn’t have it nearly like what you’re talking about. I mean you’re happier you have an extreme version of that but it yes big families tended to dominate inside the organization. And it was very hard you know as an outsider to to make friends ever feel like you really fit in. And then you have even things like you know inside your own family like you said you felt this lack of love yeah. Well in another part of human nature is that I think we all tend to gravitate towards certain people. And so the more children you have. I mean my father had some definite favorites and it wasn’t me you know. Yeah. And so even you have that. And then you go out to the bigger world where you’re not a favorite and you don’t settle. And when you’re your life and your very salvation depends on being accepted and included. It’s really devastating to feel like you. You don’t know how to change enough or what you need to do to finally break into that inner circle. And it’s so hard because you have these inner circles and really everyone like you is that even with your parents. This disconnect you felt with the ultimately their love their highest love is for the church it’s for them. It’s not. It can’t be for you because you have already given that to something else. Jehovah’s Witnesses. And I’m probably going to butcher this but they had a principle of a gap a love. It was a word you’d think it was in the Greek scriptures and it was to be this it was a love based on principle.

[00:17:22] And when you think about a love based on principle it’s kind of like this. It’s kind of an unfeeling love it’s kind of utilitarian it’s like well you know I gave birth to you therefore I must love you right. It’s very scripted. There’s no real emotion wrong or humanity to it. This is the rule you must love me right now that’s not true love. Right it’s a very dead love. It’s and it’s very unfortunate so no I don’t have to ask your parents do you. Do you have any ideas. Like what. What do you think. If you had to speculate and if you don’t have an answer that’s fine too. But what do you think may have been behind them seeking this out. In other words like a lot of people will seek out very controlling religions because they feel out of control in their life and they’re looking for some sort of a structure that they think maybe will fix their problems. Was there was there something going on. Was there trauma maybe in your parent’s past or something that you think kind of attracted them to as far as I know. I don’t know of anything along those lines. My father was raised very much in the LDS church. Most of that side of the family still are to some degree or another still LDS. My mother was actually raised tend to think I think they were Lutheran but they never really I mean like in name only. She doesn’t remember when I told her she didn’t remember going to church or whatever. She married my father.

[00:19:09] Two weeks after she turned 18 she told me that her parents were not in favor of her marrying my father and so they just waited till after she was 18 and they couldn’t stop her and she also confided in me at one point when I was in high school a really long story but it came down to that she told me that her father had molested her when she was a child that she had at some point told her mother and her mother denied it and basically she was in trouble for having even made such accusations. Looking back on it now I think that that has shaped and coloured her life to a great degree. I mean I’ve learned a lot about the effects that being subjected to sexual abuse have on a child’s mind and on your entire life. Beyond that I when I was younger I thought well my parents were so amazingly faithful. I don’t know if I could have done that. You know having the freedom of of being a gentile and choosing to subject myself to this kind of life especially for my mother. But as time went on and then like it was after I got married my father was finally given his first plural wife. And she is like a year older than me and I remember how weird that was that my father was married to and sleeping with a girl because of caution on my eye and in my eyes she’s just this other girl that I went to school with his younger daughter. I’m the second oldest. My sisters four years older than me. And it was just so weird.

[00:20:57] And that was the closest I had been to seeing polygamy in real life I’d never been close to anyone when they got a new wife. I knew families that had two or three mothers but it’s been that way forever. And after watching him and the way he conducted himself the way he treated his younger wives and what he did to my mother. I have a hard time not thinking that he was all in it for the idea of I can sleep with a bunch of women and say God. And you know growing up in the LDS faith they already had the concept that polygamy was part of their religion and would be lived in the next life so why would it be wrong to go ahead and jump start that now. Yeah and don’t they do the wise you didn’t it’s how old was the first wife or second wife that he had gone well then when he married her. I’m trying to think she must have been in her early 20s in the AFL. There were like these waves they would go where they girls were getting married earlier and earlier and earlier when I was I don’t know maybe 11 or 12. I remember there was a girl that I became aware of that she had gotten married when she was 13 and I remember thinking oh that would be so nice. I’d only have a few more years and I’d be out of my father’s house.

[00:22:27] And then you’d have all these this rash of marriages and they seemed like they’ve got younger and younger girls and then something would happen and the leaders would decide well we’re not doing that and then they’d wait in the next group of girls didn’t start getting married until they were 19 20 21. You know they had been looked at as extreme old maid at one point and then it would go through the cycle again. So after I was married so my younger sisters didn’t get married until they were 20 21 and then it started working its way back down. You know by the time I left I heard about these young girls were getting married at 12 or 18 and it wasn’t something that had never happened before. So it wasn’t like a huge shock to me. At the same time by then I had a daughter who was that age and it terrified me to think of her being taken and given to some old man in a marriage and to be completely honest I kept thinking Yeah I know that they’re marrying these little children. That’s really what they were. But I’m sure that they’re not consummating the marriage. They’re just trying to get these girls into these faithful good girls into a good man’s home. So when everything comes apart and the government comes in to destroy us they’ll be protected I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well you know because it’s it’s hard to. It really is hard to wrap your mind around. Just in doing research you know a little bit before I got on the call I was on your blog maybe which I’ll link to in the show notes but I think there was in one of your recent shows some images of a think she was 12 or 13 year old. Yeah. Yes. She had just turned 12. Yeah.

[00:24:34] And that’s just it’s just. Well it’s a child. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so disturbing. Just. And when you’re when you’re in that and you feel like here and you know that your entire salvation and the salvation of our children and everything in your life depends on you being faithful. You just can’t let your mind go to imagining these men that stand up before you in church and that you trust would do that to a child. You look at your own child and think oh no these are good men. They would never do that. They just put it in them from that. You can’t even comprehend that you just don’t let yourself think. No no no no. You know I think anyone in a court has a lot of cognitive dissonance and you know something like that you would it would be very hard to wrap your brain around your emotions around the fact that that was going on. Because it’s so natural Yeah. It’s a survival tactic really. Yeah can’t allow yourself to think that because it’s so contrary to you know it throws up all kinds of red flags. You and you get to think about it. So you just try not to think about it.

[00:25:46] What I read in maybe maybe this is an all of the because from what I guess from what I read the LDS Church has communities in lots of different cities not just in one particular area but that they were so so obviously because there are you know there’s a 50/50 chance of having a boy or a girl there’s going to be a point at which there’s not enough girls to go around for all of the men that would be in the organization. So they they go the boys at some points in the competition they do of course they never they never put it that way of course. You know we love these boys we would never send my way. But they choose to not follow the rules and we can’t let them be her to corrupt our innocent children whatever you like throwing a football or watching television or something like that. Clearly things just don’t kick them out. Absolutely yeah. You know it’s the boys that just get accused of that. The Lord revealed to the prophet that you had an immoral thought about a girl. Boom. Out you go. Oh wow. And you know there’s no way for you to to argue against that. Because what you’ve been taught your whole life is that’s God telling his prophet that you did that. So instead you internalize it and try to rack your brain. When did I do that. Was it this. And you start becoming your own worst critic and you just yourself implode. You can’t think you can’t function. It’s true. You know I’ve done some research and the whole world over within one percentage point. Birth rates are about 50 50 50. Right. So Mormon fundamentalism. You know Joseph Smith taught a man had to have a quorum of at least three wives to be an apostle I believe there are some different positions in the priesthood hierarchy that you have to have at least be a polygamist or have three wives or more.

[00:27:58] And to get to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom in the next life you have to have at least three wives and you think OK well that’s their beliefs but you have to then step back a minute and think okay that means that two thirds of the males born into these closed societies will not have a girl available for them to even have one wife. They’re all being taken right. And then you know I know one man who has 27 wives. I know my father had three. Warren Jeffs ended up with something like 80. And somewhere I wrote about that too where I listed how many of the wives when he married them they were under 18 you know and by age you’d have Hower. I think there are 20 23 of them under age marrying girls off they’re not old enough to vote. They can’t even have any say in their life in the politics that surround them. Not that we were allowed to do that anyway. How many of them they thought he married before they were old enough to drive you have to kind of put it in perspective in your mind. These girls were so trapped not just mentally and spiritually by the religion they were brought up in but by the laws because society as a whole does not see people as at that age as responsible enough to take on adult responsibilities or they are being married off to men three or four times their age. And they don’t have any rights when it comes down. Yeah that’s horrible. And then even when so I know Warren Jeffs is in prison. Yes.

[00:29:45] I don’t know was for 30 something years or something like that. And I don’t know how old he is. So he’s getting close to 60 I believe and they arrested him in August of 2006. So. And the other thing to mention here is that at least by the time I had left and I think it’s still the same no more marriages have been performed. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to do that. Oh it’s been 11 years. You’ve got members out there. These girls that are in their 30s with no no hope of ever being able to you know for them. They believe that being married and having children is their only value of ever having that happen. You’re not allowed to flirt with anybody you’re not allowed to have feelings. And these are grown women and men who are trapped in this environment and so on the one hand I’ve thought well that’s good. No more underage girls are getting married off. But they’ve torn people apart so much in the way the whole thing is organized or however you want to put it I have a very hard time believing that there isn’t huge amounts of abuse going on. You don’t have to have a spiritual marriage or anything to abuse people who you know or some pretty horrific rumors I can’t I can’t prove it’s true. But it fits.

[00:31:26] I mean with everything that I saw the stories I’ve heard the things I know that were going on that men were doing with you know you’ve got these men that have a handful of wives and they’re still molesting their daughters when they’re told they can’t have sex with their wives anymore they’re not going to because they know that that wife is also going to report. She understands that if they try the wife will tell on them now but you are going to create this hyper sexualized culture than for the men yes. And’s the men no longer are having sex with their wives because they’re their wives belong to Warren Jeffs now or he said Now sex so if you if you don’t qualify if you don’t follow the rules well enough then you get kicked out. I mean there’s been so many men that were sent away to repent and maybe you go and some by some miracle you figure stuff out enough that they allow you to come back but as soon as you get sent away then you’ve lost priesthood. And if you don’t have priesthood you have no right to hold onto your wives or children or your baptism or anything else that the church. You know that’s an ordinance right. So you know it back years ago they were really reorganizing families you know they’d kick a man out and then divide his wives and children up and marry them to other men. Now they don’t shortages. So they have caretakers and you’ll have some men. Sometimes it’s some young boy because you know at 12 you can get the priesthood and you now have more authority than any female so you’ll have your twelve year old boy put in charge of this household of women and children and women. So we left in March of 2012. And my husband and I had been found unworthy. So that meant that he no longer had the priesthood.

[00:33:37] Our marriage was no longer valid or baptisms we we weren’t members of the church and we were told by Lyle Jeffs in our meeting that now that we were no longer for anyone unworthy more than a handshake with your husband or wife or anyone would be adultery that would classify as adultery. And before long they qualified it even further and he said the handshake had last no more than three seconds. So you’ve got these men who have grown accustomed to having a group of women at their beck and call who are all desperate for some love and attention. They do you know each one of them is totally honed in on him and what he wants and what they can do when favor all of a sudden that’s all stripped away. And he’s not supposed to be doing anything right. So everyone’s desperate to gain their salvation. He knows he can’t go to his wives even if they’re all still living in the same house. They’re no longer allowed to do anything. If he does something with that wife he’s a huge risk even suggesting of her reporting in her letters that she has to send in that he was trying to be immoral because she’s got to confess or she could be sent out. He’s now in trouble. He understands that his wives know what is and isn’t OK. So instead they turned to these children who have been raised with no education. They don’t know how their own bodies work. They don’t know that they have any rights and they can easily because they’ve been taught to revere men and priesthood tell them the Lord told me this is what we’re supposed to.

[00:35:27] This is a preparation for the day when you’re when we’re allowed to have marriages again. All that kind of stuff I’ve actually heard stories of men doing these things meant yes. And these children don’t have a clue. They don’t feel like it’s right. But it got to a point where nothing happened in our lives felt right. Anymore you couldn’t use that as a determination. Do you know if you don’t yeah they take away or you trust in your own your own thoughts and feelings. That was something that we were taught to not trust our own hearts because the hardest treacherous who can know it. And so you know when you when you can strip a person from their own their own internal conscience essentially you can insert your influence to become their conscience. So it sounds like that’s what’s happened here. Absolutely yeah. Oh there’s a lot of stories I could tell but even if I didn’t give names if the people involved heard they’d know I was talking about and that they would not go well for me. It’s it’s sickening. It really is. And it was hard enough when I was part of it. But after I stepped away. So when I left I actually honestly believed that Warren Jeffs was still the most paramount on earth because they told they drilled into us everyday that he had perfected himself sitting there in prison and that we the people were the ones at fault for him still being held there because we were supposed to you know once we became worthy of God’s blessings.

[00:37:15] He would deliver a Warren from prison and we’d been told that each one of us held a key and we all had to be able to be worthy to unlock the prison that would let him free. And it was really hard for me because once I realized that there were no marriages with him in prison I had the realization that as long as he has in prison I didn’t have to fear that my husband was going to walk through the door with some young girl as a plural wife. And it’s really really hard to truly exert all the fervency of your soul when you feel like you’re praying against your own best interest. If he was there I was safe did I really want him out yet right. I wanted one more day of knowing that I was the only person in my husband’s life that I didn’t have to watch him revolve in love with some other woman or girl wrote and about it. But it does something to your psyche to feel like I I’m so weak that I’m not willing to live my own religion that I claim I believe in and my unwillingness to suffer a little bit or sacrifice is keeping our prophet trapped in prison. And it’s horrible the guilt that you feel. Isn’t that amazing how these people or groups these people who have victimized so many people somehow flip it all around so where they are the poor abused victim. It’s absolutely it’s mindblowing. So how. Let’s look at how how this kind of like develops so like you’re a kid and you’re in this organization this cult.

[00:39:12] How is it that they are drilling this into your head you know like what was your life like at home at school when you did eventually go to school or in the church like how did it how did all of that kind of coalesce to to strip you of all of that how did it indoctrinate you. What was that indoctrination process. Well you first of all any time you get involved in a culture or even some of the way a lot of the religions work they work hard to make sure that your religious dogma surrounds you in every area of your life. So like I say we didn’t do much with other people. When I was growing up you know until I was twelve or so. So we had our own. We were supposed to have our own Sunday schools. My father would read Bible stories or Book of Mormon stories and they drill into you know this is what happens to the wicked and this is how God feels about those who don’t follow his rules. And we you know they use fear. Absolutely. You know that we’d been told that the end of the world as we knew it was going to come on or before the year 2000. So you have that at home. And then you go to church and you hear that a whole lot more. And then I started school. They make they have their own private schools. They leave. Fill them with their teachers and our curriculum was 100 percent had to be approved and run through Warren Jeffs and his father Rulon Jeffs who was the prophet at that time.

[00:41:00] You know I had our books had pictures cut out of them or they buy one book and alter the pictures and black things out and then run off copies so that you didn’t see pictures of kids in short sleeves or girls doing things girls weren’t supposed to do. You know girls don’t have jobs they didn’t have careers. You were supposed to be a mother. The only and greatest aspiration a girl had was to become a worthy mother in Zion. That was it. And in school they had a shoot. I can’t remember I think it was like half hour 45 minute class our morning devotional that started we opened the school day with Warren Jeffs was the principal and he taught most high school classes. And so you’d have that well back up a little bit. We had been told they printed sermons of Leroy Johnson. He was the prophet before Rulon Jeffs whose prophet when I was a child and we had been told that every man should own a set of those and that they should have classes every morning and every night and read a sermon to their families and you’d just keep going through the books so you’d start your day. You’re supposed to have your personal prayers then you’d go have family prayer and listen to a sermon you had prayers at your meals you’d go to school. It opened with prayer. You sat through 45 minutes or however long of Warren Jeffs reading sermons. We were assigned to read two chapters of the book of mormon every night write out a lesson and then we discuss it and more in class the next day. You know you had prayer for lunch you had prayer for to end the school day. You had prayer when you got home.

[00:42:49] And everywhere you turned there were men in suits generally telling you the same story. Turning your heart to the prophet your wicked if you look at the boys or the boys look at the girls you’re supposed to treat each other like snakes dangerous snakes because they had arranged marriages they couldn’t have you liking a boy your own age. Some old men might want you and that would mess the whole system up. No Robert he isn’t who he really was. I remember yeah and I remember as I got older seeing things on the news or whatever where people were saying that the winner and the FLC asked for just chat and I was so offended. How dare they. How dare they say that. I had my choice and I chose to obey. And now I look at it and like you know that’s how blind Schley making them. They make you convinced to fight against your own survival and that you’re happy about it. You know it’s it’s amazing the similarities between all the. Is it so amazing that they that they can strip you’re your basic desires and humanity away from you like that. And then at the same time make you feel like you have your basic desires and matter. Exactly. It’s amazing because we did this thing being I mean I used to get offended when people would say people use it’s all Jehovah’s Witnesses. They would tell me that you’re brainwashed and brainwashed. I can I can leave the day if I can do anything I want. And it’s you know exactly. It’s so crazy.

[00:44:30] And look I go wow I so brainwashing you an old rain. I was a broken watch. And it’s it really is incredible the amount of power they have. It is the further it the more generations I’ve been doing some study about generational trauma and basically well it’s hard because for me I grew up in the Gentile world to some degree. There was our little family there the 13 houses on the street. I grew up in was my world. And we were surrounded by gentiles and we had things almost everyday to reassure us that the things we were being taught was true. We had some families on our street that refused to let their children talk to us because we were those gross polygamists. There was World was wicked. They were shunning us when we were really the righteous ones. So growing up. So then you didn’t. I guess I always thought that the Avoda as essentially had many campaigns that would you want to call it and that everyone lived kind of within those walls then that’s not true. No. When I was growing up we had of course the short creek we always call it short Creek. It’s the twin towns down on the border of southern Utah and northern Arizona. It’s actually the Tulsidas Hilldale Arizona side as Colorado City and it was a community. The church owned all the property. Every place every home built there every building everything was consecrated was church property which meant the church had the right to kick you out if they felt like you weren’t following the rules even if you built your own house.

[00:46:19] You turned it over to the church and they could take it. Everybody was okay with that because for years and years that was understood we all agreed with it but it never happened. You just grow up in your house and it was kind of like a formality. Yeah that’s Thurbert nothing’s ever gonna happen with it. So because the church owned all the property they also controlled who lived there so it was only people who were members of the church there weren’t walls around it. Not physical walls but those psychological walls are far more powerful. Oh yeah yeah. You said there were gentiles on your screen gentiles were outsiders right. Yes but I grew up in the Salt Lake Valley I didn’t grow up in community so there is the short Creek group. There was the salt lake group which there are fewer of us but we’re just scattered throughout the valley. Rulon Jeffs had a big piece of property there at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. We used his home for the school. That’s where we had our meetings. It had a big wall around it and of course we always looked at it as being somewhat symbolic of the protection that that the church and God gave us that kept the bad people out we were safe there. And then there’s also a community in just over the border up north in Canada and they had more of their own community as well. But for those of us who grew up in Salt Lake we did grow up you know surrounded by the outside world.

[00:47:58] We went to the store with all the gentiles we know but in a way that actually was worse because you were in contact with it. It made it where you. You didn’t trust the people because you were taught to never trust them while they were your next door neighbors. I absolutely agree. Jehovah’s Witnesses are allowed to be in. You know we had normal quote normal lives. You know we went to public schools at times or we you know works in the world or whatever and you know we even went to you know football games or basketball games or to the park or whatever you know around other people. Yeah. But you were taught to see things in such a way that it always reinforced your beliefs you would see some kid acting out and oh well there you go see those world kids are not being disciplined they’re not being taught right that. And so yeah it really it really does create that prison of your own your own mind and your own emotions. Yeah. Well when I was a teenager we moved to a different house in a new neighborhood in Salt Lake and I and my younger sister went through the experience of having the old man. I mean I say old he had a son my age he is probably as early forties I have no idea maybe of 30s that we had in my window at night in the summer and that man would go in his room sometimes in his bedroom and flip on the light and be in there totally naked. You knew we were there and it terrified me. He would I mean that was the first time I’d ever seen a naked man especially in that condition. But it was just another reinforcement.

[00:49:54] Oh my word there right. That’s the kind of evil men that live in the world and the devil knew that we were these good girls and so he inspired that man to expose himself to us. And it just it just makes you isolate yourself even further. And there’s been a lot of talk lately about how we need to decriminalize polygamy because it being illegal is why people are isolated. You know these people would love to report abuse but they don’t dare because if they report abuse their dad will go to prison for being a polygamist. But all I can say having grown up in it I have never yet spoken to another person or woman whatever who ever voiced to me that they lived in fear of being prosecuted for polygamy. Never. Not one because it just doesn’t happen anymore. At this point I have had my own feelings. I’ve seen other people where the fear was that we can’t let this be be known what’s going on in our communities because then the world would say that that’s what we are and we’ve got to protect the image of the church and our prophet above all nuns. Oh it is. And I can remember as a Donald when I was living in short Creek later and watching the things going on and and hearing that rhetoric and thinking well what do you mean the world will think that’s who we are. That is who we are. And you think to change it. We’re just seeing it right.

[00:51:35] And the reality is it’s like I was trying to explain to someone so what you’re telling me is that people know that abuse is happening. They won’t report it because they don’t want Uncle whoever or dad to go to prison because they’re polygamists. Otherwise they would report the abuse. Do they not understand that if they report the abuse the guy is going to prison or should go to prison for sexually abusing children. It’s not about that they fear prosecution or persecution for polygamy. Polygamy is unsustainable especially in today’s world it is impossible for one man to support the other one man. I know men like my father even. And that’s a pretty small number. He had three wives. Right. Twenty three children. One man can’t make it can’t work a job that provides that many people with the necessities of life. And that’s you know and that’s looking at the financial end of it that while he’s trying to provide the financial end of life for that many people he’s not there to provide IMO Oceanus support. He’s not connected to those wives and children and a lot of men it’s like you know what when they go home. It’s this nonstop whining. This Wife wants that that wife wants that these kids are a problem and they just don’t know how to deal with it also. They’re happy to be off working. Yes. Yet you isolate yourself for several reasons. One they want to have their own private schools. They don’t want they will never have their children out and free in your world because that would put in their mind the idea that you know things like It’s OK to date it’s OK to wear pants for girls.

[00:53:34] It’s ok all of those things the world the ideas is what they’re protecting their children from. So even if polygamy was legal that’s not going to change. They’re not going to start sending their kids to public school. Warren Jeffs and men like him are not going to march there twelve year old up to the city hall and get a marriage license. None of that is going to change the welfare fraud is going to keep happening. Yes and the mist and the brains of each other aren’t in it. So isn’t it from what I read. So then the husband has one legal wife. Yes. Was in all of the I guess the sister wives then are essentially single mothers. And so then they apply for government assistance and get that and then I guess they all pull it together and yet support the household Exactly. So like you’ll have a man owns a business it’s a very profitable business. He makes a lot of money. That’s how he maintains his house and his fancy truck and all the cars in the House and whatever. He has one legal wife and sometimes they’ll even like send a bunch of young boys to work in one of their companies pull all their hours together and they’re not old enough to work there so they will cut a check in the name of the legal wife even though she never really sets foot in the building. But that way. That’s how they pay for it. It keeps the money out of the hands of these young boys. They’re told that they should do that to help support their father’s family and be good Priester people.

[00:55:14] And so the on his legal wife can show this income they rip. They file their taxes whatever. Then he has all these other wives and they’re groups of children who are being supported by him as far as they’re living in the house he pays for. He pays for their utilities. He makes sure they have a car. He provides their clothing and all of that but they don’t report any of that. They go and they as far as the government looks at it. They’re on equal footing with Mary who is truly a single mother who has to try to take care of her kids her house all those things but they show no income. They claim themselves as single mothers they they don’t report who the father is. Otherwise the father should be good being gone after for child support and that sort of thing. So then you have a house where the man’s bringing in the money you’ve got boys out very often working under age that brings in some more money and then the rest of the family is all on getting the maximum benefits they can as single mothers and children of single mothers who have no income. You mean they don’t have any other name that they don’t have a car. Yeah they all have a bunch of kids. Well I don’t even have a car. Look I have nothing in my name.

[00:56:40] And so they can get cash assistance sometimes and it’s it’s unfair it’s but they feel good about it because all these stupid laws you know that make it so kids can’t go to work we can’t put our kids in a coal mine when they’re 10. Those reps hired by the devil. So it’s OK if you as long as you don’t get caught if you can play the system because the Lord wants us to have the best of everything and the system is evil and ran by the devil anyways so taking them that you know how how can that be bad. Are you taking from the devil systems. Now. I’ve known men who you know they’ve got three wives and they’re not connected financially you know there as far as so you’ll have the man and his legal wife will rack up all the debt they can buy everything they want. File Bankruptcy. During that time the other wives have credit cards and they’re buying things so they still have credit and they’ll go on a cycle where between the three of them and they can each file bankruptcy every seven years. They’re just spending as much money as they can with no intent of paying it back and then filing bankruptcy. So you have a new set of you know you could file bankruptcy as a fan as whoever is bringing in all the credit every two or three years each one of you only doing it every seven. I mean I I remember talking to a man who showing people at the company this fancy new camera he bought. And people like how you can afford that. He’s like well the Lord wants us to have nice things. We’re following his laws and this is what I do. And he didn’t even feel guilty or any kind of shame in telling us all this is what I do. And people say oh wow that’s cool.

[00:58:40] And basically it’s just in so many areas. Every facet of it is unhealthy. Yeah that’s what I was going to say. I mean it seems honestly like I guess I would ask if you were to look back on that life was there are good times. Were there times where were there benefits to in any way were there. Well it was a habit that you look at it differently. Yeah when you’re in the middle of it you see everything from the lens of what you know. I remember as a child thinking Man I wish that we had a whole bunch of mothers because in my mind I’m picturing you know many copies of my mother who didn’t put together in my mind the fact that each of those mothers would then come with that eventually their own group of kids killed my mother was overwhelmed. You know she is trying to solve all of our clothes from scraps and pieces of fabric the outside gentile family members would send she is trying to figure out how to feed us all on next to nothing. She is trying to figure out what bills to pay to try to keep something from being cut off. I know several times we had our power cut off or our water cut off because we couldn’t afford the bill. She would be so tied up and so stressed out and I would think Man Too bad we don’t have more mothers because then I could just go to another mother to help me.

[01:00:18] And you have this idyllic picture in your mind of what polygamy is and you have all these mothers who love you and who will take care of you. So says one great big happy family and besides how awesome would it be to have like sisters that were your best friend that were your own age kids. I grew up lonely I didn’t have anybody my age I didn’t have friends. And so when I started to see the realities of what most if not all the polygamous homes were like. It was shocking to me. You’ve got always simmering under the surface at least under the surface sometimes it breaks into these big fights but that jealousy that competition between youths between mothers and you’ve got you know the man will pick a wife is his favorite. He treats her better the children of the other wives see that their mother is hurt and they hate the kids of that mother that is favored or the mother that gets it has a job and goes and buys her children all new shoes. But father says there’s no money for any of the other children to have shoes. And that causes rivalries and feelings between the wives. And when some other woman comes along and you felt like had a pretty good relationship with your husband and now he favors her and her kids get everything and your kids have been cast aside I’ve watched so many times as women take out their frustrations that they didn’t dare take out on their sister wife on that woman’s children. You treat them and you get popsicles and you only give to your kids. They’re her kids she got stuff before and it creates this hostile environment is very stressful.

[01:02:07] And you’re thinking about the notes in their bedrooms because they can’t deal with each other and the stress and each other’s children. So then you’ve got these hoards of children who really don’t you know they’ve got three four or five mothers but nobody who’s really engaged with them and helping them figure out and navigate life. You’ve got older siblings required to raise their younger siblings and there gets to be some resentment involved. They want to go do something fun instead they’re raising their sister. Why are there other mothers kids for her. You know a lot of people say oh I loved it. We grew up with this huge family. And so yeah there was that I didn’t grow up in a huge family. My mother ended up having ten children which is a pretty big family. You know we are all year. You know I didn’t have anybody my age. My older sister four years older. My next sister was three years younger. And you know there’s a lot of people will say it’s awesome. You know if I want to go on a trip with my husband if he wants to take me somewhere I don’t have to find a babysitter or worry about anything because I just leave my kids home with their other mothers. They don’t have to have their schedule interrupted. Everything is wonderful. But the reality that I witnessed was Yeah husband takes wife number two. He goes out yet the other wives all are jealous. They feel bad.

[01:03:42] They would love to go on a trip but they’re left on and a lot of times they take their frustration and their anger out on the children of that other wife that’s off having a party. And they’ll treat those children poorly or you know I don’t I won’t say that it can’t work and that there that is impossible. But from everything I’ve ever witnessed read all the people I’ve ever talked to I’ve never seen a case where it truly did work. I can’t see how it could. I assume that you know some situations are better than others and absolute. Maybe some people are just better equipped for better or more laid back or whatever. I don’t know. But the power dynamics there are just I mean there’s so many ways for that to go horribly wrong for everyone. And it’s all coming through this misogynistic patriarchal system that has already put women down about as far as they can go. Yeah. It’s just it’s I don’t know. Have you ever seen the. There’s a show called The Handmaids too. Yes I actually just finished watching that I had to watch it. And he said yes Família. I could imagine I had to move my wife was interested in watching it. She had a wisdom tooth surgery and she was like hey let’s you know this show has been clean let’s try to binge watch this while I’m down you know with my surgery. And I could I had to I could watch one episode and then I needed you know like I can binge this over the course of the Loban I’ve got to take a break because it is it is a heavy thing and I can’t and it hasn’t lived. You know it was you know of course it was so extreme.

[01:05:41] No I’m not saying that it was that extreme but so many of the elements of it. Yes. You know you’re left with you realize you haven’t breathed for a while you realize that you feel those anxiety coming back you feel those icy fear that grips your heart and you’re all of your insides turned into knots and it’s like I’ve been on the other side of that facial expression you know I’ve gone along through life. Well we women interacted with each other. All of us with our fake keep sweet smile pasted on our face that never quite makes it to your eyes. You know you got the smile on your lips but you look into each other’s eyes and there’s that pain and you have that understanding and acknowledgement that we’re all hurting that we’re smiling and this is our choice and they brought up and it was. Yeah I watched it it was really hard. And then there’s an episode I can’t remember ever. I actually just looked it up a few days ago and we watched the part but they were going to put these handmaids on display in front of the dignitaries from these other countries to show them they were happy. And they start calling off the Serena. Joy comes in and tells them to get rid of the damaged ones to send the damaged ones away. And I just because we were damaged you know they have physical damage. The rest of us it was psychological emotional damage. You didn’t smile enough. We can’t let people see you. You go back in the House. Kind of a thing. You know we’re going to put on display the women that can smile.

[01:07:26] No matter what. But then they started calling you know it was really striking to me when it first sunk in that like the main character is of a friend of Fred. She belongs to. You no longer have your own identity. You’re his property. But in the other scene they start calling out these names and they had of Warren of Lyle of John of Tim the woman in charge of these of these handmaid is Aunt Lydia and we were required to call women and we were Ben’s property and Aunt Lydia in the AFL this was a amazing woman who was the midwife who delivered all these babies. But it was just such a you know she wasn’t an evil person but it was like why did they have to call her Aunt Lydia and then you’ve got the you know the whole the connections of stuff it was just it was hard to get through. I cried a lot imagine you exude can’t imagine having lived something like that. And then you know what they say. The truth is stranger than fiction. You know I mean there’s so much at absolute you. This is heartbreaking. So did you even look at the similarities with the women you know the wives they had these strict rules and you were required to be there as part of this ordinance. You know that read the Bible verse amounts to try to impregnate the handmaid and she’s under all these strict requirements everybody is watching she has to follow the rules.

[01:09:09] And the men are sneaking around having a separate relationship not with the hand wives that handmaidens but they’re going to these parties where there’s drinking and drugs and I thought that’s so true on the outside there’s this this fake front of these righteous pure men and they try to make us all understand they’re the real victims. Have you ever tried dealing with the emotions of a bunch of women. I need a break you know to be able to have my prime rib dinner that my family can never have a bite of. And those type of things. It was it was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to any the cult culture and life and consequences being portrayed on film. So then you how did you do things progressed for you. You’ve been indoctrinated in this way and then you know you’re just a child but you know because you came in kind of differently. You’re lonely you don’t have this family with people of your own age. There’s you some separation there as you go through your teen years than you know. Are you anticipating you know like I know I know you talked about looking forward to getting married because then you would have have a love and it would just be for you it would be maybe the love that your parents didn’t give you. Yeah. When you when you’re you know going through your middle a mental age here mid teen years your middle teenage years and starting to approach you know that that I guess marriageable age at least at that time in the calls. You know what’s going through your head. How are you. How are you feeling as you get closer to that are you. Are you excited are you. You know how’s that feel.

[01:11:11] What is that like. Well I have to say I had extremely mixed feelings on it depending on the day or what my where my mind was. My older sister had gotten married and she married Rulon Jeffs son and that gave me a whole different window in to what it was actually be like to get married you know before it’s like this fairytale imagination of what I was going to do what my life be like. And then he was around and I didn’t I felt uncomfortable with how flirty and forward he acted toward me. And I had as at that point I had started noticing that married men were that way. Quite often you’d get the feeling that they were looking you over and sizing you up you know seeing where you might fit into their collection kind of that’s the feeling I would get. And it was uncomfortable. And yeah if a boy dared an unmarried boy dared look your way. There were severe consequences. You know you get sent away you could get corrected. It was like once you got married then your morals could all go out the window and it was OK. And so I would imagine that most girls had the same type of a thing and I know you didn’t very often dare voice it to anyone but you start building this mental blacklist of people you knew you weren’t allowed you. You hope to marry anyone or to set your heart on anyone. But I felt like it was OK.

[01:12:52] As I looked around I was making this mental list of who I hoped I would not be told to marry you know creepy uncle whoever that absolutely freak you out. You’re like how dare you be looking at me in that way. I know you’ve got two wives at home and if you married me I’d just be the next one in the collection while you’re out looking all the other girls right. And there are a lot of cases where sisters. Same person. And I did not want to marry my brother in law. He was like I didn’t want to. And so you have that the anticipation hoping you have on the one hand it could be good you could marry a nice guy. You might not be one of 30 wives so that you actually have an individual meaning to this man. And you know wrecking the family you know coming along as the new wife. And at the same time there was this whole list of things that you saw around you that go wrong. What if you married a guy that didn’t like you. What if you married a guy whose wives hated you and treated you bad. What if you got told to marry the father of a boy that you had a crush on in high school. How is that supposed to work. You know. So it became a lot more complex as I grew up and got older and you start to have a little bit better comprehension of what you’re actually facing and what your possibilities are. When I was younger I didn’t know anybody in the group I’d go to church look around and see all these very nice people and girls and their beautiful dresses.

[01:14:26] And it was just it almost felt like this you know you were part of this big community this big family. And that is the one thing that I miss is that you did feel like there’s always somebody that had your back or the church was always there. Anything really bad happened you have some backup or at least you believed you did. Then I watched things happen where that those things did happen and the church was like huh. You must have sinned go your way and figure it out. But it just the whole thing shifted in my mind. I started to see the world from a different lens. And I no longer believed that getting married was going to be the answer to all my problems. That is automatically God telling some man he had to love me and that he would right. There was a really scary scenarios out there that you didn’t know if you could be part of. And a lot of men you’d never seen in your life and never met you could be told you’re getting married to some guy and Shark Creek or Canada and they track you off. You meet the guy get married and all a sudden you’re sleeping with him and trying to fit into his family. No you you’re absolutely terrifying. I mean I can’t imagine this mostly at that age you know being you’re being pushed in that way. You know your life is clearly not your own. It belong to the church it belongs to the men and women whom you can be dropped off to some other man so you know that’s just there’s no stability.

[01:16:00] You don’t you know you want to believe there’s all these rules set out. And I for me I reached a point where it was just it was all too much when I was a teenager. At one point I got quite depressed. I actually attempted suicide. And when you get to that point in your life there’s no words to describe how disappointed you feel in yourself when you wake up the next morning you realize you can’t kill yourself right. You didn’t even succeed at that. But it did give me a new I thought OK. OK. I prayed so hard all my life. Apparently Heavenly Father protected me and didn’t allow my efforts to be successful so this must mean that he’s giving me another chance. I have to make this work. There’s no easy out for me. And so I double down and I thought Okay the one thing that’s awesome about the gospel is that there’s all these promises and they’re set in stone and we’re told that God does not lie. And he says if this then that. So all I have to do is make sure I the best of my ability to do all that if I’m going to be obedient. I’m going to submit myself to the priesthood I’m going to raise my kids right. I’m going to sacrifice everything. Anything that comes along I’m going to show God I’m going to make up for the mistakes the past I’m going to do this and that’s how I lived. You know you have to try to push the thoughts the doubts out of your mind. No you just I believe in God. Yes people you know.

[01:17:45] And that’s another thing I hear a lot from people who are in different religions. Well God is perfect on the church’s right. People have their weaknesses. So you can’t judge God based on what Brother so-and-so does. Yeah he gets up in front of the church and says he’s telling you what God wants but if he’s molesting his girls in the background that’s not God’s fault. It doesn’t change what he told you was true. I was really a mess. Yeah. Oh is it really messes with your mind. And there’s you can’t trust yourself. You just have to almost mechanically keep plugging along. What are the rules. What have I been told. Yes. I think about that. I just have to keep plowing straight ahead and ignore all the red flags that are jumping up. Those are the devil trying to internist out that doubling down thing is something that a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses do at different times usually when they’re there dissonance kicks in and they’re starting to see that this isn’t what it was portrayed as. And it’s like we try we always tried to force ourselves to believe whatever it was. And yet you know if only I double down then then that will make everything OK. It’s essentially just escapism it’s escaping into into the activities of the church to try to distract your own mind from the realities. But you know with you you know you double down you know how does that progress then as as you know you eventually aid a little bit to the point where you do meet you know your eventual husband.

[01:19:24] Well when I was I’d say around I think I was better than I was about 12. My father was working at a company that where a lot of other men in the church worked. And so through that he met other people and the guys would have these evenings where they’d go to a park and the guys all get together and play baseball. And he couldn’t we never left the house. But if he went sometimes he would bring us and then your mother could sit and watch the guys play baseball some of the other men Brolsma their families and that gave us an opportunity to get out and see other people. And then we started going to some different gathering’s. There’s a man in the church who likes to put together things he would rent a roller skating rink. And we can all go. And it was just our people and we’d play music that was appropriate you know and course there are always adults and parents there to watch make sure boys and girls weren’t intermingling too closely or anything like that. But these gatherings we all went to a park. You know everybody brought their own picnic lunch or whatever on a weekend. And there is this huge gathering of people in the Salt Lake area and my parents got introduced to the Nicholson family. And it was they both of them mothers and a couple of their older girls taught at Alta Academy and so through getting to know their family they convinced my parents that they really should put us into school. And I think part of their motivation was that they saw that my mother was just totally overwhelmed.

[01:21:09] You know every time she is pregnant she got severe morning sickness the whole time as she is trying to do everything and be everything. And so not only did she would it be great for her to have that one burden removed but give us. I’m sure that they saw all of us extremely backward awkward children. Oh those poor things we need to socialize them somehow. So then we started going to school when I was in seventh grade and we became really good friends with the Nicholsons and so you know by the time from the time I was like twelve and their son David was 14 we interacted a lot our families together. And huge long story but then we both ended up working at the same machine shop together and we liked each other and we had to be really careful if you like someone you have to be sure that you’re willing to do whatever the Lord requires you to do. And my father became aware that we liked each other and it was a huge deal to him and in the end I went and talked to Uncle Rulon and poured my heart out to him about how I felt and why and that I really truly did want to do whatever God required of me and the hard time I’ve had growing up isolated and going to school and never having any friends and that life had been tough. And I wasn’t wanting to do anything wrong but I felt like I just no matter how hard I tried. I was always on the wrong end of things my dad was always upset with me and he was accusing me of every evil you could imagine.

[01:23:03] At one point I remember him telling me that he knew that I was no longer clean and pure he’d do that I was no longer a virgin. He didn’t know how many men I’d been with or how far I’d gone or who I’d been with. But he was just extremely disappointed in me and wanted me totally. I had to confess so that he could help me. I had never even held hands with a boy and it didn’t matter how many times I told him I haven’t done anything he would hang his head and shake his head at me and say things like I don’t understand. On top of all that you’ve done why you would lie about it. And that’s what actually brought me to the point of being suicidal because I felt like I had I couldn’t defend myself. It be one thing if I’d done something wrong. Yeah yeah. You can’t win and I felt like I couldn’t win. And you know I’d spent by that point five years in school having it drilled into my head that our fathers confidence in us was life that the prophet trusted our good fathers and us. And your father needed to have confidence in you. And when he went before the prophet said I have confidence in this son or daughter than the prophet would automatically have confidence in you and you know your life would be on the right track. And I couldn’t get my father to believe me. He was my priesthood head and he thought I was a whore and no matter how many times I told him I hadn’t done anything he wouldn’t believe it.

[01:24:42] And so it it ended up when I went to talk to Uncle rule and I finally I finally it took a long time to convince him to take me and he told me. When I asked him he said no he wouldn’t take me because Uncle Rulon didn’t want people like me in his home and that cut me so deep because I thought you don’t even know what kind of a person I am. I’ve I haven’t done anything wrong I’ve lived my whole life trying to do the right things and be a good priesthood girl. So then when we got there at the appointment he parks the car and said Now before we go in I want you to understand that when we get in there you need. And they mother Marilyn calls you back from my appointment. You need to stay in the living room where they would have you wait until I ask Uncle real and he says I didn’t dare tell him that I was bringing you and I need to ask him if it’s OK that you’re here and all I could think was Are you kidding me. If you truly believe that do you think it’s better that you brought me into his house and then ask forgiveness instead of asking him ahead of time. But it was so hurtful because I thought I’ve done nothing wrong. So at that point because I’d already been through it so many times with him he’d come down in my room and he’d make all these accusations and I’d plead my case and tell them I hadn’t done anything and he’d shake his head at me and that was all I could see in my mind.

[01:26:24] And so I thought this is not just my salvation or not just my life but my salvation on the line. I believed I was going to step in and speak to a man who communed with God and I needed to be able to be open and tell him everything I wanted. This whole burden off my chest. I wanted to know if I was wicked and what I needed to do to fix it or if I was okay. And I at that point couldn’t imagine how I could sit and pour my heart out with my father sitting there shaking his head at me lying got quiet. And so I mustered up all the bravery that I could find. And I said when we go in there I want to talk to him alone. And my father was so angry. He said that’s not right. And Uncle Roland’s not going to like it. And I was I felt like I was just at the end of my rope. I had nothing else to lose. Lesson will you at least just ask. So we went in and he got called back and he went back a few minutes later he walked out and said Uncle Ruland said to send you in. This isn’t right. And I remember thinking uncle ruling’s said How are you judging him and saying were right. You know who is the bad one. So overwhelmed. I felt like here I am 19 years old. I feel like my whole life was going in the toilet and I had to speak up.

[01:27:57] I couldn’t just let him accuse me of these things I had to to be able to have a chance to say my piece and I wanted to know from God if I was truly wicked and if I’d seen some way that I was unaware of. So I went in and I sat across the desk and poured out my heart told him all the sins I could ever think of that I’d ever committed. All the things I’d done wrong all about how David and I had been talking about how sometimes that night when I was overwhelmed I’d climb out my bedroom window and go for walks in my neighborhood. And David didn’t live too far away and one day he came driving by and saw me and we stood out on the street and talked in the middle of the night and how evil that was. I know and I apologized and I repented. And when it all came down to the end he told me that I hadn’t done anything wrong and that he understood how I felt and that in his position he had to ask girls when they came and said they were ready to be married which I had done like three months before this. He was he had asked us Do you have anyone in mind. He says I need I don’t need you to lie. It’s not about saying that the answer needs to always be No. He says sometimes girls are allowed by God to have some idea of where they’re going to go because maybe it makes it easier for them to accept where they’re headed. So I ask that yes. And then you need to tell me if you had anybody in mind or any of these kind of feelings or ideas.

[01:29:33] So then I can take it to God. And if you write wonderful we’re on the path we send you off where you need to go and if you’re wrong then you understand that it’s something you need to be able to get past. If you’re willing to accept Godswill and it was like the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders. God said I was OK. And in that moment it didn’t matter what my father thought or anybody else thought but the result of that was that that was on a Tuesday I believe I got married. David My were married a couple days later uncle Rulon said he took it to the Lord and he felt very good that that was where I belonged. And the problem with that was when I was ready to leave Ruland Jeffs office that day he said to me I don’t want you to tell your father what we talked about in here. He says I’ll take care of it. Don’t tell him this is none of his business which was like holy cow because he’s my priest head. But at the same time when I was like he wasn’t doing me any favors I just wanted to be taken care of. So I was like OK you know I was good with that. I didn’t really want to tell Father that I had told Uncle ruin everything or have him questioned me.

[01:31:06] But I don’t know if Uncle really never said anything I have no idea anything from that point on other than I found out just a few years ago that my father from that time on has told everyone that David and I had to get married because we had had sex and then asked to marry David and I was a virgin on my wedding night and I didn’t even know he was telling people that I was one of my younger sisters told me maybe a year or so ago. She’s like I just wonder what really happened with you and David because father always told us this and it was like someone stabbed me to the heart. Horrible. And I was like why. But that was another one of his favorite things that he would tell us anytime we were disobedient as little girls. He’d tell us that he needed us to be obedient otherwise how could he protect us when the mobs came and went. When the war started if we hadn’t been obedient he wouldn’t be allowed to. He wouldn’t have the power to protect us when men would drag us into the streets and rape us. That was his favorite thing to threaten us with. And as a child that’s what I grew up hearing all the time and then it came back to mind when I was older and had my own children I thought What on earth constant so even though it may have his mind go that way much less use it as a threat. Against us but so that’s how I ended up getting married. And it was not by any means the common experience of people in the Felty us.

[01:32:53] So you know not only that we actually liked each other before we got married but that you knew him you know and the fact that he got to be a first wife and on and on and on so life was actually good. You know when I first got married he did love me. And it was very comforting for me to know that it wasn’t just that the prophet told some poor guy to take me on as his wife. I knew that he would have chosen me by his own free will. And so I had so little self-confidence so little worth in my own eyes that that was it helped me immensely. To not feel you know I didn’t have to doubt that he wished he’d married somebody else or any of that kind of thing. Yeah that’s that’s got to be huge in the I mean for a person who has been devalued their whole life to finally feel like you have some value in the eyes of someone has to be huge. There’s not even a word. And it was it was a pivoting point in my life. But once again it was not. It also was not the fix all of my fears and problems because then once I was married and we and I came to understand the power of having an intimate relationship and how close you can become to someone how much it matters to you that they love you and that you mean something to them. I never even comprehended what it would be like to be married at least not at that level. And to think of him bringing other women or girls into his life and in his bed and knowing that he was having that relationship with anyone else it was just torture. And I just said I just can’t think about.

[01:34:50] I have to not look at it because this is my religion. This is what I signed up for. How can I say I believe it and then fight against it in my heart. And so it’s a good thing that generally men aren’t given a second wife too soon because I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself to be ready to truly be able to accept that. So in a life carried on we were plagues we had started having children. You were a mother. You thought you were. That’s what plagues shirt for polygamists but yell at us. Okay. You go into buying your legs anyway. Basically we’re living pretty normal lives as fundamentalist Mormons in in Gentile Salt Lake we had started having babies and you know they became my life. Men are so tied down you know they start having projects on Saturdays and he started getting involved in doing the sound room for meetings and my children were the one constant. And I also felt like it was a safe place for me to retreat to if I lived for my children and focus my life on them. No one that was my my job in life you know that was the measuring stick by which God would look if I was a good person and worthy to be protected when the distractions came if I was raising up a royal priesthood you know and righteous children. But also I felt like I had to start building some kind of a wall around my heart with the anticipation that time is going on it’s going to happen someday that David’s going to come home with another wife. And it was too painful too to think about.

[01:36:56] And so I started very much kind of isolating myself from it. I tried really hard not to enjoy our relationship too much because that would make her hurt too much. You know there’s kind of two two trains of thought that could apply to that and I had done one for a while. It was like I’m going to get the most out of my life with him as I can before it’s all ripped right and then I start to realize that that was going to hurt too bad. So I had to cut back I had to start guarding my heart. I had to make it where it didn’t matter to me so much whether or not he was around. And I had to have meaning in my life beyond our relationship. And by that point I mean all my children were getting older I was busted you homeschool selling all their clothes canning all the stuff that good women did. So that kind of made it an easy way to shift that direction. Just gonna stay busy and think about it. Exactly. You don’t think. And whatever happens it’s coming your way. You’re grateful for it but you don’t put any hope on seeing it again in the future. So so then you you basically drove into motherhood. So then how many kids did you in the end I ended up with six live births. I had my first three were each 20 months apart. And then I and I had some miscarriages in between.

[01:38:37] I had a really serious miscarriage that I lost 18 weeks and ended up going in and getting a D and C and at that time I was convinced that the doctors messed something up because I went. It took almost six years between my third child and my fourth child. I just didn’t get pregnant. Nothing was working. And that was really hard because that’s your that’s your worth. That’s your purpose. And I you and I had one of my sisters asked me one day what I thought I had done that the Lord wasn’t allowing me to have babies anymore and fulfill my purpose. And it was so hard because it wasn’t that I didn’t want them you know how in the Bible the Lord closed up people’s wounds all the time. I don’t know. As far as I knew I hadn’t done anything you know looking back now I’m pretty sure that most likely had a lot more to do with the stress that was in my life. There’s everything else but it was a really difficult period to get through. And then I had three more. So I have my oldest is a girl and then I have five boys which was kind of funny cause my mother had tan. She had nine girls and one boy and even that the makeup of my group of children was a source of mixed feelings because on the one hand I was going to someday have to give my daughter away to be the possession and belonging to some other man’s family. I no longer would have a connection you know it got to the point where Warren Jeffs was saying once you girls are married you don’t you shouldn’t be talking to your mothers anymore. And I really that was gonna hard you know.

[01:40:35] And so my five boys they would get married they’d end up with how many wives and all these kids they would always be part of my kingdom as long as my husband and I were together. That was our little kingdom growing and so I could hold onto them but at the same time boys were getting kicked out leaving all the time and is as much as I want to convince myself you had to face the reality that I don’t know how many of them will stick with it. How many of them I’m going to have to or I’ll be told to shun because their past is hazed and so it’s one of those things where you enjoy watching your kids grow up but you wish they didn’t. Because as long as there’s little you can protect them and keep them safe and they want to pass the time when there’s five you know who knows what digging up and I watched it happen I watched boys disappear. I heard stories of people who took their 13 14 15 year old boys and drove down to St George or Las Vegas and dropped him off at a gas station. They said they’re no longer there. They do just leave them no longer. I don’t try to contact me. There you go. And I knew I couldn’t do that even if my child decided to leave or got kicked out. There was no way I could. They had they had become my life. They were what I lived for. And so as time went on the rules started getting more strict Rulon Jeffs died and Warren took over entirely and started sending men away.

[01:42:12] You know we always been told that the wicked needed be weeded out from among us. We could Perfecta people but we never imagined basically that her stuff. I always pictured what’s going to happen in the resurrection after you die God sorts us out. I never pictured the church taking a man’s family away and sending him off to repent and that was terrifying to me when they sent someone off to repent. What does that mean. Is that their way is saying we kicked them out and basically drove them to Las Vegas and dropped them off and gas station. Well that’s what they do with young people I mean everything they do with the adult happening with adults. Okay so in April of 2000 five my father in law got sent away and his second wife had already left the church and moved away. His third wife was told to go live back at her father’s house. She took her few children with her. His first wife was my mother in law and we were moved into a bigger house and she was moved in with us and my husband. Her son became her caretaker and her priest had had mutton and the father in law where did he go. Does he just go out of the world. Much of things you know for some of them they had construction jobs and they just had they tell you. Tell him Go later they start time go far away. My father in law moved to Kanab which is like 20 miles maybe south of Colorado City.

[01:44:02] And he had a friend that let him use like a camper trailer and parked in an RV park. And that’s where he lived and got him a job at the dollar store. And my husband had been told to still go and try to be an encouragement to him. He was supposed to have no contact whatsoever with his former wives. Basically my husband David was the one family contact who was allowed to stay in his life and if he needed things that make sure he was taken care of. And he talked to him and his father told them he says I have no idea what I’ve done. They didn’t tell me you know in my mind I pictured they’d say you did this thing go even higher. But they said you have sinned some grievous sin you go repent and they say well what have I done. And they told you know what you’ve done or if you don’t know what you’ve done you go pray about it until the Lord reveals it and then you’re supposed to confess the sin and repent of it. And it brought to mind my father saying I know you’ve done these things when I hadn’t. What do you do you say never. Yes. The right sin. And it came to a point where later I found out what would happen is one person would talk about it happening or report something everything. This went on and I had a hard time with that and they’d mention someone else’s name and Lehrers you’d be like oh well he shouldn’t have done that and you might not have even been aware that you did it or that you hurt somebody feelings or whatever it was anything essentially to get you out.

[01:45:45] Basically yes. And he was a rare case. He was gone for a year and then he was allowed to come back and he was given back his two wives and their children. And shortly after that that Warren was arrested and there were no marriages on stuff. And then sadly he passed away from. Well he had gotten cancer. They had that pretty well taken care of but then he got mersa that gave him pneumonia and he passed away from that I to this day I guarantee you I watched his health deteriorate while he was you know 68 69 years old suddenly having everything he lived for torn from them and living in a cold drafty trailer working in a dollar store trying to figure out what he’d done wrong and the devastation that that causes. And I guarantee you when he came back he was much less likely to ask questions about anything he was told. Oh sure. And you know that was an example to all of us. It could happen to you. Boy you better not think the wrong thought got gotta tell me out of your ass you know. So a lot of people went a long ways away. There are people that you know they went wherever we didn’t know where they went. And you’d be gone long and all of a sudden someone would disappear and by you know by the 2005 and beyond that there were special places that were being set up and they were redeeming Zion and so sometimes you’d see someone else and disappear. Weber doesn’t work at the company anymore. And we all.

[01:47:26] Well for me I chose to think well I hope they went to a better place. I hope they got called Zion because you didn’t want to think that maybe they got kicked out and sent away. And it was extremely stressful and toxic environment when a man would be sent away know like from my father in law. He was told to go and repent and try to come back. Other men were told that their sins were so bad that they were now Sons of Perdition they had no hope. They couldn’t come back. But interestingly enough though they were told these people are not your family anymore you have no rights you should never touch them. The family was told to throw away any pictures or memories they had of their father. But the man was still informed that since they were used to be his family he should go out and work hard as he could and send as much money as he could back then take care of his well that some good. Then why did he do that. But they already eddying read that about you are you know. And if people watch septet great and we found out during the time that my mother in law lived with us there was a few times when David would get an envelope from Lyle Jeffs who was the bishop at the time with some money in it that had come from his father that he had sent money to give to his wives.

[01:48:55] And it wasn’t you know for a lot of people I’d never find this out but once he was then back in the fold and they could talk about it you know he was working hard living on next to nothing so he could send as much as he could not just to take care of his family but to prove that he still believed you know show them that he was still devoted and he wanted back. And you know they start comparing numbers and find out that he was sending back a lot of money and very little of it was making it to his family. The church was keeping most of it and some of it never made it to them at all. So the whole situation but if you’re on the inside if you’re deep in there and you’re dug in you don’t know those things. And if anybody tries to tell you that while you’ve been listening to the devil or the evil apostates the evil. And you know Warren Jeffs trained us very carefully to believe and understand that apostates are liars from the beginning and they can not tell the truth. They might tell you just like the devil they might tell you 99 truths to slip in that one sneaky lie so you can’t talk to them at all because they might really good. So again you know and it’s it’s horrible. The you get in this trap in your mind. It goes round round and round because the other thing they taught us was God and the prophet always and only do right. And when they started sending men away they gave us this big long sermon about not being guilty of the sin of sympathy against authority.

[01:50:39] If your father or some man that you held in high regard and you thought he was awesome guy all of a sudden get sent away and kicked out. Don’t you dare think. But he was a nice guy. Is there a mistake because you’re questioning God. You have to accept it. Never express any sympathy for what the Lord has done. And you know watch your own self that you’re not making mistakes that is going to get you tossed out next. And it reached a point where the only thing we felt like we could safely talk about was like the weather. Well it’s been really cold this week. Because everybody start you know people being told things in secret especially once there is the separation of the United Order and the non United Order. You couldn’t say anything even about the gospel because you might be saying something that person hadn’t heard about and everything had to come through proper authority and you could be severely punished sent away if you revealed even if it’s the truth. It was what God told you if you revealed that someone else instead of it going through the proper channels. So you just couldn’t talk about it. There’s something to really think about like going back to the Handmaid’s Tale. You know you see the handmaids go off and all they discuss is like you say you know pretty much the weather or something like that because everything else is too dangerous to talk about. And you’re not sure if that other person is joining like you or if you say the wrong thing if they’re going to go running and report you you’re just right. You have to walk that fine line. So apparently there was a there was some sort of a split that happened.

[01:52:26] Yes so in about 2010 it was announced that like Brigham Young stay we were going to have this Restoril process. They call it confirmations. Every person must write a confession letter and turn it in. And at first I said only our prophet read these and then it was like only R and the bishop probably needs while he was in prison by then. You know it was it just kind of started it started to fall apart to where it was like you had no idea who all was going to read this. But basically you’re supposed to write this long black list of every bad thing you’ve ever done in your life. Didn’t matter if you’d repented of it. They wanted you know you could say you felt like you repented of whatever but you had to tell it all. And I struggled with it because I felt like I’d never done anything terribly wrong and up to the point when I got married I already had god tell me all of that was OK. So do I right. You better come out with something. Well exactly and I better write it because I can’t pretend like I’m perfect. Before then we all know we’re not perfect. And I remember I struggled with it so hard because I had spent the last couple of years praying so fervently and pleading with heavenly father to give me that testimony that I was everything I was okay in his eyes. And I thought you know in my heart and in my soul I know that me and got are good and I’ve prayed about it.

[01:54:09] I’ve I’ve made mistakes but I feel I’ve I have confessed them to God I’ve repented of them. And the other thing we were taught that you know the Lord knows it’s not just Buhweju it’s the intent of your heart. You might do all the right things but you’re doing it because you want glory and that undoes all the good you did. And so in my mind I was thinking well I’ve worked really hard. Me and gotter did. And it’s not just that I’ve already confessed and worked through this. But he knows my heart he knows why I did those things. He knows how bad I was hurting and you want me just vomited out on a paper for who knows what men to read and know the intricate struggles I’ve been in my life. But you don’t want to know the good I’ve done for losing the burden that it is. And so I felt like OK. I’m confident that I am in the right place. I’m just going to trust in God and I’m going to write out my letter. And once you wrote out your letter if you know if you can festive anything terrible and you didn’t need repent didn’t get kicked out for it then they’d let you know when they come and do a reconfirmation you got rebaptized they reconfirmed all your blessings on your head and all of this you were you know the slate at that point was wiped clean.

[01:55:33] That was in preparation because the distractions were coming we needed to be pure enough to be lifted up and protected and get our profit out of prison and all that stuff but it really came down to was they now had a blacklist they could use to kick people out and hold over their heads and you never detected that that’s what it was but that’s what it was. And the next step was that they said you know the United Order is something they’ve been teaching it’s something Brigham Young taught her that Joe Smith taught Brigham Young actually tried to implement it in different communities. And now’s the time God says we have to do it and. And that means everything you own every penny that comes into your possession gets turned into the church and then the store house will give you back what you need. And we didn’t have much by then but we went through that and you had to fill out questionnaires you had to answer questions and then you had to go through and be judged interviewed and judged by men that were called to do that. And one of them was my father. And then Lyle Jeffs as the bishop. And then JohnM. Barlow when I went and if you had not been judged worthy by midnight on December 11th of 2000 eleven you were no longer a member of the church. So whether whether it was that you didn’t make it through the process or that you were found unworthy. That was it. And I was never the member smooth judging other judges. But by that point he’s seen I’ve raised these good children. He lived in my home in Vegas for a couple of years and he saw that we were good saints and that my children were these sweet obedient you know I he whatever feelings he may have had against me before he.

[01:57:29] I’m glad he lived with me because now he sees that we’re good people and so I actually didn’t feel worried because of that point I also didn’t know that he’d been telling everyone that David and I had to get married. So it was. Ignorance is bliss to some degree. And so that was a whole new process she had to go through. Our family got called on the last day on December 3 first. We went through it was I’ll never forget the experience. It felt so dark going in the office and answering the questions but still I felt 100 percent confident. I had prayed and I got that burning testimony that God said I was good and my husband had done the same thing. We had spent months agonizing over and praying and talking and it was a scary time but we both felt like we were good and then we were judged unworthy and my one son was judged unworthy. My two oldest children were worthy and my nine year old was worthy. My other two boys were or eight yet. And if you are eight that means you weren’t at the age of accountability you weren’t baptized as members and so you weren’t judged you were you know any sense you commit before then are on Jesus so or your parents. So as of midnight everything changed. My husband and I were no longer married. I understood when they started talking about I like that if we’re not members that means us our our marriage that does David want to have priesthood which means he can’t be our priest. It had that connection is gone. All of those things are baptisms.

[01:59:16] Everything is wiped out overnight becomes null and void and I was also I was I took comfort in feeling like I knew that we were going to be OK. And then we weren’t. And three of my children were. And by that point I had very little faith and trust in many of the men who were leaders and they wanted me to send my 18 year old daughter my 16 year old disabled son and my nine year old to meetings where I knew they would be told they weren’t allowed to tell me anything that happened or what was said. And it terrified me especially for my daughter. There were men and I you know looking back on it now I’m like It’s so crazy. I looked around I was like I wouldn’t trust that man along with my daughter. And yet he was found worthy and so what was I believing in did I believe in God or not. How did he let that slip through. Right. I touched my daughter and I told her that after she went they went that night and got rebaptized and another ordnances got ushered into the United Order and everything. And the next day before she went her meeting I talked to her and I told her I says Now I’m guessing that your meetings and whatever last night they probably told you that part of the requirements is to keep sacred things secret. And she is like yeah how did you know. I’m like I know how this works. So this and us your parents not being worthy. I’m sure that you’ve been told You can’t tell us anything that happens. She’s like yeah exactly.

[02:01:03] Nessa’s I need you to understand something. SS I need you whenever you go to a meeting or anything to be so prayerful and so alert and paying attention I says. And if you do that and there’s anything that gets said If any man tells you that you’re supposed to do something whatever it is if you feel uncomfortable with that then see sacred things should feel whole you should get that testimony that yes this is what God wants. If you don’t feel that that’s not sacred you can walk out. If you have to get up and walk out of a building and come home and you can tell me about that because you only have sacred things secret and she struggled with she like no I’m not supposed tell you I’m like I promise you this is how it works. Even though I knew that they would disagree with that but I was desperate and in my life that was really how God should work. And yet these men would disagree with it because they’ve got their ulterior motives. But I was telling her God’s truth. You know this is how it was and within a few weeks well start tearing our family apart. They all of a sudden had assignments that I couldn’t know about. They had meetings to go to the I couldn’t know what was said. They had reading assignments. And all this stuff and it got to a point where it was frustrating as a mother to be to go to my daughter who already struggled with not necessarily wanting to do everything she was told. You know how kids are.

[02:02:40] And I’d say anyone can help me do the dishes. Oh I can’t mother because Uncle Lyle gave us this assignment I have to do that. And all of a sudden you’re living in a house where you no longer have jurisdiction over the children that are living there reach. That’s insane. It was insane it at the stress levels went through the roof. David will still working in Los Vegas. They had moved our family back to short Creek but he still worked in Las Vegas which at that point was nice because after being married for 20 years it’s really hard to share space in a house without going for the automatic hug each other. When you see each other how we can’t handshake three seconds more than you would be it was adultry and we were desperately trying to work this out so I made it easier that he wasn’t in the same city with me all week. It just it was so hard and things started falling apart. And I my children would go to their meetings and come home and I could tell something was wrong but they wouldn’t tell me. And I knew them too well. You know I was like This is supposed to be higher laws and greater light. Why is it bothering my children. What are they saying to my kids. And one day it had been even worse and I finally cornered my daughter Amanda and I said what is going on.

[02:04:06] And she finally after making me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone told me that Lyle Jeffs had announced in their meeting the message that had been sent through Warren from God that God would no longer allow the unworthy to live among the worthy and risk them contaminating the pure. He had to make that more of a separation to protect the purity of the worthy and what that meant they were going to take my children from me. And I already had concerns about my father that he would try and one of David’s sisters had been creepily. Anyway things were going on that left me with no confidence that my children were safe. And they announced the same thing the next week in the meeting that I went to. And once I heard that heart all these struggles all the stuff that I had been working so hard you know as like you said you have to try to make yourself believe in you. You get the next thing thrown at you and instead of looking at it at face value and going that is crap. How do I rearrange things in my brain to make this piece fit. And you pray for a testimony of what they just told you because it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t even fit with what you’ve been told your whole life but somehow for your own salvation you have to make that peace make sense. You have to believe that you have to accept it. And I’ve been doing that for all of this time. But that was it that crossed a line. It was a line I wasn’t willing to cross. And in my mind I was like Nobody takes my kids from me nobody. You can’t tell me that God doesn’t think I’m worthy. You mean who raised these kids to be good enough to be worthy.

[02:06:06] It was her right to continue. And I’ve seen families that were those guys were were found worthy and unlike those are some of the most dishonest rotten people I know. But I you my kids my end up living with them because they’re worthy by some strange measure. So you’re not alone. You were stoo in the religion though deemed unworthy. You were just like a third class something. Yes. And they started separated meetings. So they Worthy’s still went to the meeting. The big meeting hall at the same two o’clock time slot in the day their meetings sometimes go six or eight hours. Oh it was insane. The money would go to the Restoril meetings that were at 11:00 o’clock on Sunday mornings at a school that was just right across the street from where we were living and they were gone just start back over at the beginning. Teach us the articles of faith and we read the letter. And obviously we were just unclear on the basic concepts of our religion or they were going to you know you had to go to those meetings to show you were still trying and you had to write confession letters every week and all this stuff. So even though we weren’t members of the church we still had our meetings. They still wanted your tithing and your donation of course. Oh that was that you still really believe and there were hundreds and hundreds. You know I thought I’m not worthy. It’s going to be so humiliating to go walking over to meeting me and this handful of other people while everybody’s looking out the window.

[02:07:43] Oh sure enough I knew Brinda Nixon wasn’t going to make it. You know and he said there were. I went to a meeting I thought did anybody make it. Because most people I know were here at the Restoril meeting. So but by the time the next week. So I had gone to my eleven o’clock meeting that Sunday my children went to their two o’clock meeting. That went really long and that night my daughter told me what had been said. So I knew that they were going to announce it a week from then which made me at least think they’re not going to start Teran people apart for that week. I have to figure out what I’m going to do. I didn’t know for sure how my husband felt. I mean obviously he was shocked but I didn’t know who he was. You can’t really bring that up. So what do you think. Should we do it. You know because he could be totally on board even though he thought it was horrible and then he’s like you know go to the bishop I don’t know what to do my wife is questioning it and boom I’d be out there. So you had to be very careful he went to work for the week and through that week I decided that’s it. I we have to get out of here. Living there in town was utter hell as it was that the child abuse that I witnessed the animal torture the cruelty and the whole town was just falling apart.

[02:09:08] Now that so many men had been sent out and people were reassigned the women were so overwhelmed that nobody was really watching the children it was just it was a madhouse. And my children had been witnesses of some pretty awful stuff they’d been bullied or treated bad and I was like I have to get out. I cannot live here and I’m not going to stay and let someone take my children from me. But then I had to figure out so how do I do that. And of course I wanted for David and I and all of our children to leave together but that was a really touchy thing you had to delicately work your way through until you knew you’re on the same page. And you know we were and we spent hours every night during the week when he was gone we hardly got any sleep we’d be on the phone and I’d hide in a corner while we were living in a duplex. I had to make sure the people next door couldn’t hear what I was saying. But we had to talk about it. We decided we had to leave. And you know we were living in you EPRI and house on his property. That’s what they called the organization that held all the church’s property was united. My husband was working for a church owned and run business and we had seen we understood soon as people were aware that we were in opposition they would find a way to get rid of him at his job. They will try to kick us out of our house. And so we had to have things lined up so that we could survive.

[02:10:45] We kept our tax return that year and used it to put a deposit on a house to rent. My husband he had never had to fill out a resumé or go to a job interview because you just get told you work over here. You worked for this guy and do this job and so on top of being absolutely torn apart that we were leaving everything we knew and even though we felt like it was the right thing to do. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It didn’t mean we didn’t have questions. Are we sure were doing the right thing. And so it took us several weeks to find a house that would work for him to find a job and get things lined up. And at one point in our meeting they talked about how they’re doing the second round now of judging and how great this was my father was telling us this. He is running the meeting how awesome this was because there are many here in this meeting who’ve been through that second judging and who’ve been found worthy we just haven’t had the time yet to let you know. Basically there is hope. Everybody come back. Let’s go back through this next judging process keep repenting keep you know they keep holding that carried out you know in front of you. Yeah. My husband says one day after he says I don’t know do we’ve got it. He says Do you think we need to stay and go through the next round of judging and see maybe we’ll get in and then we’ll at least be with our kids. But by that point everything together. I was just done.

[02:12:25] I told him that in my opinion what we had already done was plenty to prove to Heavenly Father that we believed and that we wanted to do the right thing and that I wasn’t going to subject myself to that again but that if he really felt like he needed to then you know of course go ahead. But that I really wished and hoped that we could live together. I didn’t know how to make it in the Gentile world on my own. And he told me that he just needed to know that he was doing the right thing. And I was like Absolutely you do. But that in my mind I thought he’s he’s got that doubt. And if he decides to go and if he if they convince him to stay I’m going to have to do this on my own and I can’t tell him my thought process. I can’t tell him that I’m looking at our bank account and our credit card balance and trying to figure out how far I could get on a tank of gas and where I would head if I have to do this alone. I couldn’t sell him so that I couldn’t give him any indication that I would be willing to do that because if he made that choice I was going to need to wait till he headed to work in Las Vegas and then we had a big 15 passenger van I would load my kids and whatever I could in that and we would just go and it was terrifying at that point. I knew I had a lot of relatives that were Gentile’s.

[02:13:54] I had no way to contact them I didn’t know where anybody lived and I was trying to think what direction would I even go and you know once I get a tank of gas away if they realized he could cut off all access to the cards how far can I go and what would I do once I get there. Who do I talk to. I had no idea. I knew I had to leave. I had to protect my children from what I saw was happening and I ended up because my daughter had told me and then my son was unworthy. I needed his help. My oldest son has three palsy and he’s disabled and he operated on a much younger level and the one thing you could not trust him to do was keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t run doing them as my son and I would. We weren’t allowed to use the Internet at that point. David Abraham an air card that we could use for internet. We had to keep that secret from our kids and everybody and we’re looking at houses for rent and my son and I would go drive around we’d say Oh we’re gonna go to Walmart we went to Wal-Mart a lot in those days and you want to make sure nobody was still following you you’d watch for the people that had you know although the gods what they had positioned in the parking lot in a hurricane and whatever and do it you could to try to look as innocent as possible.

[02:15:23] You know maybe go ahead and stop at Walmart and then come out and go to the gas station and then try to in a roundabout way drive past the house and hopefully you know watch that nobody’s following you so they wouldn’t know what you’re doing. And so my daughter and my one son knew what we were going to do the rest of them did not. And there is so much stress and I had to try to I’d had a an old trailer where they’d put moving boxes because they had crews and when you know you’d be there one day and the crew would show up at the door and say Hi Uncle Carlisle says you’re moving somewhere else and here’s these van loads of girls and box you know the boys show up and drop off boxes and tape and bubble wrap. The girls that show up go through impact your entire house in no time flat and disappear. The boys true would come back haul your stuff wherever you were going next and the girls would come back in and clean and then they’d bring the next family and move it home. So they had a trailer of boxes that were like the community boxes and to try and not be too suspicious I’d go by and get a box or two because you do that you know if you had some you need to store tape to the store house and I was slowly packing everything I didn’t need and stacking it and where people couldn’t see it through the open windows trying to get ready.

[02:16:46] I was having to go look at houses I was trying to still interact in the community at a level that looked normal without letting anybody know what I was doing and my 9 year old was so clingy and I need to go on Warren and I were going to go my son to go look at houses and he’d hang on me and cry and I’m like I’ll promise I’ll be right back you gotta stay here. And it took me a couple of weeks before it finally hit me. But at 9 years old he had sat in that meeting and heard that he was going to be taken from us because we weren’t worthy. And at nine years old he had never said a word about it but he knew what was happening and he was desperately trying to get as much time and hugs from me as he could before they took him away. And I just hadn’t even comprehended what he was going through or that he understood it at that level. And I thought if he could keep that secret from me and you know then it starts coming back you start realizing how hurt he’s acted how clean he is that he’s suffering and you didn’t even recognize it. I was so tied up in my own worries. And I thought if he could keep that from me and hurt that bad and not tell me I can trust him to keep this secret. And I took him up in my room and talked to him and I said Morgan I know that in church they told you that they’re going to take you away and give you two or three parents and the tears started welling up in his eyes. And I said I want you to know that we’re going to move that’s not and I says we are finding a house. We’re packing up. We are we are going to move we aren’t going to stay here anymore. Tom you can’t tell anybody this.

[02:18:57] And he started crying and he says but mother I don’t want to end the fear that went through me. I never imagined you know he’d kept us silent. I never really thought that I was going to have to convince my 9 year old it was okay to stay with me. And I just I felt this desperation. I didn’t know what to do. And finally over. OK. I don’t know what I’ve got. I’ve got to work through this with him otherwise I can’t let him out of the house because he’s going to tell on us. And so I said I said Morgan what do you not want to do. And I came down to say he thought I was saying that we were packing up and leaving without them that somebody was going to take them away and we were ditched in town and leaving him in that. I just I started crying and I pulled him over and wrapped him up in my arms. I told him I would never let that happen. I will never let anyone take you from me. And he just we both sat there and cried our eyes out. But at that point I was like This is it. We have to get out of this hell hole. I don’t go jury. This was unreal. And if my child is suffering like that how many other children are going through that there have already been taken from their mothers and plot over here. And what that does to them psychologically and be told your parents aren’t worthy of you.

[02:20:32] So many of the children turned it around like what did I do wrong that I can’t be. Especially the ones that were unworthy and their mothers were oh you know to always blame themselves any way they do. You know so it was amazing to watch the transformation in him once he understood that he went back almost like with a snap of your fingers to being the happy bubbly little boy that I’d always known and that helped that contrast that instant contrast helped me realize how far he had sunk over the months that slow you know he was just sinking under the weight of why he was being told the church that God expected and I was like there was no going back for me I was like I don’t care what anybody says or does. I am taking my kids and we are out of here. And then the new fear came before we got out that I was going to get that phone call or have the crew show up at the door. You know that. Well the bishop called David and he’s sent away and we’re here because they do this often. We’re here to move you guys all out that way if he came back he couldn’t talk to me. They take your cell phone. They would move you and he’d come back to get his stuff they’d leave his stuff in the house. You can bet get his stuff and he didn’t know where you are so he couldn’t try to convince you to leave with him when he got kicked out. And I thought we have to get out. I just have to get out before they do that to us.

[02:22:05] We have to get out before that call comes because it could come any day. It was happening to people you never thought it would happen to you. And and then one day I was just desperate and I’m packing like crazy trying to figure it out. And the thought came to me that not everybody was this lucky. But for me David and I were on the same page. No one on the planet had a legal right to our children but us and as much as I believe that Warren Jeffs spoke for God the cops wouldn’t care. I programmed the Washington County Utah Sheriff’s office phone number into my phone and the Mojave County sheriff’s office phone number into my phone so that if it came to that I could call them because you know you can’t call the town cops. They work for the church and they would do everything they could to keep you there. And then it was like it was like the clouds parted and this light shone. I was like the Church only has as much power as I give them. They can’t force me to leave my husband. They can’t force my husband to leave me and go out into the world. We have a legal marriage. We legally are the parents and caretakers and everything of our own children. And I could look that man in the face and say no and there’s nothing he could do because before I was like What if they tried to force me. It was just like I had never thought that in my life that I could just say no. And the reason me you and I was like Oh my word.

[02:23:57] And all of a sudden I mean that was a huge lessening of the immediate concern that I had because I had those numbers at the ready. I told my children you had a track phone that was at home. I told them never answer the door. I don’t care if it’s on the line. I don’t care who it is. You don’t answer the door you stay in the house you keep locked and you’re even that they were also in this feeling of relief we were on our way out. We know they weren’t going to have to do these terrible things anymore. And yet what a horrible life to be living that they feel terrified of the people that are supposed to be their religious leaders that that someone might come and try to steal you away from your parents. And it wasn’t a a it was a valid concern and a real threat. That the hardest part was when you when you know you’re going to go and you’re rushing around secretly making preparations. And to try to hide it all. You’re acting like nothing’s happening. And so I would go to my father’s house. And I would talk to my mother like nothing had changed and I wanted so bad to grab hold of her and hold her in my arms and just as I understood how Morgan felt. I wanted to absorb every bit of her that I could because I knew that as soon as I walked away from that I would probably never see her or talk to her again in her lifetime or mine. But I couldn’t I couldn’t let on that anything was up.

[02:25:40] I had to pretend like I was going to see her tomorrow and the next day and the day after that for the rest of forever. And I couldn’t hug her I couldn’t tell her. It would just be it would raise red flags if I was to sit down out of the blue and tell her how much I loved her and how much I appreciated to watch. And for me you know I wanted to I wanted to just and moral. And I had to just smile and pretend like Yeah thanks for the Exar whatever you know knowing that I was going to be gone. And I and knowing as much as I knew I was doing the right thing. How bad that was going to hurt her. She would see it that I was lost while those apostates. She’d already had four of her children leave before that. And I knew how much it hurt her. My father always made sure she understood that it was her fault that her children hadn’t stayed faithful and therefore they had nothing to do with it. Oh no no no. Jeffs taught to show me a rebellious child and I’ll show you a rebellious mother. It was always the women’s fault. Men had no responsibility men weren’t the spiritual head of the whole thing. Well they were but it’s just like the prophet and the other you know Arnold you’re down in the hierarchy. They tell you what God what they can teach you but it’s your own fault if you don’t follow. Men men are there to teach women are there. That’s that.

[02:27:14] I mean that was our only purpose in life was to make sure that our children grew up right so if they didn’t certainly wasn’t the father’s fault he was way too busy to actually raise his 30 kids. That’s the mother’s job. But it was so painful that raking his day. Sometimes I just have to try not to think about her because there’s days when I look back and it’s hard to even comprehend that that was my life. It almost seems like a bad dream but I have no other memory of the childhood that was my life. I just have to take a deep breath OK. I can’t think about any more. It hurts all the pain comes back. But then the realization comes again. My mother is still in that absolute living hell. That stuff I broke away from. She’s still in it and it only got worse. I have four of my sisters. Her children you know my immediate sisters out there. My father’s second wife has 10 children and she got kicked out my father ended up kicked out later his second wife got kicked out and they left the second wife. Ten children with my mother to raise so they don’t have either of their biological parents. And my mother is tied down raising the children of the woman that came in and stole her husband and made her life miserable. But my mother is the absolute definition of a saint because she truly loved all of my father’s children as her own. She has raised them taking care of them. And I think that’s part I always hope that she’ll break free.

[02:29:02] But I know that that’s part of what’s holding her there. There’s no way she would abandon those children. Right. You know it’s kind of kind of missing the word Synchronicity is kind of synchronous with you know you weren’t going to abandon your children it’s the same thing you also had. Why blame her. Yeah yeah. You can’t you know they’re her flesh and blood. But she was she played the role of mother in their life more than anyone else. And how could she abandon them now. You know but that’s what makes it so frustrating. You know you get people that are like to see these people chose to do that. Look we talked to this woman. She said it’s what she wants. I’m like yeah I was on the other side of that face for years. I put on a smile. I would have told the entire world that this was my choice and that I was happy and to some degree. I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know what happiness felt like. Yeah you don’t you don’t have any experience with anything else so. Exactly. But just do just like you people in North Korea. I’m sure that they think they’re happy. They have no idea what life outside of North Korea is like Yeah they have no idea what they’re missing what they don’t know what they know the lens they’re looking through. No I’m doing good and I’m happy. But you know it was a couple I think is about a year and I’ve talked to a lot of people that’s pretty much that.

[02:30:34] It takes about a year before you start feel like you’re getting your feet under you after you leave. It took me a year before I dared wear pants. I just kept were in dresses or skirts because I needed to know that I was not going against God. And when I left I thought Warren Jeffs was still a good guy but here he was tucked away in prison. And of course nobody in their letters writes Lyle is treating your people really bad and life is miserable. You’re supposed to be encouraging the so I hadn’t ever said anything about how I felt. But on our way out my husband I I our two kids that were able wrote long letter saying this is what’s happening. Lyle is doing this to your people. It’s hell here. But it wasn’t until after I’d been out for a few months that I finally got hold of information the records and stuff and found out that Lyle was only carrying on what Warren had been doing for years. And he on top of everything else I can’t even describe the feeling of betrayal that that was. To realize that the man that I thought was God basically that I had trusted with everything was nothing more than a filthy perverted vile cruel man who had lied to me my whole life for his own benefit. And then to to you know it took time. It absolutely destroyed my world from under me. And it took time for me to work through that and comprehend what I was really facing and what my life had been and what he had done and what other men were around me all my life.

[02:32:14] And then you realize that here you are on the outside now you know the truth and you understand a whole new level. Why they require you to shun people who leave. My mother would not talk to me my sisters. You know I’ve I counted up one day. I started to realize I couldn’t remember the names of my nieces and nephews. I didn’t even try with like sister wives and their kids. But my own sisters my blood sisters. I couldn’t remember the names of their children. I was starting to forget. I sat down. I can’t keep. I can’t do this. I have to remember their names. Otherwise they become they become faceless even in my own memory. I can’t remember them and they’re in their living this hellish life. And so I list them out and I’ve got close to 50 direct nieces and Duret nephews each so almost a hundred people out there. Not to mention my sisters and my husband’s sisters and my mother and my friends and the entire community we looked at each other as a family. And you realize that all those people that you love and care about are still mental about and you can’t help them and you can’t tell them and you try and you write a blog and you make a documentary video and make comments all over the Facebook can you try to help people understand that when they say oh leave these poor good faithful devoted religious people alone that it’s a lie. Those women aren’t happy and they don’t know. You know it took after I’d been out for about a year. One day I went at our house.

[02:34:01] The mail came that put it in a box that was like down at the entrance to the neighborhood. You moved to Apple Valley which is six miles north of Short Creek so out my window I could watch my family drive past on the highway and there I was. I can talk to him. I’d go to the same stores they did and when they’d see me they run and hide. And it hurt. But I also understood I didn’t blame them because that was me. A few months ago you’ve seen a posse and they were poison to you. You had to get away. I went walking down to get the mail and it was the first time I had dared step outside my house in a short sleeved shirt. I didn’t wear my long underwear Imar and it had quite wide neck and then I was I was still wearing a skirt but it was more of a straight skirt. I went about my knees and split up the back. I mean this was like very evil clothing in my past. You stepped out and I was walking down to the male and the sun was out and that was there is kind of a cool fresh breeze and the sun and the and the breeze touched my skin skin. I had never seen the sun before. And I realized that I was. We were free. We had done it. My children were OK. Nobody had come and attacked us. We’d made it for a year we were kind of had our feet under us. David’s job was going okay.

[02:35:33] My children were adjusting and it was almost like the sun on my skin I don’t know how to even describe it but I thought Oh my word. This is what happy feels like. And it was like oh my skin tingled and I got goose bumps. And there was this feeling in my heart that just wellness like my word. This is happiness. And I’ve never experienced this before all those times I thought I was happy. You were totally over showered overshadowed by the fear and the dark and the anticipation of what the next thing was going to be. For the first time I felt pure happiness and I just started crying happy tears and thought everybody should have the chance to feel this. Everybody should experience this. Everybody should be able to make choices and you know it was a scary thing. When we first left we’re like David settle where do we want to go. And it absolutely stunned me because all my life you either live in short Creek Salt Lake or Canada you know immigrating to Canada Canada was not an easy thing that wasn’t really a choice unless you got married to someone there. But that was it. That’s where the saints lived. Now Salt Lake had been made off limits so the thought that you could just we could actually choose and decide and move anywhere we wanted was just like holy cow you go. And of course we ended up six miles outside of Short Creek because that’s all we could afford it. We couldn’t haul our stuff any further than that. That was our first big Liebe but you start to understand that not there’s huge freedom in making your own choices.

[02:37:32] But the flip side of that was that there’s a huge responsibility. Yeah I could choose to do this. And that’s my choice. That’s awesome. What if it doesn’t work. What if we made a mistake and we find out the church was true and now we’ve condemned our children to hell. What if all of this and before it was like Oh the church said you’re going to live here you’re going to work there you’re going to do these things and you obeyed. You didn’t have any choice but you obeyed. If it all worked out you knew that the Lord bless you for your obedience. If it didn’t work out you did what was right. The Lord must’ve thought you needed a test or a trial. Now it was on you. If you moved somewhere and things went to hell in a handbasket it was your fault. You made the wrong decision and it was like holy cow. What are we. How did you decide. We haven’t been taught how to reason things out or or you know it is like it took time before you could venture beyond what was still familiar and make choices that didn’t prematch fit within the confines of what you were used to. But once Rex passed that the world is the most incredible place and there are thousands and thousands of the most incredible and kind and compassionate and amazing and loving people and their Gentiles and their apostates and you start to realize that the people that you trusted the most were the most harmful to you and the least loving least kind.

[02:39:18] They looked at you as a tool and as a piece of property but you don’t have to be happy forever. Isn’t it amazing how all the things that they proclaims about people of the world were actually just projections of who they were it is and you know it as you start to recognize that you’re like oh sure enough here it is the devil is twisting things you know the world is called the righteous good things bad and bad things good and and I’m in that I’ve given myself to the devil and then all of a sudden you know this is actually the truth. Oh my word you I lied to my entire life. And those guys are still at it. And I got my little voice over here going guised you can do it you can’t get out and then you got all the big powerful leaders and religious leaders everywhere. And the women who are still trapped by their arms mind that get up and say Oh those are those evil wicked and bitter ex-wives. How can you trust them to tell the truth about what we’re living. I’m happy here. And you know the part they’re not saying yeah I don’t have a clue or 90 cents. My children are because they’ve taken them from me. My husband got kicked out. I get moved around but look at me. See this little smile on my lips. I’m happy. And this is my choice and you guys should leave us alone. And I’m like I’ve been on the other side of that. Their you will be burned and one they’ve never seen the other side. Amish they too because it’s awesome. I know.

[02:40:56] I know. Funny though they will say well you know how can you tell me how I feel on this side. But yet they’ve only had one experience out and they somehow devalue your experience as a person who has lived both sides know that you’re under the control the devil and you’re just speaking right now. But it just shows the power that men can have and the depths of depravity they can go to if they choose to use that power for evil. And you know I it’s hard sometimes get people to comprehend and understand why I’m against polygamy entirely especially religious polygamy and you get these people who are like yeah they that was what they wanted. I mean for some of these young girls that’s like the highest honor to get to marry that man. You know there was a higher up in the authority or whatnot. So I was speaking to a press conference up at the Capitol building about a year ago. I went to a press conference. They were going to debate House Bill 99 which would keep polygamy illegal instead of out anyway. I was there to say it needs to stay illegal to be on that side of it. And so I had a room full of you know reporters and whatnot. There wasn’t a lot of people but they one me get up and have my turn to speak. And so this is you know a lot of times you get that from people but not for some of these girls that was an honor or that’s what they wanted. And who are you to say that they can’t marry who they want.

[02:42:52] What if they did want to marry that man. And you know where but they say that they have a choice and they chose. And I said Look what I’d like all of you to do is take a minute and if you can picture a twelve year old girl or 13 14 15 you know young younger that you know maybe it’s your daughter maybe it’s your sister your niece your granddaughter whatever. Or just imagine the age group of sixth or seventh grader in your school. If one day you got the news from someone that hey did you hear Sue’s little Susie decided she wanted to be the fifth wife of Brother whoever who’s 60 you know 45. Isn’t that great. What is your gut reaction. Would you honestly be able to say well I guess that’s what Susie wanted. I’m sure there was no coercion in. I’m sure Susie didn’t want to finish school or get a driver’s license or maybe marry somebody her own age and it was amazing to watch the expression on the faces of the people in the room change as they actually pictured that because I think we all have somebody we can think of who I guess a lot of people say things like polygamous women are no different than us. They they aren’t trapped. They want to have choices. They whatever. And this is what they choose. Who do you think you are to go against that. And I like to say you’re right. And too often we look at you know you get so many people that say things like well I would never live it.

[02:44:46] I would never let my daughter live it. But if those guys want to arm who am I to stand in the way that’s their beliefs. So why wouldn’t you live it. Why don’t you let your daughter live it. The graph also includes can they see the grass. They never let you again. So they they have no idea what undue influence does to a person were. Those girls don’t want anything. They’re just doing what is. They’re just following a script there. There’s no one in them. Well there is. Well the reality is they’ve they’ve been told to want anything is evil. You have no desires or thoughts or feelings of your own. You do what you’re told to prescription. You. And so that you know as you know for all a lot of people a lot of women have been through the experience of having been cheated on or where you felt like you were cheated on you know for people that grew up in the Gentile world and dated maybe you were dating someone or there someone that you really liked and you found out they were Mesner Outhred or whatever was some other girl and that pain you feel like you were betrayed or. Many women have found out their husband was cheating on them. Plaintiveness women are no different. They have those same responses. Those are natural human reactions to that feeling of betrayal. But there is a benefit to being a polygamist and that is that you don’t have to you know how much time do you spend worrying and thinking Is my husband cheating on me as my boyfriend Shiomi.

[02:46:31] You don’t have to worry. You don’t even have to wonder because you invite them in to your living room and you can hear them in the bedroom down the hall. There’s no wonderment anymore. You get to be have a front row seat to what feels like your husband cheating on you. But at least you know where he is at and. They don’t feel any different. They do feel betrayed. And as you know that was very sarcastically put. It’s not a benefit. I’ve heard from many women as they were trying to work through it and accept it as I talk about how much it hurts to lay in bed alone at night and hear your husband having sex with someone else across the hall. Or to be wishing for some attention and some time and watch him only have time for the new wife or feel like you wish you could have a break from home and go on a trip. But it’s not your turn yet or he can’t afford to go to Hawaii five times and so whoever was lucky to go with him the one time the rest of you’re out of luck. It’s damaging and it’s extremely demoralizing. As a woman to not feel like there’s any kind of reciprocation or hope that you are required to give your everything all of your heart all of your devotion to your husband and he as he chooses will give you a little peace back but only if you’re good and only if you don’t piss him off and only if you’re not bitchy today because if you do any of those things then he will hold it over your head.

[02:48:19] And I’ve talked to women before that we’re just desperate for their husbands love and they’ve been told well if you know they’re like Well you always take marriage everywhere and you always want to sleep with her and I will well if you want me to treat you more like Mary maybe you should act more like Mary and you’re like can’t I be me and have you love me. And then if you go and go OK I’m going to act like Mary and he’s like that was a really low blow you shouldn’t just copy everything she does and don’t think is enough. There’s no way to win this yeah. You know and this is the reality of it. I’m not making this up. I in my mind I can travel back to so many conversations I’ve had with reasonable you can see how that happens. It’s not that you’re like well that makes sense that way. And you have to realize that growing up in polygamy though it does desensitize you to a point that you never allowed yourself to think about what your life could be like outside of that or for a lot of these girls you know they will brag about I’m the sixth generation of polygamists and my family line which is what that translates into is that in every area of their life from the time they were born they were surrounded by their accounts their older sisters their mothers their grandmothers all lived in this. They witnessed the truth of it that their mothers were sad that all those emotions were going on.

[02:49:54] They were the subject of the bitter reaction of the sister wife when they wanted something and they the sister wife took it out on me because my mom pissed her off you know. And they think that’s normal. They don’t know anything else. That’s just the way it is. They don’t know that there’s happiness beyond that. They don’t know that there’s anything beyond that. And I actually was talking with some people once because I thought I was shocked that there are people there are girls who will break free from a polygamist cult or at least not be in the arranged marriage strictness that will still when they you feel like they had a choice. They still went for polygamy and I’m like why. Why would any woman allow her husband to take on another wife much less that girl choose you know. And so I had thought about it a lot because I thought maybe there are people that that it that are happy in it and I don’t want to stop people if that’s truly what they’re happy with other then you still can’t control the harm it has for all the children that come into it. But I finally realized that I think I’ve got it figured out. When you grow up as part of the herd there is no bond really between you and your mother. There’s no bond real bond between you and your father. The children bond in their little groups so you have this young girl that grew up watching her mother’s all of you married the same man whatever. And her entire bond really was with her group of sisters they all grew up together they shared a room they went to school together. Everything they did they did as this grew.

[02:51:45] They’ve never in their lives. Been a witness to what a normal romantic intimate relationship can be between a man and a wife. That’s all hidden away to begin with. You know that’s not something you do publicly in front of the whole family. But also there’s a lot to be said you know you can’t be too affectionate to wife number two or the other five are going to really be on your case right. Not to mention that there’s just not time for you to develop a deep bond with one wife when you’re supposed to be taking care of multiple wives. So what happens is these girls grow up. They get married. They don’t know what to do in a house with two people. They miss that group of sisters that they bonded with. They’re going to have a hard time bonding with their husband because you don’t ever make a bond with men. They’re supposed to be off being good priest good guys and working and it’s the women and children that form the family unit and you pick and choose who you bond with there they don’t know how they don’t know how to have a healthy marriage relationship between two people. So they’re looking for that sister to come in and then like you know it’s fine you go off and do your thing husband because we’re going to have tea parties while you’re gone because that’s what our mothers did to deal with the fact that you were here and they don’t. It’s kind of like for me having that sudden realization that I was happy I they don’t know what they’re missing. They don’t know what it could be.

[02:53:27] I sat in a in a presentation at Sunstone a couple of years back where one of Winston Whitemark wives talked and he has had twenty seven wives. He has almost 150 children and she said how one day he came and was hanging out with her and said something along the lines of he just can’t imagine what his life would be like if he was stuck with just one of those women because they each you know played a part. They each provided something different that he wanted whatever. And she’s you know this was possibly kind of a funny story. She says she told him right back. She couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she was stuck with him all the time instead of you know one night out of a one night every 13 times a year or whatever it multiplies out to and I and people kind of laughed and I thought that is so sad. You’re in a you’ve been in this marriage for 20 years you have all these children together. And you can’t imagine being stuck with the guy more than a little bit you get. That’s not a relationship you’re missing out on the best of what marriage is supposed to be. The relationship seems to be I think what you driving is the relationship is with the sister wives. Yeah that’s the relationship there is no no real marriage. They’re just imitating this whole sister wife relationship that they have grown up with their entire lives. And that’s what it is. They don’t know how to have a relationship. They know how what a relationship should be with a man.

[02:55:14] And you know I’ve also heard plenty of stories that actually read the book that the Sister Wives family the Kody Brown family put out a couple months go read it and I was like oh here it is in black and white. They’re the ones that chose to put this book out here. But if you read it none of them are happy. You know they talked about how the best times they had together as Sister Wives and I read it many times I’ve heard it from many women. They get along just fine as long as he’s not in the picture. You know he goes on vacation or he’s gone on a job for a week the women all can band together and so together and cook and enjoy each other. But then he comes along and there’s no equality and then they’re against each other and they feel left out because he’s paying attention to her and I want to be the one he pays attention to. And that was something that I came to realize for myself in looking at the you know the future of living in polygamy was that I saw men had favorites. That was all there was to and they’d kick their few favorite children they had like this little nuclear family they created out of the many many people around them and it killed me to think of what was going to happen to me like what I watched happened to my mother.

[02:56:36] If when my husband got another wife and she became his favorite Am I got put out to pasture so to speak and I was just there and my good thing I did for him that he was so grateful that he had me for was that I did all the dishes and all the laundry and the yard work and took care of the kids and and did the cooking and the cleaning and that freed him up to spend time with his other wife or whatever and I thought it would kill me to watch him set me aside and someone else be his favorite. But the other side of it was I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to be the favorite either. I didn’t want to see some other soul go through life without having what she wanted. And I couldn’t see a way for all of us to have what we truly wanted and needed. I think you know there’s a reason why we use phrases like finding your soulmate or we’ll call our husband or wife our better half. We didn’t say Well she’s my she’s my better 30th you know you’re required to give 100 percent to him. He gives you a piece of the pie. And then there’s supposed to be divided among all the children and all of the. There is no man that has enough time or energy to truly nurture and raise that size with family even if you were independently wealthy and didn’t have to work. No. I sat through that Sunstone speech and I pulled out you know I was have my notebook and pen and I sat down did some quick math. So with 27 wives I think it worked out that you would get an if you were our rotation equal all things fair 13 times in a year I’d be here at night to sleep with your husband 13 times.

[02:58:33] Or whatever the number was it wasn’t very many and then I thought OK. He’s got 47 kids. I think I rounded it down a hundred and forty five hundred forty five kids. If he’d devoted a solid ten minutes to each one of those children so that they knew that hit they were heard and he connected with them. No potty breaks no meals no nothing end to end. Ten minutes of time for each of his children. It was like Oh were we’re like twenty five hours straight. And you know he can’t do that. He’s addressing them in groups. In fact with him it was interesting. I’m really not trying to pick on him but he’s a good example of some of these things. And that is that he is having so many children that he started naming them by the year they were born and all the babies born and let’s say that polio would’ve been like 90 for all these babies born in whatever year all get a name that starts be all in. So you had all these B names and then the next year it’s all the names or whatever name they choose. And it is like that’s it takes away your humanity you become part of a piece of that instead of your own person on your own two feet. You do take in this whole thing sounds like I mean you know there’s a lot of people marooned. But it’s pure in the good. Yeah it’s neglectful because you can’t be a parent to that many kids you can’t be a husband to that many wives. You nobody is getting what they want.

[03:00:25] I assume are are the men. I assume they’re unhappy. Well to see that’s the thing. There are I mean a lot of men will tell you why they have nothing to complain about. I’m the one they all come to. You know I need money for this. I need money for that. I want your attention. I want your love and I’m supposed to try to make everybody happy and it’s impossible and my life sucks. You women have it easy. You’re just worrying about yourself and your kids I have everybody to work worry about. And I there is absolutely merit to that. But I would have more sympathy for that if there are men that do. If he was honestly putting an effort into making sure everything was fair and equal and even that doesn’t work because different people have different needs at different times. So if you want to just cut and dry here’s the wall calendar we’re going go on this rotation you know for me. There was times in my life when I was going through a miscarriage or I was whatever was going on and I just felt like I needed my husband to see me and hear me and I wanted to to feel like he loved me and I was the only wife. So you’re going through the. Well let’s see your turn comes in another five days. Go find your sister what’s for comfort right. You know what I mean. But if. But then you also get the needy people who the husbands like. Well I’m trying to make sure everybody is OK.

[03:01:57] And this wife has super emotional so I’m going spend the next three days with her and everybody else is like well yes she’s emotional. But what about me that was supposed to be mine. That was you know there’s just no way to without somebody like her. Yeah. I mean men like to have actual relationships with women too so like they. There’s no way you can have any real relationship with any of the wives. I mean maybe he can have a. I mean he can have a favorite but even then with that many people he’s not going to be able to actually have you know intimate relations is more than just having sex with someone he can’t really have an intimate relationship with anybody. Yeah. And that’s true. And you know it’sa. So I read Carolyn Jessup’s book and she came up with. There’s a lot of good points she made in there too. And I watched an interview that she did. But she is talking about how her husband Meryl Jessep had his favorite wife and he also had certain of his children that for whatever reason he clicked with and that’s how we are as humans. You know people date a bunch of people and I’m like no that wasn’t a good match. That wasn’t you need to find somebody. The problem is that that happens in polygamy and everybody else by the luck of the draw you’re out. You didn’t click. You weren’t the one he connected with and it’s not your fault. We just don’t know. But you’re still stuck in your head and body you get a divorce. You can’t find somebody that’s a better fit.

[03:03:40] That’s that’s your lot. And we were also told that we should rejoice instead of having jealousy when our husband was with a sister wife. We were supposed to rejoice that they were being blessed and be so happy. And if your husband likes a different wife more than you wants to spend more time with her that’s not your business. You should be happy that he’s doing whatever he needs to make himself happy as long as he’s happy. Your concerned what you want is wicked. If it contradicts that and you out you don’t matter his happiness matters. So I think that the reality is if you could get men to be honest they do they connect with a certain wife and could be the first wife it might be the tenth wife whatever it is they find someone that they have that connection with and they it’s the same with a handful of children. I really think that we all can only handle so many people close to us. And they create you know they favor that that few kids they favor that one wife. And it seems out when I mean it’s like in Caroline’s book she talks about how Barbara was Meryl’s favorite wife. She always traveled with him and even though she had the lion’s share of his time she would about lose it probably because she’d she’d lose it when he was going to sleep with another one of his wives because she wanted to have a baby. You know it wasn’t that he loved her or that he wanted to spend time with her. That was his function in her life was to sire children.

[03:05:15] And he would go do that duty and then go back and that’s so hurtful for ever. I mean who wasn’t there. What happens to the women who are unable to bear children. No one making it does happen. It absolutely does happen. For one thing even if people aren’t outwardly doing it you know that society looks at you as oh I wonder what she did that law that the law won’t let her have children. But you know a lot of these big families end up with someone like that and you pray either you get a job since you don’t have children so as an adult. I mean this sounds really crass but it’s the reality of it. You don’t have a job. I mean you don’t have children. It’s going to be really hard for you to get any kind of welfare. So you’re an excellent candidate to get a job because then you can bring in money to help the family. You know if this other woman does then that’s really going to cut down on what food stamps she can get because now she’s employed instead of a single mother to be born. Yeah. You mean to be productive one way or the other if you can’t raise children then bring in money because also the things that matter. I look at my mother she I don’t know any other way to say other than she became the live in slave. My father no longer slept with her. It wasn’t about having sex and I remember thinking that too. Because to me is like great. So I’m beyond childbearing years.

[03:06:53] You don’t and you no longer have that duty took to procreate with me. I’m still your wife. You know do I mean nothing else. Many times it wasn’t about you you didn’t have to get to that you weren’t having sex you want that. That like you said the intimate relationship is far more. I mean it includes that. But it’s so much more than that. I want to have a chance to lay in the bed next to my husband and tell each other about our day. I feel that closeness and mother didn’t even get that. Well you’re beyond childbearing years. Never share your bed again. You just go sleep with these other women. And she was mean by the time I left she was teaching all of their children school and some of her grandchildren. A couple of my sisters sent her kids over there to get taught. She was making most if not all the meals doing the cleanup. She would round the kids up and clean the yard she’d catch up the laundry. And you know she became this robotic person she had to find her purpose in serving the family. And she had to in my opinion she has walled off her heart to not feel anymore. She’s walled off her mind to not think anymore. She’s just following directions and she will accept whatever good feelings. I can’t think of a word I want but you know that’s what she gets. That’s her life and she’s looking forward to the next life when she’ll get her reward. You can be happy then she’ll be happy. This is supposed to suck. Yeah.

[03:08:45] It’s a time of testing and trials and. And you just can’t complain about it. But this is what it’s supposed to be. If it was if it was easy you must be floating down downriver instead of fighting up the stream and so your dad is out though. Yes he got sent away. I don’t know how long ago. And I I haven’t talked to him for a long time I haven’t really wanted to. My mother as far as I can tell is still living in the Southern Utah area and still has her sister wives kids. So it’s pretty much as you David and your kids though are. Are you all out. Yes. We all left together and Nardy went back through anything once much back at this point. My five boys still live with us. My daughter started dating. We moved to Salt Lake about a year and a half after we left Fairfield. Yes. She started dating and she’s now engaged she’s going to get married in June. Congratulations. It’s very exciting yes. And she stayed in a Salt Lake with him. And in August of this year the rest of us moved to Washington state. David got a job transfer and we felt like it would be good just kind of a whole new environment. But since start over you know I have a whole new outlook on life because we grew up in Salt Lake and you know the worst year of my life were spent in short Creek and it’s been amazing to be here.

[03:10:33] So but you know it’s one of those things was like we’re doing good and you’ll have. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far and it’s almost two years and then you watch a movie and you go wow look at those people and a great big family get together in a union for Christmas or more like you know we moved here. David wanted to for him and I to go stay overnight out at the ocean that’s like two hour drive from here now is amazing. And I thought oh this is so great. I mean I love this. And then I start thinking but I’m leaving all my kids home. And I don’t know anybody. I don’t have a phone number. I can give them of who to call if they get in trouble. You know I can’t ask my sisters or my mom or my neighbors or even my daughter now check up on and make sure they’re doing OK. I mean they’re grown. I mean my youngest 10. I have my 23 year old that’s disabled a 21 year old still lives here with me. He also has his own life. There are 15 12 and 10. So it’s not like they’re little kids that are helpless. But you never know what could happen. And you start to realize how incredibly alone you are in the world because your entire society is gone and you’re doing OK as a family but you don’t have those outside connections I don’t have somebody up the street or across town that I can count on and say hey if my kids need something can you help them out. And that’s the thing I miss the most is you did have that do you.

[03:12:22] You lost your community you lost you tribe have you. Have you had any success. Like I mean you say you just moved I think in August so it hasn’t been that long. Have you I don’t know how you develop any kind of strategy for trying to develop friends I mean because it is difficult. The letter you get in life to start over like that it is harsh. You could struggle with it you know because we grew up in such a different world. How do you start eating everybody else’s dating people I went to high school with. Right. You don’t know anybody but I made some really good friends when I lived in Salt Lake. There were people that I worked with that are still there will always be very near and dear to my heart and good friends but you know they’re still Salt Lake. Work is a great college. And yeah I met some really good people I’ve become close friends of some of my professors. And that’s really awesome. Once again they’re all still back in Salt Lake. I just need to my husband has made acquaintances and some friends and stuff through his job. And my son is at that point now too. When we got up here in August I enrolled my three youngest in public school for the first time in their lives. And that was a hard one for me because you grew up here. I mean it wasn’t like I believed the church anymore but it’s still not easy to put your kids out there. You are amazed at how guilty I felt.

[03:14:01] Even though it didn’t make sense in my mind I felt guilty that I was handing over that part of their lives to someone else instead of me doing it. That was possibly my job. But I’m ashamed to say I was supposed to me by a job and I didn’t do very good damage damaged both mood and that’s what matters right. I did but it was you know when when my kids were younger the oldest ones I did really good with. And then they told us I was homeschooling them and then they told us to put them in the church school and it was a disaster. My kids picked up ideas and action. You know attitudes and stuff they’d never dealt with before. And then they shut other schools down we were supposed to go back to homeschooling but we had no money. We were living in Las Vegas. We couldn’t even afford to get a printer and the paper to print the curriculum out and we were stuck in the house 24/7. And my whole life I felt like I was doing laundry sewing cooking and all that stuff and just trying to keep them from going stir crazy. They didn’t want to do school. I didn’t wanted to school. And at that point I consoled myself with the thought that the distractions are turning any day now and math and science all that stuff. Who knows if our kids even need to learn. And the Lord could put that in their brain. They could have an instant knowledge. We have stories. You know God just gave people knowledge. That’s the easy part. God can fix that.

[03:15:36] My focus needs to be on raising them to be good faithful obedient sweet passionate. And I would focus on that. The rest we could fill in later. And then we moved then we left the church and just trying to keep our heads above water. I can think about how we didn’t do school but I was trying to help them adjust to a life of just us. You know we used to have a community and now it was us run was it and then we moved Salt Lake and I had to get in and I got a job outside of the home for the first time in 20 years. And I didn’t have the time and I didn’t feel like I could put them in public school. They were already bullied by the mainstream LDS kids there they’re. We were going to hell because we didn’t go to church. We were struggling with so much already. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. And so that was the next step. And I found the I was like I have I kept thinking well maybe what we’ll do is we’ll move up there and I’ll take a year and work with them all really hard and try and get them a little more up to grade level. So it’s not so hard. And then I’ll put them in school. Who are you kidding. You’re you’re you’re not going to do it right it’s not. They need someone besides me. I’ve been the person their entire life. Doing everything teach them everything. I felt like a be good for them to have that come from an outside source.

[03:17:05] And it would take some pressure off and give me more freedom to just be their mom and help us all work through this. I’d be at home making sure they’re okay I can communicate with the schools and we’re going to figure this out. And it was incredibly hard. My youngest didn’t he knew his letters but he didn’t know how to read yet. And it broke my heart. One day when he came to me he was looking for a video or something and wants me to read to him what this says and he said will you use your magical powers of reading. And I thought they really are magical powers and I have failed you by not teaching you should be able to read by now and though in my mind I could read I could lay out the whole thing of why we got where we are and that I had done the best I could. That didn’t change the fact that my child can’t read and I don’t have I’d failed him. You know my son that in a freshman in high school this year never even made all the way officially through second grade work and I dropped him in the 9th grade in high school. And it was overwhelming to me how I have failed these kids. This is cruel of me to do. And here I have not taught them I haven’t prepared them for the real world and all the excuses I know you don’t have to tell me.

[03:18:32] But I still fail them and I’ve up but I can’t I can’t fail him another year as hard as this is I have to let be this be the point where I say obviously I’m not succeeding here. It’s okay to let someone else help them go. And it was so hard. And I went and I met with a high school ended up horribly embarrassed as I end up in tears. I was so determined I wasn’t gonna cry. I did it anyway. Talking to the enrollment people and I’m like I am so sorry. I am asking you to take on more than you should ever have to take on. He’s 15 and he is so far behind and I don’t know what you’ll do. But in a time I it meant the world to me. If they’d be willing to take that on and if they could help them and I was so sorry I hadn’t done it and then I replayed that I’ve got one in high school one in middle school and one in elementary. I emailed all the teachers and said wrote a big old letter. So this is where we came from and I’m sorry that I haven’t done better. I’m sorry they are not up to speed. I feel like they’re bright. They want to learn and I know that’s important but just so that you’ve got it in the back of your mind if they’re backward if they’re awkward if they don’t know what they’re doing they really don’t. And they’ve never interacted with people outside of our family really their own age that never been in this setting. So if you could just keep that in mind.

[03:20:22] And I met with all of the teachers later a few months into the year they had like a parent teacher thing and with each one of them I told myself I am so sorry. And none of them felt like it was my fault. You know they have all been incredible people. You just gave them the best gift you could you gave them kids that really need to be taught. I mean they’re teachers. That’s what they do. That’s what they live for. And that’s what they told me. And like I say it’s one of those things where I can convince my mind you but are you just so much more stubborn. Shall I know this guilt. But I told them I says you know I so appreciate your patience with them and that you’re working with them. And I says you know if you ever get frustrated with them because they whatever is like please don’t take them. It’s my fault. You know touch me and I’ll do anything. And they were all just like what is wrong with this woman. We all feel that way at all. There you go. You think you just have to point out that what you’re what you’re saying right now and these are these feelings that are coming out of you are exactly how you were raised. It was all women’s fault. It was all the woman’s responsibility and it was all the women’s fault if not everything went perfect. So I mean of course you’re still going to feel that way even though you can intellectualize it. You know your emotions were built upon a system and formed in your formative years that you know you’re not going to be able to just shake based on some intellectual understanding Yeah basically.

[03:22:11] And it’s like I can make sense of it. But it didn’t change how I felt. And I just felt I had to apologize and it wasn’t just like it wasn’t just that I was trying to convince these people I was trying to convince myself. And I felt like I had failed. I’m looking at my kids and like I failed you and I failed you. And I am so sorry I did the best I could with what I had. And it wasn’t enough but I’m going to go to bat for you now. Don’t you worry I’m going to talk to your teachers. And you know we had a rumors anyway that my son’s high school that there were some kids going to come back with guns on Tuesday and the school emailed me that was all taken care of. And I’m like That’s great. And that’s wonderful. And that’s all lovely and I still kept all my kids home even though I knew that the very day was probably not the most dangerous day. CORSAN wait for things to die down if anyone is going to do anything but I couldn’t do it. And I called the schools and I’m like I’m sorry my child isn’t at school. And I kept him home because I’m freaked out. Sure I know you know I’m sure I was actually my son told me that in whatever class you know he wasn’t there on Tuesday but that he found out that only six people were. Obviously I wasn’t alone. That’s right. And you know you may have failed your kids.

[03:23:43] You know as you say and you couldn’t provide that education for them. But I hope that you can at least I hope that you can look at yourself and give yourself credit. And I know that’s hard to do. Probably coming from where you did because of my wife and I have been through a lot of the same things coming from where we came from. But give yourself credit for getting your kids out of a cult. I mean you maybe you didn’t teach them algebra but you gave them the most awesome gift in getting them out of that situation that you could have done. I mean the strength that it takes to question everything you’ve ever believed in and to take the steps to leave something that is so powerful. I mean the indoctrination of that call so toxic and so strong and to be able to to take that stands and to get yourself and your kids out an answer to create a new life when you don’t know how the world works. It’s terrifying. And you had kids we didn’t have kids. It’s terrifying. And you know I hope you can feel good about that even though not everything has worked out. You know maybe as as you would hope you know. Well I I do. Like I say I know I mean I’m not laboring under feelings of shame. I’ve been able to come to the point where I can accept that I really did do the best that I could.

[03:25:33] And yeah maybe I could have shot up for MAFF but but the other thing that has helped a lot is that the people here are so incredibly amazing and kind and wonderful and then I’ve been totally and completely blown away and I am more proud of my kids than I can even put into words. But I mean my son my youngest. He can read and he’ll read stuff to me and it’s amazing and he loves it and he’s getting quickly caught up. You know they just went ahead and put him in the right grade and they got people that are coming and helping him. And you know I owe those people huge debt of gratitude. My middle schooler I went to a thing a couple weeks ago because he’s on the honor roll. He had a six point three point six seven grade point average and in seventh grade and then he he’s come home with a couple of awards for citizenship because he’s doing all the right things as a person not just scholastically my 15 year old who just got dropped into ninth grade with less than a second grade no formal second grade education is doing amazing. He loves school and he has on his own. And this is the thing like I was like at his age I wouldn’t have been this brave or bold. He has gone and talked to all his teachers and he worked so hard. I kept telling you know you’re doing amazing. You know don’t beat yourself up if you’re not getting if you’re getting C’s. That’s incredible considering where you came from. But that wasn’t good enough for him.

[03:27:16] And he has gone and talked to all his teachers he went and stayed after did extra credit work redid some assignments and worked hard so that by the end of his first grade period I think I don’t know if it’s a thing it’s the semester they are do it different. I don’t know. He has all A’s and B’s and it’s just I’m like okay I didn’t mess you up you’re still okay and you’re going to be you know if they even if they were getting D I’d be like well this is what more can I expect. But they haven’t been able to do that. I mean it was like you don’t know eighth grade. That’s huge. You know it was huge. And I told David I like course on the other hand I’m start to think. Do they teach anybody in school. Because I thought we were going to be the teachers have made have been incredible. And I’ve been in contact communication with them. But the thing that matters. I mean the grades are awesome but the thing that matters the most is that I’m watching my kids become real people want to know that sounds weird but it doesn’t. You know we went through we went through it a degree of that when we first left you know the first time I went to the thrift store and I brought Homer a old VHS player and some 50 Cent Disney cartoons and I sat and watched their faces as they watched that stuff for the first time in their lives. And it was healing to me. They were happy. They’d laugh. They loved so you know they’d pick a favorite movie and we watched a hundred times and that was fine.

[03:29:00] And then as they started choosing what kind of music they liked not because I told them this is good music or this is what you should do. They listened to all kinds of stuff like you know I like this one right. And to discover that they had things they liked and they were allowed to like and they could choose who they were and what they wanted and the best part is so far they’ve all chosen to be amazing incredible good people and that’s what matters. And they’re happy when they’re made. And it’s like I’m like they have they have an opportunity that I could only dream of. Yes specially those three youngest they’re going to grow up. They already have but now they’re going to grow up in a much more normal quote unquote world. They don’t live in fear. You know you can give them everything that you’d ever heard as like I’m sorry. I just I love it. If you know tell me all about what you did in school today because I didn’t get to do that. I walked through the high school when I was getting my son signed up and the administrator lady there was so so sweet and she was like OK I was like you know this is the first time I’ve come inside. I mean I had gone to some college classes but this first time I’ve been in a public just like a regular old public school setting. Like well let’s take you for a tour and she walked me through the entire building showed me all of what they had available where he would be going what kind of classes. And it set me at ease. What are they. OK. He’s going to be OK.

[03:30:38] It’s all going to be OK. And at the same time I was like Oh my word to have the opportunity to do this stuff when I was a kid. And I was so thrilled to see them do it and make their choices you know and talk about what they want to be when they grow up. And the fact that they can do that they can choose it’s not well you just need to do whatever and whatever the prophet tells you that’s what you’re going to be. And if he decides to change his mind later you’ll do that too. They actually they have a life and it’s like I don’t going to live vicariously through you and someday when I know you’re all settled and there are some things I want to go back and do but it’s just incredible to watch them have a life on the ground like you. You must feel the. I think it’s beautiful because I’m just I’m watching you watch your children and you’re getting to take this immense joy and have gratitude for even the smallest thing that a lot of people you have. Well normal lives take for granted. You know you get to rejoice in all these little details. And I think that’s you know me you obviously missed out on a lot. I’m not saying this makes up for anything but yeah it’s an opportunity to have this beauty that most other people will never get to experience. There’s always a yin and yang to things. Yeah for sure.

[03:32:13] And you know now that we’ve gone through the really exciting parts I look back I learned a lot and it made me who I am what I go through again probably not and I’m not going to put myself or my kids in a position to be subjected to that kind of thing. But you know you asked me earlier was there good parts you couldn’t make good out of. But as far as if anybody was to ask me if I had any power in the world I would have to say no the good didn’t outweigh the bad. I made it okay. There are way too many that don’t know anyway despite the ban. Exactly. I didn’t become this because of what I went through. I came Ivan this in spite of it and a lot of people aren’t able to make that switch. They’re not able to make those connections. They never. Some people never get out. Oh you and others get out. You know I’ve seen so many young people that get out because they didn’t want to live it. They they wanted to watch movies they wanted to date girls and they get out but only physically them. They still believe and they honestly think they are apostates. They think they’re going to hell and that you can’t have real joy that way either. Yeah there’s at least there they’re out there making choices. But there’s always that cloud hanging over them that they think they’re wicked for doing it. That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard from people who have heard this podcast or did thisJ.W. like it was my story. And I heard from people who have been out of Jehovah’s Witnesses for decades who have never never looked at the mental side of it.

[03:34:11] They just wanted to have sex or whatever the case was they they didn’t want to live it behaviorally but mentally they were still in there that there’s a term that in the community we would call them p’o physically out mentally in. Yeah there are a lot of people who stay mentally in even years after leaving and it’s it’s just the saddest thing because they feel they still feel just like you said like their apostates. They feel shame they feel feel bad even though their they’re out. And I think that’s maybe one of the worst things to me. Well let me speak either way you’re not living to the full potential you could be. You’re not enjoying life. You’re not. You’re you’re the prisoner of someone else’s idea of what you should be. And even if you choose to do something you enjoy there’s guilt associated anger like. Well you know there is a price to pay for that. I it was really fun to go to that party and where I went to look gay and I wore pants but I don’t pay for that. It was fun but I’m going to pay for that. So let me ask you then. So you are out. You’re physically out mentally out cash. You’re Pomo. So you’ve got this you’ve got this new life your kids are starting to to. Dare I say flourish you know for you know being able to pull themselves up like this in this new scenario. So so you know you and David and the kids what are your what are your dreams what are you all.

[03:35:59] What are you individually or what do you want for your family what do you hope what are you hoping for your new life. Oh there’s so many things you know. Absolutely no one top of the list is for all my kids to be happy whatever that looks like. You know as far as temporal things I I’m hoping that we’ll be able to. Right now we’re renting and we’re looking toward buying. We didn’t know the area we didn’t dare just buy a house and be stuck in something. But we’re hoping to find a nice house preferably with like an acre or something where I can feel like we can actually put down roots. I spent so much of my life living in houses that I didn’t feel like were mine and you could be uprooted at any time I want to. I mean literally put down roots. I love to grow things and there’s been so many plants that I bought because I love that plant. I kept it in the pot because when we moved I was taken out with me and then they die and it would have been better if I’d put it in the ground at least let it out alive. You know I imagine my home being you know I’d love to have a guest room or to have my home be a place where it’s peaceful and tranquil and where people can come and visit and where my kids will always want to come back. And visit even as they go out and make their own lives in the world. And I recently I’ve been doing a lot of research on stuff.

[03:37:49] I’ve got so much going on but I just I feel this desperate push to do what I can to try to help other people. You know I have this incredible life. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. But it’s hard to feel completely happy when you know the people you love and care about are trapped in hell. And so I’m trying to do research and put together for one thing like psychologic. There’s a lot of psychology about that wasn’t necessarily the studies weren’t done in space specifically to polygamy but they apply. This situation is why it makes it hard. Over here in polygamy I’m trying to pull together a bunch of that information to try to help people understand why they’re still struggling. You know they might be out physically and not mentally. They might be out physically and mentally but they’ve got all that baggage and all that noise in their head telling them that it was that they were wicked. It’s not that you were wicked. This is the way our brains work. This is what being in that situation did to you and if you can acknowledge that you can work through it and at least comprehend that it’s not the devil telling you you did wrong. You went through a hard experience. It really is. And then there are a lot of resources I’ve found just ways to try to help yourself work through it. You know whether it’s writing down how you feel and some of that stuff. My hope is to put together some in some semblance of order something that I can give to people or work with people and help them work make it through that path.

[03:39:32] You know I’m six years out. It took me a long time to reach out work to get here if I could help other people get through that transition quicker and get on to losing their lives. I would love that. And then there’s different news interviews and stories. There’s some interviews that were done by the Canadian authorities when they were deciding whether or not to legalize polygamy. And there’s some valuable testimony and stuff in there but it’s like all these long videos and I would like to put together a short a series of short documentaries where I address one issue at a time and hear all these people what they said about this issue and then tie it in with why that psychologically affects you and how it was applied and whatnot. Because I think you get it’s easier to get a lot of people’s attention if you can watch a video than reading off a page. And I don’t know about anybody else but I get on YouTube and you might start with a five minute video and before you know it you’ve watched all of them it’s been days and you learned something you know you know would you. I’m sure you don’t it’s just me. And then the other thing I’m working on is writing a book. I found it was part of what saved my life literally before I left. I turned to writing down how I felt because I couldn’t tell anyone. I it would be proof that the devil was controlling my mind and you know that I was having questions but I couldn’t deal with it anymore. It was so I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see straight.

[03:41:23] I had to sort it out and make sense of how I was feeling what I was thinking. So I’d write it down and I burn it. So you’d find it and have proof that I was wicked. And it helped me get control of my thoughts and make sense and it helped me reach a point where like OK I’m not actually crazy. These things make sense but then it was also scary because they made sense but they they told me that what was going on wasn’t right you know in the church. Right but kind of like I was talking about writing down the names of my nieces and nephews. I’ve gone through times when at first I was like I’m just going to forget my life from before because it hurts too much. I can think about it. I can’t think about my family. I’m going to focus on my future and on my kids and on now. And that worked for a while. But then you start to realize that there is a lot of valuable information to be gleaned and that if we forget history we’re going to be bound to repeat it. And so as things came to my mind I started just writing it out for that I won’t forget. So I can make sense of it so that someday in the future if I end up with a grandchild or someone I know one you know I found this cool cold and I’m thinking about joining I I’m like oh wait I have some stories to help you change your mind. You know I felt like I was losing it.

[03:42:47] I was forgetting and that’s what I was trying to do but I couldn’t let it happen and so I’m trying to remember and it ends up that by the time I’d written out some of the stuff and trying to make sense of it and remember things. I’ve got like over 200000 thousand words down in my computer about my story. And so I thought you know like I made my documentary and published it. I’ve done my blog and I post things on Facebook and I’ve had a lot of people react positively some negatively. There’s been a lot of comments where people are like thank you for doing this or you put into words exactly how I felt and it was. And basically I was helping people work through their own emotions to have somebody be able to put it into words what they were feeling. And then there are a lot of people that private messaged me and say thank you for posting what you did. That’s exactly how I feel. I wanted to reach out. Thank you. But I don’t even like your comment because my family will see that I liked that and it will cause a problem. But I want you to know and I figured for all the people that are brave enough to do that how many more read it feel the same but don’t speak out. How many more. Read it and disagree but it planted that thought. That’s going to keep going in the back of their mind and there will be parallels in their life that doesn’t make them look out a different way.

[03:44:16] And so I thought if I could make a book or two because it’s huge amounts of information it would be a. You know I spent a lot time trying to explain things to people and I feel like I spent hours as you can tell now trying to explain that if I could put it in a concise way in a book it could reach so many more people and maybe help more people. And then I could use that as a foundation if you could read that and that resonated with you. If you have questions I want to help you with the next steps. I would like to do more. It’s like I think everybody should feel that happiness and I feel like there’s a path to doing that. And it’s not through religion in my opinion. It’s not through the AFL. Yes for sure. It’s through your own the power of your own thoughts in mind and you have to be able to get past that indoctrination and believe in yourself and love yourself and then you can start to have that that happiness. So that’s a I don’t have a job right now. Rock my ankle the end of 2015 and so the jobs that I used to do. I can no longer do. One of my dear friends in Utah told me that that was the universe hit me with a two by four because I was ignoring it and not doing what I should have been with my life. And it has definitely helped. And I was like yeah I can kind of see that. I kept thinking you know I’m doing these jobs but I felt this poll that I should be writing and trying to do stuff but money mattered.

[03:46:02] I had to help taking you know you mentally and losing you. Well no it was more of a. And I didn’t know I didn’t see it that way. It turned into being. I mean I agreed with the idea this the universe trying to kind of poke and say you should go into this kind of the whole gut feeling. And I’m like yeah I should. But I got to keep making money I got to take care of that. You know I got to help and there’s like you really should have something come up. I think I wish I could but I got to do this and once I broke my ankle there were no more debates. I was out of the scene. And it changed. It’s changed a lot of things in my life in my circumstances that have been immensely helpful even changing how I interact with my family. The person I was the person that had done everything and now I was the one that couldn’t do anything and everybody stepped up and that didn’t go away. You know my husband does a lot of dishes now. He he did all the cooking the meals and that didn’t stop. Now there’s more of a of a balance and it wasn’t his fault but he wasn’t doing it is just none of us ever thought of it any different now. It kind of hit a reset button but it also made it where I couldn’t do much else. And so I started doing more on trying to remember and write.

[03:47:34] You know I’m laying in bed I can’t get up because my ankles and a Casten or in a splint and so on the one hand I don’t have a job. But I feel like my life is almost an engrossed in what I feel like as more of my mission. I want to help people. I want to. I would love to believe down in my heart that something that I wrote or said or did was a catalyst to help someone else somewhere have that aha moment. This is what happiness feels like love more than anything. Yes that is beautiful. I would tell you that if you continue to put your story out there you will definitely help people whether they ever tell you or not. I mean I I’m just a guy sitting in his basement with a microphone who likes listening to podcasts. And so I thought people kept telling me I should write a book and I’m more of an auditory learner so I thought well I’ll create a podcast and I’ll tell my story. So I created the podcast. I told my story and I know for a fact that at least two people have left the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses because of that and. Yes. Yes. It feels so amazing. And so and those are again it’s like what you said which I thought was kind of a a beautiful insight that I guess I hadn’t really thought about which is that for every person that tells you it’s the whatever it was that you said or did help them or that they liked something that you had written. There are other people who may not hit that like button or may not ever tell you that it’s made an impact on.

[03:49:29] And they may not even make an impact today. It might be 10 years down the road something hit them suddenly and they say oh you know what that guy told me about that 10 years ago on some blog. You just then my know who it was or where they heard it but it stuck in their mind and it might be that it was a combination of what you said and five other things that happened over the next year and you’ll never know and they may never realize it and that’s not the part that matters to them is that I want to be part of the you know the resistance be part of the other side that’s helping people find their freedom. You can’t force it on people but when they’re ready they need the tools that can help them. Turn that crank in their mind and switch to flip the switch. Yeah well you can’t just think in a different light and you don’t know there are so many parallels and crossovers between all these different cults. So in fact I think the last interview I just did and released David had mentioned that it was Leah Remini his program on Scientology that really kind of struck him and made him realize that oh I’m in a cult because Jehovah’s Witnesses may not have exactly the same beliefs as Scientology but they have the same mechanisms. And I mean I’m just listening to your story here and I think that it helps to have someone from a different community in a different voice say the same basic thing in a different way than it does.

[03:51:16] And I’ll say I know that because shortly after we left I got on YouTube and it started with I’d always been fascinated with the Holocaust. Warren Jeffs taught us a sliver of it. And I then found out that most what he told us was pretty twisted Macbeth’s. I started watching some interviews of that and that led in to these interviews these people talking about a cult. And it’s so much easier. It’s safer I guess for your psychology for your psyche to watch something. You know I could watch something about a Jehovah’s Witness telling their story and I’m like okay. We already know they’re the bad guys. You know they’re crazy. We know there are. And so as you listen to it you’re going. How could anybody believe that this is insane and it’s so easy to condemn what they’re doing and then if you stick with it long enough at some point that little light comes out and you’re like wait a minute. That’s really no different than what I was doing. You know if a Jehovah’s Witness was to watch my testimony they’d be like Oh what an idiot she is and we’re holy cow we’re doing the same thing. We’ve got a different guy at the top but the process the thought control. There’s really no no big difference as it’s all the same. And so if you can find someone who’s not from where you came from you may have better success at breaking through that protection and you know crack through that protection you put around your thoughts because it’s OK to think that about Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is like a person who has been abused who would never stand up for themselves.

[03:53:08] But the move is someone else being abused and suddenly the impact of that really hits them they can be righteous or angry for that other person more than they can be for themselves. Yeah. And I even experienced something similar to that. There was a program I went through up in Salt Lake called the woww program women of worth. And so a bunch of women who all had been through hell some of them where they had struggled with addiction or whatever it was basically we all came through the door the first day broken some having been through our experiences and we would meet and you know we talk about things and the whole program was immensely helpful to me. But at one meeting we had where we all were supposed to share can you remember the basis of it. But when it came around the room to my turn it had struck me as like you know the one thing I’ve noticed and it’s the same thing that I am going to tell you about myself is that every one of us allowed to whatever degree you wild use that word allowed ourselves to be in horrible situations. We were being harmed in whatever way and we allowed that to go on. And the thing that finally made us act and change something was when we saw it affecting our children. We could deal with that. You all treat me like crap. I deserve that. You start treating my child like crap and Alderson’s like how dare you as a sew in in what we saw as being spurred into action to save our children.

[03:55:00] Our children saved us from what we were part of because we left for them and that saved our own sanity our own lives. You know you from one end of the spectrum to the other whatever bad thing you were part of because you left for your children you saved yourself also and you didn’t you know you’re like No it was my fault. When you are being bullied that when you watch your child being bullied it gives you a whole different perspective. And it’s you know that was with our children but it works the same with other people you know it’s just like you said you allow things in your own life or you won’t stand up for yourself. But when you see it happening to someone else see you it gives you a different perspective. For one thing. But being someone who has endured and you know how hurt that person feels being treated like that gives you the strength to be like How dare you do that to a person to stand up for that. Now also like a course I want stand up for myself. But then it helps kickstart that thought process in your mind. I don’t deserve that. There was one thing that they told us in that wild program that hit me really really hard because you know I’ve never had a lot of self confidence I have you know I hate cameras. On and on and on. I don’t like myself. I didn’t like you know I was always been fat always been ugly all you know the whole list of things.

[03:56:43] And one of the exercises we did was they said I think we had to write down things that we think of ourselves and it seems. It’s embarrassing if saying anything positive. I mean how vain could you be. And so the easier ones are the ones you’ve heard all your life is all the negatives. I’m ugly I’m fat. I’ve never been any good. I’m not smart. And you write it all down and then they tell us to imagine that you’re talking. Imagine your five the five year old version of yourself and imagine you’re talking to that 5 year old version of yourself. And what would you say to yourself at 5. Would you read off that list of things. And the reality is I start thinking about and like that’s the things I heard everyday. And there are it was killing me inside. And then you end up like I told David I said I would go think I’m ugly crying. I mean this is not that cute know little sniffle here wipe out at the corner of your eyes with your tissues is all out. Sobbing in a room full of people. When you finally go it’s okay to feel bad. It’s OK. That that hurt. And that’s ok. To finally realize that all those horrible things people said Hugh that they never should have said that and who what were they thinking to say that a five year old child and the whole point of it was that you need to be as gentle with yourself now as if you’re talking to that 5 year old child. Look at the things you do get caught if you got your favorite child. You did awesome on that.

[03:58:26] And to you know that was an extremely difficult process. You know the other thing response do is go up and look ourselves in the eyes in the mirror and say all these things good things you know tell yourself you’re beautiful and you’re a mate. I could not do it. I set a bathroom and I cried and I couldn’t do I felt like a liar. How could I not. That’s one thing. I was determined that I was not a liar. I would never lie. How could I lie to myself. And I sat there and cried because I wasn’t beautiful and I wasn’t amazing and I wasn’t any of those things. And I admit I’m still not quite where I feel like I can do that and feel entirely honest but I’ve made a lot of us. But to me it just went to show how damaging the things that we say are now even if we realize that you you like it when they make a mistake. Well that was stupid. You’re an idiot and you may not have meant that you were upset. It sticks and it matters to them. Oh you you did. When you grew up in a society where that is the attitude of the entire society especially towards girls then you know all I could think is I’m looking at myself I’m discovering all these things I’m realizing why I act the way I do I realizing why I struggle with these things. And so I got my associates degree in psychology. Myerson shut up last August right before we moved.

[04:00:07] I chose classes that I felt like applied to what I felt like I had to understand how this works. Why does this happen. I took abnormal psychology I took personality theory and through that I was like It’s not that I’m crazy. That’s what these things do. And if these circumstances made me this way can pretty well be sure that every other woman child that I knew in that religion is damaged in the same way that we can fix it if we can recognize it and make some changes. And it was. It was almost funny. I was in my psychology class you know here I am old enough to be the mother of everybody else in my class. And when she starts talking about learning about anxiety she starts to read down the list of the symptoms. And here I am 44 years old out of the church for like five years or four years whatever and I’m sitting in class and I start crying. I really don’t cry as much as I make as I make it sound just like all those years when I was in the church and I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought there was something physically wrong and I didn’t want to find out because I didn’t want to know if I dropped dead that was fine. In fact maybe it would release me from this torture sooner than those young men and anxiety attack real. And I hadn’t thought about it for years. But as she started describing it I remember that I basically lived in a state of anxiety attack for so long but then also I realized I haven’t done that for a while.

[04:02:16] And how nice that is. But even even that that little bit of knowledge and understanding that no you’re not about to have a heart attack. This is your body’s natural reaction to stress. You were having an anxiety attack and it’s not because you’re weak it is not because the devil whispering to you it’s all you trying to protect you from a danger that it can sense that it knows is harmful to you whether you can comprehend it in your mind or not. Yeah. No it’s I think that anyone who leaves code should be either taking a class in psychology or exposing themselves to it in some way because they will learn a lot about themselves and release themselves of a lot of pain associated with normal human behavior. And it is like oh you’re telling me this is normal. I was doing it was working right. You know it wasn’t wrong. And it really is it’s just another layer of peeling away that harm and those false narratives to understand. Now I wasn’t wrong for having an anxiety attack. It made sense with what I was living through. My mom was working. This is OK. And you know to to be armed with some knowledge it just helps you in every way to get through life. Yeah. As opposed to being isolated in a cold and having very little knowledge your book. Well exactly. You know I think I mentioned that Warren Jeffs had started saying that once you girls are married you shouldn’t be talking to your mothers.

[04:04:04] You know you absolutely shouldn’t be telling your husbands secrets or his family secrets to your mother if you have issues you go to your husband he’s your head. All that and even as a grown married woman I was like Well I mean I believe we need to do that. But my mother’s only real friend they have you know and I and I hated the thought of handing my daughter off and then thinking she couldn’t touch me if she needed to. But after I got out at all the pieces start falling into place and it made sense. I found out the stuff Warren Jeffs was doing and I thought I can imagine my daughter being in that position coming around coming back to me because I’m someone she trusts as her mother saying mother I know that these things that my husband is doing to me and having me do is righteous and that I need to be obedient. But I’m so uncomfortable with it and I feel bad because that must mean I’m wicked and her mother has her mother be like he’s doing what. Because I know. But she doesn’t know she doesn’t know how our own body works because we’re not supposed to teach there. Warren Jeffs was telling these very young girls that he was abusing that having an orgasm. Was that fullness of the Spirit of God that was the burning within and they could only get it in connection with him and they didn’t have a clue. You know view is was a physical follows exactly that is the way it works. He was having them do all kinds of unspeakable things. And I’ve been told I haven’t seen the letters but I have no reason to doubt it.

[04:05:57] I’ve been told that everybody had to keep writing their confession letters and here’s these little girls being directed to do things that their soul told them was wrong but their husband who is actually the prophet of God tells them this is right and righteous and they were writing confessional letters pleading for forgiveness because of how uncomfortable they felt doing the things he told them to do and they knew that it was what God wanted. And he was making a fight against their soul that was telling him this isn’t right you shouldn’t have to do this and he would just then drag him down even further and tell you you’re you have to shut out your own soul. You can’t have that anymore. And anyway the damage done by cults I don’t think we could even imagine or measure it in the research I’ve done I’ve seen where I can remember who it was. But there is a psychologist that said that if we could eliminate childhood trauma especially sexual trauma. But you know the different abuse neglect if you can eliminate childhood trauma the DSM manual which is now like about 700 pages of mouse tape. I got a copy from taking classes would become a pamphlet. I want to thank Brenda for making herself available to tell her story and for being so open and real about it all. I know it wasn’t likely easy to talk about all that if you’d like to continue the conversation. You can go to the link in the description for this episode from my site where you can leave comments for every person that is interviewed. They will see the comments and they can reply and you can spark a conversation with them.

[04:07:49] If for some reason the links don’t show up in your particular podcast app you can go to shun podcasts dot com and on the episodes page you’ll see each one with the link for commenting. You’ll also have links for the songs that each person chose to represent their journey which unfortunately I can’t play on here due to copyright issues. You also see links to different resources that are mentioned by each guest. Ways that you can support the show. Anything you might want or need is there on that page. Speaking of resources Brenda actually has a documentary out on the YouTube’s called if this is heaven. Give me hell. It’s another look into her story and you’ll see some photos and such in it if you’d like to learn more. It’s a 20 minute short documentary and it’s well worth the watch. So again it’s called if this is heaven. Give me hell. And it’s on YouTube and I’ll go ahead and place a link in the notes for this episode as well. For that she also has a blog that I’ve linked to if you’d like to keep up with some of the developments in the the cult of the LDS and you can learn more there as well and you know of course by now we all know the hashtag meta that’s trended throughout the world. But there is another hashtag hashtag me 3 written out Emmi H R E that refers to polygamy. And so if you want to support that you can maybe learn something from that. Or you know maybe that that’s you know I don’t know who’s listening.

[04:09:28] So maybe that’s part of your life as well. And that hashtag me 3 can help bring some awareness to what polygamists go through. If you’d like to learn more about my story and the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses you can listen to my podcast series called ThisJ.W. life or you can find more out at thisjwlife.com if you’d like to support this podcast. You can do so in a few ways. First I love seeing comments and conversations on the shud podcast dot com site because it supports those who are being so open and vulnerable and telling their stories you know before before every interview. People are nervous to sell their stories before even after they’ve done the interview before the week before when I tell them that their episode is going to come out. Usually people are nervous. You know it’s it’s scary to put yourself out there on some level. It’s very freeing but it’s also a little nerve wracking and you never know how it’s going to be received. So it really helps to see that that people can reflect your stories back to you that they’ve lived some of that as well to find that common ground and to just be encouraged by others so first and foremost that’s one of the ways to support the show. Second I love seeing five star reviews pop up on iTunes with great comments. It really helps lend credibility to what we’re doing here. It’s encouraging to me personally and it may help others define the show and get help that they might need as well.

[04:11:00] And finally you can support the show’s ongoing monthly cost financially by becoming a patron at patreon.com/shunned. If you want to help out that way there’s also a link on the Web site to the patriarch for this particular show. All musical support for the show is from Poddington Bear and next month we’ve got our first international interview as I interview a former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses from the United Kingdom. His name is Mark not just a great guy but he is also some of those who listen. If you’re familiar with the forum jehovahs-witness.com if you’re a member of that forum then you know Mark as pale imper on there. So join us again in June. Learn more about him his journey and even some things that recently happened as a surprise at the end. So as always love others do no harm and go be happy.