How To Save a Life

SUBJECT WARNING: UNALIVING YOURSELF

When we sat down together to talk about upcoming plans and new projects, our conversation quickly shifted, because it was the struggles that so many of our ex-cult community have been facing that sat heavy on our minds. We had to talk about what could be done to help our community not feel so alone. We see the needs that are clearly arising in our group to be not just heard, but really listened to and most of all, understood. And we want to listen. We know it's time to reach out to each other. It’s time to loan each other our lanterns.  In whatever capacity we can, even if just a small one,  you can count on us to be a part of the solution, and of making spaces for us to heal and find hope. 

Always,  Whisper and Jemima

Transcript

   Welcome to Butterflies and Bravery. We're so glad you're here. We're gonna tell you some. Funny stories and then we're gonna talk about our exciting ideas that are coming up.  I had a really expensive beated earring at work. And I lost it and it was gone for a week.

And then this waitress walks up to me and goes, How much do you love me? I'm like, I don't know why . And then she had it popped up with my ear. What? Where did you find that? Oh my God. Cause it, it's like a beated. It's Beed first false. , they're very expensive Beed. It's hard. It's a lot of hard work.

Yeah. Cause we're all handgun and it's a Seahawk one,  in the middle there's a Seahawk. And one of my coworkers had given them to me. Yeah. Yeah. So who, boy was I happy? Yeah, those are cool. But I guess if it was Beed though too, could probably figure out how to  make a new one. Oh yeah. But that would be hard cause I don't know how to do that.

 I started  learning how to do the glass bead thread threading, , remember I was telling you I was super into the whole  Native American art Of course, no better now. But like back then I was like, I wanted to make moccasins and I wanted to, That's where, that's probably where like my partially where my obsession with the the, what do you call it?

The tassel outfits that we would always cut. Remember you, our shutted nineties. I shutted my nineties. So did I remember that? Yep. , Where was I? I was like in Joan 10 or something. Yeah. And it was weird because, it was one of the few times we ever spoke on the phone too. I was, Yeah, say that like on the phone,  I'll know very few times.

It was very hard. Permission to do something like that. Yeah. Something must have been going on. I remember right. . I just remember being like, I pierced my ears. So did I ied my, So did I

doing these things at the same time. It's also hilarious that that was our huge rebellious thing, right? Double piercing our ears and shredding our nineties, our second ear hole. And and we cut up our nineties Wild . Wild. That was wild..  I actually I ran away when I was 11, I think.  because , I had acne and  my son dad, Yeah. He made me pin my bangs back because he thought  my greasy hair was causing the acne.

That's why you're breaking out because your hair's greasy and it's touching your face, so you need to pin it back. And he would force me to pin back my bang  and I would just be so angry. It would be  a huge thing for me. And so one night I had a friend over a boy and I was at that age, you're very self-conscious, at least I was 11.

Mm-hmm. , , I'm sure. Yeah. 11. Yeah. And I think this boy was like older or something and I was trying to impress him I can't remember, but I might have even been 12. But it was very shortly before I went to Mexico,  he came over for dinner and we were having  a stew with,  chunks, like Yeah.

Big pieces of meat, big pieces of potato, big pieces of carrots. So first my dad made me pin my banks back. And then I think for some reason the guy had left and I was already mad cuz he had made me put my bangs back . And I was eating my soup with a fork cuz bake chunks, eating them out. And then I was gonna drink the bro.

eat your soup with a spoon.

I don't want to, I don't want to eat spin . These are big pieces. I'm meeting them with my fork. Eat with a Spooner. Go to your room. , I'll go to my room then . Okay. I don't fucking care. I dropped my fork and went to my room and , it was a little townhouse

that we were in.

Mm-hmm. in my room was above like the kitchen and dining room, and right across from it was my parents' room. And they had a little, not really a deck, but just an exit and stairs going out. So there was an upstairs door. Were you guys like ts or something like that?

Cause or were there other people in the home? There was no other people in the home. This was in Arizona  in like 1984. So there were still restructuring From the, r and r and all of that and, Yeah. No, I forgot that you spent some of your time in the states  so we had gotten Clarence to go to South America and then it was revoked.  We were in Arizona and my mom was. Mated to John Mooney, who was like one of my biggest abusers  the one that abused me sexually at seven years old. And the one you standing hang, so the stairs by one foot and like all kinds of just terrible abuse.

Yeah. My mom was really upset with him because he was really abus, spanking and hurting the kids. I think he was abusing her too. I can't remember. I'm not sure. My mom was effing to support us and she met Jim  and Jim  proposed her and said, Let me take care of you and all of your children.

So she said, Okay.  She went back home, told John Mooney the guy that she was made it to, that she was gonna go and marry this fish. This guy that she had mm-hmm. ,, effing  that was being, take care of her and all of her children. So they got into a fist fight right in front of me. I think I've told you the story before.

. Yep. Yeah, I do remember this. Yeah. Yeah. So they got into a fist fight right in front of me and I'm screaming and yelling  right before that townhouse, we were living with other people, Tim and Comfort. It was one of those like fourplex or type of situations. And they were in the front and we were in the back. So I ran up to them and I got him and he came out and of broke up the fight, you mean Jim and John were fighting? Jim and John were fighting, yes. Okay.  And so Tim and Comfort Tim and it up, they're the ones that went to Japan that I was supposed to be going to live with when I went to Japan.

Gotcha. Yeah. So it's funny, Tim and Comfort, because there's also Tim and Cheerful, you remember? Yeah. And Cheerfuls also Japanese. Yeah. No, Comfort was actually Korean though. Oh, okay. Korean, if I remember correctly. If I remember correctly. But just could be wrong. Could be wrong, but I think super fucking daisy make kimchi the, i again, the reason I think that is cuz she's make kimchi all the time.

Kimchi, Okay. She could been a Japanese that make kimchi . This is like a super like random, but I don't think we, Did we ever have any homes in Korea? I don't remember ever hearing about homes in Korea. I think there was, because I went on a road trip, I wanna say with ATO and Kana and their kids.

And for some reason I thought that they had lived there before. I'm not sure exactly. I spent a week in Korea on the road trip. Did you ever? No. No, I haven't. You didn't go to Korea, right? No. I was a home. The only thing I really remember is being in a tiny hotel room with eight people.  all over the floor and shit because Adam and Kina had six kids or something and there was me and then them two.

And we literally had a double hotel room and we were just fucking all over the floor for a whole week. It was terrible. And of course we didn't have a lot of money, so you know, we're trying to like scrounge and have enough food to try and cook in this little hotel room with some kind of little hot pop thing or something.

It was just a fucking nightmare. So it wasn't really fun. The only cool thing I remember is the market, there was people like stopping their feet and clapping and yelling rock. Like it was crazy. I remember actually in the week I was there, I learned how to count and I was really into learning languages and I was like 14 when I went there.

So I learned how to count, I learned how to to say, how much does this cost? And oh that's too much cuz you partner at the market. That's the only thing that I remember that was. The bad thing I remember is I had gotten a gold necklace with Mother of Pearl on it and from the Nitas for babysitting their kids.

And I lost it in the marketing Korea, or it got stolen from me. I'm not, Somebody could've just tore it off my neck and I didn't realize it, but it was gone and I was so fucking devastated. We never had anything nice. We never had anything. Yeah. Never. So when I had something that was actually mine that I liked, I was like, Oh my fucking God, this is like, Oh, so amazing.

They always seem to disappear. Yeah. My my mom had been gifted this Spanish sh. . It was all like Spanish lace with the tassel. It was like so beautiful. She had been gifted it when we were in Mexico, so when, like when I was eight and she had given it to me at some point, I think probably when I left, like around 12 ish and

When we had that super radical quote unquote radical for se goal time, remember? And everybody had to go down to the one suitcase and two outfits, blah, blah, blah. They took that from me. That was one of the things they took. Oh yeah. No. I was gonna say, I thought I remembered you having, Was it like black?

Yep. Was it like black with like roses or something on it? Okay. Yeah. See, I was gonna say I thought I remembered you having something like that. Yeah. I had it and then they took it and I was just like fucking, just devastated. Just like crying. I remember the shawl. That's crazy. Yeah.

Because it was like you brought it up. I was sitting here going That sounds really familiar. . Because it mattered. So it was like one of the things Oh no, you loved that mattered. That you were like, that mattered to me. Clutch it like constantly. Whenever it was. Not 8,000 degrees and dying of sweat, you were clutching the fall.

Cause in Chan May, it was quite a bit cooler. Yeah. And down in Bangkok. And there was actually a cold season and we were up in the mountains too. Yeah. I think I remember you using it, but it had, it was lace, so it wasn't even that hot. But yeah, it was just really beautiful.

And I remember that got taken too .  It'd be interesting to meet other people that are our age, like we're going into our fifties and we can like, Literally tell you exactly when and where. We had our few fucking belongings, , like the couple of things we had.

And I know that everybody had a different, nobody had the same exact experience, but they were pretty harsh in Thailand. They were pretty harsh with our age group. Thailand and the Philippines were just, yes. Yeah. I have some bad experiences in Japan, but overall it wasn't that bad.

But between the Philippines and Thailand, oh, and Mexico. Mexico was really bad. Mexico ed. Sexual abuse though. Yeah. They didn't know what to do with us. We were just, all these fucking kids running around and they decided to just have sex with us And then it was pretty much just let's go sing and then go have sex and sing and have sex.

That was life, that was, yeah, that was three life. Yeah. That was Mexico. Yeah, absolutely. And that was my experience in Mexico. , very much and then once, once we got to, Yeah, the Philippines in Thailand were just really fucked. I think a lot of the, people got really messed up there because they were just so fucking harsh.

To just give a, an idea of how bad it got was  long after we left, but loosening some of the rules. The leader there, Steven, he went and decided to start his own movement. Like he broke off. Like it was like that's how important their control and their need for I guess, followers.

Was, Nah.

Okay. But wait so wait. We were in the townhouse. Okay.  John Jim are fighting. Yeah. John decides to leave, but he's gonna take one of the kids with him, Oliver, who's now been in and out of prison and his  adult life has been not good. Yeah. So we move into this townhouse, it's just our family.

I really don't, I'm so young. I really didn't think about what our status was. But yeah, I'm guessing they made some kind of exception for us because I got invited to , the Youth Area fellowship meeting in Mexico in 1985. Yeah. And that was how I got they were trying to pull people back in, I think is what it was.

Yes. I think that's exactly what it was. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Because this is also when I was going to public school for a year, maybe sixth grade, I only remember being in like second grade and then sixth grade. So yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the.  Two years that I went to school, second grade and sixth grade.

And in sixth grade they were giving us in Arizona what they called CAT tests. It was a California achievement test, but that's what they used to do to grade you, instead of the, those sat or whatever it is now. And I remember I was 12 years old and I remember I scored college level in everything except for math.

Yeah. Crazy, huh? Yeah. I was told to pin my bangs back. I didn't want to . I told to eat my soup with fork and I air spoon. I didn't want to  so I was laying up in my room. I was so freaking mad. I was so freaking mad. So I decided I'm gonna run away out I went. Not even a further thought, I'm just gonna go knock on.

It was like a townhouse complex, so I knew a couple of kids in there. Yeah. So immediately ran to one of the kids, the one that had been over for dinner earlier, and that was, that's how far you got, You're like, , find me here. Here. Of course, that was the first place they looked, but I wasn't there because they said they couldn't, their parents wouldn't let me in, obviously.

I'm an 11 year old girl at eight o'clock at night trying to come to somebody's house, like what parent in their right mind would be like, Yes, come in, we'll take you in from away from your parents . But then again what, somebody should have been like let's call, let's do something.

Not just Nope, you can't come here. Yeah. Went to my next friend's house. Same answer. Nope. Can't come here. So I found the bad kids that I knew and we all decided to go and smoke c. Across the street in the housing complexes that were being built. They were new housing. So it was just like a shell.

No doors, no windows, just walls. So I'm running  my dad's  been looking for me and sees me, but he's driving in his semi truck so he can't like, just flip a u-turn in the middle of the road, right? And I know this, so I decide cuz he's coming down the road, I'm running down the street and I'm like, if I go across the street, he's not be able to get me.

So I run across the street. , what can he do? He's gotta go all the way around, come around, try and turn. By the time I'm gone. I'm down in the housing complexes. I found the bad kids and we're gonna go smoke cigarettes and light fires, , I don't know, do something. So eventually it was like 11 o'clock and it started to get cold.

Nobody would take me in. I didn't know where to go. . Plus I was hungry. So I went back home . My mom was just crying and crying and crying because I've been gone for four hours and nobody knows where I am or anything. And my , stepdad had tried to come and find me, but I had run away and he didn't know where I was.

Yeah. And then my stepdad's just pissed and he's one over and he's just like laying sleeping in their water bed. Not even, I'm not gonna talk to you . Then I'm like, Can I have some soup? ? Oh my God. Oh, I'll use a spoon. I promise. Oh, my dad's actually can't have anything. My mom's Come on downstairs, let's go get you some soon.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. When I think about how different life.  was and how different just even the world was back then.  I was eight in Mexico and we had our dog with us,  Mimi. And it was my job to walk her a couple times a day in the mornings and in the evenings and we would take her outside the trailer park because , they didn't want the dog to poop in the trailer park.

So we had to take her outside and , we'd walk all the way down  whatever road and come back. This was the nice trailer park. There was two main trailer parks in Guadalajara, which is where we were. One was run by an expat who had been wounded during the Vietnam War and was like not okay up in the head.

And so  he didn't give a. , the whole place was run down, nothing taken care of. And he let everybody stay for  dirt cheap. So the only people who go there were cult people. So it was like a big huge commune there.  Constantly,  there was anywhere between seven to 15 trailers at any given time.

Like which trailers, quote unquote homes. But there was one other place that where you would stay in another trailer park that was like much more fancy. , it's not a trailer park the way that they have them here in the States. It's like a campground actually.

Yeah. That would probably be closer to what . , what the definition here would be., we'd have to walk outside of the campground because they didn't want any problems with the dogs now. But I would go by myself eight years old. . , and I know I had like direct instructions to go and come right back.

Usually my brother would go with me too. The one right under me, eight and seven, I was watching him, I was in charge of him, the little seven year old. I'm a taking care of my seven year old brother and yeah, go out on the street and walk around in Mexico with your little blonde hair, blue eyed faces and Sure, no problem.

, it wasn't any problem into one day though. It just so happened that my brother wasn't there and it was just me  there was this woman, and she saw me and, she was all like, like just gibbering away in Spanish.

, she couldn't believe the blonde hair, blue light little girl who was  wandering around by herself with a dog in the middle of the road or in the streets in Mexico, . And so she  grabbed me and pulled me in and , they fed me , here's cookies and all this stuff that I don't usually have.

But what I remember so clearly was that they were painting my fingernails and, it was like nothing  like that had ever happened.  I never had my fingernails painted. I just remember that so clearly. And I think finally what happened is my brother showed up and he was like you need to come home.

And so I went home to a sort of a  , similar scene. My mom,  completely losing her shit. Completely losing her shit. And then my stepdad angry punishment. I don't know what, but it was like, it's so weird when you think about it like an eight year old child. Like I, I don't think I would ask my eight year old child to wash the dishes  by results.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Watch out for the nice, like that's right. But for whatever reason they were like, Yeah, sure. Go out in this  strange unknown country, wander around by yourself, , you have a dog, everything's gonna be fine. And then when , I got distracted. I got lured in by, cookies and nail polish,

I got in trouble. Don't ever do that again. We're not gonna trust you if you do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, I think that's the closest I came to

running away in the sense of I was somewhere where my parents, like I, I was somewhere where I didn't have permission. And , I do remember though, like completely losing track of time to me. I'd been there for 15 minutes. But I guess I'd, by the time I left, like the sun was studying and it, I've been out there  a couple hours, which is a long time to lose an eight year old girl in Mexico,

But yeah, I do remember that experience.  The whole South America, they had their own separate leadership and there wasn't a lot of crisscrossing the people who were from escrow, which is the, the Asian, Southeast Asian.

area. They were in under one Dominion, , and we had five. I'm trying to remember now. Cause I know we had the, did they call them the Pacific? The, which was would be the Australia and New Zealand and SPAC Pack. That's right. And then we had the, we had escrow, which is the Asian, which where we were was Japan.

Was Japan. I think Japan was it pa Yeah. So it was like I guess everybody that was sitting in the Pacific Island, Pacific Ocean, yeah, pretty much. , I think it was Sacro. Was it Sacro? It was Sacro, yeah. Yep. That's, so then there was the whole South American continent.

 And everything that fell into there. And then there was, Naro, which was the north, which is Canada and the United States. , . So we had escrow, , Sac, Sacro. And then the fifth one was the European. What were they, do you remember? So that, cuz that's what Russia would've fallen under Russia and England.

And was it wasn't y That sounds a little, Might might been, might've been. So when you think about it those were the five factions.  talk about a Game of Throne story. Those were like the five factions of the, There might have been another one too, but I'm not sure.

But what would it be? I know Africa and Oh yeah. Africa, all of that part. So there might have been a six. That's why I thought there was, or they, or maybe they fell under pack room. That's I know the Middle East came under ascr came under the Asian as. Your, I got Alfred might have been an outro too.

I don't know.  Yeah. So I we, so we had those big factions. And however many there were, there was a, it was, yeah, it was five, six, but , we didn't cross over too often. There wasn't a lot of crossover, at least in our world as children growing up in this. We generally stayed in our areas, even as we became teenagers and they started playing chess with us.

We generally stay within. Our leadership zones. So I know we have, for example, in one of the, in one of the communities, in one of our Facebook groups, we have, there's a fair amount of ex cult babies from Australia and Yeah. And a few other places.  I'm curious,, if there's other groups that are  more the South American ex members, because I've met some ex cult babies that , don't actually even speak English. That's how, not isolated, but that's how .

Solidly they stayed , in the South America. Area. .  ,   we've had this conversation, right?

Calling the suicide high hotline, and you're like, so here's the story. You have to fucking go into it and retraumatize yourself, re-trigger yourself. That was brutal. That's just so brutal.

 I can tell you for me, when I was in those places, emailing someone or even texting someone was so outside of my scope of ability because there's  a cognitive  requirement to be able to do that. And when you're all up in your shit that, that was not working, that was not connecting.

 If we could. Figure out a answering service, that would, I guess that we can call that an answering service in the sense like, okay, we have a telephone number that's going to be manned. There's gonna be somebody on the other end that you can cry to, that you can talk to, and not room therapy, obviously we can't know that we can, but there will be somebody that will listen to you without you having to fucking explain what, where you came from, definitely, in some aspect, in some regard, having a dedicated answering service, I suppose to call it, for lack of a better word. I think that would be super, super helpful and super beneficial.

, I think it's something that we should work towards. That's my personal feeling. I think it's something that we can be like, Okay, we have established now that this is needed. How can we make it happen?

Yeah. That a thousand percent. Sure. I think we should do it. I work from home so I can see myself, being able to be by the phone, a few hours a day if I need to. , I don't think it'll be ring off the hook, hopefully. No but just that there's somebody at the other end.

Yep. And you don't even have to actually know, You don't even have to identify yourself. It would just be like, there, there's a voice on the other end like that. Don't even have to tell us who you are. We're not gonna ask any questions.  The other thing about the suicide hotline too, is they asked me like 500 fucking questions before I could even tell them anything.

And then I'm sitting there trying to kill myself. , these are not the things that I wanna be talking about right now. I don't wanna be telling my fucking name and my goddamn address and all that stupid shit. And where I am, and Bob I understand why, but you know for sure. But that's not what you wanna be saying.

 Especially like in our case, a lot of what we're doing when we get into those really dark spaces is where we have this whole disassociation. I'm not saying other people don't, but , there's   a whole, disengagement even.

Yeah. Couple times I've called, , I'd be like, Wait a second, actually, what is my address? Like that sort of But yeah, , I don't think that people would even need to necessarily know  who would be answering the phone either. You know what I mean? I, it doesn't have to be like, Oh, I know this is gonna be whisper on the other no's. Like, No, just it's somebody who's gonna answer, who's gonna answer you.

, I'd be very interested in hearing like some of what the other ex cult babies are dealing with in their own way.  I have someone in my life. Was part of that.  A wild country That Osho cult.

. That is a lot of exposures coming out of it in the  last couple years. And there's books being written and stuff. And  anytime that I talk to her about,  stuff that's going on  in our communities, she's like, Yep, this is so familiar.

Like this is going on in ours as well.   I'm curious as to that struggle that, I just don't belong here in this world.

There's just no space for me. There's no place for me, There's no way I can connect.  I'd be interested to know if that's something that, other cult babies would feel that they needed to, or other organizations, I don't know. The other thing that I definitely think that in my mind is much more  tangible.

Something that we could make happen before the end of the year type of a thing would be to set up a, a therapy group essentially.  A gathering of us that you can pop in and just listen or talk or whatever it might be.

When my kids were,  going through the shit that we were going through with, with the suicides and that whole thing, the only free youth group that they had that wasn't in the actual mental hospital was was the LGBTQ center.

And , it was organized and run by a licensed therapist. And that group saved thousand percent saved my kids' life. Cuz it was a place where they could come. Other people. Same, like other people had their story. There just needs to be that tether, that connection of you are not alone.

And not just cuz yes, you can call a friend or you could pick up, some self-help book and people will say, you're not alone, but it's really different than sitting in a group and hearing someone describe what you just went through three days ago or what you're going through in this moment.

I can really see the benefit of having that. , we could even have a non therapy , just to get together group. I feel like there's a big need for that. Just to get together and talk.

And even just that, like knowing that other people Yeah, and we've understand you and a thousand percent, like we, and we've talked about this. . We talked about it and we talked about it. And I know for me, I can sometimes wait until I think everything's perfect,  right to for it to all come together and then we'll make it happen.

But like this podcast started because I was finally like, Okay, it's not gonna be perfect for clicks. Just go right. And here we are a year and a half later, so maybe that's what we need to do. We don't have to worry about, do you wanna come?  Maybe that's what we need, is we just need, like a place where somebody can stop in and just like literally shoot the shit.   Something like that that, like that's not a charge and that's just facilitated by somebody.

 If we get our Patreon set up, I know there's people that will, Yeah. That will, there's people ready to donate monthly to it already.  That, and that could be, that can totally be part of it  there's other cult babies that wanna be in there too. Okay. So would we do one that would be cult babies and then one that would, and that would be everybody?

Or should we have one that's designated cog. Xco G all these other ex cult babies, they all feel the same way. Like they need somebody to connect with, they need a group, they need somebody to talk to.

They all feel so alone. And for sure. That's why I feel like it's a really big need and if not, then yeah, we can set up one just for that too. Hey, yeah.

It's gonna be a just try and see what works. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.  We've wanted to make this happen, so let's just do it,  I think there is, this, is this need that we have to the not explaining things, , the not having to explain yourself is like one of the biggest things.

, we spend our whole lives day in and day out, translating ourselves into, palpable explanations of who we are and why we are the way that we are. That's a really good way of saying that. That's pretty much what happens on a daily basis.

Yeah. And sometimes yeah. It's just fucking exhausting. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.  I really think we can work out the logistics and I really think if we get our Patreon set up, that we can get enough sponsorship to at least help us to facilitate these groups because it's gonna take some time.

It's gonna take, it takes a lot more than people think to behind the scenes to actually get going. Yeah, for sure. I And a lot more money. We'd spend a lot of money out of pocket on the podcast every month. Every month. So we would, we're definitely gonna appreciate some sponsorship and.

I I think like you said too though let's start guilt tripping some FTAs in these groups. Let's get in there and be like, you guys owe us. Here's $5 a month Patreon, you can set it up, it'll just come straight outta your bank account. You don't have to think about it at all.

And you can start feeling like maybe you're paying us back a little bit. Yeah, exactly. 

In general, we should be responsible for ourselves and in general, right? Everyone's, we are responsible for own mental health, our own care, our own concern. But in this case, very specifically, we have two groups of people. One that understood there was a life outside of a cult and one that did not. And that's the divide.

That's the huge difference,  where I can honestly, wholeheartedly say there is a responsibility that stops before it hits us. Because we did not know. And every single person who came in from an outside life, in an outside world who knew what it's like, to have to have relatives, and who knew what it's like to

To take a breath. Sometimes , they came into this fucking disaster. And yes, maybe you exited it as fast as you possibly could, but you left all of us behind.

Sorry. So yeah, I think it's only fair .       

 We're sitting here, like 18 months later with a very clear picture of what the need is that. , even though I knew on a certain level that there was like where we are right now, where we're sitting here and every single fucking month, a week even, it seems like we're to that suicide list.

Like I just, I can't. And I, it's terrible. The person that just lost their battle to depression or to pain, I guess their battle to pain. Not, a few days ago, message after message, after messages. And it's not about, it's not about were you loved enough? Did you have some think somebody made a comment and was like, he had so much going, I wanted to I was like, Can I fucking punch you right now?

Because that's not the point. The point is not whether they have something going on in their life. Obviously this person was like, like profoundly loved.  Nothing to do with that. It's that empty aloneness that you feel.

And if we can come in and , even if it's pathetic , if we can come in and say Okay it's nothing to what you deserve. It's nothing to what it should be. We're, we're not, like we're not solving anything huge, but I just don't want anyone to feel like we're just like out there.

Yeah. Like dealing with our own selves. And here's the thing, like I. I know like when we first left the cult I think there was an element of us feeling okay, the older ones like we really got shit on because they were experimenting with us, right? Like we saw some fucking shit, but we're watching our siblings, our brothers and sisters, like that were young growing up and coming statistically that is seen across the board, whether you're cult, not a cult, whatever it is.

Statistically, you start actually looking at your history and your past and the things that's going on, like around your thirties. And we're like every single, every single year there's this whole new wave of kids coming out there going Holy fuck, this happened to me.

What can I do? And they need to know that they're not alone and they need to know that. I'm so fucking over . I'm so overhearing the I had a word. You had a word. This is my story. That's your story. I'm not, I'm a thousand percent not condemning. People have their own personal experiences and they have their own reasons to feel the way to do not, I'm not that's very valid, but you know how our parents used to say they'd come and they'd discipline you for something and you're like, But I didn't even do that.

And then they'd be like this is for all the times you did it and didn't get caught. Yeah. It's a little bit like that. Okay, maybe they're not, maybe that isn't their direct personal story, but that is a story that has been repeated over and over and over again. All of these children are all of us, and I'm not.

where I am right now. I don't wanna argue, semantics about who had it or who didn't have it, because it's one thing if you you're using it to like actually gain something in some way that you're keeping from other ex members. , but that's not what we're talking about. We're just talking about like, all of us in some way, we're royally fucked by these cults, royally fucked.

And we shouldn't have to feel as alone as we do. , , we shouldn't Oh, and I know that  we hear it constantly.

We see it ourselves and we hear it constantly of, ah, , I didn't know there was other people feeling this exact same way. I didn't know that your experiences could mirror mine so closely to where I feel like I'm your sister-in arms, your brother in arms, whatever, so yeah we need to, you know how  for LGBTQ youth,  they'll have these safe spaces.

This is a safe space.  I feel like we have the possibility, we have the ability to create like a safe space for ex cult babies to come into and be themselves.  It just sits on me, it sits on me. And if I can do something and I don't , that's what's gonna keep me awake at night if I can actually do something and I don't.



If there's something that we can do, let's do it. So let's do it. We'll have a butterflies and Bravery listening service. Yeah. They can book either one of us.   That's, that would be super, super awesome. , Yeah. Let's just do it.   Not therapy,  not there. But you're not gonna come and get retrieved. We're not gonna sit there and say you should hear what happened to me.

 We wouldn't be asking them to also support us. The other reason why I feel comfortable about doing that is, is because, they have, what are we at 60 episodes?

. If you're wondering who we are and it, if we will understand you or if you wanna feel comfortable knowing like who we are listening to you, we go, Yeah, we have all these episode. Like at least that. And then I'm not gonna come here and say, Hey, I know what I'm talking about.

No, you. Go check yourself. Yes, if I do or if I don't, that's not totally, that's not what this is about. Yeah. But yes, you're right. And I also feel like, because a lot of people have heard our podcast or been avid listeners or just downloaded one or whatever, but they already feel like they know us, Because it's a very personal thing.

Like even when I listen to these podcasts, I feel very almost like I know that person very personally. . Yeah. And we, we've shared a lot of things about ourselves, So I feel like that.  in, in a lot of ways could make it easier for people to talk to us because not only do they know, yes, we're gonna understand, but you know, how big of a disaster we are.

They know how big of, and they already feel like they know us. So it's just just like talking to a friend, instead some random stranger that has no clue what's going on.  in our world, that just doesn't work. Yeah. It just doesn't work for us. It's just, yeah, it's too hard for us to try and fit into that whole,  mental health, normal mental health thing. Yeah. And to me, cuz I, I've been thinking about it obviously since the latest suicide. I just cannot stop thinking about it. It's going around and around in my head, but I would so much rather,  be someone that helps you know, another, ex member.

Hang in there and stick around rather than , being some fucking popular podcast. I don't fucking care about that , that's fun , I'm human, but end of the day this will always be what's the most important to me.

  What's really sad too is for a ex called babies, is that we don't even have our families to rely on, we're like literally out there fucking flapping in the wind, like those goddamn.

What else? Being things from  the car dealership.  The wild, wacky, waving arm, flailing tube, man. There you go.

 . At the end of the day  all I've ever wanted , is to be here for somebody,  to be here for each other because no one was there for us.

Yes, exactly. I think it's very important. It is. It's  top priority thousand percent top priority. Yes. So we'll be here for you.

If we didn't have jobs, we could be here all the time, .  I think we could eventually build it up though, to where there's somebody available all the time. That would be the end goal.

 This friend I have that would do this help the Homeless  program project, and , he would say several times, I don't feel like I'm giving. Something, I don't feel like I'm doing cherry at all, like whatsoever, because I get back what I feel so much more than what I'm giving.

And I feel like that with being there for, each other

It fills my soul. , it fills my soul to be able to say Y'all listen to you. And there's definitely people that, want you to stick around. There's an element of strength and healing that comes from being able to be in a place where you can turn around and say Okay.

Here, let me loan you my lantern , essentially. So I definitely think that we will get to a place where we can confidently promise someone around all the time. Yes. We see it and we see it in the groups. People are like, I need someone to talk to, like someone please call me. I'm just like, Oh my God.

Yeah. Yeah. I need it. We do. It's so hard for us to connect with other people. , it takes like sometimes years or you just never do because you either can't tell them about your past or you've told them and they can't accept you or there's so many. And factors. And sometimes I feel like because people  People will say to us, ex call babies, They'll be like everybody feels, awkward.

Everybody feels like they're on the outside looking in. To me it's the equivalent of Sure, everybody needs to learn how to dance, but we're learning how to dance in a fucking wheelchair. Like that  Yeah. As yes, I, Yes, I know. I know that there's other people who do feel isolated who, who do feel like an alien in the situations that they're in or that there's not, their family isn't there for them, y yada.

But

even just being able to understand cultural references. Interesting. That's a connection. Yep. That's a connection. And it's not saying, I'm not saying that's gonna matter. . But if you are going through your day and in your conversations with your coworkers or , your neighbors or whatever it is, and you are having conversations that you know what they are talking about and they know what you're talking about, that's a fucking connection.

Whether you hate it, whether it helps you, doesn't matter. But we are in this situation where they don't know. We don't know what they're talking about. . Most likely if we were going to be our authentic selves, they won't know what we're talking about. So there, there just is a little bit of an extra I, like I was saying earlier just like I just, Yeah.

You won't have to translate yourself , right? Yeah.  We'll tell you that we believe in you and we're proud of you.  We'll do butterflies and bravery listening service. There you go.  It's not perfect but here it is. , stay brave. Stay brave and remember that every butterfly was once a cat. . That's right. Even if you feel like you're struggling to get out of your chrysalis.

You're pushing those juices into your wings. That's right. 📍  .