...It Just Was

Our conversation with cult survivor Angela led us down several paths. Angela describes her experience in the Children of God as, "I didn't really have thoughts about did I or did I not believe, it just was." During our chat together we address things that many of us struggle with like body positivity issues, listening to our bodies and knowing when to stop, belonging, etc. Angela's story about finding a therapist, might be one of the most shocking you've ever heard....

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Transcript

   Hi, Angela . Hi . Welcome to Butterflies and Bravery. . 

Yeah, thank you. It's great to be here. 

Very excited to have you. You're calling in from the south of England. 

 That's right.  When I left the family, that's where I moved to south of England.

22 years I've been out now. 

Oh wow. Congratulations. That's great, . Thank you. That's 

really good. Yeah. It's amazing when you reach that point when you've been out as long as you were in , so I've just passed that. I was in for 20 years. I'm out for 22. That's 

fantastic.

There still have a few more years to go. I left when I was 27 and I'm 50, so Wow. Four more years.

But that reason we left right around the same time then.   

Yeah, I guess really? September, 2000. 

That's so funny. When we left for Jamaica, we were going to leave on September 11th.

And then The travel agent, she messed up. And so she called and she said, Hey, can I switch you to this other, to September 15th? We were like, yeah, sure. And so we're sitting in the living room in New York watching this happen, and we were like, holy shit.  We would've been in that airport when that happened, or around that time.

So that's always imprinted on my memory when we left Jamaica,   we were still trying to do  some sort like, missionary work, do good for others, that kind of a thing. But  everything fell flat there and it was time to come back the day that we landed back here in the United States that, the $300 in my pocket day was February 18th, 2002.

Isn't that a good date? 

I haven't, I've ever talked about that before. But yeah  . That's my date. 

So that was the c o G's birthday, right? 

Yeah. Yeah. That was when he always had to do the fucking fasts and all that 

nonsense. it was David Burr's birthday and then they turned it into the family's birthday.

that's very significant that you left on that day. 



Oh yeah. I think so definitely stood out in my mind.  I can't remember when the first fast happened. Do you remember? Because I think Berg was getting sick at the time.

He was  barely not doing well. And so we had to fast and pray for him for three days because his alcoholism had eaten through his esophagus, which is the little bit that they never told all of us about  praying for his healing for what he did to himself. But then after that they just kept it going.

And it was almost like it became a thing,  every year we'd have those three days of some type of big revelation that was happening. Yeah. 

So 

super nice to not have that  not have that to look forward to anymore. Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

What kind of circumstances surrounded you?

Leaving the cult. Angela? 

We were living in Eastern Europe when I left, .  I mainly grew up in the uk. We had a couple of periods when we were living abroad. We lived in India a couple of times when I was younger.



Are you originally, are you English? 

Yeah,  both my parents are English. Okay.  When the family first came to England, they went to Kent and that's where my dad's from.  they both  joined mid seventies and  they had a couple of years, in the family before they met one another.

So I was born in 1980, I guess we were still in the wake of the know the r r Revolution. .  And so things were, I guess like smaller homes rather than the, the big blobs that they'd had before.  And so we often lived like with just maybe one of the family or sometimes, just on our own.

And then when I was three we went out to live in India,  we went to India, of course everybody got really sick. My parents got hepatitis and I had urine tract infection and coming back after six months cuz of how sick everybody was.

And then  we tried to go out to India again in like 1987. But by the time we got out that time, it was around the time when everybody was trying to. Come back  from India  because this, the circumstances out there had changed. But we lived in this massive home in Hyderabad. And you had another guest on your show before who talked about living in that home.

I think it was like a massive home and a lots of people were transit, were staying there,  as they were transitioning back to the uk. So by the time we got out there, we knew that it wasn't gonna be very long before we had to . Come back. So we had six months out there.

Oh. And  back to the UK again. Yeah. And then that's when we were mid eighties and the nineties, living in those big family homes. Oh yeah. In the uk.  

Did they ever have a school type home in the uk? 

The only time I remember there being a school home was in the early eighties, after we came back from India, we were living in London and there was a home in London and my dad, he used to take me on the tube that's like the underground  to go to this other home, going a few times. And then after that we ended up moving into, a proper family home. And then that's when they started saving up to go to India. But I don't, I know like other places you hear about the school vision and school homes and stuff, but  I don't really experience that.

So I didn't really get. Very much in the way of schooling. I don't know, do you guys remember like the workbooks? There's a couple of homes where, they think, oh, let's have a, let's have a push, an educated kids. So you all sit down for two hours. Yeah. that's not really how they were intended for, I think you were supposed to have a class and then that's like maybe homework.

 Like sitting down doing super workbooks, filling out things, just guessing the answers  and that was it really a lot of the time. Yeah. 

And only up to about the sixth graders when they 

Yeah, exactly.  I think the last time I really remember doing school was probably when I was on the Victor program.

We did bits and pieces then, and then after that I was 12 and you just had a ministry and yeah, that was it really. Yeah. 

 And  then when did you end up going to Eastern Europe? 

 That was a bit later on.  We left, we went to Eastern Europe in like 1996.  The British Court case was a big deal for us living in the uk of course.

Oh, okay. 

 We joined a home and the kids there, so this was like, I was, I just turned 11, so would've been like June 91. And the kids there were already in quite a bit of trouble. And so I I guess I caught. The tail end of, those teen training camps and the Victor programs that had been going on like the years of the nineties or the seventies babies went through all that way before

I did. And  they were playing around a bit with science restrictions and like the duck walks and, all those things that they used to do in those homes. And I remember like the nurses came up and made everybody write, like we all had to sit in a room and everybody had to write, confessions and, we had all that kind of weird, that stuff going on.

And then about six or seven months after being in that home, then Mary Malaysia came and she set up the Victor program proper and , she just rolled it out across all of the homes in the uk. And that's pretty well documented in there. The judgment of Lord Justice Ward. But you didn't have to do anything.

It's what I've realized now with some conversations I've had with Ex Family is, in some places you have to do something to get on these programs, but in the UK you didn't, it was just rolled out. So you just went on. And I think that was the thing that made it really hard is because in my head I was just like what do I have to do to get off?

, will do anything if you want. I'll say anything, behave however you want to get off. But I remember one of the boys asking her, what is it? What do we need to do to get it off? And she said you need to think of it as a crutch. , when you feel like you don't wanna be taken off, that's when you're ready to come off.

I, no , I'll 

never come off this thing. 

We're gonna be on forever. How does that even make 

sense? 

Oh, usually by the time you're ready to come off of a cru cause you're ready to fuckings it through the window. That's not, that 

doesn't 

make any sense. Yeah. Both of us had interactions with that same person.

Yeah. Whisper in Mexico and myself in the Philippines. I think it's interesting that we were like all tortured by the same . Yeah. 

She was especially special. She was the worst 

in my life. Yeah. She was 

harsh and it felt like she just appeared like in the, in places like the UK because, there were only so many homes and because they moved you around so much, you had a sense of who was.

In the uk. So most people you probably lived with at some point or you'd heard of, cuz other people talked about them, but she just seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. So maybe she'd come from Mean the Jumbo had a real bad reputation, so I'm sure she brought some of those technique to us.

And a lot of that was brand new. I'd never seen those things before. 

Yeah. 

, when, that whole school vision began, they used those schools as   testing ground basically to see what worked. And they gave each of the big major schools different types of approaches, different types of restrictions, different types of, to see how this works type of a thing.

And the Southeast Asia ones jumbo and the Thailand home  they were this  strictest of the strict. And so anyone coming out of  those as being shown the way, this is how you raised children. Yeah. And then having your own evilness. It's gonna exasperate,

  The whole thing. 

Yeah. That was a real tough time and my mental health, went downhill, within a matter of a couple of weeks I was having, now I look back now, to see myself, if I could step out of my own body to of look at myself as a small child, that's just a small child in pain that, know, I just wanted to stay in bed all day if I could, and.

which of course you couldn't, but that was, what I wanted to do. And I was trying to make myself throw up and things like that because I thought, that's how I might be able to stay in bed all day. But, of course those things don't work. But I ended up having a couple of exorcisms because of, mental health Yeah.

Stuff and they could, yeah. So yeah, so we were on that in that home. That was for six months before we were taken off. And then we had a lady come down from Scotland who put us all back on again .  

Was this one of those kind of Victor programs where you were  digging ditches and filling 'em back in  and Stupid stuff like that? Yeah. 

 When you had your like one hour of what used to be get out  instead of having fun or playing football, you had to do things like carry a pile of bricks from one side of the garden to the other side and then take them back again. Me and another girl we got put on like sweeping the driveway duty, every day.

So yeah, I mean they just, I guess the big thing was they took the joy out of life. That was what they wanted to do. But great irony now I look back is that the other thing they used to do is, do you remember, like there were all those videos of, I think maybe they were called like acts the Revolution or something, and it was about the early days.

And so we were constantly singing like the, the songs that made the revolution and watching these videos about , Faithy and the people who'd, joined and were there in the early days thinking that this was gonna somehow inspire us 

 To, 

get like the spirit of the revolution, but.

Their circumstances were completely different to cars. Being on silent restriction and things, watching a video of somebody else out witnessing and, dancing in a field or whatever, they were doing like a completely different situation and Didn't work.  I don't know if this has ever happened to you guys before, but, so towards the end of this kinda second phase of being on the Victor program, which was quite short, was maybe a couple of weeks.   I got sent up to the home in Scotland and I don't remember. 

I keep thinking , if I keep going back and just  letting my mind rest on that, maybe some memories will come back. But I remember being in the van, going up to Scotland to go and stay in the home there. I remember getting there. And then when I was there, I remember everybody else was on the Victor program and I wasn't.

So I could talk, but they couldn't. And then I just cannot remember anything else. I can't remember who was there. I can't remember how long I was there for. I've got no idea how I got back. But at some point I was living with my parents again. The weirdest thing. And I don't have a feeling like, I don't have a sense that anything really  happened.

I don't think I went through anything particularly horrific, but it's just gone. Do you guys get that 

ever?  definitely with the memory thing. And I personally,  something happened, and then  it'll trigger this memory that was so gone that I I didn't even remember that.

I forgot the memory, if that makes sense,     but I also have been doing a little bit of reading about it because I think  there is a very interesting phenomenon that some of us are starting to experience. And I wonder if that was a little bit for you in that situation where, when you've been for so many years and on that high alert, high stress, you know, fight or flight mode, going to a space where you're out of it for a moment.

Can also set your whole body on tilt.  like the peace is traumatic.  when you've only known chaos and pain and awfulness, then the peace and safety is chaotic. And  I've  heard of some of us,  having those situations where all of a sudden,  it was just so off center from what they'd known up to then it, it it really affected them.

And I don't know if it was that for you or if it was a worse situation. Is that cuz you, you were the only one that  was allowed to speak everyone 

else. Yeah. It was interesting that, that was one of two times when I traveled through home where other people were on the Victor program.

, and it was a really strange thing because  normally when you visited a home it was quite warm.  Your first impressions when you walked in the door cuz people would hug you and welcome you and that had that kind of vibe to it. But then walking into a home where people were on the Victor program, it felt quite oppressive.

 If you've been around somebody who is depressed and there, there's that kind of really heavy energy around them. . And so being around, you walking into a home where you have a whole, 10 or 15 or however many got on in that kind of real depression just felt so heavy.

 Maybe it was just, I'd already been through this for so long, maybe just watching other people going through it. Maybe that was. Too much and my brain's just . Yeah. Let's erase this information  

yep. Not going there. Yeah, that's true. Like you could have been, oh, this is what it looks from the outside looking in and how Yes.

How horrible that is. Yeah. 

Even though I lived through it, when you walk into home and that's going on,  to see somebody with a sign saying, don't talk to me on science restriction. it was shocking even though it wasn't new information. 

 . 

There's something really interesting.

I, I recently read a book called Cult Child by Vinny Nok. I probably said her name wrong. Sorry. K what? Colt Child. K Child. Okay. Yeah. She grew up in Sam FIfe's, move of God. But ah, I really liked with her story is that she's got a lot of these blanks.  and she disassociated a lot. I Her experience was far worse than anything I went through in the family in terms of physical and abuse.

But she's really she really owns those banks and she says to you like, it's okay to tell your story and it's okay to say that there's chunks of things that you don't remember. And at the end of her introductions she says if you find this disjointed and disconnected and hard to make sense of welcome to my mind yeah. That's, I thought, yeah, that's great. I really like that. That's that honesty and openness and that is your story. Yeah. 

We've interviewed someone from the move of God, didn't we? Drama

 Couple people, 

 We've met and interacted with several people from that cult. Yeah. 

Lisa Guci the girl  that writes all the poetry and stuff? I don't know. , she was on a while back   



 It was one of those weird situations. We're on the one side, you're stockpiling food for the end time, but then on the other side you got your free bag,  because, we always had drills and, practice for, running into the field for if we got a knock on the door.

And so I think that probably, that kind of stuff hailed the end of, those Victor programs, , and it was a bit touch and go. Definitely think like the court case from our point of view was good because, they were starting to get worried. They weren't really sure if they were gonna win the case or if they were gonna lose the case. So it was like towards the end of that time oh God, I remember reading Victory in Babylon,  

around that time and oh 

my God, holy god.

Can't remember you remember that title? Oh God, yeah. . 

Yeah. I go back now and read. Anything from a cult. I am, I'm like, shocked, horrified. Absolutely. What the fuck is this bullshit babbling and how did I ever think this was okay? Oh my God. Somebody asked me the other day so how did you join the cult?

I'm like, I don't think I ever would've joined  of my own free will . Like I was born in that shit. I never would've been like, oh, this is great. Let's go join this. Yeah. But then also I was listening to, so I bought my mother this story worth, I don't know if you've heard of it for Christmas.

It's basically you buy them the experience to write a book. So they get a question every week, and then at the end of the year, they put all the questions into a. 

, 

you can basically get a little bit of your family history. And I was reading what my mom was writing about when she joined the Cult, and I was like, yeah, see now this kind of a thing.

I can understand why somebody would want to join this. , because she looked at where she was and what she came from and what the cult was originally offering her. It seemed like a welcome trade off. , but then that pretty cake got cut open and it was just full of shit inside. But then they just kept eating.

Yeah. 

If I'm remembering my, my, my history, our parents. Parents. So our grandparents were coming out off of the second World War and that time.  That's where the whole quote unquote American Dream, the American Dream birthed from. And so you had this army of people that were cold and calculating and like stuck in this box.

We are going to have that white picket fence and we are going to have 2.5 kids  and they're going to behave and men do this, and women do that. So I, I can see coming from that sort of whole era and then walking into a place where they're like, love bombing you and hugs and do you remember watching that movie Hair?

Yes. Yeah, very much. Yeah. I watch, I would watch that movie and I was like, man, they're like having more fucking fun than I am. 

Yeah. How many times did you watch that movie, ? Oh my God.

The end always horrified me though. I always did. I just, yeah. 

 Did you ever see the, what was that other movie called? Was that the Apple that we watched? Was that what it was called? 

Oh, the Apple? Yes.

Okay. So Whisper and I watched that together,



It was like  10 years ago now. Like 10 years ago. . 

It's so insane that movie. I just, because I needed to have the history, I have a DVD of it  because you can't find it anywhere. Like it's such a God awful =movies   be  on Netflix or 

anything, 

 It is really funny when you go back, I'm sure when you're looking, like you said Jemima,    we used to read and think, oh my god, the Lord's messages. And, but going back sometimes to your memories and reliving those things and putting your.

Frame of mind or your thoughts through your adult , experience where you are now and understanding what was going on? The movie The Apple actually was, for me, it really planted a seed of wait a second. Like I was scared of the cult in the end. Like even in, in The Cult, I was like, that is awful.

. I was like I wanna go and, live up in Canada where we can sing beautiful songs, that's how it but talk about that was the stuff you had to bury deep, deep inside.  That was something that you wouldn't even bring up in confession,

Cause you big trouble. But yeah, it is interesting like looking back over some of those things of what our thought processes were. 

Yeah. So what do you doing now, Angela? 

Oh, now I work for a charity.  It's a charity that helps children who are orphaned, like across the world.

Yeah. Oh, wow. That is wonderful. 

That must be like wonderfully fulfilling, isn't it? 

Yeah, absolutely.  That's a great thing actually. 

Actually doing what we said we were 

 I work with a nonprofit also of anti-human trafficking.  Getting to do some actual work and helping other people is very fulfilling in that sense. Yeah, 

definitely. 

 did you ever go back and do any more studies 

yourself?

Yeah, I did, , so I guess to carry on with the story towards the end of the British court case, we moved to Ireland for a bit, and then that was when My first seeds of doubt. I know some SGAs, like they talk about how well they never believed or they really believed, but for me, I didn't really have thoughts about did I or did I not believe it just was, you just now you're usher into the living room and now you have to put, go on your hands and knees and pray.

Oh okay, I'll do that then. But it wasn't really, didn't really think about it in those terms so much. But it was when I was in would've been about 13 and we had another teen camp, but it wasn't, know, it wasn't like a horrible teen camp. It was more like an, inspirational where they tried to get you on outreach and, do activities with you.

And so they had like teens all over the uk. Came for a month and spent a  at this teen camp. And one of the, one of the things that they did was they told us one day they said, we're gonna go to this major city and you're gonna go and find somebody who is, . Has a visible disability and lay hands on them and pray, and then they'll be miraculously recovered,

And my first thought was, oh my God, this is gonna be horrendously embarrassing because obviously they're not gonna be healed. And I would've humiliated myself if I do this. And then my next thought was, oh, I don't believe in prayer.

And that probably came from all the times when I was sick 

as a kid. And they lay hands and nothing ever happened. So I, I didn't believe that anything would happen. So yeah, that really, that teen camp backfired. But that's when I first started thinking about, wanting to leave and had some kind of, idea about being a nurse and, wanting to get out.

But then when Bird died and the childs came out, my family, we spent a year fundraising and then we moved over to Eastern Europe. So then I was trapped out there. , as you guys know, it's, the practical aspects of trying to leave the family  from the mission field.

 Because, didn't know anybody. I didn't have any money, wasn't allowed to save up for money, couldn't tell anybody I wanted to leave. So at the time I just thought I guess I just have to make the most of it and give this a go while I'm here. Yeah. So then there was another, so  I guess I first thought about leaving when I was 13.

It was quite a few years. I didn't manage to get out until I was 20. And then when I did leave, I was the first of my family to get out. And so yeah, it's that whole thing when you don't know anybody. And I didn't know how anything works, like real basic stuff. I just didn't know, just the basics. It was like being as a child,   out there. But  somebody did gimme really good advice, which was. To try and study something. So I had to work full-time during the day, but then I started signing up to classes in the evening, which I did have to pay for out of my minimum wage job. But I did that for four years and then I managed to get into university.

 And then at the end of English degree, I managed to get a little bit of funding to help pay for a master's degree. So I had a baby while I was doing my master's degree, and then I went yeah, into the workplace. 

Yeah. Fantastic. 

Did you find it easy to cause because it's such a different learning experience of, from super workbooks into  Yeah.

An actual classroom. Did you find that sort of easy , did you feel up to par with your peers? Because we had to memorize stuff so much.  There was an aspect of our brain that was so sharp, and  prepared for that, but then also unprepared for just the breadth and depth of the subjects 

yeah, exactly.  One of the problems with our society is if you come from a group like ours, there's, at least in the uk I dunno how the people are doing it, but if you need to go out there and work full-time and then try and study, there's not very many options for you.

And they don't have a lot of subjects in the evening,  it was really limited in terms of choice. . And then also because I was  behind on a lot of subjects, so what I was able to do, like English and history, I was quite good at because like with history, if I could just read the books and memorize the facts, which I was good at ,    I just remember sitting in there and, the teacher saying, oh, so this is something you would've learned when you were about five.

And it was all brand new information for me, . And yeah, some of it was like, you have to draw stuff and diagrams and, the heart or the liver and I can't draw anything. Nobody ever showed me how to draw anything. And , , it was just too hard. So I had to just give up on that side.

But then that's what I ended up doing an English degree, because that was, what I could do. , maybe it's not what I would've done if we'd had an education, but yeah. There you go. . . Just to be grateful that I managed to do something. No, 

that's fantastic. You did a lot . 

 

 How many kids do you have?

Do you have just the one or? 

Yeah, just the one.  He's 14. 

Oh, wow.

. My partner's another sga,   

Did you meet in the group 

 I knew them in the cult. And then I hadn't seen them for a while, but we were chatting on moving on years ago and became friends.

Nice. . So you didn't come out of the cult together? 

Yeah, we met after. 

 I'm sure you see it around here, but it's such a raging debate.

 People that have such strong opinions about whether to date, people from our past or to date, someone who knows nothing about our past or somebody who's understanding of our past. The relationship side of what we missed and don't know and are trying to figure out is very stark.

a lot. But 

Yeah. I did date somebody for two years.  Before my current partner who, grew up normally, outside of the group, but he was really, he was a lovely guy, but there was just so much we didn't have in common. And he would tell a story about his childhood and I'd be like, what?

I just can't picture this. I don't understand. And then I would say something about my childhood and he would just say, look, can you just not tell me stories about your childhood because I can't handle them. Oh my gosh. And that's just the basic stories, not even , 

The bad ones. 

Maybe now would be different because I've been out for much longer.

Maybe it wouldn't matter so much because maybe I have more points of reference with other people from outside. But at the time when I was barely fresh out, I think it helped me to be with somebody who could understand where I was coming from and who I was, and had those shared points of reference. 

 A real problem  I think  with our generation, was  eating disorders and just completely distorted image of what we look like, I think was really common.  I remember when I was 16, when we first went to Eastern Europe.

 One of the Eastern European nationals used to come up to me and slap my bum and pinch me and say, oh, you need to go for a run and make comments like that to me.

And  there was so little food there anyway. I couldn't really cut down  on anything. I was eating . But I remember there coming a point when I just thought , what I can do is I can tone up and just becoming quite obsessive with exercise. Oh. But while we were out there, I the quality of the food in Eastern Europe where we were, was really poor.

 And by the time, boy, only maybe a year or two into being there, I remember  my periods kind of got really. You know, Distance. So I might be going  two months between, and my hair was falling out and I was having blackouts and oh my God, I was getting these physical symptoms and I didn't know what they were.

And of course, nobody went to the doctors,   I wasn't on my deathbed. So, you know, Crack on and  some money. Um, But then after I left the family, about six months after I went to the doctor and she said there's something wrong and you need to go to the hospital for a scan.

And they told me, oh, you can't have children.  There's something wrong with your ovaries. Oh my god. And so I was, , I was quite. I was quite baffled because I was so new out and I'd never had any contacts with doctors before.  So I didn't really know you were allowed to ask questions.

And I suppose maybe that was because in the family, like a true revolutionary doesn't ask questions, so I just sat there completely mute, staring at the sky just thinking, why is he talking to me about having children? When I just came in to find out why my hair's falling out and  and what's going on with me.

But then weirdly, like 10 years later, I went back to the doctor because I found out that my grandmother and my great-grandmother both died of ovarian cancer. So I went and I started remembering this doctor told me there was something wrong with my ovaries and started to like, started to play on my mind.

So I went to the doctor and I did a freedom of information request first to get all the notes from the hospital and show, I'm coming here for genuine reasons and loads of scans they. Blood tests, everything. Couldn't find a single thing wrong with me.  I just haven't been able to make sense in this puzzle until about a few months ago when I mentioned it to my best friend who I met in that first year that I'd left the cult.

And she said to me yes, but you were exceptionally thin when I met. You thought, Ooh, actually, maybe you, it might have been that. All of those things I was starting to get the symptoms that, people with anorexia get, even though I wasn't, wasn't restricting food, but it was that you probably 

poor 

quality of food combined with Yeah.

You Just exercising a lot and just 

so 

malnourished. Yeah, just malnourishment. Yeah. 

Yeah, it 

scares me a little bit, I think back on it that if, if I hadn't got out one, I did, I could have had  much longer lasting think effects and I'm just lucky that. My body seems to have healed itself.

I  remember  the run the race program.  And they'd make us run around that,, one mile thing over and over 

before breakfast,  When it's 115 degrees outside.  Everybody else got to go  at night when it was nice and cool and then all the girls that were quote unquote fat had to run around in the daytime so we could sweat more. And , yeah, . 

  For all that they would say about how, like the revolutionary women and all that kind of stuff, they were so hung up on looks , it was just incredible. The dichotomy of what actually went on and then what they said went on 



And we were talking about that the other day. Cuz the ones that were born like Jerem and I in the early seventies,  the first wave of children. We're coming into our fifties or heading towards our fifties, and this is where we're gonna start seeing the toll,  of what our upbringing actually did to us.

And a friend of mine was like, I think we're gonna start seeing a lot of things , it's  might be a little bit scary.   I broke my ankle in the cult. I was on crutches for about five months. No, went to the doctor.  

That's why my knee is so bad.  Because I apparently tore my ACL when I was 19 years old in Russia in the cult, and I never got any care for it at all.

And then, Totally forgot about it. Basically . And then now 30 years later, take a little fall, go and get a bounce scan and everything's wrong.

Yeah.

And then those bones don't heal.  Now I'm really paying the price because I have severe arthritis. I can barely walk and my leg is all bowed out. Like my left leg, it's bowed out because the bone is so crooked from walking for so many years without 

an A c L.

. Yeah. That's really awful. And that's the kind of the saddest thing about it, isn't it? Is realizing that. Some of these effects, they go on and on. 

Yep. I popped my eardrum in India too with the volleyball. I had blood running down my ear and the, you know what the answer was? Oh, you probably just popped a pimple or something.

You're fine. Blew out my eardrum, broke my finger. Oh, we'll just put it back in place. There you go. Here's a Popsicle stick. Yep. And then people are like, why didn't you tell the doctor when you fell? I'm like, , . What did you want me to say? I fell, that, that's goes against everything that I was taught.

You don't report your injuries. You just can't. Yeah. So it's like you said, you're not on your deathbed, so fuck up and go make some money . Exactly. Yeah. And that's what my head plays over and over and over , 

  A very big Part of  our exploitation was just that  you're gonna work, you're gonna be useful until you're actually like, literally dying.

And then good luck after that, 

. 

Yeah. The other consequence of that for me is that I don't know when to call in sick at work.  I remember a few years ago I got pneumonia and I did end up in hospital, but in the week leading up to going to hospital, I kept trying to go to work and I was like, shivering and blankets around me and everyone's saying, you do not look well.

I'm gonna keep trying, I wanna keep trying. It's really hard. Yeah. 

It's really hot. , we were never taught to how to listen to our bodies or our intuition. In fact, we're taught not to listen.  like the opposite. So it's not a wonder that it's something that we do struggle with. These days, even now.

 It's learning how to look after yourself. It's a massive part of the recovery 

process.   It really is. Yeah. . I was just telling Jemima that this whole last week my son has been sick and my daughter has been in Vegas. And so the house has been completely empty for a week.  And I didn't go shopping.

 , I didn't cook for myself nothing. And I was looking back and realizing,  holy crap. I really don't know how to take care of myself in a lot of ways, because we were from the start, just, told, and then you have, and then you have kids, and then you have, so yeah, you're right.

It's a super big important piece of the healing . , how was it for you when you had started, when you had your child? How. What sort of experience was that for you? 

Yeah, it was, gosh, it's life changing, isn't it? ? . But I suppose like in my first few years out of the family, before I'd had my son, it was, I was studying was like my big focus.

But then also, I guess I did a lot of things to try and I was doing a lot of things to try and maybe not forget, but just, just take my mind off things and just for sure, it was all about just trying to have fun and not think lots of parties, lots of, all that kind of stuff.

That was like, that was my life. So then when I had my son, I couldn't do those things anymore. And I didn't have a support network. There was nobody who could babysit for me. 

It was 

just me and him and my partner who worked nights a lot of the time. And it was tough. It's got, it's gotten better as he's gotten older.

And I do enjoy, I have enjoyed the times I've spent with him. Yeah. It's not easy  

having kids. Yeah. But 

then  at the same time, it's been quite grounding because I have to cook a proper meal every night, 

Yes. Kinda thing.  

And then I guess when you learn to watch him and figuring out when I need to take him to the doctor and, those things, actually, it's good for me because then maybe I can translate that to myself,

So then how to look after myself because I'm learning how to look after him. . I remember the optician telling me off because he said, oh, you should have taken him to the optician sooner. Should I ? I haven't been for, 20 years. I didn't know you were supposed to go often. . Yeah. 

That's actually another thing that I've heard from several of us  cuz most people, when they start feeling pain or whatever are seen symptoms go to the doctor. And so the doctors are usually, are very used to seeing something in the beginning of whatever it might be. But we have been trained to go to wait until the very last moment till yeah, you can't even walk anymore. And you go in and the doctors are like they're in their mind.

You are coming in the beginning of something like they, they can't comprehend that someone  would live through this kind of pain without coming to them first. So they minimize your pain.  They don't realize. Oh, you're just exaggerating. When you say one to 10 and I say nine, they're like, oh, wow.

You really can't handle anything, can you  without realizing that's where our pain level is at. So that's another side effect, of not being properly taken care of or taken to the hospital or doctor. It's wild. 

I also found that 

when I do go, there's so much anxiety and emotion built up around the whole experience and getting there.

And then  they do something like drain fluid off my knee and I scream and tear like I'm being killed or something. .  Cause I mean I can feel it, but it's not  pain. But it's because there's so much  emotional. Upset, and anxiety built up around it 

     

have you had much experience  with,  trying to find therapy or going to find therapists and that kind of thing? Did you ever pursue that? Line of 

Yeah. Healing. I did

Yeah, I did. 

I remember,  the very first time I tried was a year after I got out of the family, and at this point my family was still inside and, I was just incredibly broken . And,  was looking at other people around and I could see that other people go to the doctor, other people don't just live with this.

I was like, okay, this is a new idea. So I didn't really know what would happen, but I went to the doctor and, I was too scared to tell them, I've just got out of a cult or any of those kind of things because, I was still, I guess I was still pretty brainwashed with a lot of the things they, they taught us about not talking.

So I, I got put on some antidepressants. For six months. She said, I'm not referring you to counseling, because I couldn't give a good reason about why I was depressed. I just, oh, I was just saying, oh, I'm just depressed. I'm just depressed. And I wouldn't, and that was it.

I wouldn't say anything more. So the first time I went to counseling was when I was at university. They had a counselor and it was a bizarre experience. Cause I sat down and I did say, I grew up in the family. And then the counselor turned around and said, oh, I met David Berg and I met David Dito, and they were absolutely lovely, wonderful people.

What's your issue? What the 

fuck? Are you serious? Yeah. 

She'd been toif and met them there, and she, oh my God, lovely. She said dato. He seemed like a really well adjusted, lovely child. And of course, this was about a year before, he died, so I didn't have that, To show her . Oh my God. So she said, you know, yeah.

She said, I think, she said, you can keep seeing me. And so I had a couple of sessions with her, but I just, she just kept saying to me I don't really, you seem fine, , oh my God, I don't think there's 

anything wrong. So that's 

wild. I've never heard that. I've never heard anyone running into

What are the odds of that happening? The first time I tried to open up to somebody. But, I'm sure that from the outside, if she met him for the first time, people wouldn't have joined the cult if he didn't come across as, a lovely, great guy. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm sure she did have a fine experience when those  in the conversation or two, or whatever it was she had with him.

. So then it was probably another, probably 10 years before I got to a financial position where I could afford to try and pay for counseling. Cuz at university it was free, it was part of, in the UK you can go to the university counselor. So I did some counseling and that was in, in retrospect, I probably should have, didn't really know what to look for or what kind of counselor I should go for.

And at that time, information was pretty sketchy, in terms of cult researcher, there was a lot of, the pro cult stuff was out there, but there weren't very many sort of recovery books and things like that, which, helps to guide me. So yeah, it was good in, in lots of ways.

And that she did try to make me feel normal. She was the one that told me, talked to me about PTs d after being pushed because she didn't believe in diagnosing people. But just being able to. Go from thinking of yourself as being somebody who's just broken and there's something wrong with me and I can't put my finger on what it is.

And I didn't know, did I have a mental illness?, like what is going on? Why am I not normal? And then to be told, actually, this is everything that I'm thinking and feeling and doing is normal for people who grew up how we grew up. . And  just that idea is helpful to me that I'm not a freak , you know, if I'm struggling.

It's because absolutely anybody would struggle with, they live through our experiences. 

Yeah. Yeah. We're actually considering we all do pretty well,  Yeah. Considering what we've been through, 

yeah, exactly. And, and to be able to talk about grief for the stages of grief That was really helpful.

And then just to try, I think talking to her, didn't a hundred percent help me to understand what happened, but I think going through that process of trying to piece together your story is really important and to try and make sense of what happened and who you are and why things happened. That's like a kind of a journey 

gone through. But then more recently, last January I took the take back your life recovery course with Janja Lalich that's, yeah. That's really great as well. That was you, that was useful because that fills in some of the other gaps, which is, how ults work, but then also how does your brain work.

, that was the kind of what I really need from counseling actually, was maybe. Not just to be listened to, but to have somebody explain all the things to me that I, the missing pieces of information. Like, why am I feeling anxious all the time? It's because, you are like, the back of your, the front of your brain goes offline.

, and you're just in the back of your brain and it's just all emotions. And then you need to find out ways how to bring that front part of your brain back online. , and just learn, just lots of tips they give you about how to just self-regulate and , and I've kind been doing this in a couple of years leading up to taking this course anyway, but just, I try to build lots of things into my life that are calming that just kinda, bring down those cortis.

levels. Maybe that was off the back of being in counseling and her and the counselor telling me what cortisol was,   and just learning, yeah, I just need to do things that, that are just consistently calming. But one of the really helpful things was that the very last session they did a thing where they let you ask questions.

So the question I asked at the end was about belonging, because when you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs right at the bottom of the things that you need for your survival, and it's things like food and shelter and water and air, and very close to that is love and belonging. And a real struggle that I've had since I left the family is just feeling like I don't belong.

And I guess always grieving the loss of community, even though when I look back, I probably didn't really ever have it in the first place. , but that's because it's a fundamental human need that we will have, and when we don't have those real basic needs and that we don't do very well as human beings. And so I asked this question, I've been out for, over 20 years now, I still never, ever experienced belonging.

Is this just what it means to be an ex cult member? Or is this something that, eventually gets better for people over time? And one of the ladies picked in and she said, with cults value, saneness, the outside world, people will value diversity. And when go into the workplace and you, you know, equality and diversity and inclusion, people are valuing difference.

But in the cult, they just value sameness. And she said, you need to ask yourself, where did that message come from, that you don't belong? Did it come from the cult? And that was just a light bulb moment for me because, when you think about, all the verses we had to memorize and the songs we had to sing, if you were of the world would love his own, every day we were told we don't belong in the world.

And then now I've gone into the world and I'm like, oh, why don't I feel like I belong ? maybe . Maybe it's because I spent my whole life being told I didn't belong out here. Yeah. And so her advice was, every time that comes into my head, just to challenge that thought, and just to think about where that came from and say, actually, no, I do belong here.

Yeah. So that's been really helpful to me. I had thought before she, before I'd gone through that class that I had challenged the cult messaging and I didn't think I was brainwashed anymore. You go through a process and you think, okay, actually, yeah, I don't wanna be antisemitic and I don't wanna be homophobic and I don't wanna be ableist and, maybe heaven's not in the moon, and,  all those things.

And I thought, yeah, I challenged all the big ones, but actually it's that real there's still a little bit of you, maybe there's still a little brainwashing in there where there's, that kind of insidious messaging where we were told things and I still believe some of them. And so now I'm of on a mission in my own mind to try and work out where there's other, what are the messages, if that's a message that I've taken with me, what other messages might I have taken with me,  and things like, 

yeah. 

Don't justify yourself or never be proud of anything you do. These are all things that we were told and Maybe some of them, it doesn't matter, but if it's going to, if it's making your life, making you unhappy, if it's making our lives harder than, working out what those messages are and trying to challenge them, it's an ongoing process.

Definitely. Yeah. I do, I remember reading someone had said anything anything harsh and critical towards yourself came from someone first. It didn't come from you. It came from someone first. And that, for me, was like a real whoa wait a second then. Because more than any, more than almost, Group or people that I've known, we were always told how, like you said, how wrong we were.

Not only did you not belong in this world, but you were also very wrong. Like you were so wrong that you killed the son of God.  the basis of our belief. It's that's something that's I think is very ingrained and it's really hard not to feel like That's an innate feeling of how wrong we are.

It's it's so easy to believe that's an innate feeling, but that was actually that was actually spoonfed to us. Yeah. And, And that's the struggle.  That's the unlearning, the unwinding of it all. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. And the great tragedy about those messages is all the people that we're losing now, and even within my own family, Yeah, there's been suicide attempts, which I'm grateful weren't successful.

But that message that feeling that you don't belong is something we all have to challenge. Absolutely.

 it's been great also being in touch with Dr. Janja Lalich cuz she was telling us that even she was surprised as she's been getting into it this last year or whatever, even she was surprised at how different the needs of SGAs are from fga, like the people joined versus the people born in basically.

And she said it's a whole different, it's a whole different world. And that's that. That's been encouraging just simply on the level of . Okay. So we're in completely unchartered territory. Even in the mental health world, even in the, academic world. We are a new territory.

People have never seen us before. They've not seen these people like our age now coming to terms and trying to find, the pieces of ourselves that we never were allowed to discover. It's new territory. you know, It's very worth trying to heal those parts of yourself.

But it's also really okay if it seems overwhelming, if it seems impossible. Because we are we're, we're the ones up front like cracking the first surface in the world of, hey, I guess what we're here and we wrong was done to us and we wanna make right.

So yeah, 

absolutely. And that's why we have to talk about it as well because it always, it's that Facebook effect. It always seems like everybody else is fine and we're not , but that's why I started to become more willing to talk about it 

it's been so lovely. Going to know you Angela. Oh 

yeah. Thank you. You 

too, . Thank you so much for taking the time with us. 

Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

 You brought up some really beautiful things and healing 

things. Oh, thank you. 

I really like what you said when you said that you didn't have thoughts of if you believed or if you didn't believe.

It just was. Yeah. And I don't know if I've ever heard someone put it into words in that way, and that was really well put. Yeah that's really what it was. It just was, and most of us didn't even have that option of is this right? Is this wrong? Do I believe in it?

Do I not believe in it? Just, it just was, and when it felt so bad,  when it felt so wrong inside, and it just was, no wonder we, not like we struggle with belonging and feeling worth and, value. I really like that , the way you 

put that. Thank you. Yeah.

And the bit about belonging too, because I think that's something pretty much universally we struggle with as , sex cult kids or kids born in cults. We just don't feel like we belong anywhere. Doesn't matter where you go. You can go to any country, you can be with any people. It's just, you're just never like at home.

And somebody's like, oh, where's home? And you just like that depends. , there's a whole big long story behind it.  The whole belonging thing I think is really big. And I think what you brought up too is really good that they, from this beginning, told us we didn't belong in the world.

I actually never even considered that fact as part of why I feel that way, but yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. You're told from birth ? Oh no. Just like they were saying in the take back your life classes, if you have a bad experience with the tomato, then everything that's read and round your brain is gonna go, uh uh, ah.

So anything that has to do with the world, our brain is automatically uh, uhuh. So I think it's constant, one of those things. You just have to constantly jump hurdles. Yeah. Yeah. I was telling Weber before we started recording that I don't think people understand how hard it is for us just to put together ourselves for a normal day, , just to function as a human is incredibly difficult when you weren't actually taught to function as a human.

Like we were taught to function as soldier robots. Cause I guess the best way I would put it, because we weren't allowed to have any burst of emotion that was absolutely not allowed. Actually any motion was not allowed unless it was towards the cult and liking the cult. So like being born as a soldier robot and then being expected to turn into a flower is like a really big transition and it's difficult.

And I think every day it's something that we have to kind of translate ourselves into and, did you ever see that meme with  an alien, ironing a human skin and being like, I'm getting ready for work. That's how it feels every day when I wake up

You just gotta get that human suit on and then go out and pretend to be a person when inside you're a soldier Robot, . It's true. 

It's exhausting. Just going to work and it's just, being around people and you just wanna, it seems like it should be easy just to rub along and not offend anybody and just get on with the day.

But at the end, I'm just absolutely shattered. . Yeah. And it's more from just being around other people than it is from the actual work itself. . 

Yeah. I think just being present exhausts us. , because like I've realized recently, I basically spent my entire childhood completely disassociated. I never acknowledged that.

Of course. Yeah. I never acknowledged that before. Like it's taken me until this last couple years to realize that I've lived completely out of my body for so long that I don't even know what it is to live in my body. And I think that, that, I think that's a big factor too, that comes into play.

Yeah. And just another big thing has been learning words, like a disassociated, because in the family we didn't have any of that terminology. , deem of possession, , we didn't have any the mental health terminology. And so stuff was, when I first left, stuff was going on. I was dis, now I know I was disassociating.

But at the time I didn't know what was going on. Yes.  And what was wrong. I just felt like there's something wrong with me. Like those, that's the only words I had. Yeah. But I sometimes as well, I've needed people just to break it. People will say, oh, look after yourself. I don't know what that means.

I need people to break stuff down from me and talk to me like I'm a two year old and explain this is what disassociated means, this is what it feels like so that you can identify it in yourself. And even like in that takeback, your life recovery was really helpful. Like people say, triggered, I don't know what triggered means.

 But then when after doing that class, now I know what I'm getting trigger because, I can feel like, my heart rate's increasing and maybe I'm getting, some strong feeling of emotions or I'm starting to become aware of what's happening inside of my body.

. And then when those things are happening now I can say to myself, aha, this means I'm being triggered. And so what I should probably do is try and self-regulate now, or maybe I should keep my mouth shut and not say anything to my colleague because , this is an appropriate time to get involved in this conversation.

And that's just, that's helpful 

to me. For sure. The more you understand, the more you can help yourself, the more you understand yourself.  Being present is just completely exhausting and difficult because if you're present, you're gonna take care of yourself, and if you're present, you're gonna manage your triggers.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, when I'm completely and fully aware and present, I know how to deal with things because I can kind of rationalize myself through it. But staying present is just so incredibly d. . It's constantly whoa, raining in the horses. Whoa. Get back here.

 . We got a lot to learn. . Yeah,

At least we're still here learning it, right? Yeah, exactly. Definitely. And it like we always do. Yep. Stay brave and remember every butterfly was once a caterpillar.