From Cult to Community: Redefining Identity and Belonging w/ Daniella Young (AUDIO ONLY)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Dress the most outlandish of the crew.
We're in these like fluorescentpink flying pajamas, uh, pianos.
And we set apocalypse versesfrom the Bible to rap music.
Uh, with our like one African Americanguy that we had was our teacher.
And it was like to helpus memorize it better.

(00:31):
And then of course all of the childexploitation got brought in and
they're like, now we're filmingthis, sending it out to the world.
So they, they filmed this as a, like,on purpose as like an advertisement.
Yeah.
Well, so the children of God wentfrom being a prostitution ring to
a child exploitation, childhoodentertainment and performance ring.

(00:57):
And.
They have the best whitewash storyof all time except for the Mormons.
Because in the 80s, it was like,harem photo, prophet, young
women, in time magazine, sex cult.
And then they performed twice atthe George Bush White House, H.
W.
Bush White House in the 90s.
Oh my gosh!
Yeah, my sister was one of them.

(01:17):
That is pretty great, and also not asgood as the Mormons, because the Mormons
perform at the White House all the time.
Yeah, I mean the Mormons definitely havethe best whitewash story of all time.
I just found out that y'all havemore money, sorry, your ex cult
has more money than the CatholicChurch, and I am just flabbergasted.
I actually claim that's my cult.
Actually.
I don't know if we've talked aboutthis or not, but I tell everyone

(01:40):
that I am the true Mormon prophet.
Um, they've usurped my throne.
All of that money is actually mine.
Um, so it is my cult.
Uh, and I'm just, yeah,we should be in charge.
It would be, it would be great.
Um, so anyway, so I, ever sinceI was one year old, right.

(02:00):
I was like this child actress, alittle like apocalypse, Lindsay Lohan.
And, you know, the cover of my book isme dressed as a soldier of love in the
army of God in this, like, tinfoil armor.
And I'm two years old.
You're two years old in this pictureand you are ready to fight the
devil, which is all about when I sayin the book, I was born a soldier.

(02:25):
I'm being literal.
I also am too.
Right?
Like I, I, I don't know.
I don't think thatpeople quite understand.
Sometimes I think sometimes they thinkI'm joking, but I, I was literally Raised
to be a warrior, like to go out and andbe ready for the apocalypse to happen
and it was going to be incredibly violentand I was going to be fighting with

(02:48):
the full might of God and that's leftsome holes in my life because I, I, now
all I can really do is play Fortnite.
And that doesn't quite scratch the itch.
I mean, it's because wewere raised to die, right?
Like, in our most formativeyears, we were told that we were
not going to be around today.

(03:09):
And we are.
You know, and it has all of these effects.
In our lives, like we're just, wetend to be really bad sometimes
at future planning, at financialplanning, you know, or about making
deep long term relationships.
You know, you have your cultrelationships, which is like, you
jump in with both feet and then,you know, people will move on.

(03:31):
At least in my cult,we moved all the time.
And then in the army as well.
You've like diagnosed me spot on here.
Here I am.
They exactly described me.
I call it.
So I, I didn't expect to live past 25.
Until I was probably like 23.
And 25 is the magic number that they use.

(03:53):
Children of God use 25 also.
Did they really?
Well, so Children of God, well, itcomes out of evangelicalism, but he was
heavily, heavily influenced by Mormonism.
Um, So it actually took me years of justbeing like, I have so much in common
with Mormons, like ex Mormons, you know,um, of all the, of all the ex cults.

(04:15):
Um, that's also because purityculture is just the flip side of
pedophilia culture and, you know,the children of God was pedophile.
Yeah, I mean, and that's a great, that's,I'm so glad we have that in common.
Oh, trust me, it's allin the comedy special.
It's all coming out.
I'm so, Can we laugh about this stuff?

(04:36):
And you know, the good news isthat there's a lot of us out here.
So you guys welcome tovibing the apocalypse.
Uh, I'm your ho, the freshKing Benjamin, the one and
only true prophet of Mormonism.
Uh, and with me today Ihave, I'm very, very excited.
I have someone I've followedon Tik Tok for a long time.
Uh, you may know her, her nameis Daniela Young, the author of

(04:57):
Uncultured, which she sent me.
I have a signed copy of this book.
I'm so excited.
Uh, Daniela, do you want tointroduce yourself and just tell
maybe those who don't know youa little bit about yourself?
Absolutely.
I am Daniela, scholar of cults, extremegroups, and extremely bad leadership.
I'm also known as group behavior gal onTikTok and knitting cult lady on YouTube.

(05:20):
Um, and also group behavior gal onInstagram where Fresh King Benjamin.
Just so you know, many of my followersare very excited for this show.
So we're going to have totell them all about it.
Um, so I grew up in the Children of God.
I grew up in the Children ofGod, which is called a sex cult
and truly was in my opinion.

(05:41):
Um, and then I got out when I was15, got myself an education and put
myself into Um, and uncultured I wrotewhile I was watching a cult leader run
America and also getting a degree fromHarvard in organizational psychology and
looking at groups and what they mean.

(06:03):
Um, and a lot of what I do now,I mean, I'm writing another book
called the culting of America,which is really like teaching people
about cults and what they are.
Um.
And that is because a lot of whatI do is go on social media and just
tell stories about real cult stuff.
Because I feel like all Americansthink they know what a cult is.

(06:26):
That's why they think it's a niche thing.
Um, but it's really not, right?
America is very cult like and so manyof our organizations are very cult like.
Um, and so yeah, I just I call myselfthe anti organizational psychologist,
because organizational psychologistsstudy, essentially, motivation tactics,

(06:49):
and then, You know, no, no shame, I guess,but sell our services to corporate America
to then get more labor out of you fortheir good cults, and so I just want to
spend my life like helping individualsunderstand groups and systems better.

(07:10):
Because I love that.
And that's, that's actually whatconnected us is I made a, I made a video
on TikTok where I was just like, y'all,I think that America might be a cult.
Like I've, I've, I've left Mormonism.
Mormonism is definitely a cult.
And when I look at America, thereare a lot of similarities and.

(07:32):
Which isn't, isn't, I've, I've been,the cult word has been one that
has been really empowering for me.
I didn't use that when I first left,but the more that I learned about
what a cult was and understanding itas like a diagnostic tool that I'm
actually, it's not, I'm not beingpejorative when I call something a
cult, I'm not like, Like name calling.

(07:52):
I'm trying to describe like aunique, very specific thing that
that word is intended to use.
And so maybe that's where I'dlike to start with, with you
is how would you define a cult?
Like, what are, whatare the characteristics?
What are we, what are we sayingwhen we're calling something a cult?
So one of my just sort of easy tounderstand her heuristic explanations

(08:14):
for people is we're trying todescribe coercive control, right?
When a A person comes under thecoercive control of another individual.
We call that a abusiverelationship, but in cult studies
we call that a one one cult.
When a person, often children, arebeing brought up under an abusive

(08:36):
person, narcissistic person withan enabler parent, often, right?
We call that a single family cult.
Usually comes alongwith a circle of trust.
And then when a person comes under thecoercive control of a group, right?
That's a cult.
And I have it broken down into 10 steps.

(08:58):
Which I can explain pretty easily.
So it's charismatic leader, often witha skinny white woman by their side.
It is, uh, a worldview shift tocome under the sacred assumption.
So people think religion, butit's not always religion, but
it is a worldview shift, right?

(09:18):
You can have a karate cult.
It is going to be still as muchof a worldview shift as, you know,
And then the sacred assumption.
This is the one thing like you have tobelieve, which for you guys is probably
that David, Uh, what's his name?
Joseph Smith was the one true prophet.
Joseph Smith.

(09:39):
Yeah.
That would be the, the one thing.
David Berg.
Yeah.
It's always, the one thing isalways that one dude is the prophet.
That's always it, is I am the source.
And I guess that is because that'sthe source of the coercive control.
I get to be in charge because Godis talking to me and only to me.
So listen to what I say and do what I say.

(10:01):
And let me sleep with your eyes.
Let me sleep with all of yourwives immediately, because
that's what God really wants.
We always eventually get there.
Um, okay.
So then the step three isa transcendent mission.
And I just wrote this chapter andI write heavily about Mormonism.

(10:21):
Um, and you know, this missionthat's just so big and so grand
that, and also like unachievablebecause it's very unspecific usually.
And oftentimes it's onlyachievable in the next life, right?
In a, in like a religious cult.
And, but this mission is so right that itrequires the self sacrifice of members.

(10:44):
And that's step four, like theconstant self sacrifice and
sublimation of the members.
Step five is isolation.
This can be done now with technologyand AI in completely different ways.
Um, step six is a Oh, that's fascinating.
Can we just pause there for,for just for just a minute?

(11:05):
'cause I, that, that, that step frommission to sacrifice to isolation.
Mm-Hmm.
to, to me, perfectly describes myfamily and what we, 'cause we, we
were in, there's so many differentlayers of Mormonism as a cult, right?
There's not just the LDS.
There's all of these like littlesub mini cults all within it, right?

(11:26):
So my, my parents, they growup LDS in sort of what I, I
call it like the diet cult.
It's like a little bit lighter.
It's not quite as intense,but they grow up in there.
And then they fall prey to thistranscendent mission of perpetuating
the, what they call the higherlaws, which are like polygamy.

(11:46):
And racism is really it.
It's like, be polygamist and be racist andthat, that is so important that they're,
they're willing to sacrifice like theylive in shitty houses in the middle.
They've moved outside of the world.
They're in trailers.
Sometimes they don't have electricity.
Sometimes their water's fucked up.
I grew up drinking yellow water.

(12:08):
Because that was the well waterthat we had and it was all sort
of couched in this, in this frameof we're doing this for God.
All of this suffering is okay.
In fact, it's, it's transcendentbecause it's happening.
For, uh, this amazing purpose, and thenthe result of that, even he hates it.

(12:32):
That's what I feel too.
Yeah, um, and you know, this, thiswillingness of the cult member, right?
To sacrifice, to put everything above,everything else in their life, right?
This is a defining feature.
And this is one of the issuesI take with the AA cult, right?
Alcoholics Anonymous.

(12:53):
Even if we go with your, it's adisease concept, AA ers, there's no
other illness in the world that wewould just think it's okay to just
put completely ahead of everythingelse, your children, blah, blah, blah.
Like, you could have stage four cancer.
You don't just get to.
ignore your children until you, you know,and, but in AA cult, it like gives them

(13:19):
the right to believe that their missionis more important than anything else.
And that, by the way, the selfsacrifice when we get to step eight.
Is exploitation of labor.
And those two, I feel,are always tied together.
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
Because that's ultimatelywhat you're doing.

(13:42):
You're getting people to do shit for you.
Yep.
So we were at isolation.
Isolation is number seven.
So, hang on.
So cults are all about labor.
This is, uh, Dr.
Janja Lalic's sayingand it changed my life.
Like that's when I realized we werea giant child exploitation cult and
I'd been trafficked around the world.
Um, and I think that it'sbecause labor is your ultimate

(14:07):
inexhaustible resource, right?
Once you've taken everything else,their money, their land, their
children, their bodies, everythingelse, like you can still take labor.
Um, okay.
So we were on step seven.
So after isolation, then comesUs versus them mentality.
And this is really important.

(14:28):
Um, I'm going to bring up Swifties herebecause a cult is not just being for
something, it's being against something.
Remember you said higherlaws and racism, right?
And so when people are like,are the Swifties a cult?
I'm like, well, overall, nobody's evenconvinced me that we're a group, but

(14:51):
when Swifties made a coordinated effortto go attack Jake Gyllenhaal, that's
when you started really hearing talkof like, oh, is this a cult, right?
So that's the us versus them mentality.
And we see it everywhere and weencourage it in commerce and schools
and, you know, um, and then you have,and then this is like my final stage

(15:15):
of like, You're now a big, big cult.
Also, sometimes you're nearing yourendgame, but for the Mormons, they've
just been Stayed in step eight fora very, very long time, I think,
which is exploitation of labor.
Um, exploitation of labor,step nine, I've just added high
entrance costs and high exit costs.

(15:38):
Because what you paid to get intothe cult, And I don't mean money.
I mean, friendships lost, career,future, you know, whatever it
might be is also part of theexit costs, if that makes sense.
Um, and then the last one is endsjustifies the means, you know, and I, my

(16:01):
first rule, I have these 10 commandmentsfor good groups that are not cults.
And my first rule isdon't rape the children.
And this one's veryapplicable for Mormons.
Right?
And people do that, but I'm like, buthow many times in society do we see this?
And I think it is the, it is theepitome of ends justifies the means.

(16:24):
Um, To like, you know, it's always goingto get to that because cult leaders are
trying to get power, ultimately, right?
And if you can do the worst to childrenand walk away, you're very powerful.
Um, and then we see, you know, right,the group end up supporting that

(16:47):
because ends justifies the means.
Yeah, the group ends up supportingthat sometimes hundreds of years later.
You have Mormons today, 200 yearsafter Joseph Smith raped children,
justifying his rape of children.
I see this in discussions of theBranch Davidians all the time.

(17:10):
And in fact, I'm calling out liberalsand conservatives on my comedy
special because they're like, Oh, itwas FBI overreach, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, no, he was raping children.
Like, yes, there was governmentissues, but one, He perpetuated his own
apocalypse, as cult leaders will often do.
But two, like, he was raping children.

(17:32):
He was a bad guy.
And people still defend it.
I remember watching Waco.
I watched, I think there was a, uh,I can't remember what, what, what,
what channel it was on, but therewas like a mini series about it.
And it, it was so chilling because itreminded me so much of my childhood.

(17:53):
And the only difference in my mind was.
The, the government nevershowed up at my door, right?
The FBI never showed up and,but had they, we were ready.
Like, like we were talkingabout earlier soldiers, right?
We were, I grew up anxious for thatactually, like very, there wasn't a lot

(18:14):
to do, and so we were, I was pretty bored.
And I remember as a very young child,almost fantasizing about, I hope this
happens so that I get to do somethinginteresting that I've been training for.
Yeah.
And first of all, that's areally good description of
why soldiers want to deploy.

(18:34):
Um, to war.
But, um, what was I gonna say?
So, so I write about Waco in Unculturedand like, you know, because I'm six
years old when it, it happens in 1993and we are told all about it, you know,
I mean, like, I started having nightmaresabout screaming rabbits, um, since then.
And it was like, We're not a cult.

(18:56):
Waco's a cult, but lookwhat Americans do to cults.
Um, actually this chapter, chapterthree, is published in Rolling Stone
magazine because it really well showshow they're like Programming the children
and I, you know, it's so weird, butlike, I didn't necessarily come away
with a feeling of being horrifiedbecause my life was just that bad.

(19:21):
I was like, you know, of courseyou have that, like, kind
of, you want it to happen.
And I think it's because we'rejust living this awful life, right?
Like, our life, especially in the Childrenof God, like, our life was just constant
torture, constant, you know, I describe itas growing up in religious prison camps.
And so it's like, andwe're being taught to die.

(19:44):
Right?
We're being taught that, I was beingtaught that by 12 years old, I was
going to be being burned to death as amartyr in the end time anyway, right?
So I was just like, and I rememberfeeling just like, well, at
least somebody came for that.
You know, and children of Godspread out all over the world

(20:05):
and like, nobody's coming for us.
Um, I remember growing up, wehad really tight restrictions on
the movies we could watch, right?
And especially as Mormons, right?
You weren't allowed towatch rated R movies.
And, but my family, I remember my family.
And I was, I don't knowhow old I was 10 or 11.

(20:25):
And my family has a discussion wherethey're like, you know, we should
probably let our kids watch Braveheartbecause especially that scene at
the end, when Braveheart is beingtortured, we need them to see that.
Because they're probably going to betortured like that by evil people in the
future who are going to get them to tryto deny their testimony of Jesus Christ.

(20:48):
So they need to be prepared for that.
So I couldn't watch like JamesBond or like American Pie, but
I got to watch a torture movie.
Because that was probablygoing to happen to me.
And honestly, like I can say,honestly, as a kid, when, when I
saw, I was like, cool, at leastsomething interesting will happen.

(21:09):
Like, at least we'll actually go do thething that we've been saying that we're
going to do and not just sitting around.
We had a book when you talkabout like torture stuff.
I mean, we had a book that was just likeevery martyr during the Inquisition just
like spelled out in grotesque detail.
Um, and of course I read itmany a time because there was

(21:30):
just nothing to read and I'm me.
And like, it's just, it'shorrifying to think back to, right?
Like, and this is part of what, whatwe call religious trauma, right?
Like growing up being told allof this stuff, like is in itself.
Aside from all the other stuff, asidefrom the, the trafficking and the

(21:52):
abuse and all of the, all of the otherthings, there's also this, this mindset
that you're raised in of the worldis about to end, we're surrounded by
dangerous people and, and also youhave to be so careful of yourself and
your own body because that's also evil.
So you're surrounded onall sides by these enemies.

(22:15):
And, um, and it does createa certain kind of human.
You kind of described it earlierbefore we started recording
as like an apocalypse child.
Talk a little bit aboutwhat's an apocalypse child.
Okay.
So, but first of all, I want to saythat there is a term for what you're
describing with children, right?
People would call it brainwashing,but brainwashing is on adults.
Adults buy into their own indoctrination.

(22:37):
It's a whole different process.
Children can't necessarily be brainwashedin the same way because they don't
have this level of thinking yet.
But when a child is raised isolatedunder one, you know, traumatic belief
system, that's called mind rape.
Um, and like, that's howmuch of a abuse it is, right?

(22:59):
I mean, it's really, really intense.
And then, yeah, so my thing with theApocalypse Child, you know, again,
I'm two years old on the coverof my book, Uncultured, dressed
in armor as a soldier for God.
We played this game called Heaven's Girl.
I mean, we had a Magazine illustratedfor children that had a scene

(23:22):
of like her being gang raped andshe's supposed to be witnessing
to her attackers about the Lord.
Like that was what we read as children.
Um, you know, so manyChristian martyr stories.
We had a song about how we'renever going to get to be 25.
It was, you know, what am I?
What am I gonna do when I get to be 25?

(23:44):
Will the world be something something?
Will I even be alive?
Um, we had another one.
And by the way, the children filmedall of these in video because we
were a big childhood entertainment.
child trafficking cult.
We had a video called 20 minutesto go that was about like
the bomb, atom bomb hitting.
And it's just like, you know, someonecomes on television and is like,

(24:07):
Hey, 20 minutes, we're all done.
And just like how you're going tosit there and love your family.
And, you know, it's all part of thislike emotional evocation that cults do.
You're supposed to be very like attitudereleased and very, you know, Quiet and
somber all the time until they want theemotions and then they crank those up.

(24:30):
Um, and you know, even like talkingabout Apocalypse Children, and we just
talked about the kids at Waco, andthis is always something I like to say
around Mormonism, but like, when youngchildren are sitting quietly for hours,
It's not because they're well behaved.
It's because they're being abused.

(24:50):
Ruby Frank.
It's because they're scared.
Yes!
So in the accounts of Waco, right,are the FBI agents being like, Wow,
these children are so well behaved.
They'll sit for hours in the middle ofthe night just listening to David preach.
Like, that's not well behaved.
Those kids are being abused and probablytortured and they are terrified.

(25:14):
Bye.
Yeah, actually something I remind myhusband about all of the time because we
are raising a very strong child and I'malways like, Hey, she doesn't even have
a setting where she's terrified of us.
And that's why we can't give herthe and just make her behave.
Right.
And also like, I, I, Children are supposedto misbehave like that's their, they're

(25:39):
programmed to be messy and to break shit.
They're the, they're the researchand development of our species.
And so the, I, anytime I agree withthat, anytime you see a child that's
super well behaved, I'm always like,I always want to kind of get down
on them and be like, it's okay.
It's okay.
Be messy, break some shit.

(25:59):
Do some, do some wild stuff becausekids are supposed to be a little bit
unruly and kind of wild and crazy.
Yeah.
And this gets us todelayed adolescence also.
Um, but I want to say like, becauseI always like to bring AA and as an
example, like I have heard from so manychildren who grew up with parents in AA.

(26:19):
That sound very similar to my life whereit's like they couldn't do anything.
They couldn't ever just be kidsbecause then they would make mom drink
and that was the monster, you know?
Um, and so what happens whenwe get out of our cults?
Veterans have this.
We saw Prince Harry having thisis, you know, delayed adolescence.

(26:41):
Like you can't just skip a childhood.
You can't just skip being a teen.
When you skip being a teenager,even just because you're in another
country, Mormons, um, you, you,you don't understand the culture.
Because, like what you said aboutchildren, like, that's what your, like
your middle school and your high schoolyears are for, is pressing against

(27:05):
the boundaries, and like figuringout what is tolerated, what isn't
tolerated, like where's your placein this big group called our society.
Mm hmm.
Um, and we don't know how to do anyof that when we get out of cults,
and so we have to like We justact like adolescents in many ways.
Sometimes we're kind of trashpeople because we like lost the

(27:27):
whole framework for our lives.
And now we're like tryingto figure out a new one.
You you've just described likethe last three years of my life.
Cause I, I, I left, Ileft the cult in stages.
Right.
And, and it took me a while, but once Iwas fully out and fully free, I sort of
had, I don't know where this came from.
I think I just kind ofintuitively knew that I was.

(27:48):
Severely underdeveloped.
I was like, I, I think that I'm, I don'tknow if I could put an age on it, but
it felt like I was like, in some ways Iwas like six in some ways I was like 14.
Like I just, I felt like therewas, I was just this unexpressed.
And I sort of knew, I was like,I'm just going to have to do stuff.

(28:12):
Like, I'm just going to have to likego out and kind of be, give myself
permission to be a teenager as a 30year old man, because I, I have to
kind of get that it's not even thatI have to get it out of my system.
It's that I have to sort of practiceexpressing who I am and then seeing,

(28:32):
I call it finding the edges, right?
Seeing how that bumps up into otherpeople, how it bumps into society,
who I am, what, and what I've found.
And I think this is reallyactually important for.
And I think for me, especiallyit's in Mormons, right?
So I'm, I'm sort of reallyfocused on the Mormon people.
Those are my people.
And I, I want to help them kind of bridgethe gap between their Mormon life and

(28:55):
then the life in the outside world.
And I really think an important stepin that is, is sort of embracing
and intentionally choosing to have.
a delayed adolescence because youdon't know who you are otherwise.
Exactly.
See, and this, you seethis painting behind me?
That's the piece of art I did aboutmy sort of delayed adolescence.

(29:18):
And, you know, so I get outof the children of God when
I'm 15, like almost 16, right?
I don't know how to be a teenager.
I kind of know how to be an adult.
I definitely don't know how to be a child.
And it's terrifying, right?
Because you don't fit and that's whatlike the cult was always telling you,

(29:39):
you know, and then going just a realquick back to the apocalypse child thing.
Like even after we're out of the cultand we've rejected that entire framework.
A lot of times we are still in thisapocalypse mindset because that's
how we were programmed, right?
So we're still always waitingfor the other shoe to drop.

(30:00):
And that can be like really,really hard to get past.
But I think what you said aboutlike, just understanding that
you don't know who you are.
Cults give everyone a pseudo personality.
So I keep always walking around withthat like cult glaze on their face, you
know, um, and so even adults, when theyleave cults, they have to pull that

(30:22):
off and figure out who they were, whothey are because they're changed now.
But for children who, uh, we grewup with no personalities, right?
We grew up with no self identity, nounconditional love, all of those things.
And so.
It can be really, really challenging.

(30:43):
It's also, it's really challenging.
And I've, I've also found too,that it's also, it's also kind of a
beautiful gift because there's, there's.
This opportunity that you have tosort of explore yourself in a, in
a, maybe a more intentional way.
Right?
Where, where if, I mean,don't get me wrong.

(31:04):
I would've loved, I think I would'veloved to have a normal whatever that is a
normal childhood and a normal teenagehood.
Absolutely.
It would've been cool to be a teenagerwhen I was actually a teenager,
but it has been really lovely.
To give myself permission to justlet whatever kind of wild and
crazy thing that's inside of methat wants to express, express.

(31:25):
And then to find that I reallylike those parts of me, right?
Like right after I left, Istarted doing, I left Mormonism.
I started doing therapy.
I realized I was traumatized.
So I found a trauma therapist and.
I was doing all of this work.
My body was shaking all of the time.
And then I started to do, I startedto, I like just found a guitar
and I started playing guitar.

(31:46):
I started teaching myself guitar.
I got a guitar teacher.
I started writing songs.
I started doing comedy.
I love that you painted that.
I think that, I think that creative,doing something creative is such
a beautiful way to find yourself.
And, and that's really what I'vebeen able to do is, is find.
A person inside of me that I reallylove, like, I really love who I am and

(32:11):
it's thrilling to be able to do that.
Cause for most of my life, I wastaught the person that I had to repress
that, that that person that wantedto come out of me was evil and bad.
And I couldn't do it.
Exactly.
And I mean, the art for mehas been such a thing, right?
I mean, I in culture, do you see themoment where I break and that's when

(32:33):
I started like painting and doing art.
And it wasn't until just like a few yearsago when I realized I didn't have an
identity and at some point my husband isbragging about my book to someone and then
he said oh and my wife's painting and theywere like your wife paints and he just
goes yeah my wife's an artist and I neverthought of myself that way and then you

(32:53):
know the more I went into it I was likeI am so good at many kinds of art but I
cannot draw because drawing was dangerousand Because you could just get in trouble
for the subject of whatever you drew.
And you know, sure enough, when I was 12and like, keeping my stuff in secret, I
was drawing like a naked woman tied toan altar with Satan standing over her.

(33:15):
So like, that was the childhood I had.
Um,
Oh, One of my, one of my paintings,I called it Till Death Do Us Part.
And it's like two of those like Mexicanskeletons, the Caterinas, like dressed
up as a wedding and then death is just,you know, the sickle like standing there.

(33:37):
Hanging out there.
That's so good.
Speaking about waiting forthe other shoe to drop, right?
I, that's the thing I think thatmakes me the most, the most kind of
equal parts, sad and angry at cults.
Is the way that they take the,just the amazing, beautiful

(33:58):
creativity of every human soul.
Like every human is just so brilliantlycreative and artistic and fun.
And they take that andthey tell them that's bad.
And you have to, you have toconform that multifaceted, brilliant
personality into this thing thatis not even remotely interesting.

(34:23):
That's just so boring.
Like you walk around Utah and yousee, you see the Mormon smile and the
Mormon, and it's all exactly the same.
It's boring.
It's not interesting.
And, and you know, that underneath itis this wildly expressive, creative
human being that's just been shut down.

(34:43):
And, you know, I mean, your number one jobin a cult or a total institution of any
kind is not to be an individual, right?
You're not supposed to stand out.
Um, but you know, as you were talkingabout, like, you know, we leave the cults.
At first we don't even realizewe were in a cult, right?
We just, we're like, We realizewe got out of something and we

(35:03):
have to now try to survive inthe world they told us was evil.
And I don't know if you have this, butI had this where I was like so scared.
Of people knowing that like you grewup in a cult because I, I just had this
idea that they would just like reject me.
Like I used to have this dream thatthey would decide my high school diploma
wasn't valid because I did it in twoyears and then, so everything else

(35:27):
I'd accomplished, like I was alreadya captain in the army and I would have
to like go back to high school, youknow, and like do it all over again.
Yeah.
But let me tell you.
Oh, and I like, lived in fear ofpop culture references because,
you know, I didn't get any of them.
But literally, once I started justtelling people, I grew up in a cult.

(35:50):
I'm like, that washonestly the biggest gift.
Because first of all, like, Americanslove teaching things and sharing
their culture and talking about stuff.
But also, like, Nobodyexpects anything, right?
Like, the, the thing that was actuallykilling me, speaking of shutting down your
personality, was like, I was trying toput myself into this box, I think, of just

(36:14):
like, skinny blonde white girl from Texas.
that I in no way fit in.
Um, and then I would be so frustratedthat people didn't like the real me
or couldn't see the real me, you know?
And it really was like, I had to lether out and stop, you know, I just went
from cult to super student to supersoldier and, and then to super mom.

(36:40):
And then I had to be like,stop, you know, who are you?
Yeah, I, I.
Have found that because I, I agree.
I have a similar that,that, that feels familiar.
Right.
When I first leave, I'm like, Idon't really want anyone to know.
I don't want to be, I don't want tojust be the weird polygamous kid.

(37:00):
Right.
But as soon as I started talkingabout it, like, especially talking
about it, like, like I first startedtalking about it, like at work, I'd
like tell people like some storiesand they were just fascinated.
They, that also is what helped melearn that I needed to go to therapy
as I would tell stories that Ithought were funny and they would

(37:21):
be like, they're like, are you okay?
And I'm like, no, this is a joke.
You guys.
I mean, it's, it reallyhappened, but isn't it funny?
Um, but yeah, I've justfound, I found that.
Everyone's really lovely.
Everyone's Americans are fascinatedby cults and especially kind of, you
know, again, pitching your comedy,your comedy special that's coming out.
Well, as I started getting into standupcomedy, um, that is a huge hook for me.

(37:47):
Right.
So it, it, it's a great way tograb everyone's attention and, and
then make it sort of, then I can dowhatever I want with that attention.
And I've also been able,cause I also live in fear.
I used to live in fear of popculture references until I realized
that Everyone loves being thefirst one to show you Nirvana.

(38:08):
Absolutely.
Or This is what I say.
Everybody loves being an expert, right?
So when they get to teach you, like someof my most insanely viral Twitter threads.
were just, was when I was writing onculture and I was just asking people
for music advice to listen to becauseI learned like my brain is a little bit
distracted and I know nothing about musicand people were just so excited, you

(38:31):
know, I'd ask everyone to share theirfavorite song and put it in the playlist.
But, you know, it occurs to methat this fear that we have, right?
Because I have so many fears.
Oh, I don't just want to be likethe cult, the cult girl, you know,
and I used to joke, like, I'm justgoing to lean so far into it that
I'm going to come out the other side.
But I think it's like, that'snot really how the world works.

(38:55):
People don't justidentify you as one thing.
That's the way the cults work.
Right?
So like, we're worried that other peopleare just going to put these labels on us.
You know, and as you were talking, Iwas remembering when, like, Facebook
came out and I was so surprisedthat everybody knew their friends

(39:16):
last names, like all of them, right?
Because like, I don't know anyof the last names of any of
these people I grew up with.
I was finding it out as we were findingeach other on Facebook because, you
know, I mean, we weren't individuals.
We didn't need lastnames, you know, I mean.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And so all of that, right?
Like all of my friends, people thatknow me in real life, of course know

(39:40):
that I work obsessively on cult stuff,but that's, they don't identify me
as like, oh, she's the cult girl.
Right?
It's, I'm just Daniela.
We all have pasts and.
Uh, sometimes they get mad at me because Ialways have the most extreme stories, but
I compare it to Phoebe in Friends, right?
Like, we are all so worried that ourfriend groups are going to reject

(40:04):
us if we go through the processof figuring out who we really are.
But I'm like, but everybody knows aboutPhoebe's trauma, and she's definitely
quirky, but they love her anyway, right?
Like, she has a solid group of friends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I love to the, that, thatepiphany is so powerful that, that,

(40:25):
that fear of rejection, that feelof being only one thing that really
is, that's our cult brain, right?
That's, that's where thatcomes from, because, um.
Out, out in the, in the realworld with all of its problems,
um, people are sort of allowed tobe a bunch of different things.
You can be a, you have abunch of different interests.

(40:47):
You're more than just your relationships.
You're more than just your religion.
You're more than just your hobbies.
You're all of those things.
And, and this is something.
So interesting.
Cause I always say I'm from nowhere.
Like I don't have a hometown.
Uh, my therapist just told me yesterday,like, I think you're from the internet.

(41:08):
Um, and I've been thinking aboutthat, but what you're saying, like, I
first learned this on Twitter and thenTikTok has been really good for me
because you can't be all things, right?
Like you're the multifaceted, right?
So when I used to likemeet people and try to.
Introduce myself.
I, it just.

(41:29):
You can't, right?
It's too strange.
It's too complicated.
But in 160 characters, likesometimes I'm just army wife.
Sometimes I'm just mom.
Sometimes I'm just girl obsessedwith Alice in Wonderland, right?
Sometimes I'm just crafter.
Sometimes I'm artist.
And so social media has really allowedme to like develop all of those

(41:51):
parts of myself and be like, I don'tjust have to be cult lady, right?
I can be all of these things.
Yeah, and I can really own that.
I, I, I've been able to sort ofreintegrate that cult personality
back and be like, that's who I am, butit's also, but it's also not all I am.
Right.

(42:12):
And, um, and that's fun.
It's fun to be able to, to own thatpart of myself and to be, to have
access to that part of myself andalso be able to be other things.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, and that's part of it.
You know, I just tell people, like,my thing is, like, wear wacky outfits,
right, because in every cult youare under both attitude control

(42:35):
and appearance control, right?
Like, it can be all kinds ofappearance control, but remember,
you're not supposed to stand out.
And actually, this is one of mycollars that I make out of crochet.
And I call them the dissent callersbecause like cults want you not to
be unique and we are like, no, um, Iactually do all this clothes design.
This is a, I call it a scarf again.

(42:57):
I take a scarf and I turn it intoa cardigan and that's so great.
I buy clothes again.
and chop them up and add yarn.
I call them my reconstructiondeconstructions, but any kind of
any kind of wacky outfit works.
Um, and it's funny kind of a parallel tothis in the queer community that like the

(43:18):
first time you go out dressed just like.
You know, flamboyant in any way.
I'm back to us now.
Right.
Like just wearing something thatwould absolutely not be acceptable.
Right.
I know for Mormons, it's likeshowing your shoulders, you know?
Um, well for me, it was my elbows, right?
Like, like this is, thisis pornographic right here.

(43:40):
I, I feel that so hard that thefinding clothes and using clothes
as a, as a way of self expressionhas been so much fun and, and it's
also, and it really has felt like.
Uh, like a reclamation of myselfbecause, because the clothing

(44:01):
was so controlled, right?
You could only wear this, right?
It had to be a certain length.
You had to have stuff underneath it.
And this is why I like it asa deconstruction tool, right?
Because it reinforces subconsciously,like you belong to you.
You are, you know, everyone'safraid of them being like,
what, why are you wearing this?

(44:23):
Like, because I want to, you know, like,I, it probably took three years for my, my
new community to like, understand, like,I am going to be wearing whatever I want.
Like, I'm going to wear a full beadedrainbow crochet gown to school.
Casual gathering.
Like I don't care.
I am.

(44:44):
And actually it was very interestingbecause when I got my book deal, which
was, you know, the most money I'd seentogether in my life and put me into a
place where I didn't have to work for awhile anyway, so my first thought after
gaining like financial freedom was.
I'm going to wear whatever Iwant for the rest of my life.

(45:06):
I'm an author now.
I'm wearing whatever I wantfor the rest of my life.
And it's this reallyimportant moment, right?
Children are learning this whenthey're four and five and they're
picking out their clothes, youknow, and we didn't get to do that.
We always had to be these littleclones and everyone thinks cults

(45:27):
have uniforms, but it's not uniforms.
It's a uniform appearance.
Right?
And so just, you know, I love thriftstores for this reason, because like I
fell right into 2003 mall culture andit was awful, but I feel like malls
are, first of all, it's one snapshotin time of the culture and it's

(45:49):
always messaging to you what you like.
Right?
Whereas you walk into a thriftstore and I have this one just
rainbow blazer that is so brilliant.
And I was like, I walked up to it andI was like, Do I love this or do I hate
this, you know, and I decided on love andI bought it and it was like You are making

(46:12):
this decision all by yourself And thenyou're gonna have to go walk out in the
world and get feedback and that's so It'sscary, but it's also very exhilarating.
It's very exhilarating.
And not only are you goingto get feedback, but you
can, you'll get feedback.
And if you want to, youcan ignore that feedback.
Exactly.
That's, that's been something fun for me.

(46:32):
Cause I've been, I've been growingmy hair out cause for men, right?
Short hair and Mormonism.
That's the thing.
So I've been growing my hair out forlike a year and a half and it just barely
popped where I can now do like two littlelike two little pigtails like that.
I love pigtails.
They're my, it's so fun.

(46:54):
And I'll go out, I'll go to,I'll get on stage with these.
I'll go outside and have themand everyone they'll see me.
And they're like, this, this isa grown ass man with pigtails.
There's like a double take.
And then, but I'm just like, this is me.
I've got it.
And then they're like, Oh,this is, this is kind of cool.
And then I get, I get complimented,especially from old ladies all the time.

(47:16):
It's my favorite.
You should try space buns.
Maybe your hair has to geta little longer for that.
I recently added like two buns tomy Would that be like up in here?
Just like on top.
Yep.
Like higher than Princess Leia buns.
They're just like MickeyMouse ears, basically.

(47:38):
Oh, like, yes, totally.
I could totally do that.
And people love it.
You know, I saw this womanon a show wearing it.
She was much younger than me.
I was like, I don't care.
I'm doing it.
Like, I'm enjoying the aging andthe greys, but I'm also gonna like
Pop with my space buttons and Icould totally do like a little a
little thing like that There we go.

(47:59):
See and by the way, wow, we're talkingabout hair and appearance control, right?
It's a big part of it.
So you got appearance control.
I find always breaks into fourcategories It's hair body size
Body coverage and underwear, whichincludes socks and pantyhose.

(48:19):
Um, and when you say you get like,when you say you get like the old lady
compliments, uh, mine is black women.
Like I, I dress very colorfully andcreatively and I get compliments from
black women and I am just so, youknow, like, it just makes me so happy.
Um, I don't, I don't look like theold skinny white woman anymore.
Right.

(48:39):
I am not that.
That's also, it's like.
My clothes are also the message, right?
Because what happened to me was Ileft the cult, I landed in Texas,
I'm trying so hard to fit in thatI'm basically like putting on
this overlay of like wasp, right?
And like married an awful man, allof this stuff, and it's like that,

(49:04):
that, even though that's what I looklike, like that is just as foreign
to me as, you know, any other justrandom identity that I would pick.
Um, and it's also a really boring one.
And so it was like, I'm not doing that.
And like the way I dress right now,like regardless of my face, like
nobody thinks like I'm this nice,quiet Christian girl from Texas.

(49:27):
Like they understand.
I almost think like sometimes I'mjust messaging that I'm like not in
the white supremacy cult anymore.
I'm not going to be quiet.
I'm not going to be skinny.
I'm not going to be alight shade of beige.
I'm going to be whatever I want.
I love it.
When I, so when I look at thatcollar, do you know the, do you
know the significance of the, ofthe collar and the Mormon garment?

(49:51):
Okay.
So this will be, this willbe interesting for you.
So, so, and it varies, right?
So the Mormon garment is different.
It's changed a lot.
It used to be, uh, for the LDS church,it used to be like a full body.
That's what the polygamous versionstill have is like a full body.
What Joseph Smith put on, which islike down to your, to your waist.
Wrist down to your ankles.
Um, the LDS, they've madeit like t-shirts and shorts.

(50:13):
Um, but it's still like super,it's especially bad for women.
It gives them UTIs 'cause they're,it's underwear designed by men.
For women, it's shit.
But all of them have, uh, a collar.
Right.
A little collar that goes around andfor the, for the polygamous versions,
it's a big thick white collar that kindof goes all the way around for the LDS.
It's like this short little lacecollar for the women and a short

(50:37):
little collar for the men, but itliterally represents being yoked, right?
Like being yoked, like an ox for Jesus.
Right?
And so I actually wear yokes.
Like yoke earrings or the onlykind of jewelry you could get away
with was if it had a yoke on it.

(51:00):
I love that you've taken that and thatyou've turned it into this fabulous
expression of of the Mormon color.
Exactly the opposite.
It's like, it's like the yoke.
It's like, I'll yeah.
Okay.
I'll yoke myself withwhatever the fuck I want.
And today it's sparkly puffs.

(51:21):
I like how you said that.
I'll yoke myself.
Like you belong to yourself.
And I always tell my audiencetoo, like when you leave, you're
jonesing for the mission and it'sokay for the mission to be you.
Your life's mission can be you.
And your people having a good life.
And this is actually, I do this kind ofanti mission mantra for myself because

(51:45):
I do work in like a helping professionwhere I'm like, my mission in life
is not end rape culture in the army.
It's not end cults.
It is for Tom, Daniella and littlelove young to have a good life.
That is my mission.
These things are my job, butyou know, this is my mission.
Um, and I say the same thingwith, um, Organizations, right?

(52:08):
Where people are like, well, can webe a good cult or a good organization?
I'm like, show me my first questionis show me where the organization
loses so that the individual can win.
Because for a system to be valid, goodand bad are not scientific terms, right?
But for a system to be valid,it has to be self sustaining.

(52:31):
And if the individual is under constant.
Self sacrifice and self sublimation,your system is not self sustaining.
It's not valid, right?
And I just don't see, under capitalism,like, organizations ever, ever,

(52:52):
they'll say they're, they are puttingthe individual first, but I think
it's very important to phrase itas When does the organization lose
so that the individual can win?
And that's very important forkicking out predators, by the way.
Like, sometimes the organization hasto lose face, kick out the predator, in

(53:15):
order for the predated upon individualsto win from that organization.
Yes.
Yes.
And that, that to me is, that's what,that's what that question is really what,
what, because when I, I, I was, I wasgrew up polygamist in what's what's called
the AUB, the Apostolic United Brethren.
And then for about five years after I leftthat I joined, I was in the LDS church.

(53:39):
And what ultimately pushedme out of the LDS church was.
They, they, uh, for years, they deniedthat Joseph Smith ever raped children.
And then finally they had toadmit it because of the internet.
And when they did that, they,they published an essay.
And it's still on their website, andit's an essay about Joseph Smith doing

(54:01):
polygamy in Nauvoo and about how it'sreally okay because God commanded it.
And in the essay, they say thatbecause they have to admit that
Joseph Smith married teenagers.
And so they say the youngest wifeof Joseph Smith was Helen Mar
Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph.
Several months before her 15th birthday.

(54:25):
And I, I remember reading thatand it was like a kick in the
stomach because I was like, how,
how can you be a responsibleorganization that claims to care
about the safety of children andthe importance of families and not
hold this organization accountable?

(54:47):
pedophile accountable, right?
And it was just that, that theywere not willing to let the
organization take a reputationalhit so that they could protect the,
the real people who had been harmed.
And this, by the way, is two things.
So this is ends justifies themeans mentality, of course.

(55:08):
Um, but this is also called thedeification of idiosyncrasy,
which is Our human desire tomake excuses for the inexcusable
actions of our charismatic leaders.
Um, and I also, I have my one, two,three rules of cults and my third
rule, and I say, this is where, wherewe are with Donald Trump is even if

(55:32):
he did, it doesn't mean he's guilty.
And that like very well describesthe way that like Mormons are
with both Joseph Smith and withJoseph Smith and Brigham Young.
And I mean, the leaders today, right?
Like, even if he did it.
He's still not guilty.
Doesn't matter.

(55:53):
That's wild.
Um, I want to have a, Soin children of God, right?
I am the reason They wentthrough the rebranding, right?
Because when I was born to a 14 yearold impregnated by a 39 year old
They were like, oh, she's proof.
Um And so they like married her off to ateenager, did all this stuff, but like,

(56:17):
and they try to say like, Oh, we changed.
Oh, we blah, blah, blah.
Oh, we kick people out for this.
That man, that 39 year old man, myfather, who's older than my grandfather,
he died still in the leadership.
Like it can't be both, youknow, like it's either wrong.
You can't, you can't hold peopleaccountable or support his actions.

(56:40):
Like it cannot be right.
You can't get to do yeah.
A hundred percent.
And this, by the way, very comingup applies to the US military.
Yeah.
I would imagine.
Um, we're coming up on our hourand I wanna make sure that we do
what I feel is probably going tobe one of the most important things

(57:01):
that we do in this conversation,which is, you have a wrap for me?
I do, yes.
So, uh, you know, since this is theApocalypse podcast, um, and I, I
describe this as Apocalypse Children,well, we had this whole book of
Bible verses we had to memorize.
By the way, we're, I'm 10 years old here.

(57:23):
So, so you memorized thousandsof scriptures at age 10.
Thousands of scriptures.
When we got to the end time verses,which are very like difficult
language and concepts for youngchildren, we're struggling.
We have this African Americanuncle who is our teacher.
And so we put together this rap.
And then of course thechild exploitation people.

(57:45):
showed up and filmed it for, youknow, distribution to our entire
10, 000 person army of God.
Um, so yes, here, here is me andFive other white children rapping
Apocalypse Bible verses in downtown Rio.
And I used to, when I was a captainin the army, I used to show this
to my soldiers and then be like,I'm, yes, I mean real cult.

(58:08):
Uh, I'm so excited for this.
We've been to Verizon, we've promised onthe station, About in time when this will

(58:34):
end, With great destruction upon evil men.
Now freeze!
Sandman's governments are too unfair,Their confusion and pollution,
it just gets in God's head.
He's gonna come down and blowthem all away, And start a
friendly kingdom going his way.
It's gonna be end timeand I'm telling you.
It's all over the fuckinworld, y'all man, it's true.

(58:56):
I read it, I believe it,and it's gettin to know.
Welcome to the FBI show!
This not also the end of last days.
Perilous times shall come, shall come.
This not also the end of last days.
Perilous times shall come, shall come.
Second to me, 3131.
Second to me, 3131.

(59:21):
First dawn, 218.
I said, First dawn, 218.
Little children, and it's the last time.
I said, Little children,and it's the last time.
I gotta see a perp, the A.
C.
shop, call Even now, the AC commits crime.

(59:47):
But by we know that it is the last time.
Matthew!
I said Matthew!
24 3!
And as he sat upon the Mount, TheMount of Olives, his disciples came
by to him privately, saying, Tell us,tell us, where shall these things be?
And what shall be the signs thatcome in, and at the end of the world?

(01:00:15):
Take heed, don't be deceived.
False prophets should rise.
Many will believe them to see wars,war, famine, earthquakes all around.
Great tribulation beforeyou hear the trumpet sound.
Like a lightning's flash acrossthe sky, I'll appear and catch
you up in the twinklin of an eye.
If you're sorry about whathappened, what's in store, you've
been left to do a few things.

(01:00:36):
There are hundreds more, but don't beworried, don't be scared, just be wild,
open your eyes, memorize and be prepared.
I'm gonna say that again.
Just be wild, open your eyes, Wow.

(01:00:59):
So, I also always have to say, like,I, at the age of 10, wrote most of that
dialogue, like, all the parts that werenot Bible verses, and I did not get credit
for it, and I'm still bitter about it.
But on a more serious note, right, thisis what childhood exploitation looks like.

(01:01:22):
And that boy didn't survive our childhood.
Oh,
man.
Anyway, you know, it takes a cost.
What has been interesting is thatsince I've been like doing this stuff
on TikTok, I have met people thatwere like, Oh my God, we watched that

(01:01:46):
growing up, like y'all religious people.
And people have even said, I used towonder how they got kids to like do that.
Um, And, you know, I have a chapter aboutthe filming in my book, which is my new
project that I'm going to release soon,which is stories and army stories, but

(01:02:12):
instead of focusing on group behavior,it's focusing on power, privilege,
whiteness, otherness, and what it meansto be an American slash on American.
Ooh, I love that.
That, that video.
It was hilarious first andthen it was a little chilling

(01:02:35):
and I, so like just lookingat the title, right?
Inspiration time, endtime rap, family fun.
Cause what's more fun for yourfamily than a little end time rap.
A rap about the end of days.
Oh my gosh.

(01:02:56):
I liked it.
I liked how you guys called them.
The AP, right?
We are children chantingabout dying in terrible ways.
And in an awful way,smiling and bopping, right?
You're bopping.
You've got, you're the one with thepiano on it, the piano outfit, right?
Yeah.
You're just like crushing it.
You're like having a great time.
But what we're talking aboutis, is, so it's, it's weird.

(01:03:18):
Cause it's like your, your initialresponse is like, Oh, that's kind of cute.
Oh, that's kind of silly.
And then, then at the end too, it'slike all of these terrible things we've
described, this end time is coming.
And what's the solution?
Memorize Bible verses.
Yep.
That's the way out.

(01:03:41):
I mean, it was so, and then, youknow, like even going into it
further, like, of course, this waslike exploitation writ large, but
it was like, they took this littleproject that we did with our teachers.
To help us memorize something that wehad to memorize, and then they made us
do hundreds of hours of labor turningit into that, um, where of course we

(01:04:09):
would get beat for misbehaving, right?
Right.
Yeah, and that's thedark underbelly, right?
And that, and that reallyis the, the dark underbelly.
I think of so much of, I mean, thisis just from like the, the Nickelodeon
stuff that just came out recently.
Right.
But so much we in America.
We, and this is maybe a whole conversationfor another show is we, I, I'm, I grow

(01:04:35):
up and I, and I've just learned that Iwas labor traffic like three years ago.
Cause I didn't have that language.
Right.
I learned what that was.
And I was like, Oh my God,that's what happened to me.
And the more I talk about it, the moreI realize that that is not uncommon
in the United States of America.
I mean, the United States ofAmerica has been built on the backs
of slave labor and female labor.

(01:04:57):
And child labor.
Yes.
And I have a t shirt company calledDisrespectful T shirts that I'll
give you the link of for this show.
I have a t shirt that says Americawasn't built to protect children.
And by the way, the printer heldit in review for three days.
Um, I mean, it, it just is, right?

(01:05:17):
So I think the Mormons areprobably some of the biggest
child traffickers in the world.
And by the way, the missionarydeployments where they hold their
passports, that's in the internationaldefinition of trafficking.
If an organization is holding yourpassport and you are of an age to hold

(01:05:39):
it yourself, you are being trafficked.
Yeah.
And, and not only that, becausethey're so brilliant at it,
they've, they've made it so thatthey not only are, not only are
they getting all of this freelabor from missionaries, two years.
Of free labor to, to buildtheir multinational corporation

(01:06:03):
to get tithing dollars, themissionaries are paying for it.
So they are fundingtheir own exploitation.
And by the way, in.
So in cult studies, we havesomething called identity
breaking indoctrination, right?
This is when you're first brought into thecult, or this is basic training in the U.

(01:06:24):
S.
Army.
Um, my chapter on basic trainingis called Drink the Kool Aid.
Um, and As children grow up in thecults, they realize that they have to
identity break the children, right?
Because growing up like that is different.
This is where the teen, the TroubledTeen Institute comes in, right?

(01:06:46):
This is what they're doing.
And the Mormons themselves compareThe missionary trip to military
basic training and say that yourmost important convert is yourself.
So I'm not even the bad guy here.
I'm just putting it in the bookand showing like, Here's the basic
training parallel to the cult andhere are the Mormons comparing

(01:07:10):
themselves to basic training.
They, they love it.
Right.
They'll say that the mission,they'll be like, your mission is
the hardest thing you'll ever do.
It's the best thing you'll ever do.
They'll intentionally, it's wild.
I mean, they've, they've done somethings to change it, but they used
to like up until like a year or twoago, you, you were denied any, you

(01:07:30):
could have like a phone call withyour family, maybe a once a week.
Yeah, I heard at onepoint it was twice a year.
It was on Mother's Day and on Christmas.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And again, this is whatthey do in basic training.
They take your phones and theylet you call home once or twice.

(01:07:50):
And, and part of that, by the way, so inbasic training, when they do this, part of
this is to let you know that we own you.
And so one of the things theydo in basic training is in
the first, like, three weeks.
Because that's about how longit takes once you get your basic
training address, send out aletter, and get a letter in return.

(01:08:11):
You've been there for two to three weeks.
And so they tell yousome celebrity is dead.
So when my husband wentthrough, it was J Lo.
And it takes you that long tofind out that it's not true.
So, I promised you that when my drillsergeant came in crying, saying that
Michael Jackson was dead, I could not bemade to believe it because I already knew

(01:08:35):
this was like a trick that they used.
Um, anyways, turns out it wasreal, but it worked the same way.
It worked the same way.
Yeah.
We're still not able to get verificationand that subconsciously teaches you, like
you have to rely on daddy drill sergeantor daddy Mormon church for everything

(01:08:56):
you need because you're cut off.
Yep.
Daddy Bishop, daddy mission president.
Oh, it's so gross.
I'm so glad that you're out here,uh, not doing your mission because
your mission is to give yourselfan awesome life, but doing the work
of educating people about cults.
That's rad.
We do have to wrap up pretty soon,but you have an apocalypse skill
that you bragged on pretty hard.

(01:09:17):
So we didn't talk muchabout the apocalypse.
We did in our, in our pre show, butI wanted, I just want to touch real
quickly on one of the themes thatwe talked about, which was, Yeah.
Yeah.
There are a lot of us out in the world,a lot of cult kids, so many cult kids.
And if you don't think you're one,but you read Uncultured and you
relate, you were probably one.
Um, and the good thing is like, so we seecults pop up in times of social turmoil.

(01:09:43):
And what we're going through right nowis definitely a time of social turmoil.
We're pulling down systems.
We're coming up with new ones.
Maybe we will have.
Some kind of actual apocalypse, butmaybe that's just our cult baby minds.
But we have a lot of skills, right?
For this.
Um, we are good with a mission.
We are good with working hard.
We are very creative.

(01:10:03):
You know, we never say never.
Um, but this can also lead usinto like more cults, right?
So that's just something I always wantpeople to notice that the important part
of doing your deconstruction is like.
Finding your own identity, but alsofinding out what impacts the cult
had on your personality and identity,because once you realize that, right,

(01:10:27):
like, I'm jonesing for a mission.
Cool.
You can go pick a better mission,you know, instead of like, Going
headlong into another cult.
So I do have the coolestapocalypse skill ever.
I spent a really longtime thinking about it.
I mean, one of mine isjust storyteller, right?
And especially in apocalypse,do we need the storyteller, but.

(01:10:50):
Okay, so I mentioned I broke down, right?
Like, I tried to run from my traumafor 10 years, became a captain
in the army, completely broke.
I'm, I won a marathon and two and ahalf months later I'm being evacuated
for something we think is a very,very serious thing, potentially fatal.
Um, and one of my symptoms is thatI was lactating and I had no baby.

(01:11:17):
Yeah, so It's, you know, turnsout it's like a hormone thing,
but they couldn't figure it out.
I eventually, you know, I justthink it was my big cult break.
I recovered.
I had a baby.
I produced so much milk.
I fed seven other babies.
Um, and I'm still, my child is eight,not, not lactating because the only

(01:11:43):
way they stop that is by giving youa pill that lowers your prolactin.
But I don't have that.
So I think that in the apocalypse,I'm just like a little baby feeder
and child feeder again, right?
Because feeding kids up to fourbreast milk throughout the non
developed world helps children'smortality not be that low.

(01:12:08):
Um, so yeah, that's mycool apocalypse still.
And I bet you've neverheard anything like that.
I've never heard anything like that.
And I'm so excited to have youon my apocalypse team because we
are going to need to feed lotsof babies to rebuild the world.
And now we can have cheese.
And,

(01:12:30):
uh, sunscreen, breast milk makes very goodsunscreen and also it helps heal wounds.
You put it in your eye when you have aninfection and the infection will be gone.
I mean, it's, it's crazy.
Um, It really is.
It's like the nectar of the gods.
When the, when the kid you'refeeding is sick, it changes so that

(01:12:54):
it gives the kid what it needs.
And when you're feeding, likebreastfeeding, like a two year
old and a newborn, it producesnewborn specific milk, not two year
old milk, like it's, it's crazy.
Wow.
There's, there are also whole likebreastfeeding cults and La Leche League
might be a little bit, uh, cult like.

(01:13:16):
Um.
Look, I've, good apocalypsestill to have, you know.
I've been in enough cults run by men thatI would give a breastfeeding cult a try.
I'd at least, I'd at least check them out.
All the ones I've seen arestill mostly run by men.
Damn it.
Herein lies the problem.

(01:13:36):
You know, this is aninteresting topic, right?
Just here at the end.
Because people are alwayslike, why are there always men?
Um, yeah, of course they're not.
There are many, uh, Women cultleaders and there are definitely
many heads of like narcissistheads of families that are women.
But I think the reason is becausecoercive control plots very closely along

(01:14:00):
a patriarchal line, which one means italways hurts the women and children.
And two means that a womanhas to work that much harder.
Right, and I, you seethis with me in the army.
As a woman leader in the military, Ihave to work that much harder, and when I
fall, it will be so much more celebrated.

(01:14:24):
Right?
Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos oreven Marissa Meyer of Yahoo, right?
Because that woman stepped out of line.
Um, trust me, there's a whole chapterin my next book called The Skinny White
Woman and we get into all of this.
And it's also fun now whenpeople on social media are like,
Why is she got to be white?

(01:14:44):
I'm like, let me readyou 25 pages of research.
That's good.
What white women are doing.
It's also interesting to like, not only,not only, not only all of that, but also,
especially in Mormonism, Mormonism is theonly thing that keeps Mormonism going.

(01:15:06):
Is the free labor of Mormon women.
Mormon women run everything in more,everything in the local church, every,
and like the men are, have the priesthoodand like sit up on the stand and like,
Take or like in charge, everything is,everything of substance and importance

(01:15:26):
is happening because women are doing it.
And it makes me want to justlike grab every Mormon woman and
shake her and just be like, stop,stop giving your labor away.
Isn't that kind of true ofsociety, of American society?
Like there was someonewho got very famous.
I don't remember her name, but her tweetwas, you know, it was during COVID.

(01:15:48):
I think it was like othercountries have social programs.
America has women.
And this is actually one of the thingsthat I've found in my own deconstruction
is that everything that I'm strugglingwith going through deprogramming
from because I was raised in a cult.
Either all Millennials are goingthrough or all white Millennials are

(01:16:10):
going through, you know, like we areall being pushed out of the cult of
white supremacy right now or leavingit by choice and like, it is all 100%.
And yeah, I always like to tell peoplethat one of the things that cults gives
people is the feeling of superiority.
And I think that this is what alot of the like, angry white man.

(01:16:32):
Trend going on in America is, andfor white women too, for sure.
It's like, what's goingto make me special?
And the answer is nothing, nothing.
Nothing will make you special except you.
You're special as an individualhuman, but you're not any more special
than anyone else on the planet.

(01:16:53):
Yeah, and let that go, but one of thethings that's really hard to get over
and in my book I actually there's amoment when somebody tells me that a
lot more harshly because we're soldiersand it's get the f over yourself
You're not as different as you thinkyou are and that is what I tell people
all the time now that like Your cultexperience while it didn't meet the

(01:17:16):
average American experience Wasn'tdifferent than any other cult experience.
It is all programmatic.
It is all coercive control andUnderstanding that is one of the
things that is gonna help us buildconnection with you know Not only fellow
survivors, but all them systemitesout in the real world, too Yeah, and

(01:17:38):
there are literally millions of us.
Yes, there are millions of us who all hadthe same experience And, and the, the,
I mean, the individual details might'vebeen a little bit different, but the broad
swaths of what we experienced is the same.
We're not, we're not that unique.
We're not that special.
And, and I've found like at first,when I first realized that it did

(01:17:59):
make me feel sad and small, I waslike, but I want to be special.
Um, but it's actually, as I've sortof sat with that, I've actually felt
like a really profound sense of relief.
That I don't have to be the chosen one.
Exactly.
This is not all up to me.
I don't have to fix everything.
No.
I get to just kind of be, likeyou said, kind of focus on my

(01:18:22):
world and be me and try to buildthe best life that I can for me.
And then do what delights me in theworld that ultimately does, I think,
have a positive impact and will, willmake the world better, but I don't
have to save the world, which is great.
Cause I can't, I'm just, I'm justa teeny, tiny little cult baby.
Yeah.
And that's the real.

(01:18:44):
Impact of growing up theapocalypse child, right?
Is that we feel like wehave to save the world.
And, you know, it's thisprocess, I call it becoming less
narcissistic, but more selfish.
Like, because cults give youthat sense of narcissism, right?
I'm so special.
This sacrifice makes me special.
These works make me special.

(01:19:06):
And, but we don't know a singlething about self care or what
we really want, or, you know,following our own passions in life.
And I think that because mission,community, and purpose are things
that all people look for, we cultbabies don't realize that we have
those dialed up to a thousand.

(01:19:26):
And so we see people really struggling forcommunity, but what they're looking for
is an overly enmeshed, unhealthy communityin the first place, and part of what we
have to do is like demissionize, right?
And just like, Your purpose can be small.
Your mission can be you.
You do not have to spend yourlife trying to change the world.

(01:19:50):
If you do, awesome!
But that little burden that youwere given when you were born.
Like you can put that down.
You don't have to keep holdingthat duffel bag up in the sky.
Um, which is a referenceto, it is not your job.
It is not your job.
I love that.
That is such a great, it's sucha, it's such a, I think it's such

(01:20:11):
a relief to understand that, andthen what you, then what you get to
do is then inhabit your own life.
And I think that, because I think thatwe do need changes in the world, right?
The world does need to change and heal,but that's only going to happen when,
when people inhabit their own lives.
And, and begin to sort of care fortheir immediate surroundings, right?

(01:20:36):
Where they are right now.
Yeah.
And so like, what were you just saying?
Sorry.
What did you just say?
Just that, that setting thatburden down is a relief.
And then it allows you to sort of dropinto your own life and live your own life.
And I, I think that the way that theworld changes is by millions of people

(01:20:58):
letting go of those big missions.
And just inhabiting their own lives.
100%.
And, you know, uh, cult studies havefound two reasons that people are
like open to getting conned by a cult.
And one of them is being a seeker,which like you were saying about
like healing and being a seekeris not a bad thing, right?

(01:21:21):
Like our systems are broken.
Our world is going througha ton of conflict, right?
Like we are asking and trying toanswer really important questions.
But the other one Is lack ofsocial connections, right?
And so the more, you know, what washappening with me was I was telling
myself I was so different, right?

(01:21:42):
Like, oh, of course I'm traumatized.
I grew up in a cult.
Of course, nobody can understand me.
I grew up in a cult and realizinglike, no, human beings can
understand each other, right?
Sometimes you have to learn howto tell your stories better, but
we can all understand each other.
And so the more You build communityby inhabiting your own self and,

(01:22:04):
you know, being who you are in theworld, that's going to make you less
vulnerable to our tendencies to beseekers leading us into negative groups.
Yeah.
And the more, and the more healthygroups we start to build, right?
Cause you're, you're building communitygroups from this place of, of healed, not

(01:22:24):
from this place of, I'm empty, fill me up.
Yeah.
And, and enmesh myself with you.
And one, uh, one little comedy pointbefore we go, like if you describe
yourself as growing up in something.
You were probably in a cult.
We say, I say, I grew upin the children of God.
People say they grew up in Mormonism.

(01:22:45):
Uh, when I was, I didn't knowthe Salvation Army was a cult
until I heard people saying, Igrew up in the Salvation Army.
I'll tell you everything you need to know.
And we say this in the military.
I grew up in the army, uh, talkingabout, you know, Sort of being babies
when you join and growing up and,uh, they say it in AA too, of course.
So just a fun, just a funlittle last one for you.

(01:23:08):
That's a little hack for you listeners.
If you're saying that you grewup in something, that thing, that
something is probably a cult.
Uh, Daniela, it has been such a lovelyprivilege to chat with you today.
I feel so, uh, special podcast.
Um, are there any, have you ever,Like, look, you finished it.
Sleep.
You're my new scarf.

(01:23:29):
Oh my God.
Oh, that's gonna be so great.
. I love it.
Um, any final thoughts from you or isthere, like, is there any, any, any
projects you wanna let people know about?
Where can they follow you?
What, what do you want to, whatdo you want people to know?
So please f come follow me on YouTube.
You can see my TED talkand all of my stuff there.
Easiest way is justtype knitting cult lady.

(01:23:51):
Um, I also have a bigcommunity on TikTok, which is.
Inching toward 100k.
I keep saying this weekend,but it keeps not happening.
But when it hits 100k, I'mannouncing my next project that I'm
releasing, which is Un American.
It's a, I call it a mini memoir.
Like I wrote a secondbook after Uncultured.
It just didn't gettraditionally published.

(01:24:13):
And so I'm going to put it out in non bookform and I'm going to announce that soon.
So come follow me on TikTok, or ifyou subscribe, you get it for free.
Um, And that's mostly me.
I sell autographed copiesof my book as well.
And I'm on most social media at groupbehavior gal or knitting cult lady.

(01:24:34):
Hell yeah.
Um, thanks so much for coming on.
Uh, you're rad and I'm, I'm sostoked that we were able to connect.
Uh, everybody stay safe out thereand, uh, we'll see you next week.

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From Cult to Community: Redefining Identity and Belonging w/ Daniella Young (AUDIO ONLY)

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