July 23, 2024 • 71 mins
In this conversation, Daniella and Rebecca discuss the impact of white supremacy and cult-like behavior on their lives. Daniella shares her personal experience of being married to a white supremacist and how it made her reflect on her own identity and choices. They explore the pressure to conform to societal expectations and the importance of embracing individuality. They also discuss the power of self-expression and the need to challenge the norms imposed by white supremacy. The conversation explores the themes of freedom, perfectionism, chasing success, self-sacrifice, and the cult-like nature of societal systems. It emphasizes the importance of individuality, self-acceptance, and finding joy outside of traditional measures of success. The speakers discuss the impact of white supremacy, the worship of the written word, and the exploitation of labor. They also highlight the value of authentic conversations, real relationships, and the ability to create one's own path. The conversation ends with a discussion on the power of analogies and the accessibility of knowledge.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Daniella Mestyanek Young (00:00)And I had this crazy thought, right? I was like, come on, there's no way.
(00:01):
I've had such a big life, right? In 33, I've already written a book about growing up in a cult and being a woman in the military. I made history for women in the military. Like, there's no way all of this is in one person's life. And that's when it hit me like, boom, you married a white supremacist because you grew up in a cult.
Rebecca (www) (00:26)yeah, it's all like one in the same. And that familiarity that we breed as safety is so interesting. So I, you know, I've read your book and I knew that, but I don't think I connected how long or how late in your journey you realized this was happening. I kind of just knew it as factually. I don't think I knew you were already an expert
Daniella Mestyanek Young (00:46)Yeah.
Hi everybody, welcome to our podcast, Hey White Woman, where we are deconstructing white supremacy like the cult that it is. I am Daniella, also known as Group Behavior Gal or Knitting Cult Lady. And in my day job, I am deconstructing cults, talking about cults, helping people understand them and the nuances of extreme groups and extremely bad leadership and where that shows up in our world. And I am here today with amazing Rebecca.
Rebecca (www) (01:26)Hello, I'm Rebecca. I'm also known as white woman whisper on the socials, Instagram, Instagram, not even Instagram, TikTok, Patreon. I like to discuss how racial social dynamics work between white women and the rest of the world. Now that I have an awareness that white women want to listen and learn, I use my biracial identity, proximity to whiteness and other things to kind of rehumanize.
how we discuss these things. And as I deconstruct myself, yeah, we're on this adventure together, professional black friend over here, just trying to help the well -meaning white women out. So let's.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (02:08)And I learned so much every episode. I just walk away with my head in my hands like, I can't believe I said that, okay. No, this is great. So I was kind of, to put this in cult terms, I'd already had my crack in the brainwashing with white supremacy, right? I'd already understood the concept of white privilege and that I had it even though I grew up in a cult.
And I was doing the reading and I was starting, right? The really serious deconstruction that we all need to do to get deprogrammed from toxic systems. And that was when I got an email from the United States Army asking me if I would please testify against my ex -husband, William Jeffrey Poole, because they wanted to kick him out.
for white supremacy. And I mean, just jaw on the ground, right? This is a guy I met when I was 19 years old. I'd been out of a cult for about four years, a cult which was anti -American, but also very white supremacist at its core, as many of the separate from the world white cults are.
And so I had met this man at 19. Now, then, when I got the email, I'm 33 years old. I'm essentially already an expert on extremism and radicalization. You know, the lawyer is joking that he could have read me on as an expert if he wasn't reading me on as the ex -wife. And I had this crazy thought, right? I was like, come on, there's no way.
I've had such a big life, right? In 33, I've already written a book about growing up in a cult and being a woman in the military. I made history for women in the military. Like, there's no way all of this is in one person's life. And that's when it hit me like, boom, you married a white supremacist because you grew up in a cult.
Rebecca (www) (04:22)yeah, it's all like one in the same. And that familiarity that we breed as safety is so interesting. So I, you know, I've read your book and I knew that, but I don't think I connected how long or how late in your journey you realized this was happening. I kind of just knew it as factually. I don't think I knew you were already an expert and didn't see it.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (04:42)Yeah. Yeah. This was only three years ago. Not even three years ago, right? This was during COVID. So literally, you know, looking back, I was like, I completely get it. Right? And so here's the thing. I had not planned to write about him in my book at all. I just planned to skip over the one -one cult.
almost abusive, can't quite tell weird accidental marriage that I was in, right? Because it was confusing to me. I didn't understand it. And I explained it like this. He doesn't love me, but he just wants to own me. He wants to hold on to me, right? When I asked him for a divorce, he just said, no. And I'm pretty sure the only reason I had a divorce was because
Rebecca (www) (05:18)Hmm?
Daniella Mestyanek Young (05:39)We were both in the army and we were both physically unable to get to each other. He was physically unable to get to me. And so I was able to divorce him and get away from him. But I did not understand it at all. But here's what I knew. I knew that he was an ex -gay. Right? I didn't know that thing at the time. But when I was 19 and the
first boy I tell about the cult and my crazy background actually tell the honest truth, he tells me the story of, I used to be gay, right? So used to be gay, came into my teenage years, just flamboyantly gay, cheetah spots in the hair, glitter on the face, you know, all over the yearbook photos. And then he says, you know, 18 years old about to graduate from high school.
falls in love with a girl, no longer gay. Right? So even at the time, I was like, okay, obviously you're bisexual, right? And like, why, you know, I just told myself like, why should I care? And honestly, there's so much that goes into that. But for me, survivor of a... Sorry, what?
Rebecca (www) (07:01)Sorry, it's like a colorblind kind of like, I shouldn't like, you know, kind of ignoring the, all of the flags because I don't see color. The red flags are the same thing as every other flag. Yeah, sorry, it's so interesting.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (07:07)Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, no, that's a very good analogy, right? Like I was taking a, you know, sex and gender psychology class, right, in college. And I was like, well, it's a spectrum. And you like, you know, just because you like guys and girls, you're choosing a girl. Like I'm fine with that, right? And subconsciously, I think I was drawn to him because I felt safe, right? Because he didn't look at me like he wanted to, you know, with his eyes.
(00:22):
Right. And so this actually can be a common thing for cult survivors, women I have found to marry gay men. And I think it's this partially this comfort thing. But when I got the news, right, when I got the piece of OK, so here he is. This is in 2021. Right. Shortly after January 6th, he's a major in the US Army.
He's in the army, he's in active reserves, which means he's technically in the army reserves, but he works an active duty job. He goes in every day in a uniform. And he had been all over Reddit and other internet pages with very, very blatant and open white supremacy, calling for nuclear war against America, offering his military training to train people in the coming race war.
And some former intelligence analyst, which is my field, saw this person on these internet boards saying that he was active duty military. So he and a couple of other friends went and put together a 75 page PowerPoint connecting this random screen name, Nebor-Something, to my ex -husband William Jeffrey Poole.
And then they very smartly dropped it off to the Military Times newspaper at the same time as they dropped it off to the military inspector general, because they were like, the army will probably try to cover this up. This went down in 2019. And I was not aware of any of this. There were news stories about it then, was not aware, divorced the guy nine years before, right? Like he just wasn't in my life at all. So I only find out about this, you know, when they're going to trial, which is, you know, March of 2021 after January 6th and the military is cracking down on this. So of course they're going to kick him out and y 'all, you can Google the name William Jeffrey Poole, right? It comes up. And so,
I go to testify and he's like, they dropped me in as a surprise. And he says to his lawyer, he's like, we've been divorced for a decade. She doesn't have anything. But the thing that I had was that this username, Nebor, is very specific. And I had spent years asking him what that word meant when we were together. For the three years we were together. My mom,
even remembered it from when I deploy and or I went to training and I gave her my account passwords. Great. That was a piece the generals really liked on the on the trial. And so this word, Nebor, is a Sorbian word for fighter. Sorbian is a dead Germanic language. So what I know at this point
is that by the age of 21, when I meet him, he is deep enough into white supremacy that he is like using this word, right, that they use as his everything word. So what I think happened was around 18, this little gay boy who was never gonna be accepted in Baptist Texas, not gonna be the kind of person who was gonna be in power.
found a group that would accept him and that would help him get power. The only thing he couldn't do was be gay in a white nationalist, white supremacist world. So nobody's gonna think you're gay if you marry Barbie. And there we have it.
Rebecca (www) (11:58)It makes so much sense.
in such a terrifying way because you only know this, you know, because it's like, he's like a sacrificial, but how many,
Daniella Mestyanek Young (12:18)Yeah,
Rebecca (www) (12:20)You had so much information and the timing of everything and, you know, everything had to kind of lead up to you having this information. And it's, it's, it's just not hit. It's not just hit is the thing, you know, and that's always what I hear when I hear this. And it's like, we get the insight as to how this happens. But of course, you know, humanizing
everybody, including these, you know, white supremacists, but also like the thing about ignoring someone's past or ignoring what is integral to their person, like whether they are black or whether they are gay, we can't act like those things don't matter just because they shouldn't be a negative in someone's value list doesn't mean they don't matter. They matter.
Because that would tell you, like, if you really respect that about someone, it would tell you something that you just were, like, your identity was this, and now it's something.
That's how does a human, we shouldn't, that should be a red flag, just that the change happened, that there was this big one relationship you get in one relationship, you meet one girl and now you're no longer who you were before.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (13:30)Yeah, and you know, so one of the things, you know, what this turned into for me was, well, a whole second memoir, basically, because I immediately was like, my gosh, right? Like, how close, right? How close did I come to using my not inconsiderable talents for speech and rhetoric and motivating and convincing people, like for the bad guys, right?
Rebecca (www) (13:51)That's what oppression does.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (14:20)And then dealing with that on top of knowing that I was targeted for my whiteness, for the quote type of beauty that I have, et cetera, in a body that I still have to live in. So immediately, I turned in the manuscript for my book, Uncultured, the one that's out now, which is me going through the stories of my life, growing up in this sex cult and then being a woman in the army.
but looking at the groups around me. And I did this other project called Un -American, which was me now this time going through my life, but looking at me, right? And looking at themes of power and privilege and whiteness and otherness and what it means to be an American, right? Because, you know, 20 years before I had come into America, 15 years old,
not really conscious, I think, of race as an identity in the way that we have it in the US. And white supremacy immediately starts to radicalize you. That is the big thing that I realized was like, you come in here with a quote unquote blank slate as a white person trying so hard to assimilate, right?
I was trying hard to assimilate because being an other is not fun. And white supremacy goes right to work.
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Rebecca (www) (16:04)Yeah, that blank slate thing, that's something that comes up a lot for me is like, that's a pure, that's that purity thing. As if you are a blank slate, but you're not, we, none of us are, you know, your ex -husband had so much color and stuff to his person that had to be muted and deleted and erased in order to be good at something, successful at something. The cultiness of, you know, what is success here is like.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (16:46)yeah, and that's exactly what ended up happening with me, right? And so I see, you know, as I'm writing on American, I can see like, okay, this is what he did, right? He traded who he really is for this proximity to power, right? For this step up. But then so did I, right? I just didn't realize it, right? Because I was dropped in America and I, you know, nobody's a blank slate, but I was not a white Anglo -Saxon Protestant from Texas, right? Like I was as unfamiliar of that culture as well, but that's what I looked like, right? And so I have this moment when I'm first dating him at 19 and I'm struggling.
Right? I have been by myself in the world for four years, you know, putting myself through high school and college out of a cult, right? But living in the margins of America to be used and abused by the men and women who prey on people like that. And here is this option that I'm being sort of silently presented that if you can just be like a quiet, skinny, beige, white woman you can have an easier life, right? Have a safety net. And this is what I can see looking back, right? It's like, white supremacy threw me a rope and I grabbed it. And...
Rebecca (www) (18:16)Mm -hmm.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (18:36)Yeah, no, I figured that out and on.
Rebecca (www) (18:37)And it's like, that's what...
Yeah, that's what like privileges promise us, whatever the privileges, because mine, I didn't have whiteness, but I did believe if I got into corporate America and got a stable job after my MBA that that would protect me or that would do something for my life that would add value to it because like that would give me the ease. Or if you when
attractive or being pretty. I remember having a phase of like, do I just find that the society is telling me that I'm supposed to use this and like to not work this miserable thing that's, you know, so you, but as a white woman, the closer you get, you know what I also thought about this blank slate thing, like think about an empty canvas and how we treat an empty canvas. It's not nothing.
We treat it delicately because it's so clean. You don't want to get anything on it or something. When you start, there's something that you treat as precious about the blank one. And then once you start kind of, which is interesting, this image or this feeling that we're taught to have that you get to decide what Barbie you are. Which are you, military Barbie? Are you a professor Barbie? And I thought we just picked one and go for it, but that may be the neurodivergence a little bit in me, but.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (20:10)Yeah, there's that too, right? I teach those paint and sip things, right? And I make them paint their canvas with water first. And it does help the canvas absorb paint better, but it's mostly to just get them touching that pristine screen, right? Because they need to get over that, the first thing I do is going to ruin it.
Right. And I think that idea of purity is very much there. But I really related to what you said about just picking, right, like which Barbie you want to be. Wish I had worn my Neurodivergent Barbie t -shirt now. But that is what I learned when I was writing my first memoir. Right. I was like, OK, so I got out into the world. There was a very brief moment that we just had.
Daniella, right, or whatever. Daniella is in the absence of these groups and roles that define her. And then very quickly, that was too scary, right? So then I was super student and then I was super soldier. And then I was gonna try to be super mom. And I realized, you know, around the same time that all of this stuff is happening with my ex -husband, am I realizing like, because I grew up in a cult, and cults prioritize group identity, right?
I never actually got to form a personal identity. So I thought that was what I was supposed to do, right? I thought I was just supposed to pick up and like, be this perfect Barbie and then be this perfect Barbie and then be this perfect Barbie. Because I didn't even really, I think, understand the concept of individuality and individual identity. But here's the thing.
I feel like all white millennials are going through that, right? Like everything I have from the cult is just like extra, but it's like we've all given up identity and community for whiteness, you know? And this is not something that happened decades ago, right? I mean, the structure was set in place hundreds of years ago, but this happened to me in 2003.
Right? Like it's something that is still ongoing and is still happening.
Rebecca (www) (22:39)Yeah, and even when TikTok first kind of got around, it made me think of like this niching down we were supposed to do. And I remember writing about it and just thinking, this feels like a commodification of the soul. There's this desire. And I found myself even on TikTok once I started, or social media in general, once I started, I removed myself from the corporate cult structure type of my incultedness to it, because I was like, all right, I'm corporate Barbie now.
and then realized that that's not, it's terrible. no one likes black corporate Barbie, like that. No one picks that one up. and I wouldn't suggest it, but it's, you know, realizing I started just doing it to myself because I still hadn't accepted that the identity I had prior to picking up all of these different skills to form one was good enough as is my sense of self already existed. I didn't need to pick one up.
but I wasn't taught that. You know, we were talking, I think about career day. I didn't, I don't remember having that many career days, but I remember like the vibe of career day. What are you gonna be? What are you gonna be? Like, am I not enough? You had to be already thinking about what personality comes with this job, what prestige, which isn't a thing, you know, like it's literally not a thing. It's this je ne sais quoi.
But just not being in a group, you still find yourself. I was beating myself up without anybody needing to do it for me. And I would just be like, you're lazy, look at you not doing anything. Yeah, I'm forming a self.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (24:23)Yeah, and I think one of these bigger meta things, I'm writing a book right now called The Culting of America. And this is like the cults of white supremacy and the cult of America and cults are about labor, right? And in America, we primarily define ourselves through what we do, right? That is the first thing that we ask.
By the way, I'm a big, big fan of nude beaches and nudist resorts because nobody walks up and asks you what you do for a living when you're naked. It's amazing. The armor is removed, the signaling is removed, and people just have conversations.
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Rebecca (www) (25:14)That is so, that is like so consistent because you even think about when you talk about kink communities, like there's so much more consent talk and so much more communication and it actually sounds a lot safer. Like all the, you know, the things it's everything we were taught not to think is what actually is. It's like where your safest is where these things are actually happening out loud.
I feel safest in a room where we're talking about race. As a black person, I want to hear what you got to say so that I know what's going on. You know, just, wow. That is...
Daniella Mestyanek Young (25:52)Yeah. It's, you know, everything about us, right, is the messaging, right? And everything we choose to wear, the way we choose to like present ourselves to the world, there's like meaning to it, right? There's all of this history, there's all of these stereotypes that we're inhabiting. And honestly, you know, if you're watching us, or if you're listening to us, you probably don't know that me and Rebecca are both just crocheting the whole time.
And one of my things with making and designing my own clothes has been this, right? Like I woke up one day and I was like, it is causing me so much heartache to present myself in the world as this white English ex and Protestant woman from Texas because I'm not her, right? So when people get inside the bubble and get to know me,
They're let down because I'm not her and I'm let down because they don't want me for who I am. Right? And so I would need to have these tricks. Like if a white guy asks me out, I would say, yes, but we're going to Ethiopian food, right? Or like, yes, but we're going to go salsa dancing because they need you to understand that I'm not this American girl next door. I'm so much more complicated. And then I realized, but like... but why am I working so hard to look like her and present myself like her, right?
And so now I just make clothes, you know, that I say they like, first of all, I just dress for older black women. And my clothes say about me, like, I am not, nobody is confusing me with an evangelical woman from Texas, like the way that I dress now. It is not quiet, it is loud, it is what I want, when I want and that is breaking all of the rules of being like a good, pure white lady in America.
Rebecca (www) (27:56)Yeah, you're not supposed to have in whiteness, I believe it's like no distinction. It's like I said, an anti -identity. To be white is an anti -identity. You are not allowed to have something about just you. If you have something interesting about you, that's a bad thing. I think even like the how we use the word deformity sometimes, I guess just that's negative. A deformity is a negative thing to look different, to be.
Cause no one is saying that, you know, it's just different. And the way we want to fit in, meaning look like everybody else, but we don't look like everybody else. Cause that's not, you know, we put so much effort into it. But when you were saying, I realized I like to also wear some of my stuff because I present. So when I was dating, cause I just, I'm like pause on the whole other people thing. That's let's work on this first, but.
I mostly have been in Black culture. So I've dated Black men basically, I've always been around Black men, but there's something in the Black community with my proximity to whiteness, there is an awareness I have about light skin, dark skin dynamics, right? And I know I am a light skinned woman. That is different from being biracial in experience, but everyone's experiences are different. But like in terms of the value system is different.
and understanding that. That's just something I have to understand, but I also know when I'm approached.
Black men, especially from the South, they've been like, I did not expect you to be all of this. This is a lot. And so I think wearing my cardigans and my rainbow, I'm just looking a little, people wear my Birkenstocks and socks. I try to just, I tried not to look like a light -skinned black woman who has value in her light -skinned black woman -ness, the way you don't want to look like a, you know, not to disparage any black people, of course, but.
There is a whole section.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (30:02)And I would say this probably helps both of us out with our neurodiversity too. But like, you know, anyone today that walks up to me at a party, right? Like nobody is expecting the woman standing there knitting, wearing her own crocheted clothes to be a normal white lady, right? Like nobody is expecting to have a normal conversation. And so it's like they're pre -selecting, right? I actually say in my chapter on the skinny white woman.
my next book about cults and I say, you know, white women in America, you're supposed to be quiet, skinny and the light shade of beige. And I really liked what you said about like, you're not supposed to stand out. And so like, I do nothing but stand out now. And it sorts out so many problems for me just upfront.
Rebecca (www) (30:42)Yeah, being perceived is like I battle with it because I have always, I liked being a member of a group in a way of like certainty of like not sticking out, but like as a group we stick out, but you know, and it's just realizing like, so what people see you and they're confused by you. That's actually pretty cool. And just realizing like, wait, that's pretty cool. Like what's going to happen to me? Someone's going to look and be like, what is going on over there?
with the knitting and the crochet and the dog and the head. we get it, we get it, nail polish. Like we get it. And I'm like, that's cool. I like that person.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (31:30)Well, this is something that I tell my audience who are mostly deconstructing from cults and stuff. And we have this stereotype of like, cults wear uniforms, but it's not necessarily uniform, but it's uniform appearance, right? Everyone is supposed to look like everyone else, even in the US Army, right? Like all the appearance regulations are about not standing out.
Of course, you're not supposed to stand out from being a six foot two white blue eyed dude, right? In the army. And you're just not supposed to stand out. And so one of the things I tell people when they're early in their deconstruction journey is this, you know, like wear wacky outfits, do wacky things in public, you know? And of course, everyone has different levels of privilege as to, you know, how they can present themselves in public, but as far as you can, wear something that makes people be like, why are you wearing that? And then the answer that you're giving to yourself is because I want to. Because I am the adult in charge of my life and I can do what I want.
I threw myself a princess birthday party for my 36th birthday party just because I'd never had one. I can do that, right? And it's so important to give yourself permission to be an individual like that.
Rebecca (www) (33:05)Yeah. Yeah. And remind yourself to do that and get you like friends and be around other people who give themselves permission to be creative. Because that was a big change for me is to get out of like a grind. You know, I have different types of people around some that are always kind of working and hustling. Some of them are more creative because, you know, depending on how you showed up, which Barbie you were, you might already kind of be in the hustle mindset. But that
I realized when I started wearing my hair naturally, it wasn't in order to deconstruct, but it started the deconstruction. And it started the awareness of like, I'm walking into, I chose this, I'm choosing this every day. And it's because I want to, and it's my hair or like these little choices and realizing what you want to do is not a, it's not an indulgence. Cause it always did.
(01:25):
feel like that for me. If I'm going to buy a trampoline, because I always wanted one as a kid, buy a trampoline. And I bought my trampoline. And I also bought a rocking chair because I really like the idea of sitting in my rocking chair. It's right next to my trampoline. I love the confusion. It's like, that's the kind of biracial I am. OK, I got my whiteboard and a hammock. Those two things are different. But I like that blend and realizing like,
I think Portia said to me, I take care of eight year old me, 18 year old me, and 80 year old me all at the same time, because they're all me. And I was good at eight, like eight year old me was fine as much as she like was taught to be embarrassed of the stuff she liked. And it'd be in her room doing her little shows. I was like, that's, that's secret. It didn't need to be. So it's, but I think I like the eight, 18 and 80 because they're all valid, but they're going to be different.
And being okay with the change and future focus and yeah, it's like, what if he had, what if he had been able to just be gay and, and, and, you know, your ex husband just stay himself and wasn't rewarded for dehumanizing himself and then rewarded more for dehumanizing others. And then like, there's no human. I mean, there's a human in there, but he's not being fed. I don't know. That's just...
Daniella Mestyanek Young (35:39)Yeah, no, I mean, I completely agree, right? And that has kind of been the saving grace for me, right? It was understanding that like, I don't have to fit in this culture and in these stereotypes. There's, you know, if you don't fit, like, of course there are repercussions, right? Of course there are, we're not.
in a world where you're just going to get accepted for who you are and your individuality. But I, you know, fortunately, was it a place in my life? Actually, this is funny. It was literally the day I sold my book, uncultured, and I was essentially given a runway, right, to divorce my time from my money and work on projects that I like. So essentially, freedom. And my first thought, I kid you not, was I'm gonna wear whatever I want for the rest of my life.
Right? Like I, my first thought of freedom was like, I can now, I'm an author so I can present myself however I want. And it's not that everyone will accept me, but people will accept me or not. And I will have an answer and I will, you know, move on from there.
Rebecca (www) (36:40)Hmm.
your livelihood won't depend on other people around you accepting whatever you're doing. It's happening anyway. It's like, yeah, I haven't gotten, I'm trying to, I'm working on accepting where I am and that I actually did kind of accomplish this and that I'm working for myself and like, that this is good. Like, I'm still in this like, but.
It doesn't feel like finished and realizing there is no finished. It's just discovering more of myself and like, what do I enjoy? Where do I find my joy? And it can't be in succeeding in any of those ways I'm used to. And that's hard because being hard on myself is so easy. But.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (37:51)You know, and I definitely realized that perfectionism was my heroin addiction, right? Like I did not walk out of the world, one of the world's most extreme cults with no trauma. I just chose societally acceptable addictions, right? And perfectionism was one of them, right? Like I will be perfect. And there's no room inside of perfectionism for you to be an individual.
Like you, you know, somebody once described perfectionism to me as self -hatred and I was like, yeah, that makes so much sense. And let me tell you what, like I went all the way through, I wrote a good book, I got a big book deal, everything that I could in any way control, perfection. What I could not control was Jeanette McCurdy's, I'm Glad My Mom Died book coming out two weeks before mine.
And so I had a middling book launch and I had to sit there with exactly what you said and be like, if this is what it is, is this enough for me? Right? Like, and this has been multiple times in my life, right? Thought I could run from trauma with success, captain in the army, still broken, right? Big book told my story exactly how I wanted it to like, you still have to live in your life for the rest of your life.
And so that really taught me about like, I mean, chasing success is so kind of futile at some point, because once you get there, there's just more things that you have to do to keep up with it. And I simply went from, I love the fact that I'm a mid -list author who's making content now and doing my own thing and finding money doing that, but is not overwhelmed in the big leagues. I actually landed in a spot that was much better for me. But I think that if I had, if Uncultured had debuted on the New York Times, I would still be on this perfectionism treadmill.
Rebecca (www) (40:07)Right, right. And I think the thing about chasing success is that it's the chasing that we love and we fool ourselves into thinking once we get the thing, we'll stop. But that's not how drugs work. That's not how intensity addiction works. And dopamine, once I realized that dopamine is the wanting and the reaching for, not the having, I was like, well, of course. Because once you get it, once you see the number change, you get a million whatever.
just starts a new thing you're searching for. Now you look for the new, you know, my therapist and I always say, I tend to look for the shit. You look for the reason it didn't, like you think about like your life and the things people would do, right, to have it. And we still find the reasons we're not doing as well as we could be doing. Like it's, that's so wasteful of our emotional labor and time, but that's what the cult does is like.
You're not good enough as is. It's like someone said it's called fishing, not catching. And I was like, but in America, that's not, you went the whole day, you were out there for hours and you brought back nothing but joy. And that's not, you know, once you have the numbers, the numbers remove the humanity from it and remove what you've done to get a mid -link. Like that's crazy.
It reminds me, I thought I was going to like... I don't know if I thought I was going to blow up, but I thought maybe I'd be more mainstream earlier in this whole thing. And I am so, so glad I didn't, it didn't go the way in my brain. It could have or would like, I don't want to be blue checked. I don't want to be in these podcasting rooms with all these people. I think they do a great thing, but I know it would have distracted me and I would be on a, just of pleasing that industry journey. Because then once you hit bestseller and now you're in the top, then now you have to stay and you're next, you know.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (42:15)exactly right. Like I, the book hadn't even launched yet and I was already preparing myself for my life to like be exploded and I was sad about that, right? I was like, but I like my nice life where I work on projects that I like and I write books that I want to and I knit and I read and I connect with people. and I ended up staying there and at first I'm all disappointed, but like what?
Right. And it was so, you know, like you said, like this is what the cults do. Right. And in cults, like you are never finished. You're never finished. My, one of my therapists, it's called this being addicted to self -help. but it's one of the things that I say is that like all cults promise space travel. Right. And by space travel, I mean something that they, you are promised that you will achieve.
in another life, on another realm, on another plane, and another body, and another identity, right? Because you can't have people reach enlightenment, right? Because number one, even if it was true, then they wouldn't need you anymore. But it's a con, right? And the cult leader knows it's a con. So it's always, like you're always striving, you're always reaching for the future.
And part of that is actual cult tactics to just keep you busy and tired and on that wheel all the time. So one of the things I've, one of my anti -cult mantras is just understanding that I was raised in a cult, also in America, we all were, to like,
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produce, produce, right? Like have a mission, have a next goal. And I have to have like my anti -mission statement, right? I'm like, I'm so glad the work that I do helps people. Like I'm so glad that I have the availability to do that right now. But my mission in life is for Tom and Daniella and little love young to have a good life, right? Like that's the mission. Because yeah, I get addicted.
Rebecca (www) (44:34)And my good looks different than we thought it was going to look or that it should look. We have to change because I see, I started and it looks different to me now. I started seeing people doing well, quote unquote, or like that I would have maybe compared myself to back before. And I'm like, I'm really glad I'm not doing that. That pressure, you can't keep that up. I want to just get comfortable in my life and
not feel the need for more and like figure out what it means to stand still and in discomfort. And like, that's the real stuff. They don't. But I also realizing the way probably us, maybe neurodivergent people, maybe people striving for success and numbers and the white supremacist quantity over quality tenant, which is not just like more is better because that's a different tenant, but that
something that can be evaluated by numbers has more value to you than something that cannot. Something you can prove with numbers is inherently more worthy of time and energy. But that sets us up for a terrible dynamic with ourselves because we removed the human and put a number there and then the numbers only go up or down. So now I thought about it because I was live.
which I haven't done in a while, and I saw how many people were on there. And no matter what number comes up, it's going to start an evaluation in my brain. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with the time I'm having. Am I having a good time? Am I enjoying this? No, there are 60 people. Now there are 30 people. Now there are a hundred people. And my brain is like, what do I do with this? What does this mean? What are we? And the fact that infinity exists, we're just doomed.You already put the impossibility in there when you said numbers are better than intangibles. So, you know, just we can stop.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (46:33)Right, right. And you know what? Also, it also helps us get our labor exploited. Right. So and when the men who decided how countries worth net worth was going to be calculated, right, GDP, they decided to not include any women's work, right? Quote unquote unpaid labor. Right. You can estimate what it's worth. You can. They just didn't.
And so now, right, most women in America, if you add up everything we do in the home, right, whether we work outside the home or not, close to 300 ,000 K, I think was what Oprah said a decade ago, right? So we are having our labor exploited every single day. That's step eight of the cult, in part because they've convinced us that if it doesn't have a number on it, it's worth nothing.
Rebecca (www) (47:34)That's, yeah. Yeah, because I hear that often. We talk about it in theory and concept. And if you had to pay for this, it would cost you this much, especially with like prenups and all of that. But it's just this, if you were to, we could do that. We could literally do that. We could incorporate domestic chores, but anti -blackness and the ability to just keep pushing.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (47:59)Right? And that's what we've all been taught. And this is, you know, the cult thing is the like self -sacrifice, right? Self -sacrifice, self -sacrifice for the good of the team, for the good of the group. And this is actually fundamental to a cult breaking you down and brainwashing you, right? Is to get you to disconnect.
with your individual identity, right? This is part of how they break you down. Your individual identity is not important. So therefore all self -sacrifice can be justified for the group, right? So we're going to keep going forever or until we break because it's for this good thing that we're trying to get to, right? But we are not in any way keeping track.
of how much labor we are giving these systems that are hurting all of us.
Rebecca (www) (49:12)Right, and that we only consider the hours that we are physically in front of that person as the opportunity cost, right? Because I remember thinking, yeah, I could have a job that's 40 hours or something, but it's not like that doesn't impact the rest of the hours of the week in my life because I'm preparing, I'm dressing for, and the fact that I wear clothes I would never wear unless I work this job.
I'm thinking, I'm dreaming about it. I have friends now that are related to it. I pick an apartment that has a place that's near the train so that I can get to work. Everything about me is determined by what I do, quote, unquote, for when I rent my brain out for this company. It's not just renting your brain out. It's you. You belong to them now.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (50:02)And it's the overwhelm and exhaustion, right? Which is another tool of cults under this umbrella of self -sacrifice is like you're always exhausted, right? So 100 % I have a book because I was able to not work for three years supported by my spouse and had childcare, right? And had a person that understood that I needed childcare if I was going to get a large project like that done.
Right? And this is something I, we really don't talk about, right? Like during COVID, we all heard like, Ooh, during the plague Shakespeare wrote, taming of the shrew during a pandemic. Yeah. Well, his three children were being taken care of by somebody, you know, while he did that.
Rebecca (www) (51:04)like, you know, the worship of the written word, that's what I hear, you know, too, is like, he wrote these books we care about now that he is no like, like we, that's a choice, you know. Okay, he made up a bunch of words. I do that all the time.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (51:19)And that's another tie into white supremacy, right? The work that... Worship of the written word is another little brick in white supremacy, right? I always tell people like, grammar Nazis have more in common with Nazi Nazis than they realize. As a prior grammar Nazi, right?
Rebecca (www) (51:43)Same, I catch myself all the time, but I am aware of it. And I never would say it out loud. I was never a person who would be like, but I did inherently believe that, you know, good, you did well, you did good. Like those things stuck out to me. And because I knew the rules, cause we were rules people, that's why. Cause we were like, I know how to get an A, I know what the right answer is, quote, you know. So that just inherently informs everything.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (52:07)But that's the thing about cults. Cults give you thousands of rules about how to live your life. And then you're just like so busy, like with all these rules that you're stuck.
Rebecca (www) (52:19)That just, it's English. Like think of, I talk about American English all the time about it makes no sense. And then we have rules that are sometimes rules and that we think this is the best way to do it. It's like, that's all why I say to think that I'm smarter.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (52:35)Language evolves, right? It has now become perfectly fine to say cactuses, right? And when we were children, that was like, my gosh, how could you, right? So like language evolves, everything evolves. But I do sometimes now when people, you know, because it's always these trolls on social media, right? you can't even spell, you do this. I always say... I'll just hit him back with, you know, either it was a perfectly understandable talk to text error, or I just did that to see who was still under white supremacy so much that they were gonna feel the need to point it out.
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Rebecca (www) (53:20)Right. And I like to say like, I was aware and then give one of these faces. And then they're always going to like, ⁓ wait, did I fall? Did I oopsies? But that's that's definitely I've heard a lot of that in my comments section when, you know, worship of the written word, you know, look up the definition of racist. If you were to do this, the definite as if that determines it, you know, they decide and, you know, they'll say reading comprehension. I hear that so often in the comments. It's really weird. It's like a great data set, but that's always coming from, you know, the people who are angry and wanting to be anti -black. We'll talk about reading comprehension. Wow. Reading comprehension. You guys really need reading comprehension. The literal two words together all the time. That it's, it's just icky. And it really helps me not do it because you don't realize you're doing the thing. The dictionary says that.
Racism is, you're doing it more. But we also have to feel a sense of.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (54:26)people come at me about cults, they'll be like, well, the dictionary says it's X. And I'll be like, yeah, I'm sure we're still all asking why are so many people joining cults because they're just so easy to understand. The dictionary definition, good enough.
Rebecca (www) (54:53)The dictionary. The book told me that you're wrong. So I'm gonna tell you that you're wrong. And, but what you're saying is that the book is wrong. So how can it be wrong if the book says, you're using the thing to prove itself. That's not how that works. I'm a human being talking to you right now. I love when people would talk about Harriet Tubman's book as if,
there wasn't white publishing, white writers, because she was illiterate. And they're yelling at me today, a Black woman today, about, you know, it's like...
Get your priorities together.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (55:33)Yeah, for sure. And gosh, I just completely lost what I was gonna say there. I sure did. I was gonna say, I think this is what is pissing off so many people in power about social media right now. So like, for example, I have a fully funded four year GI bill. I could get a PhD anytime I want, right? And it comes with a living allowance too. So it's like,
free education plus the same amount of money as a part -time job, right? And I am chosen to not get a PhD because I don't want to put myself back in another cult, right? Like another, I'm sorry, it's not a cult, it's an ivory tower, you know, another high control institution. And so I just did it. And I'm writing a book that I literally say is dissertation level, right?
Like we are dissecting cults and looking at so much research that's out there. But also I'm quoting other creators from TikTok, right? Also I'm doing surveys on threads and I'm throwing them in there, right? Like there's this multi level of stuff, right? Like people like you and I, we are using all of the information at our fingertips to get, you know, messages to cross across to people and the people that want the control of the written word is more important than everything else. Right? Like they are not fans of this.
Rebecca (www) (57:12)And making the information accessible is, you know, I think it makes sense that they want to tie up the educated group, the people who want to learn about stuff. They'll keep it within an industry that now you have to, you know, remain silent. If you want to stay in the industry, you know, it's manageable. I heard there was some college, I was offering a, you know, genocide resistance course, and then the person wanted to actually go do genocide resistance work.
And the school was like, no, that's too far. And it's like, well, yeah, the colleges are there so that we feel like we have a chance to change something. We're going to get into the scientific research of it as if that will do the job. That does not do it. And I think that's also why I'm glad I'm not mainstream because then I'd be wanting to maintain those relationships and keep those jobs coming and stay brand safe or something. But if I can be funded by the people, $5 at a time or whatever, then I could just keep doing whatever I want and say whatever I want without this self -censorship and concern for visual. Like, what does it look like to everybody else? Do people like it or not?
Daniella Mestyanek Young (58:31)Yeah, you know, and really, I think not having to follow all of the rules of the systems that we're trying to fight is also like very important, you know, like, yeah, I was making all this money on TikTok and all of a sudden it's just gone because they don't like what I'm talking about today, you know, and so we are just continually finding though like different ways, which of course now I'm going to make a plug for our Patreons.
They will be in the show notes. I am group behavior gal. Rebecca is the white woman whisperer. We're both on Patreon where you can get all kinds of premium content from us, get these shows before they release and all of that stuff. But essentially this is, it gives artists now the ability to have people subscribe to us, you know, people like Rebecca and I who have decided to live in what they call the
the science practitioner gap, right? So in organizational psychology, which is what I studied, you know, there's all the things that they research that they know about leadership in groups, right? But that's not what happens. What happens is what Simon Sinek says is good in his bestselling book, right? So when I found out about this, I was like,
where I'm going to build my career. Like I'm going to go live in the science practitioner gap because I can read the studies but then come up with accessible ways to talk about it in that other people aren't doing, right? They're either locked into academia or they're locked into corporate systems.
Rebecca (www) (1:00:12)Yes, and that's, it's like seeing the brightness that exists in the confusion and in the stuff you haven't seen before and being like, I am not, you know, once I realized I don't want to live a life I've seen yet, I'm not seeing anyone who looks refreshed and happy. And like, I'm so glad that the decisions I've made that I started to realize like, why am I listening to all of these things?
And instead, let me look at what I'm actually experiencing and observing and what I like to do. And I seem to get positive, you know, just letting life happen and let myself naturally respond to it is not as sexy and Katniss Everdeen as I thought life was supposed to be. It's just like waking up and being like, I have power over my day. And I'm not going to make myself feel bad about that.
and not let other people make me feel bad about it either.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:01:09)that they say that one of the like, you know, those things that are like, what is rich people stuff that doesn't seem like rich people stuff, right? Like having a flexible schedule, it indicates power and money, right? Because you have the ability to decide your day. And that for me, you know, speaking of goals is like,
Hey, I hope we can keep doing this, right? Like, this is what I want. I just want a world where we can have authentic conversations, put stuff out into the world that helps other people, right? Like gives them the language and context, because that's what we're doing here, having these discussions. And then they can just use it. And we don't have to ask anyone for permission to like put that out in the world.
Rebecca (www) (1:02:05)So simple and it seems like something I would want if I was a listener. And, you know, but there's in this productivity and ease and like certainty that we want. It's like just also showing you can survive figuring out who you are and here are some, you know, it's not perfect, but it feels like freedom. But I, that is so true. I was just thinking about, you know, where I move now, if there's, there's a doorman and they see me, you know, at any time of the day, I can be doing what I want. That's so sad, actually, like that's so many people because prison is supposed to be supposed to be just like a removal of your freedoms. It's not supposed to be inhumane punishment. It's actually supposed to be like, look, now you don't get to decide what you do every day. But that's how we're living as free people, because I definitely.
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When I'm feeling down or like I'm not doing anything, I remember when I was working in corporate America and I sit and I remember, my God, it's a weekday and I am not having a panic attack. I am not sitting and stressing about what exact time is it? What do I have to do? How am I going to say it? And that's a beautiful thing, but it shouldn't be. It should just be living.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:03:27)It shouldn't be so rare. Exactly. Well, you know, and this is when I talk about cults, I always talk about the sacred assumption, right? And in the cult of white supremacy, sacred assumption is that whiteness is sacred. But if you can crack the sacred assumption, right, that's how you get people out of it. And I think millennials are just worth the sacred assumption is cracking that like you work for the man for 60 to 80 years and then like it pays off.
Right, and I think we've just had so many world changing events happen in our lives that it's made us realize like the systems we've been sold are a lie, right? So we might as well, some of us at least, just like drop out of all of that and create our own paths. And of course, cults start that way all the time, you know? So you gotta stay on your toes.
Rebecca (www) (1:04:18)Right. And that's, and I think realizing that is also why we probably do this work because we're like, wait, wait, wait. Cause we know it's going to happen. And I almost want to arm people with some questions and some, some sense of self before they get to one of these other people who maybe doesn't have the knowledge we have of how it can slip and how power can corrupt and, and empathy and stuff.
Cause we're seeing the value to not blowing up and going more and being over more people. And we stay connected to an audience that will definitely critique us and check us. And even going over to Patreon is still, I still get checked on my Patreon even by, I love black women. And I recently made a post saying, I'm working on it. I've only been here a week, but I'm gonna get it together. So stop.
All caps and you know, you need to find joy for yourself. And this is what honest communication and like honest conflict versus dishonest harmony can bring us is just real places living.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:05:40)Real relationships too, right? So this has been so real, unpredictable conversation as ever, but really, really good. If anyone is interested, I never released UnAmerican as a book yet, but I did release it as a video of me reading the manuscript out loud, which can be found on my Patreon. I call it a video book. I think I invented it. Lots of topics and themes and things that I'm deconstructing that we will be talking about throughout this whole podcast. Rebecca is shocked at my video book, I think.
Rebecca (www) (1:06:20)Because I just realized I am also making a video book on my Patreon. I'm going through the 15 tenets of white supremacy as like a personal journey, as well as like interpersonally how it shows up just in a more accessible way, less intellectualized. Similar to like how this conversation started. I love that like, you know, we can know something and have an awareness and be an expert on something, but still not fully connect with how it has.
impacted our lives on a little bit more granular level and in our experiences. And so when I go through each of the tenets, I start to even come myself and go, the numbers thing and perfectionism was the first one and most impactful for me. So and I already knew that afterwards I was going to want to turn it into a book. But I love calling it a video book.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:07:05)Yeah, I was just like, this is not it's not complete. It's not going to be published anytime soon. But I had mentioned that I worked on it, right. So my audience kept asking me for it. So I was like, okay, I mean, 100 ,000 people watch me knit and read books to them every day. So I might as well do this. And it's been interesting, because again, like you said, it leads to these really open conversations. And like, I'm looking at deconstructing
all my own toxic stuff. And so it gives people like they don't feel blamed, but they can like recognize when they've been in those places too, which I think is helpful. And as ever might as well use my extreme story for, you know, helping other people understand because the best way that we recognize coercive control is in parallel contexts. So definitely come follow us, tell your friends about our podcast.
and Rebecca, show us what you've been making.
Rebecca (www) (1:08:17)So I have been making this square. I have got like, I don't know how many I've made of these so far. I really enjoy just like making a 30 by 30 stitch. And then I'm gonna put it into a sweater with the other squares I've made. I'm actually really excited. Cause like I get to choose which side for each square. Your turn.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:08:35)Cool, cool. Okay, so I have invented this thing I call a scarf again, where I take a scarf and I turn it into a cardigan because I'm not just white people's, I'm allergic to the sun white people's, but like cardigans are boring. Anyway, so this was actually the silk dress that I got in Greece that broke. And so I'm making like a cape scarf again. So it's gonna look.
Rebecca (www) (1:09:00)I love a recycle to do. Well, I guess it's naturally recyclable.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:09:04)Let me not rip it. Yeah, so I'll recite. It's not fitting well over my other scarf again, but it's gonna be long and cape -like and then it's gonna have these sparkly maroon sleeves. And that is my scarfigan for today. Anyway. Yeah, when I do these recycled clothes, I call them my reconstruction deconstructions because I'm literally, you know, making something that doesn't work for me, like pulling the stitches out and then adding like stuff that I like and my own thing. And it's also such a great conversation starter with all kinds of people because I'll be walking in public. I'm sure you've had this too, right? And they're like, I love your sweater. And you're like, thanks, I made it. And people's jaws just drop and they want to talk to you.
Rebecca (www) (1:09:55)I really try to hold that part in sometimes, but it's like it comes to the front of my mouth. I go, I love your sweater. I made it. I can't help myself, but it's, it's an amazing feeling. I've never, you know, it's being proud of something and people genuinely really like it. And I don't think it really matters that much what it is. It's, it's the time we can recognize quality, you know, and we can recognize the human aspect to stuff, even if we can't put our fingers on it. And, you know, this is, crochet and knitting has so many analogies to real life, just when you're just slowing down and then keeping your hands busy and everything.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:10:33)Nope, healing trauma, all of it. It's so good. So thank you so much, Rebecca, for showing up the way you do with the light that you bring to everything and being willing to have these conversations.
Rebecca (www) (1:10:37)Thank you so much and thank you for being open and hosting me and sharing the story of your life so that I can relate and tell stories and make more analogies.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:11:02)More analogies. We're figuring out the context and language to give to people accessibility. All right, friends, stay tuned. We will see you on our next episode, which I believe we are going to talk about white supremacy and body size and how cults always want you skinny.
Rebecca (www) (1:11:30)Tootiloo!
Daniella Mestyanek Young (00:00)And I had this crazy thought, right? I was like, come on, there's no way.
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I've had such a big life, right? In 33, I've already written a book about growing up in a cult and being a woman in the military. I made history for women in the military. Like, there's no way all of this is in one person's life. And that's when it hit me like, boom, you married a white supremacist because you grew up in a cult.
Rebecca (www) (00:26)yeah, it's all like one in the same. And that familiarity that we breed as safety is so interesting. So I, you know, I've read your book and I knew that, but I don't think I connected how long or how late in your journey you realized this was happening. I kind of just knew it as factually. I don't think I knew you were already an expert
Daniella Mestyanek Young (00:46)Yeah.
Hi everybody, welcome to our podcast, Hey White Woman, where we are deconstructing white supremacy like the cult that it is. I am Daniella, also known as Group Behavior Gal or Knitting Cult Lady. And in my day job, I am deconstructing cults, talking about cults, helping people understand them and the nuances of extreme groups and extremely bad leadership and where that shows up in our world. And I am here today with amazing Rebecca.
Rebecca (www) (01:26)Hello, I'm Rebecca. I'm also known as white woman whisper on the socials, Instagram, Instagram, not even Instagram, TikTok, Patreon. I like to discuss how racial social dynamics work between white women and the rest of the world. Now that I have an awareness that white women want to listen and learn, I use my biracial identity, proximity to whiteness and other things to kind of rehumanize.
how we discuss these things. And as I deconstruct myself, yeah, we're on this adventure together, professional black friend over here, just trying to help the well -meaning white women out. So let's.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (02:08)And I learned so much every episode. I just walk away with my head in my hands like, I can't believe I said that, okay. No, this is great. So I was kind of, to put this in cult terms, I'd already had my crack in the brainwashing with white supremacy, right? I'd already understood the concept of white privilege and that I had it even though I grew up in a cult.
And I was doing the reading and I was starting, right? The really serious deconstruction that we all need to do to get deprogrammed from toxic systems. And that was when I got an email from the United States Army asking me if I would please testify against my ex -husband, William Jeffrey Poole, because they wanted to kick him out.
for white supremacy. And I mean, just jaw on the ground, right? This is a guy I met when I was 19 years old. I'd been out of a cult for about four years, a cult which was anti -American, but also very white supremacist at its core, as many of the separate from the world white cults are.
And so I had met this man at 19. Now, then, when I got the email, I'm 33 years old. I'm essentially already an expert on extremism and radicalization. You know, the lawyer is joking that he could have read me on as an expert if he wasn't reading me on as the ex -wife. And I had this crazy thought, right? I was like, come on, there's no way.
I've had such a big life, right? In 33, I've already written a book about growing up in a cult and being a woman in the military. I made history for women in the military. Like, there's no way all of this is in one person's life. And that's when it hit me like, boom, you married a white supremacist because you grew up in a cult.
Rebecca (www) (04:22)yeah, it's all like one in the same. And that familiarity that we breed as safety is so interesting. So I, you know, I've read your book and I knew that, but I don't think I connected how long or how late in your journey you realized this was happening. I kind of just knew it as factually. I don't think I knew you were already an expert and didn't see it.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (04:42)Yeah. Yeah. This was only three years ago. Not even three years ago, right? This was during COVID. So literally, you know, looking back, I was like, I completely get it. Right? And so here's the thing. I had not planned to write about him in my book at all. I just planned to skip over the one -one cult.
almost abusive, can't quite tell weird accidental marriage that I was in, right? Because it was confusing to me. I didn't understand it. And I explained it like this. He doesn't love me, but he just wants to own me. He wants to hold on to me, right? When I asked him for a divorce, he just said, no. And I'm pretty sure the only reason I had a divorce was because
Rebecca (www) (05:18)Hmm?
Daniella Mestyanek Young (05:39)We were both in the army and we were both physically unable to get to each other. He was physically unable to get to me. And so I was able to divorce him and get away from him. But I did not understand it at all. But here's what I knew. I knew that he was an ex -gay. Right? I didn't know that thing at the time. But when I was 19 and the
first boy I tell about the cult and my crazy background actually tell the honest truth, he tells me the story of, I used to be gay, right? So used to be gay, came into my teenage years, just flamboyantly gay, cheetah spots in the hair, glitter on the face, you know, all over the yearbook photos. And then he says, you know, 18 years old about to graduate from high school.
falls in love with a girl, no longer gay. Right? So even at the time, I was like, okay, obviously you're bisexual, right? And like, why, you know, I just told myself like, why should I care? And honestly, there's so much that goes into that. But for me, survivor of a... Sorry, what?
Rebecca (www) (07:01)Sorry, it's like a colorblind kind of like, I shouldn't like, you know, kind of ignoring the, all of the flags because I don't see color. The red flags are the same thing as every other flag. Yeah, sorry, it's so interesting.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (07:07)Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, no, that's a very good analogy, right? Like I was taking a, you know, sex and gender psychology class, right, in college. And I was like, well, it's a spectrum. And you like, you know, just because you like guys and girls, you're choosing a girl. Like I'm fine with that, right? And subconsciously, I think I was drawn to him because I felt safe, right? Because he didn't look at me like he wanted to, you know, with his eyes.
(00:22):
Right. And so this actually can be a common thing for cult survivors, women I have found to marry gay men. And I think it's this partially this comfort thing. But when I got the news, right, when I got the piece of OK, so here he is. This is in 2021. Right. Shortly after January 6th, he's a major in the US Army.
He's in the army, he's in active reserves, which means he's technically in the army reserves, but he works an active duty job. He goes in every day in a uniform. And he had been all over Reddit and other internet pages with very, very blatant and open white supremacy, calling for nuclear war against America, offering his military training to train people in the coming race war.
And some former intelligence analyst, which is my field, saw this person on these internet boards saying that he was active duty military. So he and a couple of other friends went and put together a 75 page PowerPoint connecting this random screen name, Nebor-Something, to my ex -husband William Jeffrey Poole.
And then they very smartly dropped it off to the Military Times newspaper at the same time as they dropped it off to the military inspector general, because they were like, the army will probably try to cover this up. This went down in 2019. And I was not aware of any of this. There were news stories about it then, was not aware, divorced the guy nine years before, right? Like he just wasn't in my life at all. So I only find out about this, you know, when they're going to trial, which is, you know, March of 2021 after January 6th and the military is cracking down on this. So of course they're going to kick him out and y 'all, you can Google the name William Jeffrey Poole, right? It comes up. And so,
I go to testify and he's like, they dropped me in as a surprise. And he says to his lawyer, he's like, we've been divorced for a decade. She doesn't have anything. But the thing that I had was that this username, Nebor, is very specific. And I had spent years asking him what that word meant when we were together. For the three years we were together. My mom,
even remembered it from when I deploy and or I went to training and I gave her my account passwords. Great. That was a piece the generals really liked on the on the trial. And so this word, Nebor, is a Sorbian word for fighter. Sorbian is a dead Germanic language. So what I know at this point
is that by the age of 21, when I meet him, he is deep enough into white supremacy that he is like using this word, right, that they use as his everything word. So what I think happened was around 18, this little gay boy who was never gonna be accepted in Baptist Texas, not gonna be the kind of person who was gonna be in power.
found a group that would accept him and that would help him get power. The only thing he couldn't do was be gay in a white nationalist, white supremacist world. So nobody's gonna think you're gay if you marry Barbie. And there we have it.
Rebecca (www) (11:58)It makes so much sense.
in such a terrifying way because you only know this, you know, because it's like, he's like a sacrificial, but how many,
Daniella Mestyanek Young (12:18)Yeah,
Rebecca (www) (12:20)You had so much information and the timing of everything and, you know, everything had to kind of lead up to you having this information. And it's, it's, it's just not hit. It's not just hit is the thing, you know, and that's always what I hear when I hear this. And it's like, we get the insight as to how this happens. But of course, you know, humanizing
everybody, including these, you know, white supremacists, but also like the thing about ignoring someone's past or ignoring what is integral to their person, like whether they are black or whether they are gay, we can't act like those things don't matter just because they shouldn't be a negative in someone's value list doesn't mean they don't matter. They matter.
Because that would tell you, like, if you really respect that about someone, it would tell you something that you just were, like, your identity was this, and now it's something.
That's how does a human, we shouldn't, that should be a red flag, just that the change happened, that there was this big one relationship you get in one relationship, you meet one girl and now you're no longer who you were before.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (13:30)Yeah, and you know, so one of the things, you know, what this turned into for me was, well, a whole second memoir, basically, because I immediately was like, my gosh, right? Like, how close, right? How close did I come to using my not inconsiderable talents for speech and rhetoric and motivating and convincing people, like for the bad guys, right?
Rebecca (www) (13:51)That's what oppression does.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (14:20)And then dealing with that on top of knowing that I was targeted for my whiteness, for the quote type of beauty that I have, et cetera, in a body that I still have to live in. So immediately, I turned in the manuscript for my book, Uncultured, the one that's out now, which is me going through the stories of my life, growing up in this sex cult and then being a woman in the army.
but looking at the groups around me. And I did this other project called Un -American, which was me now this time going through my life, but looking at me, right? And looking at themes of power and privilege and whiteness and otherness and what it means to be an American, right? Because, you know, 20 years before I had come into America, 15 years old,
not really conscious, I think, of race as an identity in the way that we have it in the US. And white supremacy immediately starts to radicalize you. That is the big thing that I realized was like, you come in here with a quote unquote blank slate as a white person trying so hard to assimilate, right?
I was trying hard to assimilate because being an other is not fun. And white supremacy goes right to work.
(00:43):
Rebecca (www) (16:04)Yeah, that blank slate thing, that's something that comes up a lot for me is like, that's a pure, that's that purity thing. As if you are a blank slate, but you're not, we, none of us are, you know, your ex -husband had so much color and stuff to his person that had to be muted and deleted and erased in order to be good at something, successful at something. The cultiness of, you know, what is success here is like.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (16:46)yeah, and that's exactly what ended up happening with me, right? And so I see, you know, as I'm writing on American, I can see like, okay, this is what he did, right? He traded who he really is for this proximity to power, right? For this step up. But then so did I, right? I just didn't realize it, right? Because I was dropped in America and I, you know, nobody's a blank slate, but I was not a white Anglo -Saxon Protestant from Texas, right? Like I was as unfamiliar of that culture as well, but that's what I looked like, right? And so I have this moment when I'm first dating him at 19 and I'm struggling.
Right? I have been by myself in the world for four years, you know, putting myself through high school and college out of a cult, right? But living in the margins of America to be used and abused by the men and women who prey on people like that. And here is this option that I'm being sort of silently presented that if you can just be like a quiet, skinny, beige, white woman you can have an easier life, right? Have a safety net. And this is what I can see looking back, right? It's like, white supremacy threw me a rope and I grabbed it. And...
Rebecca (www) (18:16)Mm -hmm.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (18:36)Yeah, no, I figured that out and on.
Rebecca (www) (18:37)And it's like, that's what...
Yeah, that's what like privileges promise us, whatever the privileges, because mine, I didn't have whiteness, but I did believe if I got into corporate America and got a stable job after my MBA that that would protect me or that would do something for my life that would add value to it because like that would give me the ease. Or if you when
attractive or being pretty. I remember having a phase of like, do I just find that the society is telling me that I'm supposed to use this and like to not work this miserable thing that's, you know, so you, but as a white woman, the closer you get, you know what I also thought about this blank slate thing, like think about an empty canvas and how we treat an empty canvas. It's not nothing.
We treat it delicately because it's so clean. You don't want to get anything on it or something. When you start, there's something that you treat as precious about the blank one. And then once you start kind of, which is interesting, this image or this feeling that we're taught to have that you get to decide what Barbie you are. Which are you, military Barbie? Are you a professor Barbie? And I thought we just picked one and go for it, but that may be the neurodivergence a little bit in me, but.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (20:10)Yeah, there's that too, right? I teach those paint and sip things, right? And I make them paint their canvas with water first. And it does help the canvas absorb paint better, but it's mostly to just get them touching that pristine screen, right? Because they need to get over that, the first thing I do is going to ruin it.
Right. And I think that idea of purity is very much there. But I really related to what you said about just picking, right, like which Barbie you want to be. Wish I had worn my Neurodivergent Barbie t -shirt now. But that is what I learned when I was writing my first memoir. Right. I was like, OK, so I got out into the world. There was a very brief moment that we just had.
Daniella, right, or whatever. Daniella is in the absence of these groups and roles that define her. And then very quickly, that was too scary, right? So then I was super student and then I was super soldier. And then I was gonna try to be super mom. And I realized, you know, around the same time that all of this stuff is happening with my ex -husband, am I realizing like, because I grew up in a cult, and cults prioritize group identity, right?
I never actually got to form a personal identity. So I thought that was what I was supposed to do, right? I thought I was just supposed to pick up and like, be this perfect Barbie and then be this perfect Barbie and then be this perfect Barbie. Because I didn't even really, I think, understand the concept of individuality and individual identity. But here's the thing.
I feel like all white millennials are going through that, right? Like everything I have from the cult is just like extra, but it's like we've all given up identity and community for whiteness, you know? And this is not something that happened decades ago, right? I mean, the structure was set in place hundreds of years ago, but this happened to me in 2003.
Right? Like it's something that is still ongoing and is still happening.
Rebecca (www) (22:39)Yeah, and even when TikTok first kind of got around, it made me think of like this niching down we were supposed to do. And I remember writing about it and just thinking, this feels like a commodification of the soul. There's this desire. And I found myself even on TikTok once I started, or social media in general, once I started, I removed myself from the corporate cult structure type of my incultedness to it, because I was like, all right, I'm corporate Barbie now.
and then realized that that's not, it's terrible. no one likes black corporate Barbie, like that. No one picks that one up. and I wouldn't suggest it, but it's, you know, realizing I started just doing it to myself because I still hadn't accepted that the identity I had prior to picking up all of these different skills to form one was good enough as is my sense of self already existed. I didn't need to pick one up.
but I wasn't taught that. You know, we were talking, I think about career day. I didn't, I don't remember having that many career days, but I remember like the vibe of career day. What are you gonna be? What are you gonna be? Like, am I not enough? You had to be already thinking about what personality comes with this job, what prestige, which isn't a thing, you know, like it's literally not a thing. It's this je ne sais quoi.
But just not being in a group, you still find yourself. I was beating myself up without anybody needing to do it for me. And I would just be like, you're lazy, look at you not doing anything. Yeah, I'm forming a self.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (24:23)Yeah, and I think one of these bigger meta things, I'm writing a book right now called The Culting of America. And this is like the cults of white supremacy and the cult of America and cults are about labor, right? And in America, we primarily define ourselves through what we do, right? That is the first thing that we ask.
By the way, I'm a big, big fan of nude beaches and nudist resorts because nobody walks up and asks you what you do for a living when you're naked. It's amazing. The armor is removed, the signaling is removed, and people just have conversations.
(01:04):
Rebecca (www) (25:14)That is so, that is like so consistent because you even think about when you talk about kink communities, like there's so much more consent talk and so much more communication and it actually sounds a lot safer. Like all the, you know, the things it's everything we were taught not to think is what actually is. It's like where your safest is where these things are actually happening out loud.
I feel safest in a room where we're talking about race. As a black person, I want to hear what you got to say so that I know what's going on. You know, just, wow. That is...
Daniella Mestyanek Young (25:52)Yeah. It's, you know, everything about us, right, is the messaging, right? And everything we choose to wear, the way we choose to like present ourselves to the world, there's like meaning to it, right? There's all of this history, there's all of these stereotypes that we're inhabiting. And honestly, you know, if you're watching us, or if you're listening to us, you probably don't know that me and Rebecca are both just crocheting the whole time.
And one of my things with making and designing my own clothes has been this, right? Like I woke up one day and I was like, it is causing me so much heartache to present myself in the world as this white English ex and Protestant woman from Texas because I'm not her, right? So when people get inside the bubble and get to know me,
They're let down because I'm not her and I'm let down because they don't want me for who I am. Right? And so I would need to have these tricks. Like if a white guy asks me out, I would say, yes, but we're going to Ethiopian food, right? Or like, yes, but we're going to go salsa dancing because they need you to understand that I'm not this American girl next door. I'm so much more complicated. And then I realized, but like... but why am I working so hard to look like her and present myself like her, right?
And so now I just make clothes, you know, that I say they like, first of all, I just dress for older black women. And my clothes say about me, like, I am not, nobody is confusing me with an evangelical woman from Texas, like the way that I dress now. It is not quiet, it is loud, it is what I want, when I want and that is breaking all of the rules of being like a good, pure white lady in America.
Rebecca (www) (27:56)Yeah, you're not supposed to have in whiteness, I believe it's like no distinction. It's like I said, an anti -identity. To be white is an anti -identity. You are not allowed to have something about just you. If you have something interesting about you, that's a bad thing. I think even like the how we use the word deformity sometimes, I guess just that's negative. A deformity is a negative thing to look different, to be.
Cause no one is saying that, you know, it's just different. And the way we want to fit in, meaning look like everybody else, but we don't look like everybody else. Cause that's not, you know, we put so much effort into it. But when you were saying, I realized I like to also wear some of my stuff because I present. So when I was dating, cause I just, I'm like pause on the whole other people thing. That's let's work on this first, but.
I mostly have been in Black culture. So I've dated Black men basically, I've always been around Black men, but there's something in the Black community with my proximity to whiteness, there is an awareness I have about light skin, dark skin dynamics, right? And I know I am a light skinned woman. That is different from being biracial in experience, but everyone's experiences are different. But like in terms of the value system is different.
and understanding that. That's just something I have to understand, but I also know when I'm approached.
Black men, especially from the South, they've been like, I did not expect you to be all of this. This is a lot. And so I think wearing my cardigans and my rainbow, I'm just looking a little, people wear my Birkenstocks and socks. I try to just, I tried not to look like a light -skinned black woman who has value in her light -skinned black woman -ness, the way you don't want to look like a, you know, not to disparage any black people, of course, but.
There is a whole section.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (30:02)And I would say this probably helps both of us out with our neurodiversity too. But like, you know, anyone today that walks up to me at a party, right? Like nobody is expecting the woman standing there knitting, wearing her own crocheted clothes to be a normal white lady, right? Like nobody is expecting to have a normal conversation. And so it's like they're pre -selecting, right? I actually say in my chapter on the skinny white woman.
my next book about cults and I say, you know, white women in America, you're supposed to be quiet, skinny and the light shade of beige. And I really liked what you said about like, you're not supposed to stand out. And so like, I do nothing but stand out now. And it sorts out so many problems for me just upfront.
Rebecca (www) (30:42)Yeah, being perceived is like I battle with it because I have always, I liked being a member of a group in a way of like certainty of like not sticking out, but like as a group we stick out, but you know, and it's just realizing like, so what people see you and they're confused by you. That's actually pretty cool. And just realizing like, wait, that's pretty cool. Like what's going to happen to me? Someone's going to look and be like, what is going on over there?
with the knitting and the crochet and the dog and the head. we get it, we get it, nail polish. Like we get it. And I'm like, that's cool. I like that person.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (31:30)Well, this is something that I tell my audience who are mostly deconstructing from cults and stuff. And we have this stereotype of like, cults wear uniforms, but it's not necessarily uniform, but it's uniform appearance, right? Everyone is supposed to look like everyone else, even in the US Army, right? Like all the appearance regulations are about not standing out.
Of course, you're not supposed to stand out from being a six foot two white blue eyed dude, right? In the army. And you're just not supposed to stand out. And so one of the things I tell people when they're early in their deconstruction journey is this, you know, like wear wacky outfits, do wacky things in public, you know? And of course, everyone has different levels of privilege as to, you know, how they can present themselves in public, but as far as you can, wear something that makes people be like, why are you wearing that? And then the answer that you're giving to yourself is because I want to. Because I am the adult in charge of my life and I can do what I want.
I threw myself a princess birthday party for my 36th birthday party just because I'd never had one. I can do that, right? And it's so important to give yourself permission to be an individual like that.
Rebecca (www) (33:05)Yeah. Yeah. And remind yourself to do that and get you like friends and be around other people who give themselves permission to be creative. Because that was a big change for me is to get out of like a grind. You know, I have different types of people around some that are always kind of working and hustling. Some of them are more creative because, you know, depending on how you showed up, which Barbie you were, you might already kind of be in the hustle mindset. But that
I realized when I started wearing my hair naturally, it wasn't in order to deconstruct, but it started the deconstruction. And it started the awareness of like, I'm walking into, I chose this, I'm choosing this every day. And it's because I want to, and it's my hair or like these little choices and realizing what you want to do is not a, it's not an indulgence. Cause it always did.
(01:25):
feel like that for me. If I'm going to buy a trampoline, because I always wanted one as a kid, buy a trampoline. And I bought my trampoline. And I also bought a rocking chair because I really like the idea of sitting in my rocking chair. It's right next to my trampoline. I love the confusion. It's like, that's the kind of biracial I am. OK, I got my whiteboard and a hammock. Those two things are different. But I like that blend and realizing like,
I think Portia said to me, I take care of eight year old me, 18 year old me, and 80 year old me all at the same time, because they're all me. And I was good at eight, like eight year old me was fine as much as she like was taught to be embarrassed of the stuff she liked. And it'd be in her room doing her little shows. I was like, that's, that's secret. It didn't need to be. So it's, but I think I like the eight, 18 and 80 because they're all valid, but they're going to be different.
And being okay with the change and future focus and yeah, it's like, what if he had, what if he had been able to just be gay and, and, and, you know, your ex husband just stay himself and wasn't rewarded for dehumanizing himself and then rewarded more for dehumanizing others. And then like, there's no human. I mean, there's a human in there, but he's not being fed. I don't know. That's just...
Daniella Mestyanek Young (35:39)Yeah, no, I mean, I completely agree, right? And that has kind of been the saving grace for me, right? It was understanding that like, I don't have to fit in this culture and in these stereotypes. There's, you know, if you don't fit, like, of course there are repercussions, right? Of course there are, we're not.
in a world where you're just going to get accepted for who you are and your individuality. But I, you know, fortunately, was it a place in my life? Actually, this is funny. It was literally the day I sold my book, uncultured, and I was essentially given a runway, right, to divorce my time from my money and work on projects that I like. So essentially, freedom. And my first thought, I kid you not, was I'm gonna wear whatever I want for the rest of my life.
Right? Like I, my first thought of freedom was like, I can now, I'm an author so I can present myself however I want. And it's not that everyone will accept me, but people will accept me or not. And I will have an answer and I will, you know, move on from there.
Rebecca (www) (36:40)Hmm.
your livelihood won't depend on other people around you accepting whatever you're doing. It's happening anyway. It's like, yeah, I haven't gotten, I'm trying to, I'm working on accepting where I am and that I actually did kind of accomplish this and that I'm working for myself and like, that this is good. Like, I'm still in this like, but.
It doesn't feel like finished and realizing there is no finished. It's just discovering more of myself and like, what do I enjoy? Where do I find my joy? And it can't be in succeeding in any of those ways I'm used to. And that's hard because being hard on myself is so easy. But.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (37:51)You know, and I definitely realized that perfectionism was my heroin addiction, right? Like I did not walk out of the world, one of the world's most extreme cults with no trauma. I just chose societally acceptable addictions, right? And perfectionism was one of them, right? Like I will be perfect. And there's no room inside of perfectionism for you to be an individual.
Like you, you know, somebody once described perfectionism to me as self -hatred and I was like, yeah, that makes so much sense. And let me tell you what, like I went all the way through, I wrote a good book, I got a big book deal, everything that I could in any way control, perfection. What I could not control was Jeanette McCurdy's, I'm Glad My Mom Died book coming out two weeks before mine.
And so I had a middling book launch and I had to sit there with exactly what you said and be like, if this is what it is, is this enough for me? Right? Like, and this has been multiple times in my life, right? Thought I could run from trauma with success, captain in the army, still broken, right? Big book told my story exactly how I wanted it to like, you still have to live in your life for the rest of your life.
And so that really taught me about like, I mean, chasing success is so kind of futile at some point, because once you get there, there's just more things that you have to do to keep up with it. And I simply went from, I love the fact that I'm a mid -list author who's making content now and doing my own thing and finding money doing that, but is not overwhelmed in the big leagues. I actually landed in a spot that was much better for me. But I think that if I had, if Uncultured had debuted on the New York Times, I would still be on this perfectionism treadmill.
Rebecca (www) (40:07)Right, right. And I think the thing about chasing success is that it's the chasing that we love and we fool ourselves into thinking once we get the thing, we'll stop. But that's not how drugs work. That's not how intensity addiction works. And dopamine, once I realized that dopamine is the wanting and the reaching for, not the having, I was like, well, of course. Because once you get it, once you see the number change, you get a million whatever.
just starts a new thing you're searching for. Now you look for the new, you know, my therapist and I always say, I tend to look for the shit. You look for the reason it didn't, like you think about like your life and the things people would do, right, to have it. And we still find the reasons we're not doing as well as we could be doing. Like it's, that's so wasteful of our emotional labor and time, but that's what the cult does is like.
You're not good enough as is. It's like someone said it's called fishing, not catching. And I was like, but in America, that's not, you went the whole day, you were out there for hours and you brought back nothing but joy. And that's not, you know, once you have the numbers, the numbers remove the humanity from it and remove what you've done to get a mid -link. Like that's crazy.
It reminds me, I thought I was going to like... I don't know if I thought I was going to blow up, but I thought maybe I'd be more mainstream earlier in this whole thing. And I am so, so glad I didn't, it didn't go the way in my brain. It could have or would like, I don't want to be blue checked. I don't want to be in these podcasting rooms with all these people. I think they do a great thing, but I know it would have distracted me and I would be on a, just of pleasing that industry journey. Because then once you hit bestseller and now you're in the top, then now you have to stay and you're next, you know.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (42:15)exactly right. Like I, the book hadn't even launched yet and I was already preparing myself for my life to like be exploded and I was sad about that, right? I was like, but I like my nice life where I work on projects that I like and I write books that I want to and I knit and I read and I connect with people. and I ended up staying there and at first I'm all disappointed, but like what?
Right. And it was so, you know, like you said, like this is what the cults do. Right. And in cults, like you are never finished. You're never finished. My, one of my therapists, it's called this being addicted to self -help. but it's one of the things that I say is that like all cults promise space travel. Right. And by space travel, I mean something that they, you are promised that you will achieve.
in another life, on another realm, on another plane, and another body, and another identity, right? Because you can't have people reach enlightenment, right? Because number one, even if it was true, then they wouldn't need you anymore. But it's a con, right? And the cult leader knows it's a con. So it's always, like you're always striving, you're always reaching for the future.
And part of that is actual cult tactics to just keep you busy and tired and on that wheel all the time. So one of the things I've, one of my anti -cult mantras is just understanding that I was raised in a cult, also in America, we all were, to like,
(01:46):
produce, produce, right? Like have a mission, have a next goal. And I have to have like my anti -mission statement, right? I'm like, I'm so glad the work that I do helps people. Like I'm so glad that I have the availability to do that right now. But my mission in life is for Tom and Daniella and little love young to have a good life, right? Like that's the mission. Because yeah, I get addicted.
Rebecca (www) (44:34)And my good looks different than we thought it was going to look or that it should look. We have to change because I see, I started and it looks different to me now. I started seeing people doing well, quote unquote, or like that I would have maybe compared myself to back before. And I'm like, I'm really glad I'm not doing that. That pressure, you can't keep that up. I want to just get comfortable in my life and
not feel the need for more and like figure out what it means to stand still and in discomfort. And like, that's the real stuff. They don't. But I also realizing the way probably us, maybe neurodivergent people, maybe people striving for success and numbers and the white supremacist quantity over quality tenant, which is not just like more is better because that's a different tenant, but that
something that can be evaluated by numbers has more value to you than something that cannot. Something you can prove with numbers is inherently more worthy of time and energy. But that sets us up for a terrible dynamic with ourselves because we removed the human and put a number there and then the numbers only go up or down. So now I thought about it because I was live.
which I haven't done in a while, and I saw how many people were on there. And no matter what number comes up, it's going to start an evaluation in my brain. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with the time I'm having. Am I having a good time? Am I enjoying this? No, there are 60 people. Now there are 30 people. Now there are a hundred people. And my brain is like, what do I do with this? What does this mean? What are we? And the fact that infinity exists, we're just doomed.You already put the impossibility in there when you said numbers are better than intangibles. So, you know, just we can stop.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (46:33)Right, right. And you know what? Also, it also helps us get our labor exploited. Right. So and when the men who decided how countries worth net worth was going to be calculated, right, GDP, they decided to not include any women's work, right? Quote unquote unpaid labor. Right. You can estimate what it's worth. You can. They just didn't.
And so now, right, most women in America, if you add up everything we do in the home, right, whether we work outside the home or not, close to 300 ,000 K, I think was what Oprah said a decade ago, right? So we are having our labor exploited every single day. That's step eight of the cult, in part because they've convinced us that if it doesn't have a number on it, it's worth nothing.
Rebecca (www) (47:34)That's, yeah. Yeah, because I hear that often. We talk about it in theory and concept. And if you had to pay for this, it would cost you this much, especially with like prenups and all of that. But it's just this, if you were to, we could do that. We could literally do that. We could incorporate domestic chores, but anti -blackness and the ability to just keep pushing.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (47:59)Right? And that's what we've all been taught. And this is, you know, the cult thing is the like self -sacrifice, right? Self -sacrifice, self -sacrifice for the good of the team, for the good of the group. And this is actually fundamental to a cult breaking you down and brainwashing you, right? Is to get you to disconnect.
with your individual identity, right? This is part of how they break you down. Your individual identity is not important. So therefore all self -sacrifice can be justified for the group, right? So we're going to keep going forever or until we break because it's for this good thing that we're trying to get to, right? But we are not in any way keeping track.
of how much labor we are giving these systems that are hurting all of us.
Rebecca (www) (49:12)Right, and that we only consider the hours that we are physically in front of that person as the opportunity cost, right? Because I remember thinking, yeah, I could have a job that's 40 hours or something, but it's not like that doesn't impact the rest of the hours of the week in my life because I'm preparing, I'm dressing for, and the fact that I wear clothes I would never wear unless I work this job.
I'm thinking, I'm dreaming about it. I have friends now that are related to it. I pick an apartment that has a place that's near the train so that I can get to work. Everything about me is determined by what I do, quote, unquote, for when I rent my brain out for this company. It's not just renting your brain out. It's you. You belong to them now.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (50:02)And it's the overwhelm and exhaustion, right? Which is another tool of cults under this umbrella of self -sacrifice is like you're always exhausted, right? So 100 % I have a book because I was able to not work for three years supported by my spouse and had childcare, right? And had a person that understood that I needed childcare if I was going to get a large project like that done.
Right? And this is something I, we really don't talk about, right? Like during COVID, we all heard like, Ooh, during the plague Shakespeare wrote, taming of the shrew during a pandemic. Yeah. Well, his three children were being taken care of by somebody, you know, while he did that.
Rebecca (www) (51:04)like, you know, the worship of the written word, that's what I hear, you know, too, is like, he wrote these books we care about now that he is no like, like we, that's a choice, you know. Okay, he made up a bunch of words. I do that all the time.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (51:19)And that's another tie into white supremacy, right? The work that... Worship of the written word is another little brick in white supremacy, right? I always tell people like, grammar Nazis have more in common with Nazi Nazis than they realize. As a prior grammar Nazi, right?
Rebecca (www) (51:43)Same, I catch myself all the time, but I am aware of it. And I never would say it out loud. I was never a person who would be like, but I did inherently believe that, you know, good, you did well, you did good. Like those things stuck out to me. And because I knew the rules, cause we were rules people, that's why. Cause we were like, I know how to get an A, I know what the right answer is, quote, you know. So that just inherently informs everything.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (52:07)But that's the thing about cults. Cults give you thousands of rules about how to live your life. And then you're just like so busy, like with all these rules that you're stuck.
Rebecca (www) (52:19)That just, it's English. Like think of, I talk about American English all the time about it makes no sense. And then we have rules that are sometimes rules and that we think this is the best way to do it. It's like, that's all why I say to think that I'm smarter.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (52:35)Language evolves, right? It has now become perfectly fine to say cactuses, right? And when we were children, that was like, my gosh, how could you, right? So like language evolves, everything evolves. But I do sometimes now when people, you know, because it's always these trolls on social media, right? you can't even spell, you do this. I always say... I'll just hit him back with, you know, either it was a perfectly understandable talk to text error, or I just did that to see who was still under white supremacy so much that they were gonna feel the need to point it out.
(02:07):
Rebecca (www) (53:20)Right. And I like to say like, I was aware and then give one of these faces. And then they're always going to like, ⁓ wait, did I fall? Did I oopsies? But that's that's definitely I've heard a lot of that in my comments section when, you know, worship of the written word, you know, look up the definition of racist. If you were to do this, the definite as if that determines it, you know, they decide and, you know, they'll say reading comprehension. I hear that so often in the comments. It's really weird. It's like a great data set, but that's always coming from, you know, the people who are angry and wanting to be anti -black. We'll talk about reading comprehension. Wow. Reading comprehension. You guys really need reading comprehension. The literal two words together all the time. That it's, it's just icky. And it really helps me not do it because you don't realize you're doing the thing. The dictionary says that.
Racism is, you're doing it more. But we also have to feel a sense of.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (54:26)people come at me about cults, they'll be like, well, the dictionary says it's X. And I'll be like, yeah, I'm sure we're still all asking why are so many people joining cults because they're just so easy to understand. The dictionary definition, good enough.
Rebecca (www) (54:53)The dictionary. The book told me that you're wrong. So I'm gonna tell you that you're wrong. And, but what you're saying is that the book is wrong. So how can it be wrong if the book says, you're using the thing to prove itself. That's not how that works. I'm a human being talking to you right now. I love when people would talk about Harriet Tubman's book as if,
there wasn't white publishing, white writers, because she was illiterate. And they're yelling at me today, a Black woman today, about, you know, it's like...
Get your priorities together.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (55:33)Yeah, for sure. And gosh, I just completely lost what I was gonna say there. I sure did. I was gonna say, I think this is what is pissing off so many people in power about social media right now. So like, for example, I have a fully funded four year GI bill. I could get a PhD anytime I want, right? And it comes with a living allowance too. So it's like,
free education plus the same amount of money as a part -time job, right? And I am chosen to not get a PhD because I don't want to put myself back in another cult, right? Like another, I'm sorry, it's not a cult, it's an ivory tower, you know, another high control institution. And so I just did it. And I'm writing a book that I literally say is dissertation level, right?
Like we are dissecting cults and looking at so much research that's out there. But also I'm quoting other creators from TikTok, right? Also I'm doing surveys on threads and I'm throwing them in there, right? Like there's this multi level of stuff, right? Like people like you and I, we are using all of the information at our fingertips to get, you know, messages to cross across to people and the people that want the control of the written word is more important than everything else. Right? Like they are not fans of this.
Rebecca (www) (57:12)And making the information accessible is, you know, I think it makes sense that they want to tie up the educated group, the people who want to learn about stuff. They'll keep it within an industry that now you have to, you know, remain silent. If you want to stay in the industry, you know, it's manageable. I heard there was some college, I was offering a, you know, genocide resistance course, and then the person wanted to actually go do genocide resistance work.
And the school was like, no, that's too far. And it's like, well, yeah, the colleges are there so that we feel like we have a chance to change something. We're going to get into the scientific research of it as if that will do the job. That does not do it. And I think that's also why I'm glad I'm not mainstream because then I'd be wanting to maintain those relationships and keep those jobs coming and stay brand safe or something. But if I can be funded by the people, $5 at a time or whatever, then I could just keep doing whatever I want and say whatever I want without this self -censorship and concern for visual. Like, what does it look like to everybody else? Do people like it or not?
Daniella Mestyanek Young (58:31)Yeah, you know, and really, I think not having to follow all of the rules of the systems that we're trying to fight is also like very important, you know, like, yeah, I was making all this money on TikTok and all of a sudden it's just gone because they don't like what I'm talking about today, you know, and so we are just continually finding though like different ways, which of course now I'm going to make a plug for our Patreons.
They will be in the show notes. I am group behavior gal. Rebecca is the white woman whisperer. We're both on Patreon where you can get all kinds of premium content from us, get these shows before they release and all of that stuff. But essentially this is, it gives artists now the ability to have people subscribe to us, you know, people like Rebecca and I who have decided to live in what they call the
the science practitioner gap, right? So in organizational psychology, which is what I studied, you know, there's all the things that they research that they know about leadership in groups, right? But that's not what happens. What happens is what Simon Sinek says is good in his bestselling book, right? So when I found out about this, I was like,
where I'm going to build my career. Like I'm going to go live in the science practitioner gap because I can read the studies but then come up with accessible ways to talk about it in that other people aren't doing, right? They're either locked into academia or they're locked into corporate systems.
Rebecca (www) (1:00:12)Yes, and that's, it's like seeing the brightness that exists in the confusion and in the stuff you haven't seen before and being like, I am not, you know, once I realized I don't want to live a life I've seen yet, I'm not seeing anyone who looks refreshed and happy. And like, I'm so glad that the decisions I've made that I started to realize like, why am I listening to all of these things?
And instead, let me look at what I'm actually experiencing and observing and what I like to do. And I seem to get positive, you know, just letting life happen and let myself naturally respond to it is not as sexy and Katniss Everdeen as I thought life was supposed to be. It's just like waking up and being like, I have power over my day. And I'm not going to make myself feel bad about that.
and not let other people make me feel bad about it either.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:01:09)that they say that one of the like, you know, those things that are like, what is rich people stuff that doesn't seem like rich people stuff, right? Like having a flexible schedule, it indicates power and money, right? Because you have the ability to decide your day. And that for me, you know, speaking of goals is like,
Hey, I hope we can keep doing this, right? Like, this is what I want. I just want a world where we can have authentic conversations, put stuff out into the world that helps other people, right? Like gives them the language and context, because that's what we're doing here, having these discussions. And then they can just use it. And we don't have to ask anyone for permission to like put that out in the world.
Rebecca (www) (1:02:05)So simple and it seems like something I would want if I was a listener. And, you know, but there's in this productivity and ease and like certainty that we want. It's like just also showing you can survive figuring out who you are and here are some, you know, it's not perfect, but it feels like freedom. But I, that is so true. I was just thinking about, you know, where I move now, if there's, there's a doorman and they see me, you know, at any time of the day, I can be doing what I want. That's so sad, actually, like that's so many people because prison is supposed to be supposed to be just like a removal of your freedoms. It's not supposed to be inhumane punishment. It's actually supposed to be like, look, now you don't get to decide what you do every day. But that's how we're living as free people, because I definitely.
(02:28):
When I'm feeling down or like I'm not doing anything, I remember when I was working in corporate America and I sit and I remember, my God, it's a weekday and I am not having a panic attack. I am not sitting and stressing about what exact time is it? What do I have to do? How am I going to say it? And that's a beautiful thing, but it shouldn't be. It should just be living.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:03:27)It shouldn't be so rare. Exactly. Well, you know, and this is when I talk about cults, I always talk about the sacred assumption, right? And in the cult of white supremacy, sacred assumption is that whiteness is sacred. But if you can crack the sacred assumption, right, that's how you get people out of it. And I think millennials are just worth the sacred assumption is cracking that like you work for the man for 60 to 80 years and then like it pays off.
Right, and I think we've just had so many world changing events happen in our lives that it's made us realize like the systems we've been sold are a lie, right? So we might as well, some of us at least, just like drop out of all of that and create our own paths. And of course, cults start that way all the time, you know? So you gotta stay on your toes.
Rebecca (www) (1:04:18)Right. And that's, and I think realizing that is also why we probably do this work because we're like, wait, wait, wait. Cause we know it's going to happen. And I almost want to arm people with some questions and some, some sense of self before they get to one of these other people who maybe doesn't have the knowledge we have of how it can slip and how power can corrupt and, and empathy and stuff.
Cause we're seeing the value to not blowing up and going more and being over more people. And we stay connected to an audience that will definitely critique us and check us. And even going over to Patreon is still, I still get checked on my Patreon even by, I love black women. And I recently made a post saying, I'm working on it. I've only been here a week, but I'm gonna get it together. So stop.
All caps and you know, you need to find joy for yourself. And this is what honest communication and like honest conflict versus dishonest harmony can bring us is just real places living.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:05:40)Real relationships too, right? So this has been so real, unpredictable conversation as ever, but really, really good. If anyone is interested, I never released UnAmerican as a book yet, but I did release it as a video of me reading the manuscript out loud, which can be found on my Patreon. I call it a video book. I think I invented it. Lots of topics and themes and things that I'm deconstructing that we will be talking about throughout this whole podcast. Rebecca is shocked at my video book, I think.
Rebecca (www) (1:06:20)Because I just realized I am also making a video book on my Patreon. I'm going through the 15 tenets of white supremacy as like a personal journey, as well as like interpersonally how it shows up just in a more accessible way, less intellectualized. Similar to like how this conversation started. I love that like, you know, we can know something and have an awareness and be an expert on something, but still not fully connect with how it has.
impacted our lives on a little bit more granular level and in our experiences. And so when I go through each of the tenets, I start to even come myself and go, the numbers thing and perfectionism was the first one and most impactful for me. So and I already knew that afterwards I was going to want to turn it into a book. But I love calling it a video book.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:07:05)Yeah, I was just like, this is not it's not complete. It's not going to be published anytime soon. But I had mentioned that I worked on it, right. So my audience kept asking me for it. So I was like, okay, I mean, 100 ,000 people watch me knit and read books to them every day. So I might as well do this. And it's been interesting, because again, like you said, it leads to these really open conversations. And like, I'm looking at deconstructing
all my own toxic stuff. And so it gives people like they don't feel blamed, but they can like recognize when they've been in those places too, which I think is helpful. And as ever might as well use my extreme story for, you know, helping other people understand because the best way that we recognize coercive control is in parallel contexts. So definitely come follow us, tell your friends about our podcast.
and Rebecca, show us what you've been making.
Rebecca (www) (1:08:17)So I have been making this square. I have got like, I don't know how many I've made of these so far. I really enjoy just like making a 30 by 30 stitch. And then I'm gonna put it into a sweater with the other squares I've made. I'm actually really excited. Cause like I get to choose which side for each square. Your turn.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:08:35)Cool, cool. Okay, so I have invented this thing I call a scarf again, where I take a scarf and I turn it into a cardigan because I'm not just white people's, I'm allergic to the sun white people's, but like cardigans are boring. Anyway, so this was actually the silk dress that I got in Greece that broke. And so I'm making like a cape scarf again. So it's gonna look.
Rebecca (www) (1:09:00)I love a recycle to do. Well, I guess it's naturally recyclable.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:09:04)Let me not rip it. Yeah, so I'll recite. It's not fitting well over my other scarf again, but it's gonna be long and cape -like and then it's gonna have these sparkly maroon sleeves. And that is my scarfigan for today. Anyway. Yeah, when I do these recycled clothes, I call them my reconstruction deconstructions because I'm literally, you know, making something that doesn't work for me, like pulling the stitches out and then adding like stuff that I like and my own thing. And it's also such a great conversation starter with all kinds of people because I'll be walking in public. I'm sure you've had this too, right? And they're like, I love your sweater. And you're like, thanks, I made it. And people's jaws just drop and they want to talk to you.
Rebecca (www) (1:09:55)I really try to hold that part in sometimes, but it's like it comes to the front of my mouth. I go, I love your sweater. I made it. I can't help myself, but it's, it's an amazing feeling. I've never, you know, it's being proud of something and people genuinely really like it. And I don't think it really matters that much what it is. It's, it's the time we can recognize quality, you know, and we can recognize the human aspect to stuff, even if we can't put our fingers on it. And, you know, this is, crochet and knitting has so many analogies to real life, just when you're just slowing down and then keeping your hands busy and everything.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:10:33)Nope, healing trauma, all of it. It's so good. So thank you so much, Rebecca, for showing up the way you do with the light that you bring to everything and being willing to have these conversations.
Rebecca (www) (1:10:37)Thank you so much and thank you for being open and hosting me and sharing the story of your life so that I can relate and tell stories and make more analogies.
Daniella Mestyanek Young (1:11:02)More analogies. We're figuring out the context and language to give to people accessibility. All right, friends, stay tuned. We will see you on our next episode, which I believe we are going to talk about white supremacy and body size and how cults always want you skinny.
Rebecca (www) (1:11:30)Tootiloo!
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