Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Escaping a Cult with Bethany Joy Lenz

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

  One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz joins Chelsea to discuss what it was like to fall prey to a religious cult, to be taken for every penny she had, and finally find small moments of joy after escaping their grasp.  Then: A child of powerful members of a *certain religious organization* works to accept that she may have lost her parents forever.   * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Greetings from Whistler, Canada, my new home for the next three weeks. I'm so pleased for you. You're always happier when you're chilly. Oh, yes, I am.

I needed a real fucking break this year. A real break. I needed to take my own advice, read my own book, and then reread Letting Go. I need lots of help. So I am now decompressing. Amazing. Is your new book, is it like a little bit advice based as well or more personal stories? It's pretty much how to be optimistic in the dark, how to inject yourself with positivity and optimism. And I have lost my way with positivity and optimism. So I really need to reread it. It does happen sometimes where you like need a little

bit of a reset. Absolutely. Absolutely. My schedule for the last two months has just been, was just insane and the travel and the shows and then the my house never being done and then the podcasts you know we're kind of i've been running her ragged they decide to it's your fault they decide to do construction when i'm recording you know i'm gone 50 days a fucking month it feels like and then the one day they're doing stuff is when i'm home yes so it has just been yeah nobody seems to understand how to manage a schedule including myself just 20 different groups all pulling you in different directions right right right i mean i'm grateful for the work but it's hard to be grateful when you're so fucking tired and then you start bitching and then you start

getting negative and all of that stuff so and then you go reset i am recharging as we speak i'm i'm plugged into a recharger it's in my butt by the way speaking of recharging my two last shows of the year in america well until further notice because i don't know that i'm going to be touring next year. So I have a show in New Orleans on December 28th. And on December 29th, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. So get your tickets at ChelseaHandler.com. You can also find out where I'll be doing live book events next year for I'll Have What She's Having, which comes out February 25th. And that's on my website, too, where I'll be signing books, talking, taking pictures, all of that stuff. Awesome. Yeah. And just to clarify, since we promised we would last week,

that's where you can get your signed copies of the book. And you can also get them at Books A Million and Barnes & Noble, right? Yes, yes. I signed lots of books for Books A Million and Barnes & Noble. So many books, my back went out. I hope you're happy. There are boxes. Yeah, yeah.

The day of Thanksgiving, my sister was cooking a turkey in the kitchen, even though I tell her she can't cook. And why does she keep trying? And I sat there for five hours and signed books. And I made like a dent in the book. I was like, oh, I didn't realize how many books 10,000 books was. Oh, my God. I didn't realize that that's just almost, it's almost impossible with my lifestyle.

Who are we introducing? We are introducing Bethany Joy Lenz. This was a good interview and a great book. Okay, so our guest today is an actress, singer, songwriter, and co-host of the One Tree Hill Rewatch podcast, Drama Queens. Her new memoir, Dinner for Vampires, is out now. Please welcome Bethany Joy Lenz. Hi, Joy.

Hi, Joy. Oh, hello. Hi. Hey, how are you? Great. How are you, girls? I'm just so happy you're cult-free. Me too, mama.

Me too. Oh, my God. That book. Oh, my God. I have never really ever been interested in cults, so I don't – I haven't watched all of these shows that everyone has watched and all of these docuseries or whatever they are. And I've never really read about a cult. This is my first reading about a cult.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. And it was pretty stunning. I guess I want to ask you now that you're out of it for how many years have you been out of it? Five? Oh, no longer. About 13. Oh, wow. 12, 13. Yeah. Oh, okay. So now you have some real perspective. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's, I think that's what made it okay for me to write the book without feeling like I was going to fall apart every day because I have a certain measure of objectivity about it now, I think, for the most part. So now, okay, so I'm curious to see, before we get into all the details or whatever we decide

to talk about, what do you think now when you think about why you were susceptible in the first place to being commandeered in that way and falling into that? What do you think it was? I think it was a longing for attachment, which is a pretty human need. I think it's the same thing that draws anyone into any kind of abusive situation, whether it's a workplace environment that you just can't seem to leave or a toxic relationship or staying in a family environment, a biological family environment that's just super toxic and abusive. There's this sense of a need for attachment that we all have. And I was 20 years old. It's so different now having so much mileage in my life that I feel like I, my radar is so much better. But back then I was 20. It's

like, what did I know? I was taught to respect authority. I was taught to believe your elders and believe people who seem like they have your best interest at heart. And I wanted a family. Yeah. Yeah. You wanted a family. That's true. Like I could see that. And you can see that in the book because there were so many hints like even the first time you met Les the cult leader when you met him you were grossed out like icked out by him initially right and then so like there were so many instances that you write about in the book from the beginning of meeting this like kind of seemingly harmless group of people and all being kind of involved in religion and Christianity and wanting to spend time together in your own kind of like prayer group or spirituality

group or however you know we can frame it there were all these little signs along the way but you always kind of convinced yourself that it wasn't your place to judge them or have an opinion about them and instead convinced yourself it was the right thing to do to stick with them isn't that amazing it like the testament to the fact that we all have this innate guttural knowledge like, like compass where we know, you know, something's off. And we talk ourselves out of things all into or out of things all the time, even from a young age. I mean, I write about in the book, how my mom and dad, when they would be arguing, there were so many moments I'd walk into the room or they would leave a room that they had been arguing behind a closed door. And I'd be like,

what's wrong. And I was just met with like, everything's fine. No, nothing's wrong. And as a kid, you just start to think, oh, I guess I guess it's me. Like, maybe I'm crazy. I guess I'm the one that thinks everybody's being tense and there's nothing wrong. So you really start to doubt your own gut and your own instinct. And you do that enough that people can come in and take advantage of you if they recognize that trait in you. Yeah, I think that's going to be interesting to a lot of callers and a lot of mothers listening to this conversation because you basically got swept up in this group of people and started to believe they were your real family as they convinced you that they were really the only people that cared about you and that understood you, right? And anytime your father or your mother came on the scene who were both concerned because they could see something was a little bit off, they were met with silence or kind of like, you know, they were ignored or dismissed as not even really having a valid place in your life anymore. And this went on from when you were on One Tree Hill, which you were filming for how many seasons were you on there? Seven? We did nine seasons, which was evened out to about 10 years. So 10 years on that show and the whole time you were in this cult. The whole time.

Flying back and forth to Idaho from North Carolina, right? Was it North Carolina? Yeah, what a haul. Yeah, we were in Wilmington. Wilmington, North Carolina, which is like one of the small, super small beachy town that has no direct flights to the West Coast at all. You just have to always take double flights. It was exhausting. It was like eight to 12 hour travel days every time.

And there was nothing glamorous about it at all. Like when you describe the house in Idaho, the big house in Idaho, because you met these people in L.A. first, right? And then they had this other house in Idaho, which was already there was a lot of not normal behavior around that. Like it was someone else's house that they kind of commandeered. And then all of you guys kind of all these vagabonds, for lack of a better word, people who were a little bit lost, kind of like yourself, would move into this house and kind of created this family. And then over the course of the time you were there, they basically embezzled over $2 million from you, right? Yes, that is true. And you got married and had a baby within the cult. I'm just so glad that you're free. I am so happy for you. That is incredible. That's all that

matters, right? Is that you're out of that situation? Yes. And I look at it bizarrely. I mean, I know it might sound kind of strange, but I do look at it as a blessing. I mean, I think we all deal with crazy shit in our lives in one way or another. If it's not one thing, it's something else. Mine falls under a category that in our culture right now is deemed really strange and weird and crazy. But my aim with this book is to show what a slow burn it is and how even though the narcissistic abuse was in a group format for what I experienced, the top notes are all

the same in any kind of abusive relationship across the board. And that's what I want people to take away that like, you don't have to have been in a cult in order to deeply relate to the sense of being gaslit and love bombed and coerced and taken advantage of. And yes, to your point, thank God I'm out. Like, I'm so happy that I'm out, but I'm, I'm really, I'm grateful that I went through it because now I feel like I've got something in my life that I can help other people with. So and so are you coming into with being on this book tour and now going public with this story? Because a lot of people, your cast members were also they all kind of suspected that you were involved with something that wasn't really on the up and up. And you had some close friends on the

cast and some friends that you missed an opportunity at that time to develop relationships with because you were in such a kind of controlling environment. So are people asking you, are there women and young women and men asking you questions about whether or not they're in an abusive or narcissistic dynamic now? I do get some of those. I get more of people who say they know someone who's in an abusive dynamic and they don't know what to do and they don't know how to help them. And what do you say to that? It's hard. It's hard, you guys, because the very nature of it is your identity your whole construct of your identity becomes tied up in the approval or the attachment that you have with this person or these people so for somebody to say to you hey i

think you're in an abusive relationship hey i think you're in a cult or anything to that to that end is not just it's not just information that you can objectively sit back and say let me take a look at this and see if that's true. Your, your heart and soul and identity are already bound up in it. So how could anybody say something to you? That's going to make you, the stakes are so high, you know? And I know for me at that time, nobody could have said anything and they tried. There were people that tried. Nobody could have said anything to me that would have convinced me of a different reality than the one I was living in, in my mind. And so long-winded answer to your question. What I try and advise people is be a friend. If you can manage to maintain a friendship

of honesty where the person trusts you and values you, you know, there's a little bit of pushback, but not too much. Don't give them too much pushback because then they might just cut you out of their life if you become this sort of like suppressive person or whatever the version of that is. Which also, I just, sorry, I want to interrupt you because that's a very important thing you say in the book is the first sign that you are in something that is not cool or you're being coerced is when anyone who's not part of that group becomes someone you're not allowed to talk to right like like uh i forget the word they use in scientology like a suppressive personality but like anyone who doesn't agree with that if you're not allowed to talk to certain people

because they don't subscribe to your religion or your spirituality then that is a big red flag anyone who tries to cut you off from other people. And what you're saying is it's so accurate. And also think about it doesn't necessarily come out from the, from the abuser as the words, you're not allowed. In my case, it came out as much more condescending, much more like it's masked as kindness in a way, like that person is not, maybe not safe for you. Guard your heart, look out for yourself look out for them too you don't want to be talking to them about spiritual concepts that they can't understand that's going to set up a representation of christ for them that's too confusing so keep so you know the language you really have to pay attention

not just to what someone is saying but what they're doing and if the byproduct of what's being said is isolation that's you have to pay attention to that because it's not going to come out as obvious. If the person is a real narcissist, if they're good at their job, it's going to come out much more veiled. Do you think that Christianity, like your childhood Christianity, had any factor in this? Sure. Oh, yeah, it was massive. I mean, for anyone out there who has not read Dinner for Vampires, I grew up in a charismatic evangelical church, non-denominational, not super political or anything. It wasn't extreme in that way. It was just very loose. When it's non-denominational, there's no system or structure that the pastor

has accountability to. They kind of can say whatever they want, and maybe there's elders in the church, but it's not part of like, if you're Presbyterian, you're part of the Presbytery, And there's this like long overarching community of leaders and people who've been holding on to hundreds of years of theology and things like that. So there's this like accountability that comes with a lot of denominations. So non-denominational is what I grew up in, which also made me a lot more comfortable to be in an environment where some guy comes in, says whatever he wants. And I'm like, well, you're a pastor.

So I guess I can believe you too with no accountability. but I do think that I mean it's it's actually I feel like it's kind of a miracle that I still have managed to have a relationship with God and with Christ I'm like I really hesitate to use the word Christian because of what it means especially in this country right now but that relationship is still exists for me but in a much more authentic way because I think what I was taught, I know what I was taught when I was young, was very much, here are the things you need to do. Here are the rules you need to follow in order to have the kind of life that God wants you to have in order to get the life that you want, to get God to give you the life that you want.

You just need to follow all these rules and then you'll be happy. Turns out that's not so true. Turns out bad things happen to people who are following all the rules too. I know. I mean, I would have been so gypped. I would have felt so gypped. I was, yes. You were bleeding God's life and then God did that? Like, I would be so fucking pissed. Yeah, I was. Because in the beginning of the book, like when you're kind of not on the fence about joining this group of people because they kind of wind and dined you, so to speak,

you talk about a moment where you're asking, you're silently sitting there alone, trying to feel God's presence and giving you guidance in what to do. and in that moment you talk about feeling it and that was the signal that you needed to actually get more involved or I think it was was it to get more involved in the group or maybe it was to give up a job no no it was to get more involved in the group right which moment are you talking about I'm trying to I might have missed something you said there's two moments I'll tell you about your own book let me tell you remind me there's one minute moment where you're at the beginning of becoming very involved with this group of people at the beginning yeah and you were like waiting to hear

God's voice and God's like, I'm here with you, you know, kind of like a, almost a confirmation of maybe you were hesitant or wavering. So tell us about that moment when you felt God's energy in that moment. Yes. Okay. This is one of my favorite moments in life. And I know I really didn't tell very many, I mean, maybe like three people in my life I've ever told about this before I wrote this book because I know it kind of sounds crazy. So, um, anyway, I, well, it's all out there now. So yeah, I'm 19 years old. I'm living in New York. I'm happy. I've got a great life. I got a great job. There's really no problem. And I'm sitting in this cafe on a rainy I don't know Tuesday or whatever and uh I look out and I'm thinking to myself

huh you know what you know it would be weird if all this Christianity stuff like all this Jesus stuff that I grew up with if that was all just made up in somebody's imagination and a bunch of people believe it and it's just not true and then I was like oh well I mean it's working for me like my life is happy I'm doing well like I guess I'll find out when I die and really just kind of moved on from it i hadn't i didn't think much more beyond that and um and i i write about it more in detail in the book really what it felt like but i i felt like it was like i was in a slow motion movie like every molecule in my body just went to the perfect temperature everything got really still and quiet and i felt the physical presence of a body sit next to me in this booth

that I was in this empty cafe and obviously there was no one there and I and I heard a voice like an audible voice very close to my ear and it said never doubt that I am real and then it went away and I remember like immediately you know tears in my eyes and I was like desperately trying to remember the sound of the voice and it just was gone like everything was just gone instantly and And I was confused by it for years because I thought of all the time I've, all the times in my life I've been in pain and anguish and on my knees, like, God, where are you? Give me a sign. Tell me something.

What should I do? What choice should I make? How do I feel better from this or that? Nothing. And I would feel like radio silence. Why in the world would God have bothered to come and let me know that I was, I was seen Not just like some random universal thing that loves me, whatever love means in that sort of vast context, but like a very intentional, personal, joy, I see you, I hear you, I love you, I'm real. Why would you bother doing that in a moment that was completely insignificant where there was nothing at stake?

and I didn't realize until all those years later when I was in exactly the moment that you were talking about Chelsea saying I was fucking pissed I was gypped I was like I just devoted my whole life to you I did all the right things and this is what I get fuck you and I really like I literally just said that to God fuck you fuck you I hate you I'm so mad at you how dare you and it was like there was this big cosmic sigh of relief like thank you thank you for finally being honest with me and stopping all of this pretending to be somebody that you're not can you just be real and it all just dropped in and I felt like oh my god that's why because I would have just abandoned God I would have just walked away and said this God stuff is total nonsense and I don't

want to have anything to do with it ever again but I couldn't because I knew too much because I had one moment that I just could not explain when I was 19. And that's what kind of kept me in a space where I could still move forward with an authentic version of my faith and abandon all the rest of the garbage. Oh, God, just this. It's just I mean, people are going to eat this book up because of this firsthand account of just what you went through and all of the like levels of pervasiveness that they had in your life. You had so many opportunities in your field, acting, singing, all of these

opportunities that you had. And many of them you didn't pursue because of these cults and these cult leaders or the cult leader, the main one, Les. And they prohibited you from, they wanted your money, but they didn't want you to be too exposed to other people that may have an influence on you and call out the fact that, you know, this was not on the up and up. That was one of the craziest things to me. You think that these people who are motivated by using you would want you to take more opportunities, but I think you're right. It's keeping you away from people who might convince you like, hey, there's a bigger world out there. Yeah. And I had been out on my own for so long. And I think they had to do more work with

me because I had so much unusual backlog of life experience for someone my age of being independent, being on my own being in all these different experiences and connecting deeply with groups of people and then fragmenting off and then getting involved in another group of people because that's what theater is that's what you do for you know you're two months you're non-stop with the same people uh and every job you do it's it's like that so i think they i think he and the the pam character the sort of mother of the group i think they knew in some way that they were going to have to really work hard at convincing me how important it was to be a part of a family and make that my priority over work. And also, I don't think Les wanted the group to really grow because

I think he was kind of lazy and there's just so much work involved with so many people. With controlling people? Yeah, you know, that's got to be exhausting. So I think he just didn't want me to make too much money because if I'm out there in the world making too much money and converting too many people to be a part of our little family, then the liability goes up. So. Yeah. But those people are all on power trips. You know what I mean? They want the power. They love the power. They love the control. So I don't even know if you can mitigate your desire for power when you're that much of a narcissist, but maybe because of, you know, you bring up some legal aspects and, you

know it like you can't you're not technically a cult unless you're like influencing or damaging more than 70 people's lives or something I think you give us yeah some stats at the end in the state of Idaho how does it work having a child with someone that you're now separated from in such a big way like yeah there are some unique challenges with that it's something that I I spent some real time considering how much I wanted to say about that in the book because the truth is that they do still have a relationship. And so I don't want to I just don't want to interfere with that. And I don't know him anymore, really, really. So I can't say much about him. And so when you were able when you did leave, finally, were you scared for your

safety? Definitely the first because you were living in the same state and you had your own house and they were trying to bully you and intimidate you. Oh, yeah. Awful. I was scared because as I started to accept the fact that this was a cult a high demand group I mean it took me a minute like I really didn't want to admit that that's what I had been involved in but once I started to admit that then I was like oh my god I know what cults are like I used to study Scientology when I was in high school because I was fascinated by it irony I did remember doing a paper on it once and there and um i was always kind of interested in in the idea of a cult and how somebody could get sucked into that careful what you uh what you what you wish for wish for

studies i don't know uh anyway i knew what the patterns looked like in a lot of these other groups and it and i really felt this sense of maybe i don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes with this group. Like maybe I've only been shown what I've been shown and there's so much more under the surface that I've never been a part of. I was living in North Carolina for nine months out of the year. There could have been all kinds of things going on that I didn't know about. And the buzzword of toxic masculinity could never have been more true in an environment like this. The sense of machismo and how important it was for the men in the group to feel like warriors, they had to be warring against something at all times, including the women in their

life if there was nothing else for them to fight against. So since I knew that their identity was wrapped up in needing to feel like they were fighting something, I knew they were going to come after me because I was now the thing that they all needed to fight against. And it's, I was really scared, I think for about a year until I saw enough consistent, creepy, weird behavior, but nothing overly aggressive. It's not like the people, it's not like, it was certainly wasn't like Scientology where people get stalked in their home and they're, you know, being threatened and things. And when you, when you started like allowing them like to be a co-signer on your account when you opened up like a joint bank

account with the leader of this cult and you're basically signing your earnings away to him what was with his son so that was with the my husband at the time because he so his i mean less is kind of brilliant about not or oh god that just left that yes yeah let's go good in my mouth he's, he's very savvy about how to keep his name off of things, how to get people to give him what he wants without having to put his name on it. So, yeah. So that joint bank account was with your ex-husband who was his son. Yes. Okay. So did you ever tell anyone in your real life that you did that or did you keep that a secret? I mean, my business manager, my former business manager who I was transferring the funds away from. And what did they say to you?

They're like, Joy, I think this is a mistake. These people are not qualified to take care of your money. They don't have the experience. I'm a little worried about you. But they weren't my close friends. They were people that I had hired. So what else would I expect them to do? I think I think he even went out on a limb saying that much. And I felt it too. I'm just having this visceral memory of being in his office in New York too. I remember feeling it and feeling like he was right. And also knowing the day-to-day verbal and mental abuse that I was living in and how much relief I was going to get by moving this money because I just wouldn't be berated every day anymore about that. The pressure would be off of letting them

control you. Exactly. Yeah. I could just, I could just let them handle it. And it was like, fine, if this will make you stop yelling at me every day, if this will make us stop fighting, then yes, go ahead. You be in charge of the money. You be in charge of the money, honey, and I will go to work. Because you don't talk about that a lot in the book. Like there's obviously the control happening, but it didn't, I didn't get the impression that you were being yelled at or berated on a daily basis with your ex. You kind of, you, you talk about that, but with less and Pam and Kurt and all those guys, it seemed much more manipulative rather than on the face rage or anger, right? Yeah. I may not have been clear just now what

what I meant was that the day-to-day that I was living within my marriage of the constant conflict. Controlling, reading your scripts, not allowing you to do scenes with men, not allowing you to rehearse with men, go out to dinner with any of your cast members that were men, right? Yeah. And everything I wore, not even on the show, but in real life too, just every aspect of my life was under a microscope and controlled and money was one of the, one of the biggest topics that we would fight about all the time. And I was just like, yeah, I wanted to spend $350 at J crew. It's not a big deal. Why is this a two hour conversation? And it became so much of that, that I was like, there are so many other things that we're fighting about all the time.

If the money will alleviate a lot of this stress, then go ahead and you'd be in charge of the money. So when you get out of a cult and you realize that they have drained your bank account, you had $220,000, I think, left at the end. Yeah. And you realize there was $2 million missing. So that's one set of problems. You have a child. That's another issue. How does one move on?

Like what kind of therapy did you go into? when you left this cult? Multiple, multiple. And even therapy was hard because I had just spent 10 years in an environment where I was, quote unquote, going to therapy every week with my church leader, my group leader, both of them actually, Les and Pam. Couples therapy, individual therapy group therapy in the basement like it was all and so even being able to trust a therapist walking into an office and not like it was real work to allow myself to trust someone that was a total stranger based on maybe a friend's reference or a diploma on the wall that was that was its own journey and i did go through a few different therapists before i found

somebody that i i really just felt in my gut like and they probably all were trustworthy but i finally did find someone that i really connected with but it was so it was so difficult and even paying for it was hard because i left with 220 000 but it all ended up going into my divorce and my rent within two years, it was gone. And I had, I was upside down on my mortgage. We had to do a short sale, but there was another house that I had to take on debt for the retirement account got split in half. Like there was, there was so much that I, I couldn't, I couldn't pay rent. There were months when I didn't know how I was going to pay rent. And I had to call my landlord and be like, can you bump me till next month? Is this going to be okay? Which is just

so crazy after nine years on a series. And it was really humbling. It was really, really hard. But I feel like I learned so much about joy in the midst of suffering. Where did you find that joy in the midst of suffering? When were those moments? Those moments were in, they were in the little things. It was just a day to day. And it's one of the things I, why I say my faith has become the most authentic version of it for me, because rather than feeling like I was going to achieve some sense of peace by doing a bunch of things the right way, I got to just live in a place of abandon. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not going to, I refuse to allow this to make me more anxious, more stressed,

more confined in my life. I've been confined for the last 10 years and probably the 10 before that growing or 20 before that growing up. So I don't want to live confined anymore. I want to be free. So how do I be free while I have all of these outside circumstances confining me? And it was really interesting. The little moments were looking at the... I actually just posted a poem about this today, a poem that I wrote when we were living in Studio City. We had this little apartment. It was a house. It was like a two-bedroom little bungalow house on the corner behind the Oyster Bar, which was just a total, I mean, at the parking lot at 2 a.m. I remember I would always scream out the window. Dane Cook was outside my window one time at the Oyster Bar in

the parking lot. I just knew that voice. And I was opening up my window like, go home. There's children sleeping. But they had a dumpster in their parking lot that they would leave the flap open all the time and it would hang over into my backyard. And it used to make me so mad. I would go out there in the morning with a broomstick and shove the lid over and like, ugh, my life and what these people did to me. And little by little, we had a rosebush and the rosebush started growing And eventually it got so big and high that you couldn't see the dumpster lid when it came over. And that's how slow it grows. It wasn't an overnight thing, but I learned moment by moment how to just slow down and

appreciate the things that I do have. I learned there's nothing that says I'm entitled to a perfect, happy, golden little life. I get to be happy with where I am and what I have. and i don't i'm not entitled to not suffer that i'm human things are going to happen wow how can i be at peace when no matter i mean when when there's a rose bush growing over your dumpster that's it and dane cook is no longer in your parking lot that that is a nightmare okay we're going to take a break and we're going to come back with bethany joy lens there's no shortcut for saving time but saving money is simple

just combine your car and home insurance with bel-air direct and save get a quote at bel-air direct.com when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from

them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B.

I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space.

You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Shawn Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, and we're back. Okay, Joy. Joy, you go by Joy. My middle name is Joy also. So we're two Joys. Wait, it is? I didn't know that. Double Joy.

So we have a double Joy today. Thank you so much for sharing that. This book is incredible. Everyone's going to want to read it. It really is important. I think every woman should read this because every girl, I mean, I know boys are susceptible too, but obviously my main concern are women and young girls. Thank you.

Well, I think we have a perfect question for you. We have Mariah on the line and she'll be joining us here in a moment. She says, Dear Chelsea, Last year, just a couple days before my 30th birthday, I got the call I had been expecting for some time from my mother who informed me she was, quote unquote, parting ways with me. My parents both work for the Church of Scientology, as well as my siblings. There's an episode in Leah Remini's TV show about the Seattle Church of Scientology, which covers a document my father wrote about how to get money from parishioners.

I really can't emphasize enough how deeply involved my family is. My parents felt the need to disown me after I left Scientology, but that's because it's one of the church rules. My mom had been holding out on disconnecting from me for a while, but I could see her growing more distant over the last year, so I did know it was coming. As I reached out to try and keep a connection alive with her, she eventually stopped responding, but then at the end of October, she finally called and told me. I'm still doing a lot of work to recover and deprogram myself, but I feel so devastated for

my mom. I could hear over the phone that my mom was crying and reading from a script in front of another person who was monitoring our call. I hate that the hard life she had landed her in a cult she's now been in for nearly 45 years, and she felt like she had to cut me off despite us having an otherwise very good relationship. Of course, I'm also so angry and hurt that my own family would do this to me. I miss my mom so much, but I don't want to cross the boundary she set. But I also want her to know she can come to me if she needs. I'm successful in my own right, and I have no plans on having kids, so I keep a spare bedroom available just in case my siblings or my mom manage to escape and need to go somewhere. The holidays are coming

up, and we won't spend them together, and I don't know if I should reach out or if I should just focus on protecting myself and just move on do you have any advice sincerely mariah oh hi mariah hi mariah hi nice to meet you guys it's great to meet you too nice to meet you too what do you think about that joy this breaks my heart you don't deserve that mariah you do not deserve that and nobody does that's that is not okay it's not okay uh i guess i would say that maintaining any kind of contact, I guess it's what feels authentic to you. I don't know that there's a hard and fast rule. If you have it within you, even a thread of it to be able to still happy birthday, thinking about you, mom, love you, Merry Christmas, dropped off some

flowers for you. I hope you enjoy them. Like if you have that in you, if you can find that place, that would be beautiful. And I think that would be meaningful, but you're not obligated. If you can't, if you don't have that capability, like you are not responsible for saving your mother. So it's, I think it's gotta be from what, what is going to feel for you, like what you need to do. What are you, Mariah, what are you doing? Like, how are you coping? What are you doing for yourself to help yourself get through being excommunicated from your own family yeah i see a therapist but i kind of like mentally left before this happened and um it was a a balance of like okay how much do i don't i tell my parents about my life and just being honest and stuff about

everything going on in my life but it really is just my mom like that I wonder about and so I talked to my therapist about this a lot and I'm kind of just still dealing with it I journal and stuff and just still trying to figure out everything about how to move forward and what i took from this that's bad and good you know so i don't know if that answers your question good enough but i'm just trying to kind of make my way through can i i have a question and i also want to tell you like because my mom stayed in relationship with me by not asking too many questions not pushing too hard she just kind of like kind of stayed on the surface knowing that eventually I was going to come around, but my dad was different. And we became estranged. I did

essentially to him, what your mom has done to you. And I, even in my delusion, I never stopped loving my dad. They lied to me. They tried to make me believe terrible things about my father that were not true. And, and even as I was trying to like navigate through that, he started sending me letters, handwritten letters. He started sending me photos of my little brother and birthday parties and what was happening in life. And they used to make me really angry. I used to not want to read them. I didn't want to deal with the emotions that they brought up. And, but it, but it, it made a difference for me. Like it did when I got out, I knew he was there. I knew I was going to have to make one hard phone call to pick up the phone and call

and say, Hey dad, I'm really sorry. It's been six years, but I did it. And you know, that's, that's possible. But at the same time, that's not to say that again, you're not responsible for her, for her journey, but that is something. But my question, if it's okay, do you feel comfortable telling us what your, what advice your therapist has given you? Because I haven't, I haven't been put in a position to give advice much other than like one-on-one if I see people and they're asking me, but this is new for me. So I would love to know what that advice is, if you're okay with sharing. Yeah. Well, first of all, I just finished reading your book and it's really good. So I think your story is incredible, just for the record. And I did get kind of emotional hearing you talk

about your dad because I listened to the audio book, which is definitely a good way to hear your voice and get your take on what you went through. But yeah, that is something that I exactly talked to my therapist about is like, okay, so I feel bad that my mom is in this, but also I was born into it. I didn't have any choices and she made choices. And am I being, you know, am I being delusional that it's like, it was our relationship actually what I thought it was and did all the rules that I was taught growing up actually come from her places of like, I think this is right versus I'm told to tell you this, you know, and this is what I've been led to believe. But yeah, the advice my therapist has given is to just try to move on and try to accept that I might never

hear from her she's been in it for longer than I've been alive so she has been an ally of Scientology longer than she has been my mother so that's something that is like realistically yeah if you're gonna get past that you have to leave a very powerful cult one of the more powerful ones and like that's not super realistic and then there's like my siblings and my dad like My dad is almost sort of the less type of person to compare it to your situation. And so he's a narcissist. He is really good at getting people to give money to Scientology, done to lots of people what less did to you in terms of money management and stuff like that.

So my mom sees their relationship as the greater good. she's helping the world be better by supporting him. So she's like the breadwinner. She's kind of been supporting my dad my whole life while he works for the Church of Scientology and she works part-time for the Church of Scientology. So just to give you some context of why my dad's not, I'm like not interested in him being in my life, you know what I mean? So yeah, my therapist and I mostly talk about just kind of moving on from this and if she ever does reach out like just take it from there yeah and also to be able to remind yourself that this isn't really who your mother is you know it's almost like dealing with an addict where you have to remember that they're

on a drug and that this isn't a reflection of how she really feels about you you know that she was upset during that phone call you know that she was being monitored during that phone call we all know all of these things that cults do to their cult members but to remember that like it's so sad what you've experienced and what you're still going through and i totally i can feel you you know but that's not who your mother really is and that's not a reflection of her love for you your mother does love you i believe that you know that she was loves you because she was so upset during that phone call. And you know that that is the drug making her do that. And as painful as that is, you can't have that in your life unless she has the gumption to leave the church at some

point. And like you said, she's been in there for 45 years. That is very unlikely. So what you do have to do is try to make peace with the idea that you did have a family they're not themselves in this current state that you did experience tons of love and joy and take a lot of pride in the fact that you were able to remove yourself from a situation that put you at odds with your family because you were standing up for what you know is right yeah that's and that that wasn't for you and that is really ballsy and really brave and as heartbreaking as it is that is what is going to carry you forward to the rest of your life so that you can pursue a successful life you could have a successful romantic relationship with whomever you want you can have your own

family and you have to carry on like these people aren't going to leave Scientology because the likelihood is slim but it's never you never know it could happen yeah but you just can't count on it happening. And I think you should get up every day and think about the things that you have in your life that you're grateful for and write them down. Every morning, write down the 10 things that you have that are your own. And those things can be that you had the goodwill and the good sense to get out of a cult. I got myself out of it. I'm standing here on my own two feet without any of them because I had the presence of mind to do something better for myself. Don't diminish any of the gains that you made by getting out of that. That is great advice. And also think about

this as an opportunity because there are older women who are brilliant mentors who can step into that role for you and be a friend and be, nobody's ever going to replace your mother. But I think that as I was just saying before, there's no sort of like get out of suffering free card. We all have something that we encounter that's just like, how am I going to get through this? What am I going to do? And there is opportunity in every one of those moments. And there may be somebody out there who you're going to encounter that you never would have encountered if this hadn't happened and they need you in their life and you need them in your, in your life, maybe multiple people you don't know. So while that doesn't wipe away the pain and you still can hold that pain

and process through it as you need to there there is opportunity and there are really good things that can come from hardship how did you decide to leave Scientology that's a probably I think anyone who leaves a cult there's not like a single moment that they like just decide you know um it's usually a ton of moments but for me I mean the silver lining of being born into it was that my parents were quite busy with it and quite neglectful. So I was sort of left to my own devices. Most of the time I read the internet, I got an education because I eventually had to start working, like retail jobs to just like having enough money for food and stuff when I was a teenager. And I was like, well, I want a better life than what a retail job can

give me you know so I went to school and that was sort of the beginning of the deprogramming that was how I kind of learned how to determine if something is real or not when the claim is made is how I learned how to like I got it I got a science degree so I learned a lot about how science works and what is and isn't science so for me that's that was how it went down because it's Scientology is not really a sort of God type religion. It's like, it's barely a religion. It's like, more about, oh, yeah, if you do A, B, and C, this will happen. But then there's actually no real evidence, no real anything but claims. You're amazing. That's such a great story. The progression of that. And how did you tell your parents you were leaving?

I actually didn't. Someone thought that I was following some people on Twitter I'm not supposed to follow and they reported me. So then my dad, because he's like one of the leaders, he got the report and he called me and was like, hey, we need to talk. and uh so my parents scheduled a few meetings with me to talk about my thoughts and and what they wanted me to do and I kind of just had to state my boundaries over and over again like yeah you guys can't decide this for me I'm not going to unfollow someone just because you want me to wow oh yeah good for you yeah that's incredible it really is I'm just gonna let my dog outside his room real quick okay sure I'm really glad she has a dog I know yeah yeah that's one of the things that you're going to write down that you're grateful for is your dog every morning when you we talk about these gratitude like journaling and gratitude lists like to all of

our listeners it could be anything it can be like it can be material things it could be your sofa it can be your personality it can be someone else it can be your friend like what I'm saying to write down things. Like some people, people always ask me, they're like, well, what if it's materialistic? That's okay. Just write down 10 things that you're grateful for. You know, your sensibility can be one of the things, your dog can be another thing, the house that you're staying in, the apartment that you're renting, whatever it is, your job. And I just slowly want you to get yourself to a place where of acceptance rather than grief, because of course you're going to feel grief for a really long time. But if you can get to a place of acceptance and understanding

that this really has very little to do with you, unfortunately, however personal it feels. I know it's your mother and it must feel like a huge rejection. But when you really look at it from an outside perspective, these people have been infected with ideas and thoughts and you have the good sense not to have been. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that, Joy, you talked about in your book was these moments of like oh I didn't feel right about that but then I was like well I'm being cynical or I'm being you know a problem in some way I'm not having a generous mindset here and the aftermath of all this has been like realizing those moments and you're like wait i did know like i was smart enough to see this stuff the whole time and i just kept telling

myself what i needed to to survive because i needed the group that i i mean i was went to a scientology school like very very insulated i didn't know anyone else until i happened to get a job working in a grocery store you know so that was my first exposure to non-scientologists So that was your attachment. As I was saying earlier, we were talking about what made me susceptible was attachment, which is something I've realized recently. I was always saying it was a need for family, but I had a great conversation with Dr. Ramani Durvasula. I don't know if you know who she is, but she's a great person to follow for you, Dr. Ramani. And she was she she really clarified it was it was attachment. That's what I was looking for. And that was it sounds like that was what your attachment was, too. And it's it's a I think it's a really natural thing for us to override the things that we feel gutturally because of a deeply felt very human need. We all need attachment. We're built for community, even from like caveman days, like we're built for community. So that need is really, really valuable and really hard to push away when your little red flags are going off. It's like your gut or your heart. What do you listen to? Yeah. I mean, especially when you're like eight, it's like, yeah. Or in your case, you were raised Christian. And so now you have this other Christian mindset that is being double reinforced because you learned about Christianity in childhood. yeah but I mean think about your situation you were born into this this is all you were ever

taught and you had sense enough to extricate yourself from it once you got educated like that is so brave and bold and ballsy like you have a huge bright future ahead of you and I want you to just start to lean into that you can't skip past grief you have to experience the loss and it's a huge loss, but you're not wrong. You're right. You know, you did the right thing and you can't control what your mom's going to do, but you can go out there and live a life in honor of your good sense and in honor of what your mother's life could have been. Yeah, that's beautiful. I think a lot about what my mom's life could have been because she joined up with Scientology when she was like 19 or 20 or something and it's such a vulnerable time in

people's lives and they got her and she married a guy in it and you know I got this dog the day after my mom called me and um yeah I heard you saying Chelsea it's gonna have a dog yeah that was exactly what I was like you know what I've always wanted a dog let's get one I'm glad for i'm glad you got that dog oh and they always know what's your dog's name his name is po that's a good one yeah you cutie but yeah i've been like kind of numb this last year i i really didn't this timing of this was actually quite crazy because i didn't process and even cry about this until last week because I was I was just so numbed out you know it felt like surreal too but it just kind of hit me like you know the way that everyone when you realize how everyone on

the outside has seen you this whole time and how everyone who you thought like was judging you for being weird was like just really concerned and scared for you and that almost made me feel more emotional than anything else like whoa and then also just realizing my dad how like my dad is actually and like as opposed to the the story I was told of who he is I was told he's like this wonderful person and everyone looks up to him and I was told constantly how lucky I was to have him as a dad but meanwhile like I would get his you know wrath at home and stuff like that so sort of processing all of this as far as like oh my reality is now different like I went from one reality and I'm now in a different one and it's really just been like a week and like the day

after I cried about it for the first time was when I got an email from Catherine. So it's quite crazy timing that I just got to chill. So this was only a week ago that I like first cried about it. Yeah. It was a year ago that my mom called me. Yeah. The analogy Chelsea, that you just gave about addiction actually, I think is so brilliant because that is so similar to the behavior of somebody that just checks out because they it's almost like a disease in your mind you're just that's all you know how to do and that's what they're seeking attachment in a certain way and they don't know how to overcome it I actually found going to Al-Anon to be very helpful in my cult recovery stuff like I have addiction in my family lineage that manifested in codependence

and all different kinds of things in my life. But I was really surprised how going to Al-Anon was was really, really helpful because so much of the behavior is similar. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of online ex Scientology support groups. Oh, yeah. I think you should definitely look and try and find one of those. If you want, I can ask Leah Remini. She's a good friend of mine because I think what you're experiencing is just so unique that you want other people who have also been through the same thing specific to Scientology. And I think you'll find a lot of comfort there and a lot of like-mindedness and that will make you feel a little bit less isolated and alone during this time. So definitely do that. And also keep crying. Like that's how you get this anguish

and grief out. So I understand that you didn't cry for a year and now you are crying and you're going to be crying, but it doesn't mean you're going to be crying all day, every day. It means when you feel it coming on, let it out, let it move through you. And then, you know, an hour later, you'll be doing something and you'll find yourself laughing or having a good time doing something. But don't be scared of grieving. It's part of the process. And Maria, will you check back in with us in a few months? Yeah, check back in with us. I'm going to get that info from Leah if she knows of any like support groups, personally. And then yeah, keep in touch with us. Okay. Because you know, I just want you to remember you're very lovable.

you're really awesome you're lovable so start you're gonna write start writing those 10 things down every morning too when you wake up okay okay okay mariah big hugs thank you so much you're amazing mariah you are amazing you guys too thank you so much and chelsea like to be a public figure willing to say anything negative about scientology is so cool with you so no That's really cool. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye-bye.

Okay, we're going to take a break, and we're going to come back and wrap up with Bethany Joy Lenz. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at BelAirDirect.com. when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying

Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,

pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed.

From best-selling authors and your favorite BookTok creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle, I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be

a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you.

You have something in your guts, you go with it. And Shawn Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now-husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Wow. That was a heavy episode, you guys. That was deep. Thank you for writing this book. This must've been really hard for you to write. Was it? No, it was, it was, it felt good. It felt good to get it out, to be able to, it felt good for me to be able to see, see it all out in a, in a straight line, so to speak. Like it wasn't all just floating around in my head and memories in my body that I couldn't attach. I didn't know how to attach one memory to the next one. And there were blanks that I had to fill in by calling former members

of the group who had also gotten out and say what happened because I remember this, but then how did we get from point A to point D and the amount of love and support that we were able to re-engage with each other in. This was a really, it felt very powerful to me to be able to write this story and see it put out in a straight line, as I say. And I really hope that it can be helpful. I mean, yeah, there were moments, there were a couple of hard days, but overall, I'm just really glad to be able to have gotten it out of my body. Yeah, I know. Well, it's a powerful move to write a book like this. And it means, you know, I think that is a perfect way to celebrate the ending of that and commemorate the fact that you,

I mean, it's going to help so many people. I really hope so. people who are ever come across a situation like that where you can easily get duped into believing that some random group of people has a better interest in you than your own family and the people that you know and the people that you love and and what happens there so yeah thank you for your book and it's called dinner uh vampire what is it vampire dinners for vampires sorry i don't have it right in front of dinner dinner for vampires called dinner for vampires by bethany joy lens. Um, okay, Bethany, we'll let you go. Thank you so much. That was lovely. And really actually just, I just want to tell you, hearing you encourage her was really encouraging for me

and inspiring and made me want to be able to, I'm such a problem solver. I'm sort of like, that's my ADHD, right? Like I'm always, I'm, I don't, it's hard for me to listen. I just want to like solve the problem. So hearing you just hold that space and then just speak encouragement, encouragement, encouragement is so, I was like, ah, I want to be more like that. So thank you for giving me that today. I needed that. Absolutely. My pleasure. All right. It was great talking with you both. Thank you for having me. Bye. Bye. Bye. Okay, guys, stand up shows that I have coming up December 28th. I'm coming in New Orleans right before New Year's and then I'll be in Atlanta, Georgia on December 29th. And those are the rest of my stand up dates for this year.

It's over. New tour, new year. If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email at dearchelseapodcast at gmail.com and be sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert, executive producer Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at chelseahandler.com I survived nine months in

captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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