The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | How This Mother Rescued Her Daughter From Woke 'Cult' After College Indoctrination

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Annabella Rockwell was thrilled when she learned she had been accepted at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, the oldest women's college in America.  “I was so excited,” Rockwell said. “I was so eager to learn.” But the more she learned in her college classes, the more her joyful personality waned, her mother says.  By junior year, a “serious robot came home” from college, Melinda Rockwell says of her daughter.  In gender studies classes, the college student learned about the “patriarchy and the oppression that we experience in this country,” and she adopted these views as her own.  Melinda Rockwell began to seek professional help from cult specialists to learn she could rescue Annabella from the indoctrination she experienced in college.  Mother and daughter join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how Annabella found a way out of the woke cult, and ultimately became development director for PragerU.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, December 19th. I'm Pridon Allen. Annabella Rockwell was thrilled when she learned she had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, the oldest women's college in America. But Annabella received an indoctrination instead of an education during her four years at Mount Holyoke. Annabella became so consumed by the woke ideology being pushed on her that her mother consulted a cult special. specifically to help her daughter find freedom. Today, Annabella and her mother, Melinda Rockwell, joined the podcast to share their story and how Annabella ultimately became deprogrammed

from the radical ideology she embraced in college. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Conservatives have been on defense for too long. Now is not the time for excuses or apologies or any of the other nonsense in which our officials in Washington seem to specialize. It's time for conservatives to go on offense. We have solutions to get our country back on track. On the Kevin Roberts Show, I have honest conversations with bold leaders who are championing the comeback of America. Join us. Find the Kevin Roberts Show wherever you get your podcasts.

Well, mothers and daughters go through a lot together. And in the case of Annabella Rockwell and her mother, they walked through a journey of being. deprogrammed and essentially walking away from a modern day cult after college. Annabella and her mother, Melinda Rockwell, they join us now to tell their story from indoctrination to now Annabella working at Prager You. Annabella and Melinda, thank you both so much for being here today. Thank you, Virginia. Thank you. So Annabella, I want you just to share a little bit of, of your story. You chose to go to Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke is a very prestigious girl school. It's one of the original seven sisters colleges. Why did you choose to attend Mount Holyoke?

Mount Holyoke is the oldest women's college in the country, and I thought it was beautiful in western Massachusetts. And it is so prestigious, as you said. I was so excited when I got in. And I knew that it would be so academically rigorous. I think I was almost surprised. I got in. So I had to go there because it's such a good school. Of course. Well, and what was that first semester like? You know, walking onto campus thinking, wow, I can't believe I'm here. You've worked hard. What were those first couple of months like? I was so excited. I was so eager to learn. It was a little bit of a culture shock initially coming from South Florida, which is where I went to school, to Western Massachusetts. This style was very different for one. You know,

I've spoken about, there was this kind of ritualistic haircut in the first semester where a lot of first years, as we called them, instead of freshmen. We didn't use the term freshman because it was a women's college. First years, they would sort of, you know, shave their hair as a form of rebellion and kind of, you know, allegiance to the community, if you will. So the style was just very different. But I was still excited. Everything was so different.

It was so new. And we were going deep into really interesting topics. And I loved it. first. Yeah. And when did, when did you start to notice a shift in yourself or what were some of the things that you started hearing or maybe whether it was college professors or some of your fellow students that started to challenge maybe the way that you were raised or your own beliefs? My sophomore year was the Obama Romney election. And I remember not agreeing with most of my peers at the time. And that was the first time I think any political views had really been challenged.

And I very quickly learned if I sort of said anything that I might be shut down. And I really started to question my own beliefs. I was like, well, maybe I am wrong. Maybe this isn't right. When I actually felt myself changing and seeing it, and it reflected in all my relationships outside of school. So, you know, with my family and my friends I had grown up with was really my junior year because I started taking gender studies courses. And I was, you know, made aware of the patriarchy and the oppression that we experience in this country and how toxic it is. And that really the root of all of our problems in America is this toxic, white, you know, heterosexual, cis male culture. At the time I was dating, you know, a man, I have a white father. And it just,

it became such a complex of, you know, hatred towards the people that I knew. And it was, it made everything very difficult and very tense because it also came up constantly. It was such an obsession of, okay, there's this oppression now and we really have to fight it. My mom, you're a victim. But, you know, she wouldn't accept that. And that caused contention between the two of us because I was trying to, like, show her what I had learned. Well, Melinda, I would love to get your perspective as Annabella was coming home from college on breaks or over the summer as you were talking with her on the phone. when did you start to pick up on, wait, something is different with my daughter?

Well, you know, you expect certain things and people go to a liberal arts college and they want to rebel against anything. It doesn't matter. And that's natural. But when it starts at a certain age, it's a different story. So she came home, the first two years she had a bow that would come visit her. And that kept her a little grounded in the past and in being a little more, a little lighter. like not everything is so serious

but by the time junior year came around this serious robot came home and the one good thing I had was I had a cousin that was involved with a cult with I can mention it it was Werner Earhart's forum

it was out of vest and I had seen a wonderful bubbly person there turn into a monster so I recognized this cultish person and then the turning point was she had a tennis coach Scott Williams who is one of the world-class coaches,

but he's also a heavy-duty Christian minister. And he ministered in a way at tennis back at St. Andrew's School in Boca Raton, which he'd gone that was, and he worked with, you know, Chris Ever and Andre Agassie and Tommy Hoss, he's still his coach. He's a big deal, but he would pull everything together to train kids in Bible studies for Old Testament and New Testament. So she went off as, I would hardly say a holy roller, but she went off that she would never ever say anything against sort of Christ.

And she said to me, Mom, are you still buying into all this Jesus Christ stuff? And I went, whoa, and she said it with a look on her face that was as if there'd been a body snatcher. Because my daughter, I don't care if she believed or not, she would never voice that opinion. And that's when I said something severely wrong. The next thing, every Facebook started changing. The people, all her old friends were off the Facebook, and I watched, other people that she'd introduced to her friends picking up all her friends. I was aghast.

And the clothes started changing to more militant look, not caring so much of how she looked and how she presented herself. This was a figure skater with competition and solos. She thrived on the applause. She thrived on having her hair look pretty and being a silly girl. She was a very smart girl, very competitive, but she was also a silly girl. So this monster came home and I, you know, I knew something was severely wrong. And it wasn't just natural because when you're 21 years old, you don't change.

So you're watching and you're saying, where did my daughter go? Essentially is what it sounds like. She was not the present in that body. And my mother and my sister very, very much involved with this childhood been body snatched. Yeah. Annabella, for you, were there certain professors? or lectures that had sort of become a new mantra for you or that you can look back on and think, oh, wow, you know, when this was said, you know, I really bought into X, Y, and Z.

Yes, actually, I do have a very specific instance in memory. It was for, I can't remember which class. I think it was maybe gender studies or it was a history course I was taking because I studied history. That was my major. They had a couple come. And this couple, they were trans activists and they came to speak to us. And it was a man and a woman or a, you know, presentably man and woman.

It actually turned out that this man was a trans man. And this couple had originally been a lesbian couple. So it was two women and then one of the women transitioned into being a man. And this man spoke about how he started to gain that kind of male privilege and be in the boys club. And basically, and this was, you know, an auditorium that was filled listening to them. So a lot of students came to this talk, and I remember this lecture thinking, wow, like this one lesbian woman is losing her lesbian identity because her partner is transitioning into a man. And this now man is telling us that he went from being, you know, a woman and discriminated against to now being a part of the boys club and has access to all these things. And kind of the idea of like there's no room for a woman at the boardroom table, right?

Which isn't true. It's not the case. But I was really being told this. And it shifted so much of my view because I started to look at people as having. an inherent bias and feeling so sympathetic towards any kind of marginalized community. And it was really pushed on us. And then I really had this idea put on me that like, I'm a woman. Because I'm a woman, I'm other. I'm different. You know, I'm not just like a man in a man's world. And that's so heavy. And, you know, my mom kind of said that I came back really serious. And

that's it because everything did become serious. Everything turned into an issue. And, and I made it So I couldn't just, like, be light anymore and be happy. I was constantly in this sort of mental prison of, like, well, there are so many things wrong in the world. I have so many things I have to fight. And the irony is that, like, you know, now on the other side, of course, I realize women do have equal rights. I've had so many opportunities. You know, I've been given everything. And it's such a shame that I was really trapped in that.

And so many people are still trapped in that. And you miss out on so many opportunities to further yourself, even if it's in your career, in your family, or in life in general. by thinking that so many things are against you. Yeah, yeah. Melinda, when did you say, okay, I need to get my daughter help, and what did that look like? My mother was very much involved with this because she could not believe what had happened. And my sister, who was, my mother lives in the area. My sister was in New York.

And I said, I've got to do something. So I started researching every sort of cult deep programmer there was in the book, people who've written books, people who charge the fortune, people didn't charge a fortune. I remember finding a case in Connecticut where there was something to do with a brainwashing. And I followed the case. I went through the courthouse. I found who the lawyers were.

I found who the deprogrammers were. I read everything about every cult in history, whether it was the Moonies or the children of God. And I was not going to tolerate this because my daughter did not grow and change naturally, organically. I saw the classes. I sat in the couple years for the parent open house, and even the German class, the German teacher was babbling on about some gender thing.

So having been a single mother, now her father was very much in her life, but I was a single mother who picked up and moved to Nassau, Bahamas, got a job, worked, supported her, put her in private school, paid for all her lessons. For this to come out of my daughter's mouth was so insane. It was so completely wrong. So the research I did was only about getting professional help. What could I do? Ross Perrault had had people, had a team once I knew somebody

that would actually take the children out of the cults and put them in a motel. I never thought about doing this, but I talked to the people to deprogram them because it was no different that if your child was on the street with drugs, would you leave your child there to be a drug addict? Or would you try to get them off the street and help them? It was the same thing for me, for her family.

Yeah. And what did you find out about what you needed to do and what actually started to work? As you were talking with individuals and they were giving you advice? Sadly, the advice was all very, very, it wasn't the advice. The specifics were you're going to have it. It's almost impossible to get them out. It's almost never. And if you do, it takes seven years for them to get reprogrammed, if you're lucky. They all said pretty much to go with the flow. And I see emails now to another mother who was going through this at the same school. And I said, I'm going to try and do what you're doing.

I'm going to try and appease and tell her what she wants to hear, what the interventionists, what they really call themselves interventionist, tell me to do. But I ended up not doing that. I had my mother playing, oh, whatever you want. Oh, really, it's a man's world? Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, really? I couldn't have a bank account until the 1970s?

Oh, I didn't know that. And I was just like, and I see there's a no. and I said, I don't care. Don't you dare speak to me this way. You can have your brainwashing friends support you. So that was sort of, I went the opposite. And I did have one man that was, and I gave the price of $300 a day to show that he was not a charlatan, he would charge $300 a day to move in with you for five days or two weeks or whatever,

and plus food to help re-align your child with the original thoughts of what they were from, which, and I did not ultimately have him move in because a miracle happened and a friend called and said, can we have Annabella on a boat to the south of France for two weeks? And of course I was ecstatic. But Annabella was so out of her mind with this roboticness. She wouldn't respond to any of the notes or the phone calls about getting on this beautiful boat. She did not pick up her ticket until the very last moment.

So nobody knew she was going to get on. The friends were telling her not to go. I had not heard anything. I sent a bag packed for her and a ticket. And the last moment she decided something happened and she got on the boat. So at least I got her out of the situation for a little bit. And I got a phone call in the middle of the night crying from a discotheque. Mommy, I love you so much.

I love you so much. Thank you. Then it didn't just go back to normal after that. We had to send her away from the situation. We had to send her to business school, which was another quickie thing. Within a month, she was in Spain. Wow. But it was a, I will say it was a delicate dance with everything.

What did the interventionist say? What's working? What's failing? And the other people that did exactly what they were told, they don't have their children back, their grown children, but they don't have them in their families. It sounds like you kind of drew a line in the sand and said, I'm not going to lie to my child. I'm going to be really clear, really straightforward. Annabella, how did you receive that from your mom as your mom was saying, hey, you're wrong here? I remember at the time just being so angry, but also really sad because I had this

idea like, Mom, you don't know who I am now. You don't understand me. And also feeling so conflicted because we had had such a close relationship growing up and I couldn't really understand why it had taken such a turn so negatively. And it was very hard for me to see my part in it at the time when I was still so in this mindset because I had such a strong identity. And I had such a strong identity and feminism. And my mom would not affirm it. She wouldn't buy into it. You know, the example of the credit card. Like, I really felt that, you know, I was told that, like, women couldn't have credit cards and that we were second-class citizens up until a certain point. And she wouldn't acknowledge that. And she would actually fight it and give me,

give me other information and other real-life scenarios. And I just sort of disregarded it because I'm like, oh, she's my mom. She's going to tell me that regardless. It was very, very scary. I was very anxious. You know, of course, it's so sad not having a relationship with your family when you've been so close with them. But I also was very untethered to who I was. And because of that, I felt a little bit like I was drowning. You know, I was trying to find sort of meaning again. And I was finding it in all the wrong places. I was finding it in these ideals. I remember even when I went to go live abroad, which part of that was to remove myself from the scenario. And I, again, was like running away. I was kind of searching for who I was before. I became really obsessed with environmentalism.

And it totally took over my entire diet and everything, you know, using paper towels. Like the most simple thing became a really big deal because, like, saving the environment was now the cause jeure. And like, it had to be my entire purpose. So it was really isolating, was the feeling. I was very alone and felt like I had the burden of the entire world on me. Yeah. So then how did, how did you go from that place to reconnecting with your family and reconcernet? connecting with really who you were and your core values and the values that you were raised with.

Over time, you know, after business school coming back, and I actually worked on some political campaigns. I worked on the Clinton campaign. After she lost, I ended up going to New York working on Wall Street and started to support myself. Well, I had been supporting myself, but I think that in 2018, I really looked at myself and I made a lifestyle change. It was like the fighting with my family isn't working. You know, I maybe my, I'm not making the best. health choices. Like, am I avoiding my feelings or am I just kind of drowning them? Because culturally, it's very normal. Like, just drink if you're feeling anything, you know? And so I looked to that. I was like, I think I need to go home for a bit and, like, really kind of get better.

So I ended up moving home to Florida with my family and just sort of putting the work in to make some changes. A big part of it is I did open up to the idea of God again and sort of stop trying to control every situation and sort of acceptable. Maybe there is something bigger than me and I don't have to do this all alone. I think that my mom speaking to people that told her don't affirm Annabella's new identities was very crucial because had she, who knows where I would be or what I would be doing. And I certainly wouldn't be myself and the person I've always been meant to be. And then what really flipped everything was in 2020, finally seeing the Black Lives Matter riots and just waking up to the hypocrisy of burning down businesses in the name of empowerment

isn't good for people. This isn't helping people. Yeah, maybe you're saying the intention is there, but it's not. This isn't helping. Defunding the police isn't going to help anyone. And in that is where that curiosity of conservatism kind of started to evolve. And I started seeking out other outlets, a little less Rachel Maddo, a little more Tucker Carlson and asking questions. And that's actually when Prager You videos found me on my newsfeed in Instagram. And then I started to just self-educate and kind of reprogram and basically unlearn and disprove all of these ideas that I'd been so beholden to. Well, and now you're the development director for Prager You. As you've started to open up and share your own story and work in that space at Prager You,

have you met other young people that went through what you went through, and have you met other families that have journeyed through similar situations? Yes, we actually have our personality, Amla Apunabi, who had a very similar story. She was a progressive organizer, and it's funny because she was a progressive organizer at the same time that I was. And she had an experience where she too kind of saw the light. And for her, it was very race-centered. For me, it was very gender-centered, because she's half-black, half-white. And she has amazing stories.

Her story is incredible about how she kind of saw the light as well. A similar time, and again, it was tied into the riots. One thing I realized as I started to become conservative is I would start questioning people I knew, my peers at work. And it turned out that so many young people who are successful and fun, they love this country. You know, they think that it's the best place to live. They are conservative. They are traditional. They believe in having families. And I started to realize, like, wow, I was in such a silo of hating myself, hating the United States, hating our society. Like, there are actually so many people that really love it. And it's very cool. Like, it's cool

to be conservative. It's not, you know, something of the past anymore. So I've heard, you know, also a lot of stories of people feeling like they're silence and they can't speak their opinion. And on the journey of working for Prigger You, I have met a lot of families that are supporters and they have situations where, you know, they're dealing with similar things. Like maybe their kids are very progressive and they don't have their relationship they had with them anymore. But they're finding some answers now, like in organizations like Prigger You. Yeah. Melinda, what advice would you give to parents who are listening or watching this and might think, oh gosh, I'm going through the same thing with my child and I don't know what to do?

What would you say to them? Well, Virginia, first of all, right now in that position because so many people reached out to Annabella and parents and then she sends them to me. And my advice is, number one, I say, I cannot advise you. I'm not an advisor. but I do say, or am I a lawyer, you need a team. You need a team, and you need to get into the little tiny muster seed of a hole that you still can have there to remind the child about the past. And in some cases, there are, so we had the coach, and her doctor was so excited. I brought her in the post yesterday.

And I said, Dr. Vincenny, look, here's Annabella. And he said, I was telling her about life. I was telling her, I'm involved. I spoke to her. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. He was so happy. So you have a team because they're not going to listen to the mom.

And you've got to find. So one person, the breakthroughs are if they leave a Facebook open or something or if they unblock you, one mother is so happy that out of the blue, the child suddenly unblock them. You need a team. You need a team of the past to get through because the present, the people, the mob, the mob being, whether it's a professor, the parents of the students and the students, and the students completely encompassed you. They would not let Annabella alone.

They sent her home with a handler her senior year. So you need a team and you need a team of old familiar people to get through to your child when they're not listening to the parent. Yeah, that's so critical. Annabella, for you, what was something that your mom did that was so helpful that you would say would be advice for parents? And, you know, what advice would you give for young people who are in that season of wrestling who've maybe gone off to college and they're sort of exploring and they're pushing back maybe

against some of the things that they were raised with and some of that might be healthy. But there's a fine line there. What would you say to them? So to parents first, I would really drive home the idea of you know your child best and if they are starting to act in a way that you don't recognize them anymore, don't accept it. You know, fight them back on it a little bit. And at the risk of maybe losing communication with them for a bit, it's very painful, but it's worth it because our relationship now is better than ever. And I think there's something

to be said also of, you know, family keeping close, you know, having lots of people check in on your child if you feel that they're starting to stray. And to current students, I would say, if you're convicted, raise your hand. You have to challenge, you know, part of the problem is that schools and our universities, there is no room for discourse. And of course, there are people who are already very progressive and they believe in them they have these ideas and they go to school and that gets nurtured. And that's fair. Not everyone's going to agree, but for those that don't agree, getting bullied into submission, and then you're so bullied that you don't know yourself anymore because you're just agreeing with things, then all of a sudden agreeing that becomes your truth.

You know, don't allow it to happen to you. Don't make the mistake I did. Also, self-educate. I really, really cannot stress that enough, you know, keep reading things, keep talking to people, watching things, you know, watch the daily signal. Just stay, stay educated. stay plugged in and speak up and, you know, converse with your family as well, ask them questions or reach out to me even. You know, you can message me on Instagram. I've been talking to a lot of people, a lot of current students who've said thank you. And I also think the power of prayer and just asking God for guidance, even if you don't believe, because I really didn't believe in God for a while. And, you know, part of that humbling process of admitting I was wrong was like,

well, maybe I'm going to try this out. Maybe I'm going to ask God for help. And then, you know, down the road, it's totally, it's the truth now. Annabella and Melinda, thank you both so much for your time. We really appreciate just your willingness to share your story and be honest. It's so powerful. Thank you so much, Virginia. Thanks so much for listening to today's show. Such a wild story.

If you want to learn more about the work that Annabella is doing now, you can visit the Prager You website. But thank you all so much again for listening. If you haven't gotten the chance already, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure to take just a moment during this Christmas season to leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We love hearing your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day.

We hope your Christmas week is off to a great start. We're right back here with you at 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the hair. Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Blewey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen, Samantha Asheris, and Jillian Richards. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.