Was I In A Cult? - A New-Age Hypnotherapy Cult PT2: “Hypno-Con-Artist”

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

In Part 2 of her jaw-dropping story, actress and writer Danielle Nicolet continues to unpack her harrowing experience in a cult disguised as a new-age hypnotherapy practice—led by a woman who shattered families, implanted false memories, and turned lives upside down. Danielle’s journey resumes as she’s sent back to Ohio to live with her father, forced to leave behind friends, gymnastics, and the group she had come to see as family. But instead of healing, the damage only deepens. Alienated from her dad and entangled in her mother’s unraveling, Danielle finds herself emancipated at just 16, navigating the cutthroat world of Hollywood while still grappling with the scars of her past. Danielle’s story is one of resilience and transformation. Her ability to turn deep trauma into a life of joy, creativity, and meaning is nothing short of remarkable. She inspires us, and we’re honored to have her share this story with the world for the first time on our show. LINKS: Find Danielle: @daninicolet  Follow us: @wasiinacult  Have your own story? Email us: [e-mail] Please support Was I In A Cult? Through Patreon (we appreciate the hell out of you guys): https://www.patreon.com/wasiinacult  Merch is here! www.wasiinacult.com 

The views, information or opinions expressed by the guest appearing in this episode solely belong to the guest and do not represent or reflect the views or positions of the hosts, the show, podcast one, this network or any of their respective affiliates. My therapist one day said, you know, you grew up in a cult, right? I was like, what are you talking about? I wasn't in a cult. I was like, what? What are you talking about? I wasn't in a cult. I simply lived in a group where everyone listened to what one person said, gave them all of her money. She altered everyone's reality. We had to learn new terminology, only speak to each other, we're alienated from our families and spend all of our time together just to make sure that she had our attention. But that's not, that's not a cult. Oh, Danny, we love you. Okay, everyone, welcome back to the podcast that you're listening to now and you've listened to before, maybe, but you'll listen listen to again Was I in a Cult? I'm Tyler Meesom.

And I'm Liz Ayacuzzi. And today is the second half of Danielle Nicolay's incredible story of her experience in a new age hypnotherapy multiple personality cult which stretched from her pre-teen years into her early teen years. Danielle is absolutely wonderful. She's an actress and a writer. You may know her from the CW's The Flash, where she played Cecile Horton. And if you haven't yet, guys, stop this right now.

Go back, listen to part one first. You'll need it for all the essential context about Ashtabula, Ohio, Prodigy, gymnastics days, Orange County's extreme whiteness, and a very important quote therapist turned quote guru turned cult leader who hypnotized women into implanted memories of sexual trauma that resulted in a not at all self-motivated diagnosis of multiple personality disorder. Yeah there's that but there's also some really good rock and punk trivia lightly peppered

throughout the entire episode for your intellectual enrichment. And these are the kind of things that you just didn't know you were missing from your life until you heard them. I'm actually gonna go do some hypnosis just to help me forget them. It won't matter, Liz. I will put them back in better order because I'm gonna make a white man out of you yet I'm scratching my balls in excitement. We don't really scratch. We just adjust. It's just a long Extended adjustment you just jingle and jangle them. No, no, it's like you don't really scratch a ball

You kind of like pinch it to get shit. Yeah, that's true You kind of pinch it and then adjust guess it would be weird to just have like random shit between your legs You're like having to like deal with all day At least ours is nicely tucked into our bodies. Do you see how polite we are? We don't let it bother you We don't let you know when we're excited We keep it to ourselves because we're ladies and we just walk around hard dicks knocking lamps off of tables Using it to reach things on really high shelves Anyway, should we talk about the episode we're doing today?

Yeah, let's do that. OK, enough ball talk. Where we left off, guys, Dani was no longer buying into Judith's program. Judith was the cult leader. And naturally, this made her a threat to Judith's hypno-con artistry. So she was sent back to live with her dad in Ohio. Don't spare my life, crucify me. To this day, I don't know whether it's fair to question the motives of every single person that was involved. I can look at my mother now and say, okay, I understand.

Part of being in this group and getting diagnosed with this disorder, you get a tremendous amount of attention. All those things that my mother wanted to be, right? Leaving Ohio. She wanted a life that was exceptional. She wanted to be special. She wanted attention that she wasn't going to get in our small town. Everyone wants that.

And so as part of the manipulation, I believe, Judith really offered that to my mother and to other women that were living at a time in the 80s where a woman overtly wanting attention, wanting to be special, different, exceptional. That was very frowned upon. And I think she gave women an avenue to be all of those things, and yet not have to be responsible for being all of those things, because they were damaged and they were broken and they were victims.

And for me, the red flag is when the person who is guiding you through that doesn't ever give you an opportunity to stop being broken. If they're not looking for you to actually heal, but just continue to be broken and then more broken and then deeper broken, that's because that person is potentially becoming reliant on you for something, for money, for attention. For power, notoriety, value in the world, a reason to keep living, a reason not to hate themselves,

a distraction from their own failures or hell, just to feel liked in a world that supposedly turned its back on them. You know, cult leaders love to project strength and wisdom, but deep down, they're often the most broken people in the room. They just hide it better and use everyone else's pain to distract from their own emptiness.

And with all of this in mind. Boom, that's called a mic drop. Yeah, mic drop in the middle of the episode. Liz, we need you and your mic. So with all of this in your mind, Dani was one day called in for a meeting. With my mom and Judith. And I was told that my mother needed to work harder

on her journey towards integration and that her having to split her energy by parenting me was hindering her in that journey and that what I needed to do was be agreeable and support her by going home to live with my dad for one year exactly. And when the year was up I would come home and pick up my life where I left off. So that meant leaving friends, leaving school, leaving gymnastics, leaving all of the things. But this was the sacrifice that I had to make

for her mental health and wellbeing. And so I was deeply brainwashed. My head was so scrambled. By that time, I was so enmeshed with her and I was so responsible for her in my mind that it became the driving force of my life. It became more important than school, it became more important than gymnastics, more important than anything that I loved.

I thought taking care of my mother was my job and if I wasn't with her, she was going to die or she was going gonna end up institutionalized, and I could not allow that to happen. It was my worst fear. And then to have that heartbreak of finding out that she actually was the one who sent me away, I was, I mean, if they taught me I was broken, I was actually broken.

Like then it was my turn to have a full nervous breakdown. And my whole world's upside down. I don't blame her. I mean, I blame her when I'm in therapy crying to my therapist, but I don't blame her, bigger picture, because she thought that she was very unstable. And she wasn't wrong in her belief

that my father was a profoundly stable person and that I would go to school, eat my vegetables and take my vitamin gummies as long as I lived with him. I imagine that for her it was like, well, I know she's fine. She's with her dad. She's fine. But my relationship with my father is forever damaged. Forever. And it's not because I don't know that my dad's a good guy. It's because I spent a significant portion of my childhood being told

that he was secretly a bad guy and that I needed to fear him. When I got home to Ohio, he and I could barely even speak to each other. I said words that he didn't understand. I pathologized every single thing that came out of his mouth. The only terminology that I knew was therapy speak, and I didn't know anything other than that. So I saw my father drink a single beer and I was like, you're an alcoholic and you have childhood trauma and you clearly haven't dealt with whatever happened to you. When you were a kid, don't even get me started on you.

We're in Vietnam. Like you need therapy and you're unwell. And he was like, who is this person? And it got to the point where we couldn't even speak to each other because he was like, I can't say a single thing to her without her telling me how like twisted and broken I am and like giving me affirmations that I have to say.

And my father, because I was so difficult, I was so brainwashed. His way of dealing with me was to pick up an extra shift at work. Like I'm on the midnight shift because I got to pay for this kid's college one day. And what the fuck is she talking about? That money is an illusion, dad. Yeah, that's what she was talking about. Ugh, Judith.

Judith. Judith. Judith. It was about two or three months into my stay in Ohio, my father and I were in a really bad place, like really bad, that was when we weren't talking at all. And in the way that kids in the 80s do, I picked up the secondary receiver in the phone one night when my mom and dad were talking to each other at one in the morning. And I heard my parents talking about how they needed to tell me the truth.

My dad was saying to her that he was really struggling with me and I seem like I'm not myself and he was saying Danielle is in trouble. She's not going to gymnastics. She's not doing anything. She keeps saying all these really weird things to me and all she talks about is going home to California and I'm not going to continue to lie to her that it's only going to be one year. You need to tell her. And my mother made him promise not to tell me and to perpetuate this lie and I of course heard this whole conversation and so I completely broke down and confronted my dad and even then I told my dad that he was a liar and it was his idea the whole time and my mother never would have done that to me and he's manipulated her and we got into a horrible fight and that was the beginning of the most tumultuous year,

believe it or not, of my childhood. It was even worse than everything that was going on with my mother. I proceeded to start making real bad choices. I was 13 years old and I was in a relationship with a fully grown adult man and I thought I was in love and I was acting out and I didn't have anybody taking care of me or telling me what appropriate childlike behavior was and

My father is like on the midnight shift. And so I just got left at home alone all the time which meant More boys more inappropriate, more not doing homework. And I'm like, I don't even listen to normal music anymore. Like, this is Ohio. Like y'all listen to like Cleveland rock and roll. Like I'm emo. I listen to the Cure. The Cure is a legendary English rock band formed in 1978. Known for their, known for their influential content. Not right now. I know. I know it's hard for you, but just... What the fuck are you talking about?

I couldn't relate to anyone. And I was very lonely and I was very sad. And ultimately, at about the one year mark, got into an awful fight with my father and ran away from home in the middle of the night. My mom's parents, who who had not spoken to you in years because of everything that had happened, I called them and I said, I'm coming to your house, whether you like it or not.

And so they got in the car, they came pick me up and they called my mother in California and said, enough is enough. You are going to raise your child. We will buy a ticket and we will send you some money so that you can get on your feet. And my grandparents put me on that plane and they sent me back. Having no idea what they were sending her back to. And so I had to get out of Ohio

and I had to get back to my life just to get to her to discover that like she didn't really want me back. Life in California didn't look anything like the life when I left. Everything that I thought to be my reality wasn't there anymore. And we'll be right back, but we won't really because we'll be reading the ads too, you lucky, lucky listeners. Was I in a Cult is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. So you chose to hit play on this podcast today and that my friends is a smart choice.

And we love that smart choice. You know who else loves smart choices? Progressive, they love to help people make smart choices. Which is why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you.

I mean, give it a try after this episode at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. That was dumb. That was not a smart choice. That was not a smart choice. No, we shouldn't have done that.

Look, I enjoy a little luxury as much as the next guy, right? But that doesn't mean I can always afford it until I discovered Quince. Quince is my go-to for luxury essentials at affordable prices. Quince offers a range of high quality items at prices within reach. You know this past Christmas I used Quince to buy everything from luggage, to sweaters, to shirts. And by partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes that savings on to you.

And you know what? They just released some very cool jeans that are great. They look and feel like those very expensive jeans, you know the kind, but they're not. They're affordable and they make my ass look great, which is a luxury I thought was in my past. So give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince. Go to

quince.com slash cult for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash cult to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash cult. So Danielle had been sent away from Ohio. Okay, so just to interject a little bit here, Ohio in the modern vernacular, I just learned from a preteen niece of mine, is a term for something weird or bad or cringe, right? Don't put down Ohio like that, guys. What did Ohio ever do to you? Yeah. And the word Ohio is actually Iroquoian, Native American word,

meaning great river, the Ohio River. So you know what? You stay strong, Buckeye State. Be proud of your great river, your home to the Wright brothers, and the fact that you invented the cash register and the traffic light. Nonetheless, Danielle moved back to our state, California. And what exactly did Danielle come back to? Judith and her mother's nine personalities? Not exactly. My mother left the group because a man joined and my mom and that man got involved with

each other. And ultimately, my mom decided that she wanted to be with him. Judith was displeased with her relationship with this guy. And so she told me that it was never that she was asked to leave. It was like an organic separation because she wanted to be with him. And what about her mother's NPD diagnosis and her nine personalities? Here's the thing. She ever so magically stopped. I don't claim to know how or why,

but there just sort of came a point and perhaps it happened during that year that I was gone, but it just sort of was like, oh, so you're not doing that anymore? Oh, it is like emotional whiplash. Ftoo, ftoo, ftoo. Those are my emotional whiplash sound effects. Gonna hurt your neck, Liz.

You're gonna hurt your neck. Keep those in the episode, Rob. I demand it of you. Add some better ones, Rob. Fwee. Okay, give me your best emotional whiplash. Fwoosh, foosh. Whoooo.

Whoopah. Whoopah. Whoopah. Correct and real. And so my realities were shattered on two fronts. I no longer had a relationship with my dad. I also was no longer a person who was in a group that I hadn't yet identified as a cult. And also when my mom left the group, that meant all the women weren't in my life anymore either.

And I thought it was where I belonged. And from then on though, my mother's life just proceeded to be a series of calamitous choices. And those calamitous choices always ended up falling into my lap because I've always felt so responsible for her. So her mother got her into a cult, then leaves the cult, and then leaves her 13-year-old now indoctrinated daughter to figure it all out on her own. Boy, but the story certainly doesn't end there. doesn't end there. Then my mother in very short order got herself into another actually worse than the cult situation that she needed rescued from and she needed to be taken care of and she needed assistance and so I think all of

that energy just transferred to that. It was almost like my mother became my cult leader then. Like, okay, well, you know, Judith doesn't tell us what to do now, but everything is still about you. Everything is still about whatever you're doing, whatever choices you're making, and me preventing you from hurting yourself any further

than you're already doing so. My life experiencing the wreckage in your wake with every shitty choice that you make. Because she was living with a guy from the group, she was living with him and his mother in a two bedroom condo. The boyfriend slept on the couch, I shared that bedroom with my mother.

That guy ended up being inappropriate towards me, which nobody really reacted to, but ultimately he ended up being abusive towards her. My mother had a baby with him and then he kidnapped that baby. He was born in another country and so he had multiple passports and so he took my brother to his country of origin and that country doesn't have extradition with the United States and so he stayed. But we've never been able to like honestly

trace the steps from there. It was awful and it was really long time ago and we've just all had to learn to live with it. It's also hard in a lot of ways because my mother went through that and so it makes it especially difficult to talk to her about what amount of responsibility she feels like she takes or can handle or carry. And she's never recovered from it. ...Nor would anyone.

So Danielle is displaced in every area of her life and no one or nowhere feels like home. The cult that she thought was family is gone. She's on terrible terms with her father because of the cult and her mother was, well, we don't need to rehash it. I was surviving. I got through my sophomore year of high school and by then my brother had graduated and he was going to school in LA and my mother wanted to be where he was so she was, I wanted to be an actress. I was like, now I'm gonna run away for everything and I'm gonna get a new profession and we're gonna move to a new city and so she said she would support it and ended up living in LA. It was the thing that kind of made

me realize oh once and for all there is nobody around to take care of me about me and so I have to start putting myself first because she's definitely not going to do it. And so when I was 16, she said, you're on your own. She helped me get emancipated as a minor, which is she didn't legally have to take care of me anymore. So now the 16 year old adult Danielle was on her own, plopped down in the very easy town of Los Angeles. I had a job in Hollywood at a stationary store, and so a girl that I worked with became my roommate,

and we rented this awful cockroach-infested little two-bedroom apartment. I was an aspiring actor, she was an aspiring model. We kept an eye on each other. I was so young that it wasn't so hard to get an agent. And then I started working very quickly. Like, I booked a commercial, like my second or third audition.

And literally, by the time I was 17, I had booked two movies and a recurring one, like a very, very popular TV show. My very, very first movie was National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon. National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1. I played Sam Jackson's daughter, and it's like one of those National Lampoon spooks

about action movie. I ended up doing a little run on a really popular sitcom at the time called Family Matters. Urkel! I love Urkel. Who, Quick Tyler Fact, now hosts his own game show called Flip Side. Still crushing it. He had his own weed company for a while. Oh, did he? Yeah, he did. But they're not a sponsor,

so we're gonna not talk about it. Vonda Mahoney, at your service. Steve, don't you understand that one date with me is gonna change your entire life? Oh. Well, hell exactly. Don't some of the kids think that you're, well, what's the word I'm looking for? The word is nerd.

Yeah. Well, after you go out with me, you're right, but change, you'd become a ladies man. I stacked up work really quickly and just as I'm getting off on my own in the world, my mom meets a guy who turns out to be a villain like all of the villains that we had imagined or once explored in the group. But he's a real life villain and he does real life villainous things. And so my whole life went in the space of six years time, right? It went from everything is about mom having this journey through this high control group and everything's changed and she's unwell and she needs to be taken care of,

she's unstable and I have to save her from herself. That's what I cared about and that's what I worried about and that's where all that energy went and my mother went on that way with a new kind of calamity every so many years that I was in this cycle of I'm advancing in life, I'm on my feet, I'm independent, I'm taking care of myself, I'm doing well. Calamity happens with my mother.

Now my whole life becomes about making sure that she's okay. And so all of my resources, energy and attention go into addressing whatever her most recent calamity is. And then that was what life was about. And that's what I spent all my money on because I've always felt so responsible for her. I'm sure many a listener right now can relate to you Danielle.

And I've always felt like I was the only one who could get through to her. And when we were in the group and she was in therapy and she was stuck in a personality, a child's personality, oftentimes the only one who could get her out of it and into an adult state was me. And it really carried over into my relationship with her as an adult.

And there came a point that I had to decide in my own life that I couldn't continue bailing her out and I couldn't continue taking responsibility for her and pulling her out of whatever situation she got herself in. And so I had to pull back. And when I made that decision, I started going to therapy myself

with a very capable and very helpful therapist who for the first time said, wait, do you have some feelings in this? And that's when I realized like, oh, and that, you know, when you're, when you're in a high control group or you're being controlled by someone, the currency is your attention. And as long as you are paying your attention, you don't get to have feelings. You don't get to have anything happen to you because everything is about the person that you are giving your attention to.

That is all happening to them. And so, yeah, I don't think I processed anything until I started going to therapy when I was older. And the more I started piecing myself together, the better I was doing and the happier and happier I became. We'll be right back. Love is anything. Married, single, focusing on friendships, or stuck in an endless loop of situationships, you

deserve to celebrate love. Enter Me Undies to give you insanely comfy yet sexy undies and loungewear to gift or keep for yourself this Valentine's Day. And I personally am a big fan of getting underwear for yourself to make yourself look and feel good and not doing it for anyone else. Their new Valentine's Day print guys is actually really cute. I normally don't go for hearts and stuff like that, but it's really cute. It's like black and pink and for the men listening, they have matching briefs that are also you just need to get them.

Matching might be cheesy for like holiday PJs, but for undies, it can be quite intimate and romantic. And they have sets to match with your partner, bestie, or even your pet. Me undies come in sizes extra small to 4XL, so it's a guaranteed flattering cut for every body type. They also have joggers, hoodies, onesies, and their signature fabric.

It's breathable, stretchy, and so cozy. I love cozy. So this Valentine's Day, give the gift that'll always have them thinking of you and score huge site-wide savings at meundies.com slash cult. Enter promo code cult. That's meundies.com slash cult, code cult for site-wide savings.

Meundies, comfort from the outside in. Meet Undyce, comfort from the outside in. Apple podcasts and podcastone.com. Now at this point, Danielle has pulled back from her mother a bit to focus on herself and her own trauma and healing. I'd moved so heavily into survival mode that I don't think I processed anything towards 30. It's only then in therapy that my therapist one day said, you know you grew up in cult, right?

I was like, what? What are you talking about? I wasn't in a cult. You were in a cult. I said, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. I simply lived in a group where everyone listened to what one person said, gave them all of her money. She altered everyone's reality. We had to learn new terminology, only speak to each other. We're alienated from our families and spend all of her money. She altered everyone's reality. We had to learn new terminology,

only speak to each other, we're alienated from our families and spend all of our time together just to make sure that she had our attention. But that's not, that's not a cult. She went to her computer and she pulled up the, there's like a 10 item checklist. I'm sure you guys have gone over on the show many times. It's like, how do I know I was in a cult? And nine and a half of them applied. And it was only then at 31 years old that I realized, oh my God, to quote the title of your show, was I in a cult? So if you're wondering what is on the cult checklist, we've never actually listed it on the show before, but here are some good indicators that you might be in a cult. Number one, charismatic or authoritarian leader. Someone who holds

absolute power and cannot be questioned. Number two, us versus them mentality. When you are told that you are the special, chosen one and everyone outside of the group is wrong, bad or dangerous. Number three, isolation from friends and family. When your group encourages, manipulates or outright forces you to cut ties with anyone not part of the group. Number four, control of information. When a group or leader controls what you're allowed or not allowed to watch, read or listen to. That's what my Italian ancestors would call molto red flaggy.

Number five, indoctrination. If there is a new jargon that you're having to learn or you're being taught repetitively and in the case of Judith, hypnosis to implant beliefs. Number six, abuse and exploitation, my favorites. There's always some form of abuse in cults, guys. Financial, emotional, psychological, spiritual or physical. Sometimes one, sometimes many and sometimes all of them. And abuse of time is a often overlooked one.

Yes, you're right. Are you giving this group all of your time? So many cults take advantage of members' good nature to get them to do services for free, which ultimately serve the leader. Moving on to number seven, fear-mongering. If you're in a group that threatens your health, safety, or future success, if you dare leave,

then you probably should leave actually. Get the hell out. And punishment. If your leader does out punishments for not following their arbitrary rules or doctrine, red flag, another mothe red flaggy. Yeah, crimson, bright crimson. And number eight, the one and only ultimate truth. If your group claims that they have all the answers, the real truth, just know this, they're spitting lies.

Number nine, complete devotion. When your group becomes the most important thing in your life above your well-being, family or sanity, congratulations, you've probably joined a cult. And number 10, which should or could be at the top of this list, love bombing. When they shower you with love, affection, admiration. Consequently following it up with control by using that quote love to manipulate you. Cult's love controlling behavior. What you wear, who you date, how you date, what you eat, what you drink, and if there's any talk about doomsday. Oh doomsday, just let us know the date so we can

at least stockpile some snacks, right? Oh, and that's the last thing cult recruitments love snacks. They love snacks So if you're invited somewhere with free snacks question it. Yeah, doesn't mean you shouldn't go. Right, but yeah You're like why are you giving me snacks? Yeah, I'll eat the snacks But I will not come back on Wednesday and don't be fooled if they call them appetizers either because That's just another way to say snacks. Right. Or derves.

Don't even think about Namoo's Boosh. So there you have it, everyone. Maybe that helps someone listening to possibly spot the signs of a cult. And of course, realizing you were in a cult may come with some relief at first, or at least some answers. But then... It was a grieving process.

It literally was like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And the denial was, can't possibly be true, doesn't make any sense, stop being dramatic, dear therapist. And I called my mother and my mother said absolutely not We were just in a group with other women That really paid attention to what one woman at the head of all of us said while she took us through a journey of self-discovery Okay, okay sure It would be great if my mom was in the same

Face about it. She tells me that she's in traditional therapy now, so maybe she'll get there. But I definitely recognize that she has got a level of sunken cost in there. She lost one child, she has a damaged relationship with another, and I can imagine how hard it is for her to live with the choices that she made.

And there's something that's easier about not acknowledging that she was victimized by this person. But the damage done wasn't just to Danielle and her family. I'm certain the vast majority of the women in the group, wherever they ended up in life, will never be able to decipher how much of what they remember was voluntary, how much was conjured, how much was them actually finally finding a safe place to admit to a thing that maybe did actually happen to them. My mother's time in this group, she'll tell you,

to this day, that what she did was uncover dark family secrets that needed to be brought to light. What everyone in the family will tell you is that she completely blew up every family relationship. I mean, no one talks to each other. I'll never be able to get all that back and I'll never be able to convince my mother that what she did

was wrong. And I'll never truly know if what my mother did was wrong because I don't know how in control of her own experience she was. But she's not willing to truly open that up and throw it all out and say, I was manipulated. I was taken advantage of. I was at best a victim of the modern zeitgeist and I got caught up in this movement that caused me a lot of damage. She was deeply manipulated, financially frauded by a person who benefited on many, many levels. And I think the craziest

irony of all of it to me, there are all of these women who went there with good intentions in order to address their own senses of displacement and unhappiness, anxiety, depression, really like valid stuff and they all wanted to do it so that they could be better mothers, better wives, better humans. And in the end, what the act of being in the group did was cause trauma and create mental health issues and dis-ease to circle it back to the joy of the group in all of their children. Heartbreaking and sadly not uncommon in cults.

And also there's a million studies since all of this went down that really help explain memory and hypnosis and how these things can happen and how easy it was for people to fall into these belief systems that now feel really ridiculous. You leave people look at it now and it was a wave. And I also recognize there are a lot of people who will hear this and certain elements of it, they'll be like, no, I absolutely believe it. And they'll think that I'm wrong

and they'll think that I'm crazy or unkind in some way. And I understand that everyone kind of needs to believe whatever they need to believe for themselves. So Danielle was working hard to better herself and perhaps find some closure from Judith. Years ago in therapy, my therapist encouraged me to write an email to Judith and say, hey, you know how you said everybody else is a bad person?

You know what? I'm letting you know that like, this is how you affected my life, my psyche. You are the source of my trauma and you're supposed to be the trauma healer. She did not respond to me, but I found out a couple of years later when I was with my mother that she called my mother

and read it to her and then had a session with my mother where Judith analyzed me and told my mother like what a hot mess I am. And to this day my mother believes that is like the space that I live in emotionally that I'm broken and I'm unhappy and that I don't have you know joy or friends in my life and nothing could be further from the truth. I have the most blessed, joyful, love-filled life of my wildest dreams. Yes, Danny, yes! Yes, yes, yes, Danny, yes. Yeah, Danny, yeah, Danny, what, what, what, what? Yeah, Danny, what, what, what, what? What, what, what? Oh, God.

Oh, God. Oh, God. I have everything that I ever asked for and I'm so grateful and shocked that that happened given everywhere I've been. And so it's especially sad to me that my mother believes me to be one of the people that is on the proverbial Judith

naughty bad person list. By the time I worked my way to grieving what I realized I had to grieve was my relationship with my mother. I think we both want to have a good relationship with each other but it's challenging because we don't share the same reality. Danielle's mother is a great example of someone who can physically leave a cult, but still mentally be in it. And I just want to acknowledge what Dani is doing today, sharing her story, owning what it was and calling it what it was, a cult is extremely brave, but also empowering.

Yeah, it's much easier to stay silent and sometimes, i.e. the example of her mother, it's easier to stay programmed within the ideology of the cult itself. My dad and I are great. We talk every Sunday during football. I make sure to go out and visit once or twice a year. And my dad went on and married this lovely woman who had two children of her own. And so I'm fortunate enough to have step siblings and we're all kind of close to the same age

and everyone has great spouses. And that's really given me as an adult, some of the family that I didn't get to have as a kid that got sort of removed from my experience and I'm forever grateful for it. One thing people don't realize about cults is they aren't black and white. There can be positive takeaways that you get

from being in a cult. Yeah, I mean, it's like that old adage, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, which if you didn't know, that phrase first appeared in a book by German Thomas Mörner in 1512, the book English translation is called Appeal to Fools. You've been dying to drop facts Tyler this episode.

Yeah, I've been a little constrained. I can't go for it. So I appreciate you letting me go. Okay, so in the 16th century, it was common for families to bathe in order of age, right? Adults first, then children and babies last. And by the time it was the baby's turn, the water was so filthy you might accidentally toss the water with the baby in it. It's a miracle that the human race has survived

as long as it has. Yeah, but a couple years, I'd say. Yeah. Doomsday. Oh, are we in a cult? For all of that spiritualism that I was indoctrinated into, a lot of it really stuck with me. I've picked and chosen what works for me and set down whatever I need to leave behind. And I think that the time with the group really taught me to be extremely intuitive and empathetic. And I think that serves me as an actor.

I spent the last seven years on a CW superhero show called The Flash. Nope, I wasn't on the bus. No, I was not abducted by aliens. No, I didn't inherit a mystic totem from my grandma. Really, guys? And that was an incredible journey. I wrote a short film that I also directed and started

and I just finished the festival circuit with it and won a lot of awards and has really assisted me in moving forward as a director as well as a writer. And that short is called 13. And interestingly enough, it's about that year that I was 13 in Ohio. It's about that relationship with that adult man that I talked about It's a revenge fantasy and anybody can watch it on YouTube. So I've been them doing some work on

forgiveness I Was happy maybe you and I could talk about About what? About what happened when I was 13. And since recording this guys, Dani has told me that the WGA is going to be screening her film at their Shorts Festival in just a few months. So congratulations and if you're around guys, go check it out. I found it online.

It's really great. She did a really great job. So with the remnants of the cult in her rear view mirror, Danielle lives a pretty nice life. Did you know that the rear view mirror was invented and don't don't mock me. You're mocking me. I'm just I could probably find where it was the highest form of flattery. That's an Audrey Hepburn quote. It's not, but. It's not. The internet is full of fake news, so why not add that to the list?

No, but the film Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock came out in 1954. That is not even close. And it was actually the inspiration for the rear mirror. Danny, tell us about your life right now. It's not even close. Enough of the nonsense. Tell us how great your life is.

I have a dog who is the great love of my life, who almost has more followers on Instagram than I do. And I have a fantastic group of friends and I'm happily married. I met my husband at a bar, like a proper American girl, and he makes the most beautiful furniture you will ever see in your entire life. We've been through a lot and he's been most beautiful furniture you will ever see in your entire life.

We've been through a lot and he's been such a fantastic support system and he's totally hilarious and he's a total joy to be around. And it's really a joy because we're two artists in the same house but we do two different art forms and so we can support each other

without driving each other insane. But I genuinely feel that I am blessed and lucky. It's a combination of therapy, tools to address my anxiety triggers, address how my body is feeling, what's going on in my head, and taking care of myself in yoga and meditation, and monitoring my sleep and trying to take good care of my health. And it is a full-time job when you have anxiety and depression struggles to keep it at bay. And sometimes it means like really just focusing on creativity, but I don't always succeed at it.

And today I'm doing all right, but some days I'm just under the sofa and I need somebody to reach in for a rescue. Something everybody listening can likely relate to. What happened in my childhood was a thing that defined me and it defined me in secret. And part of the process of me defining it and I feel like the more I process it, the more I've worked on it and I'm somebody that is very consciously invested in everyone's mental health and well-being.

It's a cause that I advocate deeply for. I'm a huge believer in therapy. Very organically, I've also found myself becoming a public advocate for mental health awareness. And I'm a national ambassador for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And it's something that's a really big part of what I think is my value to the world. And there are so many of us who work with them. And you are not alone. I thought I was alone, having spent some time in a cult in my life. And then somebody makes a podcast called, was I in a cult? And then you end up making friends with Liz, who was in a cult and Tyler's in a cult.

And next thing you know, like we all are realizing, oh my God, I should have just told everybody a long time ago that I was in a cult. It's so much easier. And I'm sharing what my experience was. And I didn't realize until I agreed to do this show how much I was still hiding in it. And I didn't realize until I told myself, I think I should go on this show

just how much power I had given this simply by just like not talking to people about it. I won't say that the last 10 years of my life I kept it as a deep dark buried secret but it certainly was an information that I volunteered. I didn't realize that's because I'm just carrying the same shame I had in the seventh grade not wanting the other kids to think that I was weird and you know what some of the other kids are gonna hear this and think that I was weird and you know what? Some of the other kids are gonna hear this and think that I'm weird. It's time to stop being in middle school in my mind and worrying that the other kids are gonna judge me or think

something bad and just let people know that they're not the only ones who went through super strange stuff when they were kids and that the most important thing to me. This is it. This is me. This is my journey. My life was weird. My mother was weird. And that's okay. But a whole bunch of other kids are gonna hear it and go, oh my god, I'm weird too. Yes, Danielle, you are weird and that's okay. But you're not Ohio weird It's okay to be weird because the word weird comes from the old English word weird w y r d which meant fate or Destiny and that is why the three witches and Macbeth are called the weird sisters because they were seen as Controlling fate and destiny. Well, you seem to have nicely controlled your destiny.

To quote one of the Weird Sisters from the opening line of Macbeth, When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? How about we meet in a calm 75 degrees on a beach with some aged Manchango and Sancerre? There's all kinds of other wines. Peanut Noir. You know what even better? Make it some sweet berry wine.

Sweet berry wine! Thank you, Danielle, for your story and for the courage to tell it. We absolutely loved having you on the show. Next week, there is a cult that is part evangelical, part ancient space dragon, part doomsday, all topped off with some shady shadow work. I get my reading because I've just ranked up in the organization and the reading, it was presented in a kind of a riddle. The lore that he gave me is that in a past life, I made some kind of deal with a wizard.

And so I was told that you have to give back what the wizard gave you. And there was a heavy implication that what the wizard gave me was my fiancé. So with that, stay weird, everyone. Oh, and real quick, this just jostled my memory. My cult leader used to have a thing with weird and she used to say we're all weird you are all weird and she used to say weird just means that with which is. So like it's like labeling something in the world like that with which is so I'm weird you're weird Rob's weird because we just are I don't fucking get it.

No, no. You know who's weird? You know who's Ohio? Your cult leader. Because my description of weird previously was better than that. So she's also wrong. She's wrong. Just wrong.

Yeah, she's wrong. Was I in a Cult, the show you just listened to and certainly loved and certainly going to review and tell 10 friends about so they can tell 10 friends about is written, produced, hosted by me, Tyler Weirdmesum. And me, Liz, even weirder, Ayakuzee. Sound design and edit by Rob, the weirdest, Para. Assistant editor Greta Wild and weird Stromquist. And our executive producer Stephen bearded and weirded, Lavrum.

Stay weird, guys. Sweet barry wine. You're gonna like this wine. Play that clip again, Rob, just for the ones out there that love it as much as I. Sweetberry wine! Ahem. Wine was invented by the Romans for orgies.

And orgies are not too much fun if no one wants to do with you. Steve, are you okay over there? And that's our Sheba. I'm Dr. Steve, are you okay over there? And that's our Seabrook. I'm Dr. Steve Brewell for your wine. ["Crucify Me"] Don't spare my life. Crucify me. out loud sitcoms like Frasier. And re-watch cult classics like Higher Learning. Whether you're in the mood to solve a little crime before bedtime with NCIS or Tracker. Or curl up with a surefire hit like Forrest Gump.

Run, Forrest! Pluto TV has thousands of movies and shows all for free. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.