Was I In A Cult? - A Single-Family Cult: "Beyond The Front Door"

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Every cult calls itself a family. Audrey's actually was one.    For Audrey, there was no guru, no religious doctrine, and the only members were her ten other siblings. And the leader? Her parents, particularly her mother. But from the outside, they looked pretty "normal": a big family living in an ordinary Idaho subdivision, houses close together, neighbors on all sides.    Except not one of them was ever allowed to have a friend.    And eventually, they weren't allowed to have interactions with anyone outside the family. As the isolation tightened, Audrey got older and increasingly aware that the outside world looked nothing like the one she'd been taught to fear.  At 18, she finally made it to community college, where little tastes of independence began to crack open everything she'd been raised to believe. And eventually, one small act of defiance would force her to make an enormous choice: follow her parents rules, or lose her family.  When Audrey finally left in 2020, she thought the separation from her siblings would be temporary. Six years later, nine of them are still living in the family home, cut off from their big sister. So now Audrey has stopped waiting. She's taking matters into her own hands, finding increasingly creative, and at times risky, ways to remind her siblings that she's still out there... that there is life beyond the front door.    A big, messy, beautiful world they've barely been allowed to see. And when they're ready to walk into it, their big sis will be there, waiting with open arms. _________________   FOLLOW AUDREY Follow her story as it unfolds → TikTok @audreyinreallife FOLLOW US For more culty content — Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult SUPPORT THE SHOW Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude) → patreon.com/wasiinacult HAVE A CULTY STORY? Email us → [e-mail]

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lipson or its affiliates. Guest accounts or personal recollections shared from their own perspectives. References to specific individuals, organizations, or groups are presented as commentary, opinion, and personal experience and should not be interpreted as definitive statement of fact. This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. We went into this isolation mode. The way they narrated that to us was very much us versus them. And then we need to get them out of here. And like they kept being in our lives.

We would do writing exercises all the time and writing a poem about how the neighbors are spying on us. And how we just needed each other. Welcome back, everyone, to Was I in a cult? I'm Liz. Ayacuzi. And I'm Tyler Meissom, and we are recording this late. Why Liz Ayakuzzi? Because of me. Because of Liz. You know, normally we wouldn't say this out loud and let the audience know how you're feeling and slightly make fun of you. But since we lambasted Rob, not but what two weeks ago for him being violently ill for having the lettuce sickness, Liz had to go and one up him, didn't you, Liz? Go ahead. Fill our audience in.

I did. I had to go to the ER twice with colitis. Colitis. Horrible pain. The worst pain. My husband said he hasn't seen me in that much pain since childbirth, so take that for what it's worth. Well, oysters, you say, right?

Yeah. I think we've traced the origin story back to the oysters. I enjoyed with my girlfriend, Lauren. Shout out to Lauren, because she also has been having her own bouts. of similar situation. I love a good oyster or two or three or a dozen. So do I. That's the trade-off with uncooked seafood.

You just don't know. I've made it this far, though, you know? I mean, you're alive. She's here, everyone. She may have to get up quickly and leave. I'll fill in for you. Should that happen? Or if you hear her recording and there's a slight echo bouncing off what could be

bathroom walls, we'll just keep charging ahead. ignore it listeners just know that we do what we can to bring was I in a call to you you also can't make me laugh too much because that will um trigger my oh challenge that I've been challenge accepted challenge accepted that I can't seem to get rid of for three weeks so you know well on another side and normally we don't we don't sit and talk about what we do at the beginning of the show we like to jump right in but um I had the opposite weekend. And this somewhat germane for our listeners,

in that this weekend my film that I have been working on for the last three years officially premiered, officially is released to the world. If these walls could rock about the famed Sunset Marquis Hotel, I have talked about it on the show before. I also released myself to the world this weekend, just in a different way. I would much rather release. and the way you released to the world this weekend. Your bathroom walls could rock.

They did rock. If my bathroom walls could talk, they would not rock. So I'm not feeling good either, Liz. I got to say it's not oysters. It's more the liquid form. Yeah, I partied a little too hard. We had good screenings of theater. It was a blast.

Stayed up way too late. drank too much. You were supposed to attend on Saturday. I was. I had a whole plan. Yeah, I had a, I had a, I had a budget for free drinks at the bar. Damn it.

That perked Liz's ears right up. But alas. Well, congratulations, though. Thanks, Liz. I'm very excited for you. It's a great film. And we had Sharon Osborne at one of the Q&A's and Lizzie Hale. And Sharon Osborne was wonderful.

But the reason I say this to people is that now you can go see. You can actually buy the film. And I'm going to ask you. And I know we asked a lot. We ask you to buy Bowlen Branch. We ask you to buy from Quince. But this is personal because this is a film I made. And it is about the famed Sunset Marquis Hotel if you love rock and roll.

And I know you do. I know you do except for you, Steve. Why are you listening still, Steve? It's about this famed rock and roll hotel. It has. 90s R&B. It has the greatest lineup of rock and rollers of any film ever. I've got Slash.

I've got Morrissey. I've got Dave Grohl. I've got Ringo Stah in the movie. Cheryl Crow, Cindy Lopper. Honestly, it's ridiculous and it's a great film, and I love it. It's now available on Apple and Amazon. I would prefer you buy it on Apple because they don't take as much a cut as the corporate overlords of Amazon. It's $699.

Or, folks, you can get it from our website. If These Walls Could Rock.com, I actually created a discount code. Cult and you get a dollar off. that means the film is only $4.99, and you get bonus extras, like, extended interviews. I'm so sorry. I have to go to the bathroom. Okay. All this continues talking. So, yes, you can buy the film. Let me know what you think of it. Support the arts. Support the artists.

Honestly, and if you get it from the website, the money goes directly to the independent artists, not the corporate fucking overlords that are Amazon and Apple. They need your money. Yes, they certainly need your meager resources. but go to if these walls can rock.com. I'd love to hear what you think about the film. Okay, let's get to some cult stuff, shall we, Liz? Before you have to get up and run. Let's get into this incredible episode today.

So today's story comes to us through the TikTok universe because our guest is actively using TikTok to try to reach her nine siblings who are still actively inside of this cult of their parents. Her parents, yeah, I know this is weird, and I know we do weird cults, and people might say, that's not a cult. Oh, this is a cult. It's a cult. So Audrey, she's 27. She has an MBA and a career in marketing.

She grew up in what some would call a single family cult, and I'm going to call that as well. Her mother seemingly at the helm, with her father playing the Nancy Salzman to her Keith Ranieri. And I know you know that reference. Audrey's childhood wasn't always the extreme isolation that it eventually became, but it was always sheltered. Audrey was homeschooled from day one. She was rarely allowed to socialize outside of the family, and she was raised with the message that friends,

and eventually pretty much anyone outside of their front door, was essentially unnecessary. Yeah, but the thing is today's story isn't a religious cult as... Which was weird. One would assume? I thought, I was like, wait, it's not. She's what? There's no pastor.

Yeah. There's no guru. There's no sacred text, no elaborate doctrine. I mean, they do come from Mormonism. So I, as a Mormon, former Mormon myself, a foreman, we call ourselves, I can see how this would bleed into how they feel regardless. But she ostracizes herself from all of her Mormon family. I know. And they.

And all of the Mormons that are Mormoning. Oh, don't. Over there more many. They're all like, what the fuck's going on, man? Spoiler alert. Let the folks listen. Sorry. Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, so all the rules came directly from the people at the helm of this 13-person family, which is bigger than a lot of cults, actually. I've heard cults that are smaller. Audrey is the oldest of 11 children, and only she and one of her brothers have gotten out of this cult. Her other nine siblings are still living under the same. roof with their deeply, deeply controlling and isolated parents. However, Audrey, our valiant soldier, she's not sitting around. She's not waiting anymore since leaving in March of 2020.

That's a very strange month for everyone who lives on this planet, basically. She is finally speaking out. She has come up with some incredibly creative ways to get her siblings' attention in an attempt to remind them that there is an entire world waiting for them outside of that Idaho house. And her efforts have actually resulted in her father calling the police on her multiple times, having her trespassed from the property, and even attempting to get civil protection order against her. But all of this is in the show you're about to hear. Now, this is a story unlike any we have ever done on this show. It is a really crazy but inspiring story in the end. So with that,

please welcome today's brave and extraordinarily determined cast. And this is it. We are alive. It's real time. I'm so excited you're here. Why don't you just start by introducing yourself? My name is Audrey Egan. I am the oldest of 11 siblings. And, And I started a TikTok channel a couple of months ago recounting my experiences with growing up in what some people started to say was a single family cult. And I was going to my introduction to that term. This is the first time you've really shared your story in full. Is that correct? This is the first time like going on to a podcast or doing something like this.

So telling it at full. Let's go back. Because when you hear about like the homeschool and the isolation, and all of the things that you experienced, most people would assume it was some sort of non-denominational Christian cult. But what's weird is it really wasn't. So why don't you take us back just to like your childhood? Yeah, I grew up in Idaho, and I'm not going to say what town, just so that nobody hunts me down. My parents homeschooled us the entire time, so I never went to a public school.

and my dad was the only one who worked, and he ran a pizza franchise in the town of grew up. And we moved into the house they live in now when I was seven. And it was a big seven bedroom. Like they were ready. There was only a couple of us at that point, but they were ready to fill that house with kids. So tell us a little bit about your parents.

They're both from Mormon families. They went to high school together, but they didn't know each other. And then my dad, while he was honest, mission, my aunt told my mom to start writing him. And then he got back in December and they were engaged by Valentine's Day and married in April and that I was born less than a year later in March. And he would say when I was growing up too that he didn't ever want kids. And he's got 11. He came from a Mormon family too. He's the second oldest of seven. It's another bigger family.

he would be the one who'd hold a conversation with somebody at the checkout at a grocery or talk to the neighbors or in church you'd be the one talking to everybody. Okay, now we've talked about this particular subject before. That is Mormon family size. Apparently every Mormon woman must give birth to an entire basketball team or she will not make it into the celestial kingdom. Although she's not going to make it in the celestial kingdom. No, she'll make it in the celestial kingdom. She just won't be a god. She'll make it.

Especially if she has eight children. I myself came from a family of eight Mormon children, and we weren't even weird in our Mormon community. I mean, we were kind of weird, but we weren't terribly weird. So while Americans are having 2.1 children, Mormons are averaging 3.4, although that number is kind of declined over the years. But still, that's a lot. It is a lot. But I don't know, Tyler. I believe that Audrey's mother kept having children for.

reasons that went beyond her Mormon background, that there was something deeper, more psychological at play. And the older Audrey gets, the clearer that starts to become. My mom, she always was just quiet around other people, kept to herself. She was in a very social person. She didn't drive because you're driving scared her, but just a lot of anxiety. Like if she's stressed about something We all get recruited to clean the entire house a certain way So that she wouldn't be stressed anymore The hard water around the kitchen faucet

Like cleaning that Or shining all the stainless steel appliances every night And the sweeping had to be done a certain way If she was watching it was like don't drag this stuff But they definitely weren't affectionate I just remember a lot of you're my kids So I have to love you But I don't always have to like you

not a very nice thing to say to your children, but conversely, her mother would also say how important family is in a kind of strange manner. My mom would say that you're not an individual, you're part of a family, and then the outside world. Like it would be family doesn't associate with non-family. And my dad, he was always the parent almost that we preferred because he was the one that seemed like he would be open. But when I was young, he would play with us. We got to go to his restaurant all the time and run around there and fold pizza boxes and do stuff for him there. When I was a teenager, he wanted us to go work in the pizza restaurant with him and teach us how to drive and do things like that. And my mom didn't want that to happen.

She didn't want us to grow up and do those things. But he just never really speak up on that. I understood the dynamic. He seemed to just submit to whatever she wished. Most time we'd be gone pretty early in the morning, come back after we went to bed. My mom is upstairs and you can hear her on the phone with him the entire day. She's constantly be upset with him. Most of the time, like, arguments were very verbally abusing him.

And, like, talking about how he never went to school, like, never did anything with his life or his appearance, things like that. He just, like, took it. He didn't have a key to our house for a couple of years. So she could just lock him out of the house. And we weren't supposed to hold him back inside the house until he had somehow made up for whatever she's upset about. She would hide his things that he needed and we couldn't give him to him. She would cut up his clothes if she was mad at him. As he got older, we were so involved in arguing with each other.

It was just us raising ourselves and we're just here to take care of the younger kids. Like the entire time I was there, there was always a baby. My mom would say that she always wanted a big family, always wanted more kids. She really enjoyed having babies. And that seemed to be the only phase of childhood she really enjoyed after a certain way, especially she didn't really want to be a mom to a teenager. She just liked the younger ones, and there's always had to be a younger one. The only time she really talked about being an empty nester someday or something,

what she would want to do is go hold babies in the NICU or something like that. It was wanting to maintain that we work, all kids, and we'd all do activities together that were for kids, like little craft projects or story time. Everybody pretty much every night sits around and she reads children's books, books, which made sense we were little, but then there was four or five teenagers and all just sitting in the children's books. When I was kidding, we had an American Girl doll, Barbies, his sister and I play with, and then even into being teenagers, we were like really encouraged

to keep doing that. We need to get dolls and Barbies for Christmas, right up until my last Christmas there when I was 19, like, just unwrapping a Barbie at 19 that I didn't ask for like, I'm not a collector. But she would say that I would never be the parent that makes you leave me 18. You could stay here until you're 30, you're 40, and rely on us for as long as you need. I kind of remember mostly later teenage years. That was when everything happened, where they stopped taking us to church and just completely cut off everybody. And we went into this isolation mode. My parents grew up Mormon.

Their families were still very Mormon. time. And so it was baby blessings, baptisms, church every Sunday, occasional church activity we could go to. So like really our only social experiences were church-related. I remember one of the only birthday parties that I ever went to when I was growing up. And it was with girls from church. I never had a birthday party. We weren't allowed to have friends over or anyone over to the house ever. But I remember being little and somebody came to the door

I was like, oh, we're new to the neighborhood and see you have all these kids in the backyard. My kids would love to play with your kids and try to make friends and my dad being like, oh, we're sick and closing the door. And I remember going upstairs and crying because I was like, oh, that

seems like it would be so much fun. Like, we don't have anything like this. There were a lot of things that Audrey didn't have anything like. in her life. And one of those things was public school. When I was little, I'd be in the morning, get dressed up,

like you're going to go to school and then go to the classroom and do a little morning meeting and then go through all these assignments. It seems like my mom probably didn't like public school herself. They always painted as like they were protecting us for public school. They would say kids in public

school get bullied all the time. Like we wouldn't enjoy it. Now, Idaho is one of America's homeschooling capitals. In fact, an estimated 8.7% of its school-age children are homeschooled. It's about 1 in 12 compared to 1 in 17 nationwide. Which gives Idaho a homeschooling rate roughly 46% above the national average and possibly the fourth highest in the country, behind Alaska, Tennessee, and Montana, respectively. Now, we have to say estimated because Idaho doesn't require homeschool families to register, file attendance records, submit lesson plans, or take standardized tests. Essentially, Idaho kind of just asks homeschool parents to teach their children and then politely leaves the room. Which homeschool formula was she using?

It all came from a Christian catalog. For the most part, it was just math, writing, science. sometimes we're just write every day in our journals, which we didn't have anything to write about in a journal because we didn't do anything. And then usually time to go do whatever in the backyard in the afternoon, and then dinner and then story time. But then we just go to our rooms by like 7 p.m. every night. And if we're older, we could sit and read books in our beds from that point on not to be seen or heard me for me again for the rest of the night, pretty much.

What stories were you allowed to read? There was a lot of, I read a lot of historical fiction. TV, we weren't allowed to watch anything that was not, like, at the most peachy. Not all Disney. So the first time I watched a peachy, I don't remember what movie it was, would have been when I was 20. So I was right after my 12th birthday and supposed to meet with the bishop.

I think the purpose of that one was to get the little card to go do the baptisms for the dead. I'm in this interview with him and there's a lot of things like just Mormonism that was weird about it. Yeah, no shit. Then he asked me if I had any friends or if my friends ever came to my house or if I ever went to anybody else's house. Like I already knew that the right answer to that would not be no. So I named a girl that I went to church with and said, I've been to her house, she's been to mine. We're friends. And he knows her mom.

He knows everybody in the ward. So he knows that's not true. So he pulls my parents in right after that the same day and says that he's concerned that I feel like I have to lie about that. But if they need any help getting their kids to activities, anybody can swing by, pick up a couple kids. And then my parents came home. And they weren't really mad at me. They were mad at him and everybody else in the church. And so then they decided that we were just not ever going to go back to that ward again.

We never went back there. We never saw them again because they were concerned how my parents were raising their kids. They were still committed enough to the Mormon part of it that they would drive us 10 miles to a different building and take us there to sit outside the chapel. There's other foyer. So we'd go sit out there so you could take the sacrament and then leave and then go home. And we would do a different building every Sunday and do like, well, rotation of them so that they'd never had to talk to anybody, never interacted with anybody. So I kind of remember mostly later teenage years.

That was when they stopped taking us to church and just completely cut off everybody and we went into this like isolation mode. Because a lot of it was just like, we don't need anybody else. You have all these siblings, you don't need friends. So you guys can just play in the backyard, be at home, read your books. And then my parents started to distance themselves from my mom's family when we stopped going to church. And that was the last time I saw all of them. My dad's family were staying with us over the 4th of July. And they wanted to take us out to Walmart to get fireworks and that set my parents off.

after that we didn't see my dad's family ever again. They would call, they'd say, hey, we're going to be in town. My parents would say, oh, we're going to be out of town, and they would pack us all up and leave town, specifically on that day, on purpose so that we wouldn't be there. But she was more and more reclusive, way more paranoid. They would get calls from unknown callers, like scam callers, panic about it.

They got the same number twice in a row that is extended family trying to reach them or something like that. They would see a car with plates from out of town in the neighborhood, like driving around just a little too slowly or park somewhere weird and think that it's people watching them. After kid number eight was born in 2011, she had complications with that. And so when that baby was delivered, that was it. She could not have any more babies.

And then the twins were born in 2015, which is the biggest gap that exists. Because in that time, they paid a surrogate to carry kids 9 and 10, which was just supposed to be 9, but then there was twins. And then paid another surrogate a couple of years later to carry number 11. Yeah. And surrogacy is not cheap. At the time, a single surrogacy journey in the United States could easily cost around 100 grand. And Audrey's parents did this more than once. So where was all that money coming from?

I don't know. There has to have been somewhere or something going on. But my brother said he would see him take out loans for equipment they never bought or just like doing weird stuff with financing. For a while, I wondered if there was more babies, if there were secret ones, because they kept the Youngies Three under wraps for as long as possible so that nobody would know outside of the circusy clinic and them about the three kids. So we just stopped seeing everybody.

altogether because they didn't want to acknowledge that the circuit was the thing and just didn't want to give anybody any chance to have any more input. We didn't talk to anybody so they didn't have anything to say about their non-existence. When extended family found out about the youngest one, my parents tried to say it was the neighbor's baby. Weird, but okay. Now despite their attempts to hide what was happening, concerned neighbors and families have tried to help for years. CPS calls have been made by the neighbors starting as early as 2011. But yeah, CBS had never come before to check on us. But then one day, six years into the family's isolation,

when Audrey was 18. The police did come. So it was during our, like, quiet nap time of day. The babies are asleep. And then the police come to the door, and we don't usually answer the door at that point. From, like, 2012 on there was a sign on the door that said, please don't knock or ring, people are sleeping, and never ever answered the door.

If someone came to the door, we just act like they weren't home. But that one, they weren't going away. So my dad answered it, and he started with talking to them. This call, by the way, came from Audrey's aunt, who requested this welfare check. And then the cops came in, and then me and Michael, my brother, went on the front porch. And the cops asked us questions about if we're okay. and anything wrong while our parents are standing right there. Yeah, I think we're just like, oh yeah, everything's great.

That's why we've had such an issue with authorities, because it's not black and white, they're not being hit, there's food in the fridge, lights are on, so there's nothing we really could have said to the cops that day to change anything. When I was 12 to when I was 18, like I didn't go anywhere by myself, we didn't talk to anything. to anybody who we still had all of each other, so it didn't feel super isolated until looking back on it now. But in the time, it felt like we were missing out on certain things.

Yes, being locked up in your own house can certainly allow you to miss certain things. But Audrey did have a small lifeline to the world. Growing up, there was like a desktop computer that we could use occasionally for school or to look of this or that. And so we were still not supposed to really be on YouTube or social media or anything like that. I would watch a lot of

I think teenage influencers on YouTube. That is the most like oh this is the real world. But watching YouTubers get cars for their birthday and stuff like that. It was like kind of like it's

not real but still kind of getting an idea of how some people do get to live their lives. And so it planted enough seeds that made me want to try to move out of it, but it wasn't enough to overcome at the time, like being the good oldest daughter and being part of this unbreakable family unit. I remember when I was 18. I wanted to go to community college in the fall after I graduated. How were you allowed to go to community college? They were still normal enough that was like, Okay, when they turn 18, now what do we do with them? They are an adult, and I said I wanted to go, but they talked me out of that,

that I'd be, like, abandoning my family, and I, like, held firm on that one. I was just like, I want to go. But I remember that night before that fall semester, like, being up that whole night and thinking about how there's not a single person in the world outside of this house that knows if I'm alive or dead. She's like, nobody, we don't talk to anybody. There's nobody that cares about me outside of this house. So Audrey was allowed by her parents to attend community college.

She was 18 after all. She was an adult. Yeah, but naturally, of course, her parents still put caveats on her attending. And they were interesting. It was still under their terms very much. Like, they were going to drop me off. It wasn't allowed to talk about it while I was at home. They would come pick me up right after class.

My first day at community college was my first time being in a room with people my own age since I was 12 years old. I think it definitely just felt freeing. Like I can go walk to this building if I want to chill for the time in between my classes. I could go get a snack there if I want to. I think I got an energy drink. I think I was very like putting all of my energy into just trying to figure out how to be normal here. I'd get put into group projects and that's how I started to talk to people and meet a couple of friends and they invited me out to go bowling. I think my first week, somebody said,

hey, we're all going bowling after this. And I had to figure out how to ask my mom if I could go bowling and called her with it and she was very stressed out about the idea of me going bowling. need to know who is going to be there, why we were going bowling. Had you ever been bowling? No. And I ended up not going because she was too stressed out about it. But eventually I started going to Girls' Night with my friends every Tuesday or Wednesday, we would go bowl, like very, like, innocent things.

Or to a movie, we did puzzles sometimes. I still lived at my parents' house when I started community college, and I still didn't want to get kicked out. Our house, our rules, could only go out of the house a certain number of times a week, and I had to be sending pictures and calling my mom all the time. Yeah, in case you missed that, her mother would make her send photos of wherever she was. Crazy. There's more to it. She'll get into it. You eventually learn how to drive.

Tell us about that time. So I started a job, and then once I had some money, I started paying a driving instructor. One day I was at work, and my dad texts me about these cars. And I had to pay him, like, all the money I had saved, but he went and test drove a car and bought it. And then I was spending more time out doing stuff, and I had to send a picture usually every couple hours of where I was who was there. So I had to, like, try to, like, sneakily take pictures of people. well, what I had a lot of was me at the library. And then I went on one hike, a lot of pictures.

I was on a hike, saved them for later. But if you asked my parents, I went on a lot of hikes. Because the hike was the easiest thing is, like, they won't come and see if I'm actually outside. Because things in town, they would follow me around to, like, make sure I was actually at the library, or I was at Chalese, or they would wait for me outside of work because I worked at a parvy store

and they would wait and watch me go out to my car after work and then follow me to see where I went after work to make sure I actually was going where I said I was going. It would just be like, are you still there? And then I'd be like, yeah, doesn't just be usually like picture question mark?

And then I just have to send a picture. When did you start to like open up? The guy that I started dating While I was still at home, I met him just on campus in school. We'd been on a couple of dates, and he was like, I got to ask you something, because this is really troubling me how he said. Because like, every time I'm around you, you're like hiding your phone and just being super weird about texting. And yeah, he's like, who are you texting? Like, what's going on?

And I was like, oh, it's my mom. Yeah, it's my mom. I don't want you to know that I have to take a picture of what we're doing so that I can send it to her. Like, I don't want to be weird. I started dating that guy about halfway through that semester, so it's super fast. We bonded and we're like, now we're dating. That was my first kiss. Did you do more than makeup?

Yeah. And he was pretty innocent, too, though, so that was kind of helpful. Like, you went to a very Mormon school, too, though. like everybody in that area is so Mormon. It was, like, my birthday was going to be in a couple weeks. I wanted to do something with my friends for my birthday. Like, I never had a friend's birthday party before. So she's upset that I would not be staying with the family for my birthday.

And I got me kicked out for a couple of hours, but that I had to make apologies to get let back in the house. It was a lot of stuff like that, kind of as I started to recognize more, like, what it should be. be able to do and what I'm not. But my siblings were everything. That was the only reason that I stayed for as long as I did was for them. The more I spent time at college, the more spent time with friends, the more I had that exposure, the more arguments we would get in over little things about joining a club or going to a store on Sunday. And it was March of 2020. My parents woke me up on a

Saturday morning and said that I shouldn't be going to my job anymore, going to school anymore, so I didn't bring COVID home and kill everybody. But the idea of COVID lockdown, which would be the equivalent of basically what my life had been like before community college, to go back to all of that, I just couldn't fathom that idea at all. So I told them, I'll just take all my stuff now and I'll move out. Oh yes, COVID, the forever maker and breaker or accelerator of cults. What is this, Liz? How many episodes have we done where people have, because of COVID?

I don't know. 50 at least. Probably. Because of COVID, it got worse or that's when they joined a cult or. They either get into the cult, they get out of the cult. Or it gets worse. Yeah. Yeah, it's worse. And I put all of my stuff in my car and drove to work and all through work was debating

if I really wanted to do that, if I wanted to leave my siblings like that. And so I ended my shift and I went home and said I was going to stay and stick it out and see what happened with COVID. And the next day I went to my boyfriend's family's house for dinner. And my parents asked me to send them a picture like I always did. And I said, no, I'm not going to do that anymore. And that started a whole argument where she was calling me over and over again. And I went into the other room to answer it. And she told me that I couldn't live at home with them.

if I wasn't going to follow the rules. I said, okay, sounds good. And they told me if I didn't come home that night, that I shouldn't bother coming home at all. And I did not, I just didn't go back. I turned my phone off. And I was up all night thinking about leaving my siblings. Like I left for work that morning in 2020,

and then I've never been back in the house ever since. We'll be right back. So when I left, it was the one. week before my 20th birthday, I did want to go back and get my stuff. They want to let me in the house, but they put some stuff outside for me, and one of them was a gift for me, and it was a doll. Like, that was my birthday gift on my 20th birthday. But I thought that it was just going to be a, like, a COVID lockdown type of thing. And once the pandemic was over it, I'd be welcome back, or I hear from my siblings at least. I didn't really know that I would not be a lot to talk to them.

After I left, I spent six weeks living with my boyfriend's family and then moved away to go to college to start my four-year university that I was transferring to. Idaho State University. Go Idaho State Bengals. It's a tiger. Oh, that's what I figure. It's the orange stripe tiger. Okay. They're native to India.

I don't know why they're in Idaho. I don't know why a lot of things are in Idaho. I know. I was going to school full-time and working full-time. Like, it was just like, I would have to survive, survive, survive, survive. I hit the books really hard and then didn't have a lot of fun and go. Didn't party. I did try alcohol.

It was like a Mike's hard lemonade. So I finished in 2023. I started the job I'm in now. I work in marketing, and then I was just feel like I was in survival, like really just trying to figure out how to be a person for so long, so that I didn't even begin to unpack, like, feelings and things about how I'd been cut off. I miss my siblings with every single, like, Christmas, Thanksgiving, like, holidays especially. I would just be miserable. but in my mind

there's nothing to be done because the police came already before. People have called CPS before. My parents have blocked my numbers. They're all getting older. It just seemed like this is going to resolve itself at some point and they're going to come of age. They're going to reach out to meet themselves.

But I just kept going on and on. Audrey kept hoping, believing, wishing that this was all just temporary like some horrible fever dream she would eventually wake up from. Her siblings would reach out, her parents would finally come to their senses. But that didn't happen.

I started dating my boyfriend now. I told him about it on New Year's Eve. Like, it'd just been, like, drinking. And so I was, like, really comfortable to just tell him, like, oh, yeah, this is a situation with my family. The next day, he's, like, asking me what else we can do about it? And he drives to my parents' neighborhood and starts knocking on the doors of all the names.

and asking if they've seen my siblings. And all the neighbors told him that they never see them leave the house. They hear them in the backyard, but they never see them ever. But my boyfriend now Andrew came and told me about, like, everything he'd learned from the neighbors. Then I was like, okay, it's time to like do something. Kind of like I was ready for it. And I had the support and this new guy who wanted to help and like wanted to rush in and do all this. And so I wrote them all a letter, which is just I wrote, I love you, I miss you.

Here's all the things I've been doing since the last time I saw you. Printed pictures of places I've been like me at Disneyland and graduating and printed out 100 copies of it. And we went back to the town they live in and threw those all over the fence with a bunch of balloons into the backyard. and then went to the front of the house and just started knocking on the door. Because I didn't think they'd answer, but it was more like distraction. So my siblings could go get the notes in the backyard. And my dad calls the police. I've listened to the dispatch call for that.

And it was so funny. Audrey actually shared this dispatch call with us. It's pretty wild. It's almost four minutes long, but here's a taste. 911, do you have an emergency? Yes. I'm being harassed. Someone pounding on my door that won't leave.

Can you please send something to my... Okay. And do you know who this person is? I don't know. I'm not opening the door. They keep pounding on the door and yelling something, but we're all just in the house trying to get something to go away. I don't want to. They won't leave. So you can hear them kicking my door. And you're not sure who it is?

I don't know how it's about there. Have you been having problems with anybody? Yes, family. We're family. There's a red car parked in front of my house. And you don't know who they're damaged. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

But they're vandalizing my yard at the time too. I'm pounding on my door. What is it that they're doing to vandalize the yard? It looks like they're putting up some happy birthday signs, but there's nobody's birthday today. I don't know what you're doing, but I want them to go away. And what's the issue we've been having with family? Um, we just to cut them off because there are issues with them. Okay, I've got this information in.

I've already got the call in. I already have people on the way. They're going to break my door. They keep up. pounding on the door really high. Did you hear me? Did you hear me? Yes.

I've already got people on the way, but I can't beam them there. So I do have people on the way. How many people did you see? There's two. I believe the one of my oldest daughter who ran away like five years ago. She's not, I mean, she was 20-something. It sounds like her, probably her husband. And she's an adult though?

Yes. Can you see any weapons or anything like that? No. Okay. have an officer that's coming up Washington and almost a pole and row, so he'll be there in just a moment. Bye. All right. Thank you.

So they send out a cop and we talk him into doing a welfare check, and then we get trespass notices that we can't be on the property for a year. Later in the day, we were just at the neighbor's house because I was getting in my car, you see my dad loading everybody up in the van, and they haven't done that in five years. So like, oh, this is not good. Like something really bad is going to happen now, like, where are they going? Are they going to disappear? So then I ended up following them in their van.

And they called the police, and the police told them to go to the police station. We had to go to the police station, talk to authorities there, getting my story, my brother's story, extended family story, getting all these statements of all these things and concerns people have. And then it didn't really go anywhere, so we got discouraged for a bit until this year. And then I went back March of this year, the six-year anniversary of the day that I got kicked out. My siblings, we found out, have been allowed to play basketball in the driveway at night.

Because I noticed they had put up a basketball hoop with the driveway, which is weird because we did play in the front yard for 14 years. So I don't know why there'd be a basketball hoop all of a sudden. and so we go at night after dark and my boyfriend goes up and starts talking to know about why they're playing basketball at night but then asked them about like just starts to make them comfortable because they invited him to come play with them they were just like oh here's a stranger at night that's different they were my dad was I don't know where he was at home and then my mom was inside they started talking to him he ended up telling them who he was and then I came out Because I didn't come out initially because I thought I would scare them off, but then I came out. And I hugged all of them.

And then some of them were really excited to tell me what they're doing and what's changed. You could tell some of them were more nervous than others. It was just so surreal in the moment. Because I remember them being the size that they were when I left. And now they're all six years older. You tried to just talk to them like, oh, what do you guys do for fun? your hobbies. Yeah, like getting to know someone talk almost, not even acknowledging that. They were looking over the shoulders all time, and then somebody said, oh, no, we all sleep

in sleeping bags in the family room. We had had bedrooms of bets when I lived there, but since I've been gone, they apparently now all sleep in the same room, sleeping bags, and so I'm just saying goodbye to all of them and about to walk away when my mom opens the door. And she's She sees me standing on her driveway, and I've seen her in person for six years. And for a second, it's just, like, seeing a ghost, and all of my siblings' faces just drop. And then she finally, she says, Audrey, she just, like, starts telling me that I need to leave before my dad gets home. And I'd stay really calm with her. And just like, oh, I'm just here to see my siblings.

We're just, like, entire length of the garage away from each other. She's just like, no, you need to leave, you need to leave. So I was just like gone from this really comfortably, really happy but cautious time with my siblings. So all of a sudden it's just like, oh, now I need to defend myself. It's like not really recognizing myself that that's my mom that's just like, you need to leave. Because it doesn't feel like that anymore. So March is when I talked to him on the drive-bath basketball. I'm not kickstarted.

me just want to do more. It's tough to do anything after that because they don't have phones, they don't have any way to contact them. So then, I think it was two weeks later, it occurred to me that my access to the outside world when I was still 100% of the time at home

was the internet, so maybe they'll be on the internet. And I started with TikTok specifically. I made a couple videos over a couple weeks, and then one day I actually sat down and filmed the first part of like, oh, this was my story. And that went viral. I don't know if that's, that feels like the wrong, it's the right word, but it was like, that's not, it's just, you know, a lot of attention overnight.

Anyway, got a lot of attention and I was just not expecting at all. Because really, I started posting to build this account up and then somehow find a way to let my siblings know that they should watch these videos and see that I still advocate for them. And mind you, her siblings are not all young children or in some cases, children. at all anymore. Four of them are legal adults. Four of them. They are 23 years old, 21 years old, 19 and 18. And the rest there's 16, 15. There's two 10-year-olds and an 8-year-old. So for the four legal adults, what's happening to them right now is not a custody question. Nine children ostensibly trapped in a house for the past six years. And then what I did since March is while mailing my siblings' newsletters every week is called

Beyond the Front Door. And I just put stuff I'm doing, I'm mailing it to them, but I don't know if they get to read those. I did The Word of the Week, and it'd be like autonomy. So I made a special edition of Beyond the Front Door and folded it into paper airplanes and made so many of those and threw them over the fence into the backyard and then parked out front with a sign on my car to just have my TikTok handle on it so that they could look it up and find it and it wasn't out there very long because I've got just a couple minutes before the police show up a year ago in January we were there and making like

this whole commotion you could see my siblings peeked through the blinds and when I was there the last time they fully opened the blinds and they were waving So I feel like it's hopefully starting to make sense. So I know they saw the TikTok there in the window. So Audrey, knowing in advance that her parents are most likely going to steal the newsletter before it gets to her adult siblings, to whom it is addressed, she adds a legal disclaimer. I had put in the original just like a little note and I was like, it's illegal to intercept another adult's mail according to da-da-da-da-code.

And my parents got that first edition of... my newsletter and they did intercept it and they took it to the police station and said, she thinks she's so smart. She's trying to get information into our house by saying it's illegal and the cops were just like, well, that's federal. That's not even us that would enforce that. This is Title 18 United States Code Section 1702, which prohibits someone from intentionally taking, opening, hiding, destroying, or otherwise interfering with a letter or package before it reaches the person to whom it is addressed, when done, to obstruct the correspondence or pry into that person's affairs. By the way, intercepting texts before they get to the recipient is also a federal

offense. That is section 2511 and 2701, but this is getting the text before it hits the phone, say someone who's getting it from the cloud or a family plan. Audrey did tell me that her mother would also read her texts when she lived there. Yeah, but we don't know whether she read them on the phone or not. Reading delivered texts from another adult's phone may also be unlawful, but that depends heavily on state law and the particular circumstances around it. And how you can prove it. I suppose so.

I mean, you could get caught in the act or whatever it may be, but a law that most likely every suspicious girlfriend or boyfriend has committed. And then he filed a civil protection order, mostly about my TikTok, which that's freedom of speech. But we went to a hearing. He didn't expect me to come to the hearing, and I came and I brought an attorney, and he showed up by himself and then tried to continue it so he could get an attorney. And that was my first time, like, in the same room as my dad, was in a courtroom, since 2020.

And then he got the officer to escort and passed me in the hallway. But while we were at the courthouse, my dad had a trespass from his house while we were at the courthouse. So I'm not allowed on the property until next June, but sidewalk is public property, street is public property. So I just got to come up with some more creative ideas that I can keep showing up for them. And all of our efforts will hopefully, one day pay off.

It was a busy couple weeks because my aunt sends a letter to the police department with just all of our concerns. She says, can somebody go check on them again? It's been a year. Two weeks later, the detectives show up at my parents' house. And remember, when they came, when I was 18, they talked to us in for my parents. This was the first time that they individually pulled aside each of my siblings and asked some questions.

And that was a couple weeks ago. And that case is still open right now, so I don't know. Still really have a lot of faith that the authorities would be able to do anything. But just keep planning. Because I had to get them questioning things, too. Just anything you do to disrupt their little, I say, like, poke the bubble. Please keep us updated. Whatever we can do to, like, spread awareness to help the police.

Hey, hey, detectives, this is a very dangerous situation. Get your asses out there and do something about it. Well, thank you so much for everything. and all your time today and sharing, because I think it really helps paint the full picture of this experience. How do you feel about, you know, were you in a cult? I think if a single family can count as a cult, which I've just recently been introduced to this concept,

then, yeah, I think very culty. Do you think your parents will listen to this? I don't know. Just... Anything you want to say to them? I want them to open the door to us. being normal. I just want my siblings. I want them to open the door and the minds and possibilities of my siblings who are adults. Let them be adults and be successful and have parents

that want them to be successful and aren't trying to hold them back. So I'm not going to quit again. I'm not going to get discouraged. I've got the keep fighting stage. Well, holy shit, Audrey. My God. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I am blown away. way by you and your story and your creativity, especially the letters with the balloons and the newsletter with the paper airplanes. And come on. That was pretty incredible. You know, I just put two and two together. She works in marketing. I mean, this is brilliant marketing. Brilliant. Brilliant. Marketing. Yeah. She is definitely. Do you want to work for us? Yeah. That's all we need to do. You could use a thousand paper airplanes of was an occult disrupting somebody's backyard. That's what's

missing. What gets me is that none of this is really attacking her parents. It's about keeping a door open for her siblings, you know, just constantly finding another way to say, I'm here, I love you. There is a world out here beyond the door whenever you're ready. And like when her siblings wave in the most recent time, I know. I'm like, oh. You know, right? I like feel like, I feel like the SOS signs going out like, help. Help us. We want out. Blink twice. They're like blinking so hard. But then her mother, I mean, you're a mother. I don't get it. I don't know how you give birth to somebody. Raise them for 20 years and then essentially just erase them from your life. Yeah. Because they chose to have a life of their own. Right. Because they wanted something more.

Because they wanted to leave and not sleep in a sleeping bag in the front. room. I know. I can't. I don't. Yeah. And then seeing your daughter after six years and just basically saying, go away. Yeah. That's great when she says it's like a ghost. Seeing her as like a ghost. It's great. It's very visual. But, you know, here's the good thing. Audrey, she didn't lose everybody. No, it's true. Audrey has another brother who got out. So the two of them have each other, which is nice. And also since leaving, she's reconnected with her extended family.

You know, the ones that she had been caught off from for years, her aunts and uncles and cousins, because when she was in the cult of her parents, they weren't allowed to talk to those people. So now those family members have all welcomed her back and have been incredibly supportive and loving and kind.

So in some weird, strange way, Audrey lost her family and then found her family again. Yeah. Yeah, this is great. Great story. Spread the story, especially if you are in the town in which she is from whatever town that may be. If you're in, I don't know. Just, I don't know. Just. Right. I think we've got to help these people. We got to figure out how to get these kids for their freedom. If in fact, they want to do that, or at least allow them the opportunity to do so. I'm not even going to attempt the armchair psychology of Audrey's parents on this one, but there is a lot there. but what I do know is that there are nine siblings still living in that house.

Four of them are adults. And Audrey, our valiant hero of this podcast today, is not going anywhere. So you can follow her story as it unfolds in real time on TikTok. Her handle is at Audrey in Real Life. That is A-U-D-R-E-Y, Audrey in Real Life. And Audrey, if anything major changes, have to let us know because we will keep you all updated as to what happens.

Yep. Thank you, Audrey. What a great story. Thank you for being bold and valiant and reminding me of the Utah slash Idaho accent that I still have occasionally. You can hear it come out every once in a while. How does it go? How does it go?

Well, you know, sometimes there's a little sloppy and at the end of it and you kind of like going to the mountains or, you know, we was going to the store, down to the store. mountains and kind of get a pop down to the store, stuff like that. Okay, everyone, one more time, I'm just going to say, download my film, watch it on Apple, watch it on Amazon, watch it on our website. If These Walls Could Rock.com, it's a blast, it's fun. Go on our website, if these walls could rock.com, coupon code. Cult, first hundred people get a dollar off.

That comes directly out of my pocket, everyone. I'm giving that to you, Becky. I'm giving that to you, Joni, and I'm looking at you, Frank. You're going to love this movie. Now, Liz, go clean yourself out. Get rid of that plague. I'm trying. That has infested your body via oysters.

I'm going to go to bed. But we will be back next week with an MLM story for you. And it is one of my favorite MLM stories we have had. Amway. Amway. It's not just your small little Zango or Ginga or some unkey or whatever. This is the OGs of the MLMs. Yeah, this is the Edison.

This is one of the early ones. Amway. And they sure act like it. Oh, they do. We're very encouraged. Instead of doing Zoom meetings, it's way better to drive across the country because whenever we sponsor someone new, if that person was from Ohio,

we would put them in the car and be like, let's go have a launch party in Ohio. and we would rather drive with this person because it gave us a chance to love bomb them on a 10-hour drive. And then you finish that trip like, oh, now we have a relationship. Now they're less likely to quit

because we are buddies now. Thank you again to Audrey. To you, our devoted listeners, we appreciate you more than you know. To our Patreon members who help us so much, thank you. Yeah, thank you, everyone. Really, we do mean it.

We love you. We love doing this. And we love it when people email and say funny things or interesting things to us. It actually makes our day. So also rate and subscribe. Go back to Patreon. Add free episodes. Every once in a while we give a little something, something.

Put a little Apple icon, purple app. And put a little review in there. And you can just say, I don't know. Whatever. Colitis. Colitis. Say colitis. Just say big fan of collis.

And I will know who you are. And we have ad-free episodes on Patreon if you're sick of here to talk about. Oh, you did? Okay. Bolandbrass, yeah. Was Anna Cult is written, hosted, produced. What else? What else do I do?

Collitis? Everything? Colitis. By me, Liz. Audrey is my hero, Iacuzi. And by me, Tyler. Why? Mormons.

Why? Why is every weird story somehow have Mormonism in it? Why is every crazy television series somehow related to Mormonism? Why is, why, Mormons? Why? And our impeccable audio genius, sound mixer, designer, engineer, personer. Rob, I'd like to subscribe to Beyond the Front Door, Pera. That's what I actually was thinking that. I was like, I wouldn't. Can she deliver me one?

I know. I'm like, I'd like a subscription. Maybe that's the next move, Audrey. Get all, you know, make a subscription for everybody. Yeah. All the neighbors in your family's neighborhood. That's not a bad idea. Let them know, too. Let them know what's happening. Send it out. Keep it going, Audrey. And everyone else, keep it going. Do what you do. Make the world a better place in one way or another. When I interviewed Bruce Springsteen, at the end of the interview, he stood up and he said,

All good news. All good news. So for everyone out there, all good news. And that's the boss talking. That's not like a district manager. That's not the... Okay, I have to go to the bathroom again. Bye, Liz. Go to the bathroom. Over and out. Love you all.