We're All Insane - I Grew Up in a Cult

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

CW: This episode contains descriptions of CSA, child abuse, suicide, alcoholism, and death. On this episode of We’re All Insane, Charlie shares her harrowing story of spiritual and physical abuse at the hands of her parents, particularly her father. She also discusses the devastating impacts of this abuse on her siblings, resulting in alcohol abuse and other challenges after leaving the cult. Charlie exposes the failure of CPS, adults, and the police to protect her and her siblings. She details how being raised in a cult changed her outlook on the world and how she began to navigate life outside of the cult and abuse.  If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the show, please email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me Devorah. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. All right. So where does your story begin? Well, I guess I will start from the beginning. As a child, I grew up in a household with my mom, my dad, and then there was five kids. So my oldest sister, Danny, she's 10 years older than me, and then the rest of us are literally, like, right up in age. Okay. And how old are you now?

So I am 27. Okay. And then my younger sister, Ricky, is two years younger than me. my brother is one year older and then my other sister is three years older. So growing up, you know, a bunch of little kids. My parents chose to homeschool us for religious reasons. And we, homeschooling was hard. When you choose to homeschool kids, you have to be fully prepared for the responsibility that that, you know, takes because if, how are you going to teach a kid, you know, like say calculus, if you don't know calculus.

Yeah. And with my parents, we didn't have a lot of money, so they worked. So our homeschooling literally fell on the shoulders of my oldest sister. So she's 16 years old and I'm six years old. And then she's 16 trying to teach four little kids, everything on top of her own education. Did she go by like any type of workbook or it was just? We grew up in a small town. So there was like Amish bookstores that we went to.

So it was completely self-taught basically. Yep. And that's hard for a 16 year old. That's very hard. And you know, she absolutely did her best. But it kind of got to the point like we tried computers. school. It didn't work. So basically, we were fully uneducated. We knew how to tell time. We knew basic math. And in sixth grade, I had the reading level of like a six-year-old.

You know, my parents eventually decided to let us try public school. I went into middle school in sixth grade. Every single one of us failed all of our classes. The teachers were so concerned. You know how they do like popcorn reading? And they try to like get everyone to read out loud. I literally could not read. That's really embarrassing and that's really hard. So they pulled us back out of public school because no one's, you know, going to tell them what to do. And I want to say public school was our first realization that our lives were not normal. When we were kids, we stayed inside at all times. My parents would go to work. We would lock the doors and we were terrified of outside anyone. Absolutely terrified. Like to the point where if the mailman knocked on the door, we would

literally grab kitchen knives. Really? We were terrified. So like, you guys only really had each other. Like you didn't really have any friends outside of it. Nope. We had no friends outside of that when we were kids. During the summer, we got introduced to some of the neighborhood kids, which was a good thing and a bad thing because we were so extremely sheltered. My parents didn't let us watch certain movies.

And when I say certain movies, I mean like most movies, like Harry Potter or Cinderella We couldn't watch stuff like that because they had witchcraft in them. Right. So none of that. Were they, did you know, like, did they define as like Christian or yes? Okay. Yeah. And obviously I just want to say I'm not like knocking anyone for their religious choices,

but there are extremists in every group. Yep. And this is just an example of that. So growing up, we were. extremely secluded. Obviously, we didn't have a lot of friends. The only thing that we did do was we went to church three days a week. We, so I'm P.K., you know, my father, um, used to travel, um, and preach and stuff like that once we joined up with a church. So before I was born, my parents were a part of a church. That church broke up because of it being like

accused of being a cult. That church ended. A lot of people joined a new church. And, You can take the people out of the cult, but you can't take the cult out of the people. Yeah. So they kind of still stuck with that same way of doing things. And the abuse that we got, we didn't know it was abuse because it was wrapped up in parental duties. You know, the blueness of the womb sort of thing. So that's, it's the parents' job to teach the kid, and this is how we teach the kid by beating the shit out of you. Yeah.

So even when we were really little, we were not taught. We were trained. We were trained to only obey. Our bodies were not our own. We had no sense of independence or, like, like who we were as a person. We were just property of our parents. Right.

And everywhere that we went, everything that we learned was that. So you don't know any different, you know? You just do whatever your parents say. So we were to clean and cook, take care of ourselves, you know, and take care of our parents. So were there, when you say, like, they would beat you,

like, were there times that if you, if they, like, weren't happy with the guy, with the way that you guys were acting, like they would just lay their hands on you? The beatings were constant. And it would be like a prime example. There was one day my dad came home from work and there was toothpaste in the sink.

Like someone had brushed their teeth, didn't, you know, rinse it down or whatever. And he beat the shit out of all of us because nobody knew who did it. And our beatings were like, okay, getting spankings like you get spanked with a belt. My dad would make us pulled on our pants. He would wet the belt so it stung more.

It got to the point where that didn't work. So he got a one by and turned that into a paddle or whatever. He would spank us with that. He broke that. He got a two by four. Carved handles into it, wrapped it an electrical tape, beat us with that. And then when that wasn't good enough, he would beat us with an extension cord. And that's hard to, now I look back at it and I'm like, holy shit, that's hard to fathom

because like imagine like a big orange extension cord and like a little kid, like, you know, like a six year old getting this shit beat out of them by a grown man. And at that point, It's past the point of trying to do something for your child. You're just beating them just to beat them. Yeah. But growing up, it was normal. It was something that you just accepted because I did something wrong and this is my consequences of it. Because, you know, that's what the Bible says.

You honor and obey your parents. That's what you have to do? And then what about your mom? Was she like the same way or she just wouldn't speak up? It isn't until I was older that I realized how brainwashed we were. Because the setting that we were in is everyone around us consistently told us this is how it's supposed to be. So how would you know any different? Right.

We just didn't know. And when you grow up in a cult as well, you're taught as an adult that they'll tell you that this is abuse, but they just don't want you to follow the Bible. You know, they are, you know, bad people, heathens, whatever. So, you know, just because the police say you shouldn't do this to your kids, God says you should, so it's okay. And in my mom's state of mind, they want you to choose, you know, the Bible or the law. Right.

So that's kind of where the brainwashing all comes in. Because you're forced to shut off some obvious, moral compass in you that's telling you that this is wrong because the Bible says it's right. You don't question it. That's what faith is. You just have to believe. Yeah. Um, so, um, the sexual abuse for all of us was, it was very much so you were divided from each other, you know? It was hard for me, like, just to come to my sister and say, oh, like my dad touched me or something like that. That wasn't something that we were comfortable with because in cults they also teach you

shame. If someone touches you, what were you doing to deserve that, you know? It was never like I, you always thought you did something wrong and that's why. And it happens so young for me that it's so crazy. I was never necessarily taught that this was wrong, but it was like I, knew. Something in me knew. And I remember one of the times I was molested by my father, I just in my stomach, I knew something wasn't right. The way he was touching me, it just, something wasn't right. And it was so young. And I remember coming to my sister,

Annie, and I remember telling her. And she looked me in the eyes and was like, do not ever let him touch you like that again, you know? And, you know, say I was like 11 years old, she's only three years older than me. So her little 14 year old self being like, you need to protect herself. If this ever happens again, come to me or come to Danny and tell us. Was she like during the same things or no? Like it was all the kids? We didn't know it though. Okay. Because she didn't talk. Yeah. We didn't talk about it. And, you know, the things that happened to me, much worse happened to my sisters. And, you know, we didn't even know about it all until we were older.

And, you know, with the lack of education, the isolation, the physical abuse, and the mental abuse, we started getting to this point where we realized something was wrong. So we had a few sort of big blowups where we called the police. So there was one instance where my sister had a Micepace, you know, back in the day, and she had talked to some boys on there. And this was one of the big moments where my dad found out about it and started going through and reading her messages. And we were all sitting in the kitchen.

He had had her MISP. space pulled up and he always did this thing where if someone did something wrong, we all had to sit and watch the punishment. So you had to sit and watch each other get tortured and not being able to do anything about it, but he pulled out a knife and, you know, you don't brainwash or not, you know a knife's not a joke. So he pulled out a knife and he had it sitting on the countertop. And every message that he read that he didn't like he would punch her she was like not she was like 15 i think at the time yeah about 15 years old and he would hit her in the leg or punch her or something like that and my oldest sister tried to stop him and she has asthma so when he hit her she was like full-blown

asthma attack and she ran up and called the police when my dad continued and continued to read the messages and like there was one message where she was saying that she wanted to kiss a boy that she liked and he grabbed her face and kissed her in front of all of us and he's like if you want to kiss someone I'll give you someone to kiss he acted like a jealous boyfriend like a crazy jealous boyfriend and she was his possession. When the police showed up to the door, my sister held the knife to her stomach and she was going to kill herself right there in front of, you know, her little siblings. And we were all like, don't do it, like begging her not to do it, even though the police

were at the door. But the shittiest thing about it is, as many times as we called the police or someone called the police on us, they never did anything. about it ever you know we'd have bruises all over us but they didn't see it happen um you know what happened to us every system failed us we told adults at the church they covered it up they told us to stop lying our dad is a he's a great father and he would never do it we told um family family you know covered it up We told our friends, but what's a little girl going to do, you know? And police, CPS, time after time, nothing was done.

I was molested by a neighbor boy when I was really little, so little that I didn't understand what happened until they explained to me what molestation is. And I was like, oh, yeah, he did that in my head. but CPS questioned me if a neighbor boy touched me in front of my parents. If I were to admit what happened to me, they're literally asking me this in front of people who will do much worse to me the moment they walk out that door. So I lied. I was like, no, nothing ever happened to me.

And I never told anyone about that. Never, because what can you do? Right. We had CPS called on. when we were kids because of my dad. We never found out who called. But they questioned us in front of our mom. My mom begged us before we went in not to say anything.

You know, if he spanks you, he spanks you lightly with a paddle. Because if you don't do that, you might get taken away and go to a bad home. The irony of that is, is what bad home could we possibly go to, one who who beats us or sexually abuses us. Right. Like what could be worse? Yeah. Yeah.

What could be worse? Um, we told CPS, you know, nothing happened because we just said, yeah, my dad spanks us. He's like, how does he spank you? Well, sometimes he spanks us with a paddle, whatever. But like, we didn't tell them the truth. We didn't understand. Yeah. Like, we didn't understand that that's not a spanking.

That is abuse. We weren't even introduced to where. what abuse was. How would we know? We had no idea. But eventually it got out that my dad had abused some of my sister's friends, some other people, and they were going to take it to the police. And somehow those girls were talked into not pressing charges.

The police had all the information. that they needed and people in our church were like, no, it's okay. We will punish him ourselves. What happened is it was covered up. My dad was not allowed to be in a place of leadership at the church anymore, but it was covered up. They never did anything. But then my father just ended up resenting people at the church, so then he secluded us more. My one sister Annie, she was like the wild child. She was our wild card. She would run away a lot.

And I never had the balls to do that, but she would run away a lot. And she got the brunt of the abuse. So because she rebelled and talked back and did those things, there were times where my dad would like waterboard her. He would like pin her down, pin her arms down, put a rag over her mouth, and put the hose over her. This for whatever reason, you know, because she wasn't like accepting, you know, the way that he was choosing to treat us. There was a time where I remember her and I went in the basement and my dad was down there on the computer and he, and he was watching porn, but it was like torture porn,

which to me only makes more sense now that he got off on stuff like that. But we both were kind of like, whoa, we saw something we shouldn't, and we ran upstairs and he was going to spank us for it. He was going to beat us for it. And she looked him in the eyes and was like, no, we didn't do anything wrong. we caught you doing something. Like, do it, I dare you, and then I'll go tell mom. So he let it go.

But that was the type of stuff that would set him off about her, is that she could look him in the eyes with no fear at all. Once you get used to living in fear for your life every day, eventually you welcome it. We had all gotten to the point where we, we're fully willing to let him kill us because we figured if one of us dies at least they have to do something right at least then they can't cover that up you know a child has died um i guess oh how wrong we were because i still don't think it would have mattered yeah it would have just been

covered up as an accident so basically the church that you guys were a part of that was the only sort of external socialization that you guys had at all. Yeah. And then even they were no help because they were part of this just. We were bullied so badly by the kids at the church, the adults. We were treated like disgustingly because we were uneducated. I got called stupid to my face by kids. We were always picked last for games.

People would like just like movie type catty stuff. Like my brother was just telling me a story about how this one boy, whenever we would play games, who'd be like, I want to be on whatever team Tony's not on. Just for no reason at all. We were treated like a burden to people. And in any like situation that we were ever in, it was never going to be any different. No one was going to help us. No one was going to save us.

we were never going to make it out of that. Like, what, like, sources do you have at that point? Nothing. So all you can do is choose to physically fight it yourself or just accept it and deal with it. And my sister, Annie, chose to fight it. She ran away a lot. and in turn from running away was sent to jail by my parents.

They sent her to jail. And how old was she? She was 17. Okay. So they called the police on her? Yep. For running away. Did the police not ever think I wonder why they're running away, you know?

Do you know if she, did she say anything to the police? Like, did she tell them what was going on? They knew. Okay. Yeah. We had the police at our house. Like it became like a weekend thing for us. Yeah.

It was constant to the point where like they knew who we were, you know. Even still I know some of them by name would never forget their faces because they are the people who are supposed to help you. What do you do? You know, watching your siblings get beat to the point where they're bloody and you call 911. To me, one of the scariest moments in my life that I had, my dad got upset with my sister about something and he took her upstairs and he was beating her with the metal end of a belt like beating her with it and I remember hearing her scream like that like it just I knew I needed to do something and I did like you know the unspeakable at that point

which was call 911 one on my dad my older sister wasn't home my mom wasn't home it was just me and the four younger's so I called 911 and I went downstairs into our storage room and I hid under a desk that had some suitcases in front of it and I remember my dad coming downstairs and I could see his feet and he was looking for me you know he's like Charlie where are you like come out I'm not going to do anything just like a fucking movie scene I'm not going to hurt you I just want to talk. And I could hear my heart beating. I was like, he's going to find me and he's going to kill me.

Police hadn't shown up yet. And then I just like held my breath and waited. And like I just knew he was going to find me and kill me. But the police showed up to the door and he had to go upstairs. And the police were like, yeah, no, there's nothing wrong. My dad was like, yeah, they actually let me spank her right in front of them. Hey, I'm Jeremy Schwartz from the American. American Criminal. On this season, robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder. Either way, Boston will never be the same. Listen to American Criminal the murder of Carol Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts. Or to get early ad free access, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at American Criminal.com. Do they see your sister at all, like, bloody? And just nothing. Just nothing. Consistently, nothing.

So why keep calling the police? Yeah. CPS didn't help. Church didn't help. Adults didn't help. Family didn't help. What can you do? So when we got older, my older sister moved out when she was 22, which means I was 12.

And they were fine with her moving out? No. No. That was the whole thing too. My dad stalked her. She got like a group. of friends who shout out to all of them for some of them still being in our lives to this day to just be a protector one of her friends Alex was like had to have a conversation with my dad and was like you know I'm obviously not going to say what was said but let's just say he left her alone after that

because the stalking was an obsession, showing up to her job, showing up to where she was staying, threatening her, just really messed up stuff. Now, my oldest sister is my half-sister. I didn't even know that until I was older, so she is not my dad's daughter. So he didn't care what he did to her. You know, all of the sexual abuse didn't matter. They weren't related. It was fine.

They didn't stop him with the rest of us. But he was like disgustingly obsessed with her. And then once she moved out, obviously everything turned towards Annie. And then when Annie went to jail, all that was left was me and my brother and my younger sister. And at that time, my dad had found out that I had lost my virginity. So that was a huge, huge thing. How old were you? I was 15.

Okay. And then how long was your other sister in jail for? Just under a year. Okay. She didn't get to graduate or anything like that. But we, even in adulthood, we had night terrors. Like some of the most vivid dreams, and it was always about my dad trying to kill us. And it was like every night.

And this was like almost most of our lives. And even still, I will still have extremely vivid dreams of my dad trying to kill us or chasing us. And it's crazy because like, you know, I think, like I don't know much about like the psychology of dreams, but we all always had dreams about that. Those were our consistent nightmares. Yeah. I feel like it's like a form of PTSD for sure. Oh, it was terrible. and being like raised and taught, like, just as far as like the biblical side goes,

we, I've read the Bible through about three times easily in my life. We were taught to study the Bible, not just read it. So from a very young child all the way up, he would make us every night. night, we would have to like study, highlight, and then discuss what we read. And it was just, it means for him to lecture us. He really loved the sound of his own voice. Um, and, um, it kind of built like a resentment, at least, I would say, because, um, like, I could never go to a church again. I just can't. You have to like relearn those things almost when you were taught in such a terrible way. Because again, we were trained to obey only. We weren't like raised as kids to like

become something. When you think about raising a child, you're raising them for their future. That was not what we that was not what we did. We were slaves and we were trained to do nothing but obey. If we had crushes on boys, like in middle school, I remember my dad calling the school saying that I needed to switch seats because I was sat next to a boy. The time that I want to say I was 16 years old, so my other two sisters were gone, and this was to the point where my dad's abuse, the churches neglect in every. everything was so bad. I had grown an attitude. I was fully willing to like talk back to someone at my church because at this point, I was like, you know, I think just smart enough to know at that point.

My sisters had moved out. We started to get outside sources around us, so we started to know these things weren't right. And when it was 16 years old, my dad had blown up because, a table had some clutter on it. It wasn't even us. It was my mom's. But my mom wasn't home. So he exploded,

broke all kinds of things in the house. And, I mean, this was normal. There was another instance where he took a kitchen chair and literally, like, broke the drywall, smashed it into a TV, whatever. like that that's normal you just get used to the explosiveness of him but again nothing ever gets done well when i was 16 he exploded over the table you know being dirty whatever and um i he left my dad was an alcoholic so that you know key to a lot of his um manic episodes

but he left to go get some alcohol and he called my older sister Danny and I had my bags packed for months. Yeah. I remember my dad asking me about if I was ever going to unpack my bags I had went somewhere. No. I had constantly put stuff in it and I had told my little sister to do the same because, you know, I would protect any of my siblings with my life. know they feel the same. And in my head, I was ready. And when he left and my mom was gone, I called my older sister, Danny, and I was like, listen, dad blew up again, we're leaving.

So I was 16. My brother was 17. My little sister was 14. So she came right out and came to get us. and we had her, my brother-in-law, cousins, and just some close friends there, and we started packing shit up. And it's so crazy to me looking back because, again, no matter how many people we told or what we did or what was done to us, you know, no one was ever going to come save us. Right. You had to rely on yourselves.

Yeah. It took my older sister moving out, getting a job with, mind you, without an education. Like moving out, getting a job, getting her own car, a place to stay, doing all of that on her own for her to become a safe haven for us to go. and we did my dad showed up while we were packing things up and I remember him trying to swing on me in the yard and all of the guys like jumping up to protect me and stuff which was really nice but I mean at that point then you know we're all moving out and we're just kids uneducated kids I like when I lost my virginity I didn't know anything about it. I knew nothing.

I was terrified. I mean, it was what it was. I didn't do anything again for like years after that because I was like, Jesus. Yeah. But we were so sheltered that like after this we joined public school, the outside world was like wild to us.

like some of the realizations that we had just talking about our childhood to other people they were like what the heck but it was just normal to us you know there were like times where he would beat us with the extension cord

for days and days and days and we would show up to church on Sunday with just I mean, how could you not have welts all over your body? And it just, you know, it was what it was. No one said anything. Did he be your mom as well? Not that I ever saw.

My mom is very like hush, hush about it. Okay. We never talk about this stuff. that's another like big thing when it comes to like the cult mentality you don't talk about it with anyone um you forgive and forget um i didn't realize that it was a cult until the police were like you were in a cult i was like what the fuck like i thought like you had like a cult leader and like yeah no your dad was the cult leader um i had no idea i just thought we just thought we just just like grew up in like a really weird house or something like that.

And you think like the people of the church were all a part of that too because they just kept it quiet? Oh yeah. They're now, I mean, you could Google some of the people. Several men in our church went to jail for that. Really? Several of them. And there are people who are all in leadership.

You know, you hear about that stuff in churches, but you don't like ever really know. There were girls that I'm like, oh my gosh, like I would have never known that she was going through that. Well, she, I mean, you know, how would anyone know? Right. It was hushed up by the church. There were, I want to say off the top of my head, I can think of four exact cases where molestation and child abuse were covered up by the church. They were handled in the church. The church believed in handling it within the church rather than legally because Bible law is like different than the real law.

So what did that mean, like for them handling it through the church? You're like basically grounded. Okay. You weren't allowed to be on the worship team. Handling it by the church just meant like, we're not going to talk to you for a few weeks. That's literally it. Yeah. There was no punishment.

There was no shame for them. All these men got away with it until their kids were old enough to say, you know what? I really don't think that's right. And it's so crazy just to Google and be like, yep, could have guessed that. Right. Some of them were a surprise to me, and then some of them weren't. But yeah, no. The church had no intentions on, you know, like in movies where stuff like that happens.

And it's always like one of the leaders of the church. Like, what do they really do? What do they do? they never get arrested for it ever. I mean, to this day, some of them still haven't. And it's also really hard because coming forward is one of the hardest things to do because you know it will affect other people.

There are so many families in my church that I would love to just literally tell them to go fuck themselves. Yeah. Because I know that they knew and they did nothing. Right. You know, people that I told myself. And then there are people who had no idea for a fact, but they had like an inkling. And those people, one specific family, the mallors, they were so sweet. we literally went to their house every chance we could get.

So their daughter was also homeschooled. They were actual guardian angels to us. They were the sweetest family. They would take us on like many like family vacations just like neighboring states and stuff. But they were so sweet. And in the end, I wondered why we stopped being allowed to go to their house. Well, in the end, that's because their dad. was the one who told on my dad.

Got it. He found out. I never knew that until I was an adult. I was like, why can't I be friends with her anymore? Well, we just, we won't talk about that. So being an adult and learning to now cope with some of those things, there has been so much guilt. We all still felt like we needed to be friends with our parents and be friends with these people and respect these people.

My one sister, Annie, had the hardest time with it. She just couldn't hack regular life at all. She got married and she had two kids, but her deprecurial. Depression was so bad. All the time we talked about wanting to talk about the stuff that happened to us and wanting to share our story. You know, abuse is one thing, mental abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, but all of it happening all of the time. Like every day, it does something to you. You become desensitized. and I've always kind of looked at it as like when people say that time heals all wounds,

I fully believe that that's not true. You just have to get used to it or become mentally stronger to handle the pain. It doesn't just like heal because even looking back on all of that stuff, it is so hard to talk about. And for some reason, we carry shame for it. Like we feel embarrassed that these things happen to us. It's embarrassing being feeling uneducated and then going into public school and high school. That is embarrassing because you are far behind on your learning curves.

You don't know how to communicate with kids. Obviously kids were mean and bullied us. I mean, we're probably weird. But we just. didn't know how to function normally and she came out as an adult so she was abused her whole life went to jail for a year and then boom is 18 and is just supposed to know how to live my parents didn't believe in therapy everything that was an issue was a demon and my dad had to perform an exorcism on us.

So, and the church, you know, they call it deliverance. It is what modern day people would call an exorcism. Lots of screaming and puking and demons coming out of people just openly. You know, so he would do that, like, to you guys? Yeah. Yeah. Now, mind you, even though we were like, you know, whatever, like, I'm not an actor. So he would be like praying for me.

I'm like, why am I not convulsing like everyone else? Right. Yeah, no. Like spiritual things were like a huge part of that, you know? You could feel spirits, you could see spirits. All of that is fine. But again, at my age, I'm just told these things. I don't really know what the heck's happening.

And like if, again, if we did something wrong, like my mom would say that she was delivered from a spirit of nail biting. That is to the extent that, like, exorcism slash, you know, deliverance happened. Now, yeah, I personally didn't buy into it to a certain extent because I would feel nothing. Like, they would pray for me and I'm like, am I, like, this is something supposed to be happening? I feel nothing. But that was normal. Now, if you tell people like, yeah, you had an exorcism last week, they're like, what the fuck?

Right. But that also comes out in the, like, functioning as an adult. We believed in some, like, weird-ass shit, and we went through some weird-ass shit. Like, submission was a huge part of what women are taught in this type of Christianity. You are to submit to your parents. You are to submit to your spouse. You don't get to make decisions. Essentially, you are to be seen, not heard.

you know, all the way down to like the way that we dressed. Anytime that we would leave the house, my dad would check what we were wearing. If our pants were too tight, we had to change them, and he would rip them. He would burn them. If he thought we were looking in the mirrors too much, he would smash our mirrors because we couldn't be vain. We had to be like perfect, like pretty, but not too pretty, but also only for his eyes. I remember him finding out that me and my little sister had crushes on these boys at church.

He, I don't know how the fuck he found out. I have no idea. I think a parent at church said it jokingly. He came home and beat the shit out of us with zero proof or evidence. We didn't do anything. He just beat us for having crushes. I mean, we did have crushes on them. So, you know, it wasn't what it was.

But, yeah, just for something that simple. Like something that any kid would be giddy over and just like a normal feeling as you're growing up. Yep. We were extremely sexually shamed, you know. My parents felt very strongly, especially about like your sexuality, like you're straight. Anything else is a sim. Well, surprise for all bisexual jokes on that. Well, I almost be like, too.

I really do believe that when you're raised and taught one way so harshly as you get older, you want the complete opposite of that. Yeah. So I think that I do think that in so many things that plays a role in people's lives because you don't have the free will to make decisions and find out things on your own. So when you finally get that chance, it's like, well, I want nothing to do with that. Give me the complete opposite. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And even just like re-learning like love and how to like like what love was. And I know it's such like a cliche way to say it. But for us growing up, love meant obsession. So we go out and we start trying to date, right? Like we should know how to do at least some of this by now. But love to us was a crazy. toxic, wild, abusive love.

So for me, the majority of my relationships, I was in long-term relationships, but I dated a compulsive liar and cheater. I dated two guys who physically abused me. I dated one guy who mentally abused me and pulled out a gun on me. And you know what I wanted to do? Stay with them. What can I do to make you stay with me? Because clearly I'm not enough and I'm doing something wrong but that's because I was trained to do that if if I am getting abused by someone that's because I did something wrong and I could even know that it's abuse but in my head it's because I did something wrong what can I do and I all of us struggled with that um I I know my brother struggled on a different end to where he's like, I don't want to become like my father.

We all kind of did. We all did. But as a boy, that was something that he was like, he wanted to do the exact opposite. He was never taught how to be a man, you know. He wasn't taught how to treat women, obviously. And we weren't taught how a man should treat us. So how are we as adults supposed to know, like, how to fall in love? It took me, I want to say I didn't realize it until I was like 26 years old, 25 years old, that I was obsessed with abusive relationships because of the way that I was raised.

It would be like, being in a good, healthy relationship was boring to me. Yeah. Because I'm like, well, he's not like obsessed with me. Like obviously he doesn't love me. And he did. It's just that's the right way to love. I would get bored if we weren't like fighting and smashing stuff, you know. And I feel like social media a lot of times romanticizes that as well.

You know, those crazy psycho relationships like, I don't know. But learning how to have healthy friendships and boundaries because boundaries didn't exist. You were physically abused. You were sexually abused. And you don't talk about your friends. feelings, we were always taught to stop crying. My dad would beat us like he did and then immediately be like, stop crying or I'll give you a reason to cry. Eventually you learn to stop crying. You learn to just sit there and take the beatings and you're taught to stop crying, you know.

He, uh, I think he broke my sister's wrist or something like that. Stop crying. I have a spinal fracture on my lower back, still to this day. But you can't cry about it. You can't do anything. It's fine that you literally can't breathe and you're like bleeding from your legs. But everything was shut off your emotions. So we still don't process things normally or in a healthy way. We've all done therapy, and it works for some, but not for all.

My older sister, Annie, tried therapy for years. She tried to be a good wife. She tried to be a mother. struggled with both of those things heavily. She tried therapy several times. She tried medication. She tried spiritual awakenings. She tried different religions.

She tried drugs. She tried alcohol. And unfortunately for her, literally nothing worked. Her whole adult life, she spent trying to kill herself. So we kind of always knew, I always knew, that that was going to happen. She, when she first tried, she took pills and she's home, I think, with her kids and her husband found her. She'd taken a bunch of pills. And I mean, not when she, not when she was. she first tried because she tried a lot when we were kids and teenagers too, but I just mean, like, as an

adult, and we all had to come to the hospital, and, you know, she was okay. She's tripping really bad, but I think she took, like, a full bottle of ibuprofen or something. But it's so weird how we all reacted to it because it wasn't a surprise, you know. I had tried to kill myself when I was a teenager and realized that that was not for me. I just wasn't going to go out that way. And I think all of us kind of just learn to sort of grit through the pain and just accept it. Except for her, she couldn't do it. She just, most of her adult life, she just wanted to be done. And that is so hard because of the bond that you end up having with someone where you've gone through that stuff with, it's like unreal. Like how people talk about like twin tuition

and stuff. There is something about being with someone who you've had like several near-death experiences with or being tortured with that, you know, you'd, you know, No one else will ever understand what you've been through. Being tortured side by side with someone, it's like no one will understand. No one was there. No one will get it the way that you do. And she struggled. It was hard for her to be around other people.

She was such a, like, she's a very strong personality. And she was beautiful. and so talented. Like she could sing, she could dance, she was a gymnast. She could do anything and everything. I mean, she literally, the day we figured out she could paint was like the first day she painted. She could just paint.

She was really good at it. Super talented. She was a performer. She could do anything and everything like extraordinary, but she could not do anything that normal people could do. She couldn't keep a job. She couldn't love her kids and her husband the way that she wanted to. She couldn't have normal friendships or relationships, and it ended up destroying her. She, I want to say it was about two years ago. She started drinking really heavily. And this is where we all knew that we were like, yeah, she's certainly trying to kill herself for sure.

Like, that's what it was. She had tried to kill herself several times, but, like, couldn't quite bring herself to do it. And we knew that this was her, like, long-term solution to something she had wanted to do for years. and we had tried to talk to her about seeing a therapist again, but again, she had tried everything. I was going to ask, did she reach out to you guys a lot to try to talk to you guys, or did she, like, kind of shut off? Nope, we all talked all the time.

That was one thing that, like, we are so close. So we knew. We knew what it was. but when someone has their mindset on that, you can't stop them from it. And she was hell-bent on making that her end. And we openly talked to her about it. We were like, hey, if you keep doing this, you are going to die. Like, think about your kids.

Think about, like, their future. But she no longer could live for any other reason. Like when you come into this world, you come into this world by yourself. And living for other people and for other people's happiness, it's not for everyone. Some people can pull through painful situations for the sake of others. But all she had known her whole life was misery. And, you know, she was diagnosed with several like mental illnesses. And, you know, the doctors thought she may have been like, what's the appropriate way to say it?

Like multiple personality disorder? She definitely had manic bipolar depression. And she had been on medications, but she hated them. She hated the way that they made her feel. And I know that that's a fear that a lot of people have when it comes to getting medicated is you literally try so many until you find the right one. and until you find the right one, they will fuck you up. You know, they make it worse. I mean, that's literally on the label.

So for her, she wasn't willing to try anymore. So within that last year, she started doing things like going on like benders, I guess, so to speak. She would get super drunk and disappear, sometimes for days. And luckily, we were friends with a lot of the local ones. police so we just call them up and say you know hey she's gone again will you help us find her and i remember one day we we thought it was was going to be the day and they found her car but they didn't find her and it was in a weird bad neighborhood and um uh they found her she's at a stranger's house that she met at a gas station um she's just super drunk still um and i remember her

talking to her and being like, you have got to stop this. You have got to get better. Like, what can we do to make you get better? She had been diagnosed with alcoholism at the time. And I remember her asking if she could detox at my house. And, you know, anything that we can do to make her better was going to be what we were all willing to do. But it's hard when you know that getting better isn't what she really wanted. So we would say, hey, you could come do this. And she's just like, no, I'm okay. You know, there wasn't anything that she was willing to do to help herself.

Yeah. Because she had her mindset on something already. I remember talking to her one day. And she, um, she, um, she, told me that she loved me and that she was super proud of me and that she um she just called me just to tell me that you know she's just like I'm super proud of you and I love you and I'm so happy with um like everything that you you know you're doing and this was and maybe this was like mid-December um and i had like you know moved to a new town and bought a house and got a new job and

she was like super proud of me um and then not maybe a couple days later because she had been in and out of the hospital now for alcoholism she had liver failure but she kept leaving the hospital um and I remember I went to see her we met up like halfway because basically she lived at the top of the state I lived at the bottom of the state you met in the middle and I saw her and she looked awful I was terrified for her so with alcoholism your liver swells and so she looked pregnant She's a super thin girl, you know, smaller than me. And her stomach was super swollen. Her legs and everything, like she had really bad, like water retention, so she was super swollen.

And her skin and her eyes were all jaundiced. So they were like highlighter yellow eyes. She looked scary. And I remember being terrified for her. And I hung out with her. We went to the mall. She was super embarrassed to go to the mall, but she wanted to go. So we went and I bought her some stuff.

We just hung out and she went back home. And I remember calling my mom immediately after. And I was like, guys, I don't think you understand. She's going to die. But she refused to go back to the hospital. And then we got a call. I was at work. I kind of knew

I talked to her two days before and told her she was going to die and I told her that I loved her and actually one of my sisters had just had a baby too and she was supposed to come and see the baby for the first time and she decided not to come so none of us got to see her

but yeah I talked to to her two days before and we got in a little bit of an argument because I was mad at her for giving up, you know? That was like something that we were proud of was like our battle scars. Like we had gotten out of that place on our own like no one helped us and, you know, we were all going to make it. But she was choosing to give up. And at this time she'd lived out of her car and she was just kind of doing whatever, just essentially just to get alcohol really. And I got a call that she had died,

and my initial reaction was I was so mad at her. I was pissed. Is he you fucking kidding me? Like I had told her and told her and told her and told her and begged her to do better. And she just, she couldn't. My initial reaction was just angry at her for not getting better. Because no matter what we said to her, even if it made sense,

she wasn't willing to do it because in her heart it's not what she wanted. and this was kind of where the tables had turned for my parents and for our church. Mind you, I'd stopped going to my church when I moved out when I was 16, never looked back. Some of the people who showed up and the way that my parents acted after this was like disgusting. It was like her funeral was a meet and greet, and everyone was just there to hang out. My parents held no responsibility for this. They still, to this day, my dad had her number blocked when she died because she wanted to call him and talk to him, but because they didn't agree on religious views,

they, he didn't want to talk to her. He had her number blocked. But then when she died, all of a sudden, they're just like, oh, my poor sweet daughter. I remember talking to my mom and being like, hey, can we at least talk to you about our childhood? I would love for this door to be closed and for things to be better. I had, when I moved out, gone on like a hiatus from talking to my dad, we all did.

you know like fuck that guy um and funnily enough that's not a real word i got it don't we i actually went to um this one church where they had like an a-a program and i'd never done drugs or alcohol in my life but they need someone to teach it so i taught an a-a meeting to some of the nicest ladies and then i found out that they actually had like a sexual abuse program for women who had been sexually abused. So I decided to go through that and they kind of treated it the same as like an AA meeting where you get your chips and you go through the steps and I had decided to like fully and completely forgive my dad for everything. I mean at this point nothing could be done right. It was more like you had to do that for yourself. Yep. I had to just sort of give it all up and

I had tried to be his friend again. Talk to him every now and again, see him on his birthday, whatever. My older sister couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. She just, for her, she had a different memory of everything because she's so much older.

If she didn't move out until she was 22, she was still being physically and sexually abused into her 20s. Like, I understand that that's a grudge she was willing to hold for the rest of her life. And he's not even her father. But, you know, having a relationship with my dad when we were older just kind of became exhausting because everything to him was like, so how's your spiritual life? How are you doing with the Lord? So he really just held on to the religious thing whenever I heard.

Yes, that was all he could do was hold on. on to the religious side of things. Well, after my sister died, I had a conversation with him. Because things just didn't sit right with me that she had a miserable ass life fully because of them her entire life. And she died when she was 29 years old. Was never given a shot. I mean, my parents like to say that she had ample opportunity to change and do good.

She's an adult. She's making her own decisions. But what about your decisions? What about your decisions as an adult that you chose to make that you don't want to talk about, you know? And the church never saying anything, ever. I will say that our pastor at the time he never knew. Like the actual pastor of the church never knew. It was covered out by other people who were like involved in, I'm not going to say, but certain leadership roles.

And he did come to us much later when he found out. And like on his knees cried and was like, do you want to go to the police? What are you guys going to do? And at the time, I would nothing to do with it. I was bitter. I was like, no, you want to go to the police now? I'm done. I didn't know.

He didn't know. But, yeah, I decided that I just felt so uncomfortable after the funeral. And they were just like acting like a happy couple. And even people in the church who at this point now have like chosen to not talk to them because now it's like out. And everything that happened to us was out in the church so people knew. they just acted like it wasn't a big deal. At her funeral, seeing some of the people from my old church came in, I was out.

I was like, nope, I'm not here for you to give me your condolences. I don't care. You know, we did at my sister's funeral meet my siblings and like our closest friends. The place that it was held at, there was like an old, not like a kitchen, but it was like it used to be a restaurant in the back. We went in the back of the restaurant got hammered. It's like, I can't do this. Right. We just wanted to be with each other, the people who we know truly and genuinely loved my sister.

Yeah, and cared. Yeah. The only people that we invited, baby, were like her closest friends and two of her high school teachers who were absolute like saviors to her. like really genuinely good people. But my parents invited some of their friends who didn't even know her. Right. Totally random people. My mom's like, come meet these people, sweetie.

Yeah. Why? They didn't know her. And I'm not that person at a funeral. I remember when my grandma passed, no. I hung out in the gym and played basketball. Yeah. I don't want to talk to people.

Right. I don't want people to say that they're sorry for my loss. It makes me extremely unconsored. comfortable. And maybe that's another thing of like me not processing things normally. But all of us felt the same way. At my sister's funeral, we were pissed. Yeah. We, yeah, we sat in the back. We all got super drunk, talked to each other, reminisced about, you know, whatever good times we had together, talked about her. And, like, that was the real funeral for us. Because we know that's what she would have

wanted. Yeah. And you knew that all the siblings, like, truly had each other's back. Yep. And, um, I mean, even her husband, he had gone, you know, things were a doozy for him. They had two little girls together. Yeah. And it was hard for him because she was gone a lot. Obviously, she was living in her car. She was off doing, you know, whatever. And he was still such a good friend to her, a great father to her kids, and so none of us wanted anything to do with anyone out there. So I remember talking to my dad on the phone after she died and asking him if we could talk about it. Can we please talk about it?

For years since we'd moved out, I had wanted to just get everything out. Can we now finally discuss the things that you did to us? Can we finally discuss the religious, the sexual and the physical and the mental abuse? Can we finally talk about it? And that was the absolute worst conversation I've ever had with anyone in my entire life. He called me a liar. I started naming some of the things that happened to us. I was like, do you remember pulling a knife out on Harmony and Anthony?

Okay, so we were little kids, couldn't have possibly done anything that bad. I don't know what we could have possibly done, but I remember him pulling a knife out on my brother and sister, and I remember me and my little sister making the mental decision that if he was going to stab them, mind you, I think I was like eight and she was six, so children. We were like, if he's going to stab them, we are going to grab the butcher knife in that drawer and kill him. I was fully ready to kill my father in self-defense at eight years old. My dad's like, he's like, I pulled knives out on you guys just to scare you.

It was just a scare tactic because I wanted you guys to listen. I'm like, what about beating us with a two by four? He's like, I didn't do that. It was a one by four. I'm like, no, I remember that. You broke that one. You know, one of my siblings. I don't remember.

So just like totally dismissing it. Oh, everything. Me bringing up the extension cord. He's like, I didn't beat you guys with the extension cord. Trust me, I was there. Yeah. Like, trust me, you did. And all of the things that we had talked to,

about over years and years and years. We had brought this stuff up to each other, like the siblings. We all remember that stuff extremely well. You really just don't forget those things. He was dismissing everything. And, you know, threatening to break our necks or break our arms or break our legs if we did something. I started bringing up the details.

This time, on this day, you did this. Do you remember that? He started, like I said, calling me a liar. And then he's like, you want to bring up my sins? I'll bring up yours. You slept with a boy. You slept with your boyfriend or whatever. I was like, ooh.

God forbid I sleep with my boyfriend. But to him, I was like, I'm not discussing sins. I'm discussing crimes. Right. Abuse. Yeah. Absolutely refused. And I was like, I just want you to take a.

little bit of the weight of why my sister died. And he's like, I'm supposed to feel bad for some dead girl? I was like, no. No, no, no, no, no. Hung up on him, called my siblings, scheduled a meeting to speak with a detective. Come to find out after speaking to the police. and this was just in April when we spoke to the police. People had tried to come forward two other times about my father.

He had sexually abused other people, not just the people in my immediate family. Other people from our church had come forward and said, this man sexually abused me. And they were talked out of it. They had full statements of other people, and they were talked out of it. He was like, yeah, I don't.

don't know why. I'm so sorry that you guys' cases were mishandled over the years. They had the CPS calls, the police, you know, being called to our house. They had everything. We had a, we had a file. Who knew I had a file at the police station? Nope. We. Did they ever tell you, like, why they didn't act on it or it just? All I was given was that I wasn't on the force back I've figured it would be something like that, yeah. Which. Because you would think in a normal, I don't even want to say perfect world, in a normal world, that if children are in that kind of situation, the first thought would be save the children.

You know what I mean? But again, it's just a case of we were never going to get out of there. Right. No one was ever going to save us. Not the police, obviously, not the church. what what do you do so finally as an adult i'm like i googled the statute of limitations it's like how long does it last um and luckily i was within two years so it's like okay um that was one of the hardest and scariest things i've ever done because why do i feel guilty about turning in my

abusers after that long. Why do I feel bad about it? I'm like, oh, well, he's going to lose his job. And well, yeah, he's going to be in jail. But why do I feel guilty? Well, I think too, like, and you already mentioned this also, but they raised you to have that guilt and that shame and to ultimately blame yourself. And at the end of the day, I think people are taught always respect your parents, always love your parents. And at the end of the day, if you're a good person, you're going to have some sort of care because that's your parents, you know, biologically. So I think that because you're a good person, that's why you had those feelings of like of guilt in some way, you know? It just stopped becoming about like what would happen to them and more at this point now

about like we should have done this years ago. Why did it take my sister dying for this to happen? Yeah. Because again, she was never given a chance. She was never like mental illness, whether some people think that you're born with it because it's a chemical imbalance or whether it's something that you develop because of trauma either way.

My parents, it's on them. Yeah. It's fully on them. And, you know, the stuff that she went through, the stuff that we all went through, we should feel no guilt for it because it has nothing to do with us not being good enough or not being able to handle things. If we have like, I think a lot of people kind of carry like guilt about mental illnesses, like, oh, something's wrong with me. But especially in our case, it's not about something being wrong with us. We would,

We're, I mean, shoot, it just makes sense for us to have some of those issues. So, like, the guilt that I hold for saying something about my parents, it's like, I don't want anything to happen to them. I mean, I don't want to see something bad happen to them, but at the same time, how can you look us in the eyes? Like my dad saying what he said, like I'm supposed to feel. bad for some dead girl, your daughter? Yes, you are. And the refusal to admit things and it never coming out. And at this point, it's one of those things that just needed to be done.

Yeah. We all went into the rooms and spoke to the detectives. So all the siblings? Yeah. Okay. And the detectives were, um, were, like floored with the details. You know, we shared with him all of the sexual details.

We shared with him all of the physical details, the mental abuse. And he was like, this is the biggest case of molestation and, like, sexual and physical abuse that we have ever seen. He's like, I've been on the force for 20 years because of how many people involved, you know? And he's like, and the fact that we have all of these. records and all this stuff and nothing has ever been done. Like the, I never realized the weight of the situation, like hearing him say, no, this is a cult. The isolation, keeping you guys away from people when you are kids, the mental abuse, the biblical, like, using scripture to train

you a certain way, using, you know, the fear of God essentially. If we were to think the wrong thing, God's going to kill us at any minute. Like literally we thought that. Yeah. All of that, he's like, that's what cults do. They brainwash you into believing that either something physical or like a spiritual being, something will happen to you if you don't do like X, Y, Z. So me understanding that it's literally just like a way to keep.

you mentally bound to these beliefs with using fear. Like, it's, I mean, they were like, you guys are brainwashed. I mean, like I said, as an adult, I kind of knew that now, because you talk to other people and they're like, yeah, that's not normal. But, yeah, I guess kind of like now towards the end of everything, It's just kind of like learning how to cope with things, being okay and accepting of the fallout. It's okay to not be friends with family who are toxic. That is something that I realize so many people struggle with is I'm like, why are you still friends with your dad if he talks to you like that?

And they're like, well, like, what if something happens to him? we all have to be accepting and okay with that, you know, but if someone in your life, especially your parents, is extremely toxic, for some reason the kids always feel guilty, like, oh, they're just, like, it's just, like, it's how they were raised or it's just like their beliefs or they're old. I've learned that I can't accept that for me. I wouldn't want my kids to be, you know, in these people's lives,

especially with church too. If you are at like a church or a school and you see a kid showing like showing up to school with bruises all over them or your son comes up and is like, hey, you know, John in class next to me had bruises all over him. You don't not say something. Yeah. And I mean, that's why like from the beginning I was like, this is not a happy story. It's not like something that's like nice to talk about, but at least. maybe it will like open people's eyes to these things, you know. Yeah.

It's okay to question your religion if you feel like something is off. It's okay to confide in people, especially if someone's pressuring you not to talk about something, maybe you should talk about it to someone. I cried less than I thought it would. Well, okay, no, you did great. You seriously did. You did amazing. So what's with their parents now?

What happened after you told the detective? To be determined. So it's all, because it's all so recent. Mm-hmm. So did your parents have either one of them ever said sorry? Something that frustrates me. My dad, no. Okay.

Not at all. Absolutely not. I mean, he'll admit to it. He actually told me if he had to do it all again, he would do it all again. I was told that they were considering adopting. God forbid. Horrible. And that's another reason why you have to say something,

you have to do something about it, because, oh my God, if they ever got to adopt. Something that frustrates me that my mom says is, I'm sorry for not leaving when I should have. Are they still together? Okay, right. So that holds a lot of meaning behind her words, right? I'm sorry for not is not at all what I want to hear. I want to hear, I'm sorry for holding you down while he beat you. Or I'm sorry for consistently choosing him over you guys. Don't tell me what you're sorry for not doing.

Tell me what you're sorry for that you actually did. Yeah. Because that's not a true apology. That's just you feeling. feelings of regret. If you're sorry for the things that you did, then you would acknowledge the things that you did. She will never, ever admit out of her own mouth that he was a pedophile. She won't say it. She refuses to say it, which blows my mind because, I mean, I don't know how you look at it any other way, like the textbook definition touching little kids, but and another thing that frustrates me is, so a job that my dad has. So a job that my dad had, he worked with one of my ex-boyfriend's best friends. And obviously, the guy was dating at the time,

I shared with him some of the stories. And he was like, no, all. Like, you know, my friend works with him. Yeah. His nickname at work was Smiley. He's the nicest guy ever. Well, he's got you fooled, right? It's just a kick in the stomach because it's like, and I mean, luckily at this point, the stuff in the church came out, they don't have the same leadership, a lot of the people were fired, they cleaned house, I will still never go back, ever. But even legally, I'm not going to say anything, but even legally, like these people could lose their licenses. Yeah.

Like, people came to you in trusting for you to do something. And if you, again, if you just look, if you just Google the list of names of men in the church who had sexually abused their kids, do you feel no guilt? Even the kids at my church, we were bullied bad. Like at school I was called the N-word bothered me less The kids at church, that hurt They called

We called us all sorts of names And mocked us Even like our youth leaders I have youth leaders Literally you guys can kick rocks It's your job To protect these kids And teach them to become something

And to be fine Yeah And instead, they're just catty. You know? We look different. We act different. They, we were just treated poorly. I remember them sitting us down one time and being like, we just want to talk to you about, like, we just feel like there's a problem.

That was when I was like old enough to have a mouth on me. And I was like, well, yeah, I just feel like you guys, like, treat us like shit and you don't like us. So sorry that I'm not super nice to you. Right. but we were always treated like we were the problem. And even in my sister's funeral, the people who had the audacity to show up and the people who said nothing. Right.

This blows your mind. Absolutely. Because what is church supposed to be but like a community of people who care about you? That's not what it was for them. I mean, my one sister, Annie, was bullied so bad, but they had to literally sit down several parents to discuss some of the stuff that was happening. Like, it was awful.

Like, literal, like, movie-type mean-girl stuff. And just, like, the trash talk and calling her names and things, it's like, but all those kids just all got to move on, you know, nothing ever. Like, they're all fine. They're living great lives. My sister's not alive. Yeah.

And there are no consequences for the things that happened to us. That's my thing. Everything that happened to us, everyone got away with it. Right, it was just brushed under the rug. Yeah. Yeah. So do your parents know, both of them, know that you all went to the police and the detectives, or no? Yeah.

Yeah. So do you currently, as of today, have any type of relationship with either of them? Not my dad. Okay. My mom, it's, I feel, I know we all feel like differently about her. It's hard to, because I also view her as like a victim to a certain extent because we were fucked up mentally. Like, and the way that we were isolated, she was isolated.

the way she was biblically trained and by all the people around her. What these things do to you is they like rewrite your moral compass to no longer go by like normal morals and law, you go by biblical. Well, yeah, they literally like slaughtered women, children, and babies. Of course things are going to be a little off. But they teach you that it's okay because it's in the Bible. It's all right. So for her, I still view. her as pre-washed.

Yeah. Like, we never celebrated Christmas or Easter because they're pagan holidays. So while all the other kids are talking about all the stuff they got for Christmas, we got nothing. And when we grew up a little bit and moved out, we started doing those things. I remember decorating my first Christmas tree. I was 16. and my parents separated for a couple of years during that time and my mom would do those things with us but the moment she went back with him, she didn't do them anymore.

She went right back, reverted right back to all of the old things that she did because biblically it was her job as a dutiful wife. So I do still talk to her. She knows that we went to the police and she knows how we feel about things. but she's choosing to stay by his side through everything. So that kind of like, it almost makes you feel like you have to choose. Yeah.

So, because, again, she was abused as well. But then, like, do you hate her for standing by and letting it, allowing everything to happen? Or do you also view her as a victim and feel bad for her that she literally cannot break out of it? Right. I don't know. Yeah. Well, no, I think that, first off, I'm so sorry that all of that happened to you, and I'm sorry about your sister.

But I think that it takes for all of the siblings so much courage to find, you know, like, yeah, you can look at it now and be like we should have done this sooner, but you're doing it now. You know what I mean? And sometimes it takes the right time and a lot of time to come to terms with everything to really know, like, okay, now I'm ready to speak about this and share it. make a change and make something happen, you know? And absolutely, you know, your parents, they shouldn't be able to adopt, obviously. So it's like by you doing this, there's a big chance that maybe you're preventing

somebody else from going through this. And even the fact of you knowing that there were other victims outside of your family, like this in a way might give them justice as well. You know, and I think that, you know, nothing of your past can be changed. And it's unfortunate because you may never get the closure from your father,

that you long for and they honestly you deserve because even though it doesn't change anything, that might help you within yourself that he would finally just truly say he's sorry. And you might not get that from that kind of person, which is terrible and it sucks. But once again, it's just another thing you might have to come to terms with. But I think that by you speaking out today, like you and all of your siblings, it just, it shows a lot about you all and your character and your strength and your courage because if you really look back, you guys went from really not knowing anything and not having the education and not knowing normal versus what you're taught. And, you know, but you still were able

to come to a point to be like, this is wrong and we're going to speak up about it. So I feel like that's something that's so important to recognize that you guys were all, you know, as a group, able to get to that point. You know what I mean? So that's huge. And I feel like it, you know, even if somebody might not directly relate to your story. There could be so many people that have gone through, you know, mental or physical or sexual abuse that might not have felt comfortable enough to speak out about it. And maybe they didn't feel ready. But now after hearing your story, they might feel like, wow, that was the support and

courage that I needed to hear from someone else, you know? So I feel like you have to realize that you might even now coming on here on the podcast and sharing it. It's like you might be helping people that have completely. completely different stories than you, you know? And I think that that's something really amazing that you should be proud of. And even to the point that you're at, I feel like that you were able, even if you were 16, you said, right, when you got out of it, that you were able to get out of it, you know, and you are making something of yourself. And I just think that there's a lot that

you should be proud of. And I know that, like I said, nothing can change the past. But it's there and it's made, it's going to, going to continue to make you stronger and to be a voice for other people. to help people, you know? Yeah, there's definitely positive sides to that. It's hard to see them. Like, don't get me wrong. I definitely think, unfortunately, the negatives are a lot more, you know, clear than the positives. But I think that in, at least right now in your life, you can start maybe thinking of

the positives of what, you know, you can continue to do for yourself and for your siblings and for others. Because there really, there really isn't any positives of the past at all, you know? And there's, like I said, there's going to be things that you may never get the closure that you want. But at least now going forward, it's like I can do this to slightly, you know, take this, this horrible negative thing that happened to me and my siblings and speak about it and be open about it and get the justice that we deserved then. You know what I mean?

And hopefully get that for ourselves now and for other people, you know? So I feel like that's somewhat of a way to kind of look at it, you know, bring some sort of light to it. But no, I think that, I think, like I said, it just takes so much, so much courage and strength that come on here and share that. And thank you so much for wanting to speak about your story because I know it had to be really, really hard. And I can't even imagine. We have talked about wanting to talk about it for years. Yeah. And never thought we'd get the chance.

And, yeah, thank you for having me and giving me the opportunity to share it. Because literally it's something that I know my sister would be so proud of. Yeah. Well, you did amazing, really. And honestly, I just, you know, I know that I feel like I can see from when I met you before. And even now, like I just feel like you're such a positive person. At least that's the energy that you give off, you know. So I feel like I believe and know that you're going to go really far places.

and you should be really, really proud of yourself as a person, really. Thank you. Of course, of course. Thank you.