Today I want to share an excerpt from a new memoir I happened upon last week written by cult survivor Charity Rissler titled “Where the Willow Weeps: The Inside Story of Growing Up in a Cult, and how I Found Freedom in Christ.” I’d never heard of this cult called “The...
A 16-yr-old created this art project for high school. It had to be made out of a book and relevant to the book. She chose the Bible, and made this piece as a commentary on how it has been used to persecute women. As a survivor of a fundamentalist cult and now an...
Freedom Day 2020 Five years ago today, I began my journey out of a cult. I walked into a counselors office for the first time in my life and asked for help. I didn’t fully understand what kind of trauma I had endured; after all, it was my “normal.” I began the...
Never in my life have I read a more impactful book. After many of my fellow plaintiffs had read and recommended this book to me after its release in September, I finally downloaded the audio version this week and began to listen. I was not prepared for how it would...
Three Not-So-Small Words Last night was a difficult one for me. In my dreams I was once again haunted by memories of my former cult leader and his actions which stole my childhood innocence. As I finally rose from my bed at noon I felt so much heaviness over me. But...
“There was some truth mixed with the heresy.” “Some good came out of it.” “Some people were helped.” I hear these phrases all the time about the cult I was raised in. People try to convince me that I shouldn’t walk away completely; that somehow the small bits of truth...
Emotional abuse IS physical abuse. I was dying for most of my teenage years. I mean literally, in a hospital, 73 pounds, not enough blood running through my veins, dying. When I was 13 years old I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The doctor said it was the worst...
Spiritual abuse is quickly becoming a buzz word nowadays, but I think few people realize just how prevalent it can be. Let’s look at a covert example of spiritual abuse I recently encountered, shall we? As I was reading the first chapter of James this morning, I came...
Ever since I announced on my Social Media that I am writing a book about my #cult and #metoo story, I’ve received a lot of criticism. I’ve been told that I must not really be free, or that I haven’t really forgiven, or else I wouldn’t be so stuck in the past. But...
What an incredible week — I will never forget it. After fighting constant legal battles against him for the last three years, today I, along with six fellow victims, finally went up against our former cult leader, Bill Gothard, during a dramatic day-long hearing in...