BBTB - ATBS w/ Scholar of Cults Daniella Mestyanek Young 
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We are honored to share this conversation with you today. We are joined by cult scholar, Daniela Mestjanek Young, and we break down some of former storyteller Mandy's story through Daniela's expert eyes. If you have not listened to Mandy's story yet, now is the time to do that. You can hear it on episode 57.

For today, we want to start out by giving you all the trigger warnings. This episode contains topics pertaining to sexual abuse, assault, pedophilia, suicide, child abuse, and coercive control. If any of those topics are topics that you need to pause or skip this episode for, now is a good time to do that.

Don't miss out on our show notes. Today we will have links to Daniela's book as well as her socials. Her socials are [00:02:00] full of amazing content, super educational, and she's also just super fun to watch. So go give her a follow right now. And with that, I'm Jonna Harris, and this is At the Bus Stop by the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast.

Hello, and welcome to a super special episode of At the Bus Stop by the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast. Today we have. Daniela Mestinek Young, who is a scholar of cults and really educated on how to tell us about bad, controlling, coercive leadership in general. She's also an incredible knitter. I think that's a key, key thing, key aspect of who you are.

She is currently knitting something epic over there as we're doing this interview. So welcome, Daniela. Thank 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: you so much for having me. And I'm knitting. A tiny [00:03:00] Taylor Swift karma jacket for a tiny Swifty. Oh, that's 

Johnna: so fun. That's amazing. I would be like remiss to also not point out that you're an author of a book called Uncultured, and I am almost done with it right now.

It details her experience in the and then As she navigated going into the greater world outside of that, and then into the army. So it is a fantastic book. It's extremely hard. I'm gonna put like a million trigger warnings on that for listeners who have experienced any plethora of abuses. I think that probably all of them are hit in your book, unfortunately.

But I'm so grateful for it and I've learned so much just through reading your book. So again, thank you. Well, that's 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: really the best compliment that a reader can ask for, you know, is that somebody else learns stuff from their story and their pain. So I really appreciate that. 

Johnna: Thank you. [00:04:00] Well, We brought you in today for a very specific reason.

Many of our listeners will know that we recently had a story on Mandy's story, and that story in particular felt like it hit different for Jay and I. It actually took us about over a year to put that episode out. When we first got that phone call from Mandy, Jay and I didn't even know if we were equipped to help share that story or honor it in the way that it deserved because it felt different, like I said, than our normal wheelhouse.

So over the course of a year, we really wrestled through details and how to, how to make this story something that people could fathom or understand on some level. And even with that, I think Mandy did an incredible job. There were still pieces where I was like, this needs... An expert. This needs someone who understands these dynamics that can really start piecing together questions that listeners may have.

Or even, I mean our hope is that [00:05:00] people inside of Mandy's former religious space are listening and so we want to give them tools and an educated voice to start breaking down what happened in that story. So that is why Daniela so graciously offered to come and talk to us today. 

Jay: Daniella, did you get a chance to listen to Mandy's episode?

What were your 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: thoughts? I did, you know, and Jonna, I really liked what you said because I have found that we best recognize coercive control in our own life when we recognize it in parallel contexts. So For example, if Mandy were just to say, Oh, I was in this cult, or when I say, you know, I was born and raised in the world's most notorious sex cult, that's like very put off, put offing to people, you know, because they're like, Oh, wow, I can't relate to that.

But when we actually walk through the story, you know, and Mandy herself [00:06:00] would probably have put herself on the opposite spectrum of. a Children of God experience. But when I was listening to Mandy's story, I was like, yep, this is, sounds exactly like the Children of God. Like nothing in her story surprised me, even the smallest bit.

Jay: And for context, can you maybe explain a little bit about what the Children of God was and they're still around, correct? In some form 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: or fashion? Yes. Yes. So the Children of God was one of your late sixties, early seventies. Sort of startup cults, um, that, you know, the interesting thing is we actually see cults pop up during times of social turmoil.

So we saw it 60s and 70s in America, 80s Europe and Asia, 90s Latin America, and the Children of God kind of followed all of that. And so did my family. So started in California recruiting hippies, uh, when things heated up for cults in America. After you have your Manson [00:07:00] murders and Jonestown, he, our prophet, suddenly gets the revelation that everyone needs to go abroad.

And the way I describe Children of God is it's your typical run of the mill, very conservative, controlling, evangelical Christianity, which is the tradition he came out of. His mother was an evangelical revivalist in Florida in the 30s. And then all he did His unique value proposition, if you're in the cult of entrepreneurship, was he took that control of sex that you have in purity culture and he flipped it, right?

And he called it free love. I call it forced polyamory. Everyone had to sleep with everyone. And eventually he started using religious prostitution, using women of the group to use their sexuality to gain followers and money, and then really started into some [00:08:00] terrible beliefs on what I have termed pedophilia for God.

These are the reasons why we really get called a sex cult. Now, the Children of God pulled a pretty incredible con because basically in the 80s they had had a lot of fame as a sex cult and then they, they stopped the religious prostitution. I will point out that they never stopped selling sexuality. But they stopped the religious prostitution and went very insular and they sort of rebranded completely as a just child trafficking, child exploitation organization, which something super important to understand is cults are always about labor.

Um, I couldn't even really understand my own experience until I heard a cult scholar say that. And you hear that in Mandy's story, too, how much volunteer time they wanted from them. Um, And so, you know, yeah, in the 80s, they were [00:09:00] known as the sex cults. And in the 90s, the Family International, as they had rebranded, performed twice at the White House.

Johnna: I have a question for you. Yes. There's a documentary on Netflix called The Family, I think. Is that different? Different cult. How many 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: families do we have? There's a lot of families. That is a Christian political cult that runs the National Prayer Breakfast. Definitely, if anyone's interested, watch that documentary, The Family.

And author Jeff Charlotte, who did that documentary has written another book called undertow the the coming of a slow civil war or something writing about sort of q and on MAGA America and what's going on. So super fascinating. And the family is a name used by almost 3000 cults that we know of. And what I like to say, Okay.

There's a lot of 

Johnna: families. Yeah, what 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: I like to say to my TikTok peeps is anything that calls itself your family is going to overwork you, [00:10:00] underpay you, and expect you to put up with more BS than you would otherwise. Right? And this familial language is a big part of what cults use to ultimately get your labor.

Jay: What's funny that you say about family is that's the term that's, that's used in And popular well in mainstream evangelicalism, 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: especially and in every startup in the country. Yeah. This is your 

Jay: family. Um, even, even in, you know, the traditions we come from, which are more Calvinist, uh, acts 29 SBC, those words are still used.

You know, this is your family. That's interesting. That's an 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: interesting point. Yeah. Well, I think the thing that we're going to. Walk away with at the end of this episode is that once you start deconstructing cults, you're going to realize that capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy are kind of all these cultic idea systems that we've all been under for a very long time.

That's 

Jay: fascinating. So you, you mentioned a little bit about, um. about the use of labor or [00:11:00] kids from the standpoint of the children of God. And then in Manny's episode, one of the things that really was too, there's a lot that stood out to me, but two things that really bothered me was the discipline of the children that took place, um, and how that was encouraged.

I would love to give your, get your insights on that and your perspective as you heard her share that. that bit about their church and how they disciplined kids? 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Um, yes, I would. And I will also say that for context, the children of God advocating spanking babies as young as six months old. Um, so did the ILBP evangelical church.

That was the focus of the documentary shiny, happy people that the Duggars were a part of. And, you know, extreme control of children is really important. in these cults. What stood out to me when Mandy was talking about it, even wasn't so much the discipline, but it's the expectation on these children [00:12:00] to be perfect and still and quiet.

And the way I describe, you know, growing up in the children of God is that the sexual abuse wasn't the worst. The physical abuse wasn't the worst. It was growing up with no spontaneous moments of joy, you know, and you could never kind of. break rank and be loud or be happy. Um, and it's something that we see in Waco, right?

The kids were commended on how they would sit for hours and listen to the, you know, David, this preacher talk and I really need broader society to understand that, like, those children are being abused. That's why they do that. You know, children do not sit quietly for hours unless they are very afraid.

And so they use discipline, of course, for that, right? But then a second and kind of more insidious thing is it's also used to break and control the [00:13:00] parents, right? So it was Mandy, you know, of course her daughter was the one being hit, but Mandy was also being very broken by it, right? As she's being forced to put aside every instinct that is screaming at her.

Not to do this, that her child has special needs, that there's all these things that what the people are saying is wrong and she is. thought stopping herself. Um, and this is a, a cult term, the thought stopping cliche, right? Which in this case could be You just need to spank her more, right? Which sort of became a thing with these kids in the cult and was very much true in the children of God.

There's a reason that I titled the first chapter in my book, spare the rod, spoiled the child. Um, cause you know, people really need to be making these associations, but so, you know, it's this double pronged thing. Not only are you trying to [00:14:00] raise these perfect little soldiers in. the army of God or to, to complete whatever your mission is, but you're also using it to break family ties and sentiments to break the parents down.

And, you know, finally, of course it's, it's to break individuality because every cult, every high control group, and in my opinion, even every total institution, like the military. So a total institution is somewhere where you live and work with like situated people removed from the world with a formal overlay.

So a convent, a mental hospital, a military barracks, the royal family, um, you know, you have all these different things that are total institutions and definitely cults. And for your success in any of these groups, your goal is to be less of an individual and more of a group member, and so you're not supposed to stand out.

And so standing up for [00:15:00] your child is standing out, right? Or your child being an individual is standing out. So it's this very double pronged thing that is used to sort of break and control everybody. 

Johnna: Thank you. That makes a lot of sense and is far reaching because it doesn't just happen in the parenting, right?

It happens in every single facet of life, but it's just this, I think we have a stark Emotional response realizing it. I think it's easier for people outside to have empathy when you start thinking of the Children involved in the situation, and it's hard for people to understand the dominoes that have to come into place for the Children to be treating the way.

Treated the way they are and the systemic issues that are happening and really just the top top top are the only ones that are spared some of 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: this and you know, one of the ways I [00:16:00] describe, you know, my model of cults. I have this 10 part model, but I'm like, it's it's a journey. Also, right? You're not in the same cult at the same time all the time, and there's sort of different phases.

And you're also not sort of brought in all at once. Right? So I say that onboarding into the US Army and the Children of God takes a minimum of six months, you know, so like, even when you're reading my book, you're not really getting the sense of like, how Okay. slow and deliberate, this process of bringing you into what another cult scholar, Dr.

Janja Lalic calls bounded control, where like you feel like a whole rational human, but you are completely under the coercive control of somebody else. 

Johnna: I think that point is really important for us to understand as listeners of Mandy's story, because I [00:17:00] have seen a little bit of conversation like there were so many red flags.

How did they not see it right at the beginning? And people don't understand that all those red flags aren't blaring in your face. in these situations most of the time. Like there's a reason normal functioning adults end up in these situations and it's calculated and measured and there's a formula for it.

Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: So sometimes I explain this using this analogy of like, imagine you're with your favorite person, you're in a convertible, you're driving down a tree, Palm tree lined Beach Avenue, and there's all these beautiful flags waving along your path. And all of a sudden you just drop off into the ocean and there's a giant shark battle going on.

And later people are like, didn't you see all the red flags? And you're like, well, I do now. Um, but often, you know, people that are being drawn to cults are [00:18:00] drawn to this for all kinds of reasons that involve different kinds of trauma, for example. And sometimes It's not that we don't see the flags, it's that the flags feel familiar, they feel like they're calling us home.

Um, and one of the things that we see is that if people come out of a cult or an experience of coercive control and they don't deconstruct that experience, then they often go what I like to call cult hopping. Um. Which is also, I think, kind of what my book shows. Um, I wrote this book to show the parallels between the sex cult and the U.

S. Army. But what a lot of readers get from this book is if you don't understand these coercive groups, then you just keep repeating some toxic patterns and finding yourselves back in the same situations. 

Johnna: And I think what's hard, what I, and this is anecdotal, I am not a scholar of cults. I think it's...

Badass that you are, though. I think that's fricking [00:19:00] awesome. Uh, but like a pattern that I see is that when someone's hopping out of this coercive environment and then they are super vulnerable coming out of this space, that is actually preyed upon by the next coercive environment. So we're actually extra vulnerable.

coming out of these spaces. Would you agree with that? Yes, 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: that's really true. Um, it's also one of the reasons I tell people like, don't come out right away and start telling your cult story because you can then be preyed upon by the entertainment world, which is very I think culty, um, and, and, and can be coercive.

One thing we don't talk about very much when we talk about cults, we talk about why people join cults, we don't talk about the fact that people are recruited into cults. There's a lot of work that goes into getting somebody. To give up their entire [00:20:00] life and do your thing, um, which is of course why the U.

S. military spends millions and millions on recruiting and they're looking for specific kinds of people, right? Which is often, or in my grandfather's case, Bad LSD trip, swears he met Satan, sitting in a park with his head in his hands, up walk the shiny happy children of God and play him a song and he goes off with them, right?

Like, you know, so, yes. Um, and this is also similar to like relationships where Like you sort of become a target for toxic controlling people because you're sort of putting out these signs of the best thing I can call it is being prey, right? You have your predators, individuals that are looking for prey and with groups, [00:21:00] coercive groups, very similar.

Yeah, that makes 

Johnna: a lot of sense. Something in your story that, as I was reading your book, I was like, I've had this conversation with Mandy. I think she said it on the podcast, or she didn't. She says this often. From the pulpit, he, he would say, He would point out all these different cults and say, we're not a cult, and he would instill that in them constantly, so they were on the defense about whether or not, like, we are not a cult, and that was in their language, that was in their being, was understanding this is what a cult is, and we are not that, which that is not part of mainstream mainstream evangelicalism.

That's not happening from pulpits in just like your average, let's say, Baptist church, right? But that was happening regularly in Mandy's context. Can you [00:22:00] speak to that a little bit? 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Yes. Very important. And let me briefly tell you my story where I leave the children of God when I'm 15, right? I get excommunicated, kicked out of the family.

Move countries, settle in, go to high school. One day there's a murder suicide on television. And it is from the children of God. Cult. Cult, they keep saying. So at 17 I realized, Oh, I grew up in a cult. Right? And my very next thought was, That's why we spent so much time talking about why we weren't a cult.

You know, and, and just like you said, I say to people, like, If your group talks all the time about why they're not a cult, they're probably a cult, you know, and our cult leader did the very same thing with, you know, Jonestown was a cult, Waco, you know, the [00:23:00] whole thing with the Branch Davidians happened when I was six years old and the Children of God was being raided in other countries.

And it was, Look, they're a cult because he thinks he's Jesus. We don't think our leader's Jesus. We know he's the true prophet. Um, and, and as you rightly pointed out, like regular churches, regular nonprofits, regular startups are not always joking that they're cults or talking about why they're not cults.

It's always the toxic questionable ones. And with this, I even like I personally resisted Putting together a listicle of what makes a cult for so long, because I know firsthand that the first thing a cultic group does when you put together a listicle is say, thanks very much and use that to program their people about why they're not.

Johnna: And we even had to like [00:24:00] really wrestle with if we called what Mandy came out of a cult, because and Mandy really wrestles with that. And. A lot of that has to do with the fact that if someone on the inside hears her story and hears the word cult it will immediately turn them off from listening to the rest of the story because she's just this fanatical person on the outside that's been vengeful has a vendetta and wants to call them names and make people think they're a cult and it's not real and immediately the the door is closed where That's Now, in the after effect, so her story's out there.

Now we're going to talk about it, bringing you in. What is your thoughts on that part of this? 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: So, like, I totally, I totally get, like, the struggle to call it a cult. And one thing I want, like other survivors of other groups to hear is that children of God survivors still struggle to call it a cult. Not like the joiners, like the children, [00:25:00] you know, every time I meet one that's like been out for a decade or two and they still refer to it as the group.

I'm like, your homework assignment is to call it the cult. Um, but as a scholar and as a person, like digging into how this works, I, I also understand that, you know, first of all, the term cult in itself has become. A thought stopping cliche, as you said. If you, if you say to someone, I think you're in a cult, they're no longer listening to you.

So you're not going to reach them. I think the exception to this is if any of your friends is going to join an MLM, tell them to go Google MLMs and cults. Just... Just put that in their head for them, they will thank you later. Um, and many of us are starting to call those commercial cults now. So, so yeah, the word itself is so pejorative that I completely see why someone who's trying to reach insiders wouldn't want to use it.

And that is the, like, professional advice of Dr. [00:26:00] Stephen Hassan, who, is world renowned cult expert, and also wrote a book called The Cult of Trump, um, who says like, when you're trying to reach people inside, don't use that word. Like, that word is basically gonna slam the door. But I, like, in my work, I like to say, I'm not in the business of naming cults.

The only person, the only thing that actually gets to name something a cult is usually the media, and it's usually when something really bad has happened, and we're measuring it in bodies. And then, two, like, I told you as an insider, Mandy's story sounded so familiar to what I experienced in The Children of God.

But I bet if she were here right now, she would say, Oh, my story was nothing as extreme as children of God. So I think that the, like how people think [00:27:00] cults have to be so extreme is also what keeps them from recognizing coercive control in their own life. And that's why now I have my 10 part model. And my saying that just says, if it quacks like a cult, 

Jay: can you share your 10 part model or give us a 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: preview?

Yes, I can. Um, and definitely any listeners, you know, come find me on tick tock where I'm always like furiously knitting and like. really delving into all these parts. I 

Johnna: will also link all of your socials with this in the show notes. I'll link it on our socials as well. So go find her and follow her. She has lots of stuff to teach us.

Yeah. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Okay. So my definition of a cult is you have your charismatic leader. And his skinny white woman. Okay, um, and the one thing I will say about charisma is people misunderstand charisma. It does not mean charm. Charisma is when because [00:28:00] somebody has certain qualities that we don't have, we agree to give them authority over us.

So literally everyone that believes in a head of household, that head of household is your charismatic leader, whether or not they are particularly charming. So charismatic leader, often the leader is not particularly charming, which is why he has the skinny white woman whitewashing all his sins for him.

These are your Alice and Max of NXIVM, your Ghislaine Maxwell's, et cetera. Okay. So after The charismatic leader, you have a sacred assumption. The way I explain this is the sacred assumption of the children of God was that David Berg, random dude, was the prophet of God. And while you are under that sacred assumption, you can justify anything, literally pedophilia, right?

In our case, anything. The sacred assumption leads to your transcendent mission, which is something the cult leader [00:29:00] comes up with. The transcendent mission is the draw, not the cult leader. Um, transcendent missions are so big and so broad that they can almost never be done. So, win the world for Jesus before the end time, children of God.

Elevate the world's consciousness. We work. Protect American interests overseas and abroad. United States Army. Um, you know, there's no, like, check block of these being done, and also they're so obviously good, save the children, QAnon, um, that people will agree to self sacrifice in pursuit of this mission, and that's step four, is the self sacrifice of the members.

This is kind of your end of phase one. Right now they're, they're getting their claws into you. Now you have limits access to the outside world. Um, this can be done via [00:30:00] thought stopping, right? Telling you what not to do, what not to read. It doesn't have to be physical.

Six, distinguishable vernacular, having your own language that means something to you, but not to outsiders, or at least not the same thing. Um, and often that language becomes part of us versus them. So we were the family, you were the systemites. People that left were the worst, they were backsliders. Um.

And in the army, sometimes we say civilians in the same tone. Um, seven, us versus them mentality, right? And this is really stoked, of course, by the language. Um, and this is kind of now your end of your second phase. And when you're starting to, because of your us versus them mentality, believe that action is required on your behalf to fight this fight, this is also the definition of extremism.[00:31:00] 

Um, eight, step eight. Exploits members labor. Always about labor. And I like to say step four, self sacrifice, always leads into step eight, exploitation of labor. Part, this is why we see like non profits get really, really toxic sometimes. And then nine, high exit costs. That's the unfortunately termed name, does not always mean money.

Often does not mean money. Often is loss of face, loss of time, loss of family, friends, connection. When I was excommunicated, I was dropped off in a new country with 0 with a stepsister I'd met three times and lost everything else I knew. And psychologists actually estimate that leaving high control groups feels like death.

Um, and you really could hear that in Mandy's story, right? Especially when she's talking to people still in and saying like, you will survive. It's going to [00:32:00] hurt, but you will survive. And the reason it's important to tell people that is because. it is going to hurt that bad. My mom actually told me that one of the most helpful things I told her is it's going to take you a decade to feel okay, like to, to get your life on track and sort of survive and then to deconstruct and really start to feel normal.

Jay: Wow. Is that, is that a true timeline? Did it take it about a decade for 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: you? I, I think so. You know, when I first started hearing Mandy's story and I was like, Oh, she's two years out, like, Oh, she's so new, you know, like super brave to be speaking out. Um, but there's sort of so many different levels of realizations that you're going to have.

And then. The final 10 is ends justifies the means mentality. This, I like to say the good news is this is when the cult is in their end game. The reason I think this is good news is because [00:33:00] I think January 6th was it for MAGA and they did not get it, but. You know, often in this phase, the cult leader will, will precipitate their own apocalypse because the, the need to be driving towards something.

This is, of course, like your branch Davidians in Waco. And I also think this is often like the U. S. Army, when we are close to feeling like we are completing a mission. We don't care about exploiting people's labor. We don't care about asking people to self sacrifice or do any number of things. And we often compromise our own morality because we have to accomplish the 

Jay: mission.

A lot of that sounds very similar to other spaces. I'm not going to say it, John, out loud, but I'm thinking 

Johnna: it. I think any of our, I think any of our listeners listening to that are probably hearing their own something. I think you tweeted it, but you, you were saying, [00:34:00] talking about Alcoholics Anonymous and kind of where you're able to see in a lot of almost every organized group, you can see some of the aspects of this to varying degrees.

And I think that Jay, I mean, we have outwardly vocally on this podcast struggled with this feeling like. Were we in a cult? Like we ask that a lot. And I think our listeners are too. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: So I think the thing about my work that is different is I'm saying it's not a binary, it's a spectrum. And basically, yes, all of your groups are going to have something like this.

I'm actually hoping at the end of my next book to develop a survey that is simply how culty is your organization. You know, in this, I kind of bring my like intelligence officer perspective to this where it's like, you know, my job as the intelligence officer was to know everything about the enemy. Um, it wasn't just to [00:35:00] talk about how great our values were and how we were never going to get shot at.

Um, you know, and yet when I went into studying organizational psychology, everybody was like, no, but this is a good group. And I realized it. People actually don't even think of cults, terrorist group, gangs, and other kinds of extreme groups as successful groups, right? Like if I told you about a group of 10, 000 people operating all over the world in high risk missions that tended to be dedicated for life and brought in millions of dollars to the organization, You would tell me that sounded like a successful organization until I tell you I'm talking about the Taliban or the Children of God, right?

And then immediately we, we look at that as a failure. And so kind of, yes, I want everyone to think this applies to all of their groups. I sign all of my books with what cults are you in? And one of, I think, the powers of my [00:36:00] story. And there's a lot of reviews that say, I didn't think she was gonna do it. I didn't think she was gonna be able to make the parallels.

But like, she nails it. And then that invites you to kind of think about what you were in. And then the other thing you said, Janna, was like, I've, I've never had the question is, was this a cult by someone that wasn't trying to understand the coercive feel that they had about a group, right? So if you're asking that about your group, you can, you can do to understand more about coercive control.

Um, and, you know, I'll sort of finish this point with every American thinks that they know all about cults. It is in our popular psychology and almost nobody does. Even if they've survived one. So if you have this, this seems a little off, but it can't be a cult. Cause X, you know, today I was just answering comments of people being like.

No, gangs aren't, [00:37:00] aren't, can't be compared to cults because cults have to be religious and have a theology. And I'm like, no, not true. This is dangerous, you know, um, because coercive control can exist in any context. 

Jay: That's so helpful. I, I was interested to get your take on something. You mentioned how when the children of God came about, uh, in the sixties, it was during a time of social unrest or social change.

You know, since we've started this podcast and heard from storytellers, post COVID, you know, we, we are COVID and then post COVID, we are definitely in a time of social unrest and social change. 

Johnna: Still in the middle of COVID, but post lockdown. 

Jay: Post lockdown. Yeah. We're still in the middle of COVID. That's correct.

But post COVID lockdown, um, we're definitely in that time again. And what is your take on, on. And are we in a similar pattern where religious extremism is, political extremism, [00:38:00] extremism in general, is really ripe right now and searching for homes in different spaces? 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Yes, uh, like 100%. Right. So not only are we in times of social turmoil, but like we have been in two decades of nonstop crises and social turmoil.

You know, there's a reason that Taylor Swift is becoming a billionaire and everybody needs that. Um, And not only is it a time of crisis, but when you throw COVID in there, it was a time of incredible isolation. You know, I even say in my next book that used to be nobody could understand the kind of isolation that I grew up in, in a separatist cult, but like now everyone can understand it.

Like we've all gone through this shift in how we see community. And finally, part of what we are living [00:39:00] through is not just like cultural change, but like a society breaking, right? Cost of people are moving into communes and re exploring communes, not because they've forgotten about the 60s, but because the cost of living is untenable.

So, they think they can find a way to make it better. It's 

Johnna: fascinating that you talked about that isolation with COVID lockdowns, because Mandy actually sent us a letter that was like, Hey, when you're talking to Daniella, if this comes up, this would be interesting to hear about. So she gets this letter, and you might remember it in her story.

This was the first time on paper. It's bullet pointed with five things. And the fifth one is, if you're, if you're not going to do it, then you can just leave. And we won't hold that against you. I can't remember the exact wording. I could probably pull that up, actually. 

Jay: Is the exact point that they said, Jonna, if you're unwilling to adhere to these plans, then please let us know that you're removing yourself from the [00:40:00] church and moving on.

We will wish you the best. 

Johnna: Yes. When a cult leader 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: says, you are free to leave anytime, That is actually a threat that is invoking the exit costs. It's intended to remind you, you do not get a say here. You either accept everything or you lose everything. Right? So that's like super crucial because it's also, if you ask anyone as a group that they're in as a cult, one of the first things they will say is it's not a cult or it wasn't a cult, you were free to leave anytime.

Um, but first of all, it didn't ask you if it was a prison. You're not going to be locked down, but you're not free to leave, and you're constantly reminded of that cost of leaving. 

Johnna: Yeah. What was fascinating about this, so Mandy read this, and this letter, I mean, if you ever just want, I mean, I'm sure you see a lot of these things all the time, but this letter is wild.

So [00:41:00] what was really fascinating is a lot of the thoughts that probably More progressive evangelicals were having, which was like pro science during COVID lockdowns. This leader capitalized on that. So this letter is saying, you will be responsible for death. You're the reason that we can't gather. If you, if you want to start having services again, I need a detailed log for the last two weeks of every interaction you've ever had.

And if you're not willing to do this, then best of luck. Go, go ahead. And Mandy, he was like, yes. So in her story, you guys will remember if you've listened to it. And if you haven't, again, go back and listen to it. She says she left, she circled number five. So she circled that and left it on the doors, on the steps of the church or wherever she left it, the [00:42:00] offices.

And she was like, this is my opportunity. This is the first time I've heard someone say, you can leave and you don't have to go through all these steps because in her, in the organization she was a part of, there was these steps that they had signed their name, like a legal document, basically saying, I will not leave if I don't do this, this, this, and this, which required all these barriers to leaving as well.

And there was so much shame and fear wrapped in asking questions or. Having those meetings that it was a barrier to leaving for Mandy. So she was like, this is the first time I can just say, Nope, don't want to do this. Circle this number five and leave. Well, what happened was she gets all of this shame.

What are you doing? You are, I mean, basically what they were doing to her was calling her a backslider in your community, right? And she, her husband gets brought in. All of [00:43:00] this horrific shame gets piled on. You're a terrible person. You now have to go before all of the members and repent in this meeting, right?

So this covenant meeting that Mandy talks about, you have to stand there and say, you're a liar because you don't actually love these people. You, and so you're sitting there having to, Comprehend all of these things, all these emotions, and she stayed for a whole other year after this before they finally got out, which is the letter that we sent to you before recording, which they left and they fled.

They literally fled because there was so much fear. And I find that interesting, too. I felt fear to some degree in my own story, leaving just a mainstream evangelical church. There was some fear associated with, I did feel fear for my safety sometimes. But her fear was much [00:44:00] different, I would say. It was way more heightened than mine was.

And so I would love to hear you break down a little bit of. Maybe the psychology behind that part of things, the leaving, the cost, why there would have been so much fear. I think a lot of people think that's irrational that you were, Mandy will say, it says in her story, she, they got a hotel room. They didn't stay at their house because they were afraid that they were going to show up at their house.

So what, can you walk us through that a little bit? Yeah, 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: so in case I forget to say it later. You can just leave, right? You can just walk away. You don't have to go to any meetings. You don't have to resign from the temple. You don't have to do any of the things. It wasn't legal, whatever they made you sign.

And they don't want the scrutiny, right? Because coercive groups do not want the scrutiny. Now, coercive control is established through fear. Right. So there's [00:45:00] always, like you said, like you felt some element of fear, right? There was always going to be some element of fear in walking away from coercive control, because the reason you were there was because they used fear to kind of harness you, right?

And this often begins. So one of the things that is true of pretty much every successful cult leader is, and every, business leader or political leader that we call charismatic is they're able to be in a room of many and make you feel like the one, right? And it's often described as the sun shining on you, right?

Which for example, is how I described president Obama when I get to meet him at the end of my book. And so the cult leader plays around with Taking your son away, right? And so a big thing for cult leaders is come here, go away behavior, right? And, and if you're in a really big cult that might be coming from levels down in the leadership and that's called [00:46:00] charisma by proxy.

Um, so for all those groups that say they can't be a cult because they have a council. No charisma by proxy. And, and so this behavior really, really sort of engenders this insecurity in everybody, right? Think about Trump with his name calling of people, friends and foes alike, right? This keeps everybody on their toes because they're afraid of being that object of ridicule.

Cults and cultic guru leader types often use sort of group punishment or public. publicly dressing you down because they need that fear. Um, and you know, and, and you're being constantly asked to prove your loyalty. And this is one of the things I say, I really think is true in the regular world is like a good leader proves their loyalty to you.

You should not be constantly having [00:47:00] to prove your loyalty to an organization or a leader. That's a toxic organization. 

Johnna: Dang, that is so helpful. Put that on a t shirt. We all need to like look at that every day. Tattoo it on your arm. A good leader proves themselves trustworthy to you. Like that, they earn that trust.

And I think that is something that all of us, even if you're, if you're currently in, a lot of our listeners are either deconstructed out of mainstream. mainstream evangelicalism or are currently in mainstream evangelicalism. These are something I would call a green flag, is a leader who is willing to earn your trust through doing trustworthy things.

They're not trying to take from you. You don't owe them anything. You don't owe them gratuitous details of your life. You don't owe them any details of your life. You are There are comfort, comfort things in place. You're not feeling uncomfortable, you're not [00:48:00] feeling coerced or manipulated into being here.

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Such a... Yeah, that's such a good one. Um, and then, you know, in my book, I give you in the army side, these two leaders that to me are kind of like good cult leader, although I don't think you can have a good cult, but like good leader, and then cult wannabe leader. And, you know, this This leader that I liked, this is exactly what he did.

You know, I was a lieutenant in the army and lieutenant is an officer, but it's not a respective rank. It's like being an MBA at a company brand new. Um, and so you are constantly being asked to prove yourself. You're constantly being hazed, being ridiculed, just all of the things. And so I walk into this new meeting with my new boss.

And the first thing he says to me. Is look, the fact that you're in this position wearing that rank on your chest means that the military and leaders before me have put their confidence in you. So you don't have to prove yourself to me. And it's, [00:49:00] to me, it's the equivalent of those teachers that I love that are like, everybody gets an A off the bat.

And the only thing you can do is like, go down. And I also think it's just such a great psychology trick because like from that point. I was dedicated to that man, you know, like I would do anything for him because he told me I didn't have to prove my loyalty to him or prove my worth to him. Yeah, and isn't 

Johnna: that kind of the beauty?

If we even just go into just humanity in general, I think that's something beautiful. about humans and relationship that when we're doing it in a healthy way, when we are actually given agency to understand comfort and understand like respect and value each other's boundaries, like, and like, 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: I think so much about what we're fighting about now in culture is that like, no human should have to prove their worth.

To just be like respected and have [00:50:00] rights, right? You know, and it's like hierarchies are always about proving that you're good enough. And cults, you know, cults really are just the most extreme type of groups. So I personally find that everything I'm struggling with from deconstructing my own cult experience, like either all millennials are dealing with it or all white millennials are dealing with it.

But like, you know, like, These patterns are just group behavior taken to the extreme. So I definitely think like we see these things in all kinds of organizations. Um, and just one thing, so I don't forget, COVID also gave us this very interesting intersection. As you said, a lot of people left what they think were toxic organizations in COVID because of COVID.

And I actually think maybe that's the reason why we're in this like huge exodus of religion. But people, so specifically about AA, people have said this [00:51:00] to me, like, Oh, COVID was the first time I felt more scared to go to a meeting than to not go to a meeting. And then with the enforced separation, I was able to see sort of how bad it had been for me.

And I think this is also really key because more and more I think that what cults give to people is the same thing that an addiction gives someone. Like it's feeding the same thing. You get addicted to the group and you get actually addicted to this sense of community. that is not healthy. And one of the things we struggle with on the outside is like, wanting to replicate this sense of community, but in a healthy way.

But often the problem is that level of health of community wasn't healthy to 

Jay: start with. I've been fascinated too about how, you know, since the lockdown, how when [00:52:00] pastors or leaders in religious spaces talk about those leaving the church or those deconstructing, it's always in these negative tones and in a way of trying to shame the people in the room from following that 

Johnna: path.

For example, for our listeners, Matt Chandler saying deconstruction is sexy air 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: quotes. 

Jay: But what's, what's, when I hear you talk about what your leader said to you about, Hey, like you don't have to prove yourself. Like I, I would think if for pastors to acknowledge the fact that, Hey, Hey, the church has not been safe and we know it's not been safe and we need to make it safer for people to want to.

That's not, I mean, maybe that is happening and that could be happening at some churches, but that's not happening across the mainstream. And like that to me is a form of toxic leadership when you're going after the party that's leaving and accusing them of all the wrongs of the world and trying to create that space of shame.

Daniella Mestyanek Young: see it in, uh, Pastor D like berating them throughout COVID, he was [00:53:00] panicking because he was losing his control because he didn't have this direct access to them all the time. 

Jay: And I just, I just, I don't think I hope my hope is, is that people, as people leave, they, they do wake up to the fact that that, that is not representative of what, what Christianity Should be or was born to be or what came out of Jesus's teachings that's come out of us creating spaces that are Essentially for us and in the white in the white space Especially to keep us in power to keep our to keep our our not only Name out there But also to keep the way that we think and control people in the way the our little worlds work like we want those to Continue to go the way that it has been and we're we're upset by this disruption of questions and curiosity that's out there So it's a just hearing you talk like drawing those parallels to deconstruction and what's going on in that space It's it's nice to hear that from [00:54:00] someone who studied this because I think there are a lot of 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: similarities And, you know, like I am not a Christian and I am someone that was hurt by Christianity, but I also want people to know that like Christianity is not the problem, right?

My, I mean, Christianity might be its own problem, but so, so my experience directly was I, you know, I was 22 years old when I first typed in children of God. cults and 10 minutes later was staring at a page of known pedophiles with my father's face on it. That's how I found out his legal name, right? Very intense.

And then I started reading all these cult books. So I read children of God books first, and then I read like FLDS. you know, other kinds of Christian extreme cults. And I was very firmly like, Oh, yep. Christianity is the problem. Cause I was already starting to notice the patterns. And then it wasn't until I read a book by a little girl who'd grown up inside Scientology.

And it [00:55:00] sounded exactly like my life that I was like, Oh, it's not Christianity, right? It's mind control. The details might be different, but the control is the same, right? But one of the reasons that it seems Like so many coercive groups are religious goes back to this thought stopping cliche thing, which is that all religions are not cults, but all religions have some point at which you must suspend belief and just go with faith, which doesn't mean the religion is problematic, but it means that a.

Narcissist, uh, malignant narcissist, especially a nefarious person or group can use religion to pull you into a coercive relationship. So, you know, one of my, I have 10 commandments for good groups that are not cults. I have a lot of lists. Um, but one of my 10 commandments is information is never bad, [00:56:00] right?

Like anyone trying to To keep a barrier between you and asking questions is not a good person. It's not a good group. Dr. Stephen Hasson's one of my favorite quotes is, if it's valid, it can stand up to scrutiny. Oh, 

Jay: that's great. These are great t shirt ideas. Just 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: wear them. I'm, I'm about to have like 20 different t shirts made.

I'm definitely gonna have, if it quacks like a cult and it's gonna have a bunch of little blindfolded ducks on it. You definitely need 

Johnna: to. I'm gonna need that. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: I have a couple. I have a couple on my website. Can I tell you about one of them? Okay, so in our call, we talked about extreme punishments and group embarrassment.

This is all a thing. One of the things they would use for us was silence restriction. If you had any kind of doubting or any kind of sin with your words, essentially, you would not be allowed to speak to other people. So kind of really intense shunning. But within the cult and, and more specifically for children who we [00:57:00] lived with a hundred plus people, so they would hang a sign around your neck.

And this sign would say things like, for example, I put in the book, don't talk to me. I'm disrespectful. Um, so I like to say my revenge on the cult is I put that in my book. I copyrighted that. And now I have t shirts for sale on my website that say, don't talk to me. I'm disrespectful. Um, And people that are deconstructing really love that, right?

Because attitude policing, being respectful, is such a big part of coercive control as well. Um, in the military, the parallel there is rank. Um, to be respectful to any person that outranks you, no matter how outrageous they are being. Um, So yes, the freedom to be like disrespectful or out of the spirit. 

Jay: You also have some great, great paintings on your website too.

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Thank you. Those are my, I like to say those paintings were uncultured before I could write the book. I did this series of four [00:58:00] paintings and it takes you from toddler to teenager, to young woman, to older woman. And I actually did a fifth one that's not on the website. It's called deconstruction and it's like twice as big as the others.

And it's just a woman's face in those same highlighter colors of acrylic paints. And then I just started writing. Sort of everything the cult ever said to me, everything that the army ever said about women, everything that society says. Um, and my husband's reaction to this was, I mean, it was really pretty until you ruined it with all the words.

Exactly. And I said, exactly. 

Johnna: It is doing what it was created to do, apparently, if that was his response. I think a lot of, we see, I mean I personally relate so much with what you're saying, I, like as soon as I got out of, we got out of our church, we're kicked out of our church, uh, I immediately took on like, the witch persona because [00:59:00] they would, they made like a reference to listening to witches.

And then I see it all the time online, like you're a Jezebel or this is like a witchy thing. What is, 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: what is a witch, but a woman that is not controllable? 

Johnna: Yes. Another t shirt. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: And, and to that. To your, to your point, I have a t shirt that just says systemite. Yes, there you go. It's on my website also for, for my children of God survivors.

There's something 

Johnna: about wearing a statement 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: tee that feels so good. Yes. This is also a good time to drop into appearance control. So anytime you were under the coercive control of another individual, like in a domestic violence relationship, Or, of a group, which cult scholars sometimes call DV a one one cult, um, and I feel like I did that.

I went from cult to toxic marriage to military. So anytime you're under the control of a coercive group, or a [01:00:00] total institution of any kind, You were probably under some pretty strict appearance control, and there's so, so, so much psychology that goes into that, but I can tell you that appearance control always covers four things.

Hair, body size, body coverage, which you are or aren't allowed to show, and underwear. I'm going to include pantyhose in underwear. I really like to tell people like when you are deconstructing a cult or a coercive experience, like experiment with your appearance. You probably don't even know what you like and you don't know what that's going to unlock for you.

And literally I got done hearing Mandy's story and hearing her talk about all those little freedoms that you just have now. And I went straight to my TikTok and I was like, appearance control, wear crazy things, do things that you weren't allowed to do with your. The way you present yourself to the world.

Eat. Cults always want you skinny. [01:01:00] So eat, take up space, you know. Wear loud colors. Wear things that stand out. Um, in my Etsy shop, I sell these descent collars that I crochet out of thread, and sometimes fuzzy yarn. And it's like, not to RBG, but it's also like, This makes you unique, like you're going to stand out wearing this and like, they don't like that, 

Johnna: right, which also goes back again.

It's all tied together to that idea all the way back at the beginning of this conversation with the parent and the individual. Like you can't stand out as an individual. So your kid acts out. Your kid is like an individual and not part of the group. Then you are then part of the individual because you're having to deal with that.

It's all this design of keeping us all uniform. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: And, and what's really important to know if you are a child that grew up under this kind of coercive control, is that You did not get [01:02:00] an opportunity to develop your personality. And like naming that changed my life forever. It was after I wrote my book. It was, I'd almost completed my master's, you know, studying social identity theory and group behavior.

And I was like, Oh, I didn't get. To develop as an individual, that's what we're doing from the ages of one to six, like one to eight, really heavily one to six, and I kind of figured this out with my daughters in that age range. And so I'm like, Okay, but once I figured that out, I was like, Oh, I can do this.

Um, I'm kind of a ridiculous style icon on Tick Tock, you know, like, I can go figure out What I like, and you have to ask yourself that like a thousand times a day in all the places where they can, the children of God, we were, if we were hungry, we were supposed to ask Jesus if it was his will for us to go get a snack, [01:03:00] right?

Like you hear this in Mandy's thing, they had a condom break and she was afraid they would get in trouble because they didn't have permission to have another child, you know, so all of these little things you're like. You just need to ask yourself in place of where you would have asked a leader, you need to be like, what, what do I want?

What do I think? You know, I think that's 

Jay: good advice too, for people that are coming out of religious spaces and just deconstructing to like realize that. A lot of, uh, your identity is tied to a theology or to a church, and it's okay to question those things and to disagree and to do the opposite of them if you want to, to give yourself space to do that.

So I think that's great advice for all of us that are coming out of these spaces because I do think these spaces want you to definitely be a certain way, and, and that way is the only way. And it's not true. Um, so that's super 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: helpful. You know, I had a... An ex Mormon say to me that a lot of Mormons will say, [01:04:00] well, people leave the church because they want to sin.

But I left the church and then I realized there was no sin, right? And so it, And, and to caveat on that, like there's this part of leaving a call and deconstructing where like, you've, you're rejecting their models and because it was coercive control, it was in every facet of your life. And so you go through this phase where you're rejecting that, and then you have to like, Come up with your own morals, your own morality, how you want to live your life.

Um, and actually one of the most helpful things in not cult hopping is to continually tell yourself there are multiple valid ways to live a life. 

Johnna: I think that is so helpful for In particular, our larger listener base, again, most of us have walked out of our evangelical churches, [01:05:00] and we're, we talk about a lot as being in the wilderness, right?

So we're, we're navigating Being without that community, without that structure that we're used to. And I think many of you are going to relate to this when I say there has been a community that has formed of people that are deconstructing. It's called the Deconstruction Ex Evangelical Community. But what is concerning to Jay and I as we're watching, are a little bit on an island together for this podcast because we are not attaching ourselves to a label.

We're watching this community almost become radicalized because it's leaning into the same thing that you were talking about earlier with this idea of we have this idea of community. And so now we're going to try to recreate that outside here. And I think this, this conversation for me has been a very big wake up call and an encouragement [01:06:00] that Those, those boundary crosses or those uncomfortable feelings, if you're now navigating the post evangelical community, if you're starting to feel those same things, those same, I mean, like the Christian way to say it is like checks in your spirit, but like, if you're, if you're conscious, If your inner voice is saying, I'm uncomfortable or something feels off, Wade Mullin says something's not right.

I think there's a whole podcast called Something's Not Right, too, that's not even about Christianity. Like, these are, these are things that are right in you. Like it's good that your body and your brain are having these reactions to those behaviors. And, and the reason is, is because it's not healthy. It's toxic and it's taking your agency.

So now you've moved from a space that's coercive and controlling. And you had no agency there. I'm seeing that happening. That's like my main [01:07:00] online experience, to be honest, is now it's happening here. Yeah, I can explain that. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Um, you know, one of the things we always see in cults and toxic leaders is they're always like trying to bridge the gap between what is appropriate involvement in their followers lives.

Um, often also physically, um, which is another thing that physical discipline gets you to, right? Bridging the gap between physical touching when isn't, isn't appropriate. So, and you can think about this in sort of typical evangelicalism as well. They definitely have their fingers way too much in people's lives.

You know, I was just hearing a Mormon creator talking about how this whole, ministry they have it now of like going to people's houses and checking on them, like was a form of surveillance from polygamy days where they would be checking to see if brother so and so was living the principle, [01:08:00] right? So, but I also say, you know, there's no, Sisterhood, like the ex cult sisterhood, like me and Janna would be best friends today if we were in the same place and like that again, we go back to like that level wasn't healthy, right?

So you see this similar thing, victims of domestic violence are recovering and part of the healing process is understanding that you may not hit those heights of passion again. quote unquote passion, right? Because that wasn't actually a healthy thing for you. And I think this is similar. Um, and then there's another thing that we really don't like to talk about.

We like to talk about the mission and how the cults drew us in for the mission. And if we were searching for anything, it was community. And we don't like to talk about the cults give us superiority. [01:09:00] One of the things a cult of any kind does is it teaches you that you are the best. Um, and I finally got to see this in my life where everyone looked at me and said, you were so driven.

And I said, Oh no, I was a missionary. So I was better than you. And then I was a super student. So I was better than you. And then I was a soldier. So I was better than you. And even in the army, I ran fast. So I was better than you. And then I got out of the army and had a baby and worked at Microsoft. And there was nothing that made me better than anyone else.

Microsoft And that was when I kind of like really broke and fell apart. Um, and understanding that you're not better than anyone, right? One of the things that cults give you is clarity. Life doesn't give you clarity. There are no easy answers. It's uncomfortable. You're not going to be in a healthy group of people that all have the exact same opinion as you, right?

Like that's life. And actually one of the ways we can tell like a toxic guru or cult [01:10:00] leader is when someone promises you easy, simple solutions for complex problems, right? Elon Musk, not taking us to Mars, right? He wants you in his cult. Jonathan, 

Jay: that reminds me of when, uh, when our former pastor would make fun of other churches and talk about how his, our church theology or teaching was so superior to the other churches in the area.

And I mean, I always thought that was. Bizarre and weird, but it really puts in context like that support superiority complex that he was trying to what he had and that he was definitely coming from that place of saying, like, we're superior to these other people in these spaces. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Yeah. And so often why people go cult hopping is because they're jonesing for the mission that's going to make them feel superior.

I see a lot of people come out of. evangelical, even mainstream evangelical or culty religions and go [01:11:00] straight into social justice like so hard, right? So hard and vehemently and they're like replacing that feeling. Um, and this kind of brings me to my 14th TED talk on the good cults. Because people ask me this all the time.

Well, can we just be a good cult? First of all, I'm like, if you want to call yourself a good cult, you have rules. But second of all, you're asking me if you can hack motivation and personality and group behavior. But only do it for the good guys. That's kind of like in Twilight when she begs her to make him, it begs him to make her a vampire and promises to only eat the bad guys, right?

There's actually a deconstruction song about that. Um, so yeah, I, I, I think one of the things when we leave is we really have to slow down and realize like. Oh, you're not special, right? So many [01:12:00] white people that are dedicated in theory to pulling down white supremacy then have the realization that you're not special.

What's going to make you special? And that's something that we like really have to recover from ourselves, especially I think if we were brought up in that. And until I, until I spotted that pattern in myself, I feel like I kept caught hopping and kept like looking for what was going to Yeah, 

Jay: I was a big, I'm, I was, uh, I'm in my forties, early, early, I'll say early forties, not mid forties, late forties, but I, I devoured in my youth, a lot of these Christian books out there that I now realize were.

were super toxic and super harmful to me. And like, honestly, like I'm even now like thinking through ways of still going through ways of like how they influenced my, the way I think about things. And there was one, I remember, I'm not going to name the book that you would, but you would have to pray this prayer every day.

And it was a ridiculously stupid [01:13:00] prayer, but it was tied to like an old Testament Bible verse. And. That prayer gave me such a sense of like mission and such a sense of like being in a special place and like Accomplishing great things and none of it was true and it really messed with the way that I viewed My own life like day to day situations and like so hearing you talk like I feel like all of us need to like really step back And say like we have been influenced by things that are a not true B have even They've influenced our way we think about others, ourselves, how we relate to society.

And we have to give ourselves space to go through and rethink those things and work through those, uh, situations again, until we can really come out on the other side and say, Hey, I feel like I have an opinion on this, or I feel like I know what I want to say here now. Um, and I think giving that space is so [01:14:00] appropriate.

Daniella Mestyanek Young: You know, one of the things that I say about this is sometimes we get stuck in like, well, I didn't experience trauma, and then we don't understand that the programming itself was traumatic, right? There's a couple great deconstruction songs that talk about how like, every time I touch my car keys, I imagine dying in a fiery explosion, because that's often like, In evangelicalism, right?

You pray all the time for all of these horrors not to happen to you. And you're kind of like reminding yourself of that. Or, you know, I, I was raised to think I was going to be a martyr for God by the age of 12, you know, like that's traumatic in the military. Joining the military, having your identity stripped from you, going through a training designed to break you and build you back up into somebody that is programmed to conduct violence on behalf of state.

That is [01:15:00] traumatic. Even before you throw any like actual war in there. You know, so that really, I think, is like the crux of deconstruction. I'm so excited. I just started a deconstruction book club and we're going to read 12 books and then just talk about them because it, it really is that. And I think too, this is the power of story, right?

Is like you might be out of whatever your thing was for many, many years, but until you hear someone put it in a certain way. That thing doesn't, like, drop for you, um, in your own life. Yeah, and that's why 

Jay: we, John and I, always talk about just the importance of sharing story, but also continuing to listen to other stories.

And the church is, has not been really good at hearing stories. We want to, we want to influence the narrative instead of just sitting back and listening. And, you know, this is my personal opinion for the church to be relevant. Um, and I don't know if it's going to be relevant in [01:16:00] 20 years in America, at least in the way that it is, but for any type of religious movement to be relevant, it has to go back to listening.

Because one of the things that always, I think the curiosity that I have about the life of Christ is that he did a lot of listening in spaces that he went to and he listened. And we don't listen well. We want to tell you how to think. I don't know how we get back to listening, but when hearing you lead those.

book clubs. I think that's a way, you know, sitting under someone like you and just listening and listening to other stories and, and sharing stories I think is so relevant and so 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: key. Yeah. I mean, I was like, would anyone be interested in this? And I literally sold out two sessions so fast. It really did get me to thinking like, Oh yeah, there.

There's so much need to just like deconstruct our group experiences in groups in sort of like a thoughtful way, um, that I don't [01:17:00] think is really being met right now. Um, this is almost similar to Like when you leave prison, sometimes you get exit therapy. But I always say like people leaving cults and people leaving the army, like they need exit therapy too, you know, like you need to learn how to almost like be a normal, rational human again, with full freedom after you've been.

Asked to give up that freedom for a significant period of time. 

Johnna: Yeah, and realizing, like, so much of this conversation has brought up so many thoughts about, like, the work that Jay and I are doing here, even storytelling, but the community that we are, in and the spaces that we, that these voices are being heard in these stories are being heard.

That group of people is so vulnerable. Like going back to what we talked about with people leaving evangelical spaces and deconstructing to whatever degree they are, whether they're in the same place that Jay and I are, where we're like, we, we [01:18:00] still believe in Jesus, but we don't know how that fits. Into, into how we attend a church, if we can attend a church, what that looks like, or we have guests that are atheists now, you know, it's like there's a full spectrum, but all of us on that spectrum are vulnerable and literally don't know how to be rational people, like we don't even know how to go to a book club and learn.

That muscle was not created for us. You know, there's this 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: extremely poignant moment in Prince Harry's memoir. Um, and I, I've been looking at the Prince Harry story as a leaving a cult story ever since I watched a completely different Oprah and Megan interview than most of the world did. You know, when they started talking about the family and the firm, I was like, well.

It's a cult. Oh my 

Johnna: gosh. I didn't even think about that. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Yeah. And you know how in Uncultured, my first line is, the first rule of cults is you're [01:19:00] never in a cult. And then I say that watching the Harry and Meghan saga helped me enunciate the second rule of cults is the cult will forgive any sin. Prince Andrew, accept the sin of leaving, right?

Um, but so there's this moment in his book where he's 34 years old. He already has a wife and a child, and he realizes that he can just hire his own lawyer. He doesn't have to use the firm's lawyers, and that is I have another, another way of, of telling this story. I call it sponges. I spent almost 20 years trying to find sponges that didn't rot.

And I couldn't understand how people didn't just hate sponges and how this wasn't a problem. And one day my husband is watching me wash dishes and I walk away and he goes, Hey babe. Do you know you need to [01:20:00] squeeze it out? And like, turns out my cult leader had a prohibition on sponges that I didn't know.

We just grew up not using sponges, right? And so, but it's like, not only was this a thing I hadn't learned, I was actively trying to solve this problem. And I just couldn't see it, right? That is 

Johnna: so helpful. And I think what is so, even this idea that we're like, leaving these spaces and then jumping into social justice.

I mean, technically, we could say that about what Jay and I did. We're like, okay. We're going to start telling these stories because there's a pattern here. But what I have noticed is, and I think that, I do think that Jay, we are uniquely, um, honored to get so many stories. So that has Kind of like expedited some of these things for you and I because we hear so many stories that it forced us It was like a shaking our shoulders.

You [01:21:00] have to recognize that there's so much nuance to humans. And so no, there's not like a one size fits all for literally anything. Like there is no one size fits all. That is not a thing. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Oh, and I say this all the time too. Like if you're going to get, so first of all, like I worked at a veteran nonprofit in entrepreneurship, or I volunteered for them.

This was one of my maybe culty things, but a huge part of my job, I felt like was. just telling veterans that left the military, they'd be like, I want to start a nonprofit to help veterans. And I would be like, there are 48, 000 nonprofits to help veterans slow down. But also like, I know what you're feeling, right?

It's the sense of passion. You need to connect. Um, and yes, doing what you're doing. You know, I often tell people like, wait, wait a decade. At least a decade to write your book, because, and this is, the, the guy who writes The Crown says he will not touch anything that's not 10 years old, because, like, it hasn't really [01:22:00] decided yet.

I noticed this, I was almost 20 years removed from my cult experience, could write that with a lot less bias. Only 7 years removed from my military experience, and I literally had to send some chapters over to my co writer and be like, please remove all the vitriol. Um, you know. But also, yeah, doing this work, you know, I, I'm, I'm researching cults now, and it's put it, putting me through so many personal things, right?

It's like, I talk about my theory about how cult leaders want you skinny, and now I have to go deal with my own disordered eating. You know, I hear someone's story that breaks something open for me intellectually, but it's also... a part of my own deconstruction. Um, and it does, as you said, to make us like uniquely vulnerable.

Um, I think anyone willing to realize that the way they used to think is maybe not right. And then change their mind. Like there's hope [01:23:00] for all of us to like, get better. 

Jay: What, what would you say? And, um, I want to be respectful of your time. So I know we're nearing the end here, but what, what would you say to like, to Mandy and to others who are coming out of these spaces, dealing with all of these emotions.

What, what are some important steps for them to take to just help in their healing and their recovery? 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: So right now, one of my favorite quotes about healing is we know that we're healing from trauma when peace and tranquility no longer sound like boredom. You know, and so much of cults and coercive control is being busy.

Um, or if you were in the military moving one pile of rocks over, um, they know what that means. Um, you know, so just allowing yourself. to do nothing, allowing yourself to slow down, allowing yourself to make ridiculous choices just because you want to, [01:24:00] right? Especially if you have young kids, because they've probably suffered from you being under the control, right?

So have fun, be goofy. Um, I also really like to say that, like, healing isn't linear, um, and, you know, we tend to like survivors that are pretty and well spoken and all put together, um, and so I like to be One of the people that the entertainment industry considers that survivor, but then also say like, two days ago I was in my pajamas all day because I was broken.

Another quote I really like is that we know we're healing when we stop wishing for a do over. Um, and I think especially for those of us that grew up under coercive control, this can be one of those really hard mountains to climb. Uh, I truly believe the only way is through. Um, people that try to just put [01:25:00] it all behind and run from the trauma, like I did, aren't successful, even if they run a five minute mile, you know, just giving yourself the grace to realize that like, you don't have to be perfect.

You're allowed to be angry. You don't have to forgive anyone. You can just heal. And part of what happens there is. You then get to integrate yourself, right? Because everything wasn't bad and you gained some great things, you know, I speak fluent Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish, and I wasn't willing to put that out there when I was trying to hide who I was, you know, there's just so many different pieces of things that you're going to be more comfortable with when you do the work and the healing, but it is.

Super scary. And then, yeah, just like other people's stories are going to help you the most. You can find checklists. I have a lot of them. You [01:26:00] can find all the intellectual things, but just, you know, this quote I had above my desk when I was writing Uncultured was just nobody reads your story. They read their story.

You know, so hearing other people's stories is one of the most powerful things you can do. Um, You know, especially for veterans, I'm always like, you need to have friends that are veterans that know that what you went through was real. And you also need to have friends that aren't veterans, so they can help you translate your experience into sort of normal language.

Um, and I think that applies to, to cult survivors. And then two little like personal protection things of coercive groups that I like to give people is, Cults are always about labor, right? So you can protect yourself by always asking yourself how much labor you are giving to an individual or an organization and what you are getting in return.

And those [01:27:00] returns should be in this lifetime. Um, and then the second thing is just, you know, what I said before is like anything offering you an easy solution. is a scam. Like all the easy problems have been solved. We live in a really complex world and we join cults for clarity. And unfortunately there's no clarity.

The world is exhausting. And as we mentioned earlier, like we are living through an absolute time of extremism. I was just listening to a George Washington University program on counter extremism and they estimate radicalization and different. kinds of extremist groups from white nationalists to jihadists to all the things is up between three and four hundred percent over the last decade than it was like the 50 years before that.

We can say intense things on here, right? We've had all the trigger [01:28:00] warnings. Okay, one of my, my first commandment for 10 group, for good groups that are not cults is don't rape the children. That's, and justifies the means. I feel very strongly about this. However, Pizzagate is an example of extremists using don't rape the children to radicalize people.

Right? So my comeback to that is the only way to protect yourself from extremism is to get really comfortable living in the gray, which does not mean don't have morals. It's more the military intelligence perspective of if you think you have, don't have a blind spot, that's where they get you. The media always talks about the, the problem with Pearl Harbor was that they lost the fleet, the Japanese fleet.

The actual problem with Pearl Harbor is they didn't know that Japan had the potential to reach Hawaii in the first place, [01:29:00] right? So as soon as you think you're safe, as soon as you think your social justice goal cannot be used against you, that's what will be used to radicalize you. And there have been radicalized BLM groups.

There have been radicalized anti racist groups, right? Every good. amazing mission you can think of can still attract nefarious people that then use that to con you. 

Johnna: I will go as far as to say we're witnessing radicalization of the post evangelical deconstruction group right now. Like, we're seeing it real time.

We're seeing the characters. We see the red flags. That's a good warning for every area of your life, but especially those of us that are trying to find some form of community with people who have survived similar things to us. Like, take that. warning as something good for us to hear. We need to hear that because we are seeing it happen.

That's not some far off radicalization. It's happening currently in that community. And we're [01:30:00] also 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: seeing, you know, what I will call guru culture, thought influencer culture, like sort of lead a lot of this, right? Like you have your from your holistic psychologists to your Tony Robbins to your what is Jared Leto?

Starting a cult now? I think he 

Johnna: has one. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Russell Brand. Russell Brand, right? But just like, one of my, I've said this, I've said so many favorite quotes, I'm sorry, but really helpful one by Dr. Janja Lalic is, an individual should do whatever they need for their own spiritual fulfillment. But there are no gurus, and I actually have, we don't have time for it because there's 15 points.

But if anyone wants to come find me on TikTok, I have what I call my guru gotcha checklist, which is 15 things that influencer thought leader guru types do that are the opposite of green flex. That's crazy. 

Johnna: TikTok again, everywhere. Everyone just go watch it all. We need it. We, we need it. I promise we need it.[01:31:00] 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Yeah. You know, especially like, as you're talking about these deconstruction groups, right? Like, go back to like, how much labor are you putting into this, right? And like, like, like, what is, what is the motivation? Um, and something that's been really just helpful for me from my therapist is understanding that if you've been in mission heavy culture, you need to kind of come clean from that.

And so I have a practice several times a week that I have to remind myself that my goal is not changing rape culture in the U. S. military. My goal is not ending cults in America. Like my goal is that Daniela and Tom and little young Have a happy life, you know, sort of bring your back self back into like, I'm not special.

I'm just part of the world. That is 

Johnna: a word that we needed to hear. Because I definitely get my even my like, today I was like, what is the like, what is our [01:32:00] communal desire here? I literally used that word, those words, like, is our mission as a community. I said these exact things to Uh, brute oppressive systems within churches and that feels really big and hopeless.

Like I get exhausted thinking about that all the time. Like I just want to like hit my head against a wall and you saying what you just said brought me so much freedom I feel 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: like. And I think a healthy deconstruction, section group, the mission is deconstruction, you know, like it's not, and I, I have to tell people this a lot.

And like, my goal is not, I'm not a cult breaker. I don't, you know, like I'm not out here to save the world. I think it's really helpful. And, you know, I don't know what part you're at in the book, but there's sort of a turning point for me when somebody tells me, Daniella, get the F over yourself. You're not as different as you think you are.

Um, and I now like to turn that around to say, first of all, [01:33:00] cults are not as different as you think they are. You know, like we've probably all had an experience with a coercive group at this point in America. Um, but also you are not as different as you think you are. And so, you know, like, It takes some work to not have the need to be very special all the time.

And really to say this with all the like love and care in the world that like if you were raised in a coercive system, you were raised without unconditional love and you were raised to be this way, to need this attention. Um, I like to say that we were So in the children of God, if anyone ever gave you a compliment, there was only one response, and it was, it's only Jesus.

Right? So if I'm taught I'm nothing without Jesus, and then I reject Jesus, I now feel like I need to spend the next 20 years proving that I am, in fact, something. Um, and kind of realizing that, like, you have nothing to prove. We're all just out here. No one person has the right [01:34:00] answer. Like, we're all just out here.

Trying to do our best. 

Johnna: Ooh, look at you dismantling worm theology right here on this episode that we weren't expecting to do that. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: I don't 

Johnna: think I know what worm theology is. Well, you do because you just spoke to it. It's that we're all like these wretched worms apart from Jesus saving us and your only worth is tied into that like God's son shown on you, this chosen one.

And you know, this is very 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: similar to kind of What's going on in feminism right now, right? Like I don't have to be anything to be a proper woman. Like I am enough. And you know, if you're Ken also, 

Jay: this was great. I got, and I don't have any other questions. I was just going to tell you, I started reading your blog yesterday.

I have not read your book yet. I am going to read it. Uh, your book, um, Uh, I want to read it. Um, it seems amazing, but I started reading your blog and I got like four or five in and you're an amazing writer. So, um, someone who [01:35:00] loves to write, I just wanted to tell you that like, I, the way you tell your stories and the way that you share information, it's very helpful.

And uh, it just, I would encourage people to check out your blog as well and your website. So 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: thank you. Yeah. And the book is far better because I had help writing it. We all need help to tell our stories. Um, it's also available on audio. If anyone's an audio fan, the New York times said it didn't suck. 

Johnna: I have both.

I have both because I was listening while I was working and then I was, I like to read when I don't have to listen to things. So both were, are great. And then. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: You know, the final thing I will say is that my paperback for Uncultured is on pre sale and the Cult of Publishing pre sales are very important, but what I want to tell you is that it's the perfect 20 holiday gift for someone in your life that needs to question their own group.

Right? So it comes out November 7th. You can just like order it now, fire and forget, [01:36:00] um, and you don't even have to tell them what it's about. You can just, anyone that liked the movie Sound of Freedom, you can be like, here's a story of a little girl who was trafficked and then became an army captain and the book will do the work for you.

And finally, I will remind you to be very skeptical of anyone who teaches you about a problem and then sells you their solution, but go buy my book. 

Jay: Sound of Freedom would take a whole, that would be an episode, Jonna, that I would just want to get on Soapbox and talk about that movie and, and not in a good 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: way.

I have done several Soapboxes, like as a victim of child trafficking, like that movie is the enemy. Um, that movie specifically, of course, was funded by a child trafficker, right? And is, is trying to distract you from what it really looks like. Um, what it really looks like, especially religious trafficking, is often six shiny white children rapping apocalypse Bible verses in [01:37:00] downtown Rio.

You can see that on my TikTok 

Johnna: that on that super intense note, thank you so much for spending the time to come to this little corner of the podcast world and share your insight and help us to just humanize the conversation more. I think That it's really easy for us, especially in this day and age, you've kind of spoken to the entertainment industry a couple times.

Now we have Netflix at our fingertips. We like cult documentaries are huge. People are making lots of money putting those out and we're inch. We're ingesting all of that, and I think it's desensitizing us to the humanity in it. And so, again, I kind of started our call before we started recording just saying, I'm sure you, as a human, get erased from this conversation a lot.

And it kind of gets separated out as People are speaking to you about your experience or your expertise, and I [01:38:00] just want to say, like, thank you so much for your vulnerability and your willingness to share your story with the public and the ways that you have allowed us to read your story and see ourselves in it and learn about ourselves through it.

That is costly. And I don't want to skip over that before we say goodbye. So thank you. 

Daniella Mestyanek Young: Well, I appreciate that so much. And something, you know, that I didn't expect that I would say is that, you know, the uncultured is really the story of incredible loneliness and not fitting in. And whether it's alone in a basement with a pedophile or alone on a tower thinking of jumping off.

it was really hard to survive. And it's not like I'm healed. It's not like I don't get triggered and I don't get sent back to these places. But when I do, I'm not alone anymore. Um, you know, and I think like, I'll be able to imagine your face. There. Right. And [01:39:00] just the fact that people are willing to walk through such an intense story with me has changed my life and has made, you know, sharing my story actually really impactful.

So I, I'm so honored by every single person that, uh, takes the time to do that. Thank you so much.

Jay: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the speaker's own and not those of this podcast. This content is presented for informational and educational purposes that constitute fair use, commentary, or criticism. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestion, or correction of errors.