0107 I Was Raised in a Family Cult... Here's How I Escaped

A mother tells her child that one “impure” thought could mean eternal fire and she claims she can read minds. That fear becomes the fuel for a family-run, high-control religious group where confession lasts until 3 a.m., “demons” explain every human impulse, and doubt is treated like a moral failure. 

Peggy, author of *Surviving the Family Kingdom* and a psychotherapist, unpacks what it’s like when the cult leader is also your parent. Peggy walks us through the early chaos that made her mother vulnerable to extreme beliefs, the Pentecostal influence that normalized spiritual spectacle, and the slow shift from searching for faith to building a closed system of control. We talk about coercive control tactics like sleep deprivation, isolation, punishments, the “hot seat,” and how love bombing can flip into fear the moment someone stops complying. 

Then we follow the moment everything breaks open: motherhood. Peggy describes how parenting clarified what she could no longer accept, how she stopped policing her own mind, and why leaving required a strategy that protected her from manipulation. We also explore the harder, less-discussed part of cult recovery and religious trauma: rebuilding identity, living with triggers, and navigating a complicated relationship with an aging parent who never offers acknowledgement. Peggy shares how EMDR helped neutralize the images and body memories that kept her feeling haunted. 

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find stories of survival and recovery.

Transcript

Fear, Perfection, And The Threat

SPEAKER_01 0:00

At 12 years old, that I would be cast into the lake of fire for eternity if I was not pure and perfect. I knew those things weren't true. I knew they weren't true. But I was so afraid she was gonna read my mind. Once I became a mother, things changed.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Is EMDR a very common uh form of especially cult deprogramming therapy?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Looking back on it now, uh, through my adult lens and through a therapeutic lens, I know that I was giving my mother one last chance to show me that she loved me and that I was actually a daughter and not just a convert in the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

And what does it mean to be pure and perfect?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

It was not rainbows and sunshine. It was it was hard. It was really hard.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

If your mom was open to listening to you today, what would you want to say to her?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

I want her to know that she's forgiven so she can be in peace when she goes.

Peggy’s Early Life And Survival

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Peggy, welcome to Multispective. I'm so excited to have you on air with us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So, uh Peggy, can you just sort of like begin from the very beginning? Where does your journey begin? Um, where are you from?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

I'm originally from Pennsylvania, coal mining country, actually. And uh, but I only lived there till I was six, and we moved to California then, Los Angeles. And um, I always like to give listeners kind of a little bit of a profile of my mother to get a sense of uh what led her to do what she did. Uh, she came from a loveless family. Um, there was a lot of abuse and neglect. Um, she was unlucky in love. Um, she married my father, but they separated when I was six months old. Um, I had a very chaotic childhood, poverty, moving a lot. Um, it was my sister and I. My mother had another baby, had a boy, and gave him up for adoption. So there was a lot that was packed into the six years in living in Pennsylvania. And then we moved to California, and my mother was very wounded from all that she'd been through, very wounded, but also very driven. You know, she was a really hard worker, uh, really determined to, you know, do a good job raising my sister and I. My sister's one year older than I am. Um, so when she went to California, it was kind of like a fresh start. Um, she had a friend out there that told her, Come to California, there's lots of opportunity here, and uh you'll be able to, you know, date again and meet someone. And so there was a lot of enthusiasm uh for my mom in moving to California. But unfortunately, we were only there for a few months and she got entangled with a a man who was violent. And for two years, he essentially kept us captive. Uh he slept with a gun under his pillow. He told her that if we tried to leave, he was going to kill us. Um, there were beatings. You know, he beat my mom regularly and sometimes really bad. Um, my sister and I also, not nearly as bad as my mom. But um after two years, my mother had been secretly saving uh tips. She was a waitress. I know they call them servers now, but back then it was waitress. Um, but she had been secretly saving tips and had saved enough and then got her tax return. And there was just one day where she felt like, okay, okay, this is the day we're gonna we're gonna escape. So we literally went to the airport and my mother went to the counter and said, I have this much money. How far can three people get on this? Um, and so that took us to to Sacramento. And so again, my mother very, very wounded, even more wounded than she was before. Um, and of course, as a child, I didn't know any of what she was going through. I just was being a kid. Uh, I mean, I knew what was going on, you know, kind of with with the violent man. Yeah, I knew that it was a bad situation. But um, I I developed Stockholm syndrome um when I was there and formed an attachment to him. So he became like a father figure to me, even though uh, you know, he wasn't violent all the time. He was kind of like a Jekyll and Hyde, and that's the way I describe him in the book. Um, but shortly after we got to Sacramento, my mother got involved with another man, and this was through a Pentecostal church. And my mother was not particularly religious uh before this happened. She, you know, talked about loving Jesus and um occasionally went to church. Uh she would sometimes give my sister and I a tithe, you know, on Sunday mornings and we'd go to Sunday school. She would be sleeping in because she um uh worked on Saturday nights. And so the other thing I should mention about my childhood is there was no child care. So my mother just left us home alone. Um her explanation was that she just couldn't afford it, and that was probably true. Um, I they I don't think they had assistance back then and things like that. So my sister and I from six and seven took care of ourselves. Uh, and my mom was gone evenings because that's when the tips were better. Um, so you know, she worked, you know, uh slept during the day and then worked at night. So, anyway, she got involved with this this other man, his name was Buddy, that was his nickname, and he convinced her that the two of them had a calling from God. And so um she had a falling out with the minister of the church that we'd been going to. And I should also mention that um my mother just kind of uh pushed us into this church without any preparation or explanation of what was going on. And I don't know if your listeners know much about the Pentecostal religion,

Pentecostal Chaos And Church Surfing

SPEAKER_01 5:55

uh, but it's um there's a lot of crazy things that happen in the Pentecostal church. Um, so one of the basis of their beliefs is that they speak in tongues, and that's a special language that you have that you know you communicate with God. Um, but she didn't prepare us for what we would witness at this Pentecostal church. Um, so that people would faint, there were, you know, dance trains, uh, you know, people, hands in the air, you know, singing in tongues, and just, I mean, you know, as as I think I was about 11 years old at that point, you know, I just was looking around like, okay, I have no idea what is going on. Um, but after going for uh a few months, I just I got used to it, you know, and uh just it became my my new normal. But we, like I said, my mother had a falling out with that minister, and we ended up leaving that church. And then after that, she and this man uh took us what I call church surfing. We would go to different churches and they would look for opportunities to argue with the um, you know, the preachers. And sometimes we would get thrown out because there would be, you know, they would have these, you know, spiritual um arguments scripture over scriptures and things like that, and eventually they would usher us out. Um, so it was really embarrassing for me, you know, at 11 years old, you know, having to go through this, you know, especially when I knew what was coming. You know, I would sit there in church and I would look over at my mom, you know, she would, when she would get nervous, she would do this thing with her thumbs like this. And so whenever she would do that, I knew, okay, she's about ready to stand up and holler out something that's going to be, you know, an argument with the minister and very embarrassing for me. So that went on for a little while. And then my mother and buddy had a falling out. So, and she had told us that they got married, but we later learned that they didn't didn't legally get married. Um, they just said they were married and then they were. Um, so uh they had a falling out. I guess they broke up, although my mother didn't inform us of what was happening. And we moved back to Pennsylvania and lived with my grandparents. Uh, my mother had lost her job and you know, had this falling out with the man, and uh we couldn't pay rent, and there was a period of time where we had no food in the refrigerator. So she thought, well, there's nothing I can do here. I'm gonna have to move back to Pennsylvania and get the help of my parents. So that's my grandparents who passed away now, and we called them uh Mammy and Pappy. So we moved in with Mammy and Pappy, and that was a disaster. Um in part because uh my papi, my grandfather, was extremely religious, very, very religious, uh, and more much more conservative than my mother. And so they clashed and they ended up kicking us out, literally kicking us out, throwing our things out the window from the upstairs uh onto the onto the ground. And so we had to find a place to live. And by that time, my mother had gotten her first uh convert, and that was her brother. So he came with us when Mammy and Pappy kicked us out. He came with us, and he had this friend in the next town over that said, you know, we could stay with them until we found a place. So we ended up uh staying with this couple, and my mother converted them, and so now she had three converts. Um, and so she was very fired up about now starting an organization, although she did not inform my sister and I that this was what was gonna happen. It just we just kind of observed it.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

It wasn't something that she didn't it at the initial stages intended to do, but because her brother kind of became a follower naturally, she realized, hey, I think I've got some leadership in this. And I think like it also makes sense kind of what you said when she was going back and forth and you know, like having all these spiritual arguments with the preachers, it's like she's developing her own understanding of like what you know religion should look like and what it should be. And so she's kind of getting strength from that kind of background too. And instead of using, you know, her getting kicked out from these like churches as uh hey, like maybe I should try to actually really understand what's going on in these churches and what these beliefs are, it's more like giving her that power to kind of be like, Well, I know I'm right in my in my beliefs, yes, to the point where she was willing to even fight with her own parents. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Um and and I would even add that getting kicked out of the churches, getting kicked out from Mammy and Pappy's house, um emboldened her even more because she saw that as um persecution. So she was being persecuted. And I'm glad you mentioned, you know, she was developing um, you know, her doctrine doctrine, her message. And her message actually was very enticing to um followers. Uh, she preached that things like drinking and smoking and sex before marriage were not sins. Um, you know, she talked about you know following Jesus and you'd have eternal life. So it was, you know, these these big uh messages that were in in contrast to a lot of the conservative churches. And so she was developing uh what her message uh was. And uh, you know, and she used scripture. I mean, she read her Bible a lot

Building The Kingdom And Mind Control

SPEAKER_01 11:10

and knew, you know, she could quote scripture, you know, on the on the fly very easily. You know, it was she had a lot of it memorized. So um then we ended up getting a house, a big house in the country. And her idea was I'm gonna have this big house, and I'm gonna get more followers, and they're gonna come and be in this house, and we're gonna live like a commune. And so that went on for a while, and we did get converts. Um, but I should say, because I often get the question from people, well, how big did the kingdom become? And the thing about it is it was a revolving door, and that's because my mother, so her message was very uh positive and you know, eternal life and the things you've been told are sin or not sin. Come with us and you know you're gonna you're gonna be saved because the end of times is coming. And that's the other thing is that you know, she had told us the end of times was coming, just like it's predict predicted in Revelation. Every generation thinks, and including this one, that the end of times is their generation. So she was telling people, you know, you you have to, you know, follow Jesus, or otherwise you're gonna you're gonna be left behind in the end of times, and not only just left behind, but you're gonna be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. So I was told that at 12 years old, that I would be cast into the lake of fire for eternity if I was not pure and perfect. So that was another part of her message is that you know, to be to uh get eternal life and to go to heaven when end of times comes, that you have to be pure and perfect.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

And what does it mean to be pure and perfect?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

What it means is that you're you don't have doubtful thoughts, you don't have evil thoughts, um, you don't you don't do the things that she said was sin. So um she was really big on demons. So, you know, she had the demon of lust, the demon of stubbornness, the demon of hatred. And you know, she you know these demons, she believed that that was they were the catalyst to getting you to sin. And they would they would uh come into you through your thoughts. And so if you had a lustful thought, for example, you know, you had a sexual thought, uh, and you gave in to that thought, I put it in quotes because that was that's the phrase that she would use, giving in to the thought, that would mean then you would have that demon and you wouldn't be pure and perfect. So as a child, I was constantly auditing my thoughts. You know, I would think something and then I think, okay, did I give give in to that? Or was that an evil thought? You know, and then I would say things like, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, you know, to to drown it out. Um, and um, my mother told everybody that she could read minds. And so that was another thing that I was uh riddled with fear about was if I did have a thought and she would read my mind, then I would be in the hot seat. So I should describe what the hot seat is. So um, when she preached, which was nearly every night, we would have uh a feast. She was a fabulous cook, and so she and the rest of the the women in in the uh group would cook and we would have a meal, and then we would all go into the living room and she would preach. And almost always she would say there was someone who is backslidden. So backslidden means you let a demon in. You've sinned, you had a doubtful thought, you had an evil thought. And so um she convinced us that she could feel sin in her body. So if she had a backache or her legs hurt, that meant someone was backslidden and someone had let a demon in. And so we would have these gatherings, and it was we would stay up until whatever time, you know, 2, 3, 4 a.m. in the morning. And my sister and I at that point were still in school. She later took us out of school. So we would have to get up, you know, at six o'clock in the morning, get ready for school, catch the bus because we lived in a in the country. And so there was very little sleep. So there was a lot of sleep deprivation that went on uh in the kingdom. And so we would stay up until someone would confess. And, you know, looking back on it, there were a lot of people I think that took one for the team. You know, they would confess something because they would just want the night to end, and so we could all go to bed. Um, but I was, you know, I had so much trepidation about being put in the hot seat. So I I fawned a lot. So, you know, for your listeners, the four trauma responses are fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And it's very common when children are in threatening situations to fawn. So I, you know, did everything I could to be pure and perfect, to uh serve my mother, you know, do what she said, don't um talk back or you know, anything like that uh because I didn't want to be in the hot seat. And so um that went on for a while at that place, and then she told us that she was supposed to reunite with Buddy, that they were the two witnesses um spoken of in Revelation, and that they were going to reunite, and that they were going to be killed in the streets, and that is what was going to trigger uh the apocalypse,

Punishment, Prophecy, And Life On The Run

SPEAKER_01 16:30

that the end of times was coming. So we left that house in the country, uh, got a trailer, uh, we all got in the in my my my uncle's van and we hit the road. And how many people were there at the so at that point, let's see, a lot of them had gotten kicked out. So um that's the other thing I should mention is that if someone didn't comply and you know it it was persistent that they were not compliant compliant, my mother would kick them out. And there was also punishments, so you know, fasting, uh isolation. Um one man confessed to having oral sex with his uh wife, which she deemed as a sin. Um, and so he was exiled to sleep in the in the um barn um for a week. So there, you know, it was it was a scary environment, let's put it that way. You know, you never knew, and I didn't consider myself immune because I was her daughter to any of those things. Um, I just made sure I was pure and perfect in her eyes so that none of that would happen to me. So by the time we um jumped in the van and headed back out to California, there were, let's say it was my sister and I. Um, the man I told you about that was exiled to the barn, he got kicked out, but his wife stayed. So, which was crazy, I know. Yeah. And then she had a child, and then it was my uncle, and then it was my mom. So it was a pretty small group by that point when we went to California. So we went back out to California. My mother did reunite with Buddy, um, and Buddy had um um two children, and um, we stayed with um one of those children, uh, adult child, and she converted them. And uh there was a wild situation that happened in that house. This is all in my book. Um, so uh we were staying there, and um uh the other child of Buddy, the the woman, she was there as well, and she had a baby, and she was leaving her husband who was abusive. And so they showed up, uh surrounded the house with cars, demanding that we give them the baby. And just before that happened, um the wife of the Buddy's son, I know this is a lot to follow, um, who my mother converted, she said she wanted to go say goodbye to her family. But what happened was her extended family showed up with guns, and we were held at gunpoint, and they were saying, You're not taking her, you're crazy, you know, you need to leave. And Buddy's son was like, Well, this is my house, you can't, you know, make these people leave. I want them here. And so that whole thing was crazy. And we the police came for that, the police came for the second situation, and they said, The way this is gonna end is you're gonna leave town. So we were we were run out of town. We were escorted uh by police uh out of town to the top to I-80. So it was uh just a wild ride and very um uh uh humiliating situation. And one of the women um from the extended family of that woman, uh, she had a gun and she had two men that had guns. And at one point she strangled my mother. And to the point where her she turned blue and her eyes were rolling back in her head. And me at 12 years old, I'm looking around, nobody's doing anything, and I and nobody's doing anything because she told us if there's an attempt on her life, yes, to not interfere. And so I'm looking around, nobody's interfering, my uncle's not doing anything, you know, the other adults in the room are not doing anything, and something took over me, and I just became like a feral cat. And I was just clawing at this woman and you know, getting her hands from my mother's neck, and I had handfuls of her hair in my in my hands, uh, you know, and it it was uh you know, chaos ensued, and you know, everybody was, you know, somebody went to the kitchen to call the police. I mean, it was just a crazy wild situation. So uh once they knew the police were coming, they left. And uh then when the police came, you know, my mother's you know, making the police report and going, Well, why aren't you doing anything? This woman tried to kill me. Why aren't you doing anything? And the police are like, you know, the way this is gonna end is you're you're gonna leave town. And at the time, I saw that as persecution because I I was brainwashed. I believed what my mom was telling me. Now, looking back, I understand the police saw my mom was a wacko and you know, and that this family was just trying to protect their you know family member from you know going with this wacky woman. And so, uh, but at the time I thought, oh my gosh, we're being persecuted even by the police. Um, so it was it was really crazy. And so then after that, for about four years, we moved from town to town, um, my mother converting people and um you know having these circles, like I told you, and um people coming in and out. It was like I said, it was a revolving door. I've never really counted the total from the time she started until it ended, um, how many people it was, but you know, it's I don't know, 60 maybe 70, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

That's a lot. That's a lot of to have like, you know, like staunch believers, people who just don't question the prophecy or you know, they don't question anything, they just blindly believe it. It's it's quite a lot. Do you remember though, like at at any One point, like what was the most like the the highest number of people you had, like members at one given point?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Maybe like a dozen or 15 at once. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Um, I mean, and sometimes people that are leaving their lives behind and they're coming to live with you guys and 24 or 7 kind of be a part of this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yeah. And you know, some people stayed for months, some people it would be two or three nights. You know, it just really depended on how compliant they were. Because if they were not going to be compliant, my mother was not going to have them. They were they were gonna be, you know, um excommunicated um from the group. And people most of the people who were kicked out did not want to be kicked out. And many of them begged, please let me stay, please, I'll be, I'll do better, you know, kind of thing. And um many of the people, like, okay, uh the the woman I told you about that her husband was exiled to the barn, who ended up coming with us, um, she got kicked out after we landed in another city that she didn't even know. It was Kansas City. We we we were in Kansas City for a year, and she was kicked out while we were there. So I don't know even what ended up happening to her and her daughter. I have no idea because she was kicked out and we left and moved somewhere else. And um, there was no communication with her after that. So to this day, I have no idea where she is. And there's a number of people like that where I wonder what happened to them. I just don't know. Um, so so Kansas City, then Florida, then Michigan, then back to Florida.

Iowa Years And Cracks In Belief

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Then we ultimately ended uh ended up in Iowa when I was nearly 16. And when we landed in Iowa, the three and a half years had came and went. So that that was that prophecy didn't happen. So my mother said that the Lord had told her that it was time for us to occupy and blend into the world and just wait for the end of times, that it was going to be, he was going to come like a thief in the night. I should also mention by this point, my mother was telling us that she was the incarnation of Jesus Christ. So uh that she could raise people from the dead, that she could cast demons out, that she could heal. And when she started saying a lot of those things, I knew those things weren't true. I knew they weren't true, but I was so afraid she was going to read my mind, I was so afraid of letting in the demon of doubt. That was a demon too, a demon of doubt. So the demon of doubt was when you questioned. And so I was so afraid of that that when I would have these thoughts like, you know, you never raise anybody from the dead. What do you why are you lying to people? I would push those thoughts out and you know, say say things like, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, you know, I'd flood my mind so I wouldn't think those things. But down here the truth was always there. Yeah, I I knew what the truth was. And um, so so then she told us that the Lord said we were supposed to marry and produce offs offspring. So that was that was our mission was to find spouses. And so um I did find a spouse, my sister did as well, and my uncle, uh my uncle did, and then my mother she reunited with the man that she uh had the baby with that they gave up for adoption.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

And that was the buddy was not a part of the picture anymore.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Nope. I I guess I missed that part. So when we were in California and all that chaos and crazy stuff happened, he had left um after they just had one day together. He came and they preached together and uh we had a dinner and all in the circle and everything. And he left that night and he was supposed to come back the next day. And my mother said, We need to leave before he comes back the next day because the devil has gotten him. Something has gone wrong. He's not, he's not the other witness. So um, so kind of like change of plans. You we're not, we're not uh gonna be with him. You know, something's wrong with him. We had it, we had to leave before he came back the next night. So yeah, we we did end up, we got ran out of town by the police. I guess Buddy came back and just found that we weren't there. I'm not exactly sure. I don't think there was any communication with him at all um after that. So yeah, the buddy thing didn't happen. So um, so she was on her own and reunited with this with this man um that she had the baby with 13 years prior. And they had this very um uh volatile relationship. Uh, he was in the hot seat a lot, and he would leave her, and then she would go back to Pennsylvania and win him back, and then he would come back to Iowa, and so she was doing this sort of back and forth thing. Uh, but even when she was gone, she still had control of us. She would call on the phone and she'd say, I have a headache, somebody's backslidden, I my back hurts, my legs hurt, you know, call the group together, somebody sinned. And so my uncle, who she called her right-hand man, would call us all together, but he was never like her. He, um, when we would get together, he didn't exclude himself as a possibility as the person among us who could have sinned. So it wasn't like he took on her role, he would just bring us all together because she said that's what we should do. Um, so and there were there were all kinds of little things that she controlled that I still to this day don't really understand. Um, she insisted that we all live together. Um, and my husband and I, we had a bedroom that had just a curtain and we wanted a regular door, and she said, it's not the Lord's will for you to have a door on your bedroom. So there were just odd things like that that I just never understood and still to this day don't understand. The other thing that started happening was um, so my mother um has always liked to drink and smoke, and when she started her ministry, she gave up drinking and smoking because she said God told her she needed to give up everything fleshly. So she did that, but then when we ended up in Iowa, she said it's you know, we have to be worldly and blend in and just you know wait for the end of times. And the Lord wants us all to start smoking and drinking. And so um we all smoked. I mean, and this was in the 70s, so it wasn't unusual for people to smoke. Um, but uh but she started drinking and drinking a lot, and so a lot of times when we would have the circle, she would be drinking, and the more she would drink, the crazier it would get. You know, demons being, you know, you see she would sometimes take on a demon and thrash around on the floor and foam at the mouth. I mean, it was wild, just wild, crazy stuff. Um, and all the while I'm, like I said, fawning, trying to be perfect. But the other thing that's happening is that there's starting to be little cracks of doubt that I'm, you know, just gently letting in. And the catalyst to that was becoming

Motherhood Sparks The Breakaway

SPEAKER_01 29:06

a mother. Once I became a mother, things changed. Um, I should also add that there were children in the kingdom, and those children were beaten. Um, they had black and blue bottoms and thighs 24-7. And that was how my mother handled getting their demons out, was to spank them repeatedly. And so I did not want my children to go through that. And so I started having feelings about, you know, strong feelings about, you know, how I want to raise my children, you know, and and I'm not gonna use corporal punishment, and I'm, you know, gonna do it this way and that way. And um so finally, when I was pregnant with my second child, um, she at this point she was living back east. Um, she was had gone back east trying to get her man back, and but we had uh bought her a ticket to come and visit us for Christmas. And for some reason, well, I know the reason, I wanted her to be with me for the birth of my baby. So my baby was due before Christmas. So I thought when she came out, she would be with me right after the birth, or she would be there during the birth. And um, looking back on it now, uh, through my adult lens and through a therapeutic lens, I know that I was giving my mother one last chance to show me that she loved me and that I was actually a daughter and not just a convert in the kingdom. So I asked her if she would stay a little bit longer. We would pay for her ticket to, you know, change it, stay a little bit longer so that um she could be there for the birth of the baby. And this may sound innocuous to your listeners, but this was the the the uh tipping point for me is she said, Oh honey, I miss my friends, I want to get back. And I thought to myself, friends? I thought the end of times was coming. Who were these friends? You know, I thought I thought you were Jesus. I thought, you know, this was all about the kingdom. I don't understand. And so this happened at the kitchen table in in the morning when we were having coffee, and I didn't say anything, I just kept it to myself. But I said to myself, this is bullshit. It was the first time I actually admitted to myself that what she was doing was wrong, controlling us was wrong, that I had completely given myself over. My whole identity was gone. Uh, I had never really even had an opportunity to develop my own identity. And um that night I laid in bed and I said, I'm I'm just gonna let think about whatever I think. Whatever thoughts come, I'm just gonna, I'm not pushing any thoughts out, I'm not gonna drown anything out with praising Jesus or anything. I'm just gonna think whatever. And it was like a movie reel where I was just thinking about the last 10 years, because at this point it had been 10 years, thinking about the last 10 years, all the things that had happened, all the bad things, all the the you know uh abuse and the um the way people were treated, and you know, kicking people out and uh controlling their lives. Uh, you know, people gave up everything to come with her, and sometimes even left, you know, their state to to be with her. And by morning I said to myself, I'm leaving the kingdom, and even if my husband uh doesn't want to come with me, I didn't know how I was gonna do it. Um, but so he we woke up in the morning, he he woke up in the morning. I never slept that night, and I said, Um, I'm leaving the kingdom with or without you. And he's like, Well, what wait, what what's going on? What's going on? So I told him, and he said, Well, I'm we're gonna both leave the kingdom then. I I only I've only come to the kingdom and and and and got saved because of you. You know, I wouldn't have done this on my own, which was unbelievable to me because from my perspective, he bought it hook, line, and sinker.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

And I thought it was gonna be very difficult to convince him to leave, uh, but it wasn't difficult at all. So that night we told the rest of the group, and one by one, they all said, I'm leaving too. I'm leaving too. There was really only one person in the group, and that was my uncle's wife, who broke down and cried and said, I did believe it. I thought this was it. And everybody else said, I've had doubts all along. I've had doubts all along. You know, my sister said, No, I never believed it. Um, so oh my god, that is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

So, like the fact that this all managed to go on for so long, no one believed it. Yet everyone stayed.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Was it just sort of like this? I don't know, would she gain power in keeping everyone separate from each other? Like, in a sense, by not encouraging people to communicate, because the moment you guys stop communicating, that's where the walls break down. So, in a way, she wanted to keep you guys away.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

That's right. We never talked about it. Nobody among the group talked about their doubts at all. We were so afraid that this person is loyal and they're gonna go and they're gonna tell that I brought up a doubt. So nobody wanted to be in that position. So there was no communication between us at all until that night. I sat down and I wrote her a letter, and that was how I got out of the kingdom, uh, informed her that I was leaving the kingdom, is I wrote her a letter. I knew that I couldn't have a phone conversation with her. I I knew that I would feel I would get manipulated, and uh, I don't know what would have happened after that. I don't think she would have been able to convince me to stay in the kingdom, uh, but uh I she she would have definitely had an influence on on the way I felt. So that was why I wrote the letter. You know, I I just felt like she had way too much control, way too much power over me. She um she married people in the kingdom. You know, she would just decide, okay, you're a couple and you're gonna be married. And there wasn't a formal, you know, there wasn't a marriage certificate or anything like that. It was just her deciding two people were married. And when I was 15, there was a boy that um she converted that was also 15, and she married us. And he came with us, which I now know is kidnapping. Um and uh he came with us and she tormented him so much that he left and hitchhiked home. It was devastating for me.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah, it was I mean, I was very attached to him, and I lost my virginity to him. He lost his to me. And then after uh my husband and I, uh, we got divorced and he passed away, actually, uh complications of alcoholism. Um, but he's he was the father of my three children. We had a third child. Um, but um I go into into the book, What Life Was Like After Leaving the Kingdom.

After Leaving And Finding Identity

SPEAKER_01 36:07

It was not rainbows and sunshine, it was it was hard. It was really hard. After I divorced him, uh, and my kids were a little bit older. We moved to another town, and I I kind of got involved with the community and I decided, you know, I was gonna stay there because I wanted my kids to have a foundation. Um, and I got into new age for quite a few years, um, and you know, was doing a lot of reading, Deepak Chopra, and you know, all of those. And um, so that, you know, kind of satisfied me for a little while. Um, but it really didn't feel authentic to me, like who I really was, because I I didn't know who I was yet. Um, so uh ultimately I I settled on agnostic. So, you know, that's where I am am today, is that you know that feels good to me because nobody knows. I can't say one way or the other. Nobody knows, nobody has proof of anything. And so as long as there's no proof, there's still possibility, but there's no it's not solid. So so that's where I ultimately landed.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

It's a wild ride what you've gone through, I've got to say. But the fact that you've come out the other side and you found yourself not only a community, but you found yourself an education, you found yourself a way to be independent despite everything, is is I mean, this is exactly why I do this podcast, honestly. It's like for it's for people like you who've gone through adversity and who've been able to come out the other side and make not just a life, but to make an amazing life out of it. So I know you mentioned that at some point they your mom did say that you kind of have to start like mixing with the community and stuff, but was it quite restrictive? Like, were you guys not allowed to sort of like watch TV or because I mean the more involved you are with the outside world, the more there's gonna be these devils, these demons that are gonna kind of plant themselves. So did they isolate you a lot?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Yeah, you know, to the outside world, we looked like a normal family. And in fact, when we settled, we settled in Iowa, um, there was some wild things. We moved around a lot, and that's all in the book. But ultimately we settled in this little town, and my mother opened a restaurant, and so we all worked in the restaurant. So to our patrons, we just looked like this, you know, family who started a little restaurant and um had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. Um, and you mentioned TV. That is that I can have a whole conversation just about the television. So we were allowed to watch television, but just what you said is is true. My mother, you know, warned us that demons can get to us through the television. And so I don't know if you um, you know, you're probably too young to know these shows, but um, there were these very funny shows. One of them was called Laugh In, um, that we my my sister and I used to love to watch. Um, but we didn't watch that because my mother said you would get the demon of mockery from watching that show. Um, watching a sex scene, you could get the demon of lust.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Lust, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

So sometimes my mother would test us. She would put a show on that would have some of these things, and she would sit there and watch us to see how what our face did, you know, how our faces um reacted to what we were watching on television.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Um, and that's the thing, like what they do is like I I know of like I've heard in a lot of cults that they do two specific things, one of which is love bombing. Is there a way of being like, I'm here for you when you're really vulnerable, where you know, we are the place that's gonna give you the relief that you need? And then the other side is that fear instilling, right? Which is, you know, if you misbehave, this is what's gonna happen. So as long as you stay in line, you're gonna get everything that you need. Um typical traits of like a of a cult. And it sounds like that's kind of what was happening quite a lot. Did you did you

Isolation Tactics And Love Bombing

SPEAKER_00 40:00

notice there was also a lot of like love bombing happening?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Oh, yes. I you know, I would say that when someone initially came in, that's exactly what it was. She would shower them with delicious food. You know, the the preaching was only positive. It was about, you know, eternal life, and it was about how loving Jesus is and how their sins are forgiven, and they're, you know, they're gonna sit at Jesus' feet, you know, when the end of times come. Uh, and so pe people, you know, loved it, uh, because you know, a lot of them um were kind of lost in looking for something. And um, she was offering, you know, something that was uh liberating to them. And so, yeah, the love bombing would happen and then it would turn. Then it would be little things that they would do that she would didn't like, and then that it became bigger and bigger and bigger, and you know, so it was systematic. It was not, and like I said, there was sleep deprivation that went on. That was very common uh for us to be up, you know, late into the night, and she would sleep the next day, you know, she would sleep in, um, but the rest of us, you know, had to had to work and had to do what we we needed to do. And like I said, back in in uh Pennsylvania, my sister and I had to get up and go to school the next day. And so this is very common for us. We'd you know be going on two hours of sleep uh because we were up late the night before, you know, with demons being cast out of people. Um, so yeah, so it was a crazy ride. And um, but like I said, um uh eventually, you know, I did land on my identity and who I am and um uh developed a life. And you know, I go into this in the book, and by the way, the name of the book is Surviving the Family Kingdom. Um, I go into this in the book about how um after I left the kingdom, uh, you know, all the different windy roads that

Aging Parent, No Closure, Hard Forgiveness

SPEAKER_01 42:00

my life took uh before I actually found where I am. But during that time, my mother was in and out of my life. So uh after I left the kingdom, I actually didn't see her for 10 years. But I she was never without my phone number. Another fear that I carried, so I talked about the lake of fire, I talked about the fear of being kicked out. The other fear that I carried, and this started way back before the kingdom, this started when I was a little girl. My mother would drink and she would get depressed and she would talk about killing herself. And so after the kingdom ended, she would call on the phone, wasted in the middle of the night, and talk about taking her life. And so I was so afraid of being responsible for that.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Do you still find like things in your life randomly like triggering or reminding you of like a your time back there? Or is that just do you feel like it's so far away now for you that it doesn't even affect your day-to-day?

SPEAKER_01 42:58

No, there's there's still things. There, there, I mean, it it was a long time ago, but there are, I wouldn't say that it's every day, but there are still things that you know remind me, you know, of things that happened back then. It could be something in a TV show, or it could be, you know, me watching a video of, you know, uh evangelical preacher or something like that that, you know, triggers, you know, a memory of what happened during the kingdom. When she got to be in her 70s and her her health started to fail, um, I felt still felt responsible for her. And so I brought her back to Iowa. She'd been in Pennsylvania, brought her back to Iowa, and I said, you know, I you have to come here if you want me to manage your care. And so she moved to Iowa. I got her in an assisted living uh facility uh in the area that I was living in. And um uh I started having, I started struggling because I saw her as this very frail. Sickly, elderly woman. But I also remembered and still had a lot of the feelings of what happened before. She never allowed me to talk about it. I tried a few times and she would shut me down various ways. Sometimes she would manipulate me. Oh, I can't take it. Please stop. Please stop. Oh, you know, that kind of thing. Or, oh, it didn't hurt you none. Look how good you turned out. You know, we don't need, we don't need to talk about that. That was a long time ago. You know, so she she had different ways. And I didn't, I didn't persist. When she would do that, I would just, okay, I guess we're never going to talk about this. I guess I'm never going to get any acknowledgement, you know, from her. And this is why it's so, you use the word complicated. This is why it's so complicated when it's a parent who is who is the cult leader. Because, you know, leaving anyone else leaving the cult, like all the other people who left the kingdom, they don't have contact with my mom. They don't have, you know, a relationship with her, but she's my mother. And so even though all those things went on, I still desired, I still craved a mother. I still wanted that connection with her, that acknowledgement that, you know, she loved me as a daughter and saw me as a daughter. And and also my grand and my children. And she she never really showed any interest in her grandchildren, any of them. Um, you know, she would always say, Well, they have my number, they can call me. So um, yeah. So so when she came back and she was um so frail and ill, I was really struggling because I had this compassion for her on the one hand and saw her as this very frail um elderly woman who was vulnerable, but at the same time, I still had feelings about what happened during the kingdom that I hadn't processed with her.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Did she ever sort of like put blame on you or your sister for like exiting this this kingdom like for she never brought it, she never wanted to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

No. Yeah, so after we left, uh, you know, she she just went to drinking and depression and uh, you know, living her life as best she could. Um and no, she never uh I think that she didn't bring it up because she didn't want to hear what we had to say. She didn't want to hear what we what we experienced.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

If your mom uh was open to listening to you today, what would you want to say to her?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Oh my gosh, what a question. You know, what I would want to say to her is first I understand why now. I understand that you were wounded and broken, you were looking for connection, and you were so afraid of being alone that you created something that controlled people. I understand it. I understand why you did it. Um I would also want her to know that it really hurt me in a lot of ways. That it denied, denied me my education. I never got to go to high school, I never got to have friends, you know, I never got to go out and you know, date, you know, all the things that teenagers do. I didn't get to do any of those things. You know, I'd want her to know that that those uh were important, those are important uh milestones for a child, and I didn't get to experience those because you denied me those things. Um I would also want her to know that I forgive her. I want her to know that she's forgiven so she can be in peace when she goes, knowing that.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Yeah, I mean that's really powerful stuff. I mean, that's really big of you to sort of like be able to forgive someone without their apology in a sense, right? Or without them ever acknowledging what they did to hurt you and the ways that it impacted you as well. Do you think that you there's a part of you that does want some form of apology or some kind of acknowledged acknowledgement?

SPEAKER_01 48:19

For a long time. I mean, I've given up on it now, but for a very long time, I really craved that. Not so much the apology, but the acknowledgement. Uh, because during the years after, so there was a 10-year period where I didn't see her, but you know, I got the phone call, the drunk dial phone calls. And then she was in and out of my life for a few decades. And when she, whether it whether it was phone calls or whether she was living in the same town as as I was, we would spend time together, and she would make comments. She would never um acknowledge the kingdom necessarily, but she would make comments like, Remember those great dinners we used to have? You know, and and I would want to say those dinners were hell. No, yeah, the food was delicious, yeah, but they were they were hell. They were not, they were not pleasant. But I would hold back because I was so afraid that she would get depressed.

EMDR And Healing From Religious Trauma

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Um, you mentioned that EMDR was something you did quite a lot. Was that sort of, would you say that that was the pivotal kind of form of or modality of therapy that really helped you sort of overcome it?

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yes, yes, yes, that really, that really helped a lot. Um it it what it did was it it eliminated, I guess the best word to use is feeling haunted by it. You know, I still felt haunted by it. And the EMDR cleared that all out. And so um I used to get this um this image in my mind of her face when she was younger, when she during the kingdom years when she was younger and that that scary face that she would have. And then I'd have another flash of her face elderly and sickly and frail. And you know, I would have these, you know, sort of go back and forth, and it really haunted me. And that was one of the things that we targeted uh with EMDR, and that that then became neutralized, and I never had those flashbacks again.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Is EMDR a very common uh form of especially cult deprogramming therapy? Or is cult deprogramming kind of a bit different?

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Well, I mean, there you know, there are certain therapists that specialize in deconstructing um after people have left the cult. Um, I don't have that training. My uh my I'm a psychotherapist and I specialize in just in general trauma. But I have had uh over the I've been doing this 20 years, so I have had a few people who have left cults and I've you know worked through with the MDR and deconstructing um their beliefs and that sort of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Was there ever at any point anyone who like tried to come in and actually like break the cult up? And you know, like did anyone ever call the police to come in? No.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

No, never. No, I mean my mother just lied to people and told them that we my sister and I were 16 and 17. So I was 16 for like four years. Um, and so it was very anticlimactic when I actually turned 16. Yeah, because because I had been 16 already for a long time. Yeah, so and and my sister and I, you know, we we uh acted older than our age, um, because when when she started the kingdom, we were no longer children. We were we were adults and we were we were cult members. Well, she would never call it a cult. She would she would rebuff that very quickly, and even the word religion, she bristled at the at that word. I'm not religious, I'm godly, you know. So she would never call herself religious, she hated religion, especially the Catholic Church. She railed against the Catholic Church. Wow, so um, so yeah, she you know had her own brand, and it was definitely not what she would call religion, right? Yeah, Peggy. I need to get my hands on this book. I mean like surviving the Family Kingdom. Um, it's available on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Peggy, thank you so much for like being on the podcast and sharing your journey and being vulnerable. It can't be easy. I mean, I'm sure you've done this many times at this point, and like narrating and narrating the story again and again, but to an extent.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

It's different every time, though. Right? It's different, yeah. It's different every time. I mean, I don't know how many podcasts I've done, but uh, you know, probably 20 or something like that. And and it's different every time. So there's so many layers to what happened in the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Once again, Peggy, thank you so much for being on Multispective and sharing your journey with our listeners. We really truly thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Thank you for having me. I enjoyed our conversation.

Final Thanks And Support The Show

SPEAKER_00 52:58

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we are human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Lucas Theory, Stefan Menzel.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

The show would be nothing without you. I'm Jennifer, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.