Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse

Born into a Cult. Then Married a Narcissist. Is Coercive Control Stealing Your Life?

• Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D. • Season 5 • Episode 276

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Were you born into a cult — or did you unknowingly marry one? 

If you've ever felt trapped, controlled, and unable to trust your own reality — whether in a religion, a family system, or a relationship — you may have been living inside a cult of two. 

Narcissistic abuse operates through the same coercive control and psychological manipulation that keep cult members from ever questioning their reality. 

Brooke Deanne, trauma healing mentor and author of Shattered, Broken and Beautiful, joins Dr. Kerry to share her remarkable survivor's story: 36 years inside a high-control religious cult, followed by 17 years married to a narcissist. Discover the chilling similarities between coercive control in relationships and cult indoctrination that make narcissistic abuse so hard to name. 

Coercive control doesn't always look like abuse — sometimes it looks like devotion, duty, and belonging. 

PODCAST EXTRA — EXCLUSIVE SEGMENT  

Find the exclusive second segment and weekly newsletter here: https://substack.com/@breakingfreenarcabuse  

🔹 If you've been in a narcissistic relationship, how do you finally release the shame? In this members-only bonus, discover Brooke Deanna’s full healing steps.

BROOKE DEANNE is a Trauma Healing Mentor, Rapid Transformational Therapist (RTT), and NLP Practitioner empowering female survivors of abuse and trauma to reclaim their lives by rewriting their stories via a holistic approach to access new levels of mind, body, and spirit integration. After overcoming her history of abuse as an ex-Jehovah’s Witness and toxic relationships, Brooke brings profound insight to her work as an advocate against religious abuse and domestic violence. 

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist & author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. 

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This podcast/video is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute therapy, counseling, or professional mental health advice. If you are in crisis, please call 911 or your local emergency number.

Born into a Cult. Then Married a Narcissist. Is Coercive Control Stealing Your Life?

Brooke Deanna: [00:00:00] Questioning wasn't okay because that's what you're taught by the cult. You cannot question authority Yeah, I mean, that's ultimately what happens in this cult. You get shunned, you get abandoned. Everyone will not even look at you and talk to you. You are no longer allowed to be in their presence. And even when I did try to express my feelings, I was either gaslit, manipulated, or punished

Dr. Kerry: Toxic relationships have often been compared to surviving a cult of two. Well, Brooke-Deanne knows this intimately. She's the author of Shattered, Broken and Beautiful, and she describes today how she not only escaped a religious cult, but a narcissistically abusive relationship. Hi. Thank you so much for joining me today, Brooke-Deanne.

I'm really excited to be talking to you. But I know that you have had a lot of expertise or experience with cult and cults of two, particularly narcissistic relationship. Why don't you tell people a little bit [00:01:00] about who you are and how you got interested in this subject? 

Brooke Deanna: Yeah, of course. I would love to.

First of all, I am an RTT therapist, rapid transformational therapist, and a trauma healing mentor. So I didn't just land in this role. I really got called to it after having to heal. I left a very abusive marriage of 17 years and a cult that I had survived in for 36 years in 2017. So I went on a really big quest to heal myself, you know?

And seeing the struggle and the damage that actually surviving these types of, one, uh, abusive systems or abusive relationship really comes together in, like, such a, a similar way, to be honest, because both of them are used to control. Both of them use fear to keep you trapped in different ways, but ultimately it's the same feeling inside the body.

And so what I really recognized very quickly was that while I was struggling with PTSD, really extreme anxiety and depression, I had to understand the reason why, and [00:02:00] the foundational piece was, well, my body had received a message that I was not safe, because I had never experienced real safety by, um, living in fear, walking on eggshells, fearful of what was going to happen next, not only from the religious cult programming, but also from the relationship that I survived.

So that is kind of what I existed in, and now I love to teach women, okay, well, both of these things, we can get trapped in either one of them, and help them to see the reasons why, but ultimately to create a completely different identity so they're able to see more clearly when a system or a person is harming them.

Dr. Kerry: Did you know in those early years that you were in a cult-like community? Did you know that? 

Brooke Deanna: I had no idea. I was born in So born in, I was actually a third generation Jehovah's Witness. Of course, when you're in the environment, like you don't know you're being abused, and that's what I always tell women that, you know, are in abusive relationships.

This doesn't mean that you're stupid or that you, [00:03:00] there's something wrong with you. It means that you were modeled a certain type of behavior, and it's all your system knew. So you just repeated a pattern. You recreated some generational trauma because you probably were modeled also the same type of relationship in the past.

And that was my story. My mother was in an abusive relationship. My grandmother was in an abusive relationship, so why wouldn't I continue the pattern? Yeah. Right? It was, it was all I knew. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Well, I recently came across a term I thought was interesting, is incongruent realities- Interesting ... which is inconsistencies that then you have to make, make sense in some way.

Can you think of some incongruencies that you were seeing around you as a child that told you something wasn't quite right, whether or not you knew it or not, but that you were picking up on? 

Brooke Deanna: Yeah, for sure. So the first was my father. My father was very narcissistic, very controlling. One minute he was like a teddy bear, and like you were loved and accepted, and then like the next minute he was like uncontrollably angry, and like you- Mm

were like, "Oh, what happened?" And so you kind of [00:04:00] felt like you had to like, I felt like I had to be the perfect little good girl, because I felt like if I wasn't, something bad was going to happen. Right. So that was what I was kind of sensing. And then within the religion, we were told a story that Satan and his demons were watching us.

That, as a little girl with a very vivid imagination, I of course took that literal, right? Like I I would like- Yeah ... go to sleep at night and be like in the dark and like, "Oh my gosh," or, "Is Satan and his demons coming to attack me?" I'm like, because they showed us this in their messaging. They actually created pictures of this.

So you're getting all of this subconscious messaging over and over and over as you're growing up, so nothing felt safe. Dad didn't feel safe. My environment didn't feel safe. Going to bed at night didn't feel safe. So I just started to like, I had questions, but what I quickly realized is I wasn't allowed to have questions, because- Mm-hmm

authority mattered. My parents said, "You can't have those questions." And even if they tried to answer them, nothing made sense. I, and I [00:05:00] kind of was just like, "Wait, what?" Like I didn't really get my question answered. But I did start to feel those things as I grew up, but quickly what happened is that I was taught that questioning wasn't okay, because that's what you're taught by the cult.

You cannot question authority. You obey God and you obey the rules of this religion or you die. You know, I followed the, the rest of the, the, the society, the organization. I followed my parents. When you're that age, even as you get older, you don't wanna lose your community. Like, that's like being outcast.

Like, y- I mean, that's ultimately what happens in this cult. You get shunned. You get abandoned. Everyone will not even look at you and talk to you. You are no longer allowed to be in their presence, and- Yeah ... that's a different type of healing that has to happen. 

Dr. Kerry: I can hear how just i- very isolating it was, but also that the rhetoric, the messaging was so powerful that it really gave you very strict boundaries to stay within.

I recently was thinking also about the role of [00:06:00] roles versus identity, how you really weren't getting to shine as yourself, but you were functioning in a role. Could you say more about what that role was that you- they wanted from you? 

Brooke Deanna: For sure. So I talk about this a lot with women, because not only we get this from messaging from religion, but we also get this messaging from society and culture and conditioning.

So what I realized when I started to look at my generational patterns is that I had to kinda look at my mom, and then I went back to my grandmother, and what I saw was, like, two very abused women that kept quiet, and they played the role of the martyr. So they self-abandoned. Mm. Like, they self-sacrificed, so much so that that's how they were getting their worth, right?

If I do this, that means I am worthy. And I had to take a hard look at the mirror and see how I also was the martyr. I also self-betrayed myself. I also self-abandoned myself in order just to keep other people happy. That's often the role that we play, because we think that we have to shrink, we have to stay small, that we don't need to [00:07:00] have, like, take care of our own needs.

We think that we are here to really serve and support everyone else, even if we're drowning. And so I had to look at these roles that I had been learning how to play and recognize that those roles, they were not who I was. And often when you start to kind of shed older versions of yourself, you're seeing, oh, well, I adapted to in- survive my environment because- Yeah

I had to do this in order to stay compliant. But I also, this was how I received my love. And when I started to say, "I don't wanna do any of this anymore," that's when I got rejected. 

Dr. Kerry: I imagine, though, that, I don't know your story, but I imagine that you went right into a marriage that is similar structure.

Is that true, or? 

Brooke Deanna: That is exactly true. I married in the religion, so, uh, he was also a Jehovah's Witness. And in this cult, you're told as a woman that you are in subjection to your husband, so they're the authority over you, and then above him is the authority of the [00:08:00] elders or the people in the religion, right?

And then over that is God, okay? And so basically, you as a woman don't have a voice. That was exactly what happened in the relationship. I didn't have a voice. Um, my feelings didn't matter. And even when I did try to express my feelings, I was either gaslit, manipulated, or punished, and that was very similar to the way the cult treated us.

Dr. Kerry: Hmm. 

Brooke Deanna: So I also got punished for sinning when I was about 16 years old. I had sex before marriage, which is a big no-no in the cult. And when you do so, and you, and the leaders believe that you're not repentant, you get disfellowshipped, is what they call it. And that means that you're basically outcast. So you can come to the church, but no one will look or talk to you.

So it's like basically being put in a corner, right? And no one looks at you or talks to you. On a massive scale. Yes, massive scale. Yep. Geez. And I was out for about a year, and here I am, a 16-year-old girl. You know, I'm just trying to find [00:09:00] myself. I'm just, you know, I don't really know what's happening other than the fact that I'm just trying to be a normal teenager.

And that severely traumatized me. I, I felt very isolated. My parents controlled me even more at that point, and I wasn't allowed to do anything, and I couldn't talk to anybody that was in the religion. So I was very, very lonely. And they use this method of punishment so that you will come back, because who doesn't wanna be back in their community?

Right. Right. Who doesn't wanna be accepted by their family and their friends again? It's a perfect form of control. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, I can s- hear how it would create a, a level of desperation, and then, which then would be y- you do almost anything to avoid subsequent- Sure would ... rejection like that. Sure would. 

Brooke Deanna: Yes.

Thank you for At 16, I just 

Dr. Kerry: am mind blown. I mean, that's so... How cruel. 

Brooke Deanna: Yeah. I mean, which means it made me want to be even more obedient. I wanna be like, "Okay, well, you know what? I am gonna be a good girl. I am gonna make my parents proud of me." Well, that was short-lived because I wanted to go back to the [00:10:00] boy that I thought I fell in love with at 16 years old.

And so I ended up eloping at 18, running off with this boy that my parents did not like because there was this part of me that felt like the more th- I, they constricted me, the more it was like death to my spirit. Like, I just wanted to break free. Yeah. So, of the role that they wanted me to play, the good girl, the perfect little Christian girl that did what she was supposed to do, and that just was not who I wanted to be, unfortunately.

Fortunately for me, unfortunately for them Yeah. 

Dr. Kerry: Did you recognize that the marriage was, uh, w- had the similar dynamics as the cult had had? Had you ... Could you see the parallels at that time or was it ... Or how did that awakening occur for you? 

Brooke Deanna: So it did not. I really realized very quickly that I married the carbon copy of my father.

You know, I think not even a few weeks, but into our marriage we had an episode of a fight and he tried to suffocate me. When that moment happened, obviously I was in fear. I was afraid. I was [00:11:00]like, "What is happening? He w- he was so loving and sweet and adoring, and now all of a sudden he is hateful and wants to try to kill me."

I couldn't make sense of it. But what I always tell people, it's no wonder, because I was conditioned to have the same thought about God. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm. I- I, I had- Yeah ... a 

Brooke Deanna: trauma bond with God because I was taught to fear a God that was loving, that was supposed to be safe, that would take care of me, that I was to ... if I was his faithful servant.

But the moment that he was angry with me and I disobeyed or he believed that I needed to be punished, he could ultimately take my life. I might not make it. What we thought would be in the proverbial paradise, uh, far off into the future. For me, of course I couldn't make sense of this because I had been- Mm-hmm

taught the same type of template of love. So when I thought, "Okay, well, one minute he loves me and the next minute, oh, man, I must have really pissed him [00:12:00] off, and so I guess I deserve to be suffocated. I guess I deserve that. You know? I needed to be punished," that was my thought system then. So I couldn't recognize that this wasn't okay.

I didn't know, again, the difference, and I had been taught the same thing from my father, right? "One minute I love you, the next minute I reject you." And so I just thought that this was my normal. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. I, I think the idea that we can have a trauma bond with God is a profound one, and one in which we usually don't give much credence to that can be another level of control i- when somebody uses God in that way.

Yes. You know, don't fear a wrathful God. There's punishment if you do. How did your awakening begin? How did you start to realize something is really wrong here? 

Brooke Deanna: So this first part of the awakening actually came from a friend that was actually in the religion. She was very, very jealous, very controlling, very manipulative, and there was just something in me.

Like, we had gotten super close. I started to, like, kind of see some patterns for the first [00:13:00] time. I started to be like, "Wait a-" something's not adding up, you know? Like, I started to kind of question the relationship. Well, what that did for me is I started to kinda be like, you know, w- what does it mean when a friend is really controlling and kinda manipulative and, you know, kinda plays these games?

Well, I th- as I started to do this dive, I started to dive into narcissism. Well, this is not something you're taught in the religion, okay? They don't teach you that because they are the narcissist themselves, right? 

Dr. Kerry: Right, right, right, right. So 

Brooke Deanna: this is a word that I was like, "Okay, well I don't think I've ever heard this word before," and so I started to kinda do this deeper dive and understand what it was and what it looked like.

And so then I had this epiphany and I was like, oh my gosh, my friend is a narcissist. And so this was like this moment where I, I was like, okay, all right, I'm starting to add the d- like I'm putting the puzzle pieces together, and as I put the puzzle pieces together, I have the next epiphany where I'm like, oh my God, I think I'm married to one.

I think [00:14:00] I'm married to a narcissist. Boy, was that- And boy, was that quite the day where I was like, ah, like, you know, you just gasp and you're like, oh my gosh, is this for real? And you even start to even second guess the, your reality. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, exactly, because they're really good at making you the problem. Yes.

So how did you disown that? Because that would take some pretty sophisticated thinking to say I, even though they say that I'm the one causing the issues, I'm not actually the, the center of the problem. How did you s- do that? 

Brooke Deanna: When you are in an abusive relationship, one, you don't really know how to critically think.

You're surviving. Yeah. Again, when you're in a cult, they do not teach you to critically think. Actually, they want you to avoid it. Our cult actually said, "Do not learn how to critically think." Like- And that, that was actually a saying? That was actually a saying at some point in our history of Jehovah's Witnesses, right?

Now they do it in a more deceptive way, right? But they don't want you to learn these things. They don't want you to ask questions. Yeah. Right? But what happened is, I don't know, it triggered something inside of me that wanted to seek more and [00:15:00] more answers. So every time I went down a deep dive, I kept saying, "Well, why?

Okay, well, what does this mean?" And so I started to research and research and research, and the more that I did, I started to just unveil the fact that I had been living in this reality. And that can be really, really harsh to actually see the truth. And often when you see the truth about what you've been existing in, you want to reject it, because it creates that cognitive dissonance.

Because it's now- Mm-hmm ... you have two conflicting beliefs in the brain, and the brain is saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That can't be our reality. Our reality is this reality, this marriage, this relationship, or this religion or this belief system." Right. And so I had to see that even though it made me fearful, like, and make me second-guess myself, I started to feel something inside.

I'm like, "No, no, no. I have to trust myself. There's something wrong here." And I had to just go with that gut feeling [00:16:00] and keep trusting that there was something wrong. 

Dr. Kerry: That's hard, though, because the risk is rejection. I mean, you already experienced it as a 16-year-old with the church. That must've been terrifying to consider the possibility of what if you got it wrong, and then there's gonna be this horrific consequence.

Brooke Deanna: Yes, for sure. Because in the same period of time when I realized I was in the abusive relationship, my then husband actually started to unravel that we were in a cult. He came to me, he expressed to me- all of the reasons- Wow ... why we were in a cult. And of course, I'm like, "Wait a second. What?" We could've trauma bonded even more, right?

Because- Yeah ... of the fact that we were kind of now unraveling the fact that we had been lied to our whole entire life, like our whole entire life. I'm just, the 

Dr. Kerry: irony is im- profound. Oh, my. You know, here you're in a, in a- It's crazy ... controlling, hierarchical, misogynistic relationship, and he's saying, "Hey, we're in a cult," while you're in a cult of the relationship.

Brooke Deanna: Exactly. But also, it's like he almost took my life, but also saved me at the same time. Mm. Even more irony, right? Like, even more [00:17:00] like, whoa, what- I know ... is going on here? I was afraid at first for all of these things. I wanted to cling on to him, 'cause even though I knew it wasn't right, I still was like, "Oh, gosh."

You know, when you're codependent and when you're in that trauma bond, you're so chemically dependent on this relationship. Yeah. You don't know who you are outside of it. In fact, I don't even think, I believe I had an identity. I had a role I played. I was playing an actress. That's it. I didn't know who I was.

I was told who I had to be my entire life. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. In fact, I, I had, I was living under the assumption that me, the me was okay if we were okay. There, that the me depended on the we being okay. Yeah. Me. There was no me outside of a we. 

Brooke Deanna: You got that so right. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. And I didn't understand what codependency felt like or what that experience even was or- Mm

you know? And, and like when we talked about that martyr, that role, right? What I had done my whole entire life was self-sacrifice myself for him. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm-hmm I had 

Brooke Deanna: never played out my own dreams. I had [00:18:00] never done my own desires. I thought that my job, as the cult has also told me, was to serve and support that husband, and to be an obedient wife is what you're taught.

Yeah. And so I thought that I had done that. 

Dr. Kerry: He's leading this wake- awakening of the two of you getting out of the cult. Did you make the connection that this was what you were also experiencing with him? Did you see the parallels? Yes. Oh, I did, very much so. Um- What'd you do with that? 'Cause that must have been terribly uncomfortable.

It was terrifying. 

Brooke Deanna: It was terrifying, Kerry. I mean, there was, there was moments where I would not sleep for days because the anxiety that was happening in my body as we, you know, as we began to get divorced, and he moved out, and I realized that I didn't wanna go back to this cult. I knew what was gonna happen.

I knew I was gonna lose my parents. I knew I was gonna lose my grandmother, my aunts- Yeah ... my, some of my cousins. I knew all of my best friends that I had known almost, like, my entire life- Mm ... I would no longer have. I knew I was gonna be [00:19:00] alone. And then I was also even more alone because now I didn't even have a husband.

I mean, I like to say I was a hot mess, but it was like, I mean, I really didn't know what to do. There was two boys that I had. Mm-hmm. My two sons, I think that got me getting up every day. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to say to them, you know, at least, you know, we may be going through this, but we're not gonna let it take us out, right?

We're gonna ... I wanted to show them that there is something that strength looks like, that we can overcome things. Mm-hmm. And I just said, "I've gotta keep going." 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. I often tell people that getting out of a toxic relationship like that it, we often think that it's like the lady and the tiger decision, that there's, there are two doors that we can't know what's behind them, but one's a good thing and one's a bad thing.

And everybody's like, "Well, just leave. That's the good thing. You'll find out it's the good thing." People don't understand that when you're in these relationships, there is always a tiger behind every door. There isn't some good option. There's a, bad options. We just have to pick which one is the least- [00:20:00]that, you know, troubling or it's scary.

But often what familiar feels better because it's familiar. We often will stay what, with what we know instead of taking what we don't know because, because the other problem that happens is when we... For you, you were, like, born into this, but for some of us when we get into it, it's like, "Well, I made this decision and it was a bad decision.

So if I make another decision, how do I know that won't be another bad decision?" So we just don't make any decision at all, thinking that that's safer to do nothing than to do something. Yeah. So here you are stepping out in possible ostrac- um, being ostracized, isolated. So h- what was your next step? My 

Brooke Deanna: next step was to put one foot in front of the other, to be honest.

Yeah. I was very much spiraling. Like I said, I, I had extreme anxiety. I quickly realized that I had some PTSD, and that's a lot of the reason why I wasn't sleeping, and the anxiety and the depression, and the highs and lows. And so what I did- Yeah ... is I got support. I got a therapist. I started working on myself.

I started finding some type of grounding in my life. I got a, a new job. Like, I did these things, and I just took care of my kids. I put my head down, [00:21:00] honestly, and just said, "You know what? I gotta go. I gotta do these things." When I look back, I see how I was just surviving. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, 'cause what I hear, and I b- I don't know if you made the connection or not, but the part of you that's just the determined, like, "I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna figure out what the rules are and do it," that probably also saved you in this stage, too.

Yeah. The rules are, I need to show up and be a mom, and I'm gonna need to pr- pr- financially provide for us. Kind of like, again, you just put your head down and plowed forward. Yeah. Which, in a way, is sort of hard because that's really not about finding yourself, it's just about trying to get through the day.

But, but it helped. You know what I'm saying? It stepped you out of this. Sometimes we just have to get into survival mode like this. 

Brooke Deanna: Yeah. No, I think that's a great way that you said that because n- now that you say it, I'm like think, yeah, I did. The, some of those roles did save me, right? Some of these parts of me...

Like, if I- Yeah ... wouldn't have had those things, I could've been, it could've m- ended up way worse than it did. And so I am, I am so grateful- Yeah ... for every version and every role that I had to play to get to where I am today, for sure. 

Dr. Kerry: Well, then you started writing books. So tell me about how you decided to, like, t- [00:22:00] take this to another level as you're, and you're mo- moving into the healing phase.

Brooke Deanna: So honestly, I really, b- in my prior, uh, career I was in the beauty industry. And when my then ex-husband passed away in 2020 from addiction, I really had an awakening even more where I had to now go back and look at what happened to me in the religion, look at what happened to me at all. Like, I was like, okay, something inside of me is saying it's time to get out of survival mode and it's time to, like, learn how to thrive again.

And the first piece of this was going back to school to do what I do today. The second piece of this was I had to write my story. Mm. I felt so pulled to, like, just take a pen to paper and just start writing my story. I didn't care who read it. I didn't care what it was for. I just, I, it was so healing c- and cathartic for me.

Um- Yeah ... and then I quickly realized that I love to write. Like, I am an author. Like, this is, like, my calling. This is my g- one of my gifts that I get to give in the world. [00:23:00] And what it gave me was, honestly, you know, this book has been launched since last year, and I've had ... I'm gonna get emotional here, but I've had countless people, many, many, many women, of the women, reach out to me and say what this did for them and how this changed- Mm-hmm

their life so they could see their own generational trauma, their own generational patterns, um, the roles that they had to play as a woman, and to see where they needed to heal. Because I believe that all of our stories are meant to be told because someone out there needs to hear it. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, I did the same thing, and I found that the experience was tremendously healing as well.

I think there's something, there's something ... When, when you are, are living in a, a system that wants you blind and, and s- and silenced, there's something very empowering about, one, taking your voice back by just the telling the story, but two, for me, I found that it revealed the things that I couldn't see, the inconsistencies that just didn't [00:24:00] make sense, that I actually had been trained to ignore them, and writing them down, I had to say to myself, "Wait a minute.

That, that doesn't make sense. How did we get from point A to point C? There's a B here, a part of it that I don't understand." It really forced me to, to think and see things in a new way. What kind of discoveries did you make in your process? 

Brooke Deanna: I feel like it just really helped me to look at things big picture.

Hmm. Because when, after leaving, I felt like- There was a lot of shame, to be honest. Yeah. A lot. I didn't realize, like, how much shame that I really had. I think a lot of it was from the religious beliefs, but I think a lot of it was that I shamed myself because I was like, "Why did I allow myself to be treated that way?"

Like, what's wrong with me? Like, what's so broken inside of me where I didn't love myself, or I didn't think that I was good enough, or all of these things? Like, and so I think I had the, all this shame. And so as I started to write the book, and I started to just write the story, I realized, like, [00:25:00] actually there was nothing wrong with me.

Like, there was... I wasn't broken. It wasn't my fault. I don't need to shame myself. I don't need to blame myself. In fact, I was very, very intelligent. I survived a relationship because my body had only known that type of environment, and I'd only been taught that type of environment. And so I didn't know anything different, like, because there was so much sheltering.

Like, we didn't even- Yeah ... like, we didn't even get to, like, look at outside information besides the religious information that we were given, right? Yeah. We were told what we had to watch. We were told what we had to wear. We were told what we had to do. And so I just look at myself and I'm like, "Well, no wonder.

They don't want me to be educated." Right. "They don't want me to understand these things, and so it's not my fault." And so what that helped me do as I wrote the story was forgive myself. 

Dr. Kerry: That's powerful. Yeah. I think, I think a lot of times we don't realize that victims, the reason they don't take more pro- proactive measures [00:26:00] is because they don't know what measures they can take because they've never been told that they even p- that possibility even existed.

Right. I don't think people realize that if you don't know that you don't know something, you don't know it. Yeah. And then it just doesn't s- it doesn't present itself as a possibility. 

Brooke Deanna: That's right. Your, 'cause your brain's not searching for that. Right. And it's never been something that go, comes into your mind until it presents itself, right?

And then you get to- Right ... have, like, the critical thinking skills to question it and be like, "Okay, well wait a second here. Yeah. What does this actually mean?" 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, which most cults don't teach. They do not want you, like you said, do not- Yeah ... do not critically think. In fact, I, I grew up in a system where I was told, "Your job is to, when I say jump, your j- your job is to jump, not ask how high or how long or h- why.

Your job is to do it." And then they do give the caveat, because I grew up on a dairy farm, you don't know that you may be in danger and you're gonna lose your life if you don't do it. Well, that's really scary, so- For sure ... you just learn, like, "Okay, I'll jump," but then you don't real- and then, well, you know, later I r- I was in therapy, uh, when I was in [00:27:00] my toxic relationship, and the therapist said, "By the time a boundary's been crossed, it happened way back there."

And I just felt so stupid, but I had been taught jump, and I was just jumping, you know? Of 

Brooke Deanna: course, because you're just- Yeah ... following the, you're following the rules. The rules that you were told to follow. And you're like, "Okay, well, if I don't do this, then what's my punishment?" Or, you know, there's like this- Right

fear thing in the back, right, of your subconscious mind that's saying, "Well, if you don't do this, what's gonna happen? So you better do it." Right. And so you're just like, "Okay, I'm just gonna do it." You just don- it's an automatic response to what you're afraid of. Defensively. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. So I would love to h- have people find out where can they

First of all, I wanna jump over to the podcast extra and talk to you about the shame piece. Uh, you really brought up something powerful about the what did you do to heal from the shame, and how, how ... what would you like to leave with people to know what they should do with their own shame. But how can people find out more about

We haven't even mentioned the book's name. I mean, it's, it's Shattered: Broken and Beautiful, which I love the title of that. Yeah. Yeah. That, like, there you go. Yeah. And look at a butterfly. Yeah. [00:28:00]That is so beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. So we'll make sure that people are interested in the book, how they know how to get it.

But tell us how to find out more about you and w- your work. 

Brooke Deanna: Yes, of course. So my website is brookedeann.com, very simple, and I'm on all social media as Brooke DeAnn. So very easy, simple, fast way to find me. You can connect with me. We can connect over a call. You can connect with me over social media. I really speak a lot about all of these things that we talked about because it's really my passion, is to teach people about really getting out of the systems that were meant to

uh, really designed to keep you stuck, right? Abusive relationships, abusive environments, whatever that is, and to really find your true identity and the true self underneath the roles 

Dr. Kerry: that you had to play from the past. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome. This was a rich conversation. I deeply appreciate it, Brooke.

Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D.

Host