He Lost EVERYTHING for Love Then the Cult Changed Him | ESPN Broadcaster’s Shocking True Story

What happens when love doesn’t just blind you… but changes you?

In this powerful and deeply personal episode of Kali Kat Tap Talks, we sit down with former ESPN sports broadcaster Peter Young, whose life took a dramatic and heartbreaking turn that no one saw coming.

From the outside, Peter had it all — a successful career, a love story that felt destined, and a future full of promise. But behind the scenes, something far more dangerous was unfolding.

His partner was involved in a secretive cult… one that didn’t just surround him — it slowly changed him.

His thoughts.
 His decisions.
 His reality.

Blinded by love and influenced by an environment he didn’t fully understand, Peter began to lose himself without even realizing it.

Until everything collapsed.

He lost his career.
 He lost his stability.
 And most devastating of all… he nearly lost his children.

For years, his kids were manipulated into believing their father was evil — a “devil” figure in their lives. The emotional and psychological damage ran deep, leaving Peter not only fighting to rebuild his own life… but to rediscover who he truly was after being changed by something he couldn’t see clearly at the time.

Now, through his book Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, Peter Young shares his raw, unfiltered journey of survival, awareness, and redemption.

This episode is more than a story — it’s a warning.

We dive into:
 • How cult environments can slowly reshape a person’s identity
 • The hidden warning signs people often ignore
 • How love can make you vulnerable to manipulation
 • The emotional toll of losing yourself — and your family
 • What it takes to rebuild your identity and regain your children’s trust

This is a story about transformation… but not the kind you choose.

It’s about losing yourself — and finding the strength to come back.

If you’ve ever ignored your instincts, trusted the wrong person, or had to rebuild your life from the ground up — this conversation will stay with you.

👉 Support the podcast:
 If this episode moved you, consider supporting Kali Kat Tap Talks — take a sip with me on this journey ☕🍺
Venmo: @Kathyi66

🎧 Listen. Reflect. Share.
 Because stories like this need to be heard.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everybody, this is CaliCatTap Talks, and I have Peter Young here with me today, and he's gonna tell you about his journey that he's had. He was married, I believe, for 29 years. He was in a um well, we're just gonna let him talk, but he also has a book, and we laughed for a little bit before I said small man, but it's not. It is called Stop the Tall Man and Save the Tiger. Go ahead, Peter.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Kelly, thanks for having me on your podcast. Yeah, my journey is pretty amazing, it's a pretty bizarre one. Unwittingly joined a tiny but destructive religious cult. Right married the love of my life, which is about 29 years ago, and we did stay married for about 20 years. So she was born and raised in a family in the interior of Canada, uh, just over the border from Washington and Montana. And they had this weird family guru. They called him Uncle Robert, but he wasn't related to anybody. So Robert's real name is Robert Bowie. He was born and raised in Syria. He met my former in-laws at a tiny seminary in Fresno, California, like in the early 70s. And he was very narcissistic, and so he really developed this very one-sided, dominant, parasitic relationship with the time, my future in-laws. So then I'm a sports broadcaster in my mid to late 20s, and I'm in Pocketel Vida. And I'm doing a six and ten sports for the local ABC affiliate. Pocatel's not a really big town, so I had seen my former wife. I called her Paige in my parking. She's a beautiful woman, you know, six foot tall, beautiful blonde hair athletically couldn't miss her. And uh, I had seen her around town but never met her. I remember I was at the gym working out with my buddy Gary, and I described this woman. He said, Oh, I know who that is. You know, that's Paige. Peter, be careful. Her family has this weird thing of a guru. So before I ever met my future wife, I knew about the guru, the cult bear. So we met, and within you know, two weeks of dating, I was 90% sure I want to marry her. But she talked constantly about her father and this property. So I'm gonna marry this woman, I gotta get to know these people because they're gonna be a big part of my life. I met the father about a month later, and he lived in northern Idaho. So it was about a six-hour drive, so I go up there to meet them. Uh I'm like, guys, if I go down the hall, I gotta use the bathroom, I stand up to go pee. And when I come out, the uh her father's standing right there by the door. It's really awkward. And he says, I heard you go to the bathroom. That was really awkward. In our house, the men need to sit down to pee. And then he said the phrase that I would hear over and over again for the next 20 years Uncle Robert taught us that. And if Uncle Robert taught you something, then it was unassailable. You could not question it. It was gospel. You had to just simply believe it. And again, I thought that was really weird, and that was kind of my introduction to my future father-in-law. And I thought, okay, you know, kind of odd and eccentric, but harmless, really. Then a few months later, I met Uncle Robert, and again, I thought he was eccentric and weird, but not a danger. And um we then got married, and you know, we had a child right away. We we had ended up having five kids uh and in what I would considered a wonderful marriage. And for the first few years of our marriage, we lived in Idaho and Montana, and Uncle Robert lived in Southern California. So we did not have a whole lot of interaction with him, at least I didn't. And so his control over my life and our marriage was minimal. But my wife adored him, my wife revered him and respected him in ways she did not, me. And our cult was very small, there's very few adults in it, at most, maybe twelve people. But she hung on his every word. And much of it I thought the guy was kind of nuts and crazy. For the first few years of our marriage, I thought we had the best marriage ever. I was the best husband, she was the best wife. But she would always talk to him on the phone and he would share kind of crazy stuff. He considered um casinos to be the true churches in America, and the churches that we would go to on a Sunday were a waste of time because only he knew the true gospel. He also thought that all of America could tap into their own sovereign national credit and you know, borrow any amount of money they wanted to and pay back whenever they wanted to, and that's how we would get out of debt, and of course that would lead to hyperinflation, but you know, he that concept was lost on him. And then he also considered all of recorded history history to be a giant struggle between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob. So the descendants of Esau become modern Jewry, and the descendants of Jacob become modern Christendom. So every war, recession, depression, plane crash, you name it, was a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. And so whenever I would ask questions about this or anything from him, I would never get a straight answer. I would always get, Peter, why are you so stupid that you don't understand me? Which is just, you know, classic gaslighting. And Uncle Robert, you know, really checked all the boxes of a cult leader. He was narcissistic, he had a grandiose sense of self. He claimed to have conversations with Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Fed. You know, he wrote letters to Saddam Hussein to advise him, met with congressmen and senators, etc. At least this is what he claimed to do. You know, he made all the rules that didn't apply to him. He hated questions, he just wanted blind obedience. And uh he blurred the lines of the nuclear family in an effort to really destroy the nuclear family so that everybody would be like children trying to curry favor with him and be submissive to him. And he also acted as a gatekeeper to God, which again is a very common trait among cult leaders. So we were all Christian, but he always claimed to be you know more Christian than anybody. He claimed to have sinned only once in his life when he was a little child. That's the only the one only time he ever sinned. And you know, Christianity is very simple that it salvation is a free gift. But in our little cult, you know, he had all of us question our salvation, our testimony. So that myself and my wife and my former in-laws and all the other adults who, like me, had been baptized, had professed their faith publicly, would have it challenged by Uncle Robert, and then we doubted it, and then we thought it was fraudulent, so then he had to save us, which again is wicked and unbiblical. And so this went on, and I was the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water for five, ten, fifteen years until I finally got worn down. And an important point for your your your audience to know is that um cult leaders don't start up by spouting out our utter nonsense and lies. Otherwise, nobody would believe them. They start off sounding great. You know, if you ever do join a cult and no one ever knowingly joins a cult, no one ever knows they're in a cult, they only know they were in one. But if you ever are in one, they'll love bomb you. That's kind of the phrase that is given that you get a lot of love and attention uh early on to make you feel comfortable uh with the cult leader. And then, you know, the cult leader will slowly but surely over time twist the truth. So in our case, he would twist the Bible. You know, he would read to us from the Bible, but then he would give each and every verse a little twist, his perverse interpretation of it, so that five, ten, fifteen years down the road, we were nowhere near the true gospel. And this was all very slow, it happened very subtly. And so everybody else in our little group, you know, my wife, my in-laws, uh my brother-in-law, and some other men, you know, they all believed everything that he said, hook, line, and sinker. And and we also kept all this very private. Um, cult leaders control their members through isolation, paranoia, and secrecy. So my family, my parents, my brothers, my sister-in-laws, the people I worked with here in Montana, no one had any idea. Kelly, we weren't out sharing his you know, pearls of wisdom. It was the exact opposite. In the Bible, they talk about don't throw your pearls of wisdom before the swine, or don't throw your pearls before the swine. But that was us. The rest of the world was swine, because they wouldn't understand Uncle Robert. So we kind of circled the wagons around him. So no one had any idea what was going on. And for many of these years, I was a sports broadcaster. So I was on Outdoor Life Network and ESPN and CBS, and no one had any idea that I was living this other life in my private life. And when I say that no one ever knows they're in a cult, what I mean by that is that cults come in all different shapes and sizes.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

But at their core, they all share two things. Number one is a leader, and then number two, undue manipulative mind control. And then from there it can go in a million different directions. Ours thankfully had no sexual abuse, no physical abuse. Ours wasn't large, it was small. But all cults, regardless of shape and size, have those two characteristics a leader and undue mind control. So if the mind control is working, you have no idea you're in a cult. You think it's something better. It's always something better. It's never called a cult. It's it's a group, it's a fellowship, it's whatever you want to call it. So the people who are in it have no idea. And I fought it for years, and then about 16, 17 years into my marriage, I finally caved. You know, after all these years of loving my wife and adoring her and hearing her tell me how brilliant this man is, I thought, well, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe it's my fault, maybe I missed some elemental truth of the Christian faith that had escaped me all these years. And so I caved and allowed myself to be, you know, quote unquote saved by him, which is wrong and unbiblical. And I tried to do it like five different times. And it was never good enough. Uh, cult leaders never want you to be strong enough to be on your own. They want you dependent, and they want you under their thumb. In Christianity, there is the notion of a way of victory in Christ. With Uncle Robert, there was never victory. It was always more doubt, more shame. You don't get it, Peter. You're too stupid, you're incapable of receiving salvation. You have a legion of demons in you. You taught me all these things, said all these things. And so throughout all this process, as I'm trying to save my marriage, you know, I'm going along to get along with my wife. Your readers or your listeners should understand just how severe, how strong this is. And I'll give two examples of all my wife. So we got married and I had a wedding band. After a few years, I lost it, couldn't find it, so I bought a new one. Ten years later, roughly, I finally find the old wedding band in like a little coat pocket. I was working in the garden, and I was thrilled because that to me kind of represented the good old days when our we first got married, our marriage was very strong. At this point, the bloom was off the rose. And now I had two wedding bands. And oh, wouldn't you know that at the same time I found my old original wedding band, Uncle Robert lost his. And so Paige suggested that I send my extra wedding band to him because I can't wear two. And I remember at the time thinking, this is ridiculous. Like, yeah, go to the casino, dude. You know, go to your true church and win some money and buy your own wedding band. But she was very um, you know, adamant about it. She didn't make me, but I went ahead and did it, and I thought it was so unseemly. And then years later, Uncle Robert had two sons, and he was married to a fairly normal woman, and he's much older than me. He's probably in his eighties by now. And those two sons had granddaughters, so he had no grandsons to Paige and my in-laws and the other adults in our little cult. The only thing preventing World War III was Uncle Robert and his brilliance, because of course he knows the true dangers in the world, and he is saving us from, of course, um, destruction. So a world without a male heir to continue Uncle Robert's precious bloodline and DNA was uh something that Paige just could not stand. So she wanted to be a surrogate and provide Uncle Robert with a male grandson. She's about 40 years old at this time, and we had already had five kids. We even talked about having a sixth. And um I was repulsed by the idea, and Uncle Robert obviously thought it was great. She wanted to, you know, through in vitro fertilization, have a son with one of Robert's sons, and thus provide him with a grandson. And I said, Well, honey, what if you have a daughter? Would you do it again? She said, Yes, as many times as necessary. Thankfully, it did not happen. And I was just, you know, the whole uh episode was an eye-open for me, it was scary. It just showed how much she adored, revered, and loved him and not me, her husband. And I was faithful all these years. I loved this woman. So around this time she started referring to herself as Abigail. And in the Bible, there's a story about a woman named Abigail, who has a surly drunken husband named Nabal, who the Lord strikes dead. Then Abigail, who is you know brilliant and courageous in the Bible story, marries King David. You've probably heard of King David from the Bible. Well, it doesn't take a rock scientist to figure out that if she's Abigail, I'm Nabal. And Uncle Robert is you know the future King David. So sure enough, you know, a few years later, she leaves me, leaves the merits because I was never devoted enough, pure enough, reliant enough on Uncle Robert. And then she and Uncle Robert start this vicious campaign of teaching our five children that I was the devil, that I was Satan, sorcerer, a bloodline, or a sperm donor. And I was devastated. I was never suicidal, but I didn't want my marriage to end. I loved my wife, my world was crashing down around me. So she left me. The children are being taught that I'm the devil. And Uncle Robert at the time, who I'm still listening to because I'm brainwashed. I've been brainwashed for about two years at that point. And uh he's telling me that I'm incapable of receiving salvation, that I have a legion of demons, and that I'm a doomed man. And yet I'm hearing this at the same time at night because I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I was a wreck. Again, never suicidal, but I mean I'm I'm on the edge. I'm struggling, I'm at rock bottom. And I would cry out to the Lord, you know, I would read my Bible, and I would cry out. On the one hand, I knew he heard me. And on the other hand, I've got this crazy little narcissistic, wicked man speaking into my life, and it's horrific. So then they started to teach the kids, you know, Peter, you're just a bloodline and sperm donor. You're not a true dad. You you are so incapable of being a true father. And that Callie is what really kind of started the process of me healing because I thought, well, wait a minute. You know, two years earlier, you know, Paige, you wanted to preserve Uncle Robert's precious bloodline and sperm to save the world, and now you're calling me a sperm donor as a pejorative to gen to denigrate me. And uh so then I finally reached out to you know my family, my brothers, my sister-in-laws, my parents, and the people in the local community who again had no idea this was going on. I mean, they were like, what? The Jews are out to control the world? Casinos are the true churches in America? What are you talking about? They had no idea. And so the Lord truly rescued me and opened my eyes and ears to the truth through my faith and my friends and family. And so, as I had other sane voices, you know, come into my life, I was hearing other voices rather than just this one madman, which is really the most important point. If anybody takes anything out of my story and my talk, it's that when we are vulnerable, we are, let's say, alone and isolated, we are vulnerable. In Christianity, we talk about the body of Christ, the body of believers. Okay, if I cut off my thumb, I'm not gonna die. My thumb will die, but I won't. And I was like that little thumb. I was cut off from the other believers, fellow Christians in my community, in my church. And so I was only listening to this one person's voice. So I was very vulnerable. Well, now that I had other people surrounding me, supporting me and loving me and helping me, I, you know, kind of got reconnected to the body of Christ, other believers who could strengthen me and help me, and they did. And so I finally saw the truth. My wife did file for divorce. We got a guardian at lightum involved, which, if you don't know what that is, the court appoints a person to look after the best interests of the children in a hunk high conflict divorce, which is what ours was. And so um, you know, Paige filed for divorce again. I was faithful on entire marriage, was devastated, didn't not want the divorce, but she was now fully just listening to Uncle Robert and nobody else. And so they continued the process of parental alienation, trying to teach the kids that it was the devil. And they weren't even trying to hide it. They were just so confident in Uncle Robert that he knew the truth and nobody else did. Then the Garden Ed Lightham wrote a jaw-dropping 50-page report. The three youngest children who had Paige took with her when she left the marriage, courts sent them back to me. And so, you know, here's a woman that's not on drugs or drinking or in jail, committed a crime, but the court saw how abusive cults are to children, and how awful an abusive parental alienation is. So they sent the kids back to me and it to kind of compress these next few years. You know, she had supervised visits for a long time. The kids uh lived with me. I was a single dad, still I'm a single dad. And again, I recovered. And uh, out of our five children, it's a bit of a mixed bag because um, you know, the parental alienation and the cult influence is very strong on them. And so for many of them, I'm still the bad guy. They still, as they should, love their mother, but uh they also listen and believe everything that their mother says is true about me, which it's not, and I'm not perfect, you know. I'm certainly a very imperfect human being, and I'm okay with that because all that means is I needed a savior, right? If I was perfect or close to it, like Uncle Robert claimed, with only one sin, you know, need a savior. Yeah, but those kind of people are yeah, and and there's no humility. You're exactly right. Nobody's perfect. That's why we need a savior. So now my faith is stronger than it ever was. People will say, well, Peter, it's great that you didn't reject your faith. My answer to that is I wouldn't be here without it. I literally would probably not be alive without my faith in Jesus, because my story is a great example. And it's just like the story in Luke chapter 8, and you may have heard it. And there's a man who's demon-possessed, and he nobody can control him in this little town, and he's living out in the caves, and he's this is a wild man. Christ comes, meets the man, and heals him and saves the man, right? Now he's in his same mind, and he begs Christ to go with him. And Christ says, No, I got something more important for you. And I'm paraphrasing. And he says, Go home and tell your friends and family what the Lord has done for you. And that's your testimony. Your testimony is what has the Lord done for you? And so that's why I share this story. This is what the Lord has done for me. I was sucked into and brainwashed into a tiny religious cult, and he rescued me. And so I share my story as a cautionary tale for others so that you don't go through what I did. Because the journey in and out of a tiny religious cult or any cult is awful. It's very painful, and you don't want to experience it. And so that's why I wrote my book, and that's why I come on podcasts like this to share this story.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, and thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for reaching out to me. But what were the signs to me? When somebody tells me a casino is a church, that was a a red flag, or hey, you're peeing the wrong way? That's another red flag. So the question is, what did you really know? What are the signs? What are the signs? Let me back up. What are the signs?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Sure. Um, okay, before I was, you know, really kind of brainwashed, you know, remember if you remember back to my story. Um for years I thought he was nuts. You know, when my future father-in-law told me to sit down to pee, I thought he was crazy. I think, oh my goodness. When Robert Booty, uh, which is his real name, Uncle Robert's real name, told me about casinos of the two churches in America, you know, and all of recorded history goes back to this struggle between these ancient peoples. Again, I thought, this sounds really weird, right? This sounds really weird to me. And I would ask those questions, and then I would, you know, kind of get piled on. And through all this Cali, my wife believes everything Robert says. So now I'm diminished in her eyes. So I kind of just was like the frog in the pot of water as the water kept getting heated up to a boiling. I didn't jump out in time. So I saw the signs. I knew it was really weird. It was only afterwards, when I fully recovered, that I had enough, let's say, wisdom from the Lord to recognize that it was a cult. So going into it, I thought it was weird and awkward and inappropriate. Only when it got really bad and then I got saved was I able to look back and say, yes, that was a cult. And maybe the answer to your question is really not so much what were the signs, were it was, well, how do you stop it? And the way to stop it would have been if I had not been so isolated. That's the key. I was isolated, and I only was listening to my wife and Uncle Robert. If I had allowed other people into my life and really been able to listen to, let's say, my brothers, my parents, and other people, then I might have been able to prevent that.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, but you had a life with ESPN as a sports broadcaster. I mean, was they didn't know that this was going on, or did you have like a shield in front of you?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, great question. And and what that points to is that small cults, I don't know if it's true for big cults, but small cults for sure can easily hide within society. So, like you, when I think of a cult, I think of Jim Jones, uh Jonestown, drinking drink of the Kool-Aid. I think of David Koresh and Waco, Heaven's Gate, and that's suicide. And we didn't look like a cult. I don't think I look like a cult member. We didn't shave our heads, wear crazy clothing. We weren't chanting slogans on the sidewalks, selling flowers to raise money, and nobody committed suicide. But we did drink the figurative Kool-Aid. So I was very capable of compartmentalizing my life as a sports broadcaster, as a community member, and then being in this tiny little cult, which again I didn't think was a cult. And so with someone like Robert, I think they know, I think most cult leaders know that what they're doing is wrong. And so to avoid detection, they fly underneath the radar. So for instance, Kelly, you know, where there were certain words we couldn't say on a cell phone. We were told not to say Jew or Gentile or Israel on the cell phone. We had to shred all of our trash. If Uncle Robert was taking a trip to Washington, D.C. and back, we had to make sure we didn't call him and ask where he was, because of course somebody was always listening to his phone calls, which might be the case. And uh so we had to be very kind of cloak and dagger to protect him to circle the wagons. And so that's how that's how I pulled it off. That's how I kept it secret.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Wow. But with your wife that you were in love with in your home, is that was it Coltonism or something? Is was that a part of your home? Or is that only when you were with Uncle Robert?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Well, good question. It was really 24-7. It was pervasive, it was everywhere. During this time, Uncle Robert lived in Southern California, so he was kind of the Riverside area. And we lived again in Idaho and Montana. But my wife would talk to him on the phone almost every day. I mean, for the first few years, not so much. But again, after 20 years of marriage, you know, the phone calls were maybe once or twice a week to once or twice a day. And even after I became brainwashed around 2015, again, it was just a short time, two years, I would talk to him almost every day on the phone. My in-laws would talk to him on the phone every day. And then we would meet him once or twice a year up in Northern Idaho, where my in-laws lived, and we would have these conferences, and we would just sit there and listen to him talk for hours on end. And um, so then we would take that theology, that philosophy back with us to our home. And so when it came to raising our children, to disciplining them, to educating them, to how we interacted with other people in our community, it was all based on what he said. It was all his philosophy. So, like we would go to a church for a year or two, and then we would always leave because Paige would share what the pastor said with Uncle Robert. He, of course, would say, Well, that guy's wrong, and you have to leave.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

And we would feel after when they came to Idaho and you guys had your convention. How did you feel after that? Did you feel like, oh my god, this guy is cuckoo? Uh, did you talk to your wife about it? Walk us through that.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Sure. All the above. So, yes, I did think it ties to his very cuckoo, and I I remember I would take a lot of notes, and um, he would share one of his pearls of wisdom, and it was a whopper. And I would look around the room and thinking, is he pulling our leg? And nope, Paige and my in-law's email, so they're taking notes and they are hanging on his every word. Again, I will go back to the point I made. A lot of what he shared was absolutely brilliant. A lot of it was, but not all of it. And the brilliance is what kind of sucks you in and gets you to think, okay, you know, maybe I need to cut this guy some slack, maybe he does know what he's talking about. So then when the whoppers come, your defenses are down a little bit. And I still saw this and thought, wow, this is nuts. But I, for the most part, not always, but for the most part, kind of kept my reservations to myself because I I realized if I said something, I was in the line of fire. And he would get angry at me, and then I'm diminished in the eyes of my wife. And that was my real fear. I was trying to protect my marriage.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

So, what kept you going mentally when everything around you was just falling apart and it was just crashing down?

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Well, it was my faith in the Lord, you know, and I was really uh crushed and humbled, and I tell people I didn't just hit rock bottom, I was bounced along the rock bottom for months at a time. Um, I couldn't sleep, I was getting about an hour or two a night. And if you've ever had insomnia, you know that trying to deal with emotional issues is almost impossible when you haven't slept. I couldn't eat. Uh I'm 6'5, about two tenths, I'm a lean guy. I'd lost like 30 pounds. And and the worst part about it was, Kelly, that, you know, Paige and Robert told me not to tell anybody. So when she left, um, they said, you know, don't tell your your parents, your brothers, your family, or anybody in the community, you know, let's wait, we'll tell the kids. Don't tell anybody. So I had this horrible secret I'm holding in, and I couldn't share with anybody. And I finally just couldn't hold it any longer and uh told my family about four months after she left me. But I would go on these long walks, I would cry out to the Lord, I would read my Bible, and um, and then it was really again through, you know, my faith, prayer, but also just the love and support of friends and family that immediately saw, wow, this is bad, this is a family crisis. And, you know, I had two brothers that, you know, over the course of that summer flew out to visit with me, my dad flew out to visit with me, I had other friends that, you know, I would go stay at their house because I just couldn't be alone. I was just so anxious and fearful. And so it was um, I mean, it was a full year of really having my eyes and ears open to where I could finally say, a full year after she left me, you know what? Uncle Robert's not the savior, he's the problem, he's the one that caused all this.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Yeah, I I understand that, and I'm trying to trying to still trying to grasp some of it because you're like a a public figure. I mean, was this going on during your time at ESPN? Or you you're a public figure and nobody noticed, hey, um hey, Peter's kind of different. Nobody noticed.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah, so I'm gonna tell share two stories with you, what is which is fascinating. A few months before Paige left me, I knew things were bad. You know, she wanted what was called a reconciliation period, where we'll try and reconcile our marriage, and if not, we'll we'll split and go our separate ways. And again, only Uncle Robert and Paige and I knew. He said, don't tell anybody, so we didn't tell anybody. And I'm devastated, I'm terrified, I'm walking on eggshells. And I had a football game on ESPN. Uh, it was uh at the University of Idaho up in Moscow, Idaho. And uh, you know, and I'm trying to get back in full time. I'd kind of gotten out of the business, now I'm back in, and I'm working for ESPN. This is great. It's not a marquee game, but it's still a college football game on ESPN. And I am so anxious and fearful over what's happening to my marriage that in the middle of the game, you know, it was hard to concentrate. Like Callie, I would have the this big sheet, you know, in front of me with all the team's rosters, their numbers, their stats, and notes for the game. That's what we sports broadcasters do. And on there, like at little corners of my of my um notes, I would have Bible verses written out to try and calm my nerves so I could get through the game. And I don't think anybody knew. I think maybe the producer thought, oh, Peter didn't do a very good job, but no one could tell what was going on. And then the second story is she left me on the January, January 14th, 2017. Horrific day. Now, September of that year, so nine months later, I'm recovering, getting better. I've told my family now, and my family lives all over the country, not in Montana. So now I tell my people at my work, my coworkers. We had a staff meeting, and I told them all what was happening. You know, my wife left me, my kids think I'm the devil, my life is crashing before my eyes. And and I would go on these long walks and I would be bawling my eyes out in the car on these long walks. I'd lost all this weight, I looked horrible. And I always made sure that you know no one saw me crying. But I thought when I showed up to work with these red puffy eyes and I was skinny and I would take these long walks, that people knew. Callie, nobody knew. No one had any idea what I was going through. And for me, that lesson is you know, you're out on the highway and a guy cuts you off, or you're at the grocery store and the clerk checking you out is is really rude. You have no idea what that person is going through, right? Everybody that you know or interact with is either going through something really hard, will go through something really hard, or already did it. So the idea is be be kind. Be kind to people because you just don't know what they're going through.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Yeah, that's a very true statement. Very true statement. The mindset of people nowadays versus years goes is very different, and people are just snapping. So I you know, I agree with you. So you said the Lord rescued you. Can you walk us through the turning point that helped you break free?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yes. There was no one road to Damascus type moment. So again, that's a biblical, you know, story where Saul becomes Paul. He's persecuting Christians and killing them, and then he becomes, he writes half the New Testament. And it happens in a flash. I didn't have that. I had several moments along the way. The first big one that I shared earlier was when Paige and Uncle Robert had emailed me. So she's already left, taking the youngest kids with her to northern Idaho. And uh she is emailing me, and I'm hearing this from Uncle Robert on the phone, that, you know, Peter, you know, you're not a true father. You're just a bloodline or a sperm donor. And I thought back to two years prior where she wanted to be a surrogate and provide a male heir to protect his bloodline. And then there were several other moments that summer where Paige's anger and rage towards me was off the charts. And we're still married. You know, I'm still her husband, and she's being unbelievably mean spirited. And now it's spilling into the children. And then there were times where Uncle Robert would uh say things and write things in an email, and I thought, that's not true. Like, wait a minute, uh that that doesn't seem right. And so then for me, it was hard because I would want to give them the benefit of the doubt, because again, I was brainwashed. I thought they're right, I'm wrong, it's all my fault. But then I had these other people that I would share these emails with. So, like, I'd get this email and they would send me into a tailspin. I'd be, you know, I could barely eat and function the rest of the day. But I would share that with my counselor or a friend of mine or my brother, and they would instantly see how crazy Uncle Robert and Paige were with their writings and what they were thinking, and they would help me see it. And so it was a process of people helping me realize that no, this was not my fault. I'm not the one that engineered this destruction. And again, even though I was only brainwashed for about two and a half years, that process took nearly a year.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Wow. Wow. So you say you have you have five children, three went to your wife, then the state gave them back to you. So what state of mind were your children in, or or your entire family, just you and your kids?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

So, you know, cults are uh you know abusive towards children. I mean, that's that's what the courts consider, and and that's not just my opinion. Thankfully, we had no sexual or physical abuse in ours. And we homeschooled our kids for many years, so they were around me all the time and my wife, so I know there was none of that going on, thank the Lord. But still, cults are emotionally abusive mentally and spiritually as well. So, you know, when your kids are taught, and then they're saying this back to you, Dad, the fifth commandment of the Bible to honor thy father and mother doesn't apply to you because it only applies to dads that love their kids. And they're taught this by, again, Paige, their mother, and Uncle Robert. They're taught that I am the devil. I had a child look me in the eye and say, You're a devil with no soul. And I'm not mad at that child, I'm not mad at any of my kids, because it wasn't their fault. It was like a computer virus going from Uncle Robert to their mother to the kids, you know, computer virus in, computer virus out. So they had all of this junk to work through as well. The courts saw it, so then when they sent them the three youngest back to me, the two oldest were, you know, beyond the age of the courts being involved, so they were over 18. So they were kind of on their own uh during to this time. But it took a while for the children when they came back to live with me to really be comfortable around me and realize, oh, you know, dad's dad, he's not the devil. Huh. Go figure. And they all came around, but it took a while.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Wow, yeah. Must have been devastating for you. Uh, did you feel fear when stepping away from the group and its influence?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yes. Um, yep. Because when you become brainwashed, you also become very dependent on the cult leader. And of course, this is all on purpose. The cult leader wants you dependent. So again, you know, there's there's no victory in Christ, there's no victory under Uncle Robert. It was you know just constant doubt and questioning. And I would question every single thought that came through my mind, and it was a miserable way to live. So then when other people are telling me, you know, Peter, you know, he said this or he said that, that's just not true, and you know that. And I did know it, but the step, the mental step of saying, You're right, Uncle Robert's wrong, that was scary at first. But as I did it time and time again with just little things, yeah, you're right, what he said was wrong. You're right, Uncle Robert was wrong there. As I did that more and more, it became easier. But the first few times I did it, it was scary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Well, what inspired you to write?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Well, I wanted my children to know the true story of what happened. Because, you know, as horrific as the parental alienation was, I wanted to make sure I didn't do the same thing. So I didn't want a bad mouth page. Again, I loved the woman. I didn't want to have a divorce. And we've been divorced a long time now, and she's still, you know, very angry towards me. But I didn't want to do the same thing. I didn't want to be a hypocrite and start bashing her, so I didn't. So as a result, I also didn't say much about what had happened to the kids. So during COVID, when a lot of people were doing whatever, my kids were watching videos, I started typing. And one page became five, became ten, became a book, and I wrote the whole story. And I wanted to share it with a larger audience so that people would learn from my experience and not commit the same mistakes, but also primarily countless so that my kids would know hey, here's dad's side of the story. And I wanted my kids to read it. I I still don't know if all five kids have read it, I know a few of them have. And I'm very kind to their mother. I try and be very fair to Paige because really, even though she's done some horrible things, and if you read the book, it it you'll get quite angry with her, but she is a victim, just like I am. She is a victim because she grew up in a world where Uncle Robert has brainwashed her.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yeah, she is a victim, but her level, because she's been in it longer, so she's gonna believe it until today she's not here anymore. That's an unfortunate situation. It would take her a long time to get out of something that she was born into. Or the Lord provides a miracle.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Yeah, the Lord does a miracle in her life.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yes, the Lord does provide a miracle. So when you were writing this book, was it very painful or was it healing, or was it both?

SPEAKER_01 37:23

It was incredibly healing, therapeutic, and cathartic. I mean, I I uh I love to write, and oftentimes though, writing is very difficult. You know, I I often because I've written two other novels as well, so I've written three books, and writing a novel and fiction is sometimes like you know just bleed onto the paper, right? Like it's that hard. But writing this story was unbelievably therapeutic because you know, I had spent so many years in the cult, and for a long time I thought it was my fault. I took the blame for all of it. Again, I'm not perfect, I didn't do everything right, I made my mistakes, but I was faithful, I loved her, I didn't want the divorce. My biggest failure was not protecting my wife and kids from Uncle Robert. But a lot of this goes back to when we first met, and it goes back to the title of the book, Stop the Tall Man Save the Tiger, which deals with an incredible dream Paige was given, that I believe was a warning from the Lord that Uncle Robert twisted on its head and used it to solidify his position and strength over her. And so being able to get it all down on paper and and just have this aha moment, it's almost like having this massive puzzle. Uh-and you've been missing like five pieces for years. You've been missing these five pieces, and now you found them, and you get to put them in, you finish the puzzle. That's what it was like.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Wow. So, what message do you hope readers will walk away with after reading your book?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

So there's three main messages uh from my story. The the first is that a strong marriage needs Christ in the center, and parents and kids and pastors and counselors, they can all help, but from the outside, in between, you can't have anybody between the husband and wife. It's gotta be the Christ, it's gotta be the Lord. Number two, salvation comes before sanctification. So you are saved, it's a free gift, you can't earn it, and then you grow in your faith, that's sanctification. Anyone that tries to switch the order is acting as a gatekeeper to God, and that's what Uncle Robert did. And by switching the order, they make themselves necessary. You know, you can't be saved unless you work with me. Unbiblical and wicked. And then number three, you have to maintain strong fellowship, communication, relationships. And I don't care if it's Friday night beers, Saturday bowling, book club, Bible study, whatever it is, you have to stay in communication and fellowship with your friends, your family, and your loved ones. Because when you become isolated, you become vulnerable. That's the biggest message.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah. Why do you still call him Uncle Robert?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Good question. I called him that for uh, you know, it was almost like his first name was Uncle, his last name is Robert. I don't think I even knew his last name for a long time. And then when I started to recover and get out, my sister-in-law, she had been vilified and shunned by the cult 20 years prior. I mean, she what happened to her was awful. I reconnected with her, hadn't talked to her in probably almost 20 years. She asked me that same question. She says, Why do you call him Uncle Robert? He has no authority over your life. So I usually just call him Booty. And my kids, uh, when nobody calls him Uncle Robert anymore, they have other uh, you know, funny acronyms for him or nicknames. But for the podcasts, I usually refer to him as Uncle Robert because it I've tried to demonstrate that for a very long time he did have this sway, this hold over me. Uh so when you know, we're not talking on like a podcast referencing the cult. He's just booty. He's just booty.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

He's just booty? Yeah. That's weird saying that he's just booty. So, what personal habits or mind shifts, um, let's say mindset shifts uh help you rebuild your life.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Wow. Well, I would say this: you know, when we were under the thumb of booty and and in the cults, you weren't allowed to question him. You had to just accept him blindly. And he was adamant that we as you know Christians under his thumb, we all had to agree on everything. And you know what? Uh we don't agree on everything. That's that's kind of rare, and I think that's okay. As long as we have our foundational beliefs, you know, that Jesus is Lord, he died, and rose again. We believe in that. But you know, when it comes to like, I don't know, infant baptism or you know, which political party do you agree with? I think it's okay for us to disagree and then we can have rational, sane, healthy discussions about it, because then that forces us to be humble, to be respectful for each other, even if we don't agree. And then that's also how we learn, right? Like if we think we know everything, we'll never learn anything. It's when we realize and are humble. Well, you know what? I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that with me. That was a mind shift. I had to really be comfortable with it. I had to be comfortable going to a church where the church I go to now, I don't agree with my pastor on everything. A lot of stuff I do, but some things I don't. And he knows that, and we had good talks about it. And that's okay, right? That's life. And so being okay with that, that took a while.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Wow. Do you feel anger or forgiveness or peace when you look back now?

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Well, I certainly have peace about it. There's no shame. I think that's probably uh a hard thing for a lot of people when they come out of a cult. There is guilt and shame. How could I have been so stupid to fall into this? And and I probably had a little bit of that early on, but I have absolutely none of it now. You know, my vulnerability was I love my wife. Didn't want to lose my marriage, didn't want to lose it. Uh, and there's no anger anymore. There is at times anger with the current process. You know, the youngest kids still live with me, and their mother is still very angry with me, still attacking me through the course. And that's not fun, and I gotta deal with it. But I don't have any guilt or shame or anger when I look back on that. Rather, I look back and think, it made me who I am today. I'm a million times stronger now than I ever was. Are there times where I wish I could have learned these lessons in a simpler fashion? Yeah. But it wasn't to be. And so what I went through shaped the man I am today. And I'm thankful for it.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah, I'm thankful for you being on the show. So if someone's listening and suspects a loved one uh being influenced by a cult, what would you what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Well, I would tell them first and foremost, if they are, they don't know it, right? If they're in a cult, they don't know it. You, the loved one, does. So your help uh might not be accepted. Uh they might get angry with you, but since you see it, you have to take the first step. You have to initiate what might be an awkward, a difficult conversation. But you have to take the initiative and you have to be patient, be kind, and be loving. And the best way for that person, that loved one, if they truly are brainwashed, is to remove them from the cult. Obviously, you can't do anything illegal or harmful, but you may share your pearls of wisdom, and it may be brilliant. You may practice this speech, it's great. And your friend or loved one might start to really have their eyes and ears open. They get it. And then the moment they go back to the cult members and the cult leader, wherever it is, their group, their building, their church, within 10-15 minutes with the coded language of the cult leader, all that you've done is erased, just like that. That person really needs to be removed from the presence of the other cult members and the leader for a weekend or whatever, or just for a few days, and then you lovingly share the truth to them. And if you give them enough time, then their eyes and ears will be open and they'll have the strength to say, wait a minute, I know that coded language, I know what they're trying to do, they're trying to get me sucked back in, and I'm not buying it this time. And that that right there, what I've just described, is probably a very difficult thing to do. Possible, but difficult.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Difficult, yeah. So behind the scenes in the darkest moment, who was Peter?

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Peter was um a shadow of a man, beaten down, worn out, eroded, scared of his own shadow, confused, suffering massive cognitive dissonance, wondering what in the world happened to his life. And uh and I, you know, I lost my marriage for a time. I lost my family, but I never lost my faith. As much as that little narcissist tried to tear it away from me, I never lost my faith.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

And who's Peter today?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Well, Peter's a single dad uh who loves his children, who loves being a dad, and is a million times stronger now because of what he went through. Um I've got some scars. I've got a lot of mental, emotional, and spiritual scars that have toughened me and made me stronger. And um and again, I'm thankful for that. And I have a lot of work left to do with my children because you know I pray that one day I'll have a healthy relationship with all five of them. Well, where they can sit down with me and I can give them a hug and and they can consider me dad and we can have a good conversation because right now I can't with all five of my kids.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

If your life journey had a title besides your book, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 46:46

It's similar to the last line in my book. And uh it might be a little a bit of a long title, but um you know my story is messy, it's bizarre, it's tragic, it's also miraculous. Because none of us can save ourselves. If we can save ourselves, we wouldn't need a savior, we wouldn't need religion, but we can save ourselves. And so every person that has been saved, that story is a miracle. My miracle story is first and foremost a miracle, but getting there was pretty bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, that sounded pretty good. That sounded pretty good. So, what legacy would you leave to your children and to the world?

SPEAKER_01 47:29

That our Lord and Savior can do anything. If he can rescue me from that crazy situation and make me the man that I am today, then he can work miracles in your life. So, whatever it is, like for the people who are listening and watching this, whatever it is you're going through, Lord's not surprised. You know, you haven't pulled a fast one on him, he knows what's going on, and he can he can save the day. I mean, I've seen it happen in my life over and over again. Um, there's this great verse or a few verses in James chapter one, and again, I'm paraphrasing, but it says, if you lack wisdom, ask the Lord, and he will give it to you. He'll generously give it to you, but you can't doubt. You have to believe. Believe he's gonna give it to you, and he will. And he's done it with me. And so I don't say that as an arrogant person. I don't say that I'm a million times stronger because I'm arrogant. I simply say it as a person who asked for wisdom, believe the Lord gave it to me, and he did.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Okay, as we as we wind up with Cali Cat Tap Talks, Peter, how do we get a hold of your book?

SPEAKER_01 48:33

So you can go to my website, it's authorpeteryoung.com. You can also go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all the major online retailers, retailers, and you will find it there. And on my website, also you can reach out to me. I love to come speak in person. I'm on a lot of podcasts, and um, you know, I'd love I'd love to even you know dive deeper into this story. And also I have written other books uh you can kind of see behind me, they're about faith in basketball. I'm a former basketball player, coach, and broadcaster, so I love sharing life's principles through sports.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Well, what do you play basketball at, Peter?

SPEAKER_01 49:10

I played basketball at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and then I coached uh one year at the University of Colorado, and then several years uh in high school. So you said that you were in the Bay Area. My best weekend ever was at the Stanford Christmas tournament a long, long time ago. But yeah, but I had two pretty good games in a row.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Wow. We're gonna have to bring you back to week this time.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

I would love that.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

All right, this is Calicat Cap Talks, and we're gonna say thank you very much, Peter, for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Thank you very much for having me.