Shifrah Morgan - Cult Stories, Abuse, Trauma, and Life After the Cult - Ep. #52

0:00 What's up friends, Welcome back to Rooted Wisconsin. Appreciate you for clicking another episode. Grateful to have you here. Buckle up. Wildest episode of Rooted Wisconsin shift from Morgan born into a cult based out of Shawnee, Wisconsin, right in our backyard, Little Shawnee Wisconsin, the story she details thoroughly. She lines up her whole virtual life with us and some of the craziest things you will ever hear happening right in our backyard in Shawnell, Wisconsin. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, mental abuse, the wild, wild stories that you have to hear to even like, you can't even conceptualize these things. You can't make them up.

0:49 Just crazy. I just have to say that I appreciate Shifra taking the time and being able to walk us through it. And I think there's a tremendous value in it. And of course, it took a tremendous amount of strength for her to sit in the chair for nearly three hours. Longest episode of Rude Wisconsin today and relive all of this trauma. And all it is, is awareness. We like it's awareness of what was happening in our backyard. Unbelievable to hear. And that's all I can say. I, I can't line up every story for you. I, I can't tell you anything else. All you have to do is listen and hear the crazy things, the crazy hand of cards that shipper was dealt. Amazing.

1:37 Now she's a mom, she's a business owner and the things she had to face, no one should have to. So I'm going to let her words speak to him. Grateful as always for our sponsors. Appreciate Ryan and the crew at Riverside Pizzeria and our exciting new sponsors at Carouser. Come tailgate with us on September 11th. Veteran owned business. Feels weird talking about something jovially when jovially when I was just telling you about the episode. But that's life, right? And watching how Shifra handled it makes me think I can. She handled it with such grace and poise.

2:18 So come tailgate with us at Lambeau on September 11th. We'll see you there. But before we get then you have to hear this stuff. Tell your friends awareness is key. And let's make, let's try to make sure things like this don't happen on our watch because it's truly unbelievable. So without further ado, shift from Morgan. So have the ways we try to live.

3:06 Your life has been, you know, you've had several stops where you've probably had to take that year. Yeah. But that's, you know, that's some of why the emotion probably comes out when you think about it, because it has to seem almost surreal at times. Yes, yes. Well, I just think about where I came from. Born into a cult, not knowing anything, getting kicked out of the cult at a very young age. I think when I initially ran away, I was 13 years old, sent away to live with my oldest sister when I was about 12. So that's so we're right around 12 was when that whole process started. Let's start entering it though, too, because you said you were born in Iron Mountain, but then you moved to to Shawno. Yeah.

3:57 So like we're the first five years in the in the cult tour, did you? Yes, they were OK. Yes, yeah. So how the OK. So the Kolka was in the main base was in Shawno, Wisconsin, like that's where the headquarters or the compound or where everybody met up. But when my family got into it was when the cult leader, I'm just going to call him Rama. That's his first name. It's not his name anymore, but that's how everybody knows it is. The Rama cult, the first original name was the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, but nobody knew him as that. They just knew him as the Rama cult. So I'm just going to call him Rama. His first name, before he changed it three times was Rama.

4:44 Actually let me Rama Bahara. That was his original name. So anyway, he would go around and speak to different colleges, to different like Pentecostal churches and those kind of things. He came over from India as a foreign exchange student, I believe in the early 1970s and anyway met some lady, started dating her, ended up marrying her in Minnesota. She was from Minnesota. They went over and started doing missionary work, I believe in some other country. I don't know if they went back to India and were doing missionary work, but they were doing missionary work and then they ended up coming back to the United States and they pretty much continued their missionary work or whatever. And that was going around speaking to different things or whatever.

5:44 And that's how he first crossed paths with your family in in one of these speaking engagements or something. At a Pentecostal church, my grandfather and his whole family, they were members are like went around to different Pentecostal churches to like listen or whatever and they were pretty religious. They heard him speak and pretty much like the whole clan or the whole family, two brothers and like the sister and them all kind of started going and listening to wherever he was speaking at.

6:26 At the same time, he was also doing colleges and he went to the University of Minnesota, I believe, and that or not, not the the University of Madison, sorry. And that is where my biological mother and her friend Carol, who ended up becoming my aunt, were going to college and they started following him from meeting him through that kind of thing, through that. So eventually he got a so you have. Two different points still like yeah. So he went. Grandparents in Iron Mountain and then your biological mom in Madison. Correct, correct. And he would go and travel in Minnesota and there was actually quite a few like the beginning members who kind of had their own little church and got him like kind of pulled him into that leader status, so to speak, and really gave him the, I guess ego to push him to really start the whole like church kind of thing. So.

7:34 At that time you would say it was like at that for it was more religious based than it wasn't like a full on cult, no. No, he was just going around speaking. Met a couple people in Minnesota who were like like part of a church and were like deacons and that kind of thing in their like little world. And he got involved with them. And then he started going to different people's homes of the people who were like coming to him every week. So like my grandparents were coming to see him like wherever he was at. So they opened up their house in Iron Mountain for him to come there.

8:17 So everybody who there was following him could all come to one place instead of having to go like meet at and he would. Come preach. In their house. So he would go preach at their house and they would have these big gatherings of all these people who would come to like see him preach. And apparently there were miracles done. My biological mother will talk about a miracle if she had like poor eyesight and she was able to see again or, you know, see well and didn't need her glasses. There's a couple of their different things that we have heard, so-called miracles that happened. But anyway, that's how that got started. And that was then this was pre you existing. Pre me existing.

9:00 Got it. Yes, that is how my biological parents met. And then God came down and showed him that Randy and Sarah should get married. And voila, they got married. And as the years passed, eleven of us were born. And so at the beginning, when all this was going on, they would just go to Iron Mountain and kind of preach every weekend. And so then they bought the house in Shawno or the property in Shawno. As things progressed, the members got together and bought this property. And so then everybody started doing the meetings and stuff at the compound in Shawno. And that I want, I don't honestly, I don't know how long it was before they bought the property in Shawnell between doing the meetings in Iron Mountain. I'm not sure.

9:59 I'm not 100% sure. I don't know if it was like 2 years, three years, I'm not sure. It wasn't a very long period of time. I think when my grandparents met him, my biological father was in his teens and he got married when he was like I think he was 1918 or 19 when he got married. So, and by the time they got married or by the time, I want to say the first or second child came along, the property and Shawna was already bought and and we were traveling every weekend to Shawna, OK, to the compound, even though we lived in our, you know, when we lived in Iron Mountain. Sure.

10:41 Which which one in in the order are you like of the 11? Or 5th. You're 5th. And yes, I have two older brothers and two older sisters. OK, so I'm just trying to get the timeline in my mind of like how that worked out. So you would like you then. You lived in Iron. You were fifth in line. You lived in Iron Mountain, Yes, until you were. About five? Yeah, about 5. OK, so then that we was still. So then I mean, that's that's small to remember things. But if your remembrance at that time was it, was it transitioning to feeling cultish already? I would say the real transition happened. I'm trying to think of what year it was. I was small, I was OK.

11:28 So I would say the real cult transition happened. Well, no, I can't say that because I was just talking to my uncles and they said that from the very beginning. It was very cultish. Oh yeah, I'm sure it. I'm sure he didn't just snap his fingers. Yeah, but we're. Going to do things a little. Differently it turned from very community family based to authoritarian like very being. You have to stand up when I come in the room. You have to say yes brother, no brother, you have to or men and women are separated. Children are now no longer like really allowed to partake with their mothers and fathers on the weekends that we were like separated. And I would say that probably happened right when I was like, I was young, I had pigtails, so like 3-4 years old. And that all happened because somebody died and he used that as a shift because he died because he was being sinful and we were not allowed to be sinful like that. So he had to up the thing to make sure that we weren't being so sinful.

12:48 Because the reason why Thor died was because he was thinful sinful. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was forced to drive from work to the cult to complete like some stupid task that he had put on and he was literally sleep deprived and working his booty off and. He died in a car accident. Or something. Yeah. And it was due to being tired and falling asleep at the wheel. And it was all due to Rama telling him, no, get your butt here, you'd you have something the Lord wants you to do. So that was when the shift started and and if he used that as leverage, who knows, maybe maybe he read a book that was like, here's how to lead a cult or something like that. You don't know you know I.

13:34 So, you know, I think from the very beginning he had to have some kind of classes or some kind of training because, you know, I say that, but I don't know. There's so many cults out there that you have no idea about. It's really, truly amazing once you dig into it. How many cults are out there? So that's why I was so that's why I was so surprised when your video came across my TikTok feed because I like, I mean, I moved away, but northeast Wisconsin, I spent my formative years here until I was 18. And then I, you know, I haven't moved that far away. Yeah. And like, I can't remember exactly what your first words were in the video, but it was like something about a cult in Shawno.

14:18 And I was like, well, OK, my feed's a little close to, to us to home right now. And then I watch and I ended up watching them all. And that's how I knew we had to have this conversation. But that makes so much sense because like with control, you have to control the narrative too, right? All the way to why? Like I caught something you said in there. They were separating children from parents. Yes, to control the narrative, correct. Right. Correct. And that was also the time when things started, Like, you weren't allowed to like, really talk to one another. So like the kids weren't allowed to like gossip or talk. You know, like if a bunch of kids were sitting next to one another, you couldn't talk. You had to stay quiet.

15:04 So like if you were doing jobs or like one of the jobs that he had us do, because there were so many kids, you had to find something for them to do. So we never mowed the grass with a lot more. We always use scissors. And you would just see like 20 or 30 kids out there with scissors and you, we would all be cutting grass. No joke. No joke. That's one of the fun jobs that we really enjoyed because we got to be outside and we didn't have to be praying and sitting on our knees. So we really enjoyed that We wanted to cut grass with our scissors. We were very proud of our scissors. And when we heard those words, we would run and grab them. And that was something that we really enjoyed because honestly, we could move around and, you know, so yes, you weren't allowed to talk. And once he found or realized that there was a small click going on, he would somehow figure out a way to get you on a job or somewhere close to him so he could buddy buddy with you and then figure out what some of your secrets were and then get you each to turn on one another or make one another think that you would snitch on one another.

16:16 So even though you were in a community, you were not in a community. You were very much isolated. Like he'd come to you and say, oh, or he'd go to another kid and say, oh, Schiffer told me that you spoke while you were cutting the grass over. Correct, correct. OK, so give the people like an idea. How many people are there at this time? Like OK, you said 20 or 30 kids could be snipping grass with scissors. How many people are there? OK, at this time I could not give you a number. And this was at the compound in Chong Chong. Yes, OK, yes. So they don't all live on the compound. They live in all different states. They live in Minnesota, Minneapolis, NC and they travel every weekend and they get there Friday night and they don't leave until he gives them permission to leave on Sunday night.

17:06 It could be midnight, 1:00. Now I am going to say when I'm saying these things, this is how it was when I was there and this is how it was from everybody that I've kind of spoken to. But things he changes things as they go on and he's older now, so I don't know if he physically releases them like he used to back in the day when I was younger and he was physically there. I have heard that he doesn't really drive or travel to the compound anymore. He does lives or you know, he's on live or whatever Skype or whatever they use. I don't know what they use, but whatever they use for him to do the preaching or whatever it is on the weekends, OK. So how long ago was it with like how long not to when you left, but like the story you're just telling about cutting the grass with scissors when you were a kid? Like what?

18:00 What time frame was this? Well, that would have been in the 1990s because I was born in 1982. So it's been in the 1990s and I would say all the way up through like 2000. And I know for sure 2012 two thousand and like 14, that was still very much the case. But from what I understand, he has gotten quite older. I guess he is in his 80s. He might even be in his 90s now, I'm not sure. Let's see, he was born in. Just trying to it's. It's yeah. He was born in April 1st, 1940. OK, so you know I'm not good at math. I'm not sure how old that makes them. Well, 40 would be 60 until the year 2026 or 86 or 85, but it's kind of they're managing to, it's a hard story to tell, right?

18:56 Because you have your experience solely and then you have the existence of the call, correct. So I'm just trying to make sure all the times line up so I can keep things straight in my mind. So then, OK, so now continue on from cutting grass with scissors, OK. How does that continue to evolve and how does your like as you grow and mature and start to realize some things like how does that continue to develop? Well, OK, so I would say before that all kind of started transitioning before the dot Thor died. It was very community like we would sit around a our bowls to eat. We would like really like we would see other kids and we would pull like the other kids over a call, come sit with us during the meeting or whatever, come over here and you know that kind of stuff.

19:46 But like the food control was already in place. He had a big thing with food control. So you weren't allowed to eat unless like, he gave you permission to eat and he would. That was everybody. That was everybody, yes, unless you were a baby and you were nursing then you know, the moms fed you or whatever. And I think I, I would say right around the first year. By the time I can really under like remember whatever, it was different for my older siblings because they were allowed to be carried. By the time I came around, you were not allowed to be carried. So you did not see a mom carrying a baby. You know what I mean? Like after like a year and a half those kind of things.

20:29 So like it slowly progressed like those kind of things, but the food control was already in the way you dressed was already in the way you prayed was already in. Those kind of things were already like in and I would say, well, let me finish telling my grandparents story and that will kind of explain the split even further on or earlier on. So my grandparents ended up not getting divorced, but my grandmother left and would no longer go to the cult or to the meetings or anything. And my grandfather was a die hard like he thought Rama was God like incarnated or whatever.

21:20 And he had the ear of God really believed that. And my grandfather was a very, very he wanted to do everything so that we he got into heaven like that was like his like thing or whatever. So he really got sucked into like this Rama character. My grandmother on the other hand, did not get sucked in and they had already bought in the property in Shawnell and one weekend she had been having some medical issues and had been bleeding really bad and he wouldn't give them permission to go to the doctor.

22:03 You needed to pray about it. God would solve it and take care of it while she prayed really hard. And she was still bleeding through towels and having a very difficult time. And so I don't remember the exact full story of all the details that went on, but eventually she pretty much said screw you, I'm going and taking this and this isn't OK and quit going to like the compound. Pretty much all the kids followed her except for my biological father. He continued to go to the compound or to the meetings and everything with my grandfather.

22:45 So I want to say the first two children, like my two older sisters were born or my older sister was born right around that time that that all happened. And yeah. And so that really split the whole biological father side and pretty much that he started cutting, if you were going to the meetings, you were cutting your family out of your life and you were not allowed to have outside influences. So at the same time, my biological mother stopped corresponding with her mother, stopped corresponding with her younger brother.

23:37 Her older brother passed away due to, I want to say it was cancer. Her father died from alcohol, alcoholism slash cancer. And so she was in like, turmoil, like, you know, she was really, like, not in a good mental state. And she really remembers the alcoholism and all of that stuff. And that was your biological mother. Yeah, yeah. So she was in the process of cutting them all out of their lives. She was trying ohh, she was trying to cut family out to her stay in the side. Yes, OK, got yes. So it was her, your biological father and then your grandfather that still wanted to be in, correct.

24:21 But your grandmother said I'm out and took some of the kids. With all the kids but my biological father. Got it. Yeah. And so it was pretty much that was our little family triad or whatever until all the kids came along periodically through my life, depending on what was going on in the cult, my biological mother kept some. I met my uncle, I think once or twice when we were younger, my biological side of the family, they would sneak down to our house in Shawno and see us. So like I met some of my uncles and aunts when we were younger because they would sneak down and see us and that kind of thing. But pretty much we were cut off.

25:08 Like we didn't, we weren't allowed to. Like we didn't do holidays. We didn't do anything with them. Like we had no part of their lives. I forgot where I was going with that. Anyway, at that time when all of that was going on, that's when the cult really got closed off from society. He also had two children at that time. And this wasn't how when you were how old? While his kids were. I don't, I wasn't even born then at that time. No, no, I wasn't even born at that time. I would say my second my their second child. OK, so they were on like 2 of?

25:51 11 yeah yeah and then the other he the cult leader had two children of his own and I would say that's when the control really started like you know taking hold I got shifted the dynamic when he. Became a father. Himself and also he became very dynamic in Shano County and like he would pray to his wife around with like the furs and the best cars and all of that kind of stuff. So people in Shawno really respected him and really thought that he was this like, you know, wonderful person kind of thing at the very beginning until their eyes kind of started getting open. But by that time, he had pretty much sucked the group into a closed knit kind of thing, cutting off family and all of that kind of stuff at the same time. I don't know if you've ever heard of the deprogramming things that they used to do back in the 70s for the cults. There were a couple of people that were cutting off their family and the family was trying to get them out because they were younger.

26:59 It's actually in the newspapers and stuff, stories about it or whatever. You can just Google it. Shawno, Wisconsin brainwashing case, I think it was Bill from his 70s. Yeah, it was yeah. Or like yeah, right around like the 1970s, nineteen 80s, like right in there. Bill Iles. I want to say his name so he's like a. 30 to 40 year old adult at this time displaying this affluent businessman persona and harkening these followers to cut off their families.

27:42 Yes, by saying that doing miracles, by saying he had visions, you know, one the I see the choir of the Angel standing behind you praying or singing with us and just, you know, crazy stuff like that. And that's how he would just suck them in. And very community, very like everything, everybody was supposed to be together and this was supposed to be like, you know, very community. That was the very first base, you know, like that was it. And then I would say right around when the first group of kids started being born, which were my older sisters, there were a couple there like kids that were born too, right around that time. But I would say that's when the shift really started and the controlling, you know, the food, the dressing was already, you know, you had to dress modest girls. He was from India.

28:38 So he kind of put the pulled the Eastern thing in it. You had to kneel when you prayed, you know, head to the ground. So was the actual. That kind of stuff was the actual basis of the of like the religious belief. Was it something he created or was it on the foundation? Did he keep going with the Pentecostal or OK, so it was on the basis of? Christianity, yes, like I said, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ was what he had first called it. That's what was the name of it. And everybody that joined were true believers in Jesus Christ, and they fully believed Jesus Christ was their Savior and that he was going to be the saving grace. That changed right around the time Thor died and he really started pushing Judaism.

29:33 And really. Yeah, like he swapped it all. And now they all are really into Judaism, and Jesus Christ is no longer the savior. He is just some prophet or whatever. And he just spun the spun the the narrative by how he was speaking with people that this is the next. Thing, yes, yes. And anybody who questioned it, he would say things like, well, the Lord hasn't revealed that to me yet. OK. And those kind of thing. Oh, and he would also then Bree like tear you down in front of the congregation. That was one of the big huge punishments. Like he would just like I'm looking for the berate, like just tear you down and just I mean the name he did. Something he didn't like or?

30:23 Correct something he didn't like that he didn't agree with or you questioned something he said he would really and he would go after you in ways that are just number one. I can't explain without saying the words that he would say. And they are very bad. And, you know, you're a cow's bottom, but in a very like pig's bottom, that's what your pig's bottom. Your, you know, scum. Your children are going to go to hell and they're going to suffer, you know, like just just tear you apart and make you just. And he did it in front of everybody. And that was one of his punishments. And it would continue all weekend long. Like you would be the one you just and it wouldn't be just him because then he would have his little clique that are very like hardcore that would join in on it and they would briate you and beat you and do whatever horrible things to you as well. So your life was hell if you questioned anything and I saw people get beat like you wouldn't believe with two by fours hoses.

31:31 The physical abuse that we experienced in that place is unreal. Electrical cords. Cattle Prods. Children, adults, or both. Children, adults, everybody. There used to be a wife that would use a cattle prod on her husband. Really. Yeah. OK, so let's keep the. Let's keep. The time, yeah, that's. Going to be no so that that time period between when you moved to Shawnell and then like this stuff starts happening not only the berating in front of the congregation, but like physical abuse stuff that's happening the entire time after you. OK, yes.

32:15 And I would say that really started after they bought the property like that. When they were doing meetings and stuff at my grandparents place, that kind of stuff wasn't happening. I mean, he always disciplined with like, you know, spanking, always spare the rod, spoil the child, so to speak. You know, that was always his philosophy. But it wasn't until they got to the compound in Shano that it really like escalated to like, you know, the cattle broad and that kind of thing, so. Even in that scenario up in Iron Mountain he still had the influence though, where like other people would like he would spank other people's children. Like even that's.

32:56 Yes outside the norm right just so I'm not see and that's why I like I just I don't know how to there would there's pictures and like I'm not kidding you on this. There was one woman that was following him and she loved him so much that she would literally sit on his feet and hug his leg cross legged around his foot and around his thigh and hold him as he would stand there and preach to the congregation. His wife would be sitting right there on the couch watching all of this and this woman would just be clinging to because she loved him so much. And so these are the kind of now I do believe that she had some mental problems from the very beginning. I mean, she probably some bipolarness or something like that, you know, was probably there. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't want. Shaking image yes.

33:57 You know, yes. And so like, these are the kind of like he would get people like so just sucked in, like they would just be willing to do whatever he said. And she was one of the people that would go around and use, you know, like he wouldn't even have to be there. And she'd you're gossiping. You're not supposed to be talking. What are you talking? And then she'd run off and go tell Rama and then you'd be in trouble or he would come out with, you know, the electrical cord and like you would get whaps on your back or, you know, like, so like you had these little people in there that would tattle on you. So you just you know what I mean? Like that dynamic.

34:40 So from the very beginning that it was that always. In place. OK, yeah. So then in as you witnessed it and maybe it was because of proximity, like as you got older and aged, was that physical abuse always there or did it get worse as you got older? So I would say the abuse changed as time went by. I wouldn't necessarily say it got better or worse because sometimes mental abuse is worse than physical abuse. So I would have rather gotten whipped or the cattle prod used on me versus the the free ratement that they got all weekend long because not only did you get it mentally, but everybody else joined in. So they would follow his lead and start like just hypothetical whatever, just bullying 1.

35:39 Person there, yes. And it wasn't just one person. They'd actually be like families. So like I don't know if you know anything about the Indian like. Social dynamics or whatever, but there's very like a caste system, so to speak, you know, and or a hierarchy of people who are there. And they did change over time. But saying some families were better than other families and you definitely knew that. So if you were like a Kemp kid, you were worse. If you were a like the Faeus kids, we weren't as bad because our grandfather was an original.

36:20 He was an elder. So we got to escape some of the things that like happened, like I never got my head shaved and spit on where, Yeah, where some of the other kids, because they were on the lower end of the totem pole, so to speak, because their family was, they got worse like treatment and everybody treated them like that. They got their. Head shaves and speed. On yes, one of the punishments was if he would shave your head and then he would make the whole congregation, every single person, every adult, every child, as you walk by, you had to spit on them. And usually he would place them by the door as you were going out and every time you walked out you would have to spit on them. Wow, and that was some form of punishment because that family like one person that.

37:10 Family did something wrong or just that boy? It was mostly girls. I don't think a boy. I don't know if a boy ever that ever happened to a boy, but I know for sure it happened to quite a few girls. Yeah, well, it's so like, depending on which. Like if I had done what she had done, my punishment probably would not have been worse because I had the higher yes, yes. And so he would most likely like take me. Like you're not allowed to do that. Like when I got a little bit older, I got a click together because, well, I was just a very spicy child and didn't I always asked why and you had to have a good reason to explain why. And I didn't like the picking on younger people or younger kids. So I would fight back.

38:00 And I ended up getting like a little click, our little click of kids. Because as you get older and you get teenagers, you know you get, it doesn't matter what you experience in our life when you are born, you automatically know right from wrong. And depending on how much you give up to the wrong, what you know wrong, even when you're a child or young, you lose that inner voice inside of you or that inner right versus wrong sense, so to speak. So you're saying like hypothetically you you leave a meeting or whatever you called them at that time where some some a kids head shaved and everybody had to spit on them.

38:46 You're saying if you leave that and turn to blind eye, you're just a little bit more towards the wrong correct and losing the wrong? You're a little bit more willing to do it next time. Got it. Yeah, absolutely. You're a little bit more willing to stand up or like, you know, be pushed to the next thing. Yeah. And so, you know, like, and not everybody is as stubborn as I am, and not everybody has the. Desire to know why so bad like I needed to know why and it you couldn't say because that wasn't good enough for me. You couldn't. You had to like, I had to understand why. And if I didn't understand why, and I thought you were stupid, I just didn't do what you said, like and. That's the mortal enemy to him, because there is no one. Correct, correct, correct.

39:38 And he did try explaining things to me, but then he would contradict himself and I would hear him talk to other people and I would bring that up to him. So from a very young age, I just thought he was stupid. Like very young. Yeah, literally this guys bullshit. Yes yes, I remember being 8 years old, seven years old and walking down the stairs and hearing him talk and me just looking at him like you're just dumb and not fully understanding where those thoughts came from or why I had those thoughts. You know, I did on that didn't register me. I didn't understand. Looking back now, I'm like, how did you know that no one else did it and they did know It's just it's really hard to stand up when you have your parents and everybody you look up to all the adults doing the exact same thing.

40:25 How do you? Yes, you know so. I was just one of those kids that just, I didn't care. I just didn't care. And he would say things to me like I remember thinking you're stupid or whatever, walking down the stairs and him looking at me and telling me your sins will be tenfold because you have more awareness about you than anybody else. So you better really like heed the line and not do anything wrong. And I took that to heart. Man, I'd really did like, I did nothing wrong, like any like sins or anything that I thought would be wrong. I thought the earth would open up and I I'd be swallowed whole by the burning pit of fire that was down below. Like, I really thought that, you know, So when he would ask me to do bad things like a lie, I was like, no, the earth is going to go open up.

41:13 You told me my sins would be tenfold. I won't even get 10 minutes. The earth is just going to open up and swallow me like and. Then he would turn around and ask you to lie about. Something yeah, yeah, like just crazy stuff like that. And it and he wouldn't so like, and one of the biggest things that I witnessed was the way he would manipulate husbands and wives. So like they would come to him for marriage counseling or they were having problem in their marriage. And one specific, I'm going to use one specific example or couple of the times that I kind of like was around them because I saw it from start to finish. And the guy that I'm talking about, he actually went to prison for his crimes and he is out now. But a lot of the reasons why he did those crimes was because of what Rama put him up to.

42:10 And you can Google or YouTube Galen Priebe and you can pull up all of his YouTube videos and you can see his whole story. It's just mind boggling. That's a dude that went to prison. Yes, yes. Anyway, so I physically witnessed him going to Rama and complaining about marriage problems and his wife being a meanie and not putting out and like, you know, just arguing all the time and they just never seem to get along and all of those kind of things. Now you have to remember this is in a process of like a couple of months. He used to do a lot of the carpentry work for Rama and so all the kitchen cabinets, all the fine, like crafting and all of that kind of stuff he did. He was very detailed and like beautiful. Did beautiful work.

43:05 Amazing. Yes, yes, very. And so I was on his little work crew. And so Rama would be talking to him while they were like up in the kitchen working on the kitchen cabinets. And you would have me and like three or four other kids or whatever, just standing, doing whatever working. And they would have this conversation. Well, most kids don't really listen. I was the kid that listened. And so I would hear the conversations and I would literally hear Rama say things like, well, she is not the only other female in your house. The only other female in their house was his daughter.

43:48 That's disgusting. And so like, those are the kind of things that you, so he wouldn't write out, say go do that, but he would put little things into your brain. You know what I mean? He'd put little messages into your brain. Always trying to. Manipulate the situation, Yes, yes. And at the same time, so like, say that was like Friday or Thursday and then Friday you'd be downstairs and he would be coming down and walking through and all of a sudden you'd see the wife come walking up and she'd be, brother, I just really need to talk to you having issues, blah, blah, blah about whatever. And Rama would say things to her like, well, withhold it from him.

44:33 What are you doing? Giving it up? Like, you know, that's what he wants. So control your husband, you know, pray about it, you know, and those kind of things. So like he was manipulating both, knowing that they're both complaining about the same thing, have the same issues, but telling them to do the opposite. You know what I mean? Like yes, and not only did he do that with just very, it was every relationship in the cult, brother, sister, mother, father, father, daughter. Like anytime he saw that kind of connection, he would make it so that way he would tell one, one thing and one another thing.

45:19 And it was just his way of controlling everything. That's why he didn't want you talking to one another when you were cutting grass or whatever, because then you would hear, well, that's not what I said. Well, that's what he said you said, well, that's not what I said, you know what I mean? And so we couldn't have those conversations because he would then put you on a different work crew or he would send you into the meetings where you had to sit from sun up to sundown on your knees and pray and saying, oh, yeah, you couldn't use the bathroom without permission. Most people peed. I got really good at putting a towel in between my thighs and waddling my way into without anybody noticing.

46:04 So you if I did have to pee, I could pee on the on the towel. And make you meal there all day. All day, all day. Oh, kids were put in barrel big, you know, the big wine barrels, you know, he had. I don't know how many of those I want to say like 20-25, maybe 30. I don't know quite a few in a corner for. The listeners I I didn't have a laptop charger plugged in all the way out of the corner of my eye. I think it was like right before you told the story of your brother in the barrel in the barrel. So let's start. Let's tell that story again and then I'll just cut it where it needs to go. So you. So, so we would get there Fridays or whatever and then we weren't really, no one was allowed to leave if you were from out of town, but we lived in Chano. So on Saturday nights we would go home. Blessing.

47:02 None of the other kids got that like runaway or whatever to their house. So my brother, for some reason, I do not remember why, I got put into one of the wine barrels after the Sunday morning meeting. And he got stuck in there pretty much until my biological father went to get permission from Rama to take him out, which was like 2 or 3:00 in the morning on. Well, it'd been Sunday morning then. And he had to stand at the bottom of the stairs and wait for Rama to come out or someone to come out and say, yes, Rama gives permission for you to go take your son out of the barrel. And, yeah, when he got to the car, he was definitely full of, yeah, pee and, you know, probably poo. I remember all of us kids scooting away because he smelled bad.

47:57 Yeah. So. So then what was life like when like when you weren't there? So when we were OK, so us kids, my family personally, we lived in Shawnell probably, I want to say it was probably a 10 minute drive or 7 minute drive from the compound in Shawnell. And our days honestly, pretty much we ran around like crazy people in our woods that we grew up. My parents had I think 1520 acres, something like that.

48:40 And we pretty much just roamed the woods, had a pretty good childhood with us just every day during the week, Monday through Friday evening was fantastic. Wednesday afternoon, all of us would get together and go to the compound for like midweek meeting or prayer session or whatever. And that was just the people who lived in Shano and Rama wasn't there. So it, that wasn't bad. You just showed up, prayed and got the hell out of there. And so you weren't stuck there. No berating or anything like that. So Monday through Thursday or half a Friday, it was pretty good.

49:20 We ran around outside, we climbed trees, built the Fort, just did. We had no TV, no electricity or no TV, no radio or anything like that. So we just pretty much went to the library, got books on how to make bow and arrows, slingshots and anything else and we. It had to be pretty heavily policed what books you got at the library, right? No, that was the one thing that was not policed. And I don't think he was aware of how much or what we were exactly getting at the library. Because I think once he did find out, because my biological mother was into romance novels. And I mean, that's how I got into romance novels, which she'd bring books home from the library and we would all of us would read them or whatever.

50:10 And he didn't know about that until after I left. I think he found out. And that was one of the things that she started getting torn down for, OK, was the romance novel. So no, he was not quite aware. He, I think he was expecting her to police them more. Sure, but she didn't. I mean, we were pretty much had a free for all for whatever books we wanted to look at in the library. As long as it wasn't like sexual nature kind of thing, OK. So were the kids in school. Periodically, depending on what was going on with him, if he went over to India to visit his family, then we would backslide and they would put their children in school.

50:54 Then when he get back home it would be cut off. So I went to school for maybe 1/4 or a semester when I was like in, I want to say 6th grade, and then he came back from India and we were all pulled out of school. We were heathen people. We were being heathens while he was gone, as he would say. Amazing, though, that without the without him, the how quickly it reverted back to OK, this is what everybody else does now we'll do this. Fascinating. Correct. And it also depended on, like, sometimes he would push education depending on what he needed.

51:36 Like if he needed lawyers, he would push kids to go to like law school. For a while there. It was like, everybody needs to be go, go be lawyers, go be, you know, this or go be doctors or go do that. And it was because he needed a doctor. It was because he needed lawyers. It was because he needed, you know, so whatever he pushed at the time, the education thing kind of backfired a little bit on him because, you know, then kids started going out into the room, I learned. Other stuff. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you ended up with cases, what I call fencers. They kind of believe, but yet they don't go to the. Or like straddling the fence. I see. OK, yeah, I call it Yeah. You know, they call him, they give him money and they kind of appease him to still be in his good graces to, you know.

52:19 Hey, brother, you know, this has come up. What is your opinion on it? Does the Lord say that I should do this? And then they go out and like do all the sinful things. They they, you know, OK, I say they're not any different thing in the Catholics, you know, going and then all of a sudden, yeah. Hey Father, I send blah blah blah. It's kind of like the same concept in my eyes anyway. Yeah, so I forgot where I was going with that. That's OK, That's OK. So I'm glad we got a good picture painted of like the the scenario I we could talk like I have so many questions about. That forever. You could go on. But I want to kind of hone back in on your story. So like, when does it start happening that you always you you looked at it with this discerning point of view, like this guy's kind of like he's not right. But when does it start coming to a head and how did it end up like, because I'm assuming after hearing all that stories about corporal punishment, you had to go through some shit before you actually got out of there.

53:29 Like, what are the last couple years look like? And when did your mind start going to like, OK, not only is he full of shit, I have to get out of here. Well. I actually got kicked out. All right, that was from the Tik Toks, OK. So, OK, so when I was 10 years old, right around the time of time you went right around that age is when I really saw all of the sexual abuse. IA girl that I was very close to that lived in Chanel Galen, his daughter, I was very close with her and I witnessed a change in her. I knew something happened and I wasn't quite sure what.

54:10 And later on, having conversations with Galen later on, he does remember her, this conversation of me asking what had happened to her because she had just kind of done a 180 and she wasn't talking. She wasn't like, she was very like, not herself. Something had happened. And I remember asking him, because at that time we still sat around these big huge bowls of like Curry or whatever that he would make us eat. And I remember asking him what had happened to her or if she was OK. Around that same time, there were three or four other girls that I had found out that it was happening too.

54:58 And that was pretty much when the the dark side of it really came forward and kind of hit me in the face. Where we started showing each other like what was happening because we didn't have words for it. And we started communicating to other kids what was kind of happening or what to expect, so to speak, but in a down low kind of way. At the same time that that was happening, you also had at the same time you had children who were curious and like all kids of their body parts.

55:48 And so you had some kids playing doctor that would go to the next level and with older kids versus younger kids. And so the younger kids were experiencing some trauma that in many ways the older kids were doing to them without realizing that that was bad and you should not be doing that because sex was literally there was no talk about it. Like, I didn't know what a period was when I got my period. I, like you, just didn't talk about your body was yours. Nobody walked in the bathroom on you.

56:29 It was very like a taboo subject, like you did not talk about it whatsoever. And the older kids had experienced some things that they shouldn't have. Yes. And then they in turn did that to the younger kids. Well, not Even so much. I wouldn't say do it to the younger kids, try to explain it to the younger kids. Yeah, kind of normalized because it had happened. To them and they didn't want the trauma and they're now you got to, you know, like this is them thinking they're helping out the younger, you know, kids like this is what they're doing or you know, and you don't have words for it. You can't say this is what he did because you don't know what that's called.

57:16 You don't know what he did to you. You don't know that that, you know, like even a kiss. What do you mean by he used tongue? I didn't know what tongue was like, you know, so here, let me show you. And that was just, you know, that's what he did. And so you're honestly doing trauma to the next person. You're the person causing the trauma. You're not even aware that you're causing the trauma. But now you enacted that trauma onto that younger kid. Now that younger kid takes it and runs with it and will play doctor with someone who's really close with him or whatever. And it just started this whole thing where like pretty much all the kids were playing doctor.

57:57 Got it. And kind of to circle in that thought, you said you, your friend you that you had witnessed the change in that was that. Around that, That was time, yeah. Around that time, yeah. So once I found out that that happened to her and what was going on because she told me what was going on. Like I found out through her what had happened. And then I had found out like three or four other girls right around our age that that was happening to. And then? All the all the members in the congregation? Or was that like Rama? Doing the molesting, it was the fathers. OK, harkening back to the hint that you said earlier that you heard in the kitchen while you were working with that group, OK.

58:42 Yes, he was. Rama was aware of what was going on. He was never aware of what was not going on when it came to that kind of scenario. Got it. I do believe in my opinion, so around that time is when I came to realize that there were older kids that this had happened to and it had trickled down. And so it wasn't just these girls that were experiencing it from their fathers and sometimes older brothers. You are also getting it from the kids your age.

59:23 Like, you know, so it was like this untalked about hidden secret that was kind of going on. And that is when my brain clicked and that is when, oh, and my grandfather ended up molesting me. I have three very full memories of it, full detail memories of it happening to me. Whether there was more and I have blocked him, I can't say 100%. I don't believe so because the last memory I have I do remember him apologizing to me for it and saying that it was wrong and that he shouldn't do it. Really like on his deathbed or something. No, no.

1:00:04 I don't know if he was afraid that I was going to go tell somebody or I was, yes. So like he was kind of crippled. He had arthritis in his hips and stuff. So after the Sunday morning meetings, he would leave and go up to his truck and like walk around and sometimes go to like our house or whatever. He wouldn't stay sitting in the meeting or praying or whatever. And us kids, when we were younger and including while this time was going on, we would go with him and we would purposely sit next to him so we could escape and go with him. And then we would go to the gas station and we would get those little candy bits of honey or bits of honey. So it was like we got away, like we were special. Like this was like a big deal and that's kind of how he lured me in when I was 10.

1:00:59 And that was one of the very first. That's where it happened. And his truck parked up on the hill after we had gone to the gas station to get like some candy and three separate occasion the 2nd to last occasion he had asked my brother to come and get me. And my brother knew a little bit about kinda had suspected and I didn't tell him but he kind of knew. And he had said hey grandpa wants you or whatever. And I ignored him and he had stayed like, with me, but he never like, pressured me to go up there.

1:01:41 And then the second time, I think it was the following weekend, he had said something about the same thing because I had purposely stopped going and sitting next to him. And I wasn't like, you know, like wanting to run out or whatever. I found a work crew to work on that I would be away from the whole thing. And I think that's what scared him. And so the second time my brother came down to get me to go up to the vehicle, I didn't get in the vehicle. I went to his driver side. And that's when he apologized to me and said that it shouldn't have happened, blah, blah, blah. And I kept that a secret. I didn't tell anybody that happened to me. I kept that that until I for my husband. Now, the first time we dated, I think I was like 21/20/21 and it slipped out because we were in a relationship and we were talking or whatever and it had just flung out of me. And yeah, to see his reaction told me that no, you weren't crazy, That that isn't, that isn't right or whatever. And it gave me the, I guess the strength or the confirmation I needed to be able to verbally put it out there that yes, this did happen.

1:02:57 This was something that was not OK because you see so much a little petting and a little bit of kissing and a little bit of, you know, even when you grow up watching a cattle prod being used on somebody who is 345 years old wit literally he took wire connection wire or whatever from your house that you run, you know, the wiring in your house and he would fray the ends of it. So you would get the copper to stick out. And then he would walk around and whip you like literally he carried it with them everywhere and he would just whip your back so the copper would.

1:03:39 And my one sister, older sister, she has a full blown memory of being whipped like you wouldn't believe. And I also remember part of it. I don't remember the whole thing but when she tells her story it comes back and I can remember it vividly. He chased her around with that cord and whipped her so bad that she had she was bleeding like cut her and her shirt end up getting or her blouse ended up getting stuck to her back. And I remember my biological mother peeling that off of her when she had to go take a bath and helping her, and her screaming and crying as she peeled it off. And the reason why he whipped her was because her spirit was lying.

1:04:25 He could see it. He could see her spirit and it was lying. So therefore he chased her around and whipped her. Yeah. And you're saying what you're getting at you when you get, when that's all you see growing up, Yes, you don't have like you weren't empowered to say, OK, this feels wrong. But you. Couldn't say. Yes, and I would yes. And I would say that was the very first out of everything that happened. I would say that was probably the worst thing that happened to me because that was the very first time in my life my body was saying something, but everything else was saying no. And I didn't know how to correlate those.

1:05:07 And it wasn't until I got kicked out that I was able to say, OK, no, my dad wouldn't do that or my dad would kill somebody if they if he found out they did that, you know what I mean? And so that was when it really cemented that no, I was right, you're wrong or whatever. And so, you know, but I was out by that time, you know, but that was a really hard thing for me to because that really messed with me. It really made me question who I was, what I was, if I was doing heathen things or all of, you know, all of these things, or if, you know, like what they say, they're spirits inside of you and they're leading you to do horrible things.

1:05:52 And you know the spirit of your Father is going to follow you, and you're going to be just like your father and all of those kind of things. And how could you not be so confused by that, though? Because like everything around you, like you said, a lot of that wild stuff that was happening was already wild. It's like this is just another thing. How do you discern between what's like should happen, what shouldn't happen? What should you feel? What rights do you have that you you had no understanding of? Anything I didn't even know how to put it into words like, you know, I didn't know. I didn't know how to explain to anybody what he did to me. I didn't like literally I, it's funny now when I say this, but to tell my husband Brand what he did, I literally showed him like physically showed him. Because even then at that age, I still didn't quite know how to physically say those words out loud to somebody else. And, you know, to have somebody to show and then him say the words.

1:07:00 And he was like, yes, that that's it. That's that's what I'm talking about. And he's like, yeah, I know. I'm like, oh, well, I didn't know. I didn't know. So, you know, that kind of thing. And at the same time all of that is going on, you know, you have the separation. You can't go talk to your mother. You can't go talk to your father. You can't go and talk to anybody because he manipulates every relationship so much, you know, and he turns everything around that, you know, you're just stuck with all of this bottled up inside of you with no outlet whatsoever. And if you do dare let somebody know and he finds out, I mean, you're beat, your head is shaved and you're spit on your like the things that you.

1:07:46 I mean, I did a podcast with Cults to Consciousness and I told the one story and I'm just going to tell it again because this will just give you a broad idea of how abusive it was. And it was from the very beginning, I was about 7 years old and we were doing projects of building out the compound. And so during the week there was a bunch of us kids there doing different work, welding, putting up electrical, all of that kind of stuff. And he, there was one guy there that was it. Like his errands man would run and like do all these little errands for him and he did something to piss Rama off. I don't remember what it was. It doesn't really matter. He could get pissed off about anything. It just didn't matter.

1:08:30 Anyway, Rama pretty much looked at all the teenage boys that were there and the adult males that were there with a nod of his head and a flick of his hand. And they literally dragged this man out of where we were. When they came back with him, he was not walking by himself. They were literally dragging him in. His legs were like cocked eyed behind him and they were like dragging him in. He had blood all over, like his face. He was bleeding from his mouth. He was bleeding from I believe his eye. And I don't remember exactly. I think he had blood coming out of his ear. And they literally bring him in, walk him in front of Rama, like, so they're holding him, he's just sagged, and they drop him, like drop him at Rama's feet.

1:09:25 The groan that comes from somebody who's like kind of unconscious, not quite there and their body hits the ground was what came from his mouth and he laid there. Rama paid no attention to him whatsoever, continued talking to the rest of us kids and few adults that were there, with no hesitation, with no pause, with no nothing, and proceeded to finish the conversation and turn around and walked away. Everybody else walked away and left. That man laying there. Now when I say a pool of blood underneath his head, got to remember I was a little kid very traumatized by this. This was like one of the very first times I had seen someone really truly beaten to that point or whatever. I had seen the cattle prod, that kind of thing, but not quite to that where they were not unconscious. But he was pretty Dang close.

1:10:28 There was like a pool of blood underneath his head when I walked away. When we came back, there was like 4 or five of us that came back to see if he was still there. He was not there, but you could see where he had dragged himself out of the compound and he was then laying on a pile of like sand slash clay stuff that we had for cement and that's where he had gotten himself out to. At that point. I do not remember if anybody helped him. I for sure did not help him because I was not, I didn't know what to do to help him, but I just wanted to make sure he was still like alive and what happened. Like I was very curious as to like if he was still laying there or not still laying there, but he had moved outside. That was not the only person that got beat like that. That was not the only time that happened. You would get other members of the congregation to do evil things to little kids.

1:11:27 Like there was one guy that would literally walk around and just push little kids. And when I say little kids, 1234 years old, they'd be sitting there playing in the dirt because you're not allowed to have toys. So, you know, you make play, kids play, you play in the dirt and you would just have them walk by and kick ya. And for no reason whatsoever, they're just cruel. And that was at Rama's request to have this person do this. No, he was just a cruel person. Built into the. Fabric of the community. Well, you had like, you had different kind of people, different types of people in there. You had people who enjoyed just. Like anything else. Yeah, you had people who were very naive and kind of dumb when it came to mind control and all of that kind of stuff and just got fucked in.

1:12:17 Yeah, there's a range of people that are susceptible to this type of message, that it resonates. With And that was my biological parents, you know, they weren't my biological parents didn't do things to be cruel, but there were quite a few people in there that were just cruel people and they enjoyed that kind of thing. And so it just depended you, us kids figured out who those people were and how to navigate. You know, we live in a matrix. And depending on where your matrix is, you learn how to navigate it. And, you know, you just kind of figure out who to hang out with, who not to hang out with, who to avoid, who not to avoid.

1:12:58 You get very good at sensing people coming up behind you from a very young age because those things happen. So if you're not paying attention and you're not alert at all times, you're going to get smoked. And that was just the way it was. And anyway, I was getting older. I knew about the sexual abuse. I knew how he was manipulating everybody. And so I wasn't the only stubborn child there at that time. So we got a little click of ours together and there were like maybe four or five of us at that time. It did get a little bit bigger, but then we got separated and I got kicked out and our group got disbanded. I came up on this guy literally had two kids were laying over a cement pad and they were playing with two anthills that were like down there and we were watching them play. We knew where they they were there and they weren't doing anything wrong.

1:13:57 And this guy, one of the members came up and took his foot and smeared the anthill like away. And so you had this like, whole like, group of ants coming up and trying to get up onto the cement pad. And he made both of those boys stick out their tongue and put it on the cement pad so the ants would go up in their mouth. Well, let's just say I also have a temper and I see Red and as a younger kid and not having really control over my temper because, well, that's something he feeds as well. I saw Red and me and my little clique went after him and we decided to beat him up like we had seen everybody else being beaten up two by four hoes.

1:14:44 I mean, we went after him and we just beat him. Like beat him. At that time, unbeknownst to me, Rama and his big group of following that would follow him wherever he would walk, his paper towel girls and whoever else was in his good graces. Paper towel girls. Yeah, So it like, it was a pride, like a wonderful thing for you to have a set of paper towels. He was a clean freak, a neat freak or, like, germs. So, like, you would have this whole herd of little girls running around with this bucket of cleaning supplies after him, hoping to get picked by, you know, clean something.

1:15:24 Yeah. He'd clean everything. I mean, stupidly clean and pray over everything with olive oil. So like you didn't use anything until you have olive oil. Like just, yeah, just he had some crazy corks that. Yeah. So paper towel girls. And then you had the little, the teenage boys that were on his good graces that would kind of go out and beat everybody up, whoever he sent them after those kids. And then you had the adults that were in his good graces at that time because it always changed what anybody did or thought or said or whatever. And they were all coming down towards where we were. And they caught us in the middle of beating this guy up. And he proceeded to ask us what was going on. And of course, we told him what he did. And US, brother, he made the boys like put their tongue out or whatever.

1:16:22 And we were told that good job, you know, congratulations, look at them, step up, blah, blah, blah, and all of that stuff and congratulating us, making us like look really good. And he yelled at the guy that did it and told him what an evil person he was and all of that stuff. And then later on, that was Saturday, on a Sunday morning afterwards, I was up in the kitchen working on the cabinets. And I was told you a bad girl, you don't do things like that. You need to stop. If things like that happen, you need to go let Rama know. And you're not supposed to take it upon yourself to save the little kids.

1:17:07 Well, I pretty much said, OK, yeah, not. And my younger brother, who at the time was part of my clique, we were this He had a stuttering problem. I think he had some kind of neurological problem. I don't know what he stuttered. And when he would get nervous or upset. Did the power just go off? No, it's just these lights turn off. OK, All right. Sorry. When he would get upset he would like shake and physically do like just get like so anxiety ridden that I would literally have to sit out on him and hold him down and like get him to calm down and he would. I would call Fitz anyway. him and I were on the same category as stubbornness and being told what to do, not liking it so to speak.

1:18:04 He had a little bit of a disadvantage because he wasn't as big as me and, well, I could throw a fist or throw a punch, I should say, you know, And I wasn't afraid to. I wasn't afraid to beat up the boys. Us girls had to. We had to. If they even a little shade, they would throw our way. You had to. Otherwise they would run over you in that environment. Yeah, you had to, Yes. I mean, yes, literally. Could you? Stand up for a second just so the lights will come up. Thank you. Just kind of move around a little bit. There we go. Well, just can you rock a circle or something?

1:18:44 Perfect. Thank you. That's funny, now I forgot what I. Was it's OK, you were your brother had the problem and then but you were on the same page. Yeah, so we stuck together with everything pretty much because I was his protector, because the boys would pick on him and get him to stutter and, you know, like all of that stuff. So the weekend after I got warned to stop my crap and to break my little click apart. I forget exactly what happened, but I got into a not an argument, but I asked Rama again why?

1:19:28 What it was that he was asking or why was he doing the things that he was doing? And I don't remember his, his. That's the word I'm looking for. Like his answer? Yeah, I don't remember his answer. The line between like, well, maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, whatever. You don't really have a set. Direction, Yes, yes. And within that, I would say week, well, maybe it had been like the next weekend or the weekend after I got shipped off to my oldest sister's house and my brother got shipped off to India. He had built a school in India, or he says that it's a school, it's a small school, college or whatever.

1:20:15 I haven't. Well, let's just say we're not going to get into that. He has a school in India and he would ship a bunch of kids and stuff off to India. And my brother got shipped off to India and I got shipped off to my sister's house in Green Bay. After the beating. Yes, yes. Well, after he told me to stop the beating, I questioned him. Right after, yeah. And then yeah, yeah, I so I think it was like from the beating happened, me beating that guy up and then like when I got kicked out was probably like 3 weeks to a month. Got it. And he told Rama told my brother later on I found out, told my brother that it was because I had told him that he was doing drugs, which was not the case at all.

1:21:06 So, you know, pitting one against and. As tight as you were, your brother probably knew that that wasn't true. Like, yeah, but when you get told something over and over and over and you have no safe keeping anywhere, you start to have to believe the things they say to you, I suppose. Nor for you to survive. Sure you have to. There's a part of you that you just have to lock away and put away. And until you can get out of that environment and away by yourself, does that unlock and it come out again because you it's almost like a it's a survival mechanism. Yes, you have to. And I do believe that that happened to him because he is still in the cult.

1:21:48 And it is because he's still in, he is. He's the only one of my siblings and parents that are still in. Is he back from India? Though he is back from India, he was over there for like a year, year and a half I do believe and then he came back. But by then the damage was pretty done. And I do believe like all the neurological issues that he had and stuff, you know, when you're briated like that 24/7 by people and you like, he didn't have anybody there, you know what I mean? Like, he didn't have me. He didn't have anybody to say, hey, you know, he just had a bunch of other traumatized children like there and one crazy adult woman who used to hug Rama's leg when she first came in, you know, So he was around some pretty crazy mental manipulation kind of stuff in India. And well, so he was sent away.

1:22:44 And well, I went to live with my sister Abby, who and honestly, I don't remember if she was married, I should really ask her if she was married to this guy or if it was just her boyfriend at the time. But she did end up marrying him. And anyway. And they weren't in at the time. They weren't in the call. Well, no, they were in the college. They were in the Yeah. So my oldest sister, when she got older, she left and went to college. And while she was in college, she met this guy and started dating him. And then I call what she was like a fencer. She wasn't really out. She was out in the real world experiencing college, blah, blah, blah.

1:23:25 But she still called and talked to Rama and had like a full blown relationship. Still was not cut off from my parents or anything like that. So she was not out. She was just, I don't know, living a double life. And she brought this guy that she was dating in to meet Rama because she wanted approval, blah blah blah. Well, he was bipolar and had some mental issues himself and got sucked into Rama's hardcore, like hardcore and took it to the extreme and the bad extreme. He got very controlling very fast and out of all the abuse and everything that went on in the cult itself in our house, my biological parents did not scream at one another, did not yell at one another.

1:24:22 There was no physical abuse whatsoever in any way, shape or form. And if any of us kids disrespected my biological mother, my biological father, like literally my brother, I think he called her a BIT CH1 time and he had him by the throat up again. So all you do not speak to your mother like that period. End a conversation. So there was a certain amount of respect in the house, even though we knew women were less than, girls were less than in the cult or whatever. I hadn't personally, up close, seen that kind of abuse or experienced that kind of abuse, and it was a daily thing for him to have her up against the wall by her throat.

1:25:08 And that's when you're. Living her life in Green Bay, yes. And she would always excuse it and say it's his mental issues, it's because he's crazy, blah, blah, blah, or whatever. He went off his medication or whatever her excuses were. It was crazy. It was crazy. I mean, I saw him try to kill her on numerous occasions. I mean, do crazy things like she would try to him to getting out of the car number, don't go anywhere or whatever. He was having a manic state or whatever it was that she would say that he was. She just wouldn't do what he wanted. So then he would throw a temper tantrum. Literally that's what it was. And he threatened to like go drive out into the highway. So she reaches in to like get the keys from him and he literally grabs a hold of her arm and starts screaming backwards with the vehicle and she's being dragged as he's holding her into the main streets of Green Bay. Like just crazy stuff like, and it was 24/7. It didn't matter what you always it's like walking on egg shells that you didn't know if a noise was going to tick him off. You didn't know.

1:26:16 Like one time I was crushing ramen noodles to make ramen noodles, which was a treat for us because we weren't supposed to have ramen noodles. They were a sin for us. But because he was a newbie, he quite hadn't gotten that rule yet. So he still had ramen noodles in his house. And so I was all taking advantage of eating ramen noodles. And so we were, I was crushing it and apparently the rapper and the sound of crushing the ramen noodles made him mad. And he came up behind me with his first and everything went flying. And my sister is trying to jump in between to like get him so he won't continue towards me, you know what I mean? And pull back. Well, she ended up getting shoved and put up against the wall. There were many times where I ducked down underneath and like pushed him off of her to get, you know, just crazy stuff like that.

1:27:05 Well, they put me in school while I was living with them, so I was going to school and. For basically the first time ever. Yes, other than the little short stent in 6th grade that I did. At this point you're like 12. At this point I was 13. Yes, 13, and I believe I had just started my freshman year or something like that. 13, something like that. I know I was going to a high school. I don't remember Southwest High School, I think it was. Was there built in education prior to that where you had like a foundational understanding of like math and English and stuff? Not really. I mean they did like homeschooling, like American homeschool was one of the programs that they did.

1:27:46 But I would just steal their other kids tests because we were all doing the same thing and we would just copy each other's tests and then sent mail them in and the tests would come back like, oh, you got 100%. They had no clue that, you know, like we just so no, there was no other than when before, when I was younger, my two older sisters had kind of moved out and my biological mother went back to school and she was going to school for a short period of time to finish her college degree or whatever. And Rama had gone to India for another like trip. And during that time she had put all the kids into public school. But me because I was the oldest girl and I would need, she needed a babysitter.

1:28:33 So pretty much I took care of the kids. So I would get up, get my two older brothers up. They would get on the bus and then I would wake up. Let's see the four younger ones. And then they would get on the bus and then I would have the youngest one and then she would get on the bus at noon. And then I would sometimes ride with her, go to Shopko, steal stuff, and then get on the bus and come home with like the kids or whatever. And that's so all my siblings got to go to school, but I did not. But I learned a lot of stuff from teaching them or helping them with their homework, so to speak. So you know it's still a.

1:29:16 Trip though to jump in and freshman year or eighth grade and just like try to go to class. After it was very hard and I struggled very hard to be even. I mean, I remember one time asking my English teacher, I think it was my senior year, and I was trying to figure out there was a couple of papers or whatever I would pay my sister, my adopt sister, after I to do my homework for me. Nice. So she would write my papers for me and I got caught and so I was sitting in study hall trying to do 1 and I asked her how to spell beautiful. And she looked at me like I was crazy for asking her how to spell beautiful. But I was like, there's no sound. Like I don't know how to, you know, I couldn't sound it out. And I didn't really know phonics because we didn't learn phonics and I was also dyslexic, which they didn't really know. So anytime anybody did try to teach me anything, I just, yeah, you know, I didn't want anything to do with it. What a trick.

1:30:13 So. So question I want to keep going with that, but why did they I I should have asked this earlier, why did they send you to your sister's house but they were still in the cult too to. To separate me from because I was becoming a bad influence on the other children and they didn't. Go every weekend or whatever. No, they went every weekend, so I saw them every weekend but during the week. OK, then you weren't around. I wasn't around all my other siblings. And he would do that with all all. He would transport children, teenagers that would get a little bit older into other families to keep them separate and families that you didn't know, like you weren't in control. And yeah.

1:30:55 He could pick where the ones went. OK, got it. Yes. So you just never had any true allies. You were constantly, you know, be moved around. Just the Rama. Yes, correct, correct. Got it. So then you start school. Yes, well, I became very brave and I used to take the city bus from the house to the school. Well, on the city bus or at the bus stop before I would quickly change into street clothes or city clothes as I called them. No skirt, take my hair down, I'd wear jeans and AT shirt. And that's how I go to school. I was wondering that the whole time, so there was like a dress code. Type Oh yes, got it. You were buttoned up from, you know, and sometimes rounded collars were OK, some for some periods, other times it wasn't OK. Sometimes you could go short sleeve, other times you couldn't go short sleeve.

1:31:45 It just depended on his, his mood, mood or whatever that thing. So yeah, blouse and a skirt, that was it. And your hair up in a bun in the back. So I went to school with heathen clothes in the end of my civvy clothes. And one day I was in computer class and I just felt something behind me. And I turned around and looked and it was my brother-in-law standing behind me. And my hair is down and I'm in civvy clothes and his face says it all. I don't even say anything.

1:32:29 I just turn back and look at the computer and I just like sit there. And honestly I don't remember if he told me to meet him in the office or not. I don't remember. But he flipped around and walked out the door while at the same time I got up and I walked out the other door and I went to my locker. And as I was getting my stuff out of my locker, I noticed down the hallway an exit door. And I thought like this, I'm not going back. I am not like I knew what I was going to face was unspeakable and I was not going to face it. I was not, I was not going to get my head shaved.

1:33:11 I was not going to get spit on because that that was a level of that was the next punishment that was coming for me because I have not been listening and all of that stuff. So I thought screw it, I'm just out of here. And so out the door I went. I waited until school got out. I followed the boy that I had so-called dating. I I only saw him during school or whatever. So we weren't really dating, but you know how that goes. I went to his house and nobody knew about him at all. So they didn't know where he lived or anything. And I pretty much just stayed at his house until his parents were like, uh, no, she needs to leave.

1:33:53 Like she can't stay here. Like what's going on here? So I would hurry up and say no, no, I'll leave. And I would go like hook up with somebody else to stay at their house or anyway, that went on for like 2 weeks, 2 1/2 weeks, something like that. And I ended up staying at this girl's house who was not very good. And her and her mom got into a big huge fight at like one 2:00 in the morning. And literally her mom kicked me out on the streets of Green Bay at 2:00 in the morning, at 2:00 in the morning. So I was just wandering the streets, literally just wandering the streets. I had nowhere to go. I was just wandering. I I was fine. And again, you're like 13 at this. Time 14/13/13 yes I think I was 13. I'd be turning 14 that summer so 13. Anyway I saw a cop car drive down and I hurry up and ducked underneath a tree trying to hide from him and he saw me and proceeded to pull out the spotlight and hey I see you. And he literally said to me why did you run? I wasn't going to stop or do anything. The fact that you ran made me pull the stop the spotlight. He goes you look like an adult.

1:35:09 And anyway he asked for my name. I wouldn't give it to him. He finally got me to tell him what my first name was. I misspelled it. I wouldn't give it to the right spelling or whatever. They had reported me as a runaway. Your brother-in-law and sister. Yes, yeah. So he literally picked me up because I was reported as a runaway, took me back to the cop shop, and I remember him asking me all kinds of questions and I just zipped my lips. I wouldn't say anything. I was like, I, I don't trust you. Well, we don't have any trust in any of the authorities. And all the authorities that I ever went to, they didn't really do anything anyway. So it wasn't really worth my time or effort to explain all of this and say all of this.

1:35:52 You're just going to say, oh, well, anyway, you got to go with them because that's law anyway. So they called, I'm assuming my sister and her boyfriend or husband, and they came to the cop shop to pick me up and I just adamantly refused. I know I'm not going with them. I am not. You are not going to make me. And I literally hugged my chair and the cops were like, we can't release her to you. You need to go get her biological father or biological parents and they have to come pick her up. So my biological father came and picked me up. I got into the vehicle, not a word was spoken between us.

1:36:34 Silenced the entire trip from Green Bay back to Shawno, my family house or whatever. I walked in the door. My biological mother said to me, you need to go call brother. And after I got done saying hi to my siblings because they were all like, oh, she's back. What excitement? Like everything that happened, you know, they're all excited because, you know, here's the horrible person back in here and she can tell us everything that went on. What is it like on the outside? Oh my goodness, you got to do so much. You what? Anyway, so I went and got the phone. Now any time that you talk to Brother or Rama, you had to kneel, even if it was on the phone.

1:37:18 So I grab the phone. I go into and then you gotta remember the cord. We had the cord back then. You didn't have cell phones back then. So the phone was on the wall and I took the cord and like literally walked all the way across the living room into my biological parents bedroom, closed the door. I remember kneeling and saying yes brother. And he goes, they found you, yes, brother. And him saying you need to apologize and Sunday morning meeting in order for you to come back. Do you understand? Yes, brother. And then explaining something about nor to continue going.

1:38:00 I would have to shape up and pretty much I just said yes brother and listen to him Rambo for about 5 or 6 minutes or something like that. I don't remember the full extent and pretty much said, no, I'm OK, All right, Hung up the phone, went over to my biological mother. She asked me what was said. I just said I have to stand up and apologize Sunday morning for running away. And she asked me if I was going to do it. And I just said, well, I don't know. I can't lie, but I don't know. And I believe that that I don't remember if that was a Thursday or a Wednesday. It was during the middle of the week so I don't remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday or Tuesday or something like that.

1:38:43 But there was like a 2 day conversation where her and I talked about whether or not I was going to apologize. And pretty much it got to be Thursday and she was downstairs doing laundry and I remember standing down there with her doing laundry and her just me asking her why she wanted me so badly to apologize for something that I didn't think I was like wrong or whatever. And she kept saying that 'cause it's the right thing to do. And it wasn't a good enough answer for me. Like that wasn't good enough for me to stand up and lie to the whole congregation.

1:39:29 Because in all honesty, I was not sorry. I enjoyed my time so much. I'm serious. Like I had so much fun when I ran away those 2 1/2 weeks. Like I the food that I ate that I had never experienced was amazing. The people that I talked to were amazing, even if they were on the wrong side of the tracks it they were nicer than anything that I had come across. Yeah, after I was just, yes. I mean, I enjoyed my 2 and a 2 1/2 weeks or two weeks or whatever it was. I really did. I did not want to go back in any way shape or form. And so I was not sorry. I was actually giddy and excited that I had done what I had done.

1:40:09 And so I was really trying to struggle within myself how to justify going in and apologizing in front of God and everybody. Like legitly, these were my thoughts in my brain. Like, how am I going to justify? I don't want the earth to open up and me to fire it, fall into the burning fiery pit of hell down there, 'cause I legitly thought that that was going to happen. I really thought that that's what happened. And so I just, I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't stand up and lie. I don't lie. You can't tell me to lie. I've never lied. Like white lies, yes, calling my brother ugly, yes, those kind of things, getting him to punch me, yes, you know, bumblebee with glasses on.

1:40:54 And then he tries to punch me. I duck, he goes fist goes through the window, you know, like that kind of stuff. Yes, but never. And especially before God in like church in front of everybody, like Sunday mornings are the most holy time. Like you're asking me to stand up in front of everybody and lie. And she just couldn't tell me a good reason why I should lie other than it was the right thing to do. And so I just was really conflicted inside as to what to do. I didn't know what to do. And I remember like walking up, like leaving the basement and going to walk up the stairs and turned around and I said to her and she was looking at me. We were facing one another.

1:41:39 And I was on like the second or third step going up the stairs. And I just turned and looked at her and said I love you. Now, where those words came from, I do not know. We didn't say those words at all. I had never heard my mother say that to my father. I had never heard her say that to us. I had never heard another congregation member say that to anybody. Nobody said those words to one another. But in that moment, I just wanted her to know that I loved her and I didn't. Honestly, it was just something that came from within me. And I said those words. I love you. She turned her back on me, didn't say a word, just turned her back and stood there. Not a peep.

1:42:25 Nothing. That in that moment sealed my deal. Nope, I am not apologizing. If she would have said the words I love you back to me, I would have apologized and I would have decided that would have been my next chink in the chained to do more wrong. You understand what I'm saying? Like we all face those and that was like, I will never forget that, like me thinking. That was a pivotal point for you where you could have you would have stayed in or ultimately what's. Going to happen and if I would have stayed in I would have been gung ho I would have been like my brother I would have been a die hard because I would never have been able to live with myself knowing that I knew better.

1:43:12 You understand what I'm saying and not you know, so. You'd have lived with so much shame, yeah. Yes, yes, in hindsight, 2020, yes, that was a lot. It caused me a lot of trauma, but it was probably the best thing in my life that's ever happened to me. There's. A path out right? Yes, yes. So that just sealed the in my brain. That sealed the deal. I was not going to apologize. And I pretty much let her know that I wasn't going to apologize. So Friday came around and before they left I disappeared into the woods because I was still worried that they were going to drag me back forcefully and make me apologize. So you ran off into the woods? So I ran off into the woods to hide so that way they couldn't find me and they would have to leave and go because they had to be there at a certain time.

1:44:02 And they left and I spent the next Friday night, well after they left, I went and raided the refrigerator and anything else that I could get into. But before they got home, I was back out in the woods and I slept out in the woods and I just made sure that they couldn't drag me back. And the next week, I believe it was Monday or whatever, my mom had the conversation or my biological mother had a conversation with me about me no longer being allowed to like be in the house or yeah, the first week was I couldn't be in the house. The second, what week was I couldn't be like in the backyard.

1:44:48 The third week was I couldn't be in the front yard. And then like the 4th week was, I couldn't even stand by the mailbox which was at the end of the driveway to see my siblings. I would then stand in the neighbor's yard across the road. Now, mind you, when they told me that I couldn't go anymore, I did not realize that my biological parents were also going to kick me out of my house. That was not I knew I wouldn't go to the like, you know, congregation. I wouldn't go to the compound. I wouldn't have anything to do with that. But I did not in my brain put the two and two together that I would literally be living on the streets, that I would not be in the house, you know, like I that did not comprehend in my brain when that whole process was going on.

1:45:42 So yeah, that was a little bit of a like heart crushing kind of thing, but I knew it was coming. The other heart crushing thing was when I knew that they had taken all my personal belongings that I had left behind and burnt them. And like literally they had, my biological parents had cut all ties with me in their eyes. And so that was really hard because as I said, I was raising my siblings. And so my baby brother, who was like 4 when I started really taking care of well, I pretty much took care of him from the day he was born. He was my little doll.

1:46:24 I took him everywhere. And then when she was going to school, he was attached to my hip. I did everything with him and he was about four years old when I was kicked out, so losing him was just devastating to me. My little sister, that was devastating to me. My parents, not so much. The house, not so much, but my siblings. This, the protective instinct that I had was so strong, and those were the things that bothered me a lot. Those were the hard parts. And so in that. Transition period when they said not the backyard, not the front yard, now out by the mailbox. Were you sleeping outside? Yeah.

1:47:06 So I would sleep out in the archery house that the US kids built out in the woods or we had like a what I call a van body or like this like like container, I guess out in the back that sometimes I would sleep in if it was like really bad out because it was still there was still snow on the ground when they kicked me out, but it wasn't it was like the beginning of spring, but still a little bit of snow. So like the public bathrooms and stuff were open, but like none of the showers were on or anything like that. And we lived right next to the county park, like a mile away from the county park. So I spent a lot of time at the county park and I would just hang out at the county park.

1:47:48 And before I got kicked out, I used to take my siblings during the week and we used to sneak down to the county park and go swimming. And I had met a older lady who lived right next to the county park and she would dry our clothes for us or give us bathing suits to go swimming in. And so I kind of knew somebody down there. And so when I got kicked out, I went down there or whatever, she would see me and I would stop in and say hi. Well, her daughter was going through a divorce at the time and lived down there, and she had four children.

1:48:29 And at the like, by the time I had gotten kicked out and all those weeks or whatever, first week, second week or whatever, she had just gotten a house rented. And so she bartended and waitressed at a local restaurant. But she needed someone to watch the kids at night and in the afternoon, and I needed someone to sleep. And so the older lady told me that, hey, she needs a babysitter. You're a teenager, you need money, do you want to babysit? And I thought, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding. And did the old lady know that you were just kicked out of your house? No.

1:49:09 She. Didn't. No clue. None whatsoever. None. I didn't tell anybody and I met the lady who needed a babysitter and we got along great and she was like fantastic, you're here like all the time. And so I started babysitting for her that like spring and eventually she would say to me, don't you need to go home? You've been here for like 3 days. That's. What I was just going to ask you need to go home. Where? You and I would leave. Well, I would. I was really good at pretending to leave. So she would get home, I'd wake up in the morning and I would leave and go wander around and, you know, and then come back when she needed me. And then, you know, but as time got went by and I got more comfortable, I just didn't leave. And I would kind of lose track of time. And she'd be like, don't your parents need to see you? You've been here for like a week, you know, what's going on? Do you need to go home?

1:50:08 And I'd be like, no. And one week I don't remember all of this is very the timelines for me are very hard for me to remember because there's a lot of there's a lots of of missing pieces that I can't remember that as I get older, they fall into place or memories will come back or, you know, like something trauma will something traumatic will happen and I'll kind of lose little bits. I'll remember the very traumatic part, but the surrounding things I don't quite remember. So like some of this is, I know it happened and what order it happened I'm not 100% sure.

1:50:51 So while I was down there babysitting and coming back and forth, my biological mother decided to come down there to the house where I was babysitting and give me a piece of mail. That's like the one thing that I remember she had a piece of. And the lady who was babysitting Deb, who I call mom now, she adopted me. She asked my biological mother, do you want your daughter? She's here all the time. And my biological mother straight up told her no. She has a bad influence on the other children, and she is not allowed in our house.

1:51:32 My mom's jaw just dropped. Like, just. She never heard anything like that before in her life. No one has. Yeah. And still to this day, or still at that, like up to that point, my mom did not know I was a Rama kid. I had not told her anything. I was very tight lipped because I knew if anything got out back to the cult that my siblings would suffer the consequences of me opening my mouth. So I zip my lips. I did not say anything. I they were the most importance to me. I would not do anything to make their lives harder so they didn't know anything. And around that I do know that she came down on 2 separate occasions for sure.

1:52:22 And both of those occasions she adamantly told my mom that I was not allowed at the house and that she did not want me back at the house due to my bad influence on the other children at that time. Or right like at the end of that summer or whatever, my mom started dating somebody and a wonderful, wonderful man, wonderful man who I now call dad. And he pretty much walked into this woman with four kids and this weirdo Amish girl that just showed up at her house saying I'm babysitting and she's like, I don't know what to do with her.

1:53:07 I she just showed up and now she's here, she's part of the family. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Here you go. And so my dad, who was the jail administrator of Shawno at that time, was like, well, that's not OK. You can't just have a kid show up at your house and you raise them or whatever. That's not OK. And so him and my mom, now, I forgot this portion for a little while until my dad reminded me again. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's right. So this is kind of retelling from his version after remembering everything and the emotions that came with it, because that's what I remember the most, is the emotions that came with it. Not so much what exactly happened, but him and my mom drove me and my dad's green station wagon, drove into the my family house or whatever.

1:54:06 And my dad got out and I remember him turning to me and saying well, come on. And him getting out and walking up. Now, my dad's a big guy and I remember his hands being in his pocket as he was walking up to the door and I got out of the vehicle. I remember walking up and not quite getting up to the door, the door opening and my biological mother standing there. Now, I wasn't close enough to hear exactly what was said or anything like that, other than I know it wasn't good. I know my biological father showed his face and then disappeared very fast and then my dad turned around and came stalking back to me and told me to get the fuck back in the car in a very get the fuck in the car kind of thing. And me being scared and excited at the same time because I wasn't going back home and I wasn't sure what was going to happen after that.

1:55:11 But I had ultimate faith in that man in my dad. Like I just knew he was a protector. Like I just like there were the very first time he ever saw me in a bikini was the very first male that ever looked at me without anything other than go get your fucking clothes back on. And to never have that and to then witness it, I just stood there and grinned at him like I was stupid, like I just fell in love with him at that very moment because there was no, no eye glancing down, no nothing. And I was not, let's just say I was a good looking teenager and you know, anyway, so he was the very first male that was like protection 110%. There was no anything else.

1:56:05 It was just protection. And we get back to the house and I just remember walking into the house and kind of just sinking to the ground with the realization of really in reality, I am now by myself. There is no nothing or anybody anything. And he just said the words, we got you, I got you. And he sat on the floor next to me and just sat there. And I don't exactly remember if I cried myself. I knew, I know I was very upset. I don't remember exactly what was said.

1:56:46 I just remember him sitting down next to me until I was ready to get up. And then we got up together. And from that moment on, I've been part of the Brady Bunch. They got married, I want to say that following August, they got married. She had four kids, he had three kids and then me and we all moved in together into town right behind Dairy Queen. And I went to my junior and senior year. Well did four years and two years with the help of oh before I'm going to miss this whole part. Okay, so we went back home.

1:57:29 Dad then sat down and had the conversation with me about what my options were. Like adoption or? All that, yeah. So I wasn't 16 yet and I still had a full year before I would turn 16. So I couldn't legally emancipate myself. And so I would either have to go into foster care or have someone like, you know, take guardianship of me. And dad explained to me that he doesn't really have a say in it. It would be up to like the court system and all of that kind of stuff. And I, and then he also said told me that like my parents would get in trouble most likely and all of this kind of stuff. So pretty much laid out everything, all the possible avenues that could go, and then just pretty much asked me what do you want to do Well.

1:58:22 The first time in your life you've. Been. Empowered with the decision. Yes, yes. And I didn't want anybody to get in trouble because at that time I was still like screwed up in the head. And I didn't, I loved my parents. I didn't want anything to happen to them. I didn't want anything to happen to my siblings. So I asked them to give me a couple days to like think about it or whatever. And I'd let them know. And I walked to my biological parents house, knocked on the door and I straight up told my biological mother that if she did not put me into school, that I was going to go to the Police Department, I was going to press charges. And that this is what was going to happen. And that I had no other choice.

1:59:04 That these were the things and that she had a week for me to like get this done. Otherwise the consequences would be what they were. And yes, I spoke to her pretty much like that very strict, very mean, very. And within a week I got a letter at the house that I was living at addressed to me and Deb Burroughs, which is my mom or it wasn't Burroughs at that time. It was Price, but and it I was enrolled in school and the school pretty much knew that I was living with mom and dad and that I was a Rama kid.

1:59:50 And so don't call her biological parents, call these parents if anything were to happen. And so that's kind of how that happened. I didn't go and press charges. I didn't say anything. I kept quiet. I just lived with mom and dad and went to school. And lived a normal teenage life, went to prom, had birthday parties, all the things that I didn't, you know, I mean the greatest thing in the entire world was my first birthday out. Like the 1st birthday cake I had, my mom has this tradition that she would, we didn't do fast food except for your birthday before like the morning of your birthday, she would wake you up and you would go get McDonald's or whatever fast food you wanted. And so my first birthday, going out and getting fast food or, you know, like all of those things, I just ate it up like you wouldn't believe you actually. Got the memories you deserved?

2:00:48 Yes, and I got true siblings and true parents. I got to witness what true siblings and true parents are and yes it it to this day they are my mom and dad they will always get. They gave me things that nobody can understand just until you've been in that situation where you are utterly alone by yourself and to have these two people for no reason whatsoever, and they didn't have to just because it was the right thing to do, just literally stand up and take it. Now, at the same time, I say that I also the neighbor lady across the street would have offered me a place to live, but I did not feel protected with her husband like I did with dad.

2:01:38 And so therefore I was very leery about moving in. So I did have another person who stepped up and did I call her? She's like my second mom. She's my faith person. Anytime that I'm having a crisis in faith or doubting myself or having inner conflict, she is my person I go to because she is just steadfast and strong in that kind of way. But I did not get the protective instincts that I got from mom and dad from them. So therefore I was very leery about moving in with them right across the street from my biological parents. So I just want to say that like they weren't the only two people to stand up, but they were they were the, you know, those three adults, Mama Frank, mom and dad, those three adults and my grandma on the outer, like later on were the I was. Wondering when?

2:02:35 She was people were the people that really cemented everything that I hold dear to this day. Like just like they gave me the foundation, they pretty much helped me break everything down and rebuild what I needed to rebuild to be healthy. Life altering. And yes, and my dad, to this day, I can call him for anything. He'll drop everything and come running. I mean, like just and to never have that and all of a sudden to have it and I used to tell my sisters all the time, shut up and stop being mean to dad. You don't understand. You just don't get it. Stop crying about grandpa dying. You at least you had a grandpa who loved you.

2:03:16 And you know, like, I would be like, stop crying about it. Be happy that you had a grandpa. Go say goodbye. I don't understand why you're sitting here sobbing like you should be proud that you had, you know, like I would look at the world and just the totally opposite, like way. You had seen the world up to that point in a way that nobody sees. Me yes yeah and they would look at me like you're so weird shut off like you're just weird like what are you talking about he's not going to be here anymore like we can be sad and you know like so just like those kind of relationships that and. In reality, you're both right. Yes, yes, very much so. And it just gave a totally different perspective to both of us, you know?

2:03:57 So yeah, I got to live my high school years. It was wonderful. And then when I got to be now periodically throat, I would try to sneak visits into my biological siblings. So, like, I would swing by and stop across the road. Hi, They would come to the window and like I could peek and see them peeking out the window and we'd wave And I had an e-mail set up that sometimes my sisters would be able to go to the library and sneak on the computer and e-mail me. And so like we had little ways that we would like be able to communicate. Well, my one sister, the second oldest girl.

2:04:41 So my older sister, she got into some. She ran away from the cult and came down to my house to hide and literally I hid her underneath my bed. My at. Your mom and dad's house. At my mom and dad's house, yes, I hid her underneath my bed and my biological father came down and even asked if she was down there and I lied to him and said no, she wasn't down there. And I got her onto the Greyhound bus and take off to Minnesota where she could get her stuff. That was the last time I had really seen her. I don't know exactly what her story is. I do know that they found her at the bus station in Minnesota and they tried to get her to go back and she wouldn't. Your biological parents found her. Who found her?

2:05:30 Cult members. Cult members yes, and they were literally going to force her back into the vehicle and pretty much kidnap her back to the cult and she threatened to scream bloody murder so they had to leave her but they took her, took all of her stuff and pretty much left her there like stranded with. Nothing they tried doing with you. Everybody that tries to get out, they try to do yes. Anyway, that was my junior year. And then my senior year I kind of got in touch with her again and found out that she was like kind of on the outs, but not on the outs. She had gotten married, had a baby during that time, and she was in a very bad place.

2:06:10 And at that same time, I didn't know what to do. I was graduating high school and I saw a recruiter and I thought, oh, $10,000 signing bonus. Perfect. Amazing. I'm rich, let's join. And my sister needed an out. So I was like, hey, join the military with me. So she was in Minnesota. So I called my recruiter and I said I'm not going unless my sister can come with me. He goes I'll get to work on that. He called a recruiter that he knew in Minnesota. Those two recruiters got together. So that way me and my sister go to go to basic together. So we shipped out the same time to basic. We did basic together.

2:06:56 It was wonderful. It was beautiful. My sister was going through so much stuff at the time. She was getting a divorce at the same time her husband was trying to ship her baby son off to India. Yes, while she was in basic training, he was trying to get passports. And that was right around the time they changed it from one person, one parent signing the passport to two parents signing the passport. So it saved her. He had to like stop those proceedings, otherwise she was in the risk of losing her son going over to India because they were in a custody battle over who is going to get it. So he was going to ship the sun to India. So is he a Rama member? Yes, he's in. The Rama told them to get married, My sister to get married.

2:07:39 She was in like. I thought she got married and had a kid with someone not in the. Call No, they she was still in the call. Yeah, got it. And she was trying to get out but couldn't get out. You know, she was looking for an Ave. She Yes, yes. OK. And believe it or not, she stayed a fencer for a very long time. Anyway, we went to basic training together, went to AIT. My mom and dad came and picked us up. We came back home. I met Brant and started dating him, moved to Iron Mountain. When you came back from basic training? You met? Yes, I met Brant. I was dating somebody. Mike. Some crazy Mike guy.

2:08:21 He was very. Anyway, we want. Yeah, crazy. Not good. My mom and dad were like, thank God. Thank goodness. Anyway, Yeah. So I met Brant and literally I met him. Like I, I want to say the moment I, our eyes met, there was a connection that I cannot explain to anybody. And when anybody says there's no such thing as a soulmate, I say you just have never met your soulmate. There was this connection that I can't explain. I just felt absolutely in love with him and felt the most protected I have ever felt in my entire life other than being with my dad. He has protective instincts to the 10th degree and a lot of people think it's more controlling but it's not it's just are you OK?

2:09:13 Anyway so I started dating him and my sister moved back to Minnesota, finished the divorce, got custody of her son, was living her life and then like 2 years into it I got a phone call or no it was maybe a year in into living with Brant. I got an e-mail from my sister wanting to get out and she was going to be turning 18 soon so OK. A different sister, A younger sister. A younger sister, yes, the one under me. The sister under me. And so her and I were emailing back and forth very sparingly, periodically whenever she could get to the library and sneak in. And we came up with the solution that I was going to drive up to the family house, turn off the Dome light headlights, and she was going to jump out of the window onto the roof, onto the ground, run to my vehicle, slide in, and I'll take off. And voila, we did it.

2:10:18 And I rescued her or stole her. She was 17, hadn't quite turned 18 yet and took her back home with me and she lived with me for a little while until she met her first husband on the Greyhound bus, which I told her she was stupid and crazy, don't do it. But so she moved in with her husband who she met on the Greyhound and about I would say probably a year after that. I got a phone call from the neighbor lady Mama Frank, who had my other little sister over at her house in tears and just sobbing mess saying that's one of the cult members who was staying at the house had sexually molested her or raped her and it was pretty bad.

2:11:11 And he was in a lot older gentleman while I I jumped into gear and I pretty much said don't let her leave the house. I'm on my way. I'm an hour and 45 minutes, 2 hours away. I'll be there. So I went there. I picked her up. I took her back to my mom and dad's house and I proceeded to call the cops and do all the things that needed to be done for that kind of thing and my sister pressed charges that my biological mother. I don't remember seeing my biological father at all. He was there.

2:11:53 I do know from other people saying, but I physically don't remember him being part of the conversation or anything like that. I don't he might have been in the background, but my biological mother drove over to the compound where the one lady had a notary thing and they pretty much signed their rights away of her to me within 24 hours of me reporting that. And so I got full custody of my sister and it's. Such a tumultuous time in her life. Yes, she was 16 and I was 23, 20, yes, 23. Fresh back from Basic.

2:12:38 Training like just, you know, trying to figure out the world and the world is still new to me, you know what I mean? Like, and at the same time, I had just been able to talk about my sexual trauma, all of that kind of the sexual abuse and all of that kind of stuff. So like my brain was just, I call it, it's like an onion. Like once the one layer comes out and you start talking about it and you open it up, the next layer comes out and it just depends on how much you're willing to dwell into it, how fast and open it comes. But once those layers start peeling, you have no control. Like they just start opening up and you start experiencing emotions that you just, you can't explain and you don't know where they come from. And it's really, I say it's your inner child coming out and being demanded to.

2:13:26 I had to hideaway for so long to protect you. Now it's time for you to see, feel and hear me. And if you don't, you are going to be panic ridden for the rest of your adult life. So to get rid of all the anxiety and all the panic and all of that fear, you literally have to peel apart those layers and just start. And her being sexually abused and then me having my past and not being able to talk to anybody in my biological family about it just really like unwired my brain. It helped each other, yeah. Yes.

2:14:07 And then at that same time, during all that time, Brandt had gotten cancer. And so he was going through chemo and radiation and Soho. He had kind of gotten off the deep end as far as depression and he had just kind of checked out like, so to speak, a 32 year old guy going through chemo radiation just kind of got sucked into the computer games and checked out. And I at the same time had my sister who was dealing with all of her stuff and I just couldn't take it anymore. And I just said I'm done, I can't do this anymore. And I pretty much broke up with him and left and moved down to Lansing.

2:14:54 And at the same time, I had found out that I was pregnant. And I could not imagine bringing a child into this world, into this evil, into this like crazy, crazy, crazy like world and not be married and not have a good foundation for him or her. And both possible fathers, because I wasn't sure who the dad was. Both possible fathers. It wanted nothing to do with it whatsoever and pretty much said, no, go get an abortion. Go do it. Walked out of there like 3 different times like not sure if I should do it. And finally like the third time it was like OK all right. I could not bring a baby into this world when only one person really truly wants it.

2:15:48 And if I go to hell for killing a soul, at least I'm sending it back to heaven fully attached, and some other person will get the joy of having that soul. And if I have to go to hell for ending that, I'll gladly go to hell not to damage another soul, because that was not something that I can do. I could not bring a child into this world and not have a mother and a father. And so yes, I went and had an abortion and that another whole layer into it still to this day that's I gave up something I desperately wanted so bad because I was so worried about doing harm to another human being. Hindsight 2020 now, if I was know what I know now, back then I would never have done it.

2:17:03 But at that time you had. Four years experience in normal. Society, yes. And a sister who was. And transit, well, not being able to. I loved Brant. I loved Brant desperately, but I just couldn't. I couldn't do the crazy. I couldn't. I just couldn't handle it emotionally and I just got scared and I ran, pretty much. I ran and moved on to Lansing. While I was down there in Lansing, I was in contact with my sister who I went to basic training with, and I thought I had a pretty good relationship with them. I didn't know that there was still in communication with Rama.

2:17:54 I had no idea, none whatsoever. And so I allowed my little sister to go visit her one weekend for the holidays. And my sister, older sister got her to redact her story or her case by signing this paper and sent it into the Police Department in Shawnell where we had filed the charges. And the cop called me and I had to talk him down from charging my little sister charges of lying and false reporting and all of that kind of stuff. And I had to explain like, no, it really did happen and she didn't mean to redact it.

2:18:45 My other sister conned her into this. This is not, you know, like the police. They just don't know how to handle people who are in a cult or understand the dynamics and everything that go along with it. You know? You know, they had gotten her to call and talk to Rama, and Rama totally sided with her and said, yes, what happened to you was horrible and he totally manipulated her. Just to get the signature. Just to get the case dropped because it would have opened they, you know, the the Police Department had been looking for a way in for a very long time and this was their way in. So that cop was livid. I mean he was seen red when he called me and talked to me. And Needless to say, that crushed me for the second time in my life. The first time was when my biological mother turned her back on me and just walked out.

2:19:37 We were like, you know, like that was the crush 1 The crush too was when I had called my sister to talk to her and ask her why. Because you know, I have to ask why. She told me in her words that Rama told her was it was not our judge art. It was not our place to judge anybody. God was going to judge them, and as far. As the he's talking about the dude, who knows? We can judge him. Yes. Well, that's what I told to her. I said, wait a minute. So you're telling me that we're not supposed to do anything about this? He's allowed to go do this to somebody else? Why? Why do you think it's OK for that? And she was like, well, you know, it's not our place to judge people. Only God can judge people.

2:20:22 And when she said those words and she kept saying those words to me, I lost my shit, man. I just lost my shit. And I went down a dark, depressing thing. I pretty much just gave up on life. I, I mean, I just gave up. I let my little sister go back, not to the cult, but I, she went back into the family fold to my brother who was in Texas. He wasn't part of the cult, but he still talked to like my buddy. They, she wasn't complete. They weren't completely cut out. They still would call and talk to Rama. They would still call and do that kind of thing. So they were fencers, but further out fencers, I guess, so to speak. And so she went and lived with them. And when that happened and my biological father and oldest sister came and picked her up and like a not a word was spoken.

2:21:16 Not like just like I just couldn't believe that he was allowing this to happen and nothing was going to happen to this man. And this was not the first time that he had done this. He had also done this to his own daughters and they had allowed this man to be in their house knowing that this man was a pedophile and that he had molested his daughters. And like, I just couldn't believe it. I just couldn't understand it. And I just, and so I just honestly, I just buried myself in work and I tried to forget everything.

2:21:56 And I ended up meeting Fred, my husband, my first husband, and he love bombed me, gave me everything that I thought a relationship should be with the flowers and the dates and all of that stuff. And I didn't see the red flags that were there. And honestly, I was looking for someone to come in and save me and just pick me up because I was just so inside. I when my sister said those words to me, I was just crushed. I I felt like I lost a part of myself. Yeah.

2:22:41 I lost what little part of family that I thought I had gotten back, like it was just gone. And the siblings that I thought I had, the parents that I thought I had, it was again, a cement. No, you don't have them. It's a facade. They are not true to you. You know, their, their allegiance and their alliances to somebody else, not to you. And so I just, I couldn't believe it. And anyway, he came in and love bombed me and said all the right things and did all the right things and asked me to marry him. And I said hell yes. And he had custody of his two children, a boy and girl. They were in kindergarten in first grade.

2:23:22 And I felt absolutely in love with them. I had just maybe a year, not quite a year previous to that, had the abortion. And so I was, I mean, this little girl was in kindergarten. She was just the most darling thing in the entire world. And I just like literally, I think I fell in love with the children versus the, you know what I mean? Like I really did. I fell in love with the family. He was a fantastic father. He was a wonderful dad. I fell in love with that, like just anything that I thought that I would want my children to have. He was as far as the father figure goes, and that was enough for me.

2:24:03 I didn't care about anything else. I didn't know about anything else. I didn't dwell on anything else. I said yes and we got married. Hindsight, 2020, I should not have. I knew in my head the day I went, we got married on Mackinac Island. And so we were taking the ferry across and I was with my mom and dad and my dad just turned her and looked at me. And he goes, listen baby girl, if you don't want to do this, we can turn around and walk away right now, so. He felt something. He felt it and I think he felt it because I felt it and I just knew. But I was so in love with those kids. I just, I could not hurt them. I could not break their hearts. I, I would protect them in any way, shape or form, even if it was from me walking away.

2:24:48 And I just, and in my brain, I was like, no cold shoulder or, you know, like, you know, cold feet or whatever it is that they say before you get married. You know, those things played in my mind and I was like, no dad, no, I love him. And he was like, OK, let's go do this. And so we took the ferry across, got married and yeah, moved to Grayling. Well, he was in the military, I was in the military and we both did drills at Camp Grayling there or the two weeks or whatever. And he grew up in Grayling. So we moved to Grayling and had Wyatt, my son got pregnant, had him. He at that time I cut off all contact with any biological family whatsoever. I didn't talk to aunts and uncles, nothing. I had nothing to do with the cult. I shut that part off the vast.

2:25:42 Majority of them were still in at that time. There was all of them were all of I was the only sibling that was truly out. I had a couple of brother and sisters that lived on the outside, but they still talk to Rama blah blah blah. I was the only one that had no contact whatsoever and just enjoyed being a mom. Figured out what it was like to be a coach, coach, cheerleading, got the kids into sports. Just discovering what it was to be a mom and in the real world of that kind of thing, 'cause I didn't know anything. I didn't know no nothing, nothing. So for the next 7 years I had Wyatt. I just did normal life, sports, all that kind of stuff. Became a cheerleading mom coach just like. You grew up in the burbs and just had. That yeah, that's what I strive for. But at the same time, I didn't realize that my husband was very controlling until I realized that no bills were in my name. The house was not in my name.

2:26:52 He pretty much tried to cut me off from my mom and dad in a roundabout way, but realized very fast that that was something that would never happen. And so he pretty much cut out everybody else and my trips to my parents house were under stress. Like he would nitpick me while I was there and you know, like just caused me a lot of stress while I was gone there. So that way I couldn't really enjoy my time. So that way I'd want to just come back and just get it over with to, you know, keep more control, that kind of stuff. So very manipulative as a husband, very controlling as a husband. And I didn't see any of that until. How could you?

2:27:38 See it it was your. It was the vast majority of your life until that point of being manipulated by someone else. It's just another one in the line. Yes. And I didn't notice it until I put my foot down on something and by then it was too late. Why? It was about a year old. And I was like, OK, And then that was my very first. The onion peeled, right? And then I started looking at other things that had happened and I thought, oh shit, like, what did I get myself into kind of thing? And then he was going through some medical problems. He had gout really bad. He had some issues with his feet from when he was in the military.

2:28:21 And the gout set into his feet and they had given him Vicodin for pain. And at that beginning, at that time, prescriptions, drugs or whatever, they were really pushing the Vicodin and stuff at the doctor's office. You were getting it free. You remember that whole. And so he would come home with a bottle of 180 Vicodin free. Like here you go. And so he started taking the Vicodin to control his pain, which then got him addicted to the pain medication. Well, and this was a man who did not drink, did not smoke, did not do any kind of addictive thing whatsoever. The only crappy thing about him, he was just a really shitty husband.

2:29:04 Like really shitty husband, you know, but a pretty decent human being and went out of his way, you know, to help other people. Just a really shitty husband and got into the pills and then all of a sudden the doctor's offices started clamping down on that. And it really started, you know, and so the doctor told him, hey, we're not going to be able to do the Vicodin for very much longer. We're going to have to figure out a different solution to the gout. And so they tried a bunch of different diet and it was a two year process of different diets and the different process of figuring out what to do, how to get his weight a little bit more controlled. So that way it could control his gout because it's the excitic level in your blood that causes the gout. So you have to like control it.

2:29:53 No fish, none of that kind of stuff. And anyway, none of it really worked. So they recommended a gastric bypass surgery. And the gastric bypass surgery, hindsight 2020 was probably the worst thing he could have done. He was a food emotional eater, I should say. Food was his, yes. And I could tell what mood he was in by when he came home and what he cooked. He loved to cook, to cook. He loved to cook just so if he came home and grabbed the steak, I knew he was in a pissy mood. If he started cooking chicken, I knew he was in a like humorous kind of mood.

2:30:35 Like I knew what mood he was in by what he would pull out of the fridge. And so the gastric bypass surgery was a very big mistake for him. Well, when he came from the hospital, they pretty much said you have your pain pills or whatever for the gastric bypass, but you are no longer getting the Vicodin. And they pretty much cut him off cold Turkey. Well, hindsight 2020, we know what happens now when that happens, you know. So there he was going through this whole crazy thing with the gastric bypass and not having any Vicodin. Both crutches in his life, one what he did probably didn't even know was a crutch, and then.

2:31:17 Correct. Well, neither of us did, you know. So he started seeking. He started looking for pills. In 2012. He ended up passing away. I found him. His alarm clock was going off. No response. He was not one to sleep through the night in any way, shape or form. So I went in. I went stomping into our room because I was trying to get the kids up and Wyatt had been up that night and he had not slept good. And so I was just not in a good mood. And I was like, what the hell, dude, get up. And I went over and I kind of smacked him, not like, hey and nothing.

2:32:03 And I looked a little bit closer and I noticed he had like aspirated like stuff and me being in the nursing kind of knew a little bit CNA work. I just knew. I just knew. And I freaked out. I ran, called 911 at the same time I'm screaming to my stepson who is 14 at this time. Yeah, I handed my 4 year old him and I just said something happened to Dad. I don't know. And honestly, I don't remember exactly what I said to him other than, you know, get over here or something happened to dad. And I grabbed the phone and I remember running back into the room where he was at and watching my stepson shake his dad's feet and just shake him.

2:32:55 Dad, wake up, Dad, wake up. Dad and me go. Freddy, get out. Get out, go to your room, get Wyatt, go to your room. And then screaming on 911. Get here, cops showing up 911, lady asking me, do you want us to call someone? And then me going, yeah, call his mom because they lived like 2 miles, 3 miles away from us. And so, yeah, I hung up the phone. I called my neighbor, who was my best friend at the time, and I just screamed to her, Fred's dead.

2:33:39 And she came running down. And honestly, the moment she showed up, everything else is kind of hazy. I just have memories of little snippets of things that happened. I remember my daughter laying on the floor crying and me just falling on top of her pretty much hugging her saying it was going to be OK. The cop asking the neighbor lady for underwear or pants for me because I was literally in an oversized T-shirt and underwear and I had my Prego underwear on and it was really baggy and I'm pretty sure he saw stuff he wasn't supposed to see and he was like will you get her some pants? And my friend asking me where pants were and she couldn't find any, so she went into The Dirty laundry pile and grabbed me pants and or I think maybe the dryer, I don't remember.

2:34:29 Just little things like that. And that was Friday morning at 6:00. By 1:00 in the afternoon, I was at the Funeral Home playing my husband's funeral and picking out caskets. And it came back as an accidental overdose because he was on Ambien for sleeping medication. And to help with all of the issues that he was having, the counselor had put him on two different antidepressants, one for in the morning and one for at night. And his system, he had taken his Ambien and then came out that night.

2:35:11 And when I told him to get his ass back to bed, like go back to sleep or whatever, I believe we believe that he went back in and took his antidepressant. But the wrong one, not the night time 1, the morning one which caused him to pass away. Dang, wild that they would even give him both. Correct. Especially with his history and everything that was going on, I would like to say it was an accident. I really, really, really 100% would like to hindsight 2020 I'm 80 no seventy 3070% sure that it was an accident. 30% might have been a decision because we were not good. And he pretty much asked me to give up Wyatt and I had told him I don't know who the fuck you think you married, but I am. That's that boy is mine.

2:36:04 That is my child, you know. No, no. If you think I'll be like your ex-wife and leave them with you, no, no, it won't happen now. Not ever. And I think for the first time in his life, he was realizing that he couldn't manipulate the situation and that if he wanted a clean break out of it, he was not going to get Wyatt. And that was just the way it was. And within three or four months of us having that conversation that happened and hindsight 2020, I found out that he had had a girl on the side, which I didn't know about apparently and had already plans to move into another house or something like that. I didn't know.

2:36:53 And at that point I really didn't care, You know, I really didn't. I fought for custody of my step kids because, yeah, I'm wondering if we should look at the weather and see if the tornado is like coming down on us 'cause I'm watching it and I'm going. Oh goodness. Yeah, but the fun, the fun fact about this too. The entire time my windows in my car have been open but I'm just like laser locked in here. Oh my goodness, do you wanna lay out? They haven't. Let's finish off all. Right. So yeah, so I I forgot where I was. You found out about the mistress or the girl that he. Was yeah, the essentially.

2:37:36 Move in with. The girl, yes, and I think I called and have had a conversation with her after his funeral and stuff and she had said yes that they were moving in or something like that, but he was at home every night. So I'm like OK, how much of a relationship could you have really had? I also found all the pills that he was buying from offline, he had like I think 17 credit cards that were maxed out beyond maxed because he had bought and stuff pills off a line from overseas because he was still like pill seeking and she was a in the medical field and had access to that kind of thing. And I think he was using her as that and filling her in and getting her all worked up.

2:38:22 And you know what I mean? So how much of that is true? I don't really know. I just know that he was. That's what I knew at the end. And what he was actually doing are two totally different things. And so, yeah, he passed away and that was January of 2012. And by the time July came around, I kind of found out where all the finances were and found out I wasn't on anything. And I like nothing. Like I had nothing. My father-in-law had put insurance on my vehicle, life insurance on my vehicle, which was in his name. So literally when he passed away, that was the only thing that was like paid off. So I walked away from that marriage with a vehicle and that was it.

2:39:11 And I moved back to Shawno and yeah. Totaled into talking to Brant again. Yes, yes. Well, actually he is the one that helped me move because he owns a moving business. He's the one that helped me move from Grayling back to Shawno. And that was the conversation, do you want to move back in with me? And I said, no, I need to move back to Shawno. I need to go finish my degree that I've wanted to do my whole life and I've never done because everything else is stepped in and I need to heal. And so I moved back to Shawno and I healed the two years and Oh yeah, that Windows moving. Those are, yeah.

2:39:52 They're like garage doors. OK, All right. Yeah, that's a little freaky, kind of fitting nation, kind of a. Fitting ending to the to the episode I think. Like what? A roller coaster ride. Yeah, yeah, it's so yes. In 2012, I or no, 2012, 2014, I graduated with a medical assistant degree or associate's degree in nursing and moved in with Brant, got married and seriously, my worst day in my marriage now is like the best day of my marriage. In my last marriage. He's just, I've so enjoyed the last. How many years since 2014?

2:40:38 How many years? 10 years. Now I'm going on 10 years. It's just really, I've been going to therapy, healing myself, discovering myself, decide just went through a lot of health issues, autoimmune things. They told me I had lupus. They were telling me I had miss. They were telling me like I had all this stuff and no, my brain was just fried because of everything I experienced and my body was just finally screaming at me. You need to heal your brain. And if you don't, your body's going to fall apart because your body holds accountability. And if you don't release that, then you're just going to continue.

2:41:20 And nobody could have empathized with you because no one's been through that, correct? That colossal amount of shit. Correct. So once I started healing my brain and eating healthy, making sure that I was everything that was going in me was healthy, everything that was good, then things just started like turning around. I started being able to move again. I started, like, rediscovering things. And so now I became a health nut and eat herbs and grow my own stuff and all of that kind of stuff and went down on the whole deep dive of, you know, just living a good, healthy, clean life. And you'll be healthy and clean and life is so much more fun and enjoyable.

2:42:04 And yeah. We raised three boys together. He had two children and I had my son and yeah, enjoyed football and all three of them played sports and just. And now we're empty nesters officially and picking up my youngest at basic training to send them off to college for and waiting to see what this next phase in life brings me because I'm just ready for whatever. For your sake, I hope it's calm seas. Honestly, I hope that it is exciting and filled with new experiences. I started. I opened up a special needs adult day camp for the summer and I am crazy into bass fishing. So I want to start a bass fishing tour thing in Florida and spend half of my time in Florida half up here because I hate the cold.

2:43:04 Desperately hate the cold. So my husband and I are starting a bait on business in Florida slash bass fishing in Florida for December, the end of November to like April. And then we come home and do the moving business for him in the summer and for me the special needs day camp for adults. And that's where we're headed right now. We'll see how it goes. We've done neither of those. This is the first time. So, you know, see if it works. If it doesn't work, we'll pivot and do something else. But right now, that's the grand scheme of things.

2:43:45 So taking the world by the seat of his pants and figuring out where it was going to go. So, yeah, this summer was the first summer I did the day camp. That's been fun. New. Yeah. And you know, we'll see in November, after Thanksgiving, we're heading to Florida to really dive in and see if we can make the fishing thing work. I wish you the best of luck, Shifra. Thank. You. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. This is officially the officially the longest episode of Druta Wisconsin, almost 3 hours. Oh wow. And I have been at the edge of my seat the.

2:44:26 Entire. Time if you couldn't tell. We could have a whole nother conversation I think, and maybe we will someday. About how I want to. I'd love to dive more into post cult. Like you glossed over it like it was easy. You had some really uphill battles there of like from communication to whatever. Well, I even brought along, like, pamphlet, like the propaganda that they used to hand out, you know, like, all of the, like, we didn't even touch on that and how he went from Christianity to Judaism and got the whole place to do that. Like, you know, and like just. Yeah. The manipulation and the craziness that goes along. Yes. There's so many ways to dive into this. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you.

2:45:07 Yes, it was awesome meeting you and what a lovely conversation. Awesome. I think there might be another one in our future ship. I think so, yes. And a lifelong friend you I you've got good vibes coming from you. I'm full into energy. We all our energy, we're nothing but an energy bean. Our heart is literally a closed electrical circuit. And if you think of it that way, we are nothing but electrical beans and we give off energy. And if US growing up in the trauma filled environment, we are very highly sensitive to everybody's energy. And I have learned how to cope with that. Usually it scares me, but I've learned to cope with it and reading people and understanding the kind of energy that they're putting off.

2:45:52 You have fantastic energy. So when I say that, I mean that immensely. Thank you. Not everybody does. That's true. They try and they try to hide it, you know, like, you can really feel who they really are. Oh, yeah. Whether they're fake or real. And, you know, a lot of people are good at faking it and. Well, and with the story you told today, like you, you developed that keen sense because you've had to. Had to yes, you had. You had to be aware of your surroundings 24/7. If you did were not you got severely punished for it. You know, you got the the kick, you got the whip, you got the garden hose, you got you got it. So you just had to.

2:46:36 And as you get older and you go out into the real world, you realize that other people put a certain energies and certain things. And so if and those things scare you and that actually causes a fear, so you kind of like go away from it. You know, like if you're really loud or very like just certain energies kind of put you off because you're leery of being put into that situation. So you've learned to navigate your whole life around that when you're in and when you're out because it saves you from running into bad people or people who use take you for advantage. Because a lot of people come out and they're so naive and so just that they take get taken advantage of and they get hurt and then they run back to what they know. So they go back to the cult.

2:47:27 So a lot of the people have been out but run back because, you know, the outside world is cruel too, if not more cruel in many ways. Absolutely mold your life around catching big bass. I like catching big. Bass Yes, ��9 9 lbs four ounces. That's your PB. Nice. Yes, and my husband beat me by 9 lbs seven oz. Same trip, different week, but yes. Nice. Well, thanks again, chef. Friend, thank you.