Speaker 1: I just kept on hoping that there were you know,
Speaker 1: there was far better things out there than because I
Speaker 1: was just so miserable. I was like, it can't be
Speaker 1: worse than this, And so I wrote my parents a letter,
Speaker 1: and I was like, the only way they're going to
Speaker 1: actually let me go is if I say that I've
Speaker 1: slept with this guy Matt, and I hadn't, but I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to get kicked out of the
Speaker 1: cult for two years for sleeping with someone outside of
Speaker 1: the cult.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Kate Lanebrook, and my guest on No Filter
Speaker 2: today is Beck Condello. How much of who you are
Speaker 2: was chosen by you? And how much was chosen for you.
Speaker 2: Beck was born into the Geelong Revival Center, a Pentecostal
Speaker 2: church she now describes as a cult. From the outside,
Speaker 2: it looked like an ordinary religious community. Inside, it shaped
Speaker 2: every aspect of her life, what she believed, who she trusted,
Speaker 2: who she could love, and what might happen if she
Speaker 2: ever left. For years, Beck accepted that world as normal
Speaker 2: because it was all she'd ever known. But eventually the
Speaker 2: questions began to surface, and those questions would lead her
Speaker 2: to leave not only the church she was raised in,
Speaker 2: but also the marriage and identity that had been built
Speaker 2: within it. Today we talk about fear and freedom, belonging
Speaker 2: and loss, and what it takes to build a life
Speaker 2: of your own after spending years living somebody else's version
Speaker 2: of it. This is Bet Condelo. Bet Condello, welcome to
Speaker 2: No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited, Well, I'm quite excited to speak to
Speaker 2: you because your story is a really wide ranging, fascinating
Speaker 2: tale of really, I guess, escape and redemption and finding yourself.
Speaker 2: It should be. I mean, did you think about calling
Speaker 2: it eat prey love. It's a millennial, modern day it is,
Speaker 2: especially the praying part. Now, can you tell me and
Speaker 2: the listeners why that is you spent so much time
Speaker 2: on your knees praying? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, so I was born into a Pentecostal Christian
Speaker 1: doomsday cult in Australia. My parents joined a couple of
Speaker 1: years before I was born, and so I was told
Speaker 1: from a really young age that God was returning to
Speaker 1: the earth any day now, and if I hadn't prayed
Speaker 1: properly that morning, or the day before or that night,
Speaker 1: I was going to burn in hell. And so I
Speaker 1: grew up with the mortal fear of God and going
Speaker 1: to hell and my parents disowning me if I ever sinned.
Speaker 2: Right, And when you said pentecostal, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Is that the people that speak in tongues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking tongues, you know, follow the King James version
Speaker 1: of the Bible Jesus Diversians.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Very I think for most intents and purposes, like that
Speaker 1: very basic idea of Christianity with the added layer of
Speaker 1: every other Christian is wrong, except if you go to our.
Speaker 2: Church, okay, and there's always like the fear of hell fire,
Speaker 2: eternal damnation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everything was if you weren't you know, if
Speaker 1: you were sick, if you couldn't make it to you know,
Speaker 1: a church meeting, if you know, you were struggling with
Speaker 1: anything that was a lack in your faith. And so
Speaker 1: while you had a lack in your faith, your soul
Speaker 1: was at risk. And I think that was their biggest
Speaker 1: way of like keeping us and controlling us, because when
Speaker 1: I tell everyone about it, they're just like, but why
Speaker 1: were people staying?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But also I think there was that layer of fear
Speaker 1: and just enough to keep people hooked, you know, because
Speaker 1: there was a sense of community, but also there was
Speaker 1: the isolation that came with it. You know, if you
Speaker 1: your family, if they didn't joined, you had to disown them,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't hang out with people outside of it,
Speaker 1: so you were really isolated.
Speaker 2: I was raised to Jehovah's Witness, and I can say
Speaker 2: in your book, can you handle a girl like me?
Speaker 2: No cult ever describes themselves as a cult. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is so interesting. It's true. It's like when you have
Speaker 2: bought into the beliefs, to you, they seem so right,
Speaker 2: and inarguable the cult sounds like an insult.
Speaker 1: It actually took me a really long time after leaving,
Speaker 1: and even now sometimes I still just call it a
Speaker 1: church because it's not that I don't necessarily think it's
Speaker 1: a cult. Cult just felt very dramatic, and it was
Speaker 1: sort of something you watch a documentary about on Netflix,
Speaker 1: and I guess because we didn't live on some remote
Speaker 1: property wearing gowns, and you know, you watch Handmaid's Tale
Speaker 1: and anyone could look at it and just think we
Speaker 1: were maybe exclusive Brethren or Jehovah's Witness, or we just
Speaker 1: looked like we were a bunch of Christians like you
Speaker 1: didn't look no one would have known.
Speaker 2: And so you were modesty dressing. Yeah, very trad values
Speaker 2: in your upbringing. Your father was the head of the
Speaker 2: household exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and women, for the most part, really didn't have
Speaker 1: a voice. And I think now my friends are wondering
Speaker 1: why I'm always yapping about feminism, and I'm just because
Speaker 1: I didn't have a voice for most of my life,
Speaker 1: and I had to fight really hard. You know, I
Speaker 1: only went to school for six years. I couldn't have
Speaker 1: had a career. It was really my goal in life
Speaker 1: to be a wife and mother, And not that there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong with either of those two things, but that
Speaker 1: is all I got told I could be as a woman.
Speaker 2: So you only went to school for six years because
Speaker 2: you were home schooled.
Speaker 1: I was homeschooled, which didn't actually have anything to do
Speaker 1: with the cult. That was my parents had an additional
Speaker 1: layer of being very like controlling, and my mom especially
Speaker 1: and that was her idea a homeschoolers. And so it
Speaker 1: wasn't until I was ten that I begged my parents
Speaker 1: to let me go to school because I just wanted
Speaker 1: to have friends and I just wanted to be normal,
Speaker 1: and even within the cult, community. My brother and I
Speaker 1: were a weird kid.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And within your family, it was interesting because
Speaker 2: we were talking about that traditional your father being the
Speaker 2: head of the house, but it was very much It
Speaker 2: seems that your mother called the shots emotionally, yes, and
Speaker 2: seemed to be a very complex, unhappy woman. How did
Speaker 2: that manifest for you day to day as a as
Speaker 2: a child, as her daughter?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think I just spent a lot
Speaker 1: of my childhood really just trying to please my mum
Speaker 1: and make her happy and make her love me. And
Speaker 1: I don't think i'll ever really understand why she was
Speaker 1: the way she was. I think she had a lot
Speaker 1: of maybe frustrations with the way her life had been.
Speaker 1: I think that my dad was the first boyfriend she
Speaker 1: ever had, and you know, sort of just married him
Speaker 1: and it was like, well, you guys can't be together
Speaker 1: unless you know, you can't be in the cult and
Speaker 1: be together unless you get married. So I think they
Speaker 1: got married quite quickly. And again I think, you know,
Speaker 1: she was quite young, so I think that pressure within
Speaker 1: the cult to have children, and it was a different
Speaker 1: time then too, it was the early eighties. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, so she finished her university degree early and
Speaker 1: she starts, it's actually really funny and I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but I know it had something to do with literature.
Speaker 1: I think she wanted to be a writer, which for
Speaker 1: me feels like this very bizarre, full circle moment where
Speaker 1: in a different world she would have been really proud
Speaker 1: at me. So it's very weird, especially because I spent
Speaker 1: so much of my childhood just trying to keep her happy.
Speaker 1: And she really was the you know, everything started and
Speaker 1: ended with her in our house, and like she said,
Speaker 1: like for all intensive purposes. My dad was the head
Speaker 1: of the house, and I guess if he had stood
Speaker 1: up to her or whatever, she would have respected him.
Speaker 1: But I think it was easier for him to just
Speaker 1: placate her and to keep her happy at the detriment
Speaker 1: of my brother and I, And I think I absolved
Speaker 1: him of a lot of blame for a lot of
Speaker 1: the you know, like, my mom was never the one
Speaker 1: that hit me growing up. She would tell my dad
Speaker 1: to hit me, and she would say that, you know,
Speaker 1: I had done something whatever wrong. She would you know,
Speaker 1: get in one of her moods, and it was very arbitrary,
Speaker 1: and she would tell my dad to hit me. And
Speaker 1: she he just did whatever she told him to do,
Speaker 1: and I think it just became easier for him. That
Speaker 1: was his survival, I guess, in the house. And so
Speaker 1: I absolved him of a lot of blame for a
Speaker 1: really long time because I felt bad for him, Like
Speaker 1: no child should ever feel bad for their parents when
Speaker 1: it's the parent that's hitting them. And I think it
Speaker 1: wasn't until I was writing my book that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, like, actually, my dad should have protected me,
Speaker 1: Like he had a responsibility as my parent to keep
Speaker 1: me safe and he didn't.
Speaker 2: You tell a story in the book about your dad
Speaker 2: carving like lovingly and carefully carving a spoon and painting
Speaker 2: it bright yellow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when I.
Speaker 2: Was reading it, I should have known better. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: he was crafty. I know, he had made a wooden
Speaker 2: spoon with which to hit you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he was actually a very creative and crafty person.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of weird that this was also then
Speaker 1: something he created. And I remember it almost being like
Speaker 1: this little joke, you know. And they really justified hitting
Speaker 1: children in the cult because there was a scripture that
Speaker 1: basically said train up a child in the way he
Speaker 1: should go when he's old, he'll not depart from it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so that was their justification. And I think, in
Speaker 1: a weird way, my parents genuinely thought that they were
Speaker 1: doing the right thing for my eternal salvation by hitting me,
Speaker 1: you know, like the more you hit your child, the
Speaker 1: more guaranteed their place in heaven was because that's what
Speaker 1: God wanted. And so I think in their weird way,
Speaker 1: they thought they were doing the right thing, and that
Speaker 1: was their way of loving me. And yeah, he's hand
Speaker 1: made this wooden paddle that I used to have to
Speaker 1: go fetch from the they stored at the piano store.
Speaker 1: And then as I got bigger, he made a bigger
Speaker 1: one because obviously my little body got bigger. That didn't
Speaker 1: that wasn't big enough to hit me. And he used
Speaker 1: to go around and shut all the windows in the
Speaker 1: house so the neighbors wouldn't hear me screaming.
Speaker 2: But within the church or the cult, it wasn't unusual
Speaker 2: for children to be disciplined like that. There wasn't Occasionally
Speaker 2: he got stuck into you in public and you said,
Speaker 2: no one even turned their head to look what had
Speaker 2: you done as a little girl? That incurred that physical wrath.
Speaker 1: Ah, When I greeted the pastor, I didn't use his name,
Speaker 1: so I just said hello, and he was really angry
Speaker 1: that I hadn't to him. He saw it as a
Speaker 1: sign of disrespect. And I would have been maybe gosh,
Speaker 1: maybe seven, six or seven.
Speaker 2: Like I was young, and you were scared of the pastor.
Speaker 1: I was scared like they had ultimate authority, they were unquestionable,
Speaker 1: and he just genuinely was not a warm person. And
Speaker 1: I was a really timid child, Like I remember, I
Speaker 1: used to cry sometimes if a stranger talked to me
Speaker 1: because I was just so shy. And so I said hello,
Speaker 1: and he got angry because I didn't say his full name.
Speaker 1: And then it just became this thing that went on
Speaker 1: for months, and I think it was just my anxiety.
Speaker 1: Like I would just you know, my dad would make
Speaker 1: me go up and say, you know, hello and use
Speaker 1: his full name. I would just freeze and like the
Speaker 1: words just could not come out of my mouth. And
Speaker 1: I knew what was coming if I didn't do it,
Speaker 1: but they just saw it as a sign of rebellion
Speaker 1: that had to be beaten out of me, essentially.
Speaker 2: And there was an occasion where the pasta this is
Speaker 2: such a strange story. Can you tell me when the
Speaker 2: pasta So you were away at a camp? Was it all?
Speaker 1: Oh? So? No, so we went we had like a
Speaker 1: church barbecue on oh okay, yeah, if anyone knows camb Or.
Speaker 1: It was a tidpinvilla nature reserve and so we were
Speaker 1: all having our little barbecue. Got there. Same thing happened.
Speaker 1: Every time I saw the pastor. It was like, you
Speaker 1: need to go up and say hello to him. Same
Speaker 1: thing happened. I froze, couldn't say it, and then without warning,
Speaker 1: he just grabbed my hand and just like took me
Speaker 1: off into the pine forest, and no one stopped him.
Speaker 1: So I feel like there must have been some kind
Speaker 1: of conversation that I was just not aware of that
Speaker 1: they were he was going to do this, and I
Speaker 1: was terrified, Like I was not sobbing, you know, I
Speaker 1: just remember I just couldn't catch your breath. And he
Speaker 1: basically said to me he wouldn't return me to my
Speaker 1: parents until I said hello properly.
Speaker 2: And as a little kid that of a forest with
Speaker 2: this giant.
Speaker 1: Man so far away from my parents, he's walking me
Speaker 1: deeper into the forest and he's like, you are not
Speaker 1: going back to your parents until you say hello to
Speaker 1: me properly. And as a little kid, that's a very
Speaker 1: real threat. Like I mean, now, as an adult you're like, well,
Speaker 1: of course he would have returned to me at some point,
Speaker 1: But as a kid, you're like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to go back to my parents, Like this
Speaker 1: is going to be it. And I'm with this man
Speaker 1: that I'm terrified of in this forest. So eventually I
Speaker 1: sort of sputted out the words out of pure fear.
Speaker 2: He was just heello pasta and his last name, right.
Speaker 1: And that's all he needed. And he was so smug,
Speaker 1: and it was almost just like that moment. And I
Speaker 1: had many moments like this as a kid where it's
Speaker 1: almost like when they broke me, then they were just
Speaker 1: sort of like content, you know, like that was like,
Speaker 1: yes see, I knew you were just being you know whatever,
Speaker 1: naughty or lazy or whatever. And he returned me to
Speaker 1: my parents. Back at the barbecue, no one said a
Speaker 1: single thing to me, and I was broken, like I
Speaker 1: had been sobbing, and no one even offered me a
Speaker 1: hug or a tissue or any consolation. My parents were happy,
Speaker 1: because then he was happy and that's all that mattered.
Speaker 2: So in that circumstance were normally a child would turn
Speaker 2: to one of their parents, Yeah, who could you turn to?
Speaker 2: No one?
Speaker 1: And that was most of my childhood, if not all
Speaker 1: of my childhood. I never could turn to anyone for
Speaker 1: any kind of consolation or any reassurance or Yeah. I
Speaker 1: went through most of my childhood on my own.
Speaker 2: And because children are curious. Yeah, that's one of the
Speaker 2: jobs of children is to be curious. You learned really
Speaker 2: early that that was not the case for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I guess you know, curiosity generally in the
Speaker 1: cult was seen as questioning the pastors or God or
Speaker 1: you know, questions were not welcome because anything you needed
Speaker 1: to know was in the Bible. So if you had
Speaker 1: a question, you just prayed about it, and if you
Speaker 1: couldn't figure it out, that was on you, Like that
Speaker 1: was your lack of faith. So you just had to
Speaker 1: keep on praying and hope that you'd figure it out
Speaker 1: or you just forgot about it. And I'm still a
Speaker 1: very curious person. Like if I had to think of
Speaker 1: like a theme word for my life, it's curiosity. Like
Speaker 1: I'm curious about people in life and the world. And
Speaker 1: I've always been curious, but that was just seen as naughty.
Speaker 1: And you know, even if I got into trouble for
Speaker 1: something I could never, no one ever would explain to
Speaker 1: me why I was in trouble. Like I'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: I want to know so I don't do it again,
Speaker 1: or I can learn from this, or and that would
Speaker 1: either be met with being hit again or being told
Speaker 1: off or ignored or whatever.
Speaker 2: So all the answers are in the Bible. But the
Speaker 2: Bible doesn't talk about sanitary napkins. You asked. You made
Speaker 2: the mistake of asking about a sanitary napkin. Hmmm, tell
Speaker 2: me about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Again'm not sure how old I was, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it was kind of around the same time, and
Speaker 1: i'd gone to use we used to have our church
Speaker 1: meetings outside of it, like in a community hall, And
Speaker 1: so I went to the toilet one day on a
Speaker 1: Sunday and someone had stuck up on paper on the wall.
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, whoever ran the community hall don't
Speaker 1: flush sanitary napkins, and I think tampons or something down
Speaker 1: the toilet.
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
Speaker 1: What that was, but I'm like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is so like if I don't know, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'll do it, and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I was so young it didn't apply
Speaker 1: to me. But I didn't know. And so I remember
Speaker 1: I came out of the toilet store and there was
Speaker 1: a girl who was five years older than me, and
Speaker 1: I asked her, like super innocently, I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's the sanitary napkins? She got so embarrassed, which I
Speaker 1: feel like most girls would have gotten embarrassed, but I
Speaker 1: realized she was also afraid. I think she was scared
Speaker 1: of telling me something that she wasn't supposed to tell
Speaker 1: me and then she might get into trouble, and so
Speaker 1: she got really awkward and nervous and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you need to ask your mom. And I remember just
Speaker 1: being mortified, being like, oh my god, I've got asking
Speaker 1: my mom. There's no way I'm asking it. Like now,
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to be scared of this.
Speaker 1: And so I just never knew, and no one ever
Speaker 1: told me, and like, that's such an innocent, silly question
Speaker 1: that I feel like most kids at some point asked
Speaker 1: their parents weird questions, you know. And I just remember
Speaker 1: being terrified that someone was going to tell my mom
Speaker 1: that I'd asked this question and I was going to
Speaker 1: get into trouble, and so I just stopped asking questions
Speaker 1: at some point.
Speaker 2: So what would happen? Then beck with like when you
Speaker 2: got your period? How was that handled?
Speaker 1: So I actually got my period quite young. I was
Speaker 1: like eleven, and even I think, I feel like it
Speaker 1: wasn't long before I got my period, maybe six months.
Speaker 1: My mom had given me a very basic, you know,
Speaker 1: birds and the Bees talk, and there was a book
Speaker 1: which I don't know if you've heard of it, but
Speaker 1: it's called Where did I Come From Andy's seventies?
Speaker 2: Yes, right, with drawings. Yes, I had drawings.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing about the drawings is that I
Speaker 1: think it had been handed around by many mothers in
Speaker 1: the in the cold, and there must have been a
Speaker 1: boy version of the book and a girl version of
Speaker 1: the book, because in the girl version of the book,
Speaker 1: all the boys' penises had been blacked out with a sharpie.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, so it was.
Speaker 1: These very very basic like sex conversation, very awkward. My
Speaker 1: mom was just like, if you got any questions, and
Speaker 1: it's like you only know what you know, right, so
Speaker 1: of course I didn't have any questions because I was
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, this seems terrifying, and I you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's always terrifying to have that took. It's always
Speaker 2: it's a horrible particularly you know, blacked out penis pictures, and.
Speaker 1: I I just never, even like years later, when I
Speaker 1: had the proper sex talk, it wasn't like it was so.
Speaker 2: That week rush that was with my mom.
Speaker 1: That was with my mom, but had like some more details,
Speaker 1: you know, the when included in the period talk.
Speaker 2: Because your mother, who'd come from an Italian background also
Speaker 2: I imagine quite conservative and religious background, but probably Catholic. I imagine, Yes, yep,
Speaker 2: she'd had quite a sheltered upbringing as well.
Speaker 1: Look, I think she had, but she hadn't you know,
Speaker 1: like she had everything she needed. Her parents would take
Speaker 1: her on holidays, her parents bought her first car for her,
Speaker 1: you know, like she had a good education. She had
Speaker 1: quite a big, extended Italian family. I don't know how
Speaker 1: sheltered it was. I don't think she was out partying
Speaker 1: every weekend. But I mean I think even the fact
Speaker 1: that they let her move to Canberra when she was
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen to go to university, right, Yes, you know, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think she was that sheltered.
Speaker 2: But what drew her? Like people always do crazy things
Speaker 2: for love. We know that that is so extreme, like
Speaker 2: for you to talk about the family, her family that
Speaker 2: you later made contact with, this giant, warm tumble of
Speaker 2: a family with cousins and aunties and uncles and whatever,
Speaker 2: for her to turn her back on them and to
Speaker 2: step into this really emotionally barren life. Yeah, what do
Speaker 2: you think? I mean? I know that you don't know
Speaker 2: because she wasn't forthcoming. Yeah, but your understanding of it
Speaker 2: through a lot of the work that you've done. How
Speaker 2: do you make sense of it?
Speaker 1: Knowing obviously, Yeah, I can't speak to who she was
Speaker 1: or why she made the decisions that she did, But
Speaker 1: knowing who I grew up with, she very often saw
Speaker 1: her is the victim in situations. And I think if
Speaker 1: I can speak more broadly about why I think people
Speaker 1: join cults anyway, is I think people really do crave
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging. And I look at my mom,
Speaker 1: and you know, she was eighteen nineteen she met my dad,
Speaker 1: and he was like in his later twenties, so there
Speaker 1: was a bit of an age gap, and you know,
Speaker 1: this was her first time living away from home. I
Speaker 1: think he was her first proper boyfriend and being older
Speaker 1: than her, and then he joins this cult and then
Speaker 1: brings her along, and I just feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember when I left my ex partner and I
Speaker 1: went to Morocco for the first time by myself. I
Speaker 1: was there for three weeks, and then next minute I
Speaker 1: wanted to move there, and it's like, in no world
Speaker 1: should I could I have moved to Morocco. But it's like,
Speaker 1: I think, suddenly, when you have access to this world,
Speaker 1: in this life that you've never had, suddenly everything just
Speaker 1: feels possible. And you know, I feel like everything was
Speaker 1: just happening at this super fast speed and the world
Speaker 1: had just opened up to her. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if I can give her any grace, she was only
Speaker 1: eighteen or nineteen, you know, like, and she's making these huge,
Speaker 1: big life decisions. And I think she had to convince
Speaker 1: herself that she had come from a bad family or
Speaker 1: that she'd had a bad experience, you know, like, because
Speaker 1: how else do you justify it. And maybe she had
Speaker 1: kind of always felt like the odd one out in
Speaker 1: her family. Maybe she had never really felt like she
Speaker 1: fitted in. Did that mean that they deserved to be
Speaker 1: cut off from her? Absolutely not. And I think with
Speaker 1: age and time she would have maybe been able to
Speaker 1: come back round to them as a woman. But yeah,
Speaker 1: unfortunately she never saw them ever again.
Speaker 2: Nor did she come back round to you.
Speaker 1: No. And I feel like when you you know the
Speaker 1: fact that she cut her parents off at such a
Speaker 1: young age to join the cold and then kind of
Speaker 1: just out, you know, all she had was my dad
Speaker 1: and then obviously the small cult community, and then growing
Speaker 1: up my family was like super small. It was literally
Speaker 1: my dad and my brother and my mom and I
Speaker 1: didn't even know I had this whole family out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It makes me sad because, like we
Speaker 1: was saying before, like I think that she was studying
Speaker 1: literature at university, Like, man, she'd be so proud of me.
Speaker 1: Now like it's just so sad, like she's missing out
Speaker 1: of my life.
Speaker 2: And to reconcile who she was with who she became.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, and that was something I think. Writing my
Speaker 1: book was so cathartic for so many reasons, but I
Speaker 1: think it really helped me give language with my adult
Speaker 1: brain to a lot of things that I'd experienced as
Speaker 1: a child and really see my parents as adults and
Speaker 1: as you know, I when I did eventually meet my grandparents,
Speaker 1: my grandma showed me a photo of my mom when
Speaker 1: before she'd moved away to UNI, so she would have
Speaker 1: been maybe like seventeen, and she's in their backyard. She's
Speaker 1: wearing this like very plunging, like one piece, you know,
Speaker 1: swim suit, and she's under the sprinkler and she's like laughing,
Speaker 1: like head thrown back, like laughing. And it was the
Speaker 1: most I actually kept the photo because it was the
Speaker 1: most human version of my mum I think I'd ever seen,
Speaker 1: and there was this never made woman, never met her,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my gosh, my mom was
Speaker 1: a whole person that I just never knew. And it
Speaker 1: was really sad because I was always grieving the mom
Speaker 1: that I could have had, and I've also a grieved
Speaker 1: the dad I could have had, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: talked in my book about how my dad was an
Speaker 1: artist and he painted these like very like surreal, kind
Speaker 1: of weird paintings, but incredibly talented. He used to read
Speaker 1: to my brother and I and do all the voices,
Speaker 1: and I remember at some point before my teens, he
Speaker 1: just kind of stopped doing all.
Speaker 2: Of that, and the paintings disappeared from.
Speaker 1: The war, paintings disappeared because the cold pressure. No, I
Speaker 1: think just people lost their souls. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I wonder who my parents would have been had they
Speaker 1: not ever married each other, had they not ever joined
Speaker 1: the cult. I think they would have been such incredible
Speaker 1: humans with so much to offer the world. And I
Speaker 1: just feel like over time that was just eroded away
Speaker 1: from them more.
Speaker 2: With beck Condello coming up, there was a concerted effort
Speaker 2: on behalf of your parents, believing they were doing the
Speaker 2: right thing, and from the congregation of the cult as
Speaker 2: a whole, to beat out of you your curiosity and
Speaker 2: to make you fit, to make you conform. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: that never happened.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it was like, you know, two steps
Speaker 1: forward and five steps back, and you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: felt like I'd make some progress, and then I think ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, I think for so long before I eventually left,
Speaker 1: I was so scared that like, but what if I'm wrong?
Speaker 1: Like what if I leave? And then I'm just tormented
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life thinking but what if
Speaker 1: God does return? What if I did mess up? You know,
Speaker 1: like when you've been told it's like you've been told
Speaker 1: from like a baby that the sky is blue and
Speaker 1: then someone's like, no, no, it's purple, you know. And
Speaker 1: that's been the biggest thing I think is as actually
Speaker 1: doubting myself and questioning my own reality. I think that's
Speaker 1: been such a hard lesson for me to like learn
Speaker 1: and to have that trust in myself, because yeah, I
Speaker 1: just had so much. I was so afraid that if
Speaker 1: I left, I would find out that I was wrong.
Speaker 2: And also thrust into the arms of worldly people who
Speaker 2: you had been taught were all bad, all evil. And
Speaker 2: so then when you met the man who would become
Speaker 2: your husband, who was a part of the cult steven.
Speaker 2: Before that you were on the casp, you'd written a
Speaker 2: letter to your parents saying that you wanted to leave. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you hadn't given it to them.
Speaker 1: No, I was about twenty, and you know, I remember
Speaker 1: when I was in Sunday school growing up, there were
Speaker 1: so many kids that we had like three Sunday school classes,
Speaker 1: you know, junior, like there was a junior, senior, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what the middle one was gone, but
Speaker 1: you know, there was so many of us, like there
Speaker 1: were just so many families. I really do believe that
Speaker 1: in those very early days, very early days, it was
Speaker 1: maybe a controlling but relatively healthy church. And then I
Speaker 1: think over the years, I think the pastors realized how
Speaker 1: much control and sway they could have, and I feel
Speaker 1: like it just got progressively more and more controlling and
Speaker 1: emotionally abusive. And so a lot of the kids that
Speaker 1: I'd gone to Sunday School with either ran away when
Speaker 1: they were teens and they left themselves, or their parents
Speaker 1: left and they left with their parents, or the girls
Speaker 1: would marry someone in another city in the cult and
Speaker 1: move away. And so I remember, by the time I
Speaker 1: was twenty, I had no friends. I wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: be friends with anyone outside the cult, and I was
Speaker 1: just so desperately.
Speaker 2: Lonely and sad.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was working as a receptionist at
Speaker 1: the time, I had an office job, and we'd gone
Speaker 1: away for a couple of nights to Orange, I think,
Speaker 1: and we're in this country town and we'd all gone
Speaker 1: out for a work dinner to the local pub. I'd
Speaker 1: never even been to a pub before, and the bartender
Speaker 1: was this super cute guy named Matt, and somehow we
Speaker 1: ended up back in his apartment. He lived upstairs above
Speaker 1: the pub, and him and I kissed and it was
Speaker 1: just like so exhilarating, and I weirdly didn't feel guilty,
Speaker 1: and I had thought that I would feel so guilty
Speaker 1: and I didn't, and we ended up just like making
Speaker 1: out the entire night. We didn't sleep together, and I
Speaker 1: remember I came home and it was almost like I'd
Speaker 1: had this little glimmer of like life on the outside
Speaker 1: world and it wasn't so bad, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I want to leave, like I think it'll
Speaker 1: be okay. I had no plan. I had no I
Speaker 1: didn't know where I was going to stay. I had
Speaker 1: no real friends, except you know, there.
Speaker 2: Was a girl.
Speaker 1: I just I just kept on hoping that there were,
Speaker 1: you know, there was far better things out there than
Speaker 1: because I was just so miserable. I was like, it
Speaker 1: can't be worse than this, and so I wrote my
Speaker 1: parents a letter and I was like, the only way
Speaker 1: they're going to actually let me go is if I
Speaker 1: say that I've slept with this guy Matt, and I hadn't,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I'm going to get kicked out
Speaker 1: of the cult for two years for sleeping with someone
Speaker 1: outside of the cult. So I knew that they couldn't
Speaker 1: argue with that. They'd be mad and angry and disappointed,
Speaker 1: but they would kick me out of the house, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well, you know, they kicked me out,
Speaker 1: what can I do? And so I wrote them his
Speaker 1: letter confessing to sleeping with him, and unfortunately i'd already
Speaker 1: so we would have like church camps at Christmas time,
Speaker 1: like scattered around the country, and my parents had gone
Speaker 1: away to Fiji for the church end of your camp,
Speaker 1: and I was meant to go somewhere else. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of at that time when you book flights
Speaker 1: and it was like there was no other you know,
Speaker 1: you couldn't just easily transfer your flights or you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it is now. And so I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I've already booked my flights. I'm just gonna have to
Speaker 1: keep it. I'll go away. And I was going to
Speaker 1: be back home before my parents got back from Fiji.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'll go away for the two weeks,
Speaker 1: I'll come back, pack up all my stuff, leave the
Speaker 1: letter out for them, and I'll have left by the
Speaker 1: time they get back. Went away to the church camp
Speaker 1: and that's where I met Steven and got home ripped
Speaker 1: the letter up. I really felt like he was very
Speaker 1: confident and self assured, and so I think I had
Speaker 1: this moment where I was like, Oh, maybe maybe I
Speaker 1: can stay and this guy will be like my ticket
Speaker 1: to freedom, you know, like he seems a little different
Speaker 1: to the other guys. He seems a little more I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what I thought he was.
Speaker 2: I just a lot of the.
Speaker 1: He just seemed like a freethinker, and I guess because
Speaker 1: I was a free thinker, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this guy that's kind of like me, you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe actually I could stay and I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to lose my family, I wouldn't have to lose my
Speaker 1: whole community, and maybe I could stay and be happy.
Speaker 2: Right However, because the rules about dating were so restrictive,
Speaker 2: you didn't really get a chance to know him, did you.
Speaker 2: What were the rules not about spending time together?
Speaker 1: And yeah, so before he could even ask me out
Speaker 1: or we could even have like a conversation, Like I
Speaker 1: saw him and I thought he was cute and that
Speaker 1: was about it, you know, and he had to talk
Speaker 1: to his pastor and his dad, and then my dad
Speaker 1: and then my past don't know and talked to me,
Speaker 1: and then finally I was the last person that got
Speaker 1: spoken to. And by that point I had already dated
Speaker 1: two other guys in the cult, and that was super
Speaker 1: frowned upon because most people like married the first person
Speaker 1: they dated. So the fact that I'd already gone through
Speaker 1: like two relationships so just just so funny now when
Speaker 1: you think about dating now. But and I remember my
Speaker 1: pastor pulled me aside and he was basically like this
Speaker 1: to work, like, you have to marry this guy, basically, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not that I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: I just didn't know him, you know. Like we I
Speaker 1: worked out that we hung out for like seven weekends
Speaker 1: before we got married, and he lived in another city,
Speaker 1: so you know, like he could only come up every
Speaker 1: six weeks to see me. We couldn't sleep together. We
Speaker 1: really had Friday night and Saturday during the day, and
Speaker 1: then Saturday night would be at youth, like the youth
Speaker 1: meeting all day. Sunday would be at church, and then
Speaker 1: he'd head home Sunday afternoon and so we were just strangers,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think that, you know, Like I'm young,
Speaker 1: and I thought I was in love, and so I
Speaker 1: thought I knew him. I didn't know. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know myself. And so we got married and I moved
Speaker 1: down to where he was, and we just never should
Speaker 1: have gotten married, Like we didn't know a single thing
Speaker 1: about each other. We were so misaligned.
Speaker 2: And also he had sort of mislead you about the
Speaker 2: life that you were going to be leading together, So
Speaker 2: you thought that there would be a lovely house that
Speaker 2: he'd been working on for the pair of you, and
Speaker 2: instead where did you end up?
Speaker 1: So I don't know if he intentionally misled me. I
Speaker 1: feel like he I do think he had good intentions.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm justified this, but I feel
Speaker 1: like he did have good right, you know, like I
Speaker 1: do think within his own I do think he thought
Speaker 1: he was doing the right thing. I just don't think
Speaker 1: he communicated to me clearly. So, like while I was
Speaker 1: planning the wedding, he was working and renovating our house
Speaker 1: that he'd bought. And so I packed up all my
Speaker 1: stuff in Canberra and loaded it up in his car
Speaker 1: and thought that I was moving into our house and
Speaker 1: we got there, there was no toilet, there was no ceiling,
Speaker 1: like you know, it was not even close to being finished.
Speaker 1: And without any kind of conversation or consultation with me,
Speaker 1: it was like, well, we're just going to go stay
Speaker 1: at my parents' house. And his parents had a large house,
Speaker 1: but no newlyweds when you've never slept together, want to
Speaker 1: be sleeping in the room opposite the in laws. And
Speaker 1: his mum was also not a particularly kind person. She
Speaker 1: made me feel very judged, and she had lots of
Speaker 1: opinions on lots of things, and you know, think of
Speaker 1: the stereotypical mother in law, and I.
Speaker 2: Was just that she was cult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I could never have
Speaker 1: married anyone. And his parents he had not been born
Speaker 1: into it, but his parents had joined when he was
Speaker 1: about seven, and he was the youngest of I think
Speaker 1: five kids, so yeah, for as most of his life
Speaker 1: he'd been he'd grown up in it. So yeah, she
Speaker 1: was definitely in the cult. So I was his dad,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it just wasn't conducive to like having intimacy
Speaker 1: for the first time, and I already felt super nervous
Speaker 1: about sex and all of that because the blacked out
Speaker 1: penises in the book, and you know, like I really
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect, and it was just it
Speaker 1: was a disaster. And you know, ultimately, later on, years later,
Speaker 1: I found out that I had vaginismus, which made it
Speaker 1: physically impossible until I had physical therapy to have.
Speaker 2: S Is that psychological a psychological condition with a physical manifestation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably the best explanation I've heard of.
Speaker 2: A girlfriend of mine had it, actually, and I remember
Speaker 2: her saying to me once there was nothing wrong with me.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to have sex with the guy
Speaker 2: that she had been with in her relationship.
Speaker 1: And I think like a lot of women, well a
Speaker 1: lot of women get it after childbirth or after a
Speaker 1: sexual assault, or you know, in my case, it was
Speaker 1: because I grew up in this super conservative Christian environment
Speaker 1: where sex was bad and dirty. And it's amazing you
Speaker 1: didn't have the connection with Steven.
Speaker 2: I didn't to it helped you to open like a flower,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that's it true, because like
Speaker 1: I mean, everything had been so repressed, like we'd had
Speaker 1: no real like intimate moments to get and then suddenly
Speaker 1: We're on our wedding night. And I don't know about
Speaker 1: most people, but I feel like, even if I got
Speaker 1: married again today, I don't think i'd feel like having
Speaker 1: sex after a long day of like weddings, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I actually just.
Speaker 2: Want to go to bed.
Speaker 1: But he felt like it, Yeah, I mean obviously. I
Speaker 1: mean I kind of don't blame him. He's twenty two
Speaker 1: and he never had sex. So he's like, yes, this
Speaker 1: is finally my moment, and my body was just like
Speaker 1: absolutely not.
Speaker 2: And then so how did you on the you know,
Speaker 2: as as newlyweds, very hard to sort stuff out with
Speaker 2: your in laws, you know, four feet across the hallway
Speaker 2: from you. There was this always this underlying tension that
Speaker 2: the pair of you couldn't really resolve about the sexual nature.
Speaker 2: Was it also outside the bedroom? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I wonder like, would things have been different had
Speaker 1: we had I had like a better start. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think we were just two incredibly different
Speaker 1: human beings. Like if I tell anyone anything now about
Speaker 1: that relationship, they're just like, I just everything I know
Speaker 1: about you, I just can't imagine that you're with a
Speaker 1: guy like that, and I'm like, I know, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I just think we never should have been together.
Speaker 1: We were so different.
Speaker 2: And I think, ultimately, I think he just.
Speaker 1: Thought that I was being difficult or that like I
Speaker 1: was being weird about sex, you know. I think he thought,
Speaker 1: in his very A type brain that I could just
Speaker 1: fix it. And so every argument started to then just
Speaker 1: be around sex and money and just you know, you
Speaker 1: need to fix yourself, you need to like and it
Speaker 1: kind of continued that cycle that I'd had from a kid,
Speaker 1: where it was just like I felt like I had
Speaker 1: to earn love. I had to it was something I
Speaker 1: could fix. I had to like the words I was
Speaker 1: a problem.
Speaker 2: Was it that you weren't submitting? I don't know that I.
Speaker 1: Wasn't I wasn't submitting.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I genuinely just think that he thought that I just
Speaker 1: needed to fix my and I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to fix myself. I literally thought I was the
Speaker 1: only person in the world that had this broken vagina,
Speaker 1: Like that's in my brain what I thought. I was like,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with my body, Like I'm broken. How
Speaker 1: do I fix it? I don't know how to fix it?
Speaker 1: It was kind of like pre like where everything's on
Speaker 1: Google kind of days, So I didn't I really didn't know,
Speaker 1: but I just knew that I was the problem.
Speaker 2: And was there pressure from the family then for you
Speaker 2: to get pregnant? How aware were they of what was
Speaker 2: going on with you?
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone knew, and I am kind of
Speaker 1: surprised we didn't have more pressure to have kids, Like
Speaker 1: I am really surprised that. I think people maybe just
Speaker 1: thought that we couldn't have kids because it was very unusual,
Speaker 1: like people would get married and two years later they'd
Speaker 1: be having or a year later they'd be having babies,
Speaker 1: So that is something. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If there were conversations that went on that I wasn't
Speaker 1: aware of, I wouldn't be surprised. But I feel like
Speaker 1: people maybe just assumed that we couldn't have kids, which
Speaker 1: technically I guess we couldn't, but that ultimately, even though
Speaker 1: it was like super traumatic and I ended up resenting
Speaker 1: my body for a really long time, actually ended up
Speaker 1: being the thing that saved me and helped me being
Speaker 1: able to get away and start the life that I
Speaker 1: have now. Well, because I just think that if I'd
Speaker 1: had kids, I think it would have just been so
Speaker 1: much harder, you know. I guess ultimately, when I ended
Speaker 1: up leaving Stephen, it was after ten years, after ten
Speaker 1: years of marriage, I really just wanted to go travel
Speaker 1: and live my life. And just you know, we'd left
Speaker 1: the cult a few years earlier, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: I just want to go live. I want to go
Speaker 1: get a chattoo, I want to go do some drugs.
Speaker 2: I want to go. You know, I just wanted to live.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do all these rites of passage, things
Speaker 1: that I'd never had the chance to do, and he
Speaker 1: just was not interested in doing any of those things.
Speaker 1: And just as time went on and on, I was
Speaker 1: just like I you know, I remember just before I
Speaker 1: turned thirty, I was having these like anxiety attacks in
Speaker 1: my sleep because I was waking up like not breathing.
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately I realized that I had already
Speaker 1: lost like thirty years of my life to keep other
Speaker 1: people happy. And I was like, I cannot turn forty.
Speaker 1: And I actually just turned forty last year. I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't turn forty and still be stuck, like I
Speaker 1: have something has to give, and it took me two
Speaker 1: more years after that before I finally left him.
Speaker 2: Right when you left the cult, Like that was interesting
Speaker 2: that you kind of did it in tandem. He in
Speaker 2: fact started questioning things overtly before you did. Or Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he.
Speaker 1: Had done some work. He was a trade and he'd
Speaker 1: done some work for a pastor of life, like another church,
Speaker 1: like not connected to the COLT, and so I think
Speaker 1: he'd sort of started to have conversations with him, and
Speaker 1: that was very frowned upon, like that was like super
Speaker 1: dangerous territory, you know, and so you never exposed to
Speaker 1: other people's beliefs. And I remember he came home and
Speaker 1: he told me about it. And even though I questioned
Speaker 1: the cult, even though I wasn't happy all of that,
Speaker 1: I was still scared. And so he came home and
Speaker 1: he was like, oh, I was talking to this guy
Speaker 1: that I'm working with and he's saying all these things,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my God, like don't go there,
Speaker 1: like I don't question it, like this's whatever. And he
Speaker 1: just kept on because he kept on working with this guy,
Speaker 1: and he kept on just having more and more questions
Speaker 1: and he'd come home and then eventually I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, like, I think he's onto something. And
Speaker 1: so then for about a year, him and I were
Speaker 1: just like it was probably the only thing we really
Speaker 1: deeply bonded over in our whole entire marriage that we
Speaker 1: were having these really deep conversations where we were really
Speaker 1: questioning our faith, the cults, you know, like our belief system.
Speaker 1: He was having more like, I guess, analytical questions about
Speaker 1: the Bible and the teachings, and I was more just questioning, like,
Speaker 1: I just don't think that like this is I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I remember when I was like
Speaker 1: a teenager and I wanted to do the forty Hour
Speaker 1: Famine and I was told I couldn't because the kids
Speaker 1: in Africa.
Speaker 2: Needed the Bible, not our money.
Speaker 1: And I remember just being like, and this doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like what I imagine Christians to be like.
Speaker 2: There was just always something that just didn't feel right
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: And so that I was more just like looking at
Speaker 1: it from that perspective, and he was questioning the belief system,
Speaker 1: and so he was going back and forward, and he
Speaker 1: was like talking to his parents and talking to the
Speaker 1: pastes and questioning things, and their answer was just you
Speaker 1: need to pray about it pray harder, like pray, pray, pray,
Speaker 1: And because I couldn't give him the answers to his
Speaker 1: questions because then that would mean that maybe he was
Speaker 1: onto something.
Speaker 2: So ultimately they had to make curiosity no curiosity, so
Speaker 2: he had to be at fault.
Speaker 1: So they had to make him at faults, and they
Speaker 1: just couldn't come around, and he was getting so frustrated.
Speaker 1: And I remember one day he came home and with
Speaker 1: all the issues we'd had with like intimacy, one day
Speaker 1: we'd been talking and he was like, what this has
Speaker 1: to come from? Something like why can't you have sex?
Speaker 1: Like's what's the issue? And I remember saying, you know,
Speaker 1: like I feel like, you know, some things happened when
Speaker 1: I was a child, and I don't really have the
Speaker 1: full details on it, but I feel like I was
Speaker 1: assaulted and blah blah. But because I had never had
Speaker 1: a clear picture in my head, like, it would get
Speaker 1: to a point. And then I think because I was
Speaker 1: so naive and like I just didn't have the language
Speaker 1: for it as a kid, that I think that also
Speaker 1: helped me maybe not process what was happening in my
Speaker 1: brain because I didn't understand it. So the memories were
Speaker 1: like super fuzzy, but like as an adult, yes, and
Speaker 1: as an adult I can be like, oh no, something
Speaker 1: definitely happened, But as a kid, I didn't. I couldn't
Speaker 1: articulate what was happening. And so I had said to him,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, maybe this is why we can't
Speaker 1: have sex. Maybe it's becuse these things happened, you know.
Speaker 1: And so then for him that that was his He
Speaker 1: almost hyper fixated on that. He was like, oh, yep, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's why we can't have sex. And so I think
Speaker 1: in some way it kind of absolved him of any
Speaker 1: responsibility for us not being able to have sex or
Speaker 1: any intimacy or you know, right, and so that kind
Speaker 1: of became his thing. And anyway, so when he's going
Speaker 1: talking to the pastors and his parents and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: one day he said to me it was like, I
Speaker 1: feel like if I could tell them what happened to
Speaker 1: you as a child, that will make them question the cult,
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe that maybe they'll start to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it isn't so perfect, or maybe things can happen
Speaker 1: that we don't know about, or you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure what he's.
Speaker 2: Thinking, you know, but he and I to them he
Speaker 2: did so I was absolutely like, absolutely not. I wanted
Speaker 2: to do this.
Speaker 1: And then one day he went behind my back and
Speaker 1: he told them and he used it as leverage, I guess,
Speaker 1: to make a point whatever he was trying to make.
Speaker 1: And they did their little investigation and they were like.
Speaker 2: Oh the was he he was a teenager?
Speaker 1: Uh So there were multiple instances with different people. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: only one of them was left in the cult at
Speaker 1: that time, like the others had left and he was
Speaker 1: now in a position of authority within the car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so they did their little investigation and they came
Speaker 1: back and they're like, oh, so Beck's lying. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a sec Like these guys have said
Speaker 1: that they hear directly from God and God knows everything,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm telling the truth, and they said
Speaker 1: I'm lie, Like something's broken here. And for me, in
Speaker 1: that one moment, I was like, oh, okay, now I
Speaker 1: just call bs on this whole organization. Like it was
Speaker 1: so traumatic it having come out against my will and
Speaker 1: not in a way that I wanted it to ever
Speaker 1: come out, but simultaneously was like the best thing that could.
Speaker 2: Have happened because because you know, they sound.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: It says in the Bible the truth will set you free,
Speaker 2: and even though this was a truth that it hadn't
Speaker 2: been your idea to share or to follow up, it
Speaker 2: kind of did end up setting you free totally.
Speaker 1: Because then I had no doubt in my mind. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I just don't believe anything anymore that
Speaker 1: you guys have said. And I expected Stephen to be like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: like let's get the hell out, and he was like, actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, I think maybe you're lying to and
Speaker 1: I might stay. And so I was like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: never setting foot back in there again, because to me,
Speaker 1: it's unquestionable now that actually everything is wrong. And he stayed.
Speaker 1: He stayed for another six months, and actively made that
Speaker 1: six months, that first six months of me being outside
Speaker 1: the cult and not having a single person in the
Speaker 1: world and kind of really being ejected into the outside
Speaker 1: world against my will. He made that nobody ten times,
Speaker 1: nobody not as ault.
Speaker 2: I'll be back with beat Condelo after this short break.
Speaker 2: This is so so really profound actually that you say
Speaker 2: in your book for anyone who's been through this sort
Speaker 2: of experience, and I guess it doesn't even really have
Speaker 2: to be religious. But for anyone who's been ostracized or
Speaker 2: who feels like they're alone, you say, for most people,
Speaker 2: even in their losses, there was still some foundation, a parent,
Speaker 2: a hometown, a belief system to fall back on, some
Speaker 2: kind of tether that reminded them they weren't alone. But
Speaker 2: I hadn't just lost one person. I had lost hundreds,
Speaker 2: my family, my home, my faith, my community, my identity.
Speaker 2: I was no longer a daughter, a sister, or a wife.
Speaker 2: I didn't belong anywhere or to anyone.
Speaker 1: That makes me really emotional. I know I wrote it,
Speaker 1: but like, yeah, that's really how I felt, like I
Speaker 1: can't and I hope that no one ever really has
Speaker 1: to experience that, because it's a very bizarre feeling, just
Speaker 1: kind of like feeling like you're just floating. And it
Speaker 1: actually took me years after that to actually feel tethered
Speaker 1: in the world. And I would say that I've only
Speaker 1: really felt some strong anchors in the world in the
Speaker 1: last maybe two to three years, and that's taken like
Speaker 1: a lot of work to get that. Well.
Speaker 2: You also, it was like when the Rubber band was released,
Speaker 2: you shot out into the world. So you went to Bali,
Speaker 2: you went to Morocco. When you talk about the first guy,
Speaker 2: was it Josh that you met in Bali and you
Speaker 2: had a date with him, and then you were like,
Speaker 2: this is it? This is the guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is it.
Speaker 2: I found my other half and he.
Speaker 1: Was like he was just an an f boy, And
Speaker 1: I didn't know that at the time. I just like,
Speaker 1: you know, So this was five years after I'd left
Speaker 1: the Cold and then eventually left Stephen, and so I
Speaker 1: took off traveling within a month of leaving Stephen, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I met this guy. And I mean, now I'd run
Speaker 1: a mile if I met someone like him. But I
Speaker 1: think at the time I was just so naive.
Speaker 2: Also Bali, it's Bali, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I had left my ex, you know,
Speaker 1: like six months prior to that. You know, I was
Speaker 1: very naive. I was very open and raw hearted, you know.
Speaker 1: I think my ex had moved on so quickly that
Speaker 1: I think there was a part in me that also
Speaker 1: wanted that validation, and I was desperate for an anchor,
Speaker 1: like I wanted my person. I think I went for
Speaker 1: a really long time after that into every dating experience,
Speaker 1: wanting that person to be my anchor and just putting
Speaker 1: so much. You know, I think we can all when
Speaker 1: we're dating put a little too much into but I
Speaker 1: think for me, I was like, oh, no, you have
Speaker 1: to be everything and this has to be it and
Speaker 1: this has to work.
Speaker 2: And like what I think, I had nothing And when
Speaker 2: you so sexually, also then you'd had an awakening by
Speaker 2: this time, or you had that physical yearning that you
Speaker 2: hitherto had not really had no And it's.
Speaker 1: So weird because actually, the whole time I was with Stephen,
Speaker 1: I did kind of feel like I was a sexual person,
Speaker 1: you know, like I used to sneakily watch porn and
Speaker 1: masturbate and you know, so I felt like I had
Speaker 1: this in me and so it was very confusing that
Speaker 1: that didn't align with what my body was doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so then after I left him, I went to therapy,
Speaker 1: I went and saw a gynecologist, and like sort of
Speaker 1: combined with those two things, within months, I was able
Speaker 1: to have sex. But I mean, you can think that
Speaker 1: the first time you had sex, like I just feel
Speaker 1: like I was thirty two and I'm having sex for
Speaker 1: the first time. So it's just not great. It's very unsatisfying.
Speaker 1: It's kind of awkward. You know, in a perfect world,
Speaker 1: it would have been great if I had met someone
Speaker 1: who was kind and nurturing and really like helped me
Speaker 1: through that process. But I didn't. And then I think
Speaker 1: in a weird way, I would kind of just like,
Speaker 1: not trauma dump, but I'd be like, oh, I've never
Speaker 1: had sex or like, you know, and so then obviously
Speaker 1: that's going to put a hell of a lot of pressure,
Speaker 1: which I thought it was helping, but I guess in
Speaker 1: hindsight it probably made them so anxious.
Speaker 2: And then that was a lot of the work that
Speaker 2: you had to do as well when you were analyzing
Speaker 2: your relationships, so with your mother's side of the family
Speaker 2: that that you then rediscovered and then kind of moved
Speaker 2: away from again with various romantic relationships. Then you find
Speaker 2: yourself working in South Africa, there's another sexual assault, then
Speaker 2: there's actually rape. You really were thrust out into a
Speaker 2: world where you you had to try. I feel like
Speaker 2: you had to explain yourself. But the explaining yourself didn't help,
Speaker 2: Like you see.
Speaker 1: It, Yeah, I think it. It did multiple things and
Speaker 1: none of them were helpful. I think I did it
Speaker 1: because I had no strong sense of my own self
Speaker 1: and identity. I think I didn't want people to feel
Speaker 1: sorry for me. But I also think that I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to connect with people. And I realized very
Speaker 1: early on that people were interested in the cult and trauma,
Speaker 1: and so I think that attracted a very specific kind
Speaker 1: of person both ically.
Speaker 2: Mean as well. Yes, so for me, like because of
Speaker 2: the chasteness of that's associated with you being in the cult,
Speaker 2: there's obviously going to be some sort of man who's
Speaker 2: attracted to that just for the sense that he can
Speaker 2: kind of violate this chaste creature.
Speaker 1: I think there was some of that. I think there
Speaker 1: was also a lot of I would be very open
Speaker 1: with the fact that I was a bit lost and
Speaker 1: that I didn't have family, and you know, so I
Speaker 1: think it really appealed to people that liked to be needed,
Speaker 1: and I think there were men who really wanted to
Speaker 1: you know what. I'd say, oh, I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever been in love, and then they'd be like, I'll
Speaker 1: be the one to save you. But they kind of
Speaker 1: came in empty handed, but they wanted to be like
Speaker 1: that feeled their ego, I think a little bit like
Speaker 1: they wanted to be the one just for the sake
Speaker 1: of being not because they actually cared about me or
Speaker 1: they were like had genuine intentions, but I think they
Speaker 1: liked the ego boost, and I would just go in
Speaker 1: all head first, like I'd be like, this is you know,
Speaker 1: like when I met the guy in Bali, I was like, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is it, you know, And then I think when
Speaker 1: it came to it, they're like, oh no, this isn't
Speaker 1: a thing, you know, Like once the thrill wore off
Speaker 1: and I would think it was going somewhere and they'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh no, no, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know what you thought this was.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, wait what and what did.
Speaker 2: You learn that you really wanted?
Speaker 1: Gosh ah, Like I don't know, like when it comes
Speaker 1: to dating in that sense, Like at the time, I
Speaker 1: think I did get to a point though, where I'd
Speaker 1: had so many traumatic experiences. And I not that I
Speaker 1: blame myself necessarily for any of those things, obviously, like
Speaker 1: there were some really horrific experiences, but I am a
Speaker 1: very firm believer in like personal accountability, and I feel
Speaker 1: like if the same things in different you know, situation,
Speaker 1: they keep on occurring. I was like, I'm the common
Speaker 1: denominator here, like something in me is attracting these situations
Speaker 1: and people into my life. What can I work on
Speaker 1: so that I stop attracting those people into my life
Speaker 1: and these traumatic situations. And so I think I really
Speaker 1: realized that not only did I need to really pull
Speaker 1: back from dating and even making friends, but I just
Speaker 1: kind of needed to hunk down for like a year
Speaker 1: or two and just really focus on myself and healing
Speaker 1: and learning about myself and building my community like a
Speaker 1: really meaningful and intentional way. And I couldn't build my
Speaker 1: community until I learned about myself. And then I learned
Speaker 1: about myself, and then my community kind of just came.
Speaker 1: And I think I had been going to all the
Speaker 1: wrong places and all the wrong people just being like
Speaker 1: it was almost like I was just gathering people into
Speaker 1: you know, I was just like so desperate to be
Speaker 1: I was like, you'll do you. And now I look
Speaker 1: back at a lot of those people and like, then
Speaker 1: some of those people were nice enough people tho or whatever,
Speaker 1: but they weren't for me, Like they weren't for what
Speaker 1: I've been through and the kind of person I am
Speaker 1: and the way I show up in the world. I
Speaker 1: need a very specific kind of genuine, authentic, vulnerable person
Speaker 1: who's going to match that and not see that as
Speaker 1: a way to leverage their own ego their own needs,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And you have you found that? Yeah, now you've found
Speaker 2: a significant one significant person.
Speaker 1: Or oh no, I don't have that. Yeah I'm booked
Speaker 1: and busy now, No, like I think, but what I
Speaker 1: have is I have family. Now, I have people that
Speaker 1: I can call my family. I have a career that
Speaker 1: I love. I have such incredible people in my life that, yes,
Speaker 1: I would love someone to share my life with. But
Speaker 1: I'm also glad that I never settled with any of
Speaker 1: those people that I thought that I wanted something with
Speaker 1: because I almost I was saying to someone yesterday, I
Speaker 1: almost kind of get the EQ when I think about
Speaker 1: them now, because I'm like, they liked a very broken
Speaker 1: version of me, right, and that tells me everything about them.
Speaker 1: And so I'm like, now I feel so incredibly whole
Speaker 1: as a human. I like who I am. I love
Speaker 1: the life I have. Anyone who comes into my life
Speaker 1: is just going to add to that. I'm not like
Speaker 1: sitting here being like, can you like feel this huge
Speaker 1: void in me? And so yeah, I would love to
Speaker 1: have someone to share my life with, but it's no
Speaker 1: longer something that I'm desperately seeking and that I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for someone else to fill this hole. I feel like
Speaker 1: I have such a fool and loved and like happy
Speaker 1: life that it's yeah, if it happens, it happens. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't, I'll be okay when you've.
Speaker 2: Really given yourself freedom, which is probably really the only
Speaker 2: place that can come from. But there's always the shadow
Speaker 2: figures of the past, and they seem to dog you
Speaker 2: for a long time. You had a reunion with your father,
Speaker 2: m And how is that?
Speaker 1: Ah? It was a few years ago now, And it
Speaker 1: was actually when I was still with Stephen and he
Speaker 1: had reached out. So he had actually left the cults
Speaker 1: a year or two after I gotten married. And so
Speaker 1: I guess when.
Speaker 2: I your mother hadn't Your mother had no My.
Speaker 1: Mother hasn't, and she's still in it. My mom hasn't
Speaker 1: spoken to me since I left.
Speaker 2: Which must have been an enormous strain on their marriage.
Speaker 1: Oh, I guess I think I can't speak for their marriage,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I don't know that how much
Speaker 1: would have changed, Like I don't I never looked at
Speaker 1: my parents and thought that there were two people madly
Speaker 1: in love. I think it was a very.
Speaker 2: But as long as they had that in common, that
Speaker 2: was the yoke that bound them. If your father stepped
Speaker 2: away from that, the tension within that relationship, yeah.
Speaker 1: I imagine, and my mum, while she still remains in
Speaker 1: the church, can't leave my dad, and because that's against
Speaker 1: their belief, she can't get divorced. He would have to
Speaker 1: leave her, and I just don't I think he's probably
Speaker 1: very comfortable, you know. I don't think that he probably
Speaker 1: feels any need, you know, because she would still be
Speaker 1: fulfilling all her wifely duties, cooking and cleaning, doing all
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know. Yeah, So my dad reached out.
Speaker 1: I was still with Stephen, and I actually it was
Speaker 1: actually really lovely. He was like, you know, I realized
Speaker 1: that I probably wasn't a great dad, and that we
Speaker 1: could have done things differently, and I would love to
Speaker 1: come and see you. And it was a message I
Speaker 1: never expected to get from my dad. He wasn't the
Speaker 1: most emotionally aware person and you know, quite closed off emotionally,
Speaker 1: and just never thought that I would get that kind
Speaker 1: of recognition from him, and I wasn't waiting for it either,
Speaker 1: Like I was just you know, by the time I
Speaker 1: left the cult, I had no interest in connecting with him.
Speaker 1: The only I say my book, the only thing that
Speaker 1: connected me to my dad and my brother was trauma.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I hadn't wanted to reach out
Speaker 1: to him, and I was like, okay, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'd found out that he hadn't been well, and so
Speaker 1: he was in the process of getting a bunch of
Speaker 1: tests done, and you know that's I guess where this
Speaker 1: like moment of mortality came from, where he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I better make things right. He wasn't able to come
Speaker 1: down and see me for about a month, and by
Speaker 1: the time he came down, found out that he wasn't
Speaker 1: dying and he was fine, and and so that that
Speaker 1: little moment of recognition had just completely dissipated, right, We
Speaker 1: never had it turned off, turned off, and he was
Speaker 1: back to the same person that I'd grown up with,
Speaker 1: and we never had a conversation, never had any moment
Speaker 1: of recognition or acknowledgment. And he went home, and I remember,
Speaker 1: I think that broke my heart even more because it
Speaker 1: was that moment where I realized he could be aware,
Speaker 1: you know, he did kind.
Speaker 2: Of know go somewhere. Yes, Yeah, And.
Speaker 1: I think it was almost easier imagining that he just
Speaker 1: didn't have the emotional capacity to understand, but to know
Speaker 1: that he actually did have that but just didn't want to.
Speaker 1: It was just easy for him not to have that
Speaker 1: conversation ultimately because it didn't serve him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think when it served him, he wanted to have
Speaker 1: that conversation, and when it no longer served him, it
Speaker 1: was no longer of interest to him to have that conversation.
Speaker 1: That broke my heart.
Speaker 2: You must have this must have come up in your therapy,
Speaker 2: As I said, You've done a lot of work, but
Speaker 2: you know, as a child, the messages that your parents
Speaker 2: love you more than anything in the world. Yeah, when
Speaker 2: you haven't had that experience, how do you comfort yourself
Speaker 2: or rationalize that to yourself.
Speaker 1: I think I became really good at just like numbing
Speaker 1: myself to things mentally, and I think I convinced myself
Speaker 1: that my parents loved me. I had no you know,
Speaker 1: when you're like I said, like, when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you just know what you know, and so I had
Speaker 1: no perspective. I just thought that's what parents who loved
Speaker 1: you did. And obviously, ultimately then that carried into the
Speaker 1: kinds of relationships I had as an adult because I
Speaker 1: had learned that love had to be earned, Yes, but
Speaker 1: the love would have taken away and you would have
Speaker 1: seen it in your friends, or even the life that
Speaker 1: your mother lived before she left the car, where her
Speaker 1: parents were all in on her and let's get her
Speaker 1: a car and let's help her move. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I definitely saw that when I did end
Speaker 1: end up ultimately meeting my grandparents and my cousins and whatever,
Speaker 1: and I had this moment where I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: like this, you know, they they were just such a nice, functioning,
Speaker 1: loving family, and they were so intertwined into each other's
Speaker 1: lives and it was just so special, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I wonder how different my life would have been had
Speaker 1: I grown up with these guys also in my life,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe my parents could have been what they were,
Speaker 1: But then I could have like, you know, disappeared to
Speaker 1: my grandparents' house and had some respite and had some
Speaker 1: examples of healthy love and what family should look like.
Speaker 1: And even now, actually I've just I just got back
Speaker 1: into Australia a couple of weeks ago, and I was
Speaker 1: staying with some friends in California for about five months.
Speaker 1: And I think staying with them was really the first
Speaker 1: time ever in my life that I ever actually, I think,
Speaker 1: really got to experience family. Like I think that I've
Speaker 1: had lots of people say like, oh, yeah, we're your
Speaker 1: family now, you know, because I think it feels something
Speaker 1: for them as well, it makes them feel good. These
Speaker 1: were the first people that really genuinely like we'd go
Speaker 1: out for dinner and they'd be like, no, no, the
Speaker 1: parents pay when we go out for dinner, Like you
Speaker 1: don't pay, and I just I'd never It's it was
Speaker 1: just like this simplest little things that I just never experienced.
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, but this is what parents do.
Speaker 1: And I was like, ah, huh.
Speaker 2: What did you know when you say it was the
Speaker 2: first time you experienced family, What did family feel like?
Speaker 1: I just felt like I could be like completely and
Speaker 1: holy myself, you know, like if I wanted to spend
Speaker 1: a whole day in bed just rotting, that didn't care
Speaker 1: like or they would, you know, I felt like I
Speaker 1: was gonna be loved regardless you know, like I remember
Speaker 1: one day I was in a bit of a crappy
Speaker 1: mood and like I remember just like immediately apologizing, being
Speaker 1: like I'm so sorry, like and my friend was just like.
Speaker 2: Like we all have bad days. Like I didn't even
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, I can actually be around
Speaker 1: people and I don't have to be perfect all the time,
Speaker 1: because I think I just thought that I always had
Speaker 1: to present really perfect and then people would love me.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh, I can be all
Speaker 1: all the things I am when I'm on my own
Speaker 1: around other people, and that might actually they might even
Speaker 1: love me more.
Speaker 2: Because they get to feel like, you know, like I.
Speaker 1: Think when we see all of you, Yes, they get
Speaker 1: to love every single iteration of me. And that was
Speaker 1: the first time I think I'd really wholly experienced that.
Speaker 1: And they weren't intentionally even trying to do that, Like
Speaker 1: they never once were like, oh where your family now?
Speaker 1: I mean they say that now, but that was never
Speaker 1: their intention. They just loved me because they loved me
Speaker 1: and poured massively into this huge hole that I just
Speaker 1: never thought whatever be felled.
Speaker 2: So Becky, you know when you said do you realized
Speaker 2: and this is a realization that a lot of people
Speaker 2: never come to in their life that the common denominator
Speaker 2: in the things that have happened to you, not excusing
Speaker 2: the terrible things that have happened that have been done
Speaker 2: by bad people, but that the common denominator was you.
Speaker 2: And you said you were attracting these things to yourself
Speaker 2: or the wrong people to yourself. That is such a
Speaker 2: tough realization to make about yourself. Like I said, most
Speaker 2: people are not capable of doing it. Where did that
Speaker 2: come from? And what was the moment where you want, oh,
Speaker 2: I can, I can take some agency in this.
Speaker 1: I feel like, for better or worse, it came from
Speaker 1: growing up in a home where I was always I mean,
Speaker 1: I wasn't the problem, but you know I always thought that,
Speaker 1: so I did become very and now I feel like
Speaker 1: that's my superpower is that I feel like I have
Speaker 1: really good self. You know I can. I've got good
Speaker 1: introspection into my own behaviors and other people. So it
Speaker 1: makes me very self aware and it also makes me,
Speaker 1: I think, very aware of other people's behaviors and why
Speaker 1: people And I think that's a big thing in my
Speaker 1: book that I'm very reflective. How and why people behave
Speaker 1: the way they did. I like to understand.
Speaker 2: People even when you'res have sort of cut you off
Speaker 2: or not cut you off, but they haven't shown the
Speaker 2: same degree of willingness to incorporate you into their life
Speaker 2: as you have shown to incorporate them into yours. And
Speaker 2: then you had the realization that maybe you were a
Speaker 2: bit needy with them.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, yeah, yeah, So I think it definitely came, like
Speaker 1: I said, from growing up in a home where I
Speaker 1: was always made to feel like I was the problem.
Speaker 1: But then I think as I got older, I think
Speaker 1: I really did just want some I'm very connected to
Speaker 1: my future self and who I want to be and
Speaker 1: the woman I want to be, even now, like to
Speaker 1: the point that I have to sometimes bring myself back
Speaker 1: into the present be like just enjoy this process. I
Speaker 1: just enjoy what's happening. But I know who I want
Speaker 1: to be and I know where I want to be,
Speaker 1: And so I feel like from that ten year old
Speaker 1: me that wanted to go to school, I knew I
Speaker 1: wanted freedom. I knew like I was looking ahead like
Speaker 1: I wasn't just like in the moment where I'm just
Speaker 1: like you know, so I feel For whatever reason, I've
Speaker 1: always been very and maybe it's because I was a
Speaker 1: day dreamers again, so I've always been very connected to
Speaker 1: the future version of my life. And so I realized,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to keep on wasting
Speaker 1: time having these same things reoccurring. There has to be something,
Speaker 1: And I think I'd started to kind of claim I
Speaker 1: can't even say reclaim because I never had it, but
Speaker 1: I'd started to claim my power kind of bit by
Speaker 1: bit by bit, and so I was starting to realize
Speaker 1: from that, when I asked to go to school, I
Speaker 1: was like, huh, I have some power, Like I can,
Speaker 1: I can, There's something I can do. And so I
Speaker 1: think from there I realized that one little decision I
Speaker 1: made could have such a huge impact on my life.
Speaker 1: And so I think I have really been aware of
Speaker 1: the power I hold. Sometimes I've forgotten it, sometimes I've
Speaker 1: lost it. Sometimes I've gone ten steps back. But I've
Speaker 1: always known that I have some capacity to change the
Speaker 1: trajectory of.
Speaker 2: My own life. However, you know how I said, a
Speaker 2: lot of people are not capable of doing it, because
Speaker 2: it's a very hard thing to look inward and go, oh,
Speaker 2: I've played a past I'm the problem. Yeah, I'm the problem.
Speaker 1: It's me, right, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: also think too. Not many people have this moment in life,
Speaker 1: and I've had it twice where I've lost everything and
Speaker 1: I've had to start from a complete blank slate, which
Speaker 1: is awful but also very liberating because you really get
Speaker 1: to think about who you are at your core. And
Speaker 1: I remember once I was in a job interview and
Speaker 1: it was not long after i'd left the cult, and
Speaker 1: they said to me, like, what are your values? And
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, like what I'd been told
Speaker 1: what my values were, and so then I was like, okay, right,
Speaker 1: I need to think about my values.
Speaker 2: What do I value?
Speaker 1: And so most people don't really have to think about
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Like I had to think about what
Speaker 1: kind of friendships do I want to have, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh nope, not that one. You know, I'd
Speaker 1: go through this process of elimination and I had to
Speaker 1: kind of work out on the go what worked me,
Speaker 1: what didn't, and then keep on realigning myself and like readjusting.
Speaker 1: But most people don't.
Speaker 2: Have to do that.
Speaker 1: Like I said, like, you know, you read that bit
Speaker 1: from my book where it's like most people have that
Speaker 1: kind of core anchor.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, So again I think that maybe holds people back
Speaker 1: because I think you don't really.
Speaker 2: Need to events.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you don't get to reinvent yourself as much
Speaker 1: because your parents are always going to see you as Kate,
Speaker 1: you know, like your friends from school are always going
Speaker 1: to see you as Kate at school and like, whereas
Speaker 1: I had no one in my life who knew any
Speaker 1: version of me, and so then I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: who do I get to be? And for a little while,
Speaker 1: I think I picked up versions of everybody else and
Speaker 1: I was this weird like jigsaw puzzle of everyone else's identities.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, I don't like this either.
Speaker 1: So then I kind of had to work on myself
Speaker 1: to just become more holy me. And I definitely think
Speaker 1: that came from traveling on my own.
Speaker 2: When you say you are, you always hold a vision
Speaker 2: of the future you for yourself in ten ten years time.
Speaker 2: You say you know where you want to be, where
Speaker 2: is that? And who are you?
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting because for a really long time
Speaker 1: I was like, I just want to be happy and
Speaker 1: free and travel and you know, and when in a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, I met someone who was quite
Speaker 1: successful and do it, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: could do that too, Like I could be successful, you know,
Speaker 1: like I had dreamed so small because that's all I knew.
Speaker 1: And then I feel like the more I meet people
Speaker 1: and expand my world, then the more other perspectives get
Speaker 1: to come into my world and I get to then
Speaker 1: imagine more. And so it's not really like this fixed
Speaker 1: like oh, I want to live on this multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: match and buy the you know, it's not that, It's
Speaker 1: just I think I want to keep on growing and
Speaker 1: evolving and expanding my perspective and continue becoming like you know,
Speaker 1: like I think Kim Kardashian said, like I didn't come
Speaker 1: this far to come this far, you know, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I want to keep on like going like I want to.
Speaker 1: And there is a line where I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: coming back to Sydney, I'm like, oh man, it would
Speaker 1: be nice to have an apartment and not live out
Speaker 1: of two suitcases. And you know, I've had the I
Speaker 1: think I was in twenty three countries last year, you know,
Speaker 1: so I'm like part of me is like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm forty one a couple of months. I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: just slowing down, just like a little bit. But I
Speaker 1: feel so incredibly content and so excited for my future.
Speaker 1: I feel like, honestly like there is so many more
Speaker 1: incredible things to come. So it's it's not like a
Speaker 1: fixed idea of what I want my future to be.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to continue on this trajectory.
Speaker 2: The producer of No Filter, Bree and I were both
Speaker 2: struck by when you came in how you did not
Speaker 2: look like what we expected you to look like. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I don't even know what it was that I expected,
Speaker 2: but I certainly didn't expect you to have such an
Speaker 2: alive kind of beach girl vibe. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Like to be so glowy and happy and light,
Speaker 2: to feel so light? And yet your book is called
Speaker 2: can You Handle a Girl like Me? Now you seem
Speaker 2: like you'd be quite easy to handle. You seem like before,
Speaker 2: what's what's going on there? The name of the book, and.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, Yeah, I think I really love my life,
Speaker 1: and I think I was so determined to not waste
Speaker 1: this second chance at life that I've been given, and
Speaker 1: that didn't mean not feeling my things and I definitely
Speaker 1: had a couple of really rough years, and you know,
Speaker 1: I am, I've definitely yeah, I've definitely been through it,
Speaker 1: and I've been down and out, and I've been in
Speaker 1: therapy a bunch of times and whatever. But I really
Speaker 1: getting back to what we're just talking about, like I
Speaker 1: really was so connected to where I wanted to be
Speaker 1: and future me that it was all worth it. I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to sit in the mud as
Speaker 1: long as I need to and work through all this
Speaker 1: stuff so I can just get on with my life,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to carry all this stuff with
Speaker 1: me for the rest of my life. And that's been
Speaker 1: probably the most intentional. I think it's been the greatest
Speaker 1: gift I've given myself, because this isn't fake, Like I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know. But I also I see so many people
Speaker 1: that go through really traumatic things in life and they
Speaker 1: just then carry it around with them. And I know,
Speaker 1: I understand that everyone deals with things differently. I just
Speaker 1: think for me, I didn't want to do that. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to I wanted to take as much advantage
Speaker 1: of this chance I'd been given at life and make
Speaker 1: the most of it. And so that was like really
Speaker 1: important to me. And again, I think, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I just have this disposition where I was just able
Speaker 1: to really you know, I think I left at the
Speaker 1: right age that I still felt like I had so
Speaker 1: much life ahead of me. I left my marriage at
Speaker 1: you know, my early thirties, so I felt like I
Speaker 1: could really still get out there and enjoy my life
Speaker 1: and reinvent myself and have a lot of those formative
Speaker 1: experiences that I felt that i'd been denied. So I
Speaker 1: don't really have any regret. And I think I feel
Speaker 1: like in a lot of weird ways, like I'm aging backwards.
Speaker 1: Like I had to dig up some you know, older
Speaker 1: photos of me the other day and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like I look so much older than
Speaker 1: in my twenties than I do now. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess the title of my book was I think I
Speaker 1: am pretty easy going, but I think it sometimes lulls
Speaker 1: people into this false sense of security as well, you know,
Speaker 1: because I am I'm deeply passionate about things I'm so
Speaker 1: passionate about like feminism and politics, and I will stand
Speaker 1: toe to toe to someone on it because I might
Speaker 1: look like a sweet little white girl, but like, I
Speaker 1: know what it's like to not have my rights. I
Speaker 1: know what it's like to have to really fight for things.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like to not have anyone else
Speaker 1: in the world. I know what it's like to be
Speaker 1: denied in education. Like, I have so many deep perspectives
Speaker 1: on life that make me really angry about injustices. And
Speaker 1: I will absolutely stand up loudly and proudly for the
Speaker 1: things that I believe in. And I think when I
Speaker 1: came up with the title for my book, I was
Speaker 1: that was sort of at the very early stages of writing,
Speaker 1: and I was feeling really powerful and really brave, and
Speaker 1: so I think that's where it came from.
Speaker 2: Spiritually, where do you sit now?
Speaker 1: I think growing up in such a binary where it
Speaker 1: was like we are right, everyone else is wrong, even
Speaker 1: other Christians. I would say that I'm a spiritual person.
Speaker 1: What that is couldn't tell you. I believe in karma.
Speaker 1: I believe that there's maybe a higher power out there.
Speaker 1: I think things happen sometimes you're like, what the.
Speaker 2: Hell was that.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I have to know, though, Like
Speaker 1: I don't feel like and I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: know enough to say that God doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: I also don't know if he does exist. Do you
Speaker 2: still pray? Obviously not the way not for eight hours
Speaker 2: on nis No.
Speaker 1: I mean I meditate. I feel very like spiritual in
Speaker 1: some ways. But I think that in the same way
Speaker 1: that I think you can have hell on earth by
Speaker 1: the choices you make and the life you live, I
Speaker 1: think that you can also have Heaven on earth. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's rather than I think what old
Speaker 1: school Christianity will taught me was that it was a
Speaker 1: physical place. You know, you die and God will return
Speaker 1: to Earth and then your soul will get sucked up
Speaker 1: into heaven. And hell is like a physical place where
Speaker 1: there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and people
Speaker 1: are just going to burn for all of eternity. I
Speaker 1: think those two things are actually here on Earth. And
Speaker 1: I think it's the kind of person that you are
Speaker 1: and the way you show up in the world and
Speaker 1: the way you treat other people. You can experience either
Speaker 1: of those things.
Speaker 2: The little girl, the ten year old girl who wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to be curious. When you think back to her,
Speaker 2: does it feel like you.
Speaker 1: Gosh, this is the only thing that makes me feel emotional.
Speaker 1: And when I think about her. It doesn't. I feel
Speaker 1: so disconnected from her in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 1: I also still feel her inside of me, and I
Speaker 1: know that she would be so incredibly proud of like
Speaker 1: who I've become, because I think I've even far exceeded
Speaker 1: what I imagined. You know. I just wanted to be free,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to be free. I
Speaker 1: want to go travel and maybe get a tattoo, you know.
Speaker 1: And now I'm sitting here promoting my book and like,
Speaker 1: you know, I've just come back from like I've been.
Speaker 1: I've spent more time out of Australia in the last
Speaker 1: eight years and I have inside of Australia like I've
Speaker 1: I've far exceeded anything she ever imagined. What I think
Speaker 1: I wanted to be free. I just don't think I
Speaker 1: knew what that looked like. And so when I was
Speaker 1: ten and I begged my parents to let me go
Speaker 1: to school, that was that was that was freedom for me.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I can just if I can
Speaker 1: just like get out from underneath, you know, my parents
Speaker 1: for a minute and the cult. And so I remember
Speaker 1: being at school for those six years and that was
Speaker 1: so I loved school, like didn't learn a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot. But I loved school. I just had the
Speaker 1: best time. I felt like that was the first time
Speaker 1: in my life I really got to be me. And
Speaker 1: then I had to leave school at sixteen and I
Speaker 1: had to go get a job, and I just felt
Speaker 1: like I was back to school one and so I
Speaker 1: felt like I really held onto those six years as like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know, I know there's more that's possible, and so
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I feel like ten year old me
Speaker 1: just wanted to be free. And then all these extra
Speaker 1: things came. I got to experience, you know, being loved
Speaker 1: and family and like all these other amazing things. But
Speaker 1: I really just wanted freedom.
Speaker 2: Bet Contello, congratulations on your freedom. Congratulations on your book
Speaker 2: and your quest for life.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be here here and in the world.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I'm it's it's such a whirl riend right now,
Speaker 1: and I just I have to count and keep on
Speaker 1: pinching myself that I'm even here, Like it's just it
Speaker 1: feels so surreal.
Speaker 2: Well, you won't be here for long, You're no doubt
Speaker 2: jetting off somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to be in Sydney to the
Speaker 1: end of the year I'm forcing myself to stay put
Speaker 1: for a minute, but then who knows? Twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kate.
Speaker 2: One of the things that stayed with me after this
Speaker 2: conversation was the ida that leaving isn't always the end
Speaker 2: of a story. Sometimes it's just the beginning of one.
Speaker 2: Beck didn't just leave a church. She left behind a
Speaker 2: version of herself that had been shaped by other people's expectations,
Speaker 2: and spent years figuring out who she wanted to be instead.
Speaker 2: Details about her memoir Can You Handle a Girl Like
Speaker 2: Me are linked in the show notes. Thank you for
Speaker 2: listening to No Filter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd
Speaker 2: love you to subscribe, leave a review, and share it
Speaker 2: with someone else who may enjoy it. Also, I'm Kate Lanebrook.
Speaker 2: I'll be back next Monday.